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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14078 ***
+
+THE LIBERATION OF ITALY 1815-1870
+
+by the
+
+COUNTESS EVELYN MARTINENGO CESARESCO
+
+Author of 'Italian Characters In The Epoch Of Unification' (_Patriotti
+Italiani_), etc.
+
+With Portraits
+
+London
+
+Seeley And Co, Limited
+Essex Street, Strand
+
+1895
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[FRONTISPIECE: GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The old figure of speech 'in the fulness of time' embodies a truth too
+often forgotten. History knows nothing of spontaneous generation; the
+chain of cause and effect is unbroken, and however modest be the
+scale on which an historical work is cast, the reader has a right to
+ask that it should give him some idea, not only of what happened, but
+of why it happened. A catalogue of dates and names is as meaningless
+as the photograph of a crowd. In the following retrospect, I have
+attempted to trace the principal factors that worked towards Italian
+unity. The Liberation of Italy is a cycle waiting to be turned into an
+epic.
+
+In other words, it presents the appearance of a series of detached
+episodes, but the parts have an intimate connection with the whole,
+which, as time wears on, will constantly emerge into plainer light.
+Every year brings with it the issue of documents, letters, memoirs,
+that help to unravel the tangled threads in which this subject has
+been enveloped, and which have made it less generally understood than
+the two other great struggles of the century, the American fight for
+the Union, and the unification of Germany.
+
+I cannot too strongly state my indebtedness to the voluminous
+literature which has grown up in Italy round the _Risorgimento_ since
+its completion; yet it must not be supposed that the witness of
+contemporaries published from hour to hour, in every European tongue,
+while the events were going on, has become or will ever become
+valueless. I have had access to a collection of these older writings,
+formed with much care between the years 1850-1870, and some
+authorities that were wanting, I found in the library of Sir James
+Hudson, given by him to Count Giuseppe Martinengo Cesaresco after he
+left the British legation at Turin.
+
+There are, of course, many books in which the affairs of Italy figure
+only incidentally, which ought to be consulted by anyone who wishes to
+study the inner working of the Italian movement. Of such are Lord
+Castlereagh's _Despatches and Correspondence_, and the autobiographies
+of Prince Metternich and Count Beust.
+
+Perhaps I have been helped in describing the events clearly, by the
+fact that I am familiar with almost all the places where they
+occurred, from the heights of Calatafimi to the unhappy rock of Lissa.
+Wherever the language of the _Si_ sounds, we tread upon the history of
+the Revolution that achieved what a great English orator once called,
+'the noblest work ever undertaken by man.'
+
+The supreme interest of the re-casting of Italy arises from the new
+spectacle of a nation made one not by conquest but by consent. Above
+and beyond the other causes that contributed to the conclusion must
+always be reckoned the gathering of an emotional wave, only comparable
+to the phenomena displayed by the mediæval religious revivals.
+Sentiment, it is said, is what makes the real historical miracles. A
+writer on Italian Liberation would be indeed misleading who failed to
+take account of the passionate longing which stirred and swayed even
+the most outwardly cold of those who took part in it, and nerved an
+entire people to heroic effort.
+
+Salò, Lago di Garda.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+RESURGAM
+
+Italy from the Battle of Lodi to the Congress of Vienna
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE WORK OF THE CARBONARI
+
+Revolutions in the Kingdom of Naples and in Piedmont--The Conspiracy
+against Charles Albert
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PRISON AND SCAFFOLD
+
+Political Trials in Venetia and Lombardy--Risings in the South and
+Centre--Ciro Menotti
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+YOUNG ITALY
+
+Accession of Charles Albert--Mazzini's Unitarian Propaganda--The
+Brothers Bandiera
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE POPE LIBERATOR
+
+Events leading to the Election of Pius IX.--The Petty Princes--Charles
+Albert, Leopold and Ferdinand
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE YEAR OF REVOLUTION
+
+Insurrection in Sicily--The Austrians expelled from Milan and
+Venice--Charles Albert takes the Field--Withdrawal of the Pope and
+King of Naples--Piedmont defeated--The Retreat
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE DOWNFALL OF THRONES
+
+Garibaldi arrives--Venice under Manin--The Dissolution of the Temporal
+Power--Republics at Rome and Florence
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+AT BAY
+
+Novara--Abdication of Charles Albert--Brescia crushed--French
+Intervention--The Fall of Rome--The Fall of Venice
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+'J'ATTENDS MON ASTRE'
+
+The House of Savoy--A King who Keeps his Word--Sufferings of the
+Lombards--Charles Albert's death
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE REVIVAL OF PIEDMONT
+
+Restoration of the Pope and Grand-Duke of Tuscany--Misrule at Naples--
+The Struggle with the Church in Piedmont--The Crimean War
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+PREMONITIONS OF THE STORM
+
+Pisacane's Landing--Orsini's Attempt--The Compact of
+Plombières--Cavour's Triumph
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE WAR FOR LOMBARDY
+
+Austria declares War--Montebello--Garibaldi's Campaign--Palestro--
+Magenta--The Allies enter Milan--Ricasoli saves Italian Unity--
+Accession of Francis II.--Solferino--The Armistice of Villafranca
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+WHAT UNITY COST
+
+Napoleon III. and Cavour--The Cession of Savoy and Nice--Annexations
+in Central Italy
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE MARCH OF THE THOUSAND
+
+Origin of the Expedition--Garibaldi at Marsala--Calatafimi--The Taking
+of Palermo--Milazzo--The Bourbons evacuate Sicily
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE MEETING OF THE WATERS
+
+Garibaldi's March on Naples--The Piedmontese in Umbria and the
+Marches--The Volturno. Victor Emmanuel enters Naples
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+BEGINNINGS OF THE ITALIAN KINGDOM
+
+The Fall of Gaeta--Political Brigandage--The Proclamation of the
+Italian Kingdom--Cavour's Death
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+'ROME OR DEATH!'
+
+Cavour's Successors--Aspromonte--The September Convention--Garibaldi's
+Visit to England
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE WAR FOR VENICE
+
+The Prussian Alliance--Custoza--Lissa--The Volunteers--Acquisition of
+Venetia
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE LAST CRUSADE
+
+The French leave Rome--Garibaldi's Arrest and Escape--The Second French
+Intervention--Monte Rotondo--Mentana
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+ROME THE CAPITAL
+
+M. Rouher's 'Never!'--Papal Infallibility--Sédan--The Breach in Porta
+Pia--The King of Italy in Rome
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+     GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI (Frontispiece)
+
+     GIUSEPPE MAZZINI
+
+     KING VICTOR EMMANUEL
+
+     COUNT CAVOUR
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+RESURGAM
+
+Italy from the Battle of Lodi to the Congress of Vienna.
+
+
+The unity of Italy, which the statesmen of Europe and all save a small
+number of the Italians themselves still regarded as an utopia when it
+was on the verge of accomplishment, was, nevertheless, desired and
+foreseen by the two greatest intellects produced by the Italian race.
+Dante conceived an Italy united under the Empire, which returning from
+a shameful because self-imposed exile would assume its natural seat in
+Rome. To him it was a point of secondary interest that the Imperial
+Lord happened to be bred beyond the Alps, that he was of Teutonic, not
+of Latin blood. If the Emperor brought the talisman of his authority
+to the banks of the Tiber, Italy would overcome the factions which
+rent her, and would not only rule herself, but lead mankind. Vast as
+the vision was, Dante cannot be called presumptuous for having
+entertained it. The Rome of the Cæsars, the Rome of the Popes, had
+each transformed the world: Italy was transforming it for a third time
+at that moment by the spiritual awakening which, beginning with the
+Renaissance, led by inevitable steps to the Reformation. The great
+Florentine poet had the right to dream that his country was invested
+with a providential mission, that his people was a chosen people,
+which, by its own fault and by the fault of others, had lost its way,
+but would find it again. Such was Dante's so-called Ghibelline
+programme--less Ghibelline than intensely and magnificently Italian.
+His was a mind too mighty to be caged within the limits of partisan
+ambitions. The same may be said of Machiavelli. He also imagined, or
+rather discerned in the future, a regenerate Italy under a single
+head, and this, not the advancement of any particular man, was the
+grand event he endeavoured to hasten. With the impatience of a heart
+consumed by the single passion of patriotism, he conjured his
+fellow-countrymen to seize the first chance that presented itself,
+promising or unpromising, of reaching the goal. The concluding passage
+in the _Principe_ was meant as an exhortation; it reads as a prophecy.
+'We ought not therefore,' writes Machiavelli, 'to let this occasion
+pass whereby, after so long waiting, Italy may behold the coming of a
+saviour. Nor can I express with what love he would be received in all
+those provinces which have suffered from the foreign inundations; with
+what thirst of vengeance, with what obstinate faith, with what
+worship, with what tears! What doors would be closed against him? What
+people would deny him obedience? What jealousy would oppose him? What
+Italian would not do him honour? The barbarous dominion of the
+stranger stinks in the nostrils of all.'
+
+Another man of genius, an Italian whom a fortuitous circumstance made
+the citizen and the master of a country not his own, grasped both the
+vital necessity of unity from an Italian point of view, and the
+certainty of its ultimate achievement. Napoleon's notes on the
+subject, written at St Helena, sum up the whole question without
+rhetoric but with unanswerable logic:--'Italy is surrounded by the
+Alps and the sea. Her natural limits are defined with as much
+exactitude as if she were an island. Italy is only united to the
+Continent by 150 leagues of frontier, and these 150 leagues are
+fortified by the highest barrier that can be opposed to man. Italy,
+isolated between her natural limits, is destined to form a great and
+powerful nation. Italy is one nation; unity of customs, language and
+literature must, within a period more or less distant, unite her
+inhabitants under one sole government. And Rome will, without the
+slightest doubt, be chosen by the Italians as their capital.'
+
+Unlike Dante and Machiavelli, who could only sow the seed, not gather
+the fruit, the man who wrote these lines might have made them a
+reality. Had Napoleon wished to unite Italy--had he had the greatness
+of mind to proclaim Rome the capital of a free and independent
+state instead of turning it into the chief town of a French
+department--there was a time when he could plainly have done it.
+Whether redemption too easily won would have proved a gain or a loss
+in the long run to the populations welded together, not after their
+own long and laborious efforts, but by the sudden exercise of the will
+of a conqueror, is, of course, a different matter. The experiment was
+not tried. Napoleon, whom the simple splendour of such a scheme ought
+to have fascinated, did a very poor thing instead of a very great one:
+he divided Italy among his relations, keeping the lion's share for
+himself.
+
+Napoleon's policy in Italy was permanently compromised by the
+abominable sale of Venice, with her two thousand years of freedom, to
+the empire which, as no one knew better than he did, was the pivot of
+European despotism. After that transaction he could never again come
+before the Italians with clean hands; they might for a season make him
+their idol, carried away by the intoxication of his fame; they could
+never trust him in their inmost conscience. The ruinous consequences
+of the Treaty of Campo Formio only; ceased in 1866. The Venetians have
+been severely blamed, most of all by Italian historians, for making
+Campo Formio possible by opening the door to the French six months
+before. Napoleon could not have bartered away Venice if it had not
+belonged to him. The reason that it belonged to him was that, on the
+12th of May 1797, the Grand Council committed political suicide by
+dissolving the old aristocratic form of government, in compliance with
+a mere rumour, conveyed to them through the ignoble medium of a petty
+shopkeeper, that such was the wish of General Buonaparte. In
+extenuation of their fatal supineness, it may be urged that they felt
+the inherent weakness of an oligarchy out of date; and in the second
+place, that the victor of Lodi, the deliverer of Lombardy, then in the
+first flush of his scarcely tarnished glory, was a dazzling figure,
+calculated indeed to turn men's heads. But, after all, the only really
+valid excuse for them would have been that Venice lacked the means of
+defence, and this was not the case. She had 14,000 regular troops,
+8000 marines, a good stock of guns--how well she might have resisted
+the French, had they, which was probable, attacked her, was to be
+proved in 1849. Her people, moreover, that _basso popolo_ which
+nowhere in the world is more free from crime, more patient in
+suffering, more intelligent and public-spirited than in Venice, was
+anxious and ready to resist; when the nobles offered themselves a
+sacrifice on the Gallic altar by welcoming the proposed democratic
+institutions, the populace, neither hoodwinked nor scared into
+hysterics, rose to the old cry of San Marco, and attempted a righteous
+reaction, which was only smothered when the treacherous introduction
+of French troops by night on board Venetian vessels settled the doom
+of Venice's independence.
+
+'Under all circumstances,' Napoleon wrote to the Venetian Municipality,
+'I shall do what lies in my power to prove to you my desire to see your
+liberty consolidated, and miserable Italy assume, at last, a glorious
+place, free and independent of strangers.' On the 10th of the following
+October he made over Venice to Austria, sending as a parting word the
+cynical message to the Venetians 'that they were little fitted for
+liberty: if they were capable of appreciating it, and had the virtue
+necessary for acquiring it well and good; existing circumstances gave
+them an excellent opportunity of proving it.' At the time, the act of
+betrayal was generally regarded as part of a well-considered plot laid
+by the French Directory, but it seems certain that it was not made known
+to that body before it was carried out, and that with Napoleon himself
+it was a sort of after-thought, sprung from the desire to patch up an
+immediate peace with Austria on account of the appointment of Hoche to
+the chief command of the army in Germany. The god to which he immolated
+Venice was the selfish fear lest another general should reap his German
+laurels.
+
+Venice remained for eight years under the Austrians, who thereby
+obtained what, in flagrant perversion of the principles on which the
+Congress of Vienna professed to act, was accepted in 1815 as their
+title-deeds to its possession. Meanwhile, after the battle of
+Austerlitz, the city of the sea was tossed back to Napoleon, who
+incorporated it in the newly-created kingdom of Italy, which no more
+corresponded to its name than did the Gothic kingdom of which he
+arrogated to himself the heirship, when, placing the Iron Crown of
+Theodolinda upon his brow, he uttered the celebrated phrase: 'Dieu me
+l'a donnée, gare à qui la touche.'
+
+This is not the place to write a history of French supremacy in Italy,
+but several points connected with it must be glanced at, because,
+without bearing them in mind, it is impossible to understand the
+events which followed. The viceroyalty of Eugène Beauharnais in North
+Italy, and the government of Joseph Buonaparte, and afterwards of
+Joachim Murat, in the South, brought much that was an improvement on
+what had gone before: there were better laws, a better administration,
+a quickening of intelligence. 'The French have done much for the
+regeneration of Italy,' wrote an English observer in 1810; 'they have
+destroyed the prejudices of the inhabitants of the small states of
+Upper Italy by uniting them; they have done away with the Pope; they
+have made them soldiers.' But there was the reverse side of the medal:
+the absence everywhere of the national spirit which alone could have
+consolidated the new _régime_ on a firm basis; the danger which the
+language ran of losing its purity by the introduction of Gallicisms;
+the shameless robbery of pictures, statues, and national heirlooms of
+every kind for the replenishment of French museums; the bad impression
+left in the country districts by the abuses committed by the French
+soldiery on their first descent, and kept alive by the blood-tax
+levied in the persons of thousands of Italian conscripts sent to die,
+nobody knew where or why; the fields untilled, and Rachel weeping for
+her children: all these elements combined in rendering it difficult
+for the governments established under French auspices to survive the
+downfall of the man to whose sword they owed their existence. Their
+dissolution was precipitated, however, by the discordant action of
+Murat and Eugène Beauharnais. Had these two pulled together, whatever
+the issue was it would have differed in much from what actually
+happened. Murat was jealous of Eugène, and did not love his
+brother-in-law, who had annoyed and thwarted him through his whole
+reign; he was uneasy about his Neapolitan throne, and, in all
+likelihood, was already dreaming of acquiring the crown of an
+independent Italy. Throwing off his allegiance to Napoleon, he
+imagined the vain thing that he might gain his object by taking sides
+with the Austrians. It must be remembered that there was a time when
+the Allied Powers had distinctly contemplated Italian independence as
+a dyke to France, and there were people foolish enough to think that
+Austria, now she felt herself as strong as she had then felt weak,
+would consent to such a plan. Liberators, self-called, were absolutely
+swarming in Italy; Lord William Bentinck was promising entire
+emancipation from Leghorn; the Austrian and English allies in Romagna
+ransacked the dictionary for expressions in praise of liberty; an
+English officer was made the mouthpiece for the lying assurance of the
+Austrian Emperor Francis, that he had no intention of re-asserting any
+claims to the possession of Lombardy or Venetia.
+
+In 1814, Napoleon empowered Prince Eugène to adopt whatever attitude
+he thought best fitted to make head against Austria; for himself, he
+resigned the Iron Crown, and his Italian soldiers were freed from
+their oaths. It was not, therefore, Eugene's loyal scruples which
+prevented him from throwing down a grand stake when he led his 60,000
+men to the attack. It was want of genius, or of what would have done
+instead, a flash of genuine enthusiasm for the Italian idea. In place
+of appealing to all Italians to unite in winning a country, he
+appealed to one sentiment only, fidelity to Napoleon, which no longer
+woke any echo in the hearts of a population that had grown more and
+more to associate the name of the Emperor with exactions which never
+came to an end, and with wars which had not now even the merit of
+being successful. It is estimated that although the Italian troops
+amply proved the truth of Alfieri's maxim, that 'the plant man is more
+vigorous in Italy than elsewhere,' by bearing the hardships and
+resisting the cold in Russia better than the soldiers of any other
+nationality, nevertheless 26,000 Italians were lost in the retreat
+from Moscow. That happened a year ago. Exhausted patience got the
+better of judgment; in April 1814, the Milanese committed the
+irremediable error of revolting against their Viceroy, who commanded
+the only army which could still save Italy: the pent-up passions of a
+long period broke loose, the peasants from the country, who had always
+hated the French, flooded the streets of Milan, and allying themselves
+unimpeded with the dregs of the townsfolk, they murdered with great
+brutality General Prina, the Minister of Finance, whose remarkable
+abilities had been devoted towards raising funds for the Imperial
+Exchequer. Personally incorruptible, Prina was looked upon as the
+general representative of French voracity; he met his death with the
+utmost calmness, only praying that he might be the last victim. No one
+else was, in fact, killed, and next day quiet was resumed, but the
+affair had another victim--Italy. You cannot change horses when you
+are crossing a stream. Prince Eugène was in Mantua with a fine army,
+practically intact, though it had suffered some slight reverses; the
+fortress was believed to be impregnable; by merely waiting, Eugene
+might, if nothing else, have exacted favourable terms. But the news of
+Prina's murder, and the blow dealt at his own authority in Milan,
+caused him to give over the fortress and the army to the Austrians
+without more ado; an act which looked like revenge, but it was most
+likely prompted by moral cowardice. The capitulation signed with
+Field-Marshal Bellegarde on the 23rd of April, so exasperated the army
+that the officers in command of the garrison decided to arrest Eugene,
+but it was found that he was already on his way to Germany, taking
+with him his treasure, in accordance with a secret agreement entered
+into with the Austrian Field-Marshal. Such was the end to the Italian
+career of Eugène Beauharnais.
+
+For the _Beau Sabreur_ another ending was in store. Back on Napoleon's
+side in 1815, his Austrian allies having given him plenty of reason
+for suspecting their sincerity, he issued from Rimini, on the 30th of
+March, the proclamation of an independent Italy from the Alps to
+Sicily. There was no popular reply to his call. Italy, prostrate and
+impoverished, was unequal to a great resolve. The Napoleonic legend
+was not only dead, but buried; Napoleon had literally no friends left
+in Italy except those of his old soldiers who had managed to get back
+to their homes, many of them deprived of an arm or a leg, but so
+toughened that they lived to great ages. These cherished to their last
+hour the worship of their Captain, which it was his highest gift to be
+able to inspire. 'I have that feeling for him still, that if he were
+to rise from the dead I should go to him, if I could, wherever he
+was,' said the old conscript Emmanuele Gaminara of Genoa, who died at
+nearly a hundred in a Norfolk village in 1892: the last, perhaps, of
+the Italian veterans, and the type of them all.
+
+But a few scattered invalids do not make a nation, and the Italian
+nation in 1815 had not the least wish to support any one who came in
+the name of Napoleon. So Murat failed without even raising a strong
+current of sympathy. Beaten by the Austrians at Tolentino on the 3rd
+of May, he retreated with his shattered army. In the last desperate
+moment, he issued the constitution which he ought to have granted
+years before. Nothing could be of any avail now; his admirable Queen,
+the best of all the House of Buonaparte, surrendered Naples to the
+English admiral; and Murat, harried by a crushing Austrian force,
+renounced his kingdom on the 30th of May. After Waterloo, when a price
+was set on his head in France, he meditated one more forlorn hope;
+but, deserted by the treachery of his few followers, and driven out of
+his course by the violence of the waves, he was thrown on the coast of
+Calabria with only twenty-six men, and was shot by order of Ferdinand
+of Naples, who especially directed that he should be only allowed
+half-an-hour for his religious duties after sentence had been
+delivered by the mock court-martial. His dauntless courage did not
+desert him: he died like a soldier. It was a better end for an Italian
+prince than escaping with money-bags to Germany. Great as were Murat's
+faults, an Italian should remember that it was he who first took up
+arms to the cry which was later to redeem Italy: independence from
+Alps to sea; and if he stand on the ill-omened shore of Pizzo, he
+need not refuse to uncover his head in silence.
+
+When Mantua surrendered, the Milanese sent a deputation to Paris with
+a view of securing for Lombardy the position of an independent kingdom
+under an Austrian prince. They hoped to obtain the first by
+acquiescing in the second. They were aroused from their unheroic
+illusions with startling rapidity. Lord Castlereagh, to whom they went
+first (for they fancied that the English were interested in liberty),
+referred them 'to their master, the Austrian Emperor.' The Emperor
+Francis replied to their memorial that Lombardy was his by right of
+conquest; they would hear soon enough at Milan what orders he had to
+give them. Even after that, the distracted Lombards hoped that the
+English at Genoa would befriend them. All uncertainty ceased on the
+23rd of May 1814, when Field-Marshal Bellegarde formally took
+possession of Lombardy on behalf of his Sovereign, dissolved the
+Electoral Colleges, and proclaimed himself Regent. There was no
+question of reviving the conditions under which Austria ruled Lombardy
+while there was still a German Empire: conditions which, though
+despotic in theory, were comparatively easy-going in practice, and did
+not exclude the native element from the administration. Henceforth the
+despotism was pure and simple; for Italians to even think of politics
+was an act of high treason.
+
+It is not generally known that a British army ultimately sent to Spain
+was intended for Italy,[1] but its destination was changed because the
+Italians showed so little disposition to rise against Napoleon. The
+English Government was continually advised by its agents in Italy to
+make Sicily, which was wholly in its power, the _point d'appùi_ for a
+really great intervention in the destinies of the peninsula. 'The
+grand end of all the operations in the Mediterranean,' wrote one of
+Lord Castlereagh's correspondents, 'is the emancipation of Italy, and
+its union in one great state.' Lord William Bentinck urged that if
+Sicily were reunited to Naples under the Bourbons, liberty,
+established there by his own incredible efforts, would be crushed, and
+the King would wreck vengeance on the Constitution and its supporters.
+Universal terror, he said, was felt at 'the unforgiving temper of
+their Majesties.' He strongly supported a course proposed for her own
+reasons by Queen Caroline: the purchase of Sicily by the English
+Government which could make it 'not only the model but the instrument
+of Italian independence.'
+
+This way of talking was not confined to private despatches, and it was
+no wonder if the Italians were disappointed when they found that
+England declined to plead their cause with the Allies in Paris, and
+afterwards at Vienna. When charged directly with breach of faith
+before the House of Commons, Lord Castlereagh said that Austria, being
+'in truth the great hinge on which the fate of mankind must ultimately
+depend,' had to be paid (this was exactly the sense, though not the
+form, of his defence) by letting her do what she liked with Italy.
+There is a certain brutal straightforwardness in the line of argument.
+Lord Castlereagh did not say that independence was not a good thing.
+He had tried to obtain it for Poland and had failed; he had not tried
+to obtain it for Italy, because he was afraid of offending Austria. At
+least he had the courage to tell the truth, and did not prate about
+the felicity of being subjects of the Austrian Emperor, as many
+English partisans of Austria prated in days to come.
+
+The political map of Italy in the summer of 1814 showed the Pope (Pius
+VII.) reinstated in Rome, Victor Emmanuel I. at Turin, Ferdinand III.
+of Hapsburg-Lorraine in Tuscany, the Genoese Republic for the moment
+restored by the English, Parma and Piacenza assigned to the Empress
+Marie-Louise, and Modena to the Austrian Archduke Francis, who was
+heir through the female line to the last of the Estes. Murat was still
+at Naples, Ferdinand IV. in Sicily, Austria acknowledged supreme in
+Lombardy and Venetia, and the island of Elba ironically handed over to
+Napoleon. These were the chief features, so far as Italy was
+concerned, of the Treaty of Paris, signed on the 30th of May 1814.
+Next year the Congress of Vienna modified the arrangement by providing
+that the Spanish Infanta Maria Louisa, on whom had been bestowed the
+ex-republic of Lucca, should have the reversion of Parma and Piacenza,
+while Lucca was to go in the end to Tuscany. Murat having been
+destroyed, the Neapolitan Bourbons recovered all their old
+possessions. San Marino and Monaco were graciously recognised as
+independent, which brought the number of Italian states up to ten. The
+Sardinian monarchy received back the part of Savoy which by the Treaty
+of Paris had been reserved to France. It was also offered a splendid
+and unexpected gift--Genoa.
+
+Lord William Bentinck entered Genoa by a convention concluded with the
+authorities on the 18th of April 1814. A naval demonstration following
+an ably-conducted operation, by which Bentinck's hybrid force of
+Greeks and Calabrese, with a handful of English, became master of the
+two principal forts, hastened this conclusion, but the Genoese had no
+reluctance to open their gates to the English commander, who inspired
+them with the fullest confidence. He came invested with the halo of a
+constitution-maker-under-difficulties; it was known that he had
+stopped at nothing in carrying out his mission in Sicily; not even at
+getting rid of the Queen, who found in Bentinck the Nemesis for having
+led a greater Englishman to stain his fame in the roads of Naples.
+Driven rather than persuaded to leave Sicily, Marie Antoinette's
+sister encountered so frightful a sea voyage that she died soon after
+joining her relations at Vienna. Lord William had acquired the art of
+writing the finest appeals to the love of freedom; a collection of his
+manifestoes would serve as handy-book to anyone instructed to stir up
+an oppressed nationality. He immediately gave the Genoese some
+specimens of his skill as a writer, and by granting them at once a
+provisional constitution, he dispelled all doubts about the future
+recognition of their republic. What was not, therefore, their dismay,
+when they were suddenly informed of the decision of the Holy Alliance
+to make a present of them to the people whom, of all others, they
+probably disliked the most. Italians had not ceased yet from reserving
+their best aversion for their nearest neighbours.
+
+Bentinck did not mean to deceive; perhaps he thought that by going
+beyond the letter of his instructions he should draw his government
+after him. That he did, in effect, deceive, cannot be denied; even
+Lord Castlereagh, while necessarily refusing to admit that definite
+promises had been made, yet allowed that, 'Of course he would have
+been glad if the proclamation issued to the Genoese had been more
+precisely worded.' The motive of the determination to sacrifice the
+republic was, he said, 'a sincere conviction of the necessity of a
+barrier between France and Italy, which ought to be made effectual on
+the side of Piedmont. The object was to commit the defence of the Alps
+and of the great road leading round them by the Gulf of Genoa, between
+France and Italy, to the same power to which it had formerly been
+entrusted. On that principle, the question relating to Genoa had been
+entertained and decided upon by the allied sovereigns. It was not
+resolved upon because any particular state had unworthy or sordid
+views, or from any interest or feeling in favour of the King of
+Sardinia, but solely to make him, as far as was necessary, the
+instrument of the general policy of Europe.'
+
+A better defence might have been made. Piedmont was destined to serve
+as a bulwark, not so much against France, which for the time was not
+to be feared, as against Austria, absolute except for the subalpine
+kingdom in all Italy. But this belongs to the shaping of rough-hewn
+ends, which is in higher hands than those of English ministers. The
+ends then looked very rough-hewn.
+
+Piedmont was a hotbed of reaction and bigotry. True, she had a history
+differing vastly from that of the other Italian states, but the facts
+of the hour presented her in a most unattractive light. The Genoese
+felt the keenest heart-burnings in submitting to a decision in which
+they had no voice, and which came to them as a mandate of political
+extinction from the same powers that confirmed the sentence of death
+on Genoa's ancient and glorious rival. The seeds were laid of
+disaffection, always smouldering among the Genoese, till Piedmont's
+king became King of Italy. It might almost be said that the
+reconciliation was not consummated till the day when the heir and
+namesake of Humbert of the White Hands received the squadrons of
+Europe in the harbour of Genoa, and the proud republican city showed
+what a welcome she had prepared for her sovereign of the Savoy race.
+
+After the Congress of Vienna finished its labours, there were, as has
+been remarked, ten states in Italy, but out of Sardinia (whose
+subjugation Prince Metternich esteemed a mere matter of time) there
+was one master. The authority of the Emperor Francis was practically
+as undisputed from Venice to the Bay of Naples as it was in the Grand
+Duchy of Austria. The Austrians garrisoned Piacenza, Ferrara and
+Commacchio; Austrian princes reigned in Tuscany, Parma, Modena and
+Lucca; the King of Naples, who paid Austria twenty-six million francs
+for getting back his throne, thankfully agreed to support a German
+army to protect him against his subjects. In the secret treaty
+concluded between himself and the Emperor of Austria, it was
+stipulated that the King of the Two Sicilies should not introduce into
+his government any principles irreconcilable with those adopted by His
+Imperial Majesty in the government of his Italian provinces. As for
+the Roman States, Austria reckoned on her influence in always
+securing the election of a Pope who would give her no trouble. Seeing
+herself without rivals and all-powerful, she deemed her position
+unassailable. She forgot that, by giving Italy an unity of misery, she
+was preparing the way for another unity. Common hatred engendered
+common love; common sufferings led on to a common effort. If some
+prejudices passed away under the Napoleonic rule, many more still
+remained, and possibly, to eradicate so old an evil, no cure less
+drastic than universal servitude would have sufficed. Italians felt
+for the first time what before only the greatest among them had
+felt--that they were brothers in one household, children of one mother
+whom they were bound to redeem. Jealousies and millennial feuds died
+out; the intense municipal spirit which, imperfect as it was, had yet
+in it precious political germs, widened into patriotism. Italy was
+re-born.
+
+Black, however, was the present outlook. Total commercial stagnation
+and famine increased the sentiment of unmitigated hopelessness which
+spread through the land. The poet Monti, who, alas! sang for bread the
+festival songs of the Austrians as he had sung those of Napoleon, said
+in private to an Englishman who asked him why he did not give his
+voice to the liberties of his country which he desired, though he did
+not expect to see them: 'It would be _vox clamantis in deserto_;
+besides, how can the grievances of Italy be made known? No one dares
+to write--scarcely to think--politics; if truth is to be told, it must
+be told by the English; England is the only tribunal yet open to the
+complaints of Europe.' A greater poet and nobler man, Ugo Foscolo, had
+but lately uttered a wail still more despondent: 'Italy will soon be
+nothing but a lifeless carcass, and her generous sons should only
+weep in silence without the impotent complaints and mutual
+recriminations of slaves.' That as patriotic a heart as ever beat
+should have been afflicted to this point by the canker of despair
+tells of the quagmire--not only political but spiritual--into which
+Italy was sunk. The first thing needful was to restore the people to
+consciousness, to animation of some sort, it did not matter what, so
+it were a sign of life. Foscolo himself, who impressed on what he
+wrote his own proud and scornful temperament, almost savage in its
+independence, fired his countrymen to better things than the
+despairing inertia which he preached. Few works have had more effect
+than his _Letters of Jacobo Ortis_. As often happens with books which
+strongly move contemporaries, the reader may wonder now what was the
+secret of its power, but if the form and sentiment of the Italian
+_Werther_ strike us as antiquated, the intense, though melancholy
+patriotism that pervades it explains the excitement it caused when
+patriotism was a statutory offence. Such mutilated copies as were
+allowed to pass by the censor were eagerly sought; the young read it,
+women read it--who so rarely read--the mothers of the fighters of
+to-morrow. Foscolo's life gave force to his words: when all were
+flattering Napoleon, he had reminded him that no man can be rightly
+praised till he is dead, and that his one sure way of winning the
+praise of posterity was to establish the independence of Italy. The
+warning was contained in a 'discourse' which Foscolo afterwards
+printed with the motto from Sophocles: 'My soul groans for my country,
+for myself and for thee.' Sooner than live under the Austrians, he
+went into voluntary exile, and finally took refuge in England, where
+he was the _fêted_ lion of a season, and then forgotten, and left
+almost without the necessaries of life. No one was much to blame;
+Foscolo was born to misunderstand and to be misunderstood; he hid
+himself to hide his poverty, which, had it been known, might have been
+alleviated. His individual tragedy seemed a part of the universal
+tragedy.
+
+With Foscolo, his literary predecessor Alfieri must be mentioned as
+having helped in rekindling the embers, of patriotic feeling, because,
+though dead, he spoke; and his plays, one of which was prophetically
+dedicated _al libero Popolo Italiano_, had never been so much read.
+The _Misogallo_, published for the first time after the fall of
+Napoleon, though aimed at the French, served equally well as an
+onslaught on every foreign dominion or even moral or intellectual
+influence. 'Shall _we_ learn liberty of the Gauls, _we_ who taught
+every lofty thing to others?' was a healthy remonstrance to a race
+that had lost faith in itself; and the Austrians were wise in
+discountenancing the sale of a work that contained the line which gave
+a watchword to the future:--
+
+      _Schiavi or siam si; ma schiavi almen frementi_.
+
+Like Foscolo's, Alfieri's life was a lesson in independence: angry at
+the scant measure of freedom in Piedmont, he could never be induced to
+go near his sovereign till Charles Emmanuel was staying at Florence as
+a proscript. Then the poet went to pay his respects to him, and was
+received with the good-humoured banter: 'Well, Signor Conte, here am
+I, a king, in the condition you would like to see them all.'
+
+Against the classical, not to say pagan, leanings of these two poets,
+a reaction set in with Alessandro Manzoni, the founder of Italian
+Romanticism, to which he gave an aspect differing from that which the
+same movement wore in France, because he was an ardent Catholic at a
+time when Christianity had almost the charm of novelty. His religious
+outpourings combine the fervour of the Middle Ages with modern
+expansion, and he freed the Italian language from pedantic
+restrictions without impairing its dignity. It was once the fashion to
+inveigh against Manzoni for, as it was said, inculcating resignation;
+but he did nothing of the kind. As a young man he had sung of the
+Italians as 'Figli tutti d'un solo Riscatto,' and though he was not of
+those who fight either with the sword or the pen, yet that 'Riscatto'
+was the dream of his youth and manhood, and the joy of his old age.
+His gentleness was never contaminated by servility, and the love for
+his country, profound if placid, which appears in every line of his
+writings, appealed to a class that could not be reached by fiery
+turbulence of thought.
+
+In an age when newspapers have taken the place of books, it may seem
+strange to ascribe any serious effect to the works of poets and
+romancists; but in the Italy of that date there were no newspapers to
+speak of; the ordinary channels of opinion were blocked up. Books were
+still not only read, but discussed and thought over, and every slight
+allusion to the times was instantly applied. In the prevailing
+listlessness, the mere fact of increased mental activity was of
+importance. A spark of genius does much to raise a nation. It is in
+itself the incontrovertible proof that the race lives: a dead people
+does not produce men of genius. Whatever awakes one part of the
+intelligence reacts on all its parts. You cannot lift, any more than
+you can degrade, the heart of man piecemeal. In this sense not
+literature only but also music helped, who can say how effectually, to
+bring Italy back to life. The land was refreshed by a flood of purely
+national song, full of the laughter and the tears of Italian
+character, of the sunshine and the storms of Italian nature. Music,
+the only art uncageable as the human soul, descended as a gift from
+heaven upon the people whose articulate utterance was stifled. And
+
+   ... No speech may evince
+  Feeling like music.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE WORK OF THE CARBONARI
+
+1815-1821
+
+Revolutions in the Kingdom of Naples and in Piedmont--The Conspiracy
+against Charles Albert.
+
+
+Considering what the state of the country was after 1815, and how
+apparently inexhaustible were the resources of the Empire of which the
+petty princes of the peninsula were but puppets, it is remarkable that
+political agitation, with a view to reversing the decisions of Vienna,
+should have begun so soon, and on so large a scale. Not that the
+nation, as a whole, was yet prepared to move; every revolution, till
+1848, was partial in the sense that the mass of the people stood
+aloof, because unconvinced of the possibility of loosening their
+chains. But, during that long succession of years, the number of
+Italians ready to embark on enterprises of the most desperate
+character, accounting as nothing the smallness of the chance of
+success, seems enormous when the risks they ran and the difficulties
+they faced are fully recognised. Among the means which were effective
+in first rousing Italy from her lethargy, and in fostering the will to
+acquire her independence at all costs, the secret society of the
+Carbonari undoubtedly occupies the front rank. The Carbonari acted in
+two ways; by what they did and by what they caused to be done by
+others who were outside their society, and perhaps unfavourable to it,
+but who were none the less sensible of the pressure it exercised. The
+origin of Carbonarism has been sought in vain; as a specimen of the
+childish fables that once passed for its history may be noticed the
+legend that Francis I. of France once stumbled on a charcoal burner's
+hut when hunting 'on the frontiers of his kingdom next to Scotland,'
+and was initiated into the rites similar to those in use among the
+sectaries of the nineteenth century. Those rites referred to vengeance
+which was to be taken on the wolf that slew the lamb; the wolf
+standing for tyrants and oppressors, and the lamb for Jesus Christ,
+the sinless victim, by whom all the oppressed were represented. The
+Carbonari themselves generally believed that they were heirs to an
+organisation started in Germany before the eleventh century, under the
+name of the Faith of the Kohlen-Brenners, of which Theobald de Brie,
+who was afterwards canonised, was a member. Theobald was adopted as
+patron saint of the modern society, and his fancied portrait figured
+in all the lodges. That any weight should have been attached to these
+pretensions to antiquity may appear strange to us, as it certainly did
+not matter whether an association bent on the liberation of Italy had
+or had not existed in German forests eight hundred years before; age
+and mystery, however, have a great popular attraction, the first as an
+object of reverence, the second as food for curiosity with the
+profane, and a bond of union among the initiated. The religious
+symbolism of the Carbonari, their oaths and ceremonies, and the axes,
+blocks and other furniture of the initiatory chamber, were well
+calculated to impress the poorer and more ignorant and excitable of
+the brethren. The Vatican affected to believe that Carbonarism was an
+offshoot of Freemasonry, but, in spite of sundry points of
+resemblance, such as the engagements of mutual help assumed by
+members, there seems to have been no real connection between the two.
+Political Freemasonry remained somewhat of an exotic in Italy, and was
+inclined to regard France as its centre. As far as can be ascertained,
+it gave a general support to Napoleon, while Carbonarism rejected
+every foreign yoke. The practical aims of the Carbonari may be summed
+up in two words: freedom and independence. From the first they had the
+penetration to grasp the fact that independence, even if obtained,
+could not be preserved without freedom; but though their predilections
+were theoretically republican, they did not make a particular form of
+government a matter of principle. Nor were they agreed in a definite
+advocacy of the unity of Italy.
+
+A Genoese of the name of Malghella, who was Murat's Minister of
+Police, was the first person to give a powerful impetus to
+Carbonarism, of which he has even been called the inventor, but the
+inference goes too far. Malghella ended miserably; after the fall of
+Murat he was arrested by the Austrians, who consigned him as a new
+subject to the Sardinian Government, which immediately put him in
+prison. His name is hardly known, but no Italian of his time worked
+more assiduously, or in some respects more intelligently, for the
+emancipation of Italy. Whatever was truly Italian in Murat's policy
+must be mainly attributed to him. As early as 1813 he urged the King
+to declare himself frankly for independence, and to grant a
+constitution to his Neapolitan subjects. But Malghella did not find
+the destined saviour of Italy in Murat; his one lasting work was to
+establish Carbonarism on so strong a basis that, when the Bourbons
+returned, there were thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of
+Carbonari in all parts of the realm. The discovery was not a pleasant
+one to the restored rulers, and the Prince of Canosa, the new Minister
+of Police, thought to counteract the evil done by his predecessor by
+setting up an abominable secret society called the Calderai del
+Contrapeso (Braziers of the Counterpoise), principally recruited from
+the refuse of the people, lazzaroni, bandits and let-out convicts, who
+were provided by Government with 20,000 muskets, and were sworn to
+exterminate all enemies of the Church of Rome, whether Jansenists,
+Freemasons or Carbonari. This association committed some horrible
+excesses, but otherwise it had no results. The Carbonari closed in
+their ranks, and learnt to observe more strictly their rules of
+secrecy. From the kingdom of Naples, Carbonarism spread to the Roman
+states, and found a congenial soil in Romagna, which became the focus
+whence it spread over the rest of Italy. It was natural that it should
+take the colour, more or less, of the places where it grew. In
+Romagna, where political assassination is in the blood of the people,
+a dagger was substituted for the symbolical woodman's axe in the
+initiatory rites. It was probably only in Romagna that the
+conventional threat against informers was often carried out. The
+Romagnols invested Carbonarism with the wild intensity of their own
+temperament, resolute even to crime, but capable of supreme impersonal
+enthusiasm. The ferment of expectancy that prevailed in Romagna is
+reflected in the Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, whom young Count
+Pietro Gamba made a Carbonaro, and who looked forward to seeing the
+Italians send the barbarians of all nations back to their own dens, as
+to the most interesting spectacle and moment in existence. His lower
+apartments, he writes, were full of the bayonets, fusils and
+cartridges of his Carbonari cronies; 'I suppose that they consider me
+as a dépôt, to be sacrificed in case of accidents. It is no great
+matter, supposing that Italy could be liberated, who or what is
+sacrificed. It is a grand object--the very poetry of politics. Only
+think--free Italy!!! Why, there has been nothing like it since the
+days of Augustus.'
+
+The movement on which such great hopes were set was to begin in the
+kingdom of Naples in the spring of 1820. The concession of the
+hard-won Spanish Constitution in the month of March encouraged the
+Neapolitans to believe that they might get a like boon from their own
+King if they directed all the forces at their command to this single
+end. To avoid being compromised, they sought rather to dissociate
+themselves from the patriots of other parts of Italy than to
+co-operate with them in an united effort. The Carbonari of the
+Neapolitan kingdom, who were the entire authors of the revolution,
+which, after many unfortunate delays, broke out on the 1st of July,
+had good cause for thinking that they were in a position to dictate
+terms; the mistake they made was to suppose that a charter conceded by
+a Bourbon of Naples could ever be worth the paper on which it was
+written. Not only among the people, but in the army the Carbonari had
+thousands of followers on whom they could rely, and several whole
+regiments were only waiting their orders to rise in open revolt. The
+scheme was to take possession of the persons of the King and the royal
+family, and retain them as hostages till the Constitution was granted.
+Such extreme measures were not necessary. The standard of rebellion
+was raised at Monteforte by two officers named Morelli and Silvati,
+who had brought over a troop of cavalry from Nola, and by the priest
+Menechini. In all Neapolitan insurrections there was sure to be a
+priest; the Neapolitan Church, much though there is to be laid to its
+account, must be admitted to have frequently shown sympathy with the
+popular side. Menechini enjoyed an immense, if brief, popularity which
+he used to allay the anger of the mob and to procure the safety of
+obnoxious persons. The King sent two generals and a body of troops
+against the Chartists, but when the Carbonari symbols were recognised
+on the insurgent flags, the troops showed such clear signs of wishing
+to go over to the enemy that they were quietly taken back to Naples.
+The cry of 'God, the King, and the Constitution,' was taken up through
+the land; General Pepe, who had long been a Carbonaro in secret, was
+enthusiastically hailed as commander of the Chartist forces, which
+practically comprised the whole army. The King was powerless; besides
+which, when pushed up into any corner people who do not mind breaking
+their word have a facility for hard swearing. On the 13th of July,
+Ferdinand standing at the altar of the royal chapel, with his hand on
+the Bible, swore to defend and maintain the Constitution which he had
+just granted. If he failed to do so, he called upon his subjects to
+disobey him, and God to call him to account. These words he read from
+a written form; as if they were not enough, he added, with his eyes on
+the cross, and his face turned towards heaven: 'Omnipotent God, who
+with Thine infinite power canst read the soul of man and the future,
+do Thou, if I speak falsely, or intend to break my oath, at this
+moment direct the thunder of Thy vengeance on my head.'
+
+The Neapolitans had got their liberties, but they soon found
+themselves face to face with perplexities which would have taxed the
+powers of men both wiser and more experienced in free government than
+they were. In the first place, although a revolution may be made by a
+sect, a government cannot be carried on by one. The Carbonari who had
+won the day were blind to this self-evident truth; and, to make
+matters worse, there was a split in their party, some of them being
+disposed to throw off the Bourbon yoke altogether; a natural desire,
+but as it was only felt by a minority, it added to the general
+confusion. Then came, as it was sure to come, the cry for separation
+from Sicily. The Sicilians wanted back the violated constitution
+obtained for them by the English in 1812, and would have nothing to do
+with that offered them from Naples. In every one of the struggles
+between Sicily and Naples, it is impossible to refuse sympathy to the
+islanders, who, in the pride of their splendid independent history,
+deemed themselves the victims of an inferior race; but it is equally
+impossible to ignore that, politically, they were in the wrong. In
+union, and in union alone, lay the only chance of resisting the
+international plot to keep the South Italian populations in perpetual
+bondage. The Sicilian revolt was put down at first mildly, and
+finally, as mildness had no effect, with the usual violence by the
+Neapolitan Constitutional Government, which could not avoid losing
+credit and popularity in the operation. Meanwhile, the three persons
+who traded under the name of Europe met at Troppau, and came readily
+to the conclusion that 'the sovereigns of the Holy Alliance exercised
+an incontestable right in taking common measures of security against
+states which the overthrow of authority by revolt placed in a hostile
+attitude towards every legitimate government.' The assumption was too
+broadly stated, even for Lord Castlereagh's acceptance; but he was
+contented to make a gentle protest, which he further nullified by
+allowing that, in the present case, intervention was very likely
+justified. France expressed no disapproval. Only the Netherlands,
+Switzerland, Sweden and Spain gave the Constitutional _régime_ tacit
+support by recognising it. The Emperor of Russia was very anxious to
+take part in the business, and would have sent off an army instantly
+had not his royal brother of Prussia hesitated to consent to the
+inconvenience of a Cossack march through his territory. The work was
+left, therefore, to the Emperor of Austria. Before entering upon it,
+it occurred to these three to invite the King of Naples to meet them
+at Laybach. They knew his character.
+
+Ferdinand assured his Parliament that he was going to Laybach solely
+to induce the Holy Alliance to think better of its opposition, and to
+agree, at least, to all the principal features of the new state of
+things. Most foolishly the Parliament, which, according to the
+Constitution, might have vetoed his leaving the country, let him go.
+Before starting he wrote an open letter to his dear son, the Duke of
+Calabria, who was appointed Regent, in which he said: 'I shall defend
+the events of the past July before the Congress. I firmly desire the
+Spanish Constitution for my kingdom; and although I rely on the
+justice of the assembled sovereigns, and on their old friendship,
+still it is well to tell you that, in whatever circumstance it may
+please God to place me, my course will be what I have manifested on
+this sheet, strong and unchangeable either by force or by the flattery
+of others.'
+
+Brave words! News came in due time of the sequel. On the 9th of
+February 1821, the Regent received a letter from the King, in which he
+gave the one piece of advice that the people should submit to their
+fate quietly. He was coming back with 50,000 Austrians, and a Russian
+army was ready to start if wanted. Nevertheless, to prevent a sudden
+outbreak before the foreign troops arrived, the Regent carried on a
+game of duplicity to the last, and pretended to second, whilst he
+really baulked, the preparations for resistance decreed by Parliament.
+Baron Poerio, the father of two patriot martyrs of the future,
+sustained the national dignity by urging Parliament to yield only to
+force, and to defy the barbarous horde which was bearing down on the
+country. The closing scene is soon told. On the 7th of March, in the
+mountains near Rieti, General Guglielmo Pepe, with 8000 regular troops
+and a handful of militia, encountered an overwhelmingly superior force
+of Austrians. The Neapolitans stood out well for six hours, but on the
+Austrian reserves coming up, they were completely routed, and obliged
+to fly in all directions.
+
+'Order reigned' in the kingdom of Naples. In Sicily, a gallant attempt
+at insurrection was begun, but there was not the spirit to go on with
+it, and General Rossaroll, its initiator, had to fly to Spain. The
+afterpiece is what might have been expected; an insensate desire for
+vengeance got hold of Ferdinand, and the last years of his life were
+spent in hunting down his enemies, real or imaginary. Morelli and
+Silvati were hung, the fugitives, Pepe and Rossaroll, were condemned
+to death, but this was only the beginning. The Austrian commander
+counselled mercy, but in this respect the King showed an independent
+mind. A court-martial was instituted to examine the conduct of
+ecclesiastics, public functionaries and soldiers, from the year 1793
+downwards. No one was safe who had expressed a dislike of absolutism
+within the last thirty years. A blameless gentleman who was a
+Carbonaro, was conducted through Naples on the back of an ass, and
+beaten with a whip, to which nails were attached. Eight hundred
+persons are said to have perished at the hands of the state in one
+year. Ferdinand himself expired on the 3rd of January 1825, after
+misgoverning for sixty-five years.
+
+The Neapolitan revolution had just collapsed, when another broke out
+in Piedmont, which, though short in duration, was to have far-reaching
+consequences.
+
+At that time, the King of Sardinia was Victor Emmanuel I., who
+succeeded his brother Charles Emmanuel in 1802, when the latter
+abdicated and retired to Rome, where he joined the Society of Jesus.
+Victor Emmanuel's only son was dead, and the throne would devolve on
+his youngest brother, Charles Felix, Duke of Genoa, whom reasons of
+state led to abandon the wish to become a monk, which he had formed as
+a boy of eleven, on being taken to visit a convent near Turin. But
+Charles Felix, though married, was without children, and the
+legitimate heir-presumptive was Charles Albert, Prince of Carignano,
+who represented the younger branch of the family, which divided from
+the main line in the early part of the seventeenth century. Charles
+Albert's father was the luckless Prince Charles of Carignano, who,
+alone of his house, came to terms with Napoleon, who promised him a
+pension, which was not paid. His mother, a Saxon Princess, paraded the
+streets of Turin, dressed in the last republican fashion, with her
+infant son in her arms. Afterwards, she gave him a miscellaneous
+education, that included a large dose of Rousseau from a Swiss
+professor. The boy was shifted from place to place, happier when his
+mother forgot him, than when, in temporary recollection of his
+existence, she called him to her. Once when he was travelling with the
+Princess and her second husband, M. de Montléart, Charles Albert was
+made to sit on the box of the carriage, in a temperature many degrees
+below zero.
+
+His uncles (as the King and Charles Felix called themselves, though
+they were his cousins) heard with natural horror of the vagaries of
+the Princess of Carignano, and they extended their antipathy from the
+mother to the son, even when he was a child. In Victor Emmanuel, this
+antipathy was moderated by the easy good-nature of his character; in
+Charles Felix, it degenerated into an intense hatred.
+
+It is a singular thing that Prince Metternich, from the very first,
+had an instinctive feeling that the unfortunate boy, who seemed the
+most hopeless and helpless of human creatures, would prove the evil
+genius of the Austrian power. He therefore set to work to deprive him
+of his eventual rights. He was confident of success, as fortune had
+arranged matters in a manner that offered a ready-made plan for
+carrying out the design. Victor Emmanuel had four daughters, precluded
+from reigning by the Salic law, which was in force in Piedmont. His
+wife, the Queen Maria Teresa, a woman of great beauty and insatiable
+ambition, was sister to the Austrian Archduke Francis d'Este, Duke of
+Modena. Francis had never married, having been robbed of his intended
+bride, the Archduchess Marie-Louise, by her betrothal to Napoleon.
+What simpler than to marry the eldest of the Sardinian princesses to
+her uncle, abrogate the Salic law, and calmly await the desired
+consummation of an Austrian prince, by right of his wife, occupying
+the Sardinian throne?
+
+The first step was soon taken; princesses came into the world to be
+sacrificed. The plot ran on for some time, the Queen, who was in the
+habit of calling Charles Albert 'that little vagrant,' giving it her
+indefatigable support. Victor Emmanuel was weak, and stood in
+considerable awe of his wife, who had obtained a great ascendancy over
+him in the miserable days of their residence in the island of
+Sardinia. His nephew, who was almost or wholly unknown to him, partook
+of the nature of a disagreeable myth. Nevertheless he had a sense of
+justice, as well as Savoy blood, in his veins--he resisted; but the
+day came when his surrender seemed probable. Just at that moment,
+however, the Duke of Modena prematurely revealed the project by asking
+through his representative at the Congress of Vienna for the port of
+Spezia, in order that he might conveniently connect his own state with
+his prospective possession, the island of Sardinia. Prince Talleyrand
+was alarmed by the vision of Austria supreme in the Mediterranean, and
+through his opposition the conspiracy, for the time, was upset, and
+the rights of Charles Albert were recognised.
+
+Curiously enough, Prince Metternich had insisted on the young Prince,
+then seventeen, visiting the headquarters of the Allies. Charles Felix
+(who was unconnected with the Modena scheme) wrote a letter to the
+King on this subject, in which he stated it as his belief that the
+Austrian plan was to get Charles Albert accidentally killed, or to
+plunge him in vice, or to make him contract a discreditable marriage.
+This was why they had invited him to their camp. He adds the
+characteristic remark that their nephew would be in no less danger at
+the headquarters of the Duke of Wellington 'à cause de la religion.'
+Have him home and have him married, is his advice. 'We are well
+treated, because there is the expectation of soon devouring our
+remains by extinguishing the House of Savoy. It is the habit of the
+cabinet of Vienna; it was thus they made an end of the House of Este.'
+
+These counsels were the more likely to impress Victor Emmanuel from
+his knowledge that they were inspired by no shadow of personal
+interest in 'the little vagrant,' but by the race-feeling alone. The
+Queen contrived to prevent the immediate recall of the Prince of
+Carignano, but she was obliged to give way, and he was definitely
+established in Piedmont. In 1818 he was married at Florence to the
+Archduchess Maria Teresa of Tuscany, who, on the 14th of March 1820,
+gave birth to the child that was to become the first King of Italy.
+
+Very soon after his return to his country, the hopes of the Liberal
+party began to centre in the young Prince, whom some of their more
+ardent spirits already saluted as the rising sun. Those who made his
+acquaintance were fascinated by the charm of manner which he could
+always exert when he chose, and were confirmed in their hopes by his
+evident susceptibility to the magnetism of new ideas and fatalistic
+ambitions. What they did not perceive was, that in his nature lay
+that ingrained tendency to drift before the wind, which is the most
+dangerous thing in politics. In the mid-sea of events he might
+change his course without conscious insincerity, but with the
+self-abandonment of a mind which, under pressure, loses the sense of
+personal responsibility.
+
+In Piedmont, Carbonarism had made great way among the upper classes
+and among the younger officers; the flower of the country was enrolled
+in its ranks, and the impatience to take some action towards procuring
+free institutions for themselves, and doing something for their
+Lombard brothers, had reached fever heat in the spring of 1821, when
+the affairs of Naples were creating much excitement. The principal
+conspirators, noble young men, full of unselfish ardour, were the
+chosen friends and companions of the Prince of Carignano. It was
+formerly the opinion that they made him the confidant of their plans
+from the first, that he was one of them, in short--a Carbonaro bound
+by all the oaths and obligations of the society. The judgment of his
+conduct afterwards is, of course, much affected by this point; were
+the assumption correct, the invectives launched against him, not by
+any means only by republican writers, would hardly seem excessive. But
+by the light of documents issued in recent times, it appears more just
+as well as more charitable to suppose that Charles Albert's complicity
+was of a much less precise character. A little encouragement from a
+prince goes a long way.
+
+According to his own account, he was taken by surprise when, on the
+and or 3rd of March, his friends Carail, Collegno, Santa Rosa and
+Lisio came to tell him in secret that they belonged to societies
+which had been long working for the independence of Italy, and that
+they reckoned on him, knowing well his affection for his country, to
+aid them in obtaining from the King some few first concessions, which
+would be the prelude of a glorious future. It is clear that he ought
+either to have broken with them altogether from that moment or to have
+cast his lot with them for good or evil. He tried a middle course. He
+induced the conspirators to put off the revolution by which they
+intended to enforce their demands, and he conveyed to the King
+information of what had happened, asking at the same time that no
+measures should be taken against incriminated persons.
+
+In fact, no precautions of any kind seem to have been taken. Victor
+Emmanuel, frightened at first, was soon reassured. The revolution, which
+was to have begun on the 8th, actually broke out on the 10th of March at
+Alessandria, where the counter orders issued at Charles. Albert's
+request, after the interview just described, were not obeyed. The
+garrison 'pronounced' in favour of the Spanish Constitution. It was now
+impossible to draw back. From Alessandria the revolution spread to the
+capital. The bulk of the army sympathised with the movement, and relied
+on the support of the people. The greatest ladies mixed with the crowds
+which gathered under the Carbonaro flag--black, blue and red. On the
+other hand, there were a few devoted servants of the House of Savoy who
+beheld these novelties with the sensations of a quiet person who sees
+from his window the breaking loose of a menagerie. Invincibly ignorant
+of all that was really inspiring in this first breath of freedom, they
+saw nothing in it but an unwarrantable attack on the authority of their
+amiable, if weak, old King, for whom they would gladly have shed every
+drop of their blood--not from the rational esteem which the people of
+Italy, like the people of England, now feel for their sovereign, but
+from the pure passion of loyalty which made the cavalier stand blindly
+by his prince, whether he was good or bad, in the right or in the wrong.
+Men of their type watched the evolution of Piedmont into Italy from
+first to last with the same presentiment of evil, the same moral
+incapacity of appreciation. A handful of these loyal servitors hurried
+to Victor Emmanuel to offer their assistance. They marshalled their
+troop in battle-array in the courtyard of the palace. Their arms were
+antiquated pistols and rapiers, and they themselves were veterans, some
+of them of eighty years, mounted on steeds as ancient. The King thanked
+them, but declined their services; nor would he give _carte blanche_ to
+Captain Raimondi, who assured him that with his one company he could
+suppress the insurrection if invested with full powers. Soon after this
+refusal, a firing of guns announced that the citadel was in the hands
+of the insurgents. The troops within and without fraternised; it was a
+fine moment for those who knew history and who were bent in their hearts
+on driving the foreigner out of Italy. Here at the citadel of Turin,
+during the siege of 1706, occurred the memorable deed of Pietro Micca,
+the peasant-soldier, who, when he heard the enemy thundering at the door
+of the gallery, thought life and the welcome of wife and child and the
+happy return to his village of less account than duty, and fired the
+mine which sent him and three companies of French Grenadiers to their
+final reckoning.
+
+After vacillating for two or three days, Victor Emmanuel abdicated on
+the 13th of March. The Queen desired to be appointed regent, but, to
+her intense vexation, the appointment was given to Charles Albert. A
+more unenviable honour never fell to the lot of man.
+
+Deserted by the ministers of the crown, who resigned in a body, alone
+in the midst of a triumphant revolution, appealed to in the name of
+those sentiments of patriotism which he could never hear invoked
+unmoved, the young Prince uttered the words which were as good as a
+surrender: 'I, too, am an Italian!' That evening he allowed the
+Spanish Constitution to be proclaimed subject to the arrival of the
+orders of the new King.
+
+The new King! No one remembered that there existed such a person. Nor
+had anyone recollected that the Spanish Constitution abrogated the
+Salic law, and that hence, instead of a new King, they had a new
+Queen--the wife of the Duke of Modena! An eminent Turinese
+jurisconsulist, who was probably the only possessor of a copy of the
+charter in the town which was screaming itself hoarse for it, divulged
+this awkward discovery.--Several hours were spent in anxious
+discussion, when the brilliant suggestion was made that the article
+should be cancelled. The article was cancelled.
+
+But Charles Felix could not be disposed of so easily. The news of the
+late events reached him at Modena of all places in the world, the
+rallying-point of the Prince of Carignano's bitterest foes. He was not
+long in sending his orders. He repudiated everything that had been
+done, and commanded Charles Albert, 'if he had a drop of our royal
+blood left in his veins,' to leave the capital instantly for Novara,
+where he was to await his further instructions.
+
+Charles Albert obeyed. He was accompanied on his journey--or, as it
+may be called, his flight--by such of the troops as remained loyal.
+At Novara he found a sentence of exile, in a fresh order, to quit
+Piedmontese territory. Tuscany was indicated as the state where he was
+to reside.
+
+The Austrians crossed the frontier with the consent of the King.
+Charles Felix's opinion of Austria has been already given; another
+time he said: 'Austria is a sort of bird-lime which, if you get it on
+your fingers, you can never rub off.' If anything was needed to
+increase his loathing for the revolution, it was the necessity in
+which it placed him, as he thought, of calling in this unloved ally.
+But Charles Felix was not the man to hesitate. Not caring a straw for
+the privilege of wearing a crown himself, his belief in the divine
+right of kings, and the obligation to defend it, amounted to
+monomania. The Austrian offer was therefore accepted. On her part
+Austria declined the obliging proposal of the Czar of a loan of
+100,000 men. She felt that she could do the work unaided, nor was she
+mistaken.
+
+On the 8th of April the Constitutionalist troops which marched towards
+Novara, sanguine that the loyal regiments there quartered would end by
+joining them, were met by an armed resistance, in which the
+newly-arrived Austrians assisted. Their defeat was complete, and it
+was the signal of the downfall of the revolution. The leaders retired
+from Turin to Alessandria, and thence to Genoa, that had risen last
+and was last to submit. Thus most of them escaped by sea, which was
+fortunate, as Charles Felix had the will to establish a White Terror,
+and was only prevented by the circumstance that nearly all the
+proposed victims were outside his kingdom. Capital sentences were sent
+after them by the folio: there was hardly a noble family which had not
+one of its members condemned to death. When his brother, Victor
+Emmanuel, recommended mercy, he told him that he was entirely ready
+to give him back the crown, but that, while he reigned, he should
+reign after his own ideas. He seems to have had thoughts of hanging
+the Prince of Carignano, and for a long time he seriously meant to
+devise the kingdom to his son, the infant Prince Victor. Thus a new
+set of obstacles arose between Charles Albert and the throne.
+
+Of the personal friends of that ill-starred Prince all escaped. One of
+them, the noble-minded Count Santorre di Santa Rosa, died fighting for
+liberty in Greece. In the miseries of exile and poverty he had never
+lost faith in his country, but fearlessly maintained that 'the
+emancipation of Italy was an event of the nineteenth century.' To
+another, Giacinta di Collegno, it was reserved to receive the dying
+breath of Charles Albert, when as an exiled and crownless king he
+found rest, at last, at Oporto.
+
+There were deeper reasons than any which appear on the surface for the
+failure of the revolutionary movements of this period. North and
+south, though the populations exhibited a childish delight at the
+overthrow of the old, despotic form of government, their effervescence
+ended as rapidly as it began. They did not really understand what was
+going on. 'By-the-bye, what _is_ this same constitution they are
+making such a noise about?' asked a lazzarone who had been shouting
+'Viva la Costituzione' all the day. Within a few weeks of the
+breakdown at Novara, Count Confalonieri wrote wisely to Gino Capponi
+that revolutions are not made by high intelligences, but by the masses
+which are moved by enthusiasm, and for a possibility of success, the
+word Constitution, the least magical of words, should have been
+replaced by the more comprehensible and stirring call: 'War to the
+stranger.' But this, instead of sounding from every housetop, was
+purposely stifled at Naples, and kept a mysterious secret in
+Piedmont.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PRISON AND SCAFFOLD
+
+1821-1831
+
+Political Trials in Venetia and Lombardy--Risings in the South and
+Centre--Ciro Menotti.
+
+
+The Austrians fully expected a rising in Lombardy in the middle of
+March, and that they were not without serious fears as to its
+consequences is proved by the preparations which they quietly made to
+abandon Milan, if necessary. The Court travelling-carriages were got
+ready, and the younger princes were sent away. Carbonarism had been
+introduced into Lombardy the year before by two Romagnols, Count
+Laderchi and Pietro Maroncelli. It was their propaganda that put the
+Austrian Government on the alert, and was the cause of the Imperial
+decree which denounced the society as a subversive conspiracy, aiming
+at the destruction of all constituted authority, and pointed to death
+and confiscation of property as the penalty for joining it. There was
+the additional clause, destined to bear terrible fruit, which declared
+accomplices, punishable with life-imprisonment, all who knew of the
+existence of lodges (_Vendite_, as they were called) or the names of
+associates, without informing the police. In the autumn of 1820,
+Maroncelli and many others, including Silvio Pellico, the young
+Piedmontese poet, were arrested as Carbonari, while the arrest of the
+so-called accomplices began with Count Giovanni Arrivabene of Mantua,
+who had no connection with the society, but was charged with having
+heard from Pellico that he was a member. Pellico and his companions
+were still lying untried in the horrible Venetian prisons, called,
+from their leaden roofs, the 'Piombi,' when the events of 1821 gave
+rise to a wholesale batch of new arrests. As soon as they knew of a
+movement in Piedmont, the Lombard patriots prepared to co-operate in
+it; that they were actually able to do nothing, was because it broke
+out prematurely, and also, to some extent, because their head, Count
+Confalonieri, was incapacitated by severe illness. But though their
+activity profited not at all to the cause, it was fatal to
+themselves. The Austrian Government had, as has been stated, a
+correct general notion of what was going on, but at the beginning it
+almost entirely lacked proofs which could inculpate individuals. In
+the matter of arrests, however, there was one sovereign rule which all
+the despotic Governments in Italy could and did follow in every
+emergency: it was to lay hands on the most intelligent, distinguished
+and upright members of the community. This plan never failed; these
+were the patriots, the conspirators of those days. The second thing
+which the Austrians made a rule of doing, was to extort from the
+prisoners some incautious word, some shadow of an assent or admission
+which would place them on the track of other compromised persons, and
+furnish them with such scraps of evidence as they deemed sufficient,
+in order to proceed against those already in their power. In their
+secret examination of prisoners, they had reduced the system of
+provocative interrogation to a science. They made use of every
+subterfuge, and, above all, of fabricated confessions fathered on
+friends of the prisoner, to extract the exclamation, the nod of the
+head, the confused answer, which served their purpose. The prisoners,
+men of good faith, and inexperienced in the arts of deception, were
+but children in their hands, and scarcely one of them was not doomed
+to be the involuntary cause of some other person's ruin--generally
+that of a dear and intimate friend.
+
+The first to be arrested was Gaetano De-Castillia, who went with the
+Marquis Giorgio Pallavicini on a mission to Piedmont while the
+revolution there was at its height. They even had an interview with
+the Prince of Carignano, 'a pale and tall young man, with a charming
+expression' (so Pallavicini describes him), but had obtained from him
+no assurance, except the characteristic parting word: 'Let us hope in
+the future.' When De-Castillia was arrested, Pallavicini, then a youth
+of twenty, and full of noble sentiments, rushed to the director of the
+police with the avowal: 'It was I who induced De-Castillia to go to
+Piedmont; if the journey was a crime, the fault is mine; punish me!'
+No error could have proved more calamitous; till that moment the
+Austrians were in ignorance of the Piedmontese mission; De-Castillia
+was arrested on some far more trifling charge. Pallavicini's generous
+folly was rewarded by fourteen years' imprisonment, and its first
+consequence was the arrest of Count Confalonieri, at whose instance
+the visit to Turin had been made. For months the Austrians had desired
+to have a clue against him; the opportunity was come at last.
+
+Federico Confalonieri, brilliant, handsome, persuasive, of great
+wealth and ancient lineage, innately aristocratic, but in the best
+sense, was morally at the head of Lombardy, by the selection of the
+fittest, which at certain junctures makes one man pre-appointed leader
+while he is still untried. When in England, the Duke of Sussex
+prevailed upon him to become a Freemason, but he was not a Carbonaro
+in the technical sense, though both friends and foes believed him to
+be one. He knew, however, more about this and the other secret
+societies then existing in Italy--even those of the reactionary
+party--than did most of the initiated. In an amusing passage in his
+memoirs he relates how, when once forcibly detained in a miserable
+hostelry in the Calabrian Mountains, a den of brigands, of whom the
+chief was the landlord, he guessed that this man was a Calderaio, and
+it occurred to him to make the sign of that bloodthirsty sect. Things
+changed in a second; the brigand innkeeper was at his feet, the
+complete household was set in motion to serve him. In 1821, he
+founded at Milan, not a secret society, but an association in which
+all the best patriots were enrolled, and of which the sole engagement
+was the formula, repeated on entering its ranks: 'I swear to God, and
+on my honour, to exert myself to the utmost of my power, and even at
+the sacrifice of my life, to redeem Italy from foreign dominion.'
+
+Knowing to what extent he was a marked man, Confalonieri would have
+only exercised common prudence in leaving the country, but he could
+not reconcile himself to the idea of flight. Anonymous warnings rained
+upon him: most likely they all came from the same quarter, from Count
+Bubna, the Austrian Field-Marshal, with whom Confalonieri was
+personally on friendly terms. On the 12th of December the Countess
+Bubna made a last effort to save him; her carriage was ready, she
+implored him to take it and escape across the frontier. He refused,
+and next day he was arrested.
+
+Austrian legal procedure was slow; the trial of the first Carbonari,
+Silvio Pellico and his companions, did not take place till 1822. On
+the 22nd of February the sentence of death was read to Silvio Pellico
+in his Venetian prison, to be commuted to one of fifteen years'
+imprisonment at Spielberg, a fortress converted into a convict prison
+in a bleak position in Moravia. To that rock of sorrow, consecrated
+for ever by the sufferings of some of the purest of men, Silvio
+Pellico and Pietro Maroncelli, with nine or ten companions, condemned
+at the same time, were the first Italians to take the road. Here they
+remained for the eight years described by the author of _Francesca da
+Rimini_, in _Le Mie Prigioni_, a book that served the Italian cause
+throughout the world. Even now some Italians are indignant at the
+spirit of saintly resignation which breathes upon Silvio Pellico's
+pages, at the veil which is drawn over many shocking features in the
+treatment of the prisoners; they do not know the tremendous force
+which such reticence gave his narrative. _Le Mie Prigioni_ has the
+reserve strength of a Greek tragedy.
+
+Maroncelli contracted a disease of the leg through the hardships
+endured; amputation became necessary, but could not be performed till
+permission was received from Vienna--a detail showing the red-tapism
+which governed all branches of the Austrian administration. This
+patriot went, after his release, to America, where he died, poor,
+blind and mad. Pellico, crushed in soul, devoted his latter years
+entirely to religion. Only men of iron fibre could come out as they
+went in. The Spielberg prisoners wore chains, and their food was so
+bad and scanty that they suffered from continual hunger, with its
+attendant diseases. Unlike the thieves and assassins confined in the
+same fortress, the State prisoners were given no news of their
+families. Such was Spielberg, 'a sepulchre without the peace of the
+dead.'
+
+The State trials of the Lombard patriots in 1823 resulted in seven
+capital sentences on the Milanese, thirteen on the Brescians, and four
+on the Mantuans. The fate of the other prisoners depended on that of
+Count Confalonieri. If the sentence on him were not carried out, the
+lives at least of the others might be regarded as safe, since he was
+looked upon as the head. It is certain that the authorities, and the
+Emperor himself, had the most firm intention of having him executed;
+the more merciful decision was solely due to the Countess
+Confalonieri's journey to Vienna. Accompanied by the prisoner's aged
+father, this beautiful and heroic woman, a daughter of the noble
+Milanese house of Casati, went to Vienna before the conclusion of the
+trial, to be ready for any eventuality. When the sentence of death was
+passed, it was announced by the Emperor to old Count Confalonieri,
+whom he advised to return with the Countess Teresa as fast as possible
+if they wished to see the condemned man alive. Undaunted by the news,
+the brave wife sought an interview with the Empress, in whom she found
+a warm advocate, but who was obliged to own, after several attempts to
+obtain a reprieve, that she despaired of success. Teresa Confalonieri
+hurried back to Milan through the bitter winter weather, in doubt
+whether she should arrive before the execution had taken place. But
+the unceasing efforts of the Empress won the day. The respite was
+granted on the 13th of January; life-imprisonment was substituted for
+death. The countess sent her husband the pillow which she had bathed
+with her tears during her terrible journey; needless to say that it
+was not given to him. She died broken-hearted with waiting before he
+was set at liberty in the year 1836.
+
+When Count Confalonieri reached Vienna on his way to Spielberg, he was
+surprised to find himself installed in a luxurious apartment, with
+three servants to wait upon him. Though too ill to touch solid food, a
+sumptuous breakfast and dinner were daily set before him; and but for
+the constant jingle of his chains, he would have thought himself in a
+first-class hotel on a journey of pleasure. The object of these
+attentions was clear when one evening Prince Metternich came to see
+him, and stayed for three hours, endeavouring by every exquisite
+flattery, by every promise and persuasion, to worm out of him the
+secrets of which he alone was believed to be the depositary. The
+Austrian Government had spent £60,000 on the Milan Commission, and,
+practically, they were no wiser than when it began. Would Confalonieri
+enlighten them? Whatever scruples he might have felt during the trial
+could be now laid aside; there was no question of new arrests. It was
+from pure, abstract love of knowledge that the Government, or, rather,
+the Emperor, desired to get at the truth. If he preferred to open his
+mind to the Emperor in person, His Majesty would grant him a secret
+audience. Above all, what was the real truth about the Prince of
+Carignano?
+
+All the rest was a blind; it was the wish to have some damnatory
+evidence against Charles Albert, such as would for ever exclude him
+from the throne, that had induced the Emperor and his astute minister
+to make this final attempt.
+
+'Confalonieri need never go to Spielberg,' said the Prince; 'let him
+think of his family, of his adored wife, of his own talents, of his
+future career, which was on the brink of being blotted out as
+completely as if he were dead!' Confalonieri was worthy of his race,
+of his class, of himself; he stood firm, and next morning, almost with
+a sense of relief, he started for the living grave.
+
+'The struggle was decided,' Prince Metternich had said in the course
+of the interview, 'and decided not only for our own, but for many
+generations. Those who still hoped to the contrary were madmen.'
+
+Some years of outward quiet doubtless confirmed him in the first
+opinion, while the second was not likely to be shaken by the next
+attempt that was made to take up arms for freedom. On the 28th of June
+1828, several villages in the province of Salerno rose in obedience to
+the harangues of two patriotic ecclesiastics, Canon de Luca and Carlo
+da Celle, superior of a capuchin convent. This was meant to develop
+into a general insurrection, but it was nowhere followed up, and the
+sword of vengeance fell speedily on the wretched villagers. Surrounded
+by the royal troops, they were forced into submission, many were shot
+on the spot, others were dragged in chains to Salerno, not even a drop
+of water being allowed them during the journey under the scorching
+sun. The village of Bosco was rased to the ground. The priest, the
+monk, and twenty-two insurgents were shot after the repression. The
+heads of the victims were cut off and placed in iron cages where their
+wives or mothers were likely to see them. A woman went to Naples to
+beg for the pardon of her two grandsons, by name Diego and Emilio. The
+King, with barbarous clemency, told her to choose one. In vain she
+entreated that if both could not be saved the choice should be left to
+chance, or decided by someone else. But no; unless she chose they
+would both be shot. At last she chose Diego. Afterwards she went mad,
+and was constantly heard wailing: 'I have killed my grandson Emilio.'
+This anecdote gives a fair notion of Francis I., whose short reign
+was, however, less signalised by acts of cruelty, though there were
+enough of these, than by a venality never surpassed. The
+grooms-in-waiting and ladies-of-the-bedchamber sold the public offices
+in the daylight; and the King, who was aware of it, thought it a
+subject for vulgar jokes with his intimates. Francis died in 1830 of
+bad humour at the Paris revolution, and was succeeded by Ferdinand
+II., to be known hereafter as Bomba--then a clownish youth, one of
+whose first kingly cares was to create St Ignatius Loyola a
+Field-Marshal.
+
+The revolution which upset the throne of Charles X., and ushered in
+the eighteen years' reign of the Citizen King, seemed likely to have
+momentous consequences for Italy. The principle of non-intervention
+proclaimed by French politicians would, if logically enforced, sound
+the death-knell of the Austrian power in Italy. Dupin, the Minister of
+War, enlarged on the theme in a speech which appeared to remove all
+doubt as to the real intentions of the Government. 'One phrase,' he
+remarked, 'has made a general impression; it expresses the true
+position of a loyal and generous Government. Not only has the
+President of the Council laid down the principle that France should
+abstain from intervention; he has declared that she would not tolerate
+intervention on the part of others. France might have shut herself up
+in a cold egotism, and simply said that she would not intervene; this
+would have been contemptible, but the proclamation of not suffering
+the interventions of others is the noblest attitude a strong and
+magnanimous people can assume; it amounts to saying: Not only will I
+not attack or disturb other nations, but I, France, whose voice is
+respected by Europe and by the whole world, will never permit others
+to do so. This is the language held by the ministry and by the
+ambassadors of Louis Philippe; and it is this which the army, the
+National Guard, France entire, is ready to maintain.'
+
+Truly language was invented to travesty the truth, and when French
+politicians say they are going to the right it is an almost sure sign
+that they are going to the left; nevertheless, is it possible to blame
+the Italians who read in these assurances a positive promise affecting
+their own case?
+
+The same assurances were repeated again and again through the winter
+of 1830-31; they were repeated authoritatively as late as March in the
+latter year. Well may a French writer inquire: 'Was it insanity or
+treachery?'
+
+The good tidings were published by the Italian exiles, who, living
+close to the great centres of European politics, were the first to
+intoxicate themselves with the great delusion. From London, Gabriele
+Rossetti sent the exultant summons:
+
+  Cingi l'elmo, la mitra deponi,
+    O vetusta Signora del mondo:
+    Sorgi, sorgi dal sonno profondo,
+    Io son l'alba del nuovo tuo dì.
+
+  Saran rotte le vostre catene,
+    O Fratelli che in ceppi languite;
+    O Fratelli che il giogo soffrite
+    Calcherete quel giogo col piè.
+
+The child beside whose cradle the ode was written, was to grow to
+manhood while Italy still remained 'the weeping, desolate mother.' The
+cry of the poet was not, however, without an echo. In 1831, Romagna,
+Parma and Modena rose in rebellion.
+
+Things had been going, without much variation, from bad to worse in
+the Roman states, ever since 1815. Pius VII. (Chiaramonti), who died
+in 1823, was succeeded by Leo XII. (Genga), an old man who was in such
+enfeebled health that his death was expected at the time of his
+election, but, like a more famous pontiff, he made a sudden recovery,
+which was attributed to the act of a prelate, who, in prayer, offered
+his own life for the Pope's, and who died a few days after resolving
+on the sacrifice. During this Pope's reign, the smallpox was rife in
+Rome, in consequence of the suppression of public vaccination. The
+next conclave, held in 1829, resulted in the election of Pius VIII.
+(Castiglioni da Cingoli), who died on the 30th of November 1830, and
+was followed by Gregory XVI. (Cappellari). In each conclave, Austria
+had secured the choice of a 'Zealot,' as the party afterwards called
+Ultramontane was then designated. The last traces of reforms
+introduced by the French disappeared; criminal justice was again
+administered in secret; the police were arbitrary and irresponsible.
+All over the Roman states, but especially in Romagna, the secret
+society of the Sanfedesti flourished exceedingly; whether, as is
+probable, an offshoot of the Calderai or of indigenous growth, its
+aims were the same. The affiliated swore to spill the last drop of the
+blood of the Liberals, without regard to sex or rank, and to spare
+neither children nor old men. Many Romagnols had left their country
+after the abortive agitation of 1821, and amongst these were the
+Gambas. Count Pietro died in Greece, where he had gone on the service
+of freedom. Had he lived, this young man would have been sure to win a
+fair name in the annals of Italian patriotism; he should not, as it
+is, be quite forgotten, as it was chiefly due to him that Byron's life
+took the redeeming direction which led to Missolonghi.
+
+In February 1831, Romagna and the Marches of Ancona threw off the
+Papal Government with an ease which must have surprised the most
+sanguine. The white, red and green tricolor was hoisted at Bologna,
+where, as far as is known, this combination of colours first became a
+political badge. Thirty-six years before Luigi Zamboni and Gian
+Battista De Rolandis of Bologna had distributed rosettes of white, red
+and green ribbon; Zamboni was arrested, and strangled himself, afraid
+of betraying his friends; De Rolandis was hung on the 23rd of April
+1796. Such was the origin of the flag, but, until 1831, the Carbonaro
+red, blue and black was the common standard of the revolution. From
+that year forth, the destinies of Italy were accomplished under the
+colours of better augury, so fit to recall her fiery volcanoes, her
+wooded Apennines, her snow-crowned Alps; colours which in one sense
+she receives from Dante, who clothes in them the vision of the
+glorified Beatrice.
+
+The rising at Parma requires but little comment. The Empress
+Marie-Louise neither hated her subjects, nor was hated by them, but
+her engagements with Austria prevented her from granting the demanded
+concessions, and she abandoned her state, to return to it, indeed,
+under Austrian protection, but without the odious corollary of
+vindictive measures which was generally meant by a restoration.
+
+Much more important is the history of the Modenese revolution.
+Apologists have been found for the Bourbons of Naples, but, if anyone
+ever said a good word for Francesco d'Este, it has escaped the notice
+of the present writer. Under a despotism without laws (for the edicts
+of the Prince daily overrode the Este statute book which was supposed
+to be in force), Modena was far more in the power of the priests, or
+rather of the Jesuits, than any portion of the states of the Church.
+Squint-eyed, crooked in mind and bloodthirsty, Francis was as ideal a
+bogey-tyrant as can be discovered outside fiction. In 1822, he hung
+the priest Giuseppe Andreoli on the charge of Carbonarism; and his
+theory of justice is amusingly illustrated by the story of his sending
+in a bill to Sir Anthony Panizzi--who had escaped to England--for the
+expenses of hanging him in effigy.
+
+Francis felt deeply annoyed by the narrow limits of his dominions, and
+his annoyance did not decrease with the decreasing chances of his
+ousting the Prince of Carignano from the Sardinian throne. He was
+intensely ambitious, and one of his subjects, a man, in other
+respects, of high intelligence, thought that his ambition could be
+turned to account for Italy. It was the mistake over again that
+Machiavelli had made with Cesare Borgia.
+
+Ciro Menotti, who conceived the plan of uniting Italy under the Duke
+of Modena, was a Modenese landed proprietor who had exerted himself to
+promote the industry of straw-plaiting, and the other branches of
+commerce likely to be of advantage to an agricultural population. He
+was known as a sound philanthropist, an excellent husband and father,
+a model member of society. Francis professed to take an interest in
+industrial matters; Menotti, therefore, easily gained access to his
+person. In all the negotiations that followed, the Modenese patriot
+was supported and encouraged by a certain Dr Misley, who was of
+English extraction, with whom the Duke seems to have been on familiar
+terms. It appears not doubtful that Menotti was led to believe that
+his political views were regarded with favour, and that he also
+received the royal promise that, whatever happened, his life would be
+safe. This promise was given because he had the opportunity of saving
+the Duke from some great peril--probably from assassination, though
+the particulars were never divulged.
+
+Misley went to Paris to concert with the Italian committee which had
+its seat there; the movement in Modena was fixed for the first days of
+February. But spies got information of the preparations, and on the
+evening of the 3rd, before anything had been done, Menotti's house was
+surrounded by troops, and after defending it, with the help of his
+friends, for two hours, he was wounded and captured. Next day the Duke
+despatched the following note to the Governor of Reggio-Emilia: 'A
+terrible conspiracy against me has broken out. The conspirators are in
+my hands. Send me the hangman.--Francis.'
+
+Not all, however, of the conspirators were in his hands; the movement
+matured, in spite of the seizure of Menotti, and Francis, 'the first
+captain in the world,' as he made his troops call him, was so overcome
+with fright that on the 5th of February he left Modena with his
+family, under a strong military escort, dragging after him Giro
+Menotti, who, when Mantua was reached, was consigned to an Austrian
+fortress.
+
+Meanwhile, the revolution triumphed. Modena chose one of her citizens
+as dictator, Biagio Nardi, who issued a proclamation in which the
+words 'Italy is one; the Italian nation is one sole nation,' testified
+that the great lesson which Menotti had sought to teach had not fallen
+on unfruitful ground. Wild as were the methods by which, for a moment,
+he sought to gain his end, his insistance on unity nevertheless gives
+Menotti the right to be considered the true precursor of Mazzini in
+the Italian Revolution.
+
+Now that the testing-time was come, France threw to the winds the
+principle announced in her name with such solemn emphasis. 'Precious
+French blood should never be shed except on behalf of French
+interests,' said Casimir Périer, the new President of the Council. A
+month after the flight of the Duke of Modena, the inevitable Austrians
+marched into his state to win it back for him. The hastily-organised
+little army of the new government was commanded by General Zucchi, an
+old general of Napoleon, who, when Lombardy passed to Austria, had
+entered the Austrian service. He now offered his sword to the Dictator
+of Modena, who accepted it, but there was little to be done save to
+retire with honour before the 6000 Austrians. Zucchi capitulated at
+Ancona to Cardinal Benvenuti, the Papal delegate. Those of the
+volunteers who desired it were furnished with regular passports, and
+authorised to take ship for any foreign port. The most compromised
+availed themselves of this arrangement, but the vessel which was to
+bear Zucchi and 103 others to Marseilles, was captured by the Austrian
+Admiral Bandiera, by whom its passengers were kidnapped and thrown
+into Venetian prisons, where they were kept till the end of May 1832.
+This act of piracy was chiefly performed with a view to getting
+possession of General Zucchi, who was tried as a deserter, and
+condemned to twenty years' imprisonment. Among the prisoners was the
+young wife of Captain Silvestro Castiglioni of Modena. 'Go, do your
+duty as a citizen,' she had said, when her husband left her to join
+the insurrection. 'Do not betray it for me, as perhaps it would make
+me love you less.' She shared his imprisonment, but just at the moment
+of the release, she died from the hardships endured.
+
+By the end of the month of March, the Austrians had restored Romagna
+to the Pope, and Modena to Francis IV. In Romagna the amnesty
+published by Cardinal Benvenuti was revoked, but there were no
+executions; this was not the case in Modena. The Duke brought back
+Ciro Menotti attached to his triumphal car, and when he felt that all
+danger was past, and that the presence of the Austrians was a
+guarantee against a popular expression of anger, he had him hung.
+
+'When my children are grown up, let them know how well I loved my
+country,' Menotti wrote to his wife on the morning of his execution.
+The letter was intercepted, and only delivered to his family in 1848.
+The revolutionists found it in the archives of Modena. On the
+scaffold he recalled how he was once the means of saving the Duke's
+life, and added that he pardoned his murderer, and prayed that his
+blood might not fall upon his head.
+
+During the insurrection in Romagna, an event occurred which was not
+without importance to Europe, though it passed almost unnoticed at the
+time. The eldest son of Queen Hortense died in her arms at Forlì, of a
+neglected attack of measles; some said of poison, but the report was
+unfounded. He and his brother Louis, who had been closely mixed up
+with Italian conspiracies for more than a year, went to Romagna to
+offer their services as volunteers in the national army. By the death
+of the elder of the two, Louis Napoleon became heir to what seemed
+then the shadowy sovereignty of the Buonapartes.
+
+No sooner had the Austrians retired from the Legations in July 1831,
+than the revolution broke out again. Many things had been promised,
+nothing performed; disaffection was universal, anarchy became chronic,
+and was increased by the indiscipline of the Papal troops that were
+sent to put it down. The Austrians returned and the French occupied
+Ancona, much to the Pope's displeasure, and not one whit to the
+advantage of the Liberals. This dual foreign occupation of the Papal
+states lasted till the winter of 1838.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+'YOUNG ITALY' 1831-1844
+
+Accession of Charles Albert--Mazzini's Unitarian Propaganda--The
+Brothers Bandiera.
+
+
+On 27 April 1831, Charles Albert came to the throne he had so nearly
+lost. His reconciliation with his uncle, Charles Felix, had been
+effected after long and melancholy preliminaries. To wash off the
+Liberal sins of his youth, or possibly with a vague hope of finding an
+escape from his false position in a soldier's death, he joined the Duc
+d'Angoulême's expedition against the Spanish Constitutionalists. His
+extraordinary daring in the assault of the Trocadero caused him to be
+the hero of the hour when he returned with the army to Paris; but the
+King of Sardinia still refused to receive him with favour--a
+sufficiently icy favour when it was granted--until he signed an
+engagement, which remained secret, to preserve intact during his reign
+the laws and principles of government which he found in force at his
+accession. If there had been an Order of the Millstone, Charles Felix
+would doubtless have conferred it upon his dutiful nephew; failing
+that, he presented to him for signature this wonderful document, the
+invention of which he owed to Prince Metternich. At the Congress of
+Verona in 1822, Charles Albert's claims to the succession were
+recognised, thanks chiefly to the Duke of Wellington, who represented
+England in place of Lord Londonderry (Castlereagh), that statesman
+having committed suicide just as he was starting for Verona. Prince
+Metternich then proposed that the Prince of Carignano should be called
+upon to enter into an agreement identical with the compact he was
+brought to sign a couple of years later. In communicating the proposal
+to Canning, the Duke of Wellington wrote that he had demonstrated to
+Prince Metternich 'the fatality of such an arrangement,' but that he
+did not think that he had made the slightest impression on him. So the
+event proved; baffled for the moment, the Prince managed to put his
+plan in execution through a surer channel.
+
+With the accession of Charles Albert appears upon the political scene
+a great actor in the Liberation of Italy, Giuseppe Mazzini. Young and
+unknown, except for a vague reputation for restlessness and for talent
+which caused the government of Charles Felix to imprison him for six
+or seven months at Savona, Mazzini proposed to the new King the terms
+on which he might keep his throne, as calmly as Metternich had
+proposed to him the terms on which he might ascend it. The contrast is
+striking; on the one side the statesman, who still commanded the armed
+force of three-fourths of Europe, doing battle for the holy alliance
+of autocrats, for the international law of repression, for all the
+traditions of the old diplomacy; on the other, the young student with
+little money and few friends, already an exile, having no allies but
+his brain and his pen, who set himself, certain of success, to
+dissolve that mighty array of power and pomp. All his life Charles
+Albert was a Faust for the possession of whose soul two irreconcilable
+forces contended; the struggle was never more dramatically represented
+than at this moment in the person of these two champions.
+
+Mazzini's letter to Charles Albert, which was read by the King, and
+widely, though secretly, circulated in Piedmont, began by telling him
+that his fellow-countrymen were ready to believe his line of conduct
+in 1821 to have been forced on him by circumstances, and that there
+was not a heart in Italy that did not quicken at his accession, nor an
+eye in Europe that was not turned to watch his first steps in the
+career that now unfolded before him. Then he went on to show, with the
+logical strength in developing an argument which, joined to a novel
+and eloquent style, caused his writings to attract notice from the
+first, that the King could take no middle course. He would be one of
+the first of men, or the last of Italian tyrants; let him choose. Had
+he never looked upon Italy, radiant with the smile of nature, crowned
+with twenty centuries of sublime memories, the mother of genius,
+possessing infinite means, to which only union was lacking, girt round
+with such defences that a strong will and a few courageous breasts
+would suffice to defend her? Had it never struck him that she was
+created for a glorious destiny? Did he not contemplate her people,
+splendid still, in spite of the shadow of servitude, the vigour of
+whose intellect, the energy of whose passions, even when turned to
+evil, showed that the making of a nation was there? Did not the
+thought come to him: 'Draw a world out of these dispersed elements
+like a god from chaos; unite into one whole the scattered members, and
+pronounce the words, "It is mine, and it is happy"?'
+
+Mazzini in 1831 was twenty-six years of age. His father was a Genoese
+physician, his mother a native of Chiavari. She was a superior woman,
+and devoted more than a mother's care to the excitable and delicate
+child, who seemed to her (mothers have sometimes the gift of prophecy)
+to be meant for an uncommon lot. One of the few personal reminiscences
+that Mazzini left recorded, relates to the time and manner in which
+the idea first came to him of the possibility of Italians doing
+something for their country. He was walking with his mother in the
+Strada Nuova at Genoa one Sunday in April 1821, when a tall,
+black-bearded man with a fiery glance held towards them a white
+handkerchief, saying: 'For the refugees of Italy.' Mazzini's mother,
+gave him some money, and he passed on. In the streets were many
+unfamiliar faces; the fugitives from Turin and Alessandria were
+gathered at Genoa before they departed by sea into exile. The
+impression which that scene made on the mind of the boy of sixteen was
+never effaced.
+
+Owing to his delicate health, Mazzini's early education was carried on
+at home, where the social atmosphere was that of one of those little
+centres in a provincial capital which are composed of a few people,
+mostly kindred, of similar tastes, who lead useful and refined lives,
+content with moderate ease. The real exclusiveness of such centres
+exceeds any that exists in the most aristocratic sphere in the world.
+The Mazzinis were, moreover, Genoese to the core; and this was another
+reason for exclusiveness, and for holding aloof from the governing
+class. Mazzini was born a few days after Napoleon entered Genoa as its
+lord. He had not, therefore, breathed the air of the ancient Republic;
+but there was the unadulterated republicanism of a thousand years in
+his veins.
+
+When he grew to manhood his appearance was striking. The black,
+flowing hair, the pale, olive complexion, the finely-cut features and
+lofty brow, the deep-set eyes, which could smile as only Italian eyes
+can smile, but which could also flash astral infinitudes of scorn, the
+fragile figure, even the long, delicate, tapering fingers, marked him
+for a man apart--though whether a poet or an apostle, a seer or a
+saint, it was not easy to decide. Yet this could be said at once: if
+this man concentrated all his being on a single point, he would wield
+the power, call it what we will, which in every age has worked
+miracles and moved mountains.
+
+Mazzini became a Carbonaro, though the want of clear, guiding
+principles in Carbonarism made him misdoubt its efficacy, and its
+hierarchical mysteries and initiatory ordeals repelled him by their
+childishness. Then followed his arrest, and his detention in the
+fortress of Savona, which was the turning-point in his mental life.
+Before that date he learnt, after it he taught. From his high-perched
+cell he saw the sea and the sky--with the Alps, the sublimest things
+in Nature. The voices of the fishermen reached his ears, though he
+could not see them. A tame goldfinch was his companion. Here, in a
+solitude and peace which he remembered with regret in the stormy and
+sorrowful years that were to come, he conceived his message and the
+mission, in which he believed to the last day of his life.
+
+He resolved to found a new association on broader and simpler lines than
+the secret societies of the past, which should aim not only at the
+material freeing of Italy from her present bondage, but at her moral and
+religious regeneration. To aim at material progress of any kind, without
+at the same time aiming at a higher moral progress, seemed to Mazzini
+absurd; to attempt to pull down without attempting to build up seemed to
+him criminal. Thus he accused the Socialists of substituting the
+progress of humanity's kitchen for the progress of humanity. He believed
+that Italy, united and redeemed, was destined to shed through the world
+the light of a new moral unity, which should end the reign of
+Scepticism, triumphant among discordant creeds. Mazzini's religious
+belief was the motor of his whole being. The Catholicism in which he was
+outwardly brought up never seems to have touched his inner nature; he
+went through no spiritual wrench in leaving a faith that was never a
+reality to him. The same is true of innumerable young Italians, who,
+when they begin to read and study, drift out of their childhood's
+religion without a struggle or a regret. But thought and study brought
+Mazzini what it rarely brings to these young men--the necessity to find
+something in which he could believe. He had not long to seek for a basis
+to his creed, because he was one of the men from the prophets of old to
+Spinoza, from Spinoza to Gordon, to whom the existence of God is a
+matter of experience rather than an object of faith. Starting from this
+point, he formed his religion out of what he regarded as its inevitable
+deductions. If God existed, his creatures must be intended for
+perfection; if this were the Divine scheme, man's one business was to
+carry it out. He considered the idea of duty separated from the idea of
+God to be illogical. Either the development of human things depended on
+a providential law, or it was left to chance and passing circumstance,
+and to the dexterity of the man who turned these to most account. God
+was the sole source of duty; duty the sole law of life. Mazzini did not
+denounce Catholicism or any other religion as false. He saw in it a
+stepping-stone to purer comprehension, which would be reached when man's
+intellect was sufficiently developed for him to be able to do without
+symbols.
+
+[Illustration: GIUSEPPE MAZZINI]
+
+The conscience of humanity is the last tribunal. Ideas, as well as
+institutions, change and expand, but certain fundamental principles
+are fixed. The family would always exist; property would always exist.
+The first, 'the heart's fatherland,' was the source of the only true
+happiness, the only joys untainted by grief, which were given to man.
+Those who wished to abolish the second were like the savage who cut
+down the tree in order to gather the fruit. In the future, free
+association would be the great agent of moral and material progress.
+The authority which once rested in popes and emperors now devolved on
+the people. Instead of 'God and the King,' Mazzini proposed the new
+formula 'God and the People.' By the people he understood no caste or
+class, whether high or low, but the universality of men composing the
+nation. The nation is the sole sovereign; its will, expressed by
+delegates, must be law to all its citizens.
+
+By degrees certain words acquired more and more a mystical
+significance in Mazzini's mind; the very name of Rome, for instance,
+had for him a sort of talismanic fascination, not unlike that
+possessed by Jerusalem for the mediæval Christian. When he spoke of
+the people or the republic he frequently used those terms in an ideal
+and visionary sense (as theologians use the Church) rather than in one
+strictly corresponding with the case of any existing nation, or any
+hitherto tried form of government. This does not alter the fact that
+his theories, which have been briefly summarised, are not hard to
+comprehend, as has been said by those who did not know in what they
+consisted, nor, taken one by one, are they novel. What was new in the
+nineteenth century was the appearance of a revolutionary leader, who
+was before all things a religious and ethical teacher. And though
+Mazzini never founded the Church of Precursors, of which he dreamt,
+his influence was as surely due to his belief in his religious
+mission, as was the influence of Savonarola. The Italians are not a
+mystical people, but they have always followed mystical leaders. The
+less men are prone to ideal enthusiasm the more attracted are they by
+it; Don Quixote, as Heine remarked, always draws Sancho Panza after
+him.
+
+Mazzini had a natural capacity for organisation, and the Association
+of Young Italy which he founded at Marseilles, the first nucleus being
+a group of young, penniless refugees, soon obtained an astonishing
+development. Up to the time of his 'Letter to Charles Albert,' his
+exile had been so far voluntary that he might have remained in
+Piedmont had he agreed to live in one of the smaller towns under the
+watchful care of the police, but he declined the terms, and the first
+effect of the 'Letter' was a stringent order to arrest him if he
+recrossed the frontier. He was not surprised at that result. Mazzini's
+attitude towards the Sardinian monarchy was perfectly well defined.
+Republican himself, even to fanaticism, he placed the question of
+unity, which for him meant national existence, above the question of
+the republic. He did not believe that the House of Savoy would unite
+Italy, but if unity could only be had under what he looked upon as the
+inauspicious form of monarchy, he would not reject it. He was like the
+real mother in the judgment of Solomon, who, because she loved her
+child, was ready to give it up sooner than see it cut in two.
+
+Apart from personal hereditary instincts and predilections, Mazzini
+thought that he saw in the glorious memories of the Italian republics
+a clear indication that the commonwealth was the form of government
+which ought and would be adopted by the Italy of the future. But,
+unlike most politicians, he laid down the principle that, after all,
+when free, the nation must decide for itself. 'To what purpose,' he
+asks, 'do we constantly speak of the sovereignty of the people, and of
+our reverence for the national will, if we are to disregard it as soon
+as it pronounces in contradiction to our wishes?'
+
+He did not succeed in making the majority of his countrymen
+republicans, but he contributed more than any other man towards
+inspiring the whole country with the desire for unity. Herein lies his
+great work. Without Mazzini, when would the Italians have got beyond
+the fallacies of federal republics, leagues of princes, provincial
+autonomy, insular home-rule, and all the other dreams of independence
+reft of its only safeguard which possessed the minds of patriots of
+every party in Italy and of nearly every well-wisher to Italian
+freedom abroad?
+
+In 1831, most educated Italians did not even wish for unity, and this
+is still truer of the republicans than of the monarchists. Some, like
+Manzoni, did wish for it, but, like him, said nothing about it, for
+fear of being thought madmen. A flash of the true light illuminated
+the mind of Giro Menotti, but that was extinguished on the scaffold.
+Then it was that Mazzini came forward with the news that Italy could
+_only_ be made free and independent by being united; unity was the
+ruling tendency of the century, and, as far as Italy went, no Utopia,
+but a certain conclusion. This was repeated over and over again,
+wherever there were Italians, over the inhabited globe. By means of
+sailors, 'Young Italy' spread like lightning. Giuseppe Garibaldi was
+made a member by a sailor on the shores of the Black Sea.
+
+With the masses, unity proved the wonder-working word which
+Confalonieri had said was the one thing needful--a word yet fitter to
+work wonders than 'War to the Stranger.' Among the cultivated classes,
+it was much slower in gaining ground, and particularly among statesmen
+and diplomatists. But in the end it was to convert them all.
+
+'"Young Italy,"' writes Mazzini, 'closed the period of political
+sects, and initiated that of educational associations.' 'Great
+revolutions,' he says again, 'are the work of principles rather than
+of bayonets.' It was by the diffusion of ideas that 'Young Italy'
+became a commanding factor in the events of the next thirty years.
+The insurrectional attempts planned under its guidance did not
+succeed, nor was it likely that they should succeed. Devised by
+exiles, at a distance, they lacked the first elements of success. The
+earliest of these attempts aimed at an invasion of Savoy; it was hoped
+that the Sardinian army and people would join the little band of
+exiles in a movement for the liberation of Lombardy. The revolution of
+1821 had evidently suggested this plan to Mazzini, but it was
+foredoomed to misfortune. The Piedmontese authorities got wind of it,
+and a hunt followed for the members of 'Young Italy'; most severe
+measures were taken; there were eleven executions, and numberless
+sentences to long terms of imprisonment. Jacobo Ruffini, the younger
+brother of the author of _Dr Antonio_, and Mazzini's most beloved
+friend, committed suicide in prison, fearing to reveal the names of
+his associates. The apologists for Charles Albert say that if he had
+not shown the will and ability to deal severely with the conspirators,
+Austria would have insisted on a military occupation. Whatever were
+his motives, this is the saddest page of his unhappy reign.
+
+Checked in 1833, the descent on Savoy was actually attempted in 1834,
+with Mazzini's consent, though not by his wish. An officer who had won
+some celebrity in the Polish revolution, General Ramorino, a Savoyard
+by origin, was given the command. Ramorino was a gambler, who could
+not be trusted with money, but Mazzini's suspicion that on this
+occasion he played the part of traitor is not proved. However that may
+be, the expedition ended almost as soon as it began. Ramorino crossed
+the frontier of Savoy at the head of the column, but when he heard
+that a Polish reinforcement had been stopped on the Lake of Geneva, he
+retreated into Switzerland, and advised the band to follow him.
+
+After these events, Mazzini could no longer carry on his propaganda in
+France. He took refuge in England, where a great part of his life was
+to be passed, and of which he spoke, to the last, as his second
+country. The first period of his residence in England was darkened by
+the deep distress and discouragement into which the recent events had
+plunged him; but his faith in the future prevailed, and he went on
+with his work. His endeavours to help his fellow-exiles reduced him to
+the last stage of poverty; the day came when he was obliged to pawn a
+coat and an old pair of boots. These money difficulties did not
+afflict him, and by degrees his writings in English periodicals
+brought some addition to the small quarterly allowance which he
+received from his mother. It seems strange, though it is easily
+explained, that it was in London that he first got to know the Italian
+working classes. He was surprised and gladdened by the abundance of
+good elements which he found in them. No country, indeed, has more
+reason to hope in her working men than the land whose sons have
+tunnelled the Alps, cut the most arduous railway lines in America and
+India, brought up English ships from the deep, laid the caissons (a
+task of extreme danger) which support the great structure of the
+Bridge of the Firth of Forth, and left their bones to whiten at
+Panama. 'It is the universal testimony,' writes a high American
+authority, 'that no more faithful men have come among us.' What was
+the cause of the slaughter of the Aigues Mortes? That the Italians
+worked too well.
+
+Mazzini wrote for his humble friends the treatise on _The Duties of
+Man_, in which he told them that he loved them too well to flatter
+them. Another work that occupied him and consoled him was the rescue
+and moral improvement of the children employed by organ-grinders, and
+he was the first to call attention to the white slavery to which many
+of them were subjected. He opened a school in Hatton Garden, in which
+he taught, and which he mainly supported for the seven years from 1841
+to 1848.
+
+The enterprise of the Brothers Bandiera belongs to the history of
+'Young Italy,' though Mazzini himself had tried to prevent it,
+believing that it could only end in the sacrifice of all concerned.
+Nor, at the last, did the actors in it expect anything else. They had
+hoped for better things; for a general movement in the South of Italy,
+or at least for an undertaking on a larger and less irrational basis.
+But promises failed, money was not forthcoming, and it was a choice
+between doing nothing or a piece of heroic folly. Contrary to
+Mazzini's entreaties, they chose the second alternative.
+
+Attilio and Emilio Bandiera were sons of the Austrian admiral who, in
+1831, arrested Italian fugitives at sea. Placed by their father in the
+Austrian navy, they renounced every prospect of a brilliant career to
+enter the service of their down-trodden country. When they deserted,
+strong efforts were made by the Archduke Rainieri, through their
+mother, to win them back, but neither the offers of pardon nor the
+poor woman's tears and reproaches turned them from their purpose.
+Another deserter was with them, Lieutenant Domenico Moro, a youth of
+great charm of person and disposition, who had been employed with a
+mixed force of Englishmen and Austrians in the Lebanon, where he
+formed a warm friendship with Lieutenant, now Admiral, Sir George
+Wellesley, who still preserves an affectionate remembrance of him.
+Nicola Ricciotti, a Roman subject who had devoted all his life to
+Italy, and Anacarsi Nardi, son of the dictator of Modena, were also
+of the band, which counted about twenty.
+
+The Bandieras and their companions sailed from Corfu for the coast of
+Calabria on the 11th of June 1844. 'If we fall,' they wrote to
+Mazzini, 'tell our countrymen to imitate our example, for life was
+given to us to be nobly and usefully employed, and the cause for which
+we shall have fought and died is the purest and holiest that ever
+warmed the heart of man.' It was their last letter. After they landed
+in Calabria one of their number disappeared; there is every reason to
+suppose that he went to betray them. They wandered for a few days in
+the mountains, looking for the insurgent band which they had been
+falsely told was waiting for them, and then fell into an ambush
+prepared by the Neapolitan troops. Some died fighting; nine were shot
+at Cosenza, including the Bandieras, Mori, Ricciotti and Nardi.
+Boccheciampi the Corsican, whom they suspected of treason, was brought
+up to be confronted with them during the trial; when asked if he knew
+who he was, Nardi replied: 'I know no word in my divine Italian
+language that can fitly describe that man.' Boccheciampi was condemned
+to a nominal imprisonment; when he came out of prison he wrote to a
+Greek girl of Corfu, to whom he was engaged, to join him at Naples,
+that they might be married. The girl had been deeply in love with him,
+and had already given him part of her dowry, but she answered: 'A
+traitor cannot wed a Greek maiden; I bear with me the blessing of my
+parents; upon you rests the curse of God.'
+
+The martyrdom of the Bandieras made a great impression, especially in
+England, where the circumstance came to light that their
+correspondence with Mazzini had been tampered with in the English
+Post Office, and that information as to their plans had reached the
+Austrian and Neapolitan Governments through the British Foreign
+Office. The affair was brought before the House of Commons by Thomas
+Duncombe. The Home Secretary repeated a calumny which had appeared
+many years before in a French newspaper, to the effect that the murder
+of an Italian in Rodez by two of his fellow-countrymen was the result
+of an order from the Association of Young Italy. Sir James Graham had
+to apologise afterwards for 'the injury inflicted on Mr Mazzini' by
+this statement, which he was obliged to admit was supported by no
+evidence, and was contrary to the opinion of the Judge who tried the
+case.
+
+The _Times_ having observed in a leading article that the gravity of
+the fact in question, the violation of private correspondence in the
+Post Office, was not affected by the merits or demerits of Mr Mazzini,
+of whom it professed to 'know nothing,' Thomas Carlyle wrote next day
+a letter containing words which may be quoted as some of the best and
+truest ever written about the great Italian: 'I have had the honour to
+know Mr Mazzini for a series of years, and, whatever I may think of
+his practical insight and skill in worldly affairs, I can with great
+freedom testify that he, if I have ever seen one such, is a man of
+genius and virtue, one of those rare men, numerable unfortunately but
+as units in this world, who are worthy to be called martyr souls; who
+in silence, piously in their daily life, understand and practise what
+is meant by that.' [2]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE POPE LIBERATOR
+
+1844-1847
+
+Events leading to the Election of Pius IX.--The Petty Princes--Charles
+Albert, Leopold and Ferdinand.
+
+
+The day is drawing near when the century which witnessed the
+liberation of Italy will have passed away. Already a generation has
+grown up which can but faintly realise the passionate hopes and fears
+with which the steps that led through defeat to the ultimate victory
+were watched, not only by Italians, but by thousands who had never set
+foot in Italy. Never did a series of political events evoke a sympathy
+so wide and so disinterested, and it may be foretold with confidence
+that it never will again. Italy rising from the grave was the living
+romance of myriads of young hearts that were lifted from the common
+level of trivial interests and selfish ends, from the routine of work
+or pleasure, both deadening without some diviner spark, by a sustained
+enthusiasm that can hardly be imagined now. There were, indeed, some
+who asked what was all this to them? What were the 'extraneous
+Austrian Emperor,' or the 'old chimera of a Pope' (Carlyle's
+designations) to the British taxpayer? Some there were in England who
+were deeply attached still to the 'Great Hinge on which Europe
+depended,' and even to the most clement Spanish Bourbons of Naples,
+about whom strangely beautiful things are to be read in old numbers of
+the _Quarterly Review_. But on the whole, English men and women--in
+mind half Italian, whether they will it or not, from the day they
+begin to read their own literature from Chaucer to Shakespeare, from
+Shakespeare to Shelley, from Shelley to Rossetti and Swinburne--were
+united at that time in warmth of feeling towards struggling Italy as
+they have been united in no political sentiment relating to another
+nation, and in few concerning their own country.
+
+It would be vain to expect that the record of Italian vicissitudes
+during the years when the fate of Italy hung in the balance can awake
+or renew the spellbound interest caused by the events themselves. The
+reader of recent history is like the novel reader who begins at the
+last chapter--he is too familiar with how it all ended to be keenly
+affected by the development of the plot. Yet it is plain that we are
+in a better position to appreciate the process of development than was
+the case when the issue remained uncertain. We can estimate more
+accurately the difficulties which stood in the way, and judge more
+impartially the means that were taken to remove them. One outcome of
+this fuller knowledge is the conviction that patriotism was the
+monopoly of no single Italian party. The leaders, and still more their
+henchmen, were in the habit of saying very hard things about each
+other. It was natural and unavoidable; but there is no excuse now for
+failing to recognise that there were pure and devoted patriots on the
+one side as well as on the other--men whose only desire was the
+salvation of Italy, to effect which no sacrifice seemed too great. Nor
+were their labours unfruitful, for there was work for all of them to
+do; and the very diversity of opinion, though unfortunate under some
+aspects, was not so under all. If no one had raised the question of
+unity before all things, Italy might be still a geographical
+expression. If no one had tried to wring concessions from the old
+governments, their inherent and irremediable vices would never have
+been proved; and though they might have been overturned, they would
+have left behind a lasting possibility of ignorant reaction.
+
+The Great Powers had presented to the Court of Rome in 1831 a
+memorandum, in which various moderate reforms and improvements were
+proposed as urgently necessary to put an end to the intolerable abuses
+which were rife in the states of the Church, and, most of all, in
+Romagna. The abolition of the tribunal of the Holy Office, the
+institution of a Council of State, lay education, and the
+secularisation of the administration were among the measures
+recommended. In 1845 a certain Pietro Renzi collected a body of
+spirited young men at San Marino, and made a dash on Rimini, where he
+disarmed the small garrison. The other towns were not prepared, and
+Renzi and his companions were obliged to retire into Tuscany; but the
+revolution, partial as it had been, raised discussion in consequence
+of the manifesto issued by its promoters, in which a demand was made
+for the identical reforms vainly advocated by European diplomacy
+fourteen years before. If these were granted, the insurgents engaged
+to lay down their arms. The manifesto was written by Luigi Carlo
+Farini, who was destined to play a large part in future affairs. It
+proved to Europe that even the most conservative elements in the
+nation were driven to revolution by the sheer hopelessness of the
+dead-lock which the Italian rulers sought by every means to prolong.
+Massimo d'Azeglio, who was then known only as a painter of talent and
+a writer of historical novels, first made his mark as a politician by
+the pamphlet entitled _Gli ultimi casi di Romagna_, in which his
+arguments derived force from the fact that, when travelling in the
+district, he had done all in his power to induce the Liberals to keep
+within the bounds of legality. But he confessed that, when someone
+says: 'I suffer too much,' it is an unsatisfactory answer to retort:
+'You have not suffered enough.' Massimo d'Azeglio had lived for many
+years an artist's life in Rome and the country round, where his
+aristocratic birth and handsome face made him popular with all
+classes. The transparent integrity of his nature overcame the
+diffidence usually inspired by strangers among a somewhat suspicious
+people, and he got to know more thoroughly than any other North
+Italian the real aspirations of the Pope's subjects. He listened to
+their complaints and their plans, and if they asked his advice, he
+invariably replied: 'Let us speak clearly. What is it that you wish
+and I with you? You wish to have done with priestly rule, and to send
+the Teutons out of Italy? If you invite them to decamp, they will
+probably say, "No, thank you!" Therefore you must use force; and where
+is it to be had? If you have not got it, you must find somebody who
+has. In Italy who has it, or, to speak more precisely, who has a
+little of it? Piedmont, because it, at least, enjoys an independent
+life, and possesses an army and a surplus in the treasury.' His
+friends answered: 'What of Charles Albert, of 1821, of 1832?' Now,
+there was no one who felt less trust in Charles Albert than Massimo
+d'Azeglio; he admitted it with something like remorse in later years.
+But he believed in his ambition, and he thought it madness to throw
+away what he regarded as the sole chance of freeing Italy on account
+of private doubts of the King of Sardinia's sincerity.
+
+Charles Albert had reigned for fourteen years, and still the mystery
+which surrounded his character formed as impenetrable a veil as ever.
+The popular nickname of _Re Tentenna_ (King Waverer) seemed, in a
+sense, accepted by him when he said to the Duke d'Aumale in 1843: 'I
+am between the dagger of the Carbonari and the chocolate of the
+Jesuits.' He chose, as bride for his eldest son, an Austrian princess,
+who, however, had known no country but Italy. His internal policy was
+not simply stationary, it was retrograde. If his consent was obtained
+to some progressive measure, he withdrew it at the last moment, or
+insisted on the introduction of modifications which nullified the
+whole. His want of stability drove one of his ministers to jump out of
+a window. In spite of the candid reference to the Jesuit's cup of
+chocolate, he allowed the Society of Jesus to dictate its will in
+Piedmont. Victor Amadeus, the first King of Sardinia, took public
+education out of the hands of the Jesuits, after receiving the
+following deathbed communication from one of the Order who was his own
+confessor: 'Deeply sensible of your many favours, I can only show my
+gratitude by a final piece of advice, but of such importance that
+perhaps it may suffice to discharge my debt. Never have a Jesuit for
+confessor. Do not ask me the grounds of this advice, I should not be
+at liberty to tell them to you.' The lesson was forgotten now. Charles
+Albert was not content to wear a hair-shirt himself; he would have
+liked to see all his subjects furnished with the same garment. The
+result was, that Piedmont was not a comfortable place for Liberals to
+live in, nor a lively place for anyone. Yet there is hardly anything
+more certain than that all this time the King was constantly dreaming
+of turning the Austrians out of Italy. His government kept its
+attention fixed on two points: the improvement of the army, and the
+accumulation of a reserve fund to be available in case of war. Drill
+and thrift, which made the German Empire out of Prussia, if they did
+not lead straight to equally splendid results south of the Alps, were
+still what rendered it possible for Piedmont to defy Austria when the
+time came. In 1840, Charles Albert wrote to his Minister of War: 'It
+is a fine thing to win twenty battles; as for me, I should be content
+to win ten on behalf of a cause I know of, and to fall in the
+tenth--then, indeed, I would die blessing the Lord.' A year or two
+later, he unearthed and reassumed the ancient motto of the House of
+Savoy: 'J'attends mon astre.' Nevertheless, to the outward world his
+intentions remained enigmatical, and it was therefore with extreme
+surprise that Massimo d'Azeglio (who, on his return from the Roman
+states, asked permission to inform the King of the impressions made on
+him by his travels) received the injunction to tell his Liberal
+friends 'that when the occasion presented itself, his life, the life
+of his sons, his treasure, and his army would all be spent for the
+Italian cause.'
+
+The fifteen years' pontificate of Gregory XVI. ended on the 1st June
+of 1846. In spite of the care taken by those around him to keep the
+aged pontiff in a fool's paradise with regard to the real state of his
+dominions, a copy of _The Late Events in Romagna_ fell into his hands,
+and considerably disturbed his peace of mind. He sent two prelates to
+look into the condition of the congested provinces, and their tour,
+though it resulted in nothing else, called forth new protests and
+supplications from the inhabitants, of which the most noteworthy was
+an address written by Count Aurelio Saffi, who was destined to pass
+many honourable years of exile in England. This address attacked the
+root of the evil in a passage which exposed the unbearable vexations
+of a government based on espionage. The acknowledged power of an
+irresponsible police was backed by the secret force of an army of
+private spies and informers. The sentiment of legality was being
+stamped out of the public conscience, and with it religion and
+morality. 'Bishops have been heard to preach civil war--a crusade
+against the Liberals; priests seem to mix themselves in wretched party
+strife, egging on the mob to vent its worst passions. There is not a
+Catholic country in which the really Christian priest is so rarely
+found as in the States of the Church.'
+
+If Gregory XVI. was not without reasons for disquietude in his last
+hours, he could take comfort in the fact that he had succeeded in
+keeping railways out of all parts of his dominions. Gas and suspension
+bridges were also classed as works of the Evil One, and vigorously
+tabooed. Among the Pope's subjects there was a young prelate who had
+never been able to make out what there was subversive to theology in a
+steam-engine, or why the safety of the Papal government should depend
+on its opposing every form of material improvement, although in
+discussing these subjects he generally ended by saying: 'After all I
+am no politician, and I may be mistaken.' This prelate was Cardinal
+Mastai-Ferretti, Bishop of Imola. Born in 1792 at Sinigaglia, of a
+good though rather needy family, Count Giovanni Maria Mastai was
+piously brought up by his mother, who dedicated him at an early age to
+the Virgin, to whom she believed that she owed his recovery from an
+illness which had been pronounced fatal. Roman Catholic writers
+connect the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception
+with this incident of childhood. After entering the priesthood, young
+Mastai devoted most of his energies to active charity, and remained,
+as he said, 'no politician,' being singularly ignorant of the world
+and of public affairs, though full of amiable wishes that everyone
+should be happy. Some years spent in missionary work in South America
+failed to enlarge his practical knowledge, the limits of which he was
+the first to recognise--a fact that tended to make him all his life
+the instrument, not of his own will, but of the wills of men whom he
+honestly thought cleverer and more experienced than himself. His chief
+friends in his Romagnol diocese, friends on the intimate basis of
+social equality and common provincial interests, were sound patriots,
+though not revolutionists, and the future Pio Nono involuntarily
+adopted their ideas and sympathies. He saw with his eyes certain
+abuses so glaring that they admitted of no two opinions, and these
+helped to convince him of the truth of his friends' arguments in
+favour of a completely new order of things. One such abuse was the
+encouragement given by government to the Society of the Centurioni,
+the latest evolution of the Calderai; the Centurions, recruited among
+roughs and peasants, were set upon the respectable middle classes,
+over which they tyrannised by secret accusations or open violence: it
+was well understood that anyone called a Liberal, or Freemason, or
+Carbonaro could be beaten or killed without inquiries being made.
+
+The Bishop of Imola was frequently in the house of the Count and
+Countess Pasolini, who kept their friend well supplied with the new
+books on Italian affairs; thus he read not only D'Azeglio's _Cast di
+Romagna_, but also Cesare Balbo's _Le Speranze d'Italia,_ which
+propounded a plan for an Italian federation, and Gioberti's _Primato
+morale e civile degli Italiani_, in which this plan was elaborately
+developed. Gioberti indicated the Supreme Pontiff as the natural head
+of the Italian Union, and the King of Sardinia as Italy's natural
+deliverer from foreign domination. The eternal fitness of things, and
+the history of many centuries, proved the Pope to be the proper
+paramount civil authority in Italy, 'which is the capital of Europe,
+because Rome is the religious metropolis of the world.' An ex-member
+of 'Young Italy,' a Piedmontese by birth, a priest by ordination,
+Gioberti's profession of faith was derived from these three sources,
+and it attracted thousands of Italians by its apparent reconciliation
+of the interests of the papacy, and of the Sardinian monarchy, with
+the most advanced views of the newest school. History, to which
+Gioberti appealed, might have told him that a reversal of the law of
+gravity was as likely to happen as the performance by the papacy of
+the mission he proposed to it; but men believe what they wish to
+believe, and his work found, as has been said, thousands of admirers,
+among whom none was more sincere than Cardinal Mastai. The day on
+which Count Pasolini gave him a copy of _Il Primato_ he created that
+great, and under some aspects pathetic illusion, the reforming Pope.
+
+The Conclave opened on the 14th of June 1846. During the Bishop of
+Imola's journey to Rome a white pigeon had perched several times on
+his carriage. The story became known; people said the same thing had
+occurred to a coming Pope on former occasions, and the augury was
+accepted with joy and satisfaction. He was, in fact, elected after the
+Conclave had lasted only two days, while the Conclave which elected
+his predecessor lasted sixty-four. The brevity of that to which Pius
+IX. owed the tiara was looked upon by the populace as something
+miraculous, but it was the result of the well-considered determination
+of the Italian Cardinals not to allow time for Austrian intrigues to
+obtain the election of a Pope who would be ruled from Vienna. When the
+new Pope appeared on the balcony of the Quirinal to give his first
+benediction, the people, carried away by his youthful yet majestic
+bearing, and by the hopes which already centred in him, broke into
+frantic cries of: 'We have a Pope! He loves us! He is our Father!' If
+they had cried: 'We have a new heaven and a new earth,' they would but
+have expressed the delirium which, starting from Rome, spread
+throughout Italy.
+
+On the night of the 6th of December 1846, the whole line of the
+Apennines from Liguria to Calabria was illuminated. A hundred years
+before, a stone thrown by the child Balilla had given the signal for
+the expulsion of the Austrians from Genoa: this was the memory
+flashed from height to height by countless beacons, but while
+celebrating the past, they were the fiery heralds of a greater
+revolution.
+
+The upheaval of Europe did not become a fact, however, for another
+year. Meantime, the Roman States attracted more attention than any
+other part of the peninsula, from the curiosity awakened by the
+progress of the experiment of which they were the scene. It is not
+doubtful that at the first moment Pius IX. was under the impression
+that the problem he had taken in hand was eminently simple. A little
+goodwill on the part of everybody, an amnesty to heal old sores, and a
+few administrative reforms, ought, he thought, to set everything
+right. Such was not the opinion of intelligent onlookers who were
+students of politics--especially if they were foreigners, and could
+therefore keep their heads moderately cool in the prevailing
+excitement. The wave of a wand may seem to effect marvels, but long
+and silent causes prepare the way for each event. Now what had been
+going on for years in the Roman States was not the process of gradual
+growth, but the process of rapid disintegration. The Temporal Power of
+the Popes had died without anyone noticing it, and there was nothing
+left but a body in the course of dissolution. Every foreigner in Rome
+during the reign of Gregory XVI. bore witness that his government
+depended for its existence absolutely on the Swiss Guards. In 1845,
+Count Rossi told Guizot that without the Swiss regiments the
+government in the Legations and the Marches 'would be overthrown in
+the twinkling of an eye.' The British agent in Rome, writing during
+the Conclave, bore this out by the statement, which applied not to one
+portion of the Roman states, but to all, that 'the government could
+not stand without the protection of Austria and the immediate
+presence of the Swiss.' On the accession of Pius IX., the props, such
+as they were, which had prevented an earlier collapse of the Temporal
+Power, were either removed or rendered useless. The Swiss might as
+well have been disbanded at once as retained merely to be a bone of
+contention between the new government and the people, since it was
+understood that a vigorous use of their services would never be
+resorted to; while Austrian protection was transferred from the Pope
+to the disaffected party in the Church, which consisted in a large
+proportion of the cardinals and of the inferior clergy who were afraid
+that, with the reform of abuses, they would lose their influence over
+the lower class of their flocks. The English diplomatic agents in
+Italy also firmly believed that Austria coupled with her support of
+the ultramontane malcontents the direct encouragement of the
+disorderly elements of the population. To resist all these contrary
+forces, Pius IX. had only a popularity which, though for the time
+immense, was founded almost completely on imagination. 'It was,' said
+Mr Petre, 'the name and known views of Pius, rather than his acts,
+which aroused so much interest.' If for 'known views' be substituted
+'supposed views,' the remark exactly describes the situation.
+
+Popularity is very well, but a government cannot long subsist on the
+single fact of the popularity of the sovereign. When the Roman mob
+began to cry: 'Viva Pio Nono _solo_,' the fate of the experiment was
+sealed. Real control slipped from the hands that nominally wielded it.
+'The influence,' Mr Petre wrote to Sir George Hamilton, 'of one
+individual of the lower class, Angelo Brunetti, hardly known but by
+his nickname of Ciceruacchio, has for the last month kept the peace of
+the city more than any power possessed by the authorities, from the
+command which he exerts over the populace.' It was Ciceruacchio who
+preserved order when in July 1847 the air was full of rumours of a
+vast reactionary plot, which aimed at carrying off the Pope, and
+putting things back as they were under Gregory. That such a plot was
+ever conceived, or, at anyrate, that it received the sanction of the
+high personages whose names were mentioned in connection with it, is
+generally doubted now; but it was believed in by many of the
+representatives of foreign Powers then in Italy. The public mind in
+Rome was violently disturbed. Austria made the excitement the excuse
+for occupying the town of Ferrara, where, by the accepted
+interpretation of the Treaty of Vienna, she had only the right to
+garrison the fortress. This aggression called forth a strong
+remonstrance from the Pope's Secretary of State, Cardinal Ferretti;
+and though a compromise was arrived at through the mediation of Lord
+Palmerston, the feeling against Austria grew more and more exasperated
+in the Roman states, and the Pope consented, not, it seemed, much
+against the grain, to preparations being taken in hand with a view to
+the possible eventuality of war.
+
+At this date the Italian question was better apprehended at Vienna
+than in any other part of Europe. A man of Prince Metternich's talents
+does not devote a long life to statecraft without learning to
+distinguish the real drift of political currents. While Lord
+Palmerston still felt sure that reforms, and nothing but reforms, were
+what Italy wanted, Prince Metternich saw that two real forces were at
+work from the Alps to the Straits of Messina, and two only: desire for
+union, hatred of Austria. Nor was it his fault if the English Cabinet
+or the rest of the world remained unenlightened. Besides enlarging on
+this truth in frequent diplomatic communications, he caused it to be
+continually dwelt upon in the Vienna _Observer_, the organ of the
+Austrian Government, which printed illustrative quotations from the
+writings of Mazzini, of whom it said that 'he has the one merit of
+despising hypocrisy, and proceeding firmly and directly to his true
+end. Persons who are versed in history will know that this is exactly
+the same end as that at which Arnold of Brescia and Cola di Rienzi
+formerly aimed. The only difference is, that the revolutionary dream
+has in the course of centuries gained in self-reliance and
+confidence.' It may truly be affirmed after this that Metternich 'had
+the one merit of despising hypocrisy.' Exactly the same end as Arnold
+of Brescia and Cola di Rienzi--who better could have described the
+scheme of Italian redemption?
+
+In the course of the summer of 1847, the Prince said more than once to
+the British Ambassador: 'The Emperor is determined not to lose his
+Italian dominions.' It was no idle boast, the speaker felt confident,
+that the troops in Lombardy and Venetia could keep those provinces
+from taking an active part in the 'revolution' which he declared to be
+already complete over all central Italy, though the word revolution
+had never yet been mentioned. Nor was it only in the Austrian army
+that he trusted; Metternich was persuaded that neither in Lombardy nor
+in Venetia was there any fear of a really popular and, therefore,
+formidable movement. He believed that Austria's only enemy was the
+aristocracy. He even threw out hints that if the Austrian Government
+condescended to do so, it could raise a social or peasants' war of the
+country people against their masters. This is the policy which has
+been elaborately followed by the Russians in Poland. The Austrians
+pointed to their virtue in not resorting to it; but some tentative
+experiments in such a direction had not given results of a kind to
+encourage them to go on. The Italian peasant, though ignorant, had a
+far quicker innate intelligence than his unfortunate Polish brother.
+He did not dislike his masters, who treated him at least with easy
+familiarity, and he detested foreigners--those foreigners, no matter
+of what nation, who for two thousand years had brought the everlasting
+curse of war upon his fields. The conscription, which carried off his
+sons for eight years into distant lands, of which he could not
+pronounce the name, was alone enough to alienate him from the Austrian
+Government. In hoping to find a friend in the Italian peasant,
+Metternich reckoned without his host. On the other hand, he was
+strictly correct in his estimate of the patriotism of the aristocracy.
+The fact always seemed to the Prince a violation of eternal laws.
+According to him, the fore-ordained disaffected in every country were
+drawn from the middle classes. What business had noblemen with ancient
+names and fine estates to prefer Spielberg to their beautiful palaces
+and fairy-like villas on the Lombard lakes? Was it on purpose to spite
+the best of governments, and the one most favourable to the
+aristocratic principle, which had always held out paternal hands to
+them? Could anything be imagined more aggravating?
+
+This feature in Italian liberation has been kept mostly in the
+background. Democratic chroniclers were satisfied to ignore it, and to
+the men themselves their enormous sacrifices seemed so natural that
+they were very willing to let them pass out of mind. It is in the
+works of those who, while sympathising with Italy, are not Italians,
+that the best record of it is to be found; nowhere better than in a
+recent book by a French writer, M. Paul Bourget, in which occurs the
+following just and eloquent tribute: 'We must say in praise of the
+aristocracy on this side of the Alps that the best soldiers of
+independence were nobles. If Italy owes the final success to the
+superior capabilities of Victor Emmanuel and Cavour, and to the
+agitating power of the General of the Thousand, it is well not to
+forget the struggles sustained for years by gentlemen whose example
+did so much to raise partisans among the humble. These aristocrats,
+passionate for liberty, have (like our own of the eighteenth century)
+done more for the people than the people itself. The veritable history
+of this _Risorgimento_ would be in great part that of the Italian
+nobility in which the heroic blood of feudal chiefs revolted against
+the oppressions and, above all, the perpetual humiliation, born of the
+presence of the stranger.'
+
+When Prince Metternich looked beyond the borders of those provinces
+which he said that his Sovereign did not intend to lose, he saw sooner
+than most people that a ball was set rolling which would not stop half
+way down the hill. The one element in the situation which came as a
+surprise to him, was that introduced by Pius IX. 'A liberal Pope is an
+impossible being!' he exclaimed. Nevertheless this impossible being was
+a reality which had to be dealt with. He hoped all along, however, that
+Pius would fall a victim to the Frankenstein he had called into
+existence, and his only real anxiety lay where it had always lain--on
+the side of Piedmont. 'Charles Albert ought to let us know,' he wrote to
+the Austrian Minister at Turin, 'whether his reign has been only a mask
+under which was hidden the Prince of Carignano, who ascended the throne
+through the order of succession re-established in his favour by the
+Emperor Francis.' Considering all things, the endeavour to make it
+appear that the King was indebted for his crown to Austria was somewhat
+venturesome. Charles Albert, Metternich went on to say, had to choose
+between two systems, the system now in force, or 'the crassest
+revolution.' He wrote again: 'The King is sliding back upon the path
+which he enters for the second time in his life, _and which he will
+never really quit_.' Words of a bitter enemy, but juster than the
+'Esecrato o Carignano,' hurled for a quarter of a century at Charles
+Albert by those who only saw in him a traitor.
+
+The constant invocation of the revolutionary spectre by the Austrian
+statesman convinced the King that the wish was father to the thought,
+and, afraid of introducing the thin end of the wedge, he showed
+himself more than ever averse to reforming the antiquated machinery of
+the Sardinian Government. Instead of being the first of Italian
+princes to yield to popular demands, he was almost the last. He
+believed that the question of nationality, of independence, could be
+separated from the question of free institutions. Of all the
+chimerical ideas then afloat, this was the most chimerical. Even the
+example of the Pope, for whom Charles Albert felt a romantic devotion,
+was not enough to induce him to open the road to reforms. The person
+who seems first to have impressed him with their absolute necessity
+was Lord Minto, whose visit to Turin, in October 1847, coincided with
+the dismissal of Count della Margherita, the minister most closely
+associated with the absolutist and Jesuitical _régime_. Lord Minto was
+sent to Italy to encourage in the ways of political virtue those
+Italian princes who were not entirely incorrigible. His mission
+excited exaggerated hopes on the part of the Liberals, and exaggerated
+wrath in the retrograde party--both failing to understand its
+limitations. The hopes died a natural death, but long afterwards,
+reactionary writers attributed all the 'troubles' in Italy to this
+estimable British diplomatist. What is not doubtful is, that,
+accustomed as they were to being lectured and bullied by foreign
+courts, the Italians derived the greatest encouragement from the
+openly expressed sympathy of well-known English visitors, whether they
+came in an official capacity like Lord Minto, or unofficially like Mr
+Cobden, who travelled as a missionary of Free Trade, and was received
+with rapture--with which, it is to be feared, Free Trade had little to
+do--by the leading Liberals in Italy: Massimo d'Azeglio at Genoa,
+Mancini at Naples Cavour and Scialoja at Turin, Minghetti at Bologna,
+Ridolfi at Florence, and Manin and Tommaseo at Venice.
+
+Towards the end of 1847, there was a curious shuffling of the cards in
+the small states of Lucca and Parma, resulting in much irritation,
+which, in an atmosphere so charged with revolutionary electricity, was
+not without importance. The dissolute Bourbon prince who reigned in
+Lucca, Charles Ludovico, had but one desire, which was to increase his
+civil list. He hit upon an English jockey named Ward, who came to
+Italy in the service of a German count, and this person he made his
+Chancellor of the Exchequer. By various luminous strokes, Ward
+furthered his Sovereign's object without much increasing the taxation,
+and when matters began to grow complicated, and here, too, a cry was
+raised for a Constitution (which had been solemnly guaranteed to the
+people of Lucca at the Congress of Vienna, but had never been heard of
+since), he proposed the sale of the Duchy off-hand to Tuscany, with
+which it would, in any case, be united, when, on the death of the
+ex-Empress Marie-Louise, the Duchy of Parma devolved on the Duke of
+Lucca. At the same time, by a prior agreement, a district of Tuscany
+called the Lunigiana was consigned, one-half to the Duchess of Parma,
+and the other to the Duke of Modena. The indignation of the
+population, which was made, by force, subject to the Duke of Modena,
+was intense, and the whole transaction of handing about Italians to
+suit the pleasure of princes, or to obey the articles of forgotten
+treaties, reminded the least sensitive of the everyday opprobrium of
+their lot.
+
+The bargain with Tuscany had been struck only eight days when
+Marie-Louise died--unlamented, since the latter years of her reign
+formed a sad contrast to the earlier. Marie-Louise had not a bad
+disposition, but she always let her husband of the hour govern as he
+chose; of the four or five of these husbands, the last two, and
+particularly the hated Count de Bombelles, undid all the good done by
+their more humane predecessors. The Parmese petitioned their new Duke
+to send the man away, and to grant them some measure of freedom. The
+answer he gave was the confirmation of Bombelles in all his honours,
+and the conclusion of a treaty with Austria, securing the assistance
+of her arms. A military force had been sent to Parma to escort the
+body of the late Duchess to Vienna; but on the principle that the
+living are of more consequence than the dead, it remained there to
+protect the new Duke from his subjects. Marie-Louise and her lovers,
+Charles Ludovico and his jockey-minister, are instructive
+illustrations of the scandalous point things had reached in the small
+states of Italy.
+
+There was, indeed, one state in which, though the dynasty was
+Austrian, the government was conducted without ferocity and without
+scandal. This was Tuscany. The branch of the Hapsburg-Lorraine family
+established in Tuscany produced a series of rulers who, if they
+exhibited no magnificent qualities, were respectable as individuals,
+and mild as rulers. Giusti dubbed Leopold II. 'the Tuscan Morpheus,
+crowned with poppies and lettuce leaves,' and the clear intelligence
+of Ricasoli was angered by the languid, let-be policy of the
+Grand-Ducal government, but, compared with the other populations of
+Italy, the Tuscans might well deem themselves fortunate. Only on one
+occasion had the Grand Duke given up a fugitive from the more favoured
+provinces, and the presence of distinguished exiles lent brilliancy to
+his capital. Leopold II. hesitated between the desire to please his
+subjects and the fear of his Viennese relations, who sent him through
+Metternich the ominous reminder, 'that the Italian Governments had
+only subsisted for the last ten years by the support they received
+from Austria'--an assertion at which Charles Albert took umbrage, but
+he was curtly told that he was not intended. In spite of his fears,
+however, the Grand Duke instituted a National Guard on the 4th of
+September, which was correctly judged the augury of further
+concessions. In August, the Austrian Minister had distinctly
+threatened to occupy Tuscany, or any other of the Italian duchies
+where a National Guard was granted; its institution was therefore
+interpreted as a decisive act of rebellion against the Imperial
+dictatorship. The red, white and green tricolor, not yet permitted in
+Piedmont, floated already from all the towers of the city on the Arno.
+
+Where there were no signs of improvement was in the government of the
+Two Sicilies. King Ferdinand undertook a journey through several parts
+of the country, but as Lord Napier, the British Minister, expressed
+it: 'Exactly where the grace of the royal countenance was principally
+conferred, the rebels sprung up most thickly.' A revolution was
+planned to break out in all the cities of the kingdom, but the project
+only took effect at Messina and at Reggio, and in both places the
+movement was stifled with prompt and barbarous severity. When the
+leader of the Calabrian attempt, Domenico Romeo, a landed proprietor,
+was caught on the heights of Aspromonte, his captors, after cutting
+off his head, carried it to his young nephew, whom they ordered to
+take it to Reggio with the cry of 'Long live the King.' The youth
+refused, and was immediately killed. In the capital, Carlo Poerio and
+many patriots were thrown into prison on suspicion. Settembrini had
+just time to escape to Malta.
+
+The year 1847 closed amid outward appearances of quiet.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE YEAR OF REVOLUTION
+
+1848
+
+Insurrection in Sicily--The Austrians expelled from Milan and
+Venice--Charles Albert takes the Field--Withdrawal of the Pope and King
+of Naples--Piedmont defeated--The Retreat.
+
+
+On the 12th of January, the birthday of the King of the Two Sicilies,
+another insurrection broke out in Sicily; this time it was serious
+indeed. The City of the Vespers lit the torch which set Europe on
+fire.
+
+So began the year of revolution which was to see the kings of the
+earth flying, with or without umbrellas, and the principle of monarchy
+more shaken by the royal see-saw of submission and vengeance than ever
+it was by the block of Whitehall or the guillotine of the Place Louis
+XV.
+
+In Italy, the errors and follies of that year were not confined to
+princes and governments, but it will remain memorable as the time when
+the Italian nation, not a dreamer here or there, or a handful of
+heroic madmen, or an isolated city, but the nation as a whole, with an
+unanimity new in history, asserted its right and its resolve to exist.
+
+King Ferdinand sent 5000 soldiers to 'make a garden,' as he described
+it, of Palermo, if the offers sent at the same time failed to pacify
+the inhabitants. These offers were refused with the comment: 'Too
+late,' and the Palermitans prepared to resist to the death under the
+guidance of the veteran patriot Ruggiero Settimo, Prince of Fitalia.
+'Separation,' they said, 'or our English Constitution of 1812.'
+Increased irritation was awakened by the discovery in the head office
+of the police at Palermo of a secret room full of skeletons, which
+were supposed to belong to persons privately murdered. The Neapolitans
+were compelled to withdraw with a loss of 3000 men, but before they
+went, the general in command let out 4000 convicts, who had been kept
+without food for forty-eight hours. The convicts, however, did not
+fulfil the intentions of their liberator, and did but little mischief.
+Not so the Neapolitan troops, who committed horrors on the peasantry
+as they retreated, which provoked acts of retaliation almost as
+barbarous. In a short time all Sicily was in its own hands except the
+citadel of Messina.
+
+It is not possible to follow the Sicilians in their long struggle for
+their autonomy. They stood out for some fourteen months. An English
+Blue-book is full of the interminable negotiations conducted by Lord
+Napier and the Earl of Minto in the hope of bringing the strife to an
+end. When the parliament summoned by the revolutionary government
+declared the downfall of the House of Bourbon, all the stray princes
+in Europe, including Louis Napoleon, were reviewed as candidates for
+the throne. The choice fell on the Duke of Genoa; it was well received
+in England, and the British men-of-war were immediately ordered to
+salute the Sicilian flag. But the Duke's reign never became a reality.
+After an heroic struggle, the islanders were subjugated in the spring
+of 1849.
+
+So stout a fight for independence must win admiration, if not
+approval. The political reasons against the course taken by the
+Sicilians have been suggested in a former chapter. In separating their
+lot from that of Naples, in rejecting even freedom unless it was
+accompanied by disruption, they hastened the ruin of the Neapolitans
+and of themselves, and surely played into the hands of the crafty
+tyrant who desired nothing better than to fish in the troubled waters
+of his subjects' dissensions.
+
+In the gathering storm of January 1848, the first idea that occurred
+to Ferdinand II. was the good old plan of calling in Austrian
+assistance. But the Austrians were told by Pius IX. that he would not
+allow their troops to pass through his territory. Had they attempted
+to pass in spite of his warning, events would have taken a different
+turn, as the Pope would have been driven into a war with Austria then
+and there; perhaps he would have been glad, as weak people commonly
+are, of the compulsion to do what he dared not do without compulsion.
+The Austrian Government was too wise to force a quarrel; it was easy
+to lock up Austrian subjects for crying 'Viva Pio Nono,' but the
+enormous importance of keeping the Head of the Church, if possible, in
+a neutral attitude could not be overlooked. All thoughts of going to
+Ferdinand's help were politely abandoned, and he, seeing himself in a
+defenceless position, and pondering deeply on the upsetting of Louis
+Philippe's throne, which was just then the latest news, decided on
+that device, dear to all political conjurors, which is known as taking
+the wind out of your enemy's sails. The Pope, the Grand Duke of
+Tuscany and the King of Sardinia, had worried him for six months with
+admonitions. 'Very well,' he now said; 'they urge me forward, I will
+precipitate them.' Constitution, representative government, unbridled
+liberty of the press, a civic guard, the expulsion of the Jesuits;
+what mattered a trifle more or less when everything could be revoked
+at the small expense of perjury? Ferdinand posed to perfection in the
+character of Citizen King. He reassured those who ventured to show the
+least signs of apprehension by saying: 'If I had not intended to carry
+out the Statute, I should not have granted it.'
+
+Not many days later, the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the King of
+Sardinia each promulgated a Charter. In the case of Charles Albert, it
+had been formally promised on the 8th of February, after sleepless
+nights, severe fasts, much searching of the heart--contrasting
+strangely with the gay transformation scene at Naples; but promises
+have a more serious meaning to some persons than to others. Nor did
+Charles Albert take any pleasure in the shouts of a grateful people.
+'Born in revolution,' he once wrote, 'I have traversed all its phases,
+and I know well enough what popularity is worth--_viva_ to-day,
+_morte_ to-morrow.'
+
+In the Lombardo-Venetian provinces all seemed still quiet, but the
+brooding discontent of the masses increased with the increasing
+aggressiveness of the Austrian soldiers, while the refusal to grant
+the studiously moderate demands of men like Nazari of Bergamo and
+Manin and Tommasco of Venice, who were engaged in a campaign of legal
+agitation, brought conviction to the most cautious that no measure of
+political liberty was obtainable under Austrian rule.
+
+At the Scala Theatre some of the audience had raised cries of 'Viva
+Pio Nono' during a performance of _I Lombardi._[3] This was the excuse
+for prohibiting every direct or indirect public reference to the
+reigning Pontiff. Nevertheless, a few young men were caught singing
+the Pope's hymn, upon which the military charged the crowd. On the 3rd
+of January the soldiers fell on the people in the Piazza San Carlo,
+killing six and wounding fifty-three. The parish priest of the Duomo
+said that he had seen Russians, French and Austrians enter Milan as
+invaders; but a scene like that of the 3rd of January he had never
+witnessed; 'they simply murdered in the streets.'
+
+The _Judicium Statuarium_, equivalent to martial law, was proclaimed
+in February; but the Viennese revolution of the 8th of March, and
+Prince Metternich's flight to England, were followed by promises to
+abolish the censure, and to convoke the central congregations of the
+Lombardo-Venetian kingdom. The utmost privilege of these assemblies
+was consultative. In 1815 they were invested with the right to 'make
+known grievances,' but they had only once managed to perform this
+modest function. It was hardly worth while to talk about them on the
+18th of March 1848.
+
+On the morning of that day, Count O'Donnel, the Vice-Governor of
+Milan, announced the Emperor's concessions. Before night he was the
+hostage of the revolution, signing whatever decrees were demanded of
+him till in a few hours even his signature was dispensed with. The
+Milanese had begun their historic struggle.
+
+Taking refuge in the Citadel, Radetsky wrote to the Podestà, Count
+Gabrio Casati (brother of Teresa Confalonieri), that he acknowledged
+no authority at Milan except his own and that of his soldiers. Those
+who resisted would be guilty of high treason. If arguments did not
+avail, he would make use of all the means placed in his hands by an
+army of 100,000 men to bring the rebel city to obedience. Unhappily
+for Radetsky, there were not any such 100,000 men in Italy, though
+long before this he had told Metternich that he could not guarantee
+the safety of Lombardy with less than 150,000. In spite of partial
+reinforcements, the number did not amount to more than from 72,000 to
+75,000, while at Milan it stood at between 15,000 and 20,000. But if
+we take the lower estimate, 15,000 regular troops under such a
+commander, who, most rare in similar emergencies, knew his own mind,
+and had no thought except the recovery of the town for his Sovereign,
+constituted a formidable force against a civilian population, which
+began the fight with only a few hundred fowling-pieces. The odds on
+the side of Austria were tremendous.
+
+If the Milan revolt had been one of the customary revolutions,
+arranged with the help of pen and paper, its first day would have been
+certainly its last. But even more than the Sicilian Vespers, it was
+the unpremeditated, irresistible act of a people sick of being slaves.
+At the beginning Casati tried to restrain it; so, with equal or still
+stronger endeavours, did the republican Carlo Cattaneo, whose
+influence was great. 'You have no arms,' he said again and again. Not
+a single man of weight took upon himself the awful responsibility of
+urging the unarmed masses upon so desperate an enterprise; but when
+the die was cast none held back. Initiated by the populace, the revolt
+was led to its victorious close by the nerve and ability of the
+influential men who directed its course.
+
+Towards nightfall on the 18th, during which day there had been only
+scuffles between the soldiers and the people, Radetsky took the
+Broletto, where the Municipality sat, after a two hours' siege, and
+sent forthwith a special messenger to the Emperor with the news that
+the revolution was on a fair way to being completely crushed.
+Meanwhile, he massed his troops at all the entrances to the city, so
+that at dawn he might strangle the insurrection by a concentric
+movement, as in a noose. The plan was good; but to-morrow does not
+belong even to the most experienced of Field-Marshals.
+
+In all quarters of the city barricades sprang up like mushrooms.
+Everything went, freely given, to their construction; the benches of
+the Scala, the beds of the young seminarists, the court carriages,
+found hidden in a disused church, building materials of the
+half-finished Palazzo d'Adda, grand pianofortes, valuable pieces of
+artistic furniture, and the old kitchen table of the artisan. Before
+the end of the fight the barricades numbered 1523. Young nobles,
+dressed in the velvet suits then in vogue, cooks in their white
+aprons, even women and children, rushed to the defence of the
+improvised fortifications. Luciano Manara and other heroes, who
+afterwards fell at Rome, were there to lead. In the first straits for
+want of arms the museums of the Uboldi and Poldi-Pozzoli families were
+emptied of their rare treasures by permission of the owners; the crowd
+brandished priceless old swords and specimens of early firearms. More
+serviceable weapons were obtained by degrees from the Austrian killed
+and wounded, and from the public offices which fell into their hands.
+Bolza, long the hated agent of the Austrian police, was discovered by
+the people, but they did not harm him. Throughout the five days, the
+Milanese showed a forbearance which was the more admirable, because
+there can be no doubt that when the Austrians found they were getting
+the worst of it, they vented their rage in deplorable outrages on
+non-combatants. That Radetsky was personally to blame for these
+excesses has never been alleged, and it was perhaps beyond the power
+of the officers to keep discipline among soldiers who, towards the
+end, were wild with panic.
+
+'The very foundations of the city were torn up,' wrote the
+Field-Marshal in his official report; 'not hundreds, but thousands of
+barricades crossed the streets. Such circumspection and audacity were
+displayed that it was evident military leaders were at the head of the
+people. The character of the Milanese had become quite changed.
+Fanaticism had seized every rank and age and both sexes.'
+
+As always happens with street-fighting, the number of the slain has
+never been really known; the loss of the citizens was small compared
+with that of the Austrians, who, according to some authorities, lost
+5000, between killed and wounded.
+
+Radetsky ordered the evacuation of the town and citadel on the night
+of Wednesday, the 22nd of March. The Milanese had won much more than
+freedom--they had won the right to it. And what they had done they had
+done alone. When the news that the capital was up in arms spread
+through Lombardy, there was but one gallant impulse, to fly to its
+aid. But the earliest to arrive, Giuseppe Martinengo Cesaresco, with
+his troop of Brescian peasants, found when he reached Milan that they
+were a few hours too late to share in the last shots fired upon the
+retreating Austrians.
+
+Nowhere, except in Milan, did the revolution meet with a Radetsky. The
+Austrian authorities became convinced that their position was
+untenable, and they desired to avoid a useless sacrifice of life.
+This, rather than cowardly fears, was the motive which induced Count
+Palffy and Count Zichy, the civil and military governors of Venice, to
+yield the city without deluging it in blood. The latter had been
+guilty of negligence in leaving the Venetian arsenal in charge of
+troops so untrustworthy that Manin could take it on the 22nd of March
+by a simple display of his own courage, and without striking a blow,
+but after this first success on the side of the revolution, which
+supplied the people with an unlimited stock of arms and ammunition,
+the Austrians did well to give way even from their own point of view.
+At seven o'clock on the evening of the 22nd of March, the famous
+capitulation was signed. Manin's prediction of the previous day,
+'To-morrow the city will be in my power, or I shall be dead,' had been
+realised in the first alternative.
+
+Daniel Manin, who was now forty-four years of age, was by profession a
+lawyer, by race a Jew. His father became a Christian, and, according
+to custom, took the surname of his godfather, who belonged to the
+family of the last Doge of Venice. Manin and the Dalmatian scholar,
+Niccolò Tommaseo, had been engaged in patiently adducing proof after
+proof that Austria did not even abide by her own laws when the
+expression of political opinion was concerned. At the beginning of the
+revolution they were in prison, and Palffy's first act of surrender
+was to set them free. Henceforth Manin was undisputed lord of the
+city. It is strange how, all at once, a man who was only slightly
+known to the world should have been chosen as spokesman and ruler. It
+did not, however, happen by chance. The people in Italy are observant;
+the Venetians had observed Manin, and they trusted him. The power of
+inspiring trust was what gave this Jewish lawyer his ascendancy, not
+the talents which usually appeal to the masses. He had not the
+advantage of an imposing presence, for he was short, slight, with blue
+eyes and bushy hair; in all things he was the opposite to a demagogue;
+he never beguiled, or flattered, or told others what he did not
+believe himself. But, on his side, he _knew_ the people, whom most
+revolutionary leaders know not at all. 'That is my sole merit,' he
+used to say. It was that which enabled him to cleanse Venice from the
+stain of having bartered her freedom for the smile of a conqueror, and
+give her back the name and inheritance of 'eldest child of liberty.'
+
+It was a matter of course that emancipated Venice should assume a
+republican form of government. Here the republic was a restoration. At
+Milan the case was different; there were two parties, that of
+Cattaneo, which was strongly republican, that of Casati, which was
+strongly monarchical. There was a third party, which thought of
+nothing except of never again seeing a soldier with a white coat. By
+mutual agreement, the Provisional Government declared that the
+decision as to the form of government should be left to calmer days.
+For a time this compromise produced satisfactory results.
+
+The revolution gained ground. Francis of Modena executed a rapid flight,
+and the Duke of Parma presently followed him. By the end of March,
+Lombardy and Venetia were free, saving the fortresses of the
+Quadrilateral. The exception was of far greater moment than, in the
+enchantment of the hour, anyone dreamt of confessing. Mantua, Legnano,
+Peschiera and Verona were so many cities of refuge to the flying
+Austrian troops, where they could rest in safety and nurse their
+strength. Still, the results achieved were great, almost incredible;
+with the expectation that Rome, Naples, Tuscany and Piedmont would send
+their armies to consolidate the work already done, it was natural to
+think that, whatever else might happen, Austrian dominion was a thing of
+the past. Alessandro Bixio (brother of the General), who was a
+naturalised Frenchman, wrote to the French Government on the 7th of
+April from Turin: 'In the ministries, in meetings, in the streets, you
+only see and hear people to whom the question of Italian independence
+seems to be one of those historical questions about which the time is
+past for talking. According to the general opinion, Austria is nothing
+but a phantom, and the army of Radetsky a shadow.' Such were the hopes
+that prevailed. They were vain, but they did not appear so then.
+
+Pius IX. seemed to throw in his lot definitely with the revolution
+when, on the 19th of March, he too granted a Constitution, having
+previously formed a lay ministry, which included Marco Minghetti and
+Count Pasolini, under the presidency of Cardinal Antonelli, who thus
+makes his first appearance as Liberal Premier. That the Roman
+Constitution was an unworkable attempt to reconcile lay and
+ecclesiastical pretensions, that the proposed Chamber of Deputies,
+which was not to make laws affecting education, religious
+corporations, the registration of births and marriages; or to confer
+civil rights on non-catholics, or to touch the privileges and
+immunities of the clergy, might have suited Cloud-cuckoo-town, but
+would not suit the solid earth, were facts easy to recognise, but no
+one had time to pause and consider. It was sufficient to hear Pius
+proclaim that in the wind which was uprooting oaks and cedars might be
+clearly distinguished the Voice of the Lord. Such utterances, mingled
+with blessings on Italy, brought balm to patriotic souls. The Liberals
+had no fear that the Pope would veto the participation of his troops
+in the national war, for they were blind to the complications with
+which a fighting Pope would find himself embarrassed in the middle of
+the nineteenth century. But the other party discerned these
+complications from the first, and knew what use to make of them.
+
+The powers of reaction had only to catch hold of a perfectly modern
+sentiment, the doctrine that ecclesiastics should be men of peace, in
+order to dissipate the myth of a Pope liberator. It was beside the
+question that, from the moment he accepted such a doctrine, the Pope
+condemned the institution of prince-bishoprics, of which he
+represented the last survival. Nor was it material that, if he adopted
+it, consistency should have made him carry it to its logical
+consequence of non-resistance. By aid of this theory of a peaceful
+Pontiff, with the threat, in reserve, of a schism, Austria felt
+confident that she could avoid the enormous moral inconvenience of a
+Pope in arms against her.
+
+Either, however, the full force of the influence which caused Pius IX.
+to draw back was not brought to bear till somewhat late in the day, or
+the part acted by him during the months of March and April can be
+hardly acquitted of dissimulation. War preparations were continued,
+with the warm co-operation of the Cardinal President of the Council,
+and when General Durando started for the frontier with 17,000 men, he
+would have been a bold man who had said openly in Rome that they were
+intended not to fight.
+
+While the Pope was still supposed to favour the war, Ferdinand of
+Naples did not dare to oppose the enthusiasm of his subjects, and the
+demand that a Neapolitan contingent should be sent to Lombardy. The
+first relay of troops actually started, but the generals had secret
+orders to take the longest route, and to lose as much time as
+possible.
+
+Tuscany had a very small army, but such assistance as she could give
+was both promised and given. The fate of the Tuscan corps of 6000 men
+will be related hereafter. The Grand Duke Leopold identified himself
+with the Italian cause with more sincerity than was to be found at
+Rome or Naples; still, the material aid that he could offer counted as
+next to nothing.
+
+There remained Piedmont and Charles Albert. Now was the time for the
+army which he had created (for Charles Felix left no army worthy of
+the name) to assert upon the Lombard fields the reason of its
+existence. War with Austria was declared on the 23rd of March. It was
+midnight; a vast crowd waited in silence in Piazza Castello. At last
+the windows of the palace were opened, a sudden flood of light from
+within illuminating the scene. Charles Albert stepped upon the balcony
+between his two sons. He was even paler than usual, but a smile such
+as no one had seen before was on his lips. He waved the long
+proscribed tricolor slowly over the heads of the people.
+
+The King said in his proclamation that 'God had placed Italy in a
+position to provide for herself ('in grado di fare da sè'). Hence the
+often repeated phrase: 'L'Italia farà da sè.' He told the Lombard
+delegates, who met him at Pavia that he would not enter their capital,
+which had shown such signal valour, till after he had won a victory.
+He declared to all that his only aim was to complete the splendid work
+of liberation so happily begun; questions of government would be
+reserved for the conclusion of the war. Joy was the order of the day,
+but the fatal mistakes of the campaign had already commenced; there
+had been inexcusable delay in declaring war; if it was pardonable to
+wait for the Milanese initiative, it was as inexpedient as it seemed
+ungenerous to wait till the issue of the struggle at Milan was
+decided. Then, after the declaration of war, considering that the
+Sardinian Government must have seen its imminence for weeks, and
+indeed for months, there was more time lost than ought to have been
+the case in getting the troops under weigh. Still, at the opening of
+the campaign, two grand possibilities were left. The first was
+obviously to cut Radetsky off in his painful retreat, largely
+performed along country by-roads, as he had to avoid the principal
+cities which were already free. Had Charles Albert caught him up while
+he was far from the Quadrilateral, the decisive blow would have been
+struck, and the only man who could save Austria in Italy would have
+been taken prisoner. Radetsky chose the route of Lodi and the lower
+Brescian plains to Montechiaro, where the encampments were ready for
+the Austrian spring manoeuvres: from this point an easy march carried
+him under the walls of Verona. Here he met General d'Aspre, who had
+just arrived with the garrison of Padua. D'Aspre, by skill and
+resolution, had brought his men from Padua without losing one, having
+refused the Paduans arms for a national guard, though ordered from
+Milan to grant them. 'You come to tell me all is lost,' said the
+Field-Marshal when they met 'No,' rejoined the younger general, 'I
+come to tell you all is saved.'
+
+This great chance missed, there was another which could have been
+seized. Mantua, extraordinary to relate, was defended by only three
+hundred artillerymen and a handful of hussars. It would have fallen
+into the hands of its own citizens but for the presence of mind of its
+commandant, the Polish General Gorzhowsky, who told them that to no
+one on earth would he deliver the keys of the fortress except to his
+Emperor, and that the moment he could no longer defend it he would
+blow it into the air, with himself and half Mantua. He showed them the
+flint and the steel with which he intended to do the deed. Enemy
+though he was, that incident ought to be recorded in letters of gold
+on the gates of Mantua, as a perpetual lesson of that most difficult
+thing for a country founded in revolution to learn: the meaning of a
+soldier's duty.
+
+It is easy to see that, if Charles Albert had made an immediate dash
+on Mantua, the fortress, or its ruins, would have been his, to the
+enormous detriment of the Austrian position. But this chance too was
+missed. On the 31st of March, the 9000 men sent with all speed by
+Radetsky to the defenceless fortress arrived, and henceforth Mantua
+was safe. Charles Albert only got within fifteen or sixteen miles of
+it five days later, to find that all hope of its capture was gone.
+
+The campaign began with political as well as with military mistakes.
+At the same time that the King of Sardinia was declaring in the
+Proclamation addressed to the Lombards that, full of admiration of the
+glorious feats performed in their capital, he came to their aid as
+brother to brother, friend to friend, his ambassadors were trying to
+persuade the foreign Powers, and especially Austria, Prussia and
+Russia, that the only object of the war was to avoid a revolution in
+Piedmont, and to prevent the establishment of a republic in Lombardy.
+No one was convinced or placated by these assurances; far better as
+policy than so ignominious an attempt at hedging would have been the
+acknowledgment to all the world of the noble crime of patriotism. But,
+as Massimo d'Azeglio once observed, Charles Albert had the incurable
+defect of thinking himself cunning. It was, moreover, only too true
+that, although in these diplomatic communications the King allowed the
+case against him to be stated with glaring exaggeration, yet they
+contained an element of fact. He _was_ afraid of revolution at home;
+he _was_ afraid of a Lombard republic; these were not the only, nor
+were they the strongest, motives which drove him into the war, but
+they were motives which, associated with deeper causes, contributed
+to the disasters of the future.
+
+The Piedmontese force was composed of two _corps d'armée,_ the first
+under General Bava and the second under General Sonnaz: each amounted
+to 24,000 men. The reserves, under the Duke of Savoy, numbered 12,000.
+Radetsky, at first (after strengthening the garrisons in the
+fortresses), could not put into the field more than 40,000 men. As has
+been stated, the King assumed the supreme command, which led to a
+constant wavering between the original plan of General Bava, a capable
+officer, and the criticisms and suggestions of the staff. The greatest
+mistake of all, that of never bringing into the field at once more
+than about half the army, was not without connection with the supposed
+necessity, based on political reasons, of garrisoning places in the
+rear which might have been safely left to the care of their national
+guards.
+
+Besides the royal army, there were in the field 17,000 Romans, 3000
+Modenese and Parmese, and 6000 Tuscans. There were also several
+companies of Lombard volunteers, Free Corps, as they were called,
+which might have been increased to almost any extent had they not been
+discouraged by the King, who was believed to look coldly on all these
+extraneous allies, either from doubt of their efficiency, or from the
+wish to keep the whole glory of the campaign for his Piedmontese army.
+
+The first engagements were on the line of the Mincio. On the 8th of
+April the Sardinians carried the bridge of Goito after a fight of four
+hours. The burning of the village of Castelnuovo on the 12th, as a
+punishment for its having received Manara's band of volunteers,
+excited great exasperation; many of the unfortunate villagers perished
+in the flames, and this and other incidents of the same kind did much
+towards awakening a more vivid hatred of the Austrians among the
+peasants.
+
+After easily gaining possession of the left (Venetian) bank of the
+Mincio, Charles Albert employed himself in losing time over chimerical
+operations with a view to taking the fortresses of Peschiera and
+Mantua, now strongly garrisoned, and impregnable while their
+provisions lasted. This object governed the conduct of the campaign,
+and caused the waste of precious months during every day of which
+General Nugent, with his 30,000 men, was approaching one step nearer
+from the mountains of Friuli, and General Welden, with his 10,000,
+down the passes of Tyrol. If, instead of playing at sieges, Charles
+Albert had cut off these reinforcements, Radetsky would have been
+rendered powerless, and the campaign would have had another
+termination. Never was there a war in which the adoption of Napoleon's
+system of crushing his opponents one by one, when he could not
+outnumber them if united, was more clearly indicated.
+
+General Durando crossed the Po on the 21st of April with 17,000 men,
+partly Pontifical troops and partly volunteers, to which weak corps
+fell the task of opposing Nugent's advance in Venetia. The colours of
+the Pontifical troops were solemnly blessed before they left Rome, but
+as the order was only given to go to the frontier, and nothing was
+said, though everything was understood, about crossing it, the Pope
+was technically able to assert that the war was none of his making.
+His ministry ventured to suggest to him that the situation was
+peculiar. Now it was that Catholic Austria and Russia, herself
+schismatic, flourished in the face of the Pope the portentous scare of
+a new schism. It is said that the Pope's confessor, a firm Liberal,
+died just at this time, not without suspicion of poison. Thoroughly
+alarmed in his spiritual capacity, the Pope issued his Encyclical
+Letter of the 29th of April--when his ministers and the whole country
+still hoped from day to day that he would formally declare war--in
+which he protested that his sacred office obliged him to embrace all
+nations in an equal paternal love. If his subjects, he added, followed
+the example of the other Italians, he could not help it: a
+half-hearted admission which could not mitigate the indignation which
+the document called forth. With regard to Durando's corps, the Pope
+did what was the best thing under the altered circumstances; he sent
+L.C. Farini as envoy to the King of Sardinia, with the request that he
+would take the Roman troops under his supreme command, the Papal
+Government agreeing to continue the pay of such of them as belonged to
+the regular army. Pius IX. made one last effort to help his
+fellow-countrymen which people hardly noticed, so futile did it
+appear, but which was probably made in profound seriousness. He wrote
+a letter to the Emperor of Austria begging him to make all things
+right and pleasant by voluntarily withdrawing from his Italian
+dominions. Popes had dictated to sovereigns before now; was there not
+Canossa? Besides, if a miracle was sought, why should not a miracle
+happen? Pope and Emperor shaking hands over a free Italy and a world
+reconciled--how delightful the prospect! Who can doubt that when the
+Pope wrote that letter all the beautiful dreams of Cardinal Mastai
+carried him once more away (it was the last time) in an ecstasy of
+blissful hopes? 'Let not your Majesty take offence,' ran the appeal,
+'if we turn to your pity and religion, exhorting you with fatherly
+affection to desist from a war which, powerless to re-conquer the
+hearts of the Lombards and Venetians, can only lead to a dark series
+of calamities. Nor let the generous Germanic nation take offence if
+we invite it to abandon old hatreds, and convert into useful relations
+of friendly neighbourhood a dominion which can be neither noble nor
+happy if it depend only on the sword. Thus we trust in the nation
+itself, honestly proud of its own nationality, to no longer make a
+point of honour of sanguinary attempts against the Italian nation, but
+rather to perceive that its true honour lies in recognising Italy as a
+sister.'
+
+The Emperor received the bearer of the letter with coldness, and
+referred him to his ministers, who simply called his attention to the
+fact that the Pope owed the Temporal Power to the same treaties as
+those which gave Austria the possession of Lombardy and Venetia.
+
+The day after the publication of the Encyclical, that is to say, the
+30th of April, the Piedmontese obtained their first important success
+in the battle of Pastrengo, near Peschiera. Fighting from daybreak to
+sundown, they drove the enemy back into Verona, with a loss of 1200
+killed and wounded. The Austrians were in rather inferior numbers; but
+the victory was highly creditable to the hitherto untried army of
+Piedmont, and showed that it contained excellent fighting material. It
+was not followed up, and might nearly as well have never been fought.
+
+The Neapolitan troops, of whom 41,000 were promised, 17,000 being on
+the way already, were intended to reinforce Durando's corps in
+Venetia. With the two or three battalions which Manin could spare from
+the little army of Venice, the Italian forces opposed to Nugent's
+advance would have been brought up to 60,000 men; in which case not
+even Charles Albert's 'masterly inactivity' could have given Austria
+the victory.
+
+The Neapolitan Parliament convoked under the new Constitution was to
+meet on the 15th of May. A dispute had been going on for several days
+between the Sovereign and the deputies about the form of the
+parliamentary oath, the deputies wishing that the Chambers should be
+left free to amend or alter the Statute, while the King desired that
+they should be bound by oath to maintain it as it was presented to
+them. It was unwise to provoke a disagreement which was sure to
+irritate the King. However, late on the 14th, he appeared to yield,
+and consented that the wording of the oath should be referred to the
+discussion of Parliament itself. It seems that, at the same time, he
+ordered the troops of the garrison to take up certain positions in the
+city. A colonel of the National Guard raised the cry of royal treason,
+calling upon the people to rise, which a portion of them did, and
+barricades were constructed in the Toledo and other of the principal
+streets. A more insane and culpable thing than this attempt at
+revolution was never put in practice. It was worse even than that 20th
+of May at Milan, which threw Eugene into the arms of Austria. Its
+consequences were those which everyone could have foreseen--a two
+days' massacre in the streets of Naples, begun by the troops and
+continued by the lazzaroni, who were allowed to pillage to their
+hearts' content; the deputies dispersed with threats of violence,
+Parliament dissolved before it had sat, the original Statute torn up,
+and (by far the most important) the Neapolitan troops, now at Bologna,
+recalled to Naples. This was the pretty work of the few hundred
+reckless rioters on the 15th of May.
+
+Had not Pius IX. by this time repudiated all part in the war, the King
+of the Two Sicilies would have thought twice before he recalled his
+contingent, though the counsels of neutrality which he received from
+another quarter--from Lord Palmerston in the name of the English
+Government--strengthened his hand not a little in carrying out a
+defection which was the direct ruin of the Italian cause. When the
+order to return reached Bologna, the veteran patriot, General Pepe,
+who had been summoned from exile to take the chief command, resolved
+to disobey, and invited the rest to follow him. Nearly the whole of
+the troops were, however, faithful to their military oath. The
+situation was horrible. The choice lay between the country in danger
+and the King, who, false and perjured though he might be, was still
+the head of the State, to whom each soldier had sworn obedience. One
+gallant officer escaped from the dilemma by shooting himself. Pepe,
+with a single battalion of the line, a company of engineers, and two
+battalions of volunteers, went to Venice, where they fought like
+heroes to the end.
+
+On the 27th of May, Radetsky, taking the offensive with about 40,000
+men, marched towards Mantua, near which was stationed the small Tuscan
+corps, whose commander only received when too late General Bava's
+order to retire from an untenable position. On the 29th the Austrians,
+in overwhelming numbers, bore down upon the 6000 Tuscans at Montanara
+and Curtatone, and defeated them after a resistance of six hours. The
+Tuscan professor, Giuseppe Montanelli, fell severely wounded while
+holding the dead body of his favourite pupil, but he recovered to show
+less discretion in politics than he had shown valour in the field.
+
+Peschiera, where the supplies were exhausted, capitulated on the 30th,
+and the day after found 22,000 Piedmontese ready to give Radetsky
+battle at Goito, whence, after a severe contest, they drove him back
+to Mantua. The Austrians lost 3000 out of 25,000 men. The honours of
+the day fell to the Savoy brigade, which was worthy of its own fame
+and of the future King of Italy, who was slightly wounded while
+leading it. Outwardly this seemed the most fortunate period of the war
+for Charles Albert, but that had already happened which was to cause
+the turning of the tide. Nugent, with his 30,000 men, had joined
+Radetsky. His march across Venetia was harassed by the inhabitants,
+who left him no peace, especially in the mountain districts, but the
+poor little force of Romans and volunteers under Durando and Ferrari
+was unable to seriously check his progress in the open country, though
+he failed in the attempt to take the towns of Treviso and Vicenza in
+his passage. The repulse of the Austrians, 18,000 strong, from Vicenza
+on the 23rd of May, did great credit to Durando, who only had 10,000
+men, most of them _Crociati_, as the volunteers were called, whose
+ideas about fighting were original. It is hard to see how this General
+could have done more than he did with the materials at his disposal,
+or in what way he merited the abuse which was heaped upon him. The
+case would have been very different if his hybrid force had been
+supported by the Neapolitan army.
+
+Nugent was ordered by Radetsky to let the intermediate places alone,
+and to come on to him as fast as circumstances would admit. The
+junction of their troops was, the Field-Marshal saw, of vital
+necessity, but when this was achieved, and when Welden had also
+brought his 15,000 fresh men from Tyrol, he turned his attention to
+Vicenza, since, as long as that town remained in Durando's hands,
+Venetia would still be free. He conceived the bold plan of making an
+excursion to Vicenza with his complete army, while Charles Albert
+enjoyed the pleasant illusion that the Austrians were in full retreat
+owing to his success at Goito. The result of Radetsky's attack was not
+doubtful, but the defence of the town on the 10th of June could not
+have been more gallant; the 3500 Swiss, the Pontifical Carabineers,
+and the few other troops belonging to the regular army of the Pope did
+wonders. Cialdini, the future general, and Massimo d'Azeglio, the
+future prime minister, fought in this action, and the latter was
+severely wounded. After several hours' resistance there was nothing to
+be done but to hoist the white flag; Radetsky's object was
+accomplished, the Venetian _terra firma_ was practically once more in
+the power of Austria. On the 14th he was back again at Verona without
+the least harm having happened in his absence.
+
+Only military genius of the first order could now have saved the
+Piedmontese, and what prevailed was the usual infatuation. Charles
+Albert's lines were extended across forty miles of country, from
+Peschiera to Goito. On the 23rd of July the Austrians fell upon their
+weakest point, and obliged Sonnaz' division to cross over to the right
+bank of the Mincio. On the 24th, the King succeeded in dislodging the
+Austrians from Custozza after four hours' struggle; but next day,
+which was spent entirely in fighting, Radetsky retook Custozza, and
+obliged the King to fall back on Villafranca. Now began the terrible
+retreat on Milan, performed under the ceaseless fire of the pursuers,
+who attacked and defeated the retreating army for the last time, close
+to Milan, on the 4th of August. Radetsky had with him 45,000 men;
+Charles Albert's forces were reduced to 25,000. He had lost 5000 since
+he recrossed the Mincio. He begged for a truce, and, defeated and
+undone, he entered the city which he had vowed should only receive him
+victorious.
+
+To suppose that anything could have been gained by subjecting Milan to
+the horrors of a siege seems at this date the veriest madness;
+whatever Charles Albert's sins were, the capitulation of Milan was not
+among them. The members of a wild faction, however, demanded
+resistance to the death, or the death of the King if he refused. It is
+their severest censure to say that their pitiless fury is not excused
+even by the tragic fate of a population which, having gained freedom
+unaided less than six months before, saw itself given back to its
+ancestral foe by the man in whom it had hoped as a saviour. They saw
+crimes where there were only blunders, which had brought the King to a
+pass only one degree less wretched than their own. Crushed,
+humiliated, his army half destroyed, his personal ambition--to rate no
+higher the motive of his actions--trodden in the dust; and now the
+name of traitor was hissed in his ears by those for whom he had made
+these sacrifices.
+
+Stung to the heart, the King instructed General Bava to tell the
+Milanese that if they were ready to bury themselves under the ruins of
+the city, he and his sons were ready to do the same. But the
+Municipality, convinced of the desperateness of the situation, had
+already entered into negotiations with Radetsky, by which the
+capitulation was ratified. On this becoming known, the Palazzo Greppi,
+where Charles Albert lodged, was the object of a new display of rage;
+an attempt was even made to set it on fire. During the night, the King
+succeeded in leaving the palace on foot, guarded by a company of
+Bersaglieri and accompanied by his son, the Duke of Genoa, who, on
+hearing of his father's critical position, disobeyed the order to stay
+with his regiment, and came into the city to share his danger.
+
+The next day, the 6th of August, the Austrians reentered Milan. They
+themselves said that the Milanese seemed distraught. The Municipality
+was to blame for having concealed from the people the real state of
+things, by publishing reports of imaginary victories. Had the
+unthinking fury of the mob ended, as it so nearly ended, in an
+irreparable crime, the authors of these falsehoods would have been,
+more than anyone else, responsible for the catastrophe.
+
+The campaign of 1848 was finished. From the frontier, Charles Albert
+issued a proclamation to his people, calling upon the Piedmontese to
+render the common misfortunes less difficult to bear by giving his
+army a brotherly reception. 'In its ranks,' he concluded, 'are my sons
+and I, ready, as we all are, for new sacrifices, new hardships, or for
+death itself for our beloved fatherland.'
+
+The political and diplomatic transactions connected with the war in
+Lombardy were the subject after it closed of much discussion, and of
+some violent recriminations. Even from the short account given in
+these pages, it ought to be apparent that the supreme cause of
+disaster was simply bad generalship. Contemporaries, however, judged
+otherwise; if they were monarchists, they attributed the failure to
+the want of whole-hearted co-operation of the Provisional Governments
+of Lombardy with the liberating King; if they were republicans, they
+attributed it to the King's want of trust in the popular element, and
+anxiety lest, instead of receiving an increase of territory, he should
+find himself confronted with a new republic at his door. Both parties
+were so far correct that the strain of double purposes, or, at least,
+of incompatible aspirations which ran through the conduct of affairs,
+militated against a fortunate ending. The Piedmontese Government,
+even had it wished, would have found it difficult to adhere strictly
+to the programme of leaving all political matters for discussion after
+the war. What actually happened was that the union, under the not
+altogether attractive form of Fusion with Piedmont (instead of in the
+shape of the formation of an Italian kingdom), was effected at the end
+of June and beginning of July over the whole of Lombardy and Venetia,
+including Venice, where, perhaps alone, the feeling against it was not
+that of a party, but of the bulk of the population. Manin shared that
+feeling, but his true patriotism induced him to push on the Fusion in
+order to avoid the risk of civil war. He retired into private life the
+day it was accomplished, only to become again by acclamation Head of
+the State when the reverses of Sardinia obliged the King's Government
+to renounce the whole of his scarcely--acquired possessions, not
+excepting Modena, which had been the first, by a spontaneous
+plebiscite, to elect him Sovereign.
+
+The diplomatic history of the war is chiefly the history of the
+efforts of the English Cabinet to pull up a runaway horse. Lord Minto
+had been sent to urge the Italian princes to grant those concessions
+which Austria always said (and she was perfectly right) would lead to
+a general attack upon her power, but when the attack began, the
+British Government strained every nerve to limit its extension and
+diminish its force. That Lord Palmerston in his own mind disliked
+Austria, and would have been glad to see North Italy free, does not
+alter the fact that he played the Austrian game, and played it with
+success. He strongly advised every Italian prince to abstain from the
+conflict, and it is further as certain as anything can well be, that
+his influence, exercised through Lord Normanby, alone averted French
+intervention in August 1848, when the desperate state of things made
+the Italians willing to accept foreign aid. What would have happened
+if the French had intervened it is interesting to speculate, but
+impossible to decide. Their help was not desired, except as a last
+resource, by any party in Italy, nor by any man of note except Manin.
+The republicans wished Italy to owe her liberation to herself; Charles
+Albert wished her to owe it to him. The King also feared a republican
+propaganda, and was uneasy, not without reason, about Savoy and Nice.
+Lamartine would probably have been satisfied with the former, but it
+is doubtful if Charles Albert, though capable of giving up his crown
+for Italy, would have been capable of renouncing the cradle of his
+race. When Lamartine was succeeded by Cavaignac, perhaps Nice would
+have been demanded as well as Savoy. That both the King and Mazzini
+were right in mistrusting the sentiments of the French Government, is
+amply testified by a letter written by Jules Bastide to the French
+representative at Turin, in which the Minister of Foreign Affairs
+speaks of the danger to France of the formation of a strong monarchy
+at the foot of the Alps, that would tend to assimilate the rest of
+Italy, adding the significant words: 'We could admit the unity of
+Italy on the principle and in the form of a federation of independent
+states, each balancing the other, but never a unity which placed the
+whole of Italy under the dominion of one of these states.'
+
+Whether, in spite of all this, a political mistake was not made in not
+accepting French aid when it was first offered (in the spring of 1848)
+must remain an open question. When the French came eleven years later,
+they were actuated by no purer motives, but who would say that Cavour,
+instead of seeking, should have refused the French alliance?
+
+One other point has still to be noticed: the proposal made by Austria
+in the month of May to give up Lombardy unconditionally if she might
+keep Venetia, which was promised a separate administration and a
+national army. Nothing shows the state of mind then prevailing in a
+more distinct light than the scorn with which this offer was
+everywhere treated. Lord Palmerston declined to mediate on such a
+basis 'because there was no chance of the proposal being entertained,'
+which proved correct, as when it was submitted to the Provisional
+Government of Milan, it was not even thought worth taking into
+consideration. No one would contemplate the sacrifice of Venice by a
+new Campo Formio.
+
+Far, indeed, was Austria the victorious in August from Austria the
+humiliated in May. On the 9th of August, Hess and Salasco signed the
+armistice between the lately contending Powers. The next day the
+Emperor Ferdinand returned to his capital, from which he had been
+chased in the spring. He might well congratulate himself upon the
+marvellous recovery of his empire; but the revolution in Hungary was
+yet to be quelled, and another rising at Vienna in October tried his
+nerves, which were never of the strongest. On the 2nd of December he
+abdicated in favour of his young nephew, the Archduke Francis Joseph,
+who had been brought face to face more than once on the Mincio with
+the Duke of Savoy, whom he rivalled in personal courage.
+
+On the 10th of December, another event occurred which placed a new
+piece on the European chess-board: Louis Napoleon was elected to the
+Presidency of the French Republic.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE DOWNFALL OF THRONES
+
+1848-1849
+
+Garibaldi Arrives--Venice under Manin--The Dissolution of the Temporal
+Power--Republics at Rome and Florence.
+
+
+While the remnant of the Piedmontese army recrossed the bridge over
+the Ticino at Pavia, crushed, though not though want of valour,
+outraged in the person of its King, surely the saddest vanquished host
+that ever retraced in sorrow the path it had traced in the wildest
+joy, a few thousand volunteers in Lombardy still refused to lay down
+their arms or to recognise that, after the capitulation of Milan, all
+was lost. Valueless as a fact, their defiance of Austria had value as
+a prophecy, and its prophetic aspect comes more clearly into view when
+it is seen that the leader of the little band was Garibaldi, while its
+standard-bearer was Mazzini. These two had lately met for the first
+time since 1833, when Garibaldi, or 'Borel,' as he was called in the
+ranks of 'Young Italy,' went to Marseilles to make the acquaintance of
+the head and brain of the society which he had joined, as has been
+mentioned, on the banks of the Black Sea.
+
+'When I was young and had only aspirations,' said Garibaldi in London
+in April 1864, 'I sought out a man who could give me counsel and guide
+my youthful years; I sought him as the thirsty man seeks water. This
+man I found; he alone kept alive the sacred fire, he alone watched
+while all the world slept; he has always remained my friend, full of
+love for his country, full of devotion for the cause of freedom: this
+man is Joseph Mazzini.'
+
+The words spoken then--when the younger patriot was the chosen hero of
+the greatest of free nations, while the elder, still misunderstood by
+almost all, was shunned and calumniated, and even called 'the worst
+enemy of Italy'--gave one fresh proof, had one been wanting, that,
+though there have been more flawless characters than Garibaldi, never
+in a human breast beat a more generous heart. Politically, there was
+nearly as much divergence between Mazzini and Garibaldi as between
+Mazzini and Cavour; the master thought the pupil lacked ideality, the
+pupil thought the master lacked practicalness; but they were at one in
+the love of their land and in the desire to serve her.
+
+On parting with Mazzini in 1833, Garibaldi, then captain of a sailing
+vessel, went to Genoa and enrolled himself as a common sailor in the
+Royal Piedmontese Navy. The step, strange in appearance, was certainly
+taken on Mazzini's advice, and the immediate purpose was doubtless to
+make converts for 'Young Italy' among the marines. Had Garibaldi been
+caught when the ruthless persecution of all connected with 'Young
+Italy' set in, he would have been shot offhand, as were all those who
+were found dabbling with politics in the army and navy. He escaped
+just in time, and sailed for South America.
+
+The _Gazzetta Piemontese_ of the 17th of June 1834 published the
+sentence of death passed upon him, with the rider which declared him
+exposed to public vengeance 'as an enemy of the State, and liable to
+all the penalties of a brigand of the first category.' He saw the
+paper; and it was the first time that he or anyone else had seen the
+name of Giuseppe Garibaldi in print; a name of which Victor Emmanuel
+would one day say that 'it filled the furthest ends of the earth.'
+
+Profitable to Italy, over nearly every page of whose recent history
+might be written 'out of evil cometh forth good,' was the banishment
+which threw Garibaldi into his romantic career of the next twelve
+years between the Amazon and the Plata. Soldier of fortune who did not
+seek to enrich himself; soldier of freedom who never aimed at power,
+he always meant to turn to account for his own country the experience
+gained in the art of war in that distant land, where he rapidly became
+the centre of a legend, almost the origin of a myth. Antique in
+simplicity, singleness, superabundance of life, and in a sort of
+naturalism which is not of to-day; unselfconscious, trustful in
+others, forgiving, incapable of fear, abounding in compassion,
+Garibaldi's true place is not in the aggregation of facts which we
+call history, but in the apotheosis of character which we call the
+_Iliad_, the _Mahabharata_, the _Edda_, the cycles of Arthur and of
+Roland, and the _Romancero del Cid_.
+
+In childhood he rescued a drowning washerwoman; in youth he nursed men
+dying of cholera; as a veteran soldier he passed the night among the
+rocks of Caprera hunting for a lamb that was lost. No amount of habit
+could remove the repugnance he felt at uttering the word 'fire.' Yet
+this gentle warrior, when his career was closed and he lay chained to
+his bed of pain, endorsed his memoirs with the Spanish motto: 'La
+guerra es la verdadera vida del hombre.' War was the veritable life of
+Garibaldi; war, not conspiracy; war, not politics; war, not, alas!
+model farming, for which the old chief fancied in his later years that
+he had discovered in himself a vocation.
+
+Riding the wild horses and chasing the wild cattle of the Pampas, his
+eyes covering the immense spaces untrodden by man, this corsair of
+five-and-twenty drank deep of the innocent pleasures of untamed
+nature, when not occupied in fighting by land or sea, with equal
+fortune; or rather, perhaps, with greater fortune and greater proof of
+inborn genius as commander of the naval campaign of the Paran[=a] than
+as defender of Monte Video. No adventures were wanting to him; he was
+even imprisoned and tortured. In South America he found the one woman
+worthy to bear his name, the lion-hearted Anita, whom he carried off,
+she consenting, from her father and the man to whom her father had
+betrothed her. Garibaldi in after years expressed such deep contrition
+for the act which bore Anita away from the quiet life in store for
+her, and plunged her into hardships which only ended when she died,
+that, misinterpreting his remorse, many supposed the man from whom he
+took her to have been already her husband. It was not so. Shortly
+before the Church of San Francisco at Monte Video was burnt down (some
+twenty years ago), the marriage register of Garibaldi and Anita was
+found in its archives, and a legal copy was made. In it she is
+described as 'Doña Ana Maria de Jesus, unmarried daughter of Don
+Benito Rivevio de Silva, of Laguna, in Brazil.' The bridegroom, who
+during all his American career had scarcely clothes to cover him,
+parted with his only possession, an old silver watch, to pay the
+priest's fees. Head of the Italian Legion, he only took the rations of
+a common soldier, and as candles were not included in the rations, he
+sat in the dark. Someone reported this to the Government, who sent him
+a present of £20, half of which he gave to a poor widow.
+
+When the first rumours that something was preparing in Italy reached
+Monte Video, Garibaldi wrote a letter offering his services to the
+Pope, still hailed as Champion of Freedom, and soon embarked himself
+for the Old World, with eighty-five of his best soldiers, among whom
+was his beloved friend, Francesco Anzani. Giacomo Medici had been
+despatched a little in advance to confer with Mazzini. At starting,
+the Legion knew nothing of the revolution in Milan and Venice, or of
+Charles Albert having taken the field. Great was their wonder,
+therefore, on reaching Gibraltar, to see hoisted on a Sardinian ship a
+perfectly new flag, never beheld by them out of dreams--the Italian
+tricolor.
+
+So Garibaldi returned at forty-one years of age to the country where
+the sentence of death passed upon him had never been revoked. Before
+the law he was still 'a brigand of the first category.' Nor was he
+quite sure that he would not be arrested, and, as a precaution, when
+he cast anchor in the harbour of his native Nice, he ran up the Monte
+Videan colours. It was needless. Throngs of people crowded the quays
+to welcome home the Ligurian captain, who had done great things over
+sea. Anita was there; she had preceded him to Europe with their three
+children, Teresita, Menotti and Ricciotti. There, also, was his old
+mother, who never ceased to be beautiful, the 'Signora Rosa,' as the
+Nizzards called her. She was almost a woman of the people, but the
+simple dignity of her life made all treat her as a superior being. To
+her prayers, while she lived, Garibaldi believed that he owed his
+safety in so many perils, and after her death the soldiers used to say
+that on the eve of battles he walked apart communing with her spirit.
+
+From Nice, Garibaldi went to Genoa, where he took a last leave of his
+friend Anzani, who returned from exile not to fight, as he had hoped,
+but to die. The day before he expired, Medici arrived at Genoa; he was
+very angry with the Chief, in consequence of some disagreement as to
+the place of landing. Anzani said to him entreatingly: 'Do not be
+hard, Medici, on Garibaldi; he is a predestined man: a great part of
+the future of Italy is in his hands.' The counsel from dying lips sank
+deep into Medici's heart; he often disagreed with Garibaldi, but to
+his last day he never quarrelled with him again. Long years after, if
+friction arose between Garibaldi and his King, it was Medici's part to
+throw oil on the waters.
+
+Garibaldi sought an interview with Charles Albert, and offered him his
+arms and the arms of his Legion, 'not unused to war.' Pope or prince,
+little it mattered to him who the saviour of Italy should be. But
+Charles Albert, though he was polite, merely referred his visitor to
+his ministers, and the inestimable sword of the hero went begging for
+a month or more, till the Provisional Government of Milan gave him the
+command of the few thousand volunteers with whom we saw him at the
+conclusion of the campaign. The war was over before he had a chance of
+striking a blow. His indignant cry of defiance could not be long
+sustained, for Garibaldi never drove men to certain and useless
+slaughter; when the real position of things became known to him, he
+led his band over the Swiss confines, and bid them wait for a better
+and not distant day.
+
+Under Manin's wise rule, which was directed solely to the preservation
+of peace within the city, and resistance to the enemy at its gates,
+Venice remained undaunted by the catastrophes in Lombardy, after all
+the Venetian _terra firma_ had been restored to Austria. (Even the
+heroic little mountain fort of Osopo in the Friuli was compelled to
+capitulate on the 12th of October.) The blockade of the city on the
+lagunes did not prevent Venice from acting not only on the defensive
+but on the offensive; in the sortie of the 27th of October, 2500
+Venetians drove the Austrians from Mestre with severe losses, carrying
+back six captured guns, which the people dragged in triumph to the
+Doge's palace. A cabin-boy named Zorzi was borne on the shoulders of
+the soldiers enveloped in the Italian flag; his story was this: the
+national colours, floating from the mast of the pinnace on which he
+served, were detached by a ball and dropped into the water; the child
+sprang in after them, and with a shout of _Viva l'Italia,_ fixed them
+again at the masthead under a sharp fire. Zorzi was, of course, the
+small hero of the hour, especially among the women. General Pepe
+commanded the sortie, with Ulloa, Fontana and Cosenz as his
+lieutenants; Ugo Bassi, the patriot monk of Bologna, marched at the
+head of a battalion with the crucifix, the only arms he ever carried,
+in his hand. The success cost Italy dear, as Alessandro Poerio, poet
+and patriot, the brother of Baron Carlo Poerio of Naples, lost his
+life by a wound received at Mestre. But the confidence of Venice in
+her little army was increased a hundredfold.
+
+The most important event of the autumn of 1848 was the gradual but
+continuous break-up of the Papal authority in Rome. The meeting of the
+new Parliament only served to accentuate the want of harmony between
+the Pope and his ministers; assassinations were frequent; what law
+there was was administered by the political clubs. In Count Terenzio
+Mamiani, Pius IX. found a Prime Minister who, for eloquence and
+patriotism, could hardly be rivalled, but hampered as he was by the
+opposition he encountered from the Sovereign, and by the absence of
+any real or solid moderate constitutional party in the Chamber of
+Deputies, Mamiani could carry out very few of the improvements he
+desired to effect, and in August he retired from an impracticable
+task, to be replaced by men of less note and talent than himself.
+
+Wishing to create fresh complications for the Pope, the Austrians
+invaded the Legations, regardless of his protests, and after the fall
+of Milan, General Welden advanced on Bologna, where, however, his
+forces were so furiously attacked by the inhabitants and the few
+carabineers who were all the troops in the town, that they were
+dislodged from the strong position they had taken up on the
+Montagnola, the hill which forms the public park, and obliged to fly
+beyond the city walls. Radetsky disapproved of Welden's movements on
+Bologna, and ordered him not to return to the assault.
+
+Had the Austrians returned and massacred half the population of
+Bologna, the Pope might have been saved. When Rome heard that the
+stormy capital of Romagna was up in arms, once more, for a moment,
+there were united counsels. 'His Holiness,' ran the official
+proclamation, 'was firmly resolved to repel the Austrian invasion with
+all the means which his State and the well-regulated enthusiasm of his
+people could supply.' The Chamber confirmed the ministerial proposal
+to demand French help against Austria. But all this brave show of
+energy vanished with the pressing danger, and Bologna, which, by its
+manly courage, had galvanised the whole bloodless body-politic, now
+hastened the hour of dissolution by lapsing into a state of deplorable
+anarchy, the populace using the arms with which they had driven out
+the Austrians, to establish a reign of murder and pillage. L.C. Farini
+restored something like order, but the general weakness of the power
+of government became every day more apparent.
+
+The Pope made a last endeavour to avert the catastrophe by calling to
+his counsels Count Pellegrino Rossi, a man of unyielding will, who was
+as much opposed to demagogic as to theocratic government. Rossi,
+having been compromised when very young in Murat's enterprises, lived
+long abroad, and attained the highest offices under Louis Philippe,
+who sent him to Rome to arrange with the Pope the delicate question of
+the expulsion of the Jesuits from France, which he conducted to an
+amicable settlement, though one not pleasing to the great Society.
+Not being one of those who change masters as they change their boots
+according to the state of the roads, the ambassador retired from the
+French service when Louis Philippe was dethroned. As minister to the
+Pope, he made his influence instantly felt; measures were taken to
+restore order in the finances, discipline in the army, public security
+in the streets, and method and activity in the Government offices. The
+tax on ecclesiastical property was enforced; fomenters of anarchy,
+even though they wore the garb of patriots, and perhaps honestly
+believed themselves to be such, were vigorously dealt with. If anyone
+could have given the Temporal Power a new lease of life, it would have
+been a man so gifted and so devoted as Pellegrino Rossi, but the
+entire forces, both of subversion and of reaction, were against him,
+and most of all was against him the fatality of dates. Not at human
+bidding do the dead arise and walk. The most deeply to be regretted
+event that happened in the course of the Italian revolution gave his
+inevitable failure the appearance of a fortuitous accident.
+
+Parliament, which had been prorogued on the 26th of August, was to
+open on the 15th of November. Anarchy, black and red, was in the air.
+Though disorders were expected, Rossi made no provision for keeping
+the space clear round the palace where Parliament met; knots of men,
+with sinister faces, gathered in all parts of the square. Rossi was
+warned in the morning that an attempt would be made to assassinate
+him; he was entreated not to go to the Chamber, to which he replied
+that it was his duty to be present, and that if people wanted his
+blood they would have it sooner or later, whether he took precautions
+or not. Two policemen to keep the passage free when he reached the
+Chamber would, nevertheless, have saved his life. As he walked from
+his carriage to the stairs, an unknown individual pushed against him
+on the right side, and when he turned to see who it was, the assassin
+plunged a dagger in his throat. He fell, bathed in blood, to expire
+without uttering a word.
+
+In the Chamber, the deputies proceeded to business; not one raised an
+indignant protest against a crime which violated the independence of
+the representatives of the nation. The mere understanding of what
+liberty means is absolutely wanting in most populations when they
+first emerge from servitude.
+
+After the craven conduct of the deputies, it is no wonder if the dregs
+of the people went further, and paraded the streets singing songs in
+praise of the assassin. The Pope summoned the Presidents of the two
+Chambers and Marco Minghetti, whom he requested to form a new
+ministry. But the time for regular proceeding was past; the city was
+in the hands of the mob, which imposed on the Pope the acceptance of a
+ministry of nonentities nominated by it. The Swiss Guard fired on the
+crowd which attempted to gain access to the Quirinal; the crowd,
+reinforced by the Civic Guard, returned to the attack and fired
+against the walls, a stray shot killing Monsignor Palma, who was in
+one of the rooms. The Pope decided on flight. He left Rome in disguise
+during the evening of the 25th of November. After gaining the
+Neapolitan frontier, he took the road to Gaeta. The illusion of the
+Pope Liberator ended with the Encyclical; the illusion of the
+Constitutional Pope ended with the flight to Gaeta. Pius IX. was only
+in a limited degree responsible for his want of success, because the
+task he had set before him was the quadrature of the circle in
+politics.
+
+The weight of a less qualified responsibility rests upon him for his
+subsequent actions. On the 3rd of December Parliament voted a proposal
+to send a deputation to the Pope, praying him to return to his States.
+To give the deputation greater authority, the Municipality of Rome
+proposed that the Syndic, the octogenarian Prince Corsini, should
+accompany it. It also comprised two ecclesiastics, and thus
+constituted, it left Rome for Gaeta on the 5th of December. On the
+borders of the Neapolitan kingdom its passage was barred by the
+police, and it was obliged to retrace its steps to Terracina. Here the
+deputation drew up a letter to Cardinal Antonelli (no longer the
+patriotic minister of the spring), in which an audience with the
+Sovereign Pontiff was respectfully requested. The answer came that the
+Pope would not receive the deputation. It was an answer that he was at
+liberty to make, but it should have meant abdication. If, called back
+by the will of the Parliament of his own making, the Sovereign deigned
+not even to receive the bearers of the invitation, in what way did he
+contemplate resuming the throne? It was only too easy to guess. The
+Head of Christendom had become a convert of King Ferdinand of Naples,
+otherwise Bomba. By a path strewn with the sinister flowers of war did
+Pius IX. meditate returning to his subjects--by that path and no
+other.
+
+The Galetti-Sterbini ministry, appointed by the Pope under popular
+pressure a few days before his departure, remained in charge of
+affairs, somewhat strengthened by the adhesion of Terenzio Mamiani as
+Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mamiani at first declined to form part of
+the ministry, but joined it afterwards with self-sacrificing
+patriotism, in the hope of saving things from going to complete rack
+and ruin during the interregnum caused by the withdrawal of the Head
+of the State. He only retired from the ungrateful office when he saw
+the imminence of a radical change in the form of government, which was
+not desired by him any more than it had been by Rossi.
+
+The mass of the population of the Roman States had desired such a
+change ever since the days of Gregory; the temporary enthusiasm for
+Pius, if it arrested the flow of the stream, did not prevent the
+waters from accumulating beyond the dyke. One day the dyke would
+burst, and the waters sweep all before them.
+
+A Constituent Assembly was convoked for the 5th of February 1849. The
+elections, which took place on the 21st of January, were on this
+basis: every citizen of more than twenty-one years was allowed to
+vote; every citizen over twenty-five could become a deputy; the number
+of deputies was fixed at two hundred; a candidate who received less
+than 500 votes would not be elected. On the 9th of February, the
+Constituent Assembly voted the downfall of the Temporal Power (free
+exercise of his spiritual functions being, at the same time, assured
+to the Supreme Pontiff), and the establishment of a republican form of
+government. The Roman Republic was proclaimed from the Capitol.
+
+Ten votes were given against the republic. No government ever came
+into existence in a more strictly legal manner. Had it not represented
+the true will of the people, the last Roman Commonwealth could not
+have left behind so glorious, albeit brief, a record.
+
+A youthful poet, descendant of the Doges of Genoa, Goffredo Mameli,
+whose 'Fratelli d'Italia' was the battle-hymn to which Italy marched,
+wrote these three words to Mazzini: 'Roma, Repubblica, Venite.' So
+Mazzini came to Rome, which confided her destinies to him, as she had
+once confided them to the Brescian Arnold and to Cola di Rienzi. Not
+Arnold--not Rienzi in his nobler days--dreamed a more sublime dream of
+Roman liberty than did Giuseppe Mazzini, or more nearly wrote down
+that dream in facts.
+
+Originally the executive power was delegated to a committee, but this
+was changed to a Triumvirate, the Triumvirs being Armellini, Saffi and
+Mazzini. Mazzini's mind and will directed the whole.
+
+On the 18th of February, Cardinal Antonelli demanded in the Pope's
+name the armed intervention of France, Austria, Spain and Naples, 'as
+in this way alone can order be restored in the States of the Church,
+and the Holy Father re-established in the exercise of his supreme
+authority, in compliance with the imperious exigencies of his august
+and sacred character, the interests of the universal Church, and the
+peace of nations. In this way he will be enabled to retain the
+patrimony which he received at his accession, and transmit it in its
+integrity to his successors.'
+
+The Pope, who could not bring himself to stain his white robes with
+the blood of the enemies of Italy, called in four armies to shoot down
+his subjects, because in no other way could he recover his lost
+throne.
+
+Pius IX. was the twenty-sixth Pontiff who called the foreigner into
+Italy.
+
+The final conquest of the Pope by the party of universal reaction
+could only be effected by his isolation from all but one set of
+influences; this is precisely what happened at Gaeta. There are
+reasons for thinking that his choice of the hospitality of the King of
+the Two Sicilies, rather than that of France or Spain or Sardinia, was
+the result of an intrigue in which Count Spaur, the Bavarian minister
+who represented the interests of Austria in Rome after that power
+withdrew her ambassador, played a principal part. Even after Pius
+arrived at Gaeta, it is said that he talked of it as the first stage
+of a longer journey. He had never shown any liking for the Neapolitan
+Bourbons, and the willingness which he expressed to Gioberti to crown
+Charles Albert King of Italy if his arms were successful, was probably
+duly appreciated by Ferdinand II. To save the Pope from absorption by
+the retrograde party, and to avoid the certainty of a foreign
+invasion, Gioberti, who became Prime Minister of Piedmont in November
+1848, was anxious to occupy the Roman states with Sardinian troops
+immediately after the Pope's flight, when his subjects still
+recognised his sovereignty. Gioberti resigned because this policy was
+opposed by Rattazzi and other of his colleagues in the ministry. It
+would have been a difficult _rôle_ to play; Sardinia, while
+endeavouring to checkmate the reaction, might have become its
+instrument. The failure of Gioberti's plan cannot be regretted, but
+his forecast of what would happen if it were not attempted proved to
+be correct.
+
+Soon after the arrival of his exalted guest, King Ferdinand with his
+family, a great number of priests, and a strong escort, moved his
+residence from the capital to Gaeta. The modified Constitution,
+substituted for the first charter after the events of the 15th of May,
+was still nominally in force; Parliament had met during the summer,
+but the King solved the riddle of governing through his ministers, on
+purely retrograde principles, without paying more heed to the
+representatives of the nations than to the benches on which they sat.
+Prorogued on the 5th of September, Parliament was to have met on the
+30th of November, but when that date approached, it was prorogued
+again to the 1st of February. 'Our misery has reached such a climax,'
+wrote Baron Carlo Poerio, 'that it is enough to drive us mad. Every
+faculty of the soul revolts against the ferocious reactionary
+movement, the more disgraceful from its execrable hypocrisy. We are
+governed by an oligarchy; the only article maintained is that
+respecting the taxes. The laws have ceased to exist; the Statute is
+buried; a licentious soldiery rules over everything, and the press is
+constantly employed to asperse honest men. The lives of the deputies
+are menaced. Another night of St Bartholomew is threatened to all who
+will not sell body and soul.' Ferdinand only waited till he had
+recovered substantial hold over Sicily to do away with even the
+fiction of parliamentary government. Messina had fallen in September,
+though not till half the city was in flames, the barbarous cruelties
+practised on the inhabitants after the surrender exciting the
+indignation of the English and French admirals who witnessed the
+bombardment. This was the first step to the subjection of Sicily, but
+not till after Syracuse and Catania fell did the King feel that there
+was no further cause for anxiety--the taking of the capital becoming a
+mere question of time. He was so much pleased at the fall of Catania
+that he had a mock representation of the siege performed at Gaeta in
+presence of the Pope and of half the sacred college.
+
+On the 13th of March Prince Torelli handed the President of the
+Neapolitan Chamber of Deputies a sealed packet which contained a royal
+decree dissolving Parliament. Naples was once more under an
+irresponsible despotism. The lazzaroni of both the lower and higher
+classes, if by lazzaroni may be understood the born allies of
+ignorance, idleness and bigotry, rejoiced and were glad. Nor were they
+few. Unlike the Austrians in the north, Ferdinand had his party; the
+'fidelity of his subjects' of which he boasted, was not purely
+mythical. Whether, considering its basis, it was much to boast of,
+need not be discussed.
+
+In March, the happy family at Gaeta was increased by a new arrival.
+Had he been better advised, Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, would have
+never gone to breathe that malarious atmosphere. He had played no
+conjuror's tricks with his promises to his people; Austrian though he
+was, he had really acted the part of an Italian prince, and there was
+nothing to show that he had not acted it sincerely. But a persistent
+bad luck attended his efforts. Though the ministers appointed by him
+included men as distinguished as the Marquis Gino Capponi, Baron
+Ricasoli and Prince Corsini, they failed in winning a strong popular
+support. Leghorn, where the population, unlike that of the rest of
+Tuscany, is by nature turbulent, broke into open revolution. In the
+last crisis, the Grand Duke entrusted the government to the extreme
+Liberals, Montanelli the professor, and Guerrazzi the novelist; both
+were honourable men, and Guerrazzi was thought by many to be a man of
+genius. The vigorous rhetoric of his _Assedio di Firenze_ had warmed
+the patriotism of many young hearts. But, as statesmen, the only
+talent they showed was for upsetting any _régime_ with which they were
+connected.
+
+The Grand Duke was asked to convoke a Constituent Assembly, following
+the example of Rome. If every part of Italy were to do the same, the
+constitution and form of government of the whole country could be
+settled by a convention of the various assemblies. The idea was worthy
+of respect because it pointed to unity; but in view of the existing
+situation, Tuscany's solitary adhesion would hardly have helped the
+nation, while it was accompanied by serious risks to the state. The
+Grand Duke seemed about to yield to the proposal, but, on receiving a
+strong protest from the Pope, he refused to do so on the ground that
+it would expose himself and his subjects to the terrors of
+ecclesiastical censure. He still remained in Tuscany, near Viareggio,
+till he was informed that a band of Leghornese had set out with the
+intention of capturing his person. Then he left for Gaeta on board the
+English ship _Bull Dog._ The republic had been already proclaimed at
+Florence, with Montanelli and Guerrazzi as its chief administrators.
+It succeeded in pleasing no one. Civil war was more than once at the
+threshhold of Florence, for the peasants rose in armed resistance to
+the new government. In less than two months the restoration of the
+Grand. Ducal authority was accomplished almost of itself.
+Unfortunately, the Grand Duke who was to come back was not the same
+man as he who went away. The air of Gaeta did its work.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+AT BAY
+
+1849
+
+Novara--Abdication of Charles Albert--Brescia crushed--French
+Intervention--The Fall of Rome--The Fall of Venice.
+
+
+In the spring of 1848, a date might be found when every Italian ruler
+except the Duke of Modena wore the appearance of a friend to freedom
+and independence. In the spring of 1849 no Italian prince preserved
+that appearance except the King of Sardinia. Many causes contributed
+to the elimination, but most of all the logic of events. It was a case
+of the survival of the fittest. What seemed a calamity was a step in
+advance.
+
+Early in March, the Marquis Pallavicini, prisoner of Spielberg, had a
+long interview with Charles Albert. They sat face to face talking over
+Italian matters, and the King said confidently that the army was now
+flourishing; if the die were cast anew, they would win. At parting he
+embraced the Lombard patriot with the words: 'Dear Pallavicini, how
+glad I am to have seen you again! You and I had always the same
+thought; the independence of Italy was the first dream of my youth; it
+is my dream still, it will be till I die.'
+
+Some characters grow small in misfortune, others grow great. The
+terrible scene at the Palazzo Greppi, the charge of treason, the
+shouts of 'death,' had left only one trace on Charles Albert's mind:
+the burning desire to deliver his accusers.
+
+The armistice was denounced on the 12th of March, a truce of eight
+days being allowed before the recommencement of hostilities. There is
+such a thing in politics as necessary madness, and it may be doubted
+if the Sardinian war of 1849 was not this thing. The programme of
+_fare da sè_ had now to be carried out in stern earnest. Sardinia
+stood alone, neither from south of the Apennines nor from north of the
+Alps could help be hoped for. France, which was meditating quite
+another sort of intervention, refused the loan even of a general.
+'They were not going to offend Austria to please Piedmont,' said the
+French Cabinet. Worse than this, the army was not in the flourishing
+state of which the King had spoken. The miseries of the retreat, but
+infinitely more, the incidents of Milan, though wiped out by the King
+from his own memory, were vividly recollected by all ranks. Affection
+was not the feeling with which the Piedmontese soldiers regarded the
+'fratelli Lombardi.' Did anyone beside the King believe that this
+army, which had lost faith in its cause, in its leaders and in itself,
+was going to beat Radetsky? The old Field-Marshal might well show the
+wildest joy when the denunciation of the armistice was communicated to
+him. And yet the higher expediency demanded that the sacrifice of
+Piedmont and of her King for Italy should be consummated.
+
+Rattazzi announced the coming campaign to the Chambers on the 14th of
+March; the news was well received; there was a general feeling that,
+whatever happened, the present situation could not be prolonged. With
+regard to the numbers they could put in the field, Austria and
+Sardinia were evenly balanced, each having about 80,000 disposable
+men. The request for a French marshal having been refused, the chief
+command was given to Chrzanowski, a Pole, who did not know Italian,
+had not studied the theatre of the war, and was so little favoured by
+nature that, to the impressionable Italians, his appearance seemed
+ludicrous. This deplorable appointment was made to satisfy the outcry
+against Piedmontese generalship; as if it was not enough, the other
+Polish general, Ramorino, accused of treachery by the revolutionists
+in 1832, but now praised to the skies by the democratic party, was
+placed in command of the fifth or Lombard division.
+
+Though Radetsky openly gave the word 'To Turin!' Chrzanowski seems to
+have failed to realise that the Austrians intended to invade Piedmont.
+He ordered Ramorino, however, with his 8000 Lombards, to occupy the
+fork formed by the Po and the Ticino, so as to defend the bridge at
+Pavia, if, by chance, any fraction of the enemy tried to cross it.
+What Ramorino did was to place his division on the right bank of the
+Po, and to destroy the bridge of boats at Mezzana Corte _between_
+himself and the enemy. The Austrians crossed the Ticino in the night
+of the 20th of April, not with a fraction, but with a complete army.
+Ramorino was deprived of his command, and was afterwards tried by
+court-martial and shot. Whether his treason was intentional or
+involuntary, it is certain that, had he stemmed the Austrian advance
+even for half a day, the future disasters, if not averted, would not
+have come so rapidly, because the Piedmontese would have been
+forewarned. On the evening of the 21st, General D'Aspre, with 15,000
+men, took a portion of the Sardinian army unawares near Mortara, and,
+owing to the scattered distribution of the Piedmontese, who would have
+outnumbered him had they been concentrated, he succeeded in forcing his
+way into Mortara by nightfall. The moral effect of this first reverse
+was bad, but Chrzanowski rashly decided staking the whole fate of the
+campaign in a field-day, for which purpose he gathered what troops he
+could collect at La Biccocca, a hill capped with a village about a
+mile and a half from Novara. Not more than 50,000 men were collected;
+some had already deserted, and 20,000 were doing nothing on the other
+side of the Po.
+
+Towards eleven o'clock D'Aspre arrived, and lost no time in beginning
+the attack. He sent post-haste to Radetsky, Appel and Thurn to bring
+all the reinforcements in their power as fast as possible. D'Aspre's
+daring was rewarded by his carrying La Biccocca at about mid-day, but
+the Duke of Genoa retook the position with the aid of the valorous
+'Piemonte' brigade, and by two p.m. D'Aspre's brave soldiers were so
+thoroughly beaten, that nothing could have saved his division from
+destruction, as he afterwards admitted, had Chrzanowski joined in the
+pursuit instead of staying behind with more than half the army, in
+accordance with a preconceived plan of remaining on the defensive.
+
+At two o'clock on the 23rd of March, the news started on the wings of
+the wind, and, as great news will do, swiftly reached every part of
+the waiting country, that the Sardinians were getting the best of it,
+that the cause was saved. Men who are not very old remember this as
+the first strong sensation of their lives--this, and its sequel.
+
+Appel and Thurn, and Wratislaw and the old Field-Marshal were on the
+march, and by four o'clock they were pouring their fresh troops upon
+the Piedmontese, who had not known how to profit by their success.
+Heroism such as few battlefields have seen, disorder such as has
+rarely disgraced a beaten army, were displayed side by side in Charles
+Albert's ranks. At eight in the evening, the whole Sardinian army
+retired into Novara; the Austrians bivouacked on La Biccocca. The
+Sardinians had lost 4000 in dead and wounded; the losses of the
+victors were a thousand less.
+
+All the day long the King courted death, pressing forward where the
+balls fell like hail and the confusion was at its height, with the
+answer of despair to the devoted officers who sought to hold him
+back: 'Let me die, this is my last day.' But death shuns the seeker.
+Men fell close beside him, but no charitable ball struck his breast.
+In the evening he said to his generals: 'We have still 40,000 men,
+cannot we fall back on Alessandria and still make an honourable
+stand?' They told him that it could not be done. Radetsky was asked on
+what terms he would grant an armistice; he replied: 'The occupation of
+a large district in Piedmont, and the heir to the throne as a
+hostage.' Then Charles Albert knew what he must do. 'For eighteen
+years,' he said, 'I have made every effort for the good of the people;
+I grieve to see that my hopes have failed, not so much for myself as
+for the country. I have not found death on the field of battle as I
+ardently desired; perhaps my person is the only obstacle to obtaining
+juster terms. I abdicate the crown in favour of my son, Victor
+Emmanuel.' And turning to the Duke of Savoy he said: 'There is your
+King.'
+
+In the night he left Novara alone for Nice. As he passed through the
+Austrian lines, the sentinels were nearly firing upon his carriage;
+General Thurn, before whom he was brought, asked for some proof that
+he was in fact the 'Count de Barge' in whose name his passport was
+made out. A Bersagliere prisoner who recognised the King, at a sign
+from him gave the required testimony, and he was allowed to pass. At
+Nice he was received by the governor, a son of Santorre di Santa Rosa,
+and to him he addressed the last words spoken by him on Italian
+ground: 'In whatever time, in whatever place, a regular government
+raises the flag of war with Austria, the Austrians will find me among
+their enemies as a simple soldier.' Then he continued his journey to
+Oporto.
+
+The principal side-issue of the campaign of 1849 was the revolution at
+Brescia. Had the original plan been carried out, which was to throw
+the Sardinian army into Lombardy (and it is doubtful whether, even
+after Radetsky's invasion of Piedmont, it would not have been better
+to adhere to it), a corresponding movement on the part of the
+inhabitants would have become of the greatest importance. To Brescia,
+which was the one Lombard town where the Piedmontese had been received
+in 1848 with real effusion, the Sardinian Minister of War despatched
+Count Giuseppe Martinengo Cesaresco with arms and ammunition, and
+orders to reassume the colonelcy of the National Guard which he held
+in the previous year, and to take the general control of the movement
+as far as Brescia was concerned. Martinengo succeeded in transporting
+the arms through the enemy's country from the Piedmontese frontier to
+Iseo, and thence to his native city. When he reached Brescia, he found
+that the Austrians had evacuated the town, though they still occupied
+the castle which frowns down upon it. This was the 23rd of March:
+Novara was fought and lost, Piedmont was powerless to come to the
+assistance of the people she had commanded to rise. What was to be
+done? Plainly common sense suggested an honourable compromise with the
+Austrian commandant, by which he should be allowed to reoccupy the
+city on condition that no hair of the citizens' heads was touched.
+This is what Bergamo and the other towns did, nor are they to be
+blamed.
+
+Not so Brescia. Here, where love of liberty was an hereditary instinct
+from the long connection of Brescia with free Venice, where hatred of
+the stranger, planted by the ruthless soldiery of Gaston de Foix, had
+but gone on maturing through three centuries, where the historical
+title of 'Valiant,' coming down from a remote antiquity, was still no
+fable; here, with a single mind, the inhabitants resolved upon as
+desperate a resistance as was ever offered by one little town to a
+great army.
+
+The Austrian bombardment was begun by the Irish General,
+Nugent-Lavall, who, dying in the midst of it, left all his fortune to
+the heroic city which he was attacking. The Austrians, flushed with
+their victory over Charles Albert's army of 80,000, were seized with
+rage at the sight of their power defied by a town of less than half
+that number of souls. But with that rage was mingled, even in the mind
+of Haynau, an admiration not to be repressed.
+
+Haynau who was sent to replace Nugent, was already known at Brescia,
+where he had been appointed military governor after the resumption of
+Austrian authority in 1848. In order to punish the 'persistent
+opposition manifested to the legitimate Imperial and Royal
+Government,' and as an example to the other towns, he had imposed on
+the Brescian householders and the landed proprietors of the province a
+fine of half a million francs.
+
+He now returned, and what he did may be best read in his own report on
+the operations. 'It was then,' he wrote, 'that began the most murderous
+fight; a fight prolonged by the insurgents from barricade to barricade,
+from house to house, with extraordinary obstinacy. I should never have
+believed that so bad a cause could have been sustained with such
+perseverance. In spite of this desperate defence, and although the
+assault could only be effected in part, and with the help of cannons of
+heavy calibre, our brave troops with heroic courage, but at the cost of
+great losses, occupied a first line of houses; but as all my columns
+could not penetrate into the town at the same time, I ordered the
+suspension of the attack at nightfall, limiting myself to holding the
+ground conquered. In spite of that, the combat continued late into the
+night. On the 1st of April, in the earliest morning light, the tocsin
+was heard ringing with more fury than ever, and the insurgents reopened
+fire with an entirely new desperation. Considering the gravity of our
+losses, as well as the obstinacy and fury of the enemy, it was
+necessary to adopt a most rigorous measure. I ordered that no prisoners
+should be taken, but that every person seized with arms in his hand
+should be immediately put to death, and that the houses from which shots
+came should be burnt. It is thus that conflagrations, partly caused by
+the troops, partly by the bombardment, broke out in various parts of the
+town.'
+
+During the ten days' struggle, the citizens did not flinch for a
+moment. Count Martinengo was the guiding spirit of the defence, and
+scarcely left the most exposed of the barricades night or day. From
+the nobles to the poorest of the people, all did their duty. A youth
+named Tito Speri led and animated the populace. The horrors of the
+repression make one think of the fall of Khartoum. Not even in
+Hungary, where he went from Brescia to continue his 'system,' did
+Haynau so blacken his own and his country's name as here. In a boys'
+school kept by a certain Guidi, the master's wife, his mother and ten
+of his pupils were slaughtered. A little hunchback tailor was carried
+to the barracks to be slowly burnt alive. But stray details do not
+give the faintest idea of the whole. And for all this, Haynau was in a
+far higher degree responsible than the actual executants of the
+vengeance to which he hounded on his ignorant soldiers, maddened with
+the lust of blood.
+
+Such was General Haynau, 'whose brave devotion to his master's service
+was the veteran's sole crime,' said the _Quarterly Review_ (June
+1853), but who was judged otherwise by some in England. Wherefore was
+he soundly beaten by the brewers in the employment of Messrs Barclay &
+Perkins; and the nice words of the _Quarterly_ could not undo that
+beating, redress for which Lord Palmerston blandly advised the
+complainant to seek 'before the common tribunals.' He thought it best
+to neglect the advice, and to leave the country.
+
+Among the curious taxes levied at Brescia during the six months after
+its fall was one of £500 for 'the expenses of the hangman.' Count
+Martinengo escaped after the Austrians were in possession of the town
+through the courageous assistance given to him by a few young men of
+the working class. Camozzi's band of Bergamasques, which started for
+the relief of the sister city, was driven back with loss.
+
+The end was come, but woe to the victors.
+
+Following the Italian flag to where it still floated, we pass from
+Brescia in the dust to Rome still inviolate, though soon to be
+assailed by the bearers of another tricolor. A few days after Novara,
+the Triumvirate issued a proclamation, in which they said: 'The
+Republic in Rome has to prove to Italy and to Europe that our work is
+eminently religious, a work of education and of morality; that the
+accusations of intolerance, anarchy and violent upturning of things
+are false; that, thanks to the republican principle, united as one
+family of good men under the eye of God, and following the impulse of
+those who are first among us in genius and virtue, we march to the
+attainment of true order, law and power united.' Englishmen who were
+in Rome at the time attest how well the pledge was kept. Peace and
+true freedom prevailed under the republican banner as no man
+remembered them to have prevailed before in Rome. The bitter
+provocation of the quadruple attack was not followed by revengeful
+acts on the parts of the government against those who were politically
+and religiously associated with him at whose bidding that attack was
+made. Nothing like a national party was terrorised or kept under by
+fear of violence. 'That at such a time,' writes Henry Lushington, who
+was not favourable to Mazzini, 'not one lawless or evil deed was done
+would have been rather a miracle than a merit, but on much concurrent
+testimony it is clear that the efforts of the government to preserve
+order were incessant, and to a remarkable degree successful.' He adds
+that the streets were far safer for ordinary passengers under the
+Triumvirs than under the Papacy.
+
+Of great help in quieting the passions of the lower orders was the
+people's tribune, Ciceruacchio, who had not put on black cloth
+clothes, or asked for the ministry of war, or of fine arts, according
+to the usual wont of successful tribunes. Ciceruacchio had the sense
+of humour of the genuine Roman _popolano_, and it never came into his
+head to make himself ridiculous. His influence had been first acquired
+by works of charity in the Tiber floods. Being a strong swimmer, he
+ventured where no one else would go, and had saved many lives. At
+first a wine-carrier, he made money by letting out conveyances and
+dealing in forage, but he gave away most of what he made. He opposed
+the whole force of his popularity to a war of classes. 'Viva chi c'ia
+e chi non c'ia quattrini!'[4] was his favourite cry. Once when a young
+poet read him a sonnet in his honour he stopped him at the line 'Thou
+art greater than all patricians,' saying that he would not have that
+published: 'I respect the nobility, and never dream of being higher
+than they. I am a poor man of the people, and such I will always
+remain.'
+
+When the siege came, Ciceruacchio was invaluable in providing the
+troops with forage, horses, and even victuals, which he procured by
+making private sorties on his own account during the night; his
+intimate knowledge of every path enabling him to go unobserved. He
+planned the earthworks, at which he laboured with his hands, and when
+fighting was going on, he shouldered a musket and ran with his two
+sons, one of them a mere child, to wherever the noise of guns directed
+him. No picture of Rome in 1849 would be complete without the burly
+figure and jocund face of Angelo Brunetti.
+
+The republican government found Rome with a mere shadow of an army;
+the efforts to create one had been too spasmodic to do anything but
+make confusion worse confounded by changes and experiments soon
+abandoned. Perseverance and intelligence now had a different result,
+and the little army, called into existence by the republic, proved
+admirable in discipline, various and fantastic as were its components.
+
+Towards the end of April, Garibaldi, who had been stationed at Rieti,
+was ordered to bring his legion to Rome. Those who witnessed the
+arrival saw one of the strangest scenes ever beheld in the Eternal
+City. The men wore pointed hats with black, waving plumes; thin and
+gaunt, their faces dark as copper, with naked legs, long beards and
+wild dark hair hanging down their backs, they looked like a company of
+Salvator Rosa's brigands. Beautiful as a statue amidst his
+extraordinary host rode the Chief, mounted on a white horse, which he
+sat like a centaur. 'He was quite a show, everyone stopping to look at
+him,' adds the sculptor Gibson, to whom these details are owed.
+'Probably,' writes another Englishman, 'a human face so like a lion,
+and still retaining the humanity nearest the image of its Maker, was
+never seen.' Garibaldi wore the historic red shirt, and a small cap
+ornamented with gold.
+
+The origin of the red shirt might have remained in poetic uncertainty
+had it not been mentioned a few years ago in a volume of reminiscences
+published by an English naval officer. The men employed in the
+Saladéros or great slaughtering and salting establishments for cattle
+in the Argentine provinces wore scarlet woollen shirts; owing to the
+blockade of Buenos Ayres, a merchant at Monte Video had a quantity of
+these on his hands, and as economy was a great object to the
+government, they bought the lot cheap for their Italian legion, little
+thinking that they were making the 'Camicia Rossa' immortal in song
+and story.
+
+The coming to Rome of the 1200 legionaries aroused private fears in
+the hearts of the more timid inhabitants, but Garibaldi knew how to
+keep his wild followers in hand, and gallant was the service they
+rendered to Roman liberty.
+
+That liberty was now on the eve of its peril. The preliminaries of the
+French intervention in Rome are tolerably well known; here it suffices
+to say that every new contribution to a more precise knowledge of the
+facts only serves to confirm the charge of dissimulation, or, to use a
+plainer and far better adapted word, of dishonesty, brought against
+the French government for their part in the matter. White, indeed, do
+Austria, Spain and Naples appear--the avowed upholders of priestly
+despotism--beside the ruler of republican France and his ministers,
+whose plan it was not to fight the Roman republic: fighting was far
+from their counsels, but to betray it. It is proved that the
+restoration of the Temporal Power was the aim of the expedition from
+the first; it is equally proved that the French sought to get inside
+Rome by distinct disclaimers of any such intention. 'We do not go to
+Italy,' they said, 'to impose with our arms a system of government,
+but to assure the rights of liberty, and to preserve a legitimate
+interference in the affairs of the peninsula.' They adopted a curious
+method of assuring the rights of liberty.
+
+The Pope would not have anything to do with the affair. 'If you say
+openly that you are going to give me back my Temporal Power, well and
+good; if not, I prefer the aid of Austria.' So he replied to the
+flattering tales whispered in his ear, while tales no less flattering
+were being whispered in the ear of Mazzini. He declined to give the
+French any guarantees as to his future mode of governing; it cannot be
+said, therefore, that they were under the delusion that they were
+restoring a constitutional sovereign.
+
+Efforts have been made to cast the responsibility of the Roman
+intervention entirely on Louis Napoleon. Even Mazzini favoured that
+view, but it is impossible to separate the President of the Republic
+from the 325 deputies who voted the supplies for the expedition on the
+2nd of April. Does anyone pretend that they were hoodwinked any more
+than Ledru Rollin was hoodwinked, or the minority, which, roused by
+his vigorous speech, voted against the grant? Louis Napoleon was far
+less Papal in his sentiments than were most of the assenting deputies;
+his own opinion was more truly represented by the letter which, as a
+private citizen, he wrote to the 'Constitutionnel' in December 1848
+than by his subsequent course as President. In this letter he declared
+that a military demonstration would be perilous even to the interests
+which it was intended to safeguard. He had but one fixed purpose: to
+please France, so as to get himself made Emperor. France must be held
+answerable for the means taken to please her.
+
+General Oudinot landed at Civitavecchia on the 25th of April, his
+friendly assurances having persuaded the local authorities to oppose
+no resistance, an unfortunate error, but the last. The correct
+judgment formed by the Roman Government of the designs of the invaders
+was considerably assisted by a French officer, Colonel Leblanc, who
+was sent to Rome by Oudinot to come to an agreement with Mazzini for
+the amicable reception of the French, and who, losing his temper,
+revealed more than he was meant to reveal. His last words, 'Les
+Italiens ne se battent pas,' unquestionably expressed the belief of
+the whole French force, from the general-in-chief to the youngest
+drummer. They were soon going to have a chance of testing its
+accuracy.
+
+The Roman Assembly passed a vote that 'force should be repelled by
+force.' Well-warned, therefore, but with the proverbial _coeur léger_,
+Oudinot advanced on Rome with 8000 men early on the 30th of April. At
+eleven o'clock the two columns came in sight of St Peter's, and soon
+after, the first which moved towards Porta Angelica was attacked by
+Colonel Masi. Garibaldi attacked the second column a mile out of Porta
+San Pancrazio. At the first moment the superior numbers of the French
+told, and the Italians fell back on Villa Pamphilli, but Colonel
+Galetti arrived with reinforcements, and before long Garibaldi drove
+the French from the Pamphilli Gardens and had them in full retreat
+along the Civitavecchia road. Oudinot was beaten, Rome was victorious.
+'This does not surprise us Romans; but it will astonish Paris!' ran a
+manifesto of the hour; the words are a little childish, but men are
+apt to be childish when they are deeply moved. And as to the
+astonishment of Paris, all the words in the world would fail to paint
+its proportions. Paris was indeed astonished.
+
+Garibaldi had not the chief command of the Roman army, or he would
+have done more; there was nothing to prevent the Italians from driving
+Oudinot into the sea. The Triumvirate, when appealed to directly by
+Garibaldi, refused their sanction, either fearing to leave the capital
+exposed to the Neapolitans who were advancing, or (and this seems to
+have been the real reason) still hoping that France would repudiate
+Oudinot and come to terms. Garibaldi was right on this occasion, and
+Mazzini was wrong. When you are at war, nothing is so ruinous as to be
+afraid of damaging the enemy.
+
+The French ministers, bombarded with reproaches by friends and foes,
+and most uneasy lest their troops in Italy should be destroyed before
+they could send reinforcements, did disown Oudinot's march on Rome,
+and Ferdinand de Lesseps was despatched nominally 'to arrange matters
+in a pacific sense,' but actually to gain time.
+
+In a sitting in the French Assembly, a member of the opposition said
+to the President of the Council: 'You are going to reinstate the
+Pope!' 'No, no,' ejaculated Odilon Barrot. 'You are going to do the
+same as Austria,' cried Lamoricière. 'We should be culpable if we
+did,' was the answer. Lesseps' instructions, very vague, for the rest,
+were given to him in this spirit. That Lesseps acted in good faith has
+been generally admitted, and was always believed by Mazzini. It was to
+the interest of the French Government to choose a tool who did not
+see how far he was a tool. But if Lesseps had no suspicions, if he had
+not strong suspicions of the real object of his employers, then he was
+already at this date a man singularly easy to deceive.
+
+The French envoy was commissioned to treat, not with the Triumvirate,
+but with the Roman Assembly: a piece of insolence which the former
+would have done well to reply to by sending him about his business.
+Lesseps, however, thought that he would gain by speaking in person to
+Mazzini, and in order that the interview should remain a secret, he
+decided to go to him alone in the dead of the night and unannounced.
+Having made the needful inquiries, he proceeded to the palace of the
+Consulta, the doors of which seem to have been left open all night;
+there were guards, but they were asleep, and the French diplomatist
+traversed the long suite of splendid apartments, opening one into the
+other without corridors. At last he reached the simply-furnished room
+where, upon an iron bedstead, Mazzini slept. Lesseps watched him
+sleeping, fascinated by the beauty of his magnificent head as it lay
+in repose. He still looked very young, though there was hardly a state
+in Europe where he was not proscribed. When Lesseps had gazed his
+full, he called 'Mazzini, Mazzini!' The Triumvir awoke, sat up and
+asked if he had come to assassinate him? Lesseps told him his name,
+and a long conversation followed. One thing, at least, that Lesseps
+said in this interview was strictly true, namely, that Mazzini must
+not count on the French republican soldiers objecting to fire on
+republicans: 'The French soldier would burn down the cottage of his
+mother if ordered by his superiors to do so.' The discipline of a
+great army is proof against politics.
+
+Lesseps was himself in much fear of being assassinated. He believed
+that his footsteps were dogged by three individuals, one of whom was
+an ex-French convict. He complained to Mazzini, who said that he could
+do nothing, which probably shows that he gave no credence to the
+story. Then Lesseps had recourse to Ciceruacchio, 'a man of the people
+who had great influence on the population, and who had organised the
+revolution.' The tribune seems to have quieted his fears and
+guaranteed his safety.
+
+The French envoy could not help being struck by the tender care taken
+of his wounded fellow-countrymen by the Princess Belgiojoso and other
+noble ladies who attended the hospitals. Of prisoners who were not
+wounded there were none, as they had been sent back scot-free to their
+general a few days after the 30th of April. He was struck also by the
+firm resolve of all classes not to restore the Pope. Some liked the
+existing government, some did not, but all prayed heaven to be
+henceforth delivered from the rule of an infallible sovereign.
+
+Whatever was the measure of confidence which Mazzini felt in Lesseps,
+he was firm as iron on the main point--the non-admittance of the
+'friendly' French troops into Rome. Lesseps dragged on the
+negotiations till his government had finished the preparations for
+sending to Rome a force which should not be much less than twice in
+number the whole military resources of the republic. Then they
+recalled him, and, in order not to be bound by anything that he might
+have said, they set about the rumour that he was mad. Indignant at
+such treatment, Lesseps left the diplomatic service, and turned his
+attention to engineering. This was the origin of the Suez Canal.
+
+While all these things were going on, the Austrians moved from Ferrara
+and Modena towards Bologna, the Spaniards landed at Fiumicino, and
+16,000 Neapolitans, commanded by Ferdinand II., encamped near Albano.
+Garibaldi was attacked on the 9th of May by the Neapolitan vanguard,
+which he obliged to fall back. On the 18th, he completely defeated
+King Ferdinand's army near Velletri, and the King ordered a general
+retreat into his own dominions, which was accomplished in haste and
+confusion.
+
+By the end of May, Oudinot's forces were increased to over 35,000 men.
+The defenders of Rome, under the chief command of General Rosselli,
+were about 20,000, of whom half were volunteers. Colonel Marnara's
+Lombard Legion of Bersaglieri was, in smartness of appearance and
+perfect discipline, equal to any regular troops; in its ranks were the
+sons of the best and richest Lombard families, such as Dandolo,
+Morosini and many others. Medici's legion was also composed of
+educated and well-to-do young men. The Bolognese, under the Marquis
+Melara, had the impetuous daring of their race, and Count Angelo
+Masina did wonders with his forty lancers. Wherever Garibaldi was--it
+was always in the hottest places--there were to be seen, at no great
+distance, the patriot monk, Ugo Bassi, riding upon a fiery horse, and
+the young poet of Free Italy, Goffredo Mameli, with his slight, boyish
+figure, and his fair hair floating in the breeze. Nor must we omit
+from the list of Garibaldi's bodyguard Forbes, the Englishman, and
+Anghiar, the devoted negro, who followed his master like a dog.
+
+Oudinot formally disavowed all Lesseps' proceedings from first to
+last, and announced, on the 1st of June, that he had orders to take
+Rome as soon as possible. Out of regard, however, for the French
+residents, he would not begin the attack 'till the morning of Monday
+the 4th.' Now, though no one knew it but the French general, that
+Monday morning began with Sunday's dawn, when the French attacked
+Melara's sleeping battalion at the Roman outposts. It was easy for the
+French to drive back these 300 men, and to occupy the Villa Corsini
+('Villa,' in the Roman sense, means a garden) and the position
+dominating Porta San Pancrazio; but Galetti came up and retook them
+all, to lose them again by nine o'clock. Then Garibaldi, who was ill,
+hurried to the scene from his sick-bed, and thrice that day he retook
+and thrice he lost the contested positions--a brief statement, which
+represents prodigies of valour, and the oblation of as noble blood as
+ever watered the earth of Rome. Melara, Masina, Daverio, Dandolo,
+Mameli: every schoolboy would know these names if they belonged to
+ancient, not to modern, history. Bright careers, full of promise, cut
+short; lives renounced, not only voluntarily, but with joy, and to
+what end? Not for interest or fame--not even in the hope of winning;
+but that, erect and crowned with the roses of martyrdom, Rome might
+send her dying salutation to the world.
+
+At sunset the French had established their possession of all the
+points outside the Gate of San Pancrazio, except the Vascello, a villa
+which had been seized from their very teeth by Medici, who held it
+against all comers. Monte Mario was also in their hands.
+
+Mazzini, whose judgment was obscured by his attribution of the Italian
+policy of France to Louis Napoleon alone, hoped for a revolution in
+Paris, but Ledru Rollin's attempt at agitation completely failed, and
+the country applauded its government now that the mask was thrown
+away. The reasons for revolutions in Paris have always been the same;
+they have to do with something else than the garrotting of
+sister-republics.
+
+Oudinot tightened his cordon; on the 12th of June he invited the city
+to capitulate. The answer was a refusal; so, with the aid of his
+excellent artillery, he crept on, his passage contested at each step,
+but not arrested, till, on the 27th, the Villa Savorelli, Garibaldi's
+headquarters, fell into the hands of the enemy, and, on the night of
+the 29th, the French were within the city walls. St Peter's day is the
+great feast of Rome, and this time, as usual, the cupola of St Peter's
+was illuminated, the Italian flag flying from the highest point. The
+thunderstorm, which proverbially accompanies the feast, raged during
+the night; the French shells flew in all directions; the fight raged
+fiercer than the storm; Medici held out among the crumbling walls of
+the Vascello, which had been bombarded for a week; the heroic Manara
+fell fighting at Villa Spada; Garibaldi, descending into the _mêlée_,
+dealt blows right and left: he seemed possessed by some supernatural
+power. Those around him say that it is impossible that he would have
+much longer escaped death, but suddenly a message came summoning him
+to the Assembly--it saved his life. When he appeared at the door of
+the Chamber, the deputies rose and burst into wild applause. He seemed
+puzzled, but, looking down upon himself, he read the explanation; he
+was covered with blood, his clothes were honeycombed by balls and
+bayonet thrusts, his sabre was so bent with striking that it would not
+go more than half into its sheath.
+
+What the Assembly wanted to know was whether the defence could be
+prolonged; Garibaldi had only to say that it could not. They voted,
+therefore, the following decree: 'In the name of God and of the
+People: the Roman Constituent Assembly discontinues a defence which
+has become impossible, and remains at its post.' At its post it
+remained till the French soldiers invaded the Capitol, where it sat,
+when, yielding to brute force, the deputies dispersed.
+
+Mazzini, who would have resisted still, when all resistance was
+impossible, wandered openly about the city like a man in a dream. He
+felt as though he were looking on at the funeral of his best-beloved.
+How it was that he was not killed or arrested is a mystery. At the end
+of a week his friends induced him to leave Rome with an English
+passport.
+
+On the 2nd of July, before the French made their official entry,
+Garibaldi called his soldiers together in the square of the Vatican,
+and told them that he was going to seek some field where the foreigner
+could still be fought. Who would might follow him; 'I cannot offer you
+honours or pay; I offer you hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles,
+death.'
+
+Three thousand followed him. Beside her husband rode Anita; not even
+for the sake of the child soon to come would she stay behind in
+safety. Ugo Bassi was there; Anghiar was dead, Mameli was dying in a
+hospital, but there was 'the partisan or brigand Forbes,' as he was
+described in a letter of the Austrian general D'Aspre to the French
+general Oudinot, with a good handful of Garibaldi's best surviving
+officers. Ciceruacchio came with his two sons, and offered himself as
+guide. No one knew what the plan was, or if there was one. Like
+knights of old in search of adventures, they set out in search of
+their country's foes. It was the last desperate venture of men who did
+not know how to yield.
+
+After wandering hither and thither, and suffering severe hardships,
+the column reached the republic of San Marino. The brave hospitality
+of that Rock of freedom prevented Garibaldi from falling into the
+clutches of the Austrians, who surrounded the republic. He treated
+with the Regent for the immunity of his followers, who had laid down
+their arms; and, in the night, he himself escaped with Anita, Ugo
+Bassi, Forbes, Ciceruacchio and a few others. They hoped to take their
+swords to Venice, but a storm arose, and the boats on which they
+embarked were driven out of their course. Some of them were stranded
+on the shore which bounds the pine-forest of Ravenna, and here, hope
+being indeed gone, the Chief separated from his companions. Of these,
+Ugo Bassi, and an officer named Livraghi, were soon captured by the
+Austrians, who conveyed them to Bologna, where they were shot.
+Ciceruacchio and his sons were taken in another place, and shot as
+soon as taken. The boat which contained Colonel Forbes was caught at
+sea by an Austrian cruiser: he was kept in Austrian prisons for two
+months, and was constantly reminded that he would be either shot or
+hung; but the English Government succeeded in getting him liberated,
+and he lived to take part in more fortunate fights under Garibaldi's
+standard.
+
+Meanwhile, Anita was dying in a peasant's cottage, to which Garibaldi
+carried her when the strong will and dauntless heart could no longer
+stand in place of the strength that was finished. This was the 4th of
+August. Scarcely had she breathed her last breath when Garibaldi,
+broken down with grief as he was, had to fly from the spot. The
+Austrians were hunting for him in all directions. All the Roman
+fugitives were proclaimed outlaws, and the population was forbidden to
+give them even bread or water. Nevertheless--aided in secret by
+peasants, priests and all whose help he was obliged to seek--Garibaldi
+made good his flight from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean, the whole
+route being overrun by Austrians. When once the western coast was
+reached, he was able, partly by sea and partly by land, to reach the
+Piedmontese territory, where his life was safe. Not even there,
+however, could he rest; he was told, politely but firmly, that his
+presence was embarrassing, and for the second time he left
+Europe--first for Tunis and then for the United States.
+
+While the French besieged Rome, the Austrians had not been idle. They
+took Bologna in May, after eight days' resistance; and in June, after
+twenty days' attack by sea and land, Ancona fell into their hands. In
+these towns they pursued means of 'pacification' resembling those
+employed at Brescia. All who possessed what by a fiction could be
+called arms were summarily slaughtered. At Ancona, a woman of bad
+character hid a rusty nail in the bed of her husband, whom she wished
+to get rid of; she then denounced him to the military tribunal, and
+two hours later an English family, whose house was near the barracks,
+heard the ring of the volley of musketry which despatched him. Austria
+had also occupied the Grand Duchy of Tuscany; and when, in July,
+Leopold II. returned to his state, which had restored him by general
+consent and without any foreign intervention, he entered Florence
+between two files of Austrian soldiery, in violation of the article of
+the Statute to which he had sworn, which stipulated that no foreign
+occupation should be invited or tolerated. The Grand Duke wrote to the
+Emperor of Austria, from Gaeta, humbly begging the loan of his arms.
+Francis Joseph replied with supreme contempt, that it would have been
+a better thing if Leopold had never forgotten to whose family he
+belonged, but he granted the prayer. Such was the way in which the
+House of Hapsburg-Lorraine, that had done much in Tuscany to win
+respect if not love, destroyed all its rights to the goodwill of the
+Tuscan people, and removed what might have been a serious obstacle to
+Italian unity.
+
+Austria, unable alone to cope with Hungary, committed the immeasurable
+blunder of calling in the 200,000 Russians who made conquest certain,
+but the price of whose aid she may still have to pay. Venice, and
+Venice only, continued to defy her power. Since Novara, the first
+result of which was the withdrawal of the Sardinian Commissioners, who
+had taken over the government after the Fusion, Venice had been ruled
+by Manin on the terms which he himself proposed: 'Are you ready,' he
+asked the Venetian Assembly, 'to invest the Government with unlimited
+powers in order to direct the defence and maintain order?' He warned
+them that he should be obliged to impose upon them enormous
+sacrifices, but they replied by voting the order of the day: 'Venice
+resists the Austrians at all costs; to this end the President Manin is
+invested with plenary powers.' All the deputies then raised their
+right hand, and swore to defend the city to the last extremity. They
+kept their word.
+
+It is hard to say which was the most admirable: Manin's fidelity to
+his trust, or the people's fidelity to him. To keep up the spirits, to
+maintain the decorum of a besieged city even for a few weeks or a few
+months, is a task not without difficulty; but when the months run into
+a second year, when the real pinch of privations has been felt by
+everyone, not as a sudden twinge, but as a long-drawn-out pain, when
+the bare necessities of life fail, and a horrible disease, cholera,
+enters as auxiliary under the enemy's black-and-yellow,
+death-and-pestilence flag; then, indeed, the task becomes one which
+only a born leader of men could perform.
+
+The financial administration of the republic was a model of order and
+economy. Generous voluntary assistance was afforded by all classes,
+from the wealthy patrician and the Jewish merchant to the poorest
+gondolier. Mazzini once said bitterly that it was easier to get his
+countrymen to give their blood than their money; here they gave both.
+The capable manner in which Manin conducted the foreign policy of the
+republic is also a point that deserves mention, as it won the esteem
+even of statesmen of the old school, though it was powerless to obtain
+their help.
+
+The time was gone when France was disposed to do anything for Venice;
+no one except the Archbishop of Paris, who was afterwards to die by
+the hand of an assassin, said a word for her.
+
+In the past year, Lord Palmerston, though he tried to localise the
+war, and to prevent the co-operation of the south, abounded in good
+advice to Austria. He repeated till he was tired of repeating, that
+she would do well to retire from her Italian possessions of her own
+accord. If the French did not come now, he said, they would come some
+day, and then her friends and allies would give her scanty support. As
+for Lombardy, it was notorious that a considerable Austrian party was
+in favour of giving it up, including the Archduke Ranieri, who was
+strongly attached to Italy, which was the land of his birth. As for
+Venice, Austria had against her both the principle of nationality, now
+the rallying cry of Germany, and the principle of ancient prescription
+which could be energetically invoked against her by a state to which
+her title went back no farther than the transfer effected by
+Buonaparte in the treaty of Campo Formio. These were his arguments;
+but he was convinced, by this time, that arguments unsupported by big
+battalions might as well be bestowed on the winds as on the Cabinet of
+Vienna. From the moment that Radetsky recovered Lombardy for his
+master, the Italian policy of the Austrian Government was entirely
+inspired by him, and he was determined that while he lived, what
+Austria had got she should keep. It was thus that, in reply to Manin's
+appeal to Lord Palmerston, he only received the cold comfort of the
+recommendation that Venice should come to terms with her enemy.
+
+The Venetian army of 20,000 men was reduced by casualties and sickness
+to 18,000 or less. It always did its duty. The defence of Fort
+Malghera, the great fort which commanded the road to Padua and the
+bridge of the Venice railway, would have done credit to the most
+experienced troops in the world. The garrison numbered 2500; the
+besiegers, under Haynau, 30,000. Radetsky, with three archdukes, came
+to see the siege, but, tired with waiting, they went away before it
+was ended. The bombardment began on the 4th of May; in the three days
+and nights ending with the 25th over 60,000 projectiles fell on the
+fort. During the night of the 25th the Commandant, Ulloa, by order of
+Government, quietly evacuated the place, and withdrew his troops; only
+the next morning the Austrians found out that Malghera was abandoned,
+and proceeded to take possession of the heap of ruins, which was all
+that remained.
+
+After the beginning of July, an incessant bombardment was directed
+against the city itself. Women and children lived in the cellars; fever
+stalked through the place, but the war feeling was as strong as
+ever--nay, stronger. Moreover, the provisions became daily scarcer, the
+day came when hunger was already acutely felt, when the time might be
+reckoned by hours before the famished defenders must let drop their
+weapons, and Venice, her works of art and her population, must fall a
+prey to the savage vengeance of the Austrians, who would enter by force
+and without conditions.
+
+And this is what Manin prevented. The cry was still for resistance;
+for the first time bitter words were spoken against the man who had
+served his country so well. But he, who had never sacrificed one iota
+to popularity, did not swerve. His great influence prevailed. The
+capitulation was arranged on the 22nd, and signed on the 24th of July.
+Manin had calculated correctly; on that day there was literally
+nothing left to eat in Venice.
+
+In the last sad hours that Manin spent in Venice all the love of his
+people, clouded for an instant, burst forth anew. Not, indeed, in
+shouts and acclamations, but in tears and sobs; 'Our poor father, how
+much he has suffered!' they were heard saying. He embarked on a French
+vessel bound for Marseilles, poor, worn out and exiled for ever from
+the city which he had guided for eighteen months; if, indeed, no spark
+of his spirit animated the dust which it was the first care of
+liberated Venice to welcome home. The Austrians broke up his doorstep
+on which, according to a Venetian custom, his name was engraved.
+Another martyr, Ugo Bassi, had kissed the stone, exclaiming:
+
+'Next to God and Italy--before the Pope--Manin!' The people gathered
+up the broken fragments and kept them as relics, even as in their
+hearts they kept his memory, till the arrival of that day of
+redemption which, in the darkest hour, he foretold.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+'J'ATTENDS MON ASTRE'
+
+1849-1850
+
+The House of Savoy--A King who keeps his Word--Sufferings of the
+Lombards--Charles Albert's Death.
+
+
+Circumstances more gloomy than those under which Victor Emmanuel II.
+ascended the throne of his ancestors it would be hard to imagine.
+
+An army twice beaten, a bankrupt exchequer, a triumphant invader
+waiting to dictate terms; this was but the beginning of the inventory
+of the royal inheritance. The internal condition of the kingdom, even
+apart from the financial ruin which had succeeded to the handsome
+surplus of two years before, was full of embarrassments of the gravest
+kind. There was a party representing the darkest-dyed clericalism and
+reaction whose machinations had not been absent in the disaster of
+Novara. Who was it that disseminated among the troops engaged in the
+battle broadsides printed with the words: 'Soldiers, for whom do you
+think you are fighting? The King is betrayed; at Turin they have
+proclaimed the republic'? There were other broadsides in which Austria
+was called the supporter of thrones and altars. The dreadful
+indiscipline witnessed towards the end of, and after the conflict was
+due more to the demoralising doctrines that had been introduced into
+the army than to the insubordination of panic. There was another party
+strengthened by the recent misfortunes and recruited by exiles from
+all parts of Italy, which was democratic to the verge of republicanism
+in Piedmont and over that verge at Genoa, where a revolution broke out
+before the new King's reign was a week old. Constitutional government
+stood between the fires of these two parties, both fanned by Austrian
+bellows, the first openly, the second in secret.
+
+Victor Emmanuel was not popular. The indifference to danger which he
+had shown conspicuously during the war would have awakened enthusiasm
+in most countries, but in Piedmont it was so thoroughly taken for
+granted that the Princes of the House of Savoy did not know fear, that
+it was looked on as an ordinary fact. The Austrian origin of the
+Duchess of Savoy formed a peg on which to hang unfriendly theories. It
+is impossible not to compassionate the poor young wife who now found
+herself Queen of a people which hated her race, after having lived
+since her marriage the most dreary of lives at the dismallest court in
+Europe. At first, as a bride, she seemed to have a desire to break
+through the frozen etiquette which surrounded her; it is told how she
+once begged and prayed her husband to take her for a walk under the
+Porticoes of Turin, which she had looked at only from the outside. The
+young couple enjoyed their airing, but when it reached Charles
+Albert's ears, he ordered his son to be immediately placed under
+military arrest. The chilling formalism which invaded even the private
+life of these royal personages, shutting the door to 'good
+comradeship' even between husband and wife, may have had much to do
+with driving Victor Emmanuel from the side of the Princess, whom,
+nevertheless, he loved and venerated, to unworthy pleasures, the habit
+of indulgence in which is far easier to contract than to cure.
+
+[Illustration: VICTOR IMMANUEL]
+
+The King's address at this time was not conciliatory, and, indeed, it
+never lost a bluntness which later harmonised well enough with the
+reputation he gained for soldierly integrity, but which then passed
+for aristocratic haughtiness. His personal friends were said to belong
+to the aristocratic or even the reactionary party. In the perplexities
+which encompassed him, he could not reckon on the encouragement of any
+consensus of good opinion or confidence. He was simply an unknown man,
+against whom there was a good deal of prejudice.
+
+Radetsky did not refuse to treat with Charles Albert, as has been
+sometimes said, but the intolerably onerous terms first proposed by
+him showed that he wished to force the abdication which Charles Albert
+had always contemplated in the event of new reverses of fortune.
+Radetsky was favourably disposed to the young Duke of Savoy, as far as
+his personal feeling was concerned, a fact which was made out in
+certain quarters to be almost a crime to be marked to the account of
+Victor Emmanuel. The Field-Marshal did not forget that he was the
+son-in-law of the Austrian Archduke Ranieri; it is probable, if not
+proved, that he expected to find him pliable; but Radetsky, besides
+being a politician of the purest blood-and-iron type, was an old
+soldier with not a bad heart, and some of his sympathy is to be
+ascribed to a veteran's natural admiration for a daring young officer.
+
+On the 24th of March, Victor Emmanuel, with the manliness that was
+born with him, decided to go and treat himself for the conditions of
+the armistice. It was the first act of his reign, and it was an act of
+abnegation; but of how much less humiliation than that performed by
+his father twenty-eight years before, when almost on the same day, by
+order of King Charles Felix, the Prince of Carignano betook himself to
+the Austrian camp at Novara, to be greeted with the derisive shout of:
+'Behold the King of Italy!' Little did Radetsky think that the words,
+addressed then in scorn to the father, might to-day have been
+addressed in truthful anticipation to the son.
+
+The Field-Marshal took good care, however, that nothing but respect
+should be paid to his visitor, whom he received half-way, surrounded
+by his superb staff, all mounted on fine horses and clad in splendid
+accoutrements. As soon as the King saw him coming, he sprang from his
+saddle, and Radetsky would have done the same had not he required,
+owing to his great age, the aid of two officers to help him to the
+ground. After he had laboriously dismounted, he made a military
+salute, and then embraced Victor Emmanuel with the greatest
+cordiality. The King was accompanied by very few officers, but the
+presence of one of these was significant, namely, of the Lombard Count
+Vimercati, whom he particularly pointed out to Radetsky.
+
+While observing the most courteous forms, the Field-Marshal was not
+long in coming to the point. The negotiations would be greatly
+facilitated, nay, more, instead of beginning his reign with a large
+slice of territory occupied by a foreign enemy for an indefinite
+period, the King might open it with an actual enlargement of his
+frontier, if he would only give the easy assurance of ruling on the
+good old system, and of re-hoisting the blue banner of Piedmont
+instead of the revolutionary tricolor. The moment was opportune;
+Victor Emmanuel had not yet sworn to maintain the Constitution. But he
+replied, without hesitation, that though he was ready, if needs be, to
+accept the full penalties of defeat, he was determined to observe the
+engagements entered into by his father towards the people over whom he
+was called to reign.
+
+One person had already received from his lips the same declaration,
+with another of wider meaning. During the previous night, speaking to
+the Lombard officer above mentioned, the King said: 'I shall preserve
+intact the institutions given by my father; I shall uphold the
+tricolor flag, symbol of Italian nationality, which is vanquished
+to-day, but which one day will triumph. This triumph will be,
+henceforth, the aim of all my efforts.' In 1874, on the twenty-fifth
+anniversary of Novara, Count Vimercati wrote to the King of Italy from
+Paris to remind him of the words he had then spoken.
+
+When the King started for his capital, Radetsky offered to draw up his
+troops as a guard of honour over the whole extent of occupied
+territory between Novara and Turin. The offer was declined, and Victor
+Emmanuel took a circuitous route to avoid observation. His journey was
+marked throughout by a complete absence of state. Before he arrived, a
+trusty hand consigned to him a note written in haste and in much
+anguish by the Queen, in which she warned him to enter by night, as he
+was likely to have a very bad reception. On the 27th of March he
+reviewed the National Guard in the Piazza Castello on the occasion of
+its taking the oath of allegiance. The ceremony was attended by Queen
+Maria Adelaide in a carriage with her two little boys, the Princes
+Umberto and Amedeo. There was no hostile demonstration, but there was
+a most general and icy coldness.
+
+That evening, the terms of the armistice were communicated to the
+Chamber. As was natural, they evoked the wildest indignation, a part
+of which fell undeservedly on the King. Twenty thousand Austrians were
+to occupy the district between the Po, Sesia and Ticino and half the
+citadel of Alessandria. The excitement rose to its height when it was
+announced that the Sardinian Fleet must be recalled from Venetian
+waters, depriving that struggling city of the last visible sign of
+support from without. The Chamber sent a deputation to the King, who
+succeeded in persuading its members that, hard though the terms were,
+there was no avoiding their acceptance, and that the original
+stipulations were harder still.
+
+On the 29th, Victor Emmanuel took the oath to observe the Statute, to
+exercise the royal authority only in virtue of the laws, to cause
+justice to be fairly and fearlessly administered, and to conduct
+himself in all things with the sole view to the interest, honour and
+prosperity of the nation.
+
+A trifling accident occurred which might have been far from trifling;
+one of the ornaments of the ceiling of the Palazzo Madama, where the
+Parliament assembled, fell close to the King. As it was of great
+weight, it would have killed anyone on whom it had fallen. 'Never mind
+that,' said the King in Piedmontese dialect to Colonel Menabrea, who
+was near him, 'it will not be the last!'
+
+The ministry which held office under the late King resigned; a new
+one was formed, in which General Delaunay was President of the
+Council, and Gioberti minister without a portfolio. The King was
+advised to dissolve the Chamber, which had been elected as a war
+parliament, and was ill-constituted to perform the work now required.
+General La Marmora had orders to quell the insurrection at Genoa, the
+motive of which was not nominally a change of government, but the
+continuance of the war at all costs. Its deeper cause lay in the old
+irreconcilability of republican Genoa with her Piedmontese masters,
+breaking out now afresh under the strain of patriotic disappointment.
+Like the 15th of May at Naples, the Genoese revolution was a folly
+which can hardly be otherwise described than as a crime; it happened,
+however, that in Piedmont there was a King who had not the slightest
+intention of turning it into an excuse for a royal hark-back. Austria
+and France offered Victor Emmanuel their arms to put down the
+revolution, but, declining the not exactly disinterested attention, he
+made a wise choice in La Marmora, who accomplished the ungrateful
+task with expedition and humanity. An amnesty was granted to all but a
+very few participators in the revolt. On the brief black list when it
+was submitted to the King was the name of the Marquis Lorenzo Pareto,
+who at one time had held the Foreign Office under Charles Albert. As
+Colonel of the Genoese National Guard, his responsibility in joining
+the insurrection was judged to be particularly heavy; but the King
+refused to confirm his exclusion from the amnesty. 'I would not have
+it said,' he objected, 'that I was harsh to one of my father's old
+ministers.'
+
+The conception of Victor Emmanuel as a bluff, easy-going monarch is
+mistaken. Very few princes have had a keener sense of the royal
+dignity, or a more deeply-rooted family pride, or, when he thought fit
+to resort to it, a more decisive method of preventing people from
+taking liberties with him. But he knew that, in nearly all cases,
+pardon is the best of a king's prerogatives.
+
+An instance to the point happened when he came to the throne. Two
+officers of the royal household had caused him annoyance while he was
+Duke of Savoy by telling tales of his unconventionality to his
+easily-scandalised father. To them, perhaps, he owed the condign
+punishment he had undergone for the famous promenade under the
+Porticoes. At anyrate, they had procured for the Duke many bad
+quarters-of-an-hour, but the King, when he became King, chose to be
+completely oblivious of their conduct, and they remained undisturbed
+at their posts. To those who pointed to King Leopold of the Belgians,
+or to any other foreign example of a loyal sovereign who understood
+the needs of his people as a model for Victor Emmanuel to imitate, he
+was in the habit of replying: 'I remember the history of my fathers,
+and it is enough.'
+
+'The Persians,' says the Greek historian, 'taught their children to
+ride and to speak the truth.' In a land that had seen as much of
+enthroned effeminacy and mendacity as Italy had seen, a prince fond of
+manly exercise and observant of his word was more valuable than a
+heaven-sent genius, and more welcome than a calendar saint. Piedmont
+only could give such a prince to Italy. Its kings were not Spaniards
+who, by way of improvement, became lazzaroni, nor were they Austrians
+condemned by a fatal law to revert to their original type; they were
+children of the ice and snow, the fellow-countrymen of their subjects.
+All their traditions told of obstinacy and hardihood. They brought
+their useful if scarcely amiable moral qualities from Maurienne in the
+eleventh century. The second Count of Savoy, known as Amadeus with the
+Tail, son of Humbert of the White Hands, founder of the House, went to
+the Holy Roman Emperor with such a body of retainers that the guards
+refused them entrance to the Council Chamber. 'Either I shall go in
+with my Tail or not at all,' said Humbert, and with his Tail he went
+in. This was the metal of the race. Even at the time when they were
+vassals of the Empire, they expected to dictate rather than to obey.
+They studiously married into all the great royal houses of Europe.
+Though they persecuted their Vaudois subjects, who were only in 1848
+rewarded by emancipation for centuries of unmerited sufferings and
+splendid fidelity, yet the Princes of Savoy had from the first, from
+the White-Handed Humbert himself, held their heads high in all
+transactions with the Holy See, between which and them there was an
+ever-returning antagonism. Not to the early part of the nineteenth
+century, when the rebound from revolutionary chaos did not suffice to
+denationalise the Kings of Sardinia, but sufficed to ally them with
+reaction, ought we to turn if we would seize the true bearings of the
+development of the Counts of Maurienne into Kings of Italy. At that
+moment the mission of Piedmont, though not lost, was obscured. What
+has rather to be contemplated is the historic tendency, viewed as a
+whole, of both reigning house and people. No one has pointed out that
+tendency more clearly than the anonymous author of a pamphlet entitled
+_Le Testament politique du Chevalier Walpole_ (published at Amsterdam
+in 1769), who was able to draw the horoscope of the House of Savoy
+with a correctness which seems almost startling. He was not helped by
+either sympathy or poetic imagination, but simply by political logic.
+Sardinia, he said, was the best governed state in Europe. Instead of
+yielding to the indolent apathy in which other reigning families were
+sunk, its princes sought to improve its laws and develop its resources
+according to the wants of the population and the exigences of the
+climate. Finance, police, the administration of justice, military
+discipline, presented the picture of order. From the nature of the
+situation, a King of Sardinia must be ambitious, and to satisfy his
+ambition he had only to bide his time. Placed between two great Powers
+he could choose for his ally whichever would give him the most, and by
+playing this mute _rôle_, it was impossible that he would not
+hereafter be called upon to play one of the most important parts in
+Europe. Italy was the oyster disputed by Austria and France; might it
+not happen that the King of Sardinia, becoming judge and party, would
+devour the oyster and leave the shells to the rival aspirants? It was
+unlikely, added this far-seeing observer, that the Italian populations
+should have got so innured to their chains as to prefer the harsh,
+vexatious government of Austria to the happy lot which Sardinian
+domination would secure to them, but even if they had become
+demoralised to this extent, they could not resist the providential
+advance of a temperate, robust and warlike nation like Piedmont, led
+by a prince as enlightened as the King (Charles Emmanuel) who then
+reigned over it.
+
+The metaphor of the oyster recalls another, that of Italy being an
+artichoke which the House of Savoy was to devour, a leaf at a time.
+Whether or not a Duke of Savoy really invented this often-quoted
+comparison, it is certain that power was what the rulers of Piedmont
+cared for. They were no more a race of scholars and art patrons than
+their people was a people of artists and poets. There is a story to
+the effect that one Duke of Savoy could never make out what poetry
+was, except that it was written in half lines, which caused a great
+waste of paper. The only poet born in Piedmont found the country
+unlivable. Recent research among the archives at Turin revealed facts
+which were thought to be not creditable to certain princely persons,
+and a gleaning was therefore made of documents to which the historical
+student will no longer have access. The step was ill advised; what can
+documents tell us on the subject that we do not know? Did anyone
+suppose that the Savoy princes were commonly saints? Sainthood has
+been the privilege of the women of the family, and they have kept it
+mostly to themselves. But peccable and rough though the members of
+this royal house may have been, very few of them were without the
+governing faculty. 'C'est bien le souverain le plus fin que j'ai connu
+en Europe,' said Thiers of Victor Emmanuel, whose acquaintance he made
+in 1870, and in whom he found an able politician instead of the common
+soldier he had expected. The remark might be extended back to all the
+race. They understood the business of kings. A word not unlike the 'Tu
+regere imperio populos, Romane, memento' of Virgil was breathed over
+the cradle at Maurienne. If it did not send forth sons to rule the
+world, its children were, at least, to be enthroned in the capital of
+the Cæsars, and to make Italy one for the first time since Augustus.
+
+From April to August 1849, the peace negotiations dragged on. The
+pretensions of Austria were still exorbitant, and she resisted the
+demand which Piedmont, weak and reduced though she was, did not fear
+to make, that she should amnesty her Italian subjects who had taken
+part in the revolution. Unequal to cope with the difficulties of the
+situation, the Delaunay ministry fell, and Massimo d'Azeglio was
+appointed President of the Council. This was a good augury for
+Piedmont; D'Azeglio's patriotism had received a seal in the wound
+which he carried away from the defence of Vicenza. Honour was safe in
+his hands, whatever were the sacrifices to which he might be obliged
+to consent.
+
+Some pressure having been put on Austria by France and England, she
+agreed in July to evacuate Alessandria, and to reduce the war
+indemnity from 230,000,000 francs to 75,000,000, which Piedmont
+undertook to pay, onerous though the charge was in her deplorable
+financial condition. But the amnesty question was the last to be
+settled, and in this Piedmont stood alone. France and her. The
+Piedmontese special envoy at Milan, Count Pralormo, wrote to Prince
+Schwarzenberg on the 2nd of July that his Government could not give up
+this point. It was a conscientious duty so universally and strongly
+felt, that they were readier to submit to the consequences, whatever
+they might be, than to dishonour themselves by renouncing it. In other
+words, they were ready to face a new war, abandoned to their fate by
+all Europe, to undergo a new invasion, which meant the utter
+destruction of their country, rather than leave their Lombard and
+Venetian fellow-countrymen to the revenge of Austria. Count Pralormo
+added that he was speaking not only in the name of the ministry, but
+of the King and the whole nation. The risk was no imaginary one; there
+were many in Austria who desired an excuse for crushing the life out
+of the small state which was the eternal thorn in the side of that
+great Empire. Few remember now the sufferings of Piedmont for Italy,
+or the perils, only too real, which she braved again and again, not
+from selfish motives--for the Piedmontese of the old, narrow school,
+who said that their orderly little country had nothing to gain from
+being merged in a state of 25,000,000 were by no means in error--but
+from genuine Italian fellow-feeling for their less happy compatriots
+beyond their confines.
+
+At last, when the armistice concluded on the morrow of Novara had been
+prolonged for five months, the treaty of peace was signed. Prince
+Schwarzenberg offered to further reduce the indemnity, 75,000,000 to
+71,000,000, but D'Azeglio having agreed to the former figure,
+preferred to abide by his agreement. He thought, probably, that he
+would thus gain some concession as to the amnesty, and, in fact,
+Austria finally consented to pardon all but a small number of the
+persons compromised in the late events. D'Azeglio still stood out, but
+finding that there was no shadow of a chance of obtaining more than
+this, he reluctantly accepted it. The great mass, the hundred thousand
+and more fugitives who had left their homes in Lombardy and Venetia,
+were, at any rate, promised a safe return. The city of Venice, as yet
+undominated, though on the brink of her fall, was totally excluded.
+The list of those whose banishment from Lombardy was confirmed,
+comprises the noblest names in the province; with the exception of a
+few who were excluded from the amnesty on the score that, before the
+revolution, they were Austrian functionaries, nearly every unpardoned
+Lombard was noble: Casati, Arese, Borromeo, Litta, Greppi,
+Pallavicini, and the Princess Cristina Belgiojoso of Milan, the two
+Camozzis of Bergamo, and G. Martinengo Cesaresco of Brescia.
+
+It must not be imagined that this amnesty ushered in a reign of
+oblivion and mildness. It seemed, rather, that Austria, afraid of the
+moral consequences of the return of so many unloving subjects,
+redoubled her severity. The day following the promulgation of the
+amnesty was the 18th of August, the Emperor of Austria's birthday. In
+the morning, placards dissuading the citizens from taking part in the
+official rejoicings were to be seen on the walls of Milan. The persons
+who put these up were not caught, but in the course of the day a
+crowd, consisting of all classes, made what the official report called
+'a scandalous and anti-politic demonstration,' raising revolutionary
+cries, and even saying uncomplimentary things of His Majesty, and
+worse still, of the Austrian soldiers. During this 'shameful scene,'
+of which the above is the Austrian and hence the most highly-coloured
+description, the military arrested at hazard some of the crowd, who,
+by a 'superior order,' were condemned to the following pains and
+penalties:--
+
+     1. Angelo Negroni, of Padua, aged thirty, proprietor, forty
+      strokes;
+
+     2. Carlo Bossi, watchmaker, aged twenty-two, forty strokes;
+
+     3. Paolo Lodi, of Monza, student, aged twenty-one, thirty strokes;
+
+     4. Giovanni Mazzuchetti, Milanese, barrister, aged twenty-four,
+     thirty strokes;
+
+     5. Bonnetti, Milanese, lithographer, aged thirty-one, fifty
+     strokes;
+
+     6. Moretti, Milanese, domestic servant, aged twenty-six, fifty
+     strokes;
+
+     7. Cesana, artist, aged thirty-two, forty strokes;
+
+     8. Scotti, shopkeeper, of Monza, fifty strokes;
+
+     9. Vigorelli, Milanese, proprietor, fifty strokes;
+
+     10. Garavaglia, of Novara, aged thirty-nine, thirty strokes;
+
+     11. Giuseppe Tandea, Milanese, aged forty, twenty-five strokes;
+
+     12. Rossi, Milanese, student, thirty strokes;
+
+     13. Carabelli, workman, forty strokes;
+
+     14. Giuseppe Berlusconi, fifty strokes;
+
+     15. Ferrandi, bookseller, thirty strokes;
+
+     16. Ernestina Galli, of Cremona, operatic singer, aged twenty,
+     forty strokes;
+
+     17. Maria Conti, of Florence, operatic singer, aged eighteen,
+     thirty strokes.
+
+There were other sentences of imprisonment in irons and on bread and
+water, but the roll of the bastinado, extracted from the official
+_Gazzetta di Milano_ may be left to speak for all the rest, and to
+tell, with a laconicism more eloquent than the finest rhetoric, what
+the Austrian yoke in Italy really meant.
+
+A few days after, the military commandant sent the Milanese
+Municipality a bill for thirty-nine florins, the cost of rods broken
+or worn-out, and of ice used to prevent gangrene, in the punishment
+administered to the persons arrested on the 18th of August. Sixty
+strokes with the Austrian stick were generally enough to prove fatal.
+Women were flogged half-naked, together with the men, and in the
+presence of the Austrian officers, who came to see the spectacle.
+
+When the treaty of peace with Austria was signed, there arose a new
+difficulty; the Sardinian Chamber of Deputies refused to approve it.
+Some of the deputies asked why they should be called upon either to
+accept or reject it, on which they were reminded of the 75,000,000
+francs indemnity, funds for the discharge of which could not be
+legally raised without a parliamentary vote. The reluctance to share
+in an odious though necessary responsibility made these novices in
+representative government anxious to throw away the greatest, if not
+the sole guarantee of constitutional freedom. Brofferio, by far the
+ablest man of the extreme radical party, who had opposed all peace
+proposals as long as Rome and Venice still resisted, now advised his
+friends to bow before the inevitable. But they did not comply, and the
+ministers had no other alternative than to resort to a fresh appeal to
+the country.
+
+The crisis was serious, because no amount of loyalty on the part of
+the head of the state can save liberty when the representatives of a
+nation, taking the bit between their teeth, set themselves
+deliberately to work to make government impossible. People are too
+fond of talking of liberty as if it were something locked up in a box
+which remains safe as long as the guardian of the box does not steal
+it or sell it. Liberty is in the charge of all and at the mercy of
+all. There were not wanting persons who blamed the new dissolution as
+unconstitutional, and who called the proclamation of Moncalieri which
+announced it an act of despotism and of improper interference with the
+independence of the electors. It is hardly too much to say that it was
+this royal proclamation that saved Piedmont. The King appealed to
+Italy and to Europe for judgment on the conduct of the late Chamber.
+Having signed, he said, a 'not ruinous' treaty with Austria, which the
+honour of the country and the sanctity of his word required to be
+faithfully executed, the majority sought to make that execution
+legally impracticable. He continued: 'I have promised to save the
+nation from the tyranny of parties, whatever be the name, scope and
+position of the men who constitute them. These promises I fulfil by
+dissolving a Chamber which had become impossible, and by convoking the
+immediate assemblage of another parliament; but if the electors of the
+country deny me their help, not on me will fall henceforth the
+responsibility of the future; and if disorders follow, let them
+complain, not of me, but of themselves. Never, up till now, has the
+House of Savoy had recourse in vain to the faithfulness, wisdom and
+honour of its peoples. I have therefore the right to trust in them on
+the present occasion, and to hold for certain that, united together,
+we shall save the constitution and the country from the dangers by
+which they are menaced.'
+
+The Proclamation produced a great effect, and the parliament which met
+on the 20th of December contained a working majority of men who were
+not only patriotic, but who were also endowed with common sense. When
+the ratification of the peace came on for discussion, there was,
+indeed, one deputy who spoke in favour of immediate war, which, in a
+fortnight, was to effect the liberation, not only of Lombardy and
+Venetia, but also of Hungary, a speech worth recalling, as it shows
+how far madness will go. The debate concluded with a vote authorising
+the King's government to fully carry out the treaty of peace which was
+concluded at Milan on the 6th of August 1849, the ayes being 137
+against 17 noes. Piedmont had learnt the bitter but useful lesson,
+that if you play and lose, you must pay the cost.
+
+He who had played and lost his crown had already paid the last fee to
+fortune. Charles Albert was now a denizen of the Superga--of all
+kings' burial places, the most inspiring in its history, the most
+sublime in its situation. Here Victor Amadeus, as he looked down on
+the great French army which, for three months, had besieged his
+capital, vowed to erect a temple if it should please the Lord of Hosts
+to grant him and his people deliverance from the hands of the enemy.
+Five days later the French were in flight. All the Alps, from Mon Viso
+to the Simplon, all Piedmont, and beyond Piedmont, Italy to the
+Apennines, can be scanned from the church which fulfilled the royal
+vow.
+
+To the Superga the body of Charles Albert was brought from the place
+of exile. Before the coffin, his sword was carried; after it, they led
+the war-horse he had ridden in all the battles. After the war-horse
+followed a great multitude. He had said truly that it was an opportune
+time for him to die. The pathos of his end rekindled the affections of
+the people for the dynasty.
+
+As in the Mosque of dead Sultans in Stamboul, so in the Mausoleum of
+the Superga, each sovereign occupied the post of honour only till the
+next one came to join him. But the post of honour remains, and will
+remain, to Charles Albert. His son lies elsewhere.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE REVIVAL OF PIEDMONT
+
+1850-1856
+
+Restoration of the Pope and Grand Duke of Tuscany--Misrule at
+Naples--The Struggle with the Church in Piedmont--The Crimean War.
+
+
+The decade from 1849 to 1859 may seem, at first sight, to resemble an
+interregnum, but it was an evolution. There is no pause in the life of
+nations any more than in the life of individuals: they go forward or
+they go backward. In these ten years Piedmont went forward; the other
+Italian governments did not stand still, they went backward. The
+diseases from which they suffered gained daily upon the whole
+body-politic, and even those clever foreign doctors who had been the
+most convinced that this or that remedy would set them on their feet,
+were in the end persuaded that there was only one place for them--the
+Hospital for Incurables. After the fall of Rome, Pius IX. issued a
+sort of canticle from Gaeta, in which he thanked the Lord at whose
+bidding the stormy ocean had been arrested, but he did not even so
+much as say thank you to the French, without whom, nevertheless, the
+stormy ocean would have proceeded on its way. To all suggestions from
+Paris that now that victory had been won by force the time was come
+for the Sovereign to give some guarantee that it would not be abused,
+the Pope turned a completely deaf ear. 'The Pope,' said M. Drouyn
+de Lhuys, 'prefers to return to Rome upon the dead bodies of his
+subjects rather than amidst the applause which would have greeted him
+had he taken our advice.' That advice referred in particular to the
+secularisation of the public administration, and this was exactly what
+the Pope and the ex-Liberal Cardinal Antonelli, now and henceforth his
+most influential counsellor, were determined not to concede. They had
+grown wise in their generation, for a priest whose ministers are
+laymen is as much an anomaly as a layman whose ministers are priests.
+The French government desired that the Statute should be maintained,
+and demanded judicial reforms and an amnesty for political offenders.
+None of these points was accepted except the last, and that only
+nominally, as the amnesty of the 18th of September did not put a stop
+to proscriptions and vindictive measures. Count Mamiani, whose
+stainless character was venerated in all Italy, and who had devoted
+all his energies to the attempt to save the Papal government after the
+Pope's flight, was ruthlessly excluded, and so were many other persons
+who, though liberal-minded, had shown signal devotion to the Holy See.
+All sorts of means were used to serve the ends of vengeance; for
+instance, Alessandro Calandrelli, a Roman of high reputation, who held
+office under the republic, was condemned to death for high treason,
+and to twenty years at the galleys, on a trumped-up charge of theft,
+which was palpably absurd; but the Pope, while quashing the first
+sentence, confirmed the second, and Calandrelli would have remained in
+prison till the year of grace 1870, as many others did, but for the
+chance circumstance that his father had been a friend of the King of
+Prussia, who took up his cause so warmly that after two years he was
+let out and sent to Berlin, where the King and A. von Humboldt
+received him with open arms.
+
+These were the auspices under which Pius IX. returned to Rome after
+seventeen months' absence. A four-fold invasion restored the Temporal
+Power, which Fénelon said was the root of all evil to the Church, but
+which, according to Pius IX., was necessary to the preservation of the
+Catholic religion. The re-established _régime_ was characterised by
+Lord Clarendon at the Congress of Paris as 'the opprobrium of Europe.'
+The Pope tried to compensate for his real want of independence (for a
+prince who could not stand a day without foreign bayonets, whatever
+else he was, was not independent) by laughing at the entreaties of
+France to relieve that advanced nation from the annoyance of having
+set up a government fit for the Middle Ages. He rated at its correct
+value the support of Napoleon, and believing it to be purely
+interested, he believed in its permanence. The President had thought
+of nothing in the world but votes, and he thought of them still. The
+Roman Expedition secured him the services of M. de Falloux as
+minister, and won over to him the entire Clerical Party, including
+Montalembert and the so-called Liberal Catholics. Thus, and thus only,
+was the leap from the Presidential chair to the Imperial throne made
+possible. The result was flattering, but still there are reasons to
+think (apart from Prince Jérôme Napoleon's express statement to that
+effect) that Napoleon III. hated the whole business from the bottom of
+his soul, and that of his not few questionable acts, this was the only
+one of which he felt lastingly ashamed. Seeing that the communications
+of his ministers failed in their object, he tried the expedient of
+writing a private letter to his friend Edgar Ney, couched in the
+strongest terms of disapproval of the recalcitrant attitude of the
+Papal Government. This letter was published as it was intended to be,
+but in the Roman States, except that its circulation was forbidden, no
+notice was taken of it. Though the incident may be regarded as a
+stroke of facing-both-ways policy, the anger expressed was probably as
+sincere as any of Napoleon's sentiments could be, and the letter had
+the effect of awakening the idea in many minds that something of the
+former Italian conspirator still existed in the ruler of France. The
+question arose, What sort of pressure would be needed to turn that
+germ to account for Italy?
+
+In the kingdom of Naples, where the laws, to look at them on paper,
+were incomparably better than those in force in the Roman States, the
+administration was such as would have disgraced a remote province of
+the Turkish Empire. The King's naturally suspicious temperament was
+worked upon by his courtiers and priests till he came to detect in
+every Liberal a personal antagonist, whose immunity from harm was
+incompatible with his own, and in Liberalism a plague dangerous to
+society, which must be stamped out at all costs. Over 800 Liberals
+were sent to the galleys. The convictions were obtained, in a great
+proportion of cases, by false testimony. Bribes and secret protection
+in high quarters were the only means by which an innocent man could
+hope to escape; 50,000 persons were under police supervision, to be
+imprisoned at will. The police often refused to set at liberty those
+whom the judges had acquitted. The government had a Turkish or Russian
+fear of printed matter. A wretched barber was fined 1000 ducats for
+having in his possession a volume of Leopardi's poems, which was
+described as 'contrary to religion and morals.'
+
+What was meant by being an inmate of a Neapolitan prison was told by
+Mr Gladstone in his two 'Letters to the Earl of Aberdeen,' which the
+latter sent to Prince Schwarzenberg, the Austrian Prime Minister, with
+a strong appeal to him to make known their contents to the King of the
+Two Sicilies, and to use his influence in procuring a mitigation of
+the abuses complained of. Prince Schwarzenberg did nothing, and it was
+then that the 'Letters' were published. The impression created on
+public opinion was almost without a parallel. The celebrated phrase,
+'The negation of God erected into a system of government,' passing
+into currency as a short history of Bourbon rule at Naples, kept
+alive the wrathful feelings which the 'Letters' aroused, even when
+these ceased to be read. Some small errors of fact (such as that of
+stating that all the prisoners were chained, whereas an exception was
+made of those undergoing life sentences) were magnified by the
+partisans of Ferdinand II.; but the truth of the picture as a whole
+was amply confirmed from independent sources. Baron Carlo Poerio
+(condemned to nineteen years' imprisonment) _was_ chained to a common
+malefactor, the chain never being undone, and producing in the end a
+disease of the bone from which he never recovered. His case was that
+of all the political prisoners in the same category with himself.
+Luigi Settembrini and the others on whom sentence of death had been
+passed, but commuted into one of life imprisonment, were not chained,
+but they were put to associate with the worst thieves and assassins,
+while their material surroundings accorded with the moral atmosphere
+they were forced to breathe.
+
+The Neapolitan prisoners did more than suffer for freedom; they
+delivered the name of their country from being a reproach among the
+nations. They showed what men the South of Italy can produce. Those
+who wish to know what types of probity, honour and ideal patriotism
+may grow out of that soil, which is sometimes charged with yielding
+only the rank weeds planted by despotism, may read the letters and
+memoirs of the noble Poerios, of Settembrini, gentlest but most
+fearless of human souls, of the Calabrian Morellis, all patriots and
+martyrs; of the Duke of Castromediano, who lately, in his old age, has
+set down a few recollections of the years he spent at the Neapolitan
+galleys. He records in these notes what he calls the most perilous
+moment in his life. It was when he was summoned, with six
+fellow-prisoners who had asked for and obtained freedom, to hear, as
+he feared, his own pardon pronounced. For pardon was equivalent to
+dishonour; it was granted either in consequence of real submission and
+retraction, or in order to be able to blacken the character of the
+pardoned man by falsely asserting that such submission had been made.
+His fear was groundless. He had been led out, perhaps, in the hope
+that the example of the others would prove contagious. He was not
+pardoned. As he returned to his prison, he thanked Divine Providence
+for the chains which left him pure.
+
+Strange to tell, Ferdinand II. rendered one considerable service to
+the national cause; not that he saw it in that light, but the service
+was none the less real because its motive was a narrow one. Austria
+proposed a defensive league between the Italian Sovereigns: defensive
+not only with the view to outward attack, but also and chiefly against
+'internal disorder.' Piedmont was to be invited to join as soon as she
+had renounced her constitutional sins, which it was sanguinely
+expected she would do before very long. Meanwhile Parma, Modena,
+Tuscany and Rome embraced the idea with enthusiasm, but the King of
+the Two Sicilies, who dimly saw in it an opening for interference in
+his own peculiar governmental ways, boldly declined to have anything
+to do with it. And so, to Prince Schwarzenberg's serious
+disappointment, the scheme by which he had hoped to create an
+absolutist Italian federation, came to an untimely end.
+
+The Grand Duke of Tuscany timidly inquired of the Austrian premier if
+he might renew the constitutional _régime_ in his state. Schwarzenberg
+replied with the artful suggestion that he should hear what the Dukes
+of Modena and Parma, the Pope, and King Ferdinand had to say on the
+subject. Their advice was unanimously negative: Cardinal Antonelli
+going so far as to declare that Constitutionalism in Tuscany would be
+regarded as a constant menace and danger to the States of the Church.
+The different counsels of Piedmont, conveyed by Count Balbo, weighed
+little against so imposing an array of opinion, backed as it was by
+the Power which still stabled its horses in the Convent of San Marco.
+The Tuscan Statute was formally suspended in September 1850.
+
+From that day forth, Tuscany sank lower and lower in the slough. To
+please the Pope, havoc was made of the Leopoldine laws--named after
+the son of Maria Theresa, the wise Grand Duke Leopold I.--laws by
+which a bridle was put on the power and extension of the Church. The
+prosecution and imprisonment of a Protestant couple who were accused
+of wishing to make proselytes, proclaimed the depth of intolerance
+into which what was once the freest and best-ordered government in
+Italy had descended.
+
+The ecclesiastical question became the true test question in Piedmont
+as well as in Tuscany, but there it had another issue.
+
+It had also a different basis. In Piedmont there were no Leopoldine
+laws to destroy; what was necessary was to create them. To privileges
+dating from the Middle Ages which in the kingdom of Sardinia almost
+alone had been restored without curtailment after the storm of the
+French Revolution, were added the favours, the vast wealth, the
+preponderating influence acquired during Charles Felix' reign, and the
+first seventeen years of that of Charles Albert. Theoretically, the
+Statute swept away all privileges of classes and sects, and made
+citizens equal before the law, but to put this theory into practice
+further legislation was needed, because, as a matter of fact, the
+clergy preserved their immunities untouched and showed not the
+slightest disposition to yield one jot of them. The Piedmontese
+clergy, more numerous in proportion to the population than in any
+state except Rome, were more intransigent than any ecclesiastical body
+in the world. The Italian priest of old days, whatever else might be
+said about him, was rarely a fanatic. The very nickname 'Ultramontane'
+given by Italians to the religious extremists north of the Alps, shows
+how foreign such excesses were to their own temperaments. But the
+Ultramontane spirit had already invaded Piedmont, and was embraced by
+its clergy with all the zeal of converts. There was still a _Foro
+Ecclesiastico_ for the arraignment of religious offenders, and this
+was one of the first privileges against which Massimo d'Azeglio lifted
+his 'sacrilegious' hand. To go through all the list would be tedious,
+and would demand more explanation regarding the local modes of
+acquisition and tenure of religious property than would be interesting
+now. The object of the Siccardi laws, as they were named after the
+Minister of Grace and Justice who introduced them, and of the stronger
+measures to which they led up, was to make the priest amenable to the
+common law of the land in all except that which referred to his
+spiritual functions; to put a limit on the amassment of wealth by
+religious corporations; to check the multiplication of convents and
+the multiplication of feast days, both of which encouraged the people
+in sloth and idleness; to withdraw education from the sole control of
+ecclesiastics; and finally, to authorise civil marriage, but without
+making it compulsory. The programme was large, and it took years to
+carry it out. The Vatican contended that it was contrary to the
+Concordat which existed between the Holy See and the Court of
+Sardinia. Massimo d'Azeglio replied that the maintenance of the
+Concordat, in all its parts, meant the ruin of the state; that he had
+tried every means of conciliation, made every effort towards arriving
+at a compromise, and that since his endeavours had failed in
+consequence of the refusal of the Vatican to abate pretensions which
+it neither could nor did enforce in Austria, Naples or Spain, heaven
+and the world must judge between Rome and Piedmont, between Cardinal
+Antonelli and himself.
+
+The struggle throughout was bitter in the extreme, but its most
+striking incident was the denial of the last Sacraments to a member of
+the Government, the Minister of Agriculture, Santa Rosa, who happened
+to die soon after the passing of the Act abolishing the _Foro
+Ecclesiastico_. Santa Rosa was a sincerely religious man, but he
+resisted all the attempts of the priest to extort a retractation, and
+died unabsolved rather than leave a dishonoured name to his children.
+
+The popular indignation excited by this incident was in proportion
+with the importance attached to outward observances of religion in
+Catholic countries; the government had to protect the Archbishop of
+Turin from violence, while, at the same time, they sent him for a
+month to the Citadel for having forbidden his clergy to obey the law
+on the _Foro Ecclesiastico_. He and one or two of the other bishops
+were afterwards expelled from the kingdom. An unwelcome necessity, but
+whose was the fault? In other countries, where the privileges claimed
+by the Piedmontese clergy had been abolished for centuries, did the
+bishops dictate revolt against the law? If not, why should they do so
+in Piedmont?
+
+The successor of Santa Rosa in the ministry was Count Cavour, who
+thus in 1850 for the first time became an official servant of the
+state. When D'Azeglio submitted the appointment to the King, Victor
+Emmanuel remarked that, though he did not object to it in the least,
+they had better take care, as this man would turn them all out before
+long. This man was, in fact, to stand at the helm of Piedmont, with
+short intervals, till he died, and was to carve out from the block of
+formless marble, not the Italy of sublime dreams, which, owing her
+deliverance to her sons alone, should arise immaculate from the grave
+a Messiah among the nations, but the actual Italy which has been
+accomplished; imperfect and peccable as human things mostly are,
+belonging rather to prose than to poetry, to matter than to spirit,
+but, for all that, an Italy which is one and is free.
+
+Fifty years ago a great English writer pointed out what the real Italy
+would be, if it were to be; 'The prosperity of nations as of
+individuals,' wrote Mr Ruskin in one of his earliest papers, 'is cold
+and hard-hearted and forgetful. The dead lie, indeed, trampled down by
+the living; the place thereof shall know them no more, for that place is
+not in the hearts of the survivors, for whose interest they have made
+way. But adversity and ruin point to the sepulchre, and it is not
+trodden on; to the chronicle, and it does not decay. Who would
+substitute the rush of a new nation, the struggle of an awakening power,
+for the dreamy sleep of Italy's desolation, for the sweet silence of
+melancholy thought, her twilight time of everlasting memories?'
+
+[Illustration: COUNT CAVOUR]
+
+There is the case, stated with beautiful lucidity, of the somewhat
+ghoulish dilettantism which, enjoying tombs, would condemn all
+mankind to breathe their atmosphere. It is not, however, in order to
+discuss that view that the passage is quoted, but because of its
+relevancy to what Cavour attempted and what he did. Never was there a
+mind which cherished fewer illusions. He believed that the pursuit of
+the unattainable was still more a political crime than a political
+blunder. He was, in this, what is now called an opportunist, and he
+was also an opportunist in believing that though in politics you can
+choose your aim, you can very rarely choose your means. He held (and
+this was the reason that he was so profoundly hated by men of very
+different parties) that to accomplish great changes you have to make
+sacrifices, not only of the higher sort, but, in a certain sense, also
+of the lower. As he thought that the Austrians could not be expelled
+from Italy for good and all without foreign help, he contemplated from
+the first securing that foreign help, though no one would have been
+more glad than he to do without it. He thought that Italian freedom
+could not be won without a closer alliance with the democratic party
+than politicians like D'Azeglio, who had the fear of the ermine, of
+tarnishing its whiteness, would have ever brought themselves to
+acquiesce in, and he therefore immediately took steps to establish
+that alliance. Cavour had no faith in the creation of ideally perfect
+states, such as the Monarchy of Dante or the Republic of Mazzini, but
+he did think that a living land was better than a dead one, that the
+struggle of an awakening power, the rush of a new nation, was
+infinitely to be preferred to the desolation of dreamy sleeps, sweet
+silences, and everlasting memories that spelt regrets.
+
+It may be possible now to see clearly that if no one had tried for the
+unattainable, Cavour would not have found the ground prepared for his
+work. The appreciation of his rank among Italian liberators rests on a
+different point, and it is this: without a man of his positive mould,
+of his practical genius, of his force of will and force of patience,
+would the era of splendid endeavours have passed into the era of
+accomplished facts? If the answer to this is 'No,' then nothing can
+take from Cavour the glory of having conferred an incalculable boon on
+the country which he loved with a love that was not the less strong
+because it lacked the divinising qualities of imagination.
+
+An aristocrat by birth and the inheritor of considerable wealth,
+Cavour was singularly free from prejudices; his favourite study was
+political economy, and in quiet times he would probably have given all
+his energies to the interests of commerce and agriculture. He was an
+advocate of free trade, and was, perhaps, the only one of the many
+Italians who _fêted_ Mr Cobden on his visit to Italy who cared in the
+least for the motive of his campaign. Cavour understood English
+politics better than they have ever been understood by a foreign
+statesman; his article on Ireland, written in 1843, may still be read
+with profit. Before parliamentary life existed in Piedmont, he took
+the only way open of influencing public opinion by founding a
+newspaper, the _Risorgimento,_ in which he continued to write for
+several years. In the Chamber of Deputies he soon made his power
+felt--power is the word, for he was no orator in the ordinary sense;
+his speeches read well, as hard hitting and logical expositions, but
+they were not well delivered. Cavour never spoke Italian with true
+grace and ease though he selected it for his speeches, and not French,
+which was also allowed and which he spoke admirably. His presence,
+too, did not lend itself to oratory; short and thickset, and careless
+in his dress, he formed a contrast to the romantic figure of
+D'Azeglio. Yet his prosaic face, when animated, gave an impressive
+sense of that attribute which seemed to emanate from the whole man:
+power.
+
+It needed a more wary hand than D'Azeglio's to steer out of the
+troubled waters caused by the ecclesiastical bills, and to put the
+final touches to the legislation which he, to his lasting honour be it
+said, had courageously and successfully initiated. In the autumn of
+1852 D'Azeglio resigned, and Cavour was requested by the King to form
+a ministry. He was to remain, with short breaks, at the head of public
+affairs for the nine following years.
+
+At this time the government of Lombardy and Venetia was vested in
+Field-Marshal Radetsky, with two lieutenant-governors under him, who
+only executed his orders. Radetsky resided at Verona. Politically and
+economically the two provinces were then undergoing an extremity of
+misery; the diseases of the vines and the silkworms had reached the
+point of causing absolute ruin to the great mass of proprietors who,
+reckoning on having always enough to live on, had not laid by. Many
+noble families sank to the condition of peasants. The taxation was
+heavier than in any other part of the Austrian Empire; in proof of
+which it may be mentioned that Lombardy paid 80,000,000 francs into
+the Austrian treasury, which, had the Empire been taxed equally, would
+have given an annual total of 1,100,000,000, whereas the revenue
+amounted to only 736,000,000. The landtax was almost double what it
+was in the German provinces. Italians, however, have a great capacity
+for supporting such burdens with patience, and it is doubtful whether
+the material aspect of the case did much to increase their hatred of
+foreign dominion. Its moral aspect grew daily worse; the terror became
+chronic. The possession of a sheet of printed paper issued by the
+revolutionary press at Capolago, on the lake of Lugano, was enough to
+send a man to the gallows. These old, badly printed leaflets, with no
+name of author or publisher attached, but chiefly written in the
+unmistakable style of Mazzini, can still be picked up in the little
+booksellers' shops in Canton Ticino, and it is difficult to look at
+them without emotion. What hopes were carried by them. What risks were
+run in passing them from hand to hand. Of what tragedies were they not
+the cause! In August 1851, Antonio Sciesa, of Milan, was shot for
+having one such leaflet on his person. The gendarmes led him past his
+own house, hoping that the sight of it would weaken his nerve, and
+make him accept the clemency which was eagerly proffered if he would
+reveal the names of others engaged in the patriotic propaganda.
+'Tiremm innanz!' ('come along') he said, in his rough Milanese
+dialect, and marched incorruptible to death. On a similar charge,
+Dottesio and Grioli, the latter a priest, suffered in the same year,
+and early in 1852 the long trial was begun at Mantua of about fifty
+patriots whose names had been obtained by the aid of the bastinado
+from one or two unhappy wretches who had not the fortitude to endure.
+Of these fifty, nine were executed, among whom were the priests
+Grazioli and Tazzoli, Count Montanari of Verona, and Tito Speri, the
+young hero of the defence of Brescia. Speri had a trifling part in the
+propaganda, but the remembrance of his conduct in 1849 ensured his
+condemnation. He was deeply attached to the religion in which he was
+born, and his last letters show the fervour of a Christian joined to
+the calmness of a stoic. If he had a regret, it was that he had been
+unable to do more for his country; but here too his simple faith
+sustained him. Surely the Giver of all good would not refuse to listen
+to the prayers of the soul which passed to Him through martyrdom.
+'To-morrow they lead me forth,' he wrote. 'I have done with this
+world, but, in the bosom of God, I promise you I will do what I can.'
+So did this clear and childlike spirit carry its cause from the
+Austrian Assizes to a higher tribunal.
+
+In the spring of 1853 there was an attempt at a rising in Milan from
+which the mass of the citizens stood aloof, if they even knew of it
+till it was over; an attempt ill-considered and not easily justified
+from any point of view, the blame for which has been generally cast on
+Mazzini; but though he knew of it, he was unwilling that its authors
+should choose the time and mode of action which they chose. He was,
+moreover, misinformed as to the extent of the preparations, since no
+Milanese of any standing gave his support to the plan.
+
+On the plea that the Lombard emigration was concerned in the abortive
+movement, which was by no means consistent with facts, the Austrian
+Government sequestered the landed property of the exiles and voluntary
+emigrants, reducing them and their families (which in most instances
+remained behind) to complete beggary. Nine hundred and seventy-eight
+estates were placed under sequestration. The Court of Sardinia held
+the measure to be a violation of the amnesty, which was one of the
+conditions of the peace of 1850. The Sardinian Minister was recalled
+from Vienna, and the relations between the two governments were once
+more on a footing of open rupture.
+
+Not less important was the moral effect of the sequestrations in
+France and England, but particularly in England. They acted as the
+last straw, coming as they did on the top of the flogging system which
+had already enraged the English public mind to the highest degree. The
+Prince Consort wrote in March to his brother: 'To give you a
+conception of the maxims of justice and policy which Austria has been
+lately developing, I enclose an extract of a report from Turin which
+treats of the decrees of confiscation in Italy. People here will be
+very indignant.' He goes on to say (somewhat too broadly) that the
+English upper classes were till then thoroughly Austrian, but that she
+had succeeded in turning the whole of England against her, and there
+was now no one left to defend her.
+
+Austria, through Count Buol, complained that she was 'dying of
+legality,' but England took the Sardinian view that the sequestrations
+directly violated the treaty between the two Powers. In the Austrian
+Note of the 9th of March, it was distinctly declared that Piedmont
+would be crushed if she did not perform the part of police-agent to
+Austria. Cavour's uncowed attitude at this crisis was what first fixed
+upon him the eyes of European diplomacy.
+
+In the course of the summer, the Duke of Genoa, Victor Emmanuel's
+brother, paid a visit to the English Court, where the Duke of
+Saxe-Coburg was also staying, by whom he was described as 'one of the
+cleverest and most amiable men of our time.' Sunny Italy, adds Duke
+Ernest, seemed to have sent him to England so that by his mere
+presence alone, in the prime of his age, he might make propaganda for
+the cause of his country. The Queen presented her guest with a
+handsome riding-horse, and when he thanked her in warm and feeling
+terms, she spoke the memorable words, the effect of which spoken at
+that date by the Queen of England can hardly be imagined: 'I hope you
+will ride this horse when the battles are fought for the liberation of
+Italy.'
+
+The battle-day was indeed to come, but when it came the sword which
+the young Duke wielded with such gallantry in the siege of Peschiera
+would be sheathed for ever. The Prince Charming of Casa Savoia died in
+February 1855, leaving a daughter to Italy, the beloved Queen
+Margaret.
+
+In the space of a few weeks, Victor Emmanuel lost his brother, his
+mother, and his wife. The King, who felt keenly when he did feel, was
+driven distraught with grief; no circumstance was wanting which could
+sharpen the edge of his sorrow. The two Queens, both Austrian
+princesses, had never interfered in foreign politics; what they
+suffered they suffered in silence. But they were greatly influenced by
+the ministers of the religion which had been a comfort of their not
+too happy lives, and they had frequently told Victor Emmanuel that
+they would die of grief if the anti-papal policy of his government
+were persisted in. Now that they were dead, every partisan of the
+Church declared, without a shadow of reticence, that the mourning in
+which the House of Savoy was plunged was a clear manifestation of
+Divine wrath. Victor Emmanuel had been brought up in superstitious
+surroundings; it was hardly possible that he should listen to these
+things altogether unmoved. But on this as on the other occasions in
+his life when he was to be threatened with ghostly terrors, he did not
+belie the name of 'Re Galantuomo,' which he had written down as his
+profession when filling up the papers of the first census taken after
+his accession--a jest that gave him the title he will ever be known
+by. Harassed and tormented as the King was, when the law on religious
+corporations had been voted by the Senate and the Chamber, and was
+presented to him by Cavour for signature, he did his duty and signed
+it. The commentary which came from the Vatican was the decree of
+major excommunication promulgated in the Consistory of the 27th of
+July against all who had approved or sanctioned the measure, or who
+were concerned in putting it into execution.
+
+The law was known as the 'Rattazziana,' from Urbano Rattazzi, whom
+Cavour appointed Minister of Grace and Justice, thereby effecting a
+coalition between the Right Centre, which he led himself, and the Left
+Centre, which was led by Rattazzi; an alliance not pleasing to the
+Pure Right or to the Advanced Left, but necessary to give the Prime
+Minister sufficient strength to command the respect, both at home and
+abroad, which can only be won by a statesman who is not afraid of
+being overturned by every whiff of the parliamentary wind. The 'Legge
+Rattazziana' certainly aimed at asserting the supremacy of the state,
+but in substance it was an arrangement for raising the stipend of the
+poorer clergy at the expense of the richer benefices and corporations,
+and save for the bitter animosity of Rome, it would not have excited
+the degree of anger that descended upon its promoters. In a country
+where the Church had a rental of 15,000,000 francs, there were many
+parish priests who had not an income of £20; a state of things seen to
+be anomalous by the best ecclesiastics themselves, but their efforts
+at conciliation failed because the Holy See would not recognise the
+right of the civil authority to interfere in any question affecting
+the status or property of the clergy, and this right was the real
+point at issue.
+
+In these days, Cavour came to an understanding with a friendly monk in
+order that when his last hour arrived, he should not, like Santa Rosa,
+go unshriven to his account. In 1861, Fra Giacomo performed his part
+in the agreement, and was duly punished for having saved his Church
+from a scandal which, from the position of the great minister, would
+have reached European dimensions.
+
+Cavour's work of bringing into order the Sardinian finances, which,
+from the flourishing state they had attained prior to 1848, had fallen
+into what appeared the hopeless confusion of a large and steadily
+increasing deficit, is not to the ordinary observer his most brilliant
+achievement, but it is possibly the one for which he deserves most
+praise. It could not have been carried through except by a statesman
+who was completely indifferent to the applause of the hour. During all
+the earlier years that he held office, Cavour was extraordinarily
+unpopular. The nickname of 'la bestia neira' conferred on him by
+Victor Emmanuel referred to the opinion entertained of him by the
+Clerical party, but he was almost as much a 'bestia neira' to a large
+portion of the Liberals as to the Clericals or to the old Piedmontese
+party. His house was attacked by the mob in 1853, and had not his
+servants barred the entrance, something serious might have occurred.
+Happily the King and the majority in the Chamber and in the country
+had, if not much love for Cavour, a profound conviction that he could
+not be done without, and that, consequently, he must be allowed to do
+what he liked. Thus the large sacrifices he demanded of the taxpayers
+were regularly voted, and Cavour could afford to despise the abuse
+heaped upon himself since he saw his policy advancing to maturity
+along a steady line of success.
+
+When, in 1854, Cavour resolved that Piedmont should join France and
+England in the coming war with Russia, it seemed to a large number of
+his countrymen that he had taken leave of his senses, but the firm
+support which in this instance he found in the King enabled him next
+year to equip and despatch the contingent, 15,000 strong, commanded
+by General La Marmora, which not only won the respect of friends and
+foes in the field, but offered an example of efficiency in all
+departments that compared favourably with the faulty organisation of
+the great armies beside which it fought. Its gallant conduct at the
+battle of the Tchernaja flattered the native pride, and when, in due
+time, 12,000 returned of the 15,000 that had gone forth, the increased
+credit of Piedmont in Europe was already felt to compensate for the
+heavy cost of the expedition.
+
+Among the Italians living abroad, Cavour's motives in taking part in
+the Crimean War were, from the first, better understood than they were
+at home. Piedmont, by qualifying for the part of Italian advocate in
+the Councils of Europe, gave a guarantee of good faith which patriots
+like Daniel Manin and Giorgio Pallavicini accepted as a happy promise
+for the future. It was then that a large section of the republican
+party frankly embraced the programme of Italian unity under Victor
+Emmanuel. They foresaw that a repetition of the discordant action of
+1848 would end in the same way. Manin wrote to Lorenzo Valerio in
+September 1855: 'I, who am a republican, plant the banner of
+unification; let all who desire that Italy should exist, rally round
+it, and Italy will exist.' The ex-dictator of Venice was eking out a
+scanty livelihood by giving lessons in Paris; he had only three years
+left to live, and was not destined to see his words verified. But,
+poor and sick and obscure though he was, his support was worth
+legions.
+
+It was not the first time that Italian republicans had said to the
+House of Savoy: If you will free Italy we are with you; but the
+circumstances of the case were completely changed since Mazzini wrote
+in somewhat the same language to Charles Albert a quarter of a
+century before. Both times the proposal contained an ultimatum as well
+as an offer, but Manin made it without second thoughts in the
+strongest hope that the pact would be accepted and full of
+anticipatory joy at the prospect of its success; while by the Genoese
+republican it was made in mistrust and in the knowledge that were it
+accepted (which he did not believe), its acceptance, though bringing
+with it for Italy a state of things which he recognised as preferable
+to that which prevailed, would bring to him personally nothing but
+disappointment and the forfeiture of his dearest wishes.
+
+It is difficult to say what were at this date Cavour's own private
+sentiments about Italian unity. Though he once confessed that as a
+young man he had fancied himself Prime Minister of Italy, whenever the
+subject was now discussed he disclaimed any belief in the feasibility
+of uniting all parts of the peninsula in one whole. He even called
+Manin 'a very good man, but mad about Italian unification.' It wanted,
+in truth, the prescience of the seer rather than the acumen of the
+politician to discern the unity of Italy in 1855. All outward facts
+seemed more adverse to its accomplishment than at any period since
+1815. Yet it was for Italy that Cavour always pleaded; Italy, and not
+Piedmont or even Lombardy and Venetia. He invariably asserted the
+right of his King to uphold the cause of all the populations from the
+Alps to the Straits of Messina. If he adopted the proverb 'Chi va
+piano va sano,' he kept in view the end of it, 'Chi va sano va
+lontano.' In short, if he did not believe in Italian unity, he acted
+in the same way as he would have acted had he believed in it.
+
+It is evident that one thing he could not do. Whatever was in his
+thoughts, unless he was prepared to retire into private life then and
+there, he could not proclaim from the house-tops that he espoused the
+artichoke theory attributed to Victor Amadeus. There were only too
+many old diplomatists as it was, who sought to cripple Cavour's
+resources by reviving that story. The time was not come when, without
+manifest damage to the cause, he could plead guilty to the charge of
+preparing an Italian crown for his Sovereign. 'The rule in politics,'
+Cavour once observed, 'is to be as moderate in language as you are
+resolute in act.'
+
+At the end of 1855, Victor Emmanuel, with Cavour and Massimo
+d'Azeglio, paid a visit to the French and English Courts. He was
+received with more marked cordiality at the English Court than at the
+French. No Prince Charming, indeed, but the ideal of a bluff and burly
+Longobard chief, he managed to win the good graces of his
+entertainers, even if they thought him a trifle barbaric. The Duchess
+of Sutherland declared that of all the knights of St George whom she
+had ever seen, he was the only one who would have had the best of it
+in the fight with the dragon. The Queen rose at four o'clock in the
+morning to take leave of him. Cavour was so much struck by the
+interest which Her Majesty evinced in the efforts of Piedmont for
+constitutional freedom, that he did not hesitate to call her the best
+friend his country possessed in England.
+
+It is not generally known, but it is quite true, that Victor Emmanuel
+wished to contract a matrimonial alliance with the English royal
+family. He did not take Cavour into his confidence, but a high English
+personage was sounded on the matter, a hint being given to him to say
+nothing about it to the Count. The lady who might have become Queen of
+Italy was the Princess Mary of Cambridge. The negotiations were
+broken off because the young Princess would not hear of any marriage
+which would have required her living out of England.
+
+The Congress which met in Paris in February 1856 for the conclusion of
+the peace between the Allies and Russia was to have far more momentous
+results for Italy than for the countries more immediately concerned in
+its discussions, but, contrary to the general impression, it does not
+appear that these results were anticipated by Cavour. He even said
+that it was idle for Sardinia to send delegates to a congress in which
+they would be treated like children. Cavour feared, perhaps, to lose
+the ground he had gained in the previous year with Napoleon III., when
+the Emperor's rather surprising question: 'Que peut-on faire pour
+l'Italie?' had suggested to the Piedmontese statesman that definite
+scheme of a French alliance, which henceforth he never let go. In any
+case, when D'Azeglio, who was appointed Sardinian representative,
+refused at the last moment to undertake a charge for which he knew he
+was not fitted, it was only at the urgent request of the King that
+Cavour consented to take his place. When once in Paris, however, he
+warmed to the work, finding an unexpectedly strong ally in Lord
+Clarendon. He won what was considered in all Europe a great diplomatic
+triumph, by getting a special sitting assigned to the examination of
+Italian affairs, which had as little to do with the natural work of
+the Congress as the affairs of China. The chief points discussed at
+the secret sitting of the 8th of April were the foreign occupations in
+Central Italy, and the state of the Roman and Neapolitian governments,
+which was stigmatised by Lord Clarendon in terms much more severe than
+Cavour himself thought it prudent to use. Count Buol, the chief
+Austrian representative, grew very angry, and his opposition was
+successful in reducing the sitting to a mere conversation; but what
+had been said had been said, and Cavour prepared the way for his
+future policy by remarking to everyone: 'You see that diplomacy can do
+nothing for us; the question needs another solution.' Lord Clarendon's
+vigorous support made him think for a moment that England might take
+an active part in that other solution, and with this idea in his mind
+he hurried over the Channel to see Lord Palmerston, but he left
+England convinced that nothing more than moral assistance was ever to
+be expected from that quarter. The Marquis Emmanuel d'Azeglio, who for
+many years represented Sardinia, and afterwards Italy, at the Court of
+St James, has placed it on record that the English Premier repeatedly
+assured him that an armed intervention on behalf of Italian freedom
+would have been much to his taste, but that the country would not have
+been with him. It is certain that Cavour would have preferred an
+English to a French alliance; as it was not to be had, he reposed his
+sole hopes in the Emperor Napoleon, who had not the French people
+really more with him in this matter than Lord Palmerston had the
+English--nay, he had them less with him, for in England there would
+have been a party of Italian sympathisers favourable to the war, and
+in France, there was no one except Prince Napoleon and the workmen of
+Paris. But the French Emperor was a despotic sovereign, and not the
+Prime Minister of a self-governing country. After all, some good may
+come out of despotism.
+
+Upon Cavour's return to Turin, he received not only the approval of
+the King and Parliament, but also congratulations from all parts of
+Italy. His position had gained immensely in strength, both at home and
+abroad. Yet the power of the Clerical party in Piedmont was still such
+that, in the elections of 1857--the first that had taken place since
+the legislation affecting the Church--they obtained seventy seats out
+of a total of two hundred. Cavour did not conceal his alarm. What if
+eight years' labour were thrown away, and the movement of the State
+turned backward? 'Never,' he said, 'would he advise a _coup d'état,_
+nor would his master resort to one; but if the King abdicated, what
+then?' Victor Emmanuel said to his Prime Minister: 'Let us do our
+duty; stand firm, and we shall see!' He often declared that, sooner
+than beat a retreat from the path he had entered on, he would go to
+America and become plain _Monsù Savoia_; but he never lost faith in
+the predominating patriotism and good sense of his subjects; and at
+this time, as at others, he proved to be right. The crisis was
+surmounted. On the one hand, some elections were invalidated where the
+priests had exercised undue influence; and, on the other, Rattazzi,
+who was especially obnoxious to the Clerical party, retired from
+office. Cavour thus found himself still able to command the Chamber.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+PREMONITIONS OF THE STORM
+
+1857-1858
+
+Pisacane's Landing--Orsini's Attempt--The Compact of
+Plombières--Cavour's Triumph.
+
+
+In spite of the accusation of favouring political assassination which
+was frequently launched against the Italian secret societies, only one
+of the faithless Italian princes came to a violent death, and his
+murder had no connection with politics. Charles III., Duke of Parma,
+was mortally stabbed in March 1854; some said that the assassin was a
+groom whom he had struck with a riding-whip; others, that he was the
+father or brother of one of the victims of the Duke's dissolute
+habits. The Duchess, a daughter of the Duke de Berry, assumed the
+Regency on behalf of her son, who was a child. She began by initiating
+many reforms; but a street disturbance in July gave Austria the
+desired excuse for meddling in the government, when all progress was,
+of course, arrested.
+
+In December 1856, a soldier named Ageslao Milano attempted to
+assassinate the King of the Two Sicilies at a review. He belonged to
+no sect, but he had long premeditated the act. A few days later an
+earthquake occurred in the kingdom of Naples, by which over ten
+thousand persons lost their lives. Ferdinand II. grew morose, and shut
+himself up in the royal palace of Caserta. The constant lectures of
+France and England annoyed him without persuading him to take the
+means to put a stop to them. Not till 1859 did he open the doors of
+the prisons in which Poerio, Settembrini and their companions were
+confined. Many plans were made, meanwhile, for their liberation, and
+English friends even provided a ship by which they were to escape; but
+the ship foundered: perhaps fortunately, as Garibaldi, with
+characteristic disinterestedness, had agreed to direct the enterprise,
+which could not have been otherwise than perilous, and was not
+unlikely to end in the loss of all concerned.
+
+Disaster attended Baron Bentivegna's attempt at a rising at Taormina
+in 1856, and Carlo Pisacane's landing at Sapri in the summer of the
+following year had no better result. Pisacane, a son of the Duke
+Gennaro di San Giovanni of Naples, had fought in the defence of Rome
+and was a firm adherent of Mazzini, in conjunction with whom he
+planned his unlucky venture. Pisacane watched the growing ascendency
+of Piedmont with sorrow; he was one of the few, if not the only one of
+his party to say that he would as soon have the dominion of Austria as
+that of the House of Savoy. But if he was an extremist in politics,
+none the less he was a patriot, who took his life in his hands and
+offered it up to his country in the spirit of the noblest devotion. He
+had the slenderest hope of success, but he believed that only by such
+failures could the people be roused from their apathy. 'For me,' he
+wrote, 'it will be victory even if I die on the scaffold. This is all
+I can do, and this I do; the rest depends on the country, not on me. I
+have only my affections and my life to give, and I give them without
+hesitation.'
+
+With the young Baron Nicotera and twenty-three others, Pisacane
+embarked on the _Cagliari_, a steamer belonging to a Sardinian
+mercantile line, which was bound for Tunis. When at sea, the captain
+was frightened into obedience, and the ship's course was directed to
+the isle of Ponza, where several hundred prisoners, mostly political,
+were undergoing their sentences. The guards made little resistance,
+and Pisacane opened the prisons, inviting who would to follow him. The
+first plan had been to make a descent on San Stefano, the island where
+Settembrini was imprisoned, but that good citizen had refused to admit
+the liberation of the non-political prisoners, which was an
+unavoidable feature in the scheme. With the addition of about three
+hundred men, Pisacane left Ponza for the mainland and disembarked near
+the village of Sapri, in the province of Salerno. From information
+received, he imagined that a revolutionary movement was on the point
+of breaking out in that district. Nothing could be further from the
+fact. The country people did all the harm they could to the band,
+which, after making a brave stand against the local militia, was cut
+to pieces by the royal troops. Pisacane fell fighting; those who were
+not killed were taken, and amongst these was Nicotera, who was kept in
+prison till set free by Garibaldi.
+
+The _Cagliari_ was captured and detained with its crew. As two of the
+seamen were British subjects, the English Government joined Sardinia
+in demanding its restitution, which, after long delays, was conceded.
+
+In 1857, the Emperor of Austria relieved Field-Marshal Radetsky, then
+in his ninety-third year, of the burden of office. He was given the
+right of living in any of the royal palaces, even in the Emperor's own
+residence at Vienna, but he preferred to spend the one remaining year
+of his life in Italy. At the same time, the Archduke Maximilian was
+appointed Viceroy of Lombardy and Venetia. A more naturally amiable
+and cultivated Prince never had the evil fate forced upon him of
+attempting impossible tasks. Just married to the lovely Princess
+Charlotte of Belgium, he came to Italy radiant with happiness, and
+wishing to make everyone as happy as he was himself. Not even the
+chilling welcome he received damped his enthusiasm, for he thought the
+aversion of the population depended on undoubted wrongs, which it was
+his full intention to redress. He was to learn two things; firstly,
+that the day of reconciliation was past: there were too many ghosts
+between the Lombards and Venetians, and the House of Hapsburg.
+Secondly, that an unseen hand beyond the Brenner would diligently
+thwart each one of his benevolent designs. The system was, and was to
+remain, unchanged. It was not carried out quite as it was carried out
+in the first years after 1849. The exiles were allowed to return and
+the sequestrations were revoked. It should be said, because it shows
+the one white spot in Austrian despotism, its civil administration,
+that on resuming their rights of ownership the proprietors found that
+their estates had not been badly managed. But the depressing and
+deadening influence of an anti-national rule continued unabated.
+Lombardy and Venetia were governed not from Milan, but from Vienna.
+Very small were the crumbs which the Viceroy obtained, though he went
+on a journey to Austria expressly to plead for concessions. It is sad
+to think what an enlightened heir to the great Austrian empire was
+lost, when Napoleon III. and his own family sent Maximilian of
+Hapsburg to Queretaro.
+
+While Cavour had come to the conclusion that the aid which he believed
+essential for the expulsion of the Austrians could only come from the
+French Emperor, this sovereign was regarded by a not inconsiderable
+party of Italians as the greatest, if not the sole, obstacle to their
+liberation. All those, in particular, who came in contact with the
+French exiles, were impressed by them with the notion that France, the
+real France, was only waiting for the disappearance of the Man of
+December to throw herself into their arms. Among the Italians who held
+these opinions, there were a few with whom it became a fixed idea that
+the greatest service they could render their country was the removal
+of Napoleon from the political scene. They conceived and nourished
+the thought independently of one another; they belonged to no league,
+but for that reason they were the more dangerous; somewhere or other
+there was always someone planning to put an end to the Emperor's life.
+It is not worth while to pause to discuss the ethics of political
+assassination; civilisation has decided against it, and history proves
+its usual failure to promote the desired object. What benefit did the
+Confederate cause derive from the assassination of the good President
+Lincoln, or the cause of Russian liberty from that of Alexander II.?
+What will Anarchy gain by the murder of Carnot? It is certain,
+however, that never were men more convinced that they were executing a
+wild kind of justice than were the men who plotted against Napoleon
+III. They looked upon him as one of themselves who had turned traitor.
+There is a great probability that, in his early days when he was
+playing at conspiracy in Italy, he was actually enrolled as a
+Carbonaro. At all events, he had conspired for Italian freedom, and
+afterwards, to serve his own selfish interests, he extinguished it in
+Rome. The temporal power of the Pope was kept alive through him.
+
+A true account of the attempts on Napoleon's life will never be written,
+because the only persons who were able and willing to throw light on the
+subject, ex-police agents and their kind, are authorities whose word is
+worth a very limited acceptance. It is pretty sure that there were more
+plots than the public ever knew of, and that in some cases the plotters
+were disposed of summarily. Most of them were poor, ignorant creatures,
+but in January 1858 an attempt was made by a man of an entirely
+different stamp, Felice Orsini.
+
+Born at Meldola in Romagna in 1819, he was of the true Romagnol type
+in mind and body; daring, resourceful, intolerant of control. From his
+earliest youth all his actions had but one object, the liberation of
+his country. His youthful brain was enflamed by Alfieri and Foscolo,
+who remained his favourite authors. He hated Austria well, and he
+hated the Papal government as no one but one of its own subjects could
+hate it. 'When the French landed in Italy' (he told his judges) 'it
+was hoped that they were come as friends, but they proved the worst of
+enemies. For a time they were repulsed, then they resumed the cloak of
+friendship, but only to wait for reinforcements. When these arrived
+they returned to the assault, a thousand against ten, and we were
+judicially assassinated.' A succinct and true narrative.
+
+During the republic Orsini was sent to Ancona, where anarchy had
+broken out; by vigorous measures he restored perfect order. In 1854 he
+was arrested in Hungary and condemned to death, but he escaped from
+Mantua under romantic circumstances and reached England, where the
+story of his audacious flight won for him many sympathisers. He was
+often seen in society. On one occasion he was asked to meet Prince
+Lucien Buonaparte. Orsini knew Mazzini, but he was impatient of his
+mystical leanings, and he disapproved of such enterprises as
+Pisacane's, by which, as he thought, twenty or thirty men were
+sacrificed here or there without anything coming of it. He finally
+repudiated Mazzini's leadership, and in March 1857 he wrote to Cavour,
+asking him for a passport to return to Italy, and placing at the
+disposal of the Sardinian government 'the courage and energy which it
+had pleased God to give him,' provided that government left wavering
+behind, and showed its unmistakable will to achieve the independence
+of Italy. Cavour sent no reply, 'because,' he said later, 'the letter
+was noble and energetic, and I should have had to pay Orsini
+compliments which I did not deem fitting. 'Unlike Victor Emmanuel, who
+in after years carried on regular negotiations with Mazzini, Cavour,
+while ready to make an alliance with the Radicals in the Chamber, was
+extremely loth to have anything to do with actual revolutionists. His
+not answering Orsini's letter certainly led up to the attempt of the
+14th of January 1858.
+
+Having quarrelled with Mazzini, and receiving no encouragement from
+Cavour, Orsini evolved the plan which on that day he endeavoured to
+put into execution. He would have preferred to act alone, but since
+that was impossible, he sought and found without much difficulty two
+or three accomplices. One of these, Pieri, a teacher of languages, was
+arrested by the police, who recognised him as an old conspirator,
+before he threw the bomb which he was carrying. The other bombs were
+thrown just as the carriage containing the Imperial party drove up to
+the opera house. A number of people in the street were killed or
+injured, but the Emperor and Empress escaped unhurt. When they entered
+the theatre the Rutli scene of the conspirators in _Guillaume Tell_
+was being performed. Not a breath of applause greeted them, though
+everyone knew what had happened. Napoleon III. had a striking proof of
+how little hold he possessed on the affections of his subjects.
+
+When at his trial Orsini was asked what he expected would happen if he
+had succeeded in killing the Emperor he answered: 'We were convinced
+that the surest way of making a revolution in Italy was to excite one
+in France, and that the surest way of making a revolution in France
+was to kill the Emperor.' There is a good deal of curious evidence to
+show that very elaborate preparations had been made for a revolution
+in Paris. The French police had orders, however, to keep all this
+aspect of the affair out of sight. It was to be made to appear the
+isolated act of a misguided Italian patriot. 'The world possesses an
+Orsini legend,' writes the late Duke of Saxe-Coburg, who was present
+at the event, having been invited to join the Emperor at the opera,
+'which is quite at variance with facts.' The duke clearly thinks that
+the conviction of the instability of his throne which was brought home
+to the Emperor on this occasion, was one of the causes which decided
+him to try the diversion of public opinion into other channels by
+means of a foreign war.
+
+Everything was done to make Orsini a hero in the eyes of the French
+public, and to excite sympathy in his cause. Jules Favre by his
+eloquent defence in which he pleaded not for the life, but for the
+honour of his client, and still more Orsini's own letter to the
+Emperor, produced a powerful impression; there was a dramatic interest
+in the man who, disdaining to crave clemency for himself, tried a last
+supreme effort in the service of the country he had loved too well.
+'Deliver my fatherland, and the blessings of twenty-five million
+citizens will be with you.' So concluded the letter in which Orsini
+told Napoleon, that till Italy was free there would be no peace for
+Europe--nor for him. It was whispered that the Emperor had a secret
+interview with the condemned man at the Mazas prison; at any rate,
+when Orsini mounted the scaffold, he was borne up, not only by his
+invincible courage, but by the strongest hope, if not the certainty
+that his last prayer would have only a short time to wait for
+fulfilment.
+
+Though persons who were able to read the signs of the times no longer
+doubted that Napoleon had resolved to solve the Italian question by
+force of arms, it suited his purpose to occupy the public mind for the
+moment with the furious agitation against England and Piedmont as
+'dens of assassins,' which led to the fall of the Palmerston
+administration on the Conspiracy Bill, and seemed to almost place in
+jeopardy the throne of Victor Emmanuel. Napoleon sent the King of
+Sardinia demands so sweeping in language so threatening, that the old
+Savoy blood was fired, and Victor Emmanuel returned the answer: 'Tell
+the Emperor in whatever terms you think best that this is not the way
+to treat a faithful ally; that I have never tolerated violence from
+anyone; that I follow the path of unstained honour, and for that
+honour I am only answerable to God and to my people. That we have
+carried our head high for 850 years, and no one will make me lower it;
+and that, nevertheless, I desire nothing better than to remain his
+friend.' This reply was benevolently received; Cavour passed through
+the Chambers a bill which, though not corresponding to the extravagant
+pretensions of the French Government, gave reasonable security against
+the concoction of plots of a criminal nature; Napoleon expressed
+himself satisfied, and three months after, despatched Dr Conneau to
+Turin, to mention, quite by the way, to the Piedmontese minister, that
+he would be glad to have a conversation with him on Italian affairs.
+This was the preliminary of the interview of Plombières.
+
+Plombières is a watering-place in the Vosges, which became famous on
+the 20th of July 1858, the day on which Napoleon III. and Cavour
+entered into the compact that laid down the conditions of the Italian
+war. The Emperor was to bring 200,000 men into Italy, and the King of
+Sardinia undertook to furnish 100,000. The Austrians were to be
+expelled from Italy. The kingdom of Upper Italy would embrace the
+Legations and the Marches then under the Pope. Savoy would be ceded
+to France. The marriage of the Emperor's cousin with the Princess
+Clotilde was not made a condition of the war, and only in case it had
+been made a condition, was Cavour empowered to agree to it. He,
+therefore, left it uncertain; but he came away from Plombières
+convinced that nearly everything depended upon its happening. Napoleon
+was beyond measure anxious for a marriage which would ally him with
+one of the oldest reigning families in Europe. It would be a fatal
+mistake, Cavour thought, to join the Emperor, and at the same time, to
+offend him in a way which he would never forget. Directly after the
+interview, he wrote a long letter to the King to persuade him to yield
+the point. After all, where would the Princess find a more promising
+match? Was it easy to provide husbands for princesses? Were not they
+generally extremely unhappy in marriage? What had happened to the
+King's four aunts, all charming princesses, who had married the Duke
+of Modena, the Duke of Lucca, the Emperor Ferdinand of Austria, and
+the King of Naples? Had they been happy? Prince Napoleon could not be
+so very bad, as he was known to have hurried to Cannes to pay a last
+visit to a woman whom he had loved, a great actress, then upon her
+deathbed. This reminiscence was a singular one to evoke under the
+circumstances, but Cavour was not an Englishman, and he was not
+impressed by the propriety of drawing a veil over facts which everyone
+knew.
+
+The King's instinct told him that his young daughter, pious and simple
+and destitute even of that seasoning of vanity which is so good and
+necessary a thing in a woman, but proud at heart like all her race,
+would derive no compensation from the outward brilliancy of the
+Imperial Court for the absence of domestic joy which would be her
+wedded lot unless a surprising change came over the bridegroom. When,
+however, he was persuaded of the importance, or rather, of the
+essential character of the concession, he said to Cavour: 'I am making
+a great sacrifice, but I yield to your arguments. Still my consent is
+subordinate to the freely given consent of my daughter.' The matter
+was referred to the Princess, who answered: 'It is the wish of my
+father; therefore this marriage will be useful to my family and my
+country, and I accept.' An answer worthy of one who, twelve years
+later, when the members of the Imperial House were flying, remained
+quietly in Paris, saying: 'Savoy and fear are not acquainted.'
+
+The marriage was celebrated at Turin in January. The King made a
+present to Cavour, as a souvenir of the event, of a ring representing
+two heartseases. In thanking him, the minister said: 'Your Majesty
+knows that I shall never marry.' 'I know,' replied the King; 'your
+bride is the country.'
+
+Though warlike rumours circulated off and on, the secret of the
+understanding arrived at in the Plombières interview was well
+preserved, and the words spoken by Napoleon to the Austrian Ambassador
+at the New Year's Day reception fell on Europe with the effect of a
+bombshell. Turning to Baron Hubner, he said: 'Je regrette que les
+relations entre nous soient si mauvaises; dîtes cependant à votre
+souverain que mes sentiments pour lui ne sont pas changés.'
+
+Even Cavour was startled. Probably till that moment he had never felt
+sure that Napoleon would not after all throw the Italian cause to the
+winds. The Emperor's invariable method in dealing with men was to
+mystify them. He was pleased to pose as a faithful ally, but human
+intellect was insufficient to fathom what he meant. On this system,
+skilfully pursued, was reared the whole fabric of Louis Napoleon's
+reputation for being a profound politician. Bearing the fact in mind,
+we can easily see why that reputation crumbled away almost entirely
+when the present became the past. There are few cases in which there
+is more disagreement between the judgment of contemporaries and that
+of immediate posterity than the case of the French Emperor.
+
+The least surprised, and, among Italians, the most dissatisfied at the
+New Year's Day pronouncement was Mazzini, who when he read it in the
+_Times_ next morning felt that the Napoleonic war closed the heroic
+period of Italian Liberation. To men like Mazzini failure is apt to
+seem more heroic than success, and the war of 1859 did close the
+period of failure. The justification for calling in foreign arms could
+only be in necessity, and Mazzini denied the necessity. Charles Albert
+denied it in 1848 with no less confident a voice. Then, indeed, there
+did appear a chance of Italy making herself, but was there the
+slightest prospect, eleven years later, of that chance being repeated?
+Each student of history may answer for himself. What is plain is, that
+France and Sardinia _together_ were to find it an exceedingly hard
+task even to drive the Austrians out of Lombardy.
+
+The unconquerable dislike of men of principle, like Mazzini, to
+joining hands with the author of the _coup d'état_ was perfectly
+explicable. There were doubtless some sincere Bulgarian patriots who
+disliked joining hands with the Autocrat of all the Russias. The gift
+of freedom from a despot means a long list of evils. Mazzini grasped
+the maleficent influence which Napoleon III. would be in a position to
+exercise over the young state; he knew, moreover, when only two or
+three other persons in Europe knew it, that the bargain of Plombières
+was on the principle of give-and-take. How Mazzini was for many years
+better informed than any cabinet in Europe, remains a secret. 'I know
+positively,' he wrote on the 4th of January 1859, 'that the idea of
+the war is only to hand over a zone of Lombardy to Piedmont, and the
+cession of Savoy and Nice to France: the peace, upon the offer of
+which they count, would abandon the whole of Venetia to Austria.' A
+month before this he had disclosed what was certainly true, namely,
+that Napoleon wanted to place a Murat on the throne of Naples, and to
+substitute Prince Napoleon for the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The point
+that is doubtful in the above revelation is the statement that the
+Emperor never meant to emancipate Venetia. The probabilities are
+against this. He may, however, have questioned all along whether his
+troops, with those of the King of Sardinia, would display a
+superiority over the Austrian forces sufficiently incontestable for
+him to risk taking them into the mouse-trap of the Quadrilateral. In
+this one thing Napoleon was amply justified--in having no sort of
+desire to take a beaten army back to Paris.
+
+Mazzini, with the more extreme members of the Party of Action
+(including Crispi), issued a protest against the Napoleonic war, with
+the advice to have nothing to do with it or its authors. But Italy
+thought otherwise, and Garibaldi, the man who of all others most
+nearly represented the heart of Italy, rejoiced and was glad. He did
+not believe a word about the proposed cession of Savoy and Nice; no
+one did, except Mazzini and his few disciples. What he saw was, that a
+great step towards independence was about to be taken. In 1856, he not
+only adhered to Manin's call to all Italians to rally round the house
+of Savoy, but went further than Manin in accepting unconditionally
+what he called the 'Savoy Dictatorship,' to which he left full liberty
+of choice in the matter of ways and means. He did justice then to
+Cavour's patriotism: it was only after the sacrifice of Nice that a
+feeling of bitter antagonism grew up in him for the man who he thought
+had deceived Italy and himself. In December 1858, on a summons from
+Cavour, he left Caprera (the island which he had bought with a little
+inheritance falling to him on the death of his brother) and proceeded
+to Turin, where he was informed of a plan for a rising in Massa and
+Carrara, which was originally intended to be the signal of the war.
+The plan was given up, but in March 1859, Garibaldi was told by Victor
+Emmanuel in person of the imminence of war, and was invited to take
+part in it as commander of an auxiliary corps of volunteers which took
+the name of 'Cacciatori delle Alpi.' In this way, all his own
+followers, not only those in arms, but the great mass of the people
+which was obedient to his lead, became enrolled in the service of the
+Sardinian monarchy; a fact of capital importance in the future
+development of affairs. Without it, the Italian kingdom could not have
+been formed. And this fact was due to Cavour, who had to fight the
+arrayed strength of the old, narrow, military caste at Turin, which
+had succeeded in getting Garibaldi's sword refused in 1848, and wished
+for nothing in the world more than to get it refused in 1859. Near the
+end of his life, Cavour said in the Chamber that the difficulties he
+encountered in inducing the Sardinian War Office to sanction the
+appointment were all but insurmountable. Unfortunately, the jealousy
+of the heads of the regular army for the revolutionary captain never
+ceased. As for Cavour, even when he opposed Garibaldi politically, he
+always strove to have the highest personal honour paid to the man of
+whom he once wrote 'that he had rendered Italy the greatest service
+it was possible to render her.'
+
+True to his _rôle_ of mystification, one week after the shot fired on
+the 1st of January, Napoleon inserted an official statement in the
+_Moniteur_ to the effect that, although public opinion had been
+agitated by alarming rumours, there was nothing in the foreign
+relations of France to justify the fears these rumours tended to
+create. He continued on this tack, with more or less consistency, to
+the very verge of the outbreak of hostilities. 'The Empire was peace,'
+as it was always announced to be in the intervals when it was not war;
+there was no more harmless dove in Europe than the person enthroned in
+the Tuileries. These assurances were given more credence than they
+deserved by the Conservative Cabinet then in power in England, and the
+British ministers believed to the last that war would be averted, to
+which end they strained every nerve. Besides the wish felt by every
+English government to preserve European peace, there was at this
+juncture, not only in the Cabinet, but in the country, so much fear of
+Napoleon's ambition and restlessness, that for the time being,
+sympathy with Italy was relegated to a second place.
+
+Meanwhile there was no want of plainness in the language employed in
+Piedmont. In opening the second session of the sixth Sardinian
+Parliament, Victor Emmanuel pronounced, on 10th January, the historic
+phrase declaring that he could not remain insensible to the cry of
+grief, _il grido di dolore_, that reached him from all parts of Italy.
+Every corner of the fair country where the _Si_ sounds was electrified.
+The words, as has since become known, were introduced into the speech by
+the King himself. As Cavour had foreseen, Austria played into his hands.
+To Lord Malmesbury's appeal to evacuate the Roman Legations, and to use
+Austrian influence with the Italian princes in procuring the concession
+of necessary reforms, Count Buol replied in terms that were the reverse
+of obliging: 'We do not mean to abdicate our right of intervention, and
+if we are called upon to help the Italian sovereigns with our arms, we
+shall do so. We shall not recommend their governments to undertake any
+reforms. France plays the part of protectress of nationalities; we are,
+and shall be, protectors of dynastic rights.' Finally, England proposed
+a congress with a view to general disarmament. Piedmont, counting on the
+madness of her adversary, risked agreement with this plan. Austria gave
+a peremptory refusal to have anything to do with it.
+
+Cavour now asked Parliament to vote a war loan of £2,000,000, which
+was passed by a majority of 81 out of 151 votes. No foreign banker
+would undertake to negotiate the loan, but it was twice covered by
+Italian buyers, nearly all small capitalists, who put their money into
+it as a patriotic duty. Amongst the few deputies who opposed the loan
+was the old apostle of retrogression, Count Solaro della Margherita,
+who raised his solitary voice against the tide of revolution; and the
+Savoyard the Marquis Costa de Beauregard whose speech was pathetic
+from the melancholy foreboding which pervaded it that the making
+of Italy meant the unmaking of Savoy. Speaking in the name of his
+fellow-countrymen, the Marquis reconfirmed the profound love of
+Savoy for her Royal House and her total lack of solidarity with the
+aspirations of Italy. With time the Savoyards might have learnt to be
+Italians as their king had learnt to be an Italian king. Or they might
+not. Possibly the best solution would have been to join Savoy to the
+Swiss Confederation, though the martial instincts of the race were not
+favourable to their Conversion into peaceful Helvetic citizens. From
+one point of view, that of military defence, the retention of the
+province was of infinitely more moment to the future Italy than to
+little Piedmont. Sardinia could keep the peace with France for an
+indefinite period; Italy cannot. What is true of Savoy is far more
+true of Nice. To have it in foreign keeping is to have a very
+partially reformed burglar inside your house.
+
+'Notre roi,' said an old ragged fisherman of the Lac de Bourget to the
+writer of this book,--'Notre roi nous a vendus.' Not willingly did
+Victor Emmanuel incur that charge, in which the rebound from love to
+hate was so clearly heard; not willingly did he give up Maurienne,
+cradle of his race, Hautecombe, grave of his fathers. It was the
+greatest sacrifice, he said, that Italy could have asked of him. Nor
+is there any reason to doubt his word. But it is incorrect to suppose,
+as many have supposed, that Cavour promised at Plombières to give up
+Savoy (Nice he did not promise) without the King's knowledge. Before
+he went there, he had brought Victor Emmanuel over to his own belief,
+justified or not, that without a bait Napoleon could not be got to
+move. Directly after the interview, he wrote a full account of it to
+the King, in which he said: 'When the future fate of Italy was
+arranged, the Emperor asked me what France would have, and if your
+Majesty would cede Savoy and the county of Nice?' To which Cavour
+answered 'Yes' as to Savoy, but objected that Nice was essentially
+Italian. The Emperor twirled his moustache several times, and only
+said that these were secondary questions, about which there would be
+time to think later.
+
+Austria was always appealing to the right of treaties and the right
+of nations; not, as it happened, with much reason, for she had ridden
+or tried to ride rough-shod through as many treaties and through quite
+as many rights as most European Powers. In 1816 she was so determined
+to possess herself of Alessandria and the Upper Novarese that Lord
+Castlereagh advised Piedmont to join the Austrian Confederation, as
+then and only then the Emperor might withdraw his pretensions to this
+large slice of territory of a Prince with whom he was at peace. If he
+did withdraw them, it was not from respect for the treaties which, a
+year before, had confirmed the King of Sardinia's rights as an
+independent sovereign, but from respect for the untoward results to
+himself which he was afraid, on reflection, might arise from enforcing
+his claims with the bayonet. But people forget; and it was of vital
+consequence that virtuous Austria should figure in the coming conflict
+not as the victim of aggression but as the aggressor. On all sides it
+was said that the Austrian Government would never commit an error of
+such magnitude; only Cavour thought the contrary. 'I shall _force_ her
+to declare war against us,' he told Mr Odo Russell in December 1858.
+When asked by the incredulous diplomatist at what date he expected to
+perform so great a feat, Cavour quietly answered: 'In the first week
+of May.' War was actually declared a few days sooner.
+
+For months Austria had been pouring troops into Italy, a large portion
+of which were massed on the frontier line of the Ticino. Who shall
+count the number of the men brought to fight and die in the Italian
+plains between 1848 and 1866 to sustain for that short time the weight
+of a condemned despotism? The supply was inexhaustible; they came from
+the Hungarian steppes, from the green valleys of Styria, from the
+mountains of Tyrol, from the woodlands of the Banat and of Bohemia; a
+blind million battling for a chimera. They came, and how many did not
+return?
+
+Austria's final refusal to adhere to the Congress scheme meant, of
+course, war, and Cavour called the Chamber and demanded a vote
+conferring upon Government the power to take such prompt measures as
+the situation required. 'We trust,' he said, 'that the Chamber will
+not hesitate to sanction the proposal to invest the King with plenary
+powers. Who could be a better guardian of our liberty? Who more worthy
+of the faith of the nation? He it is whose name a ten years' reign had
+made synonymous with honour and loyalty; who has always held high the
+tricolor standard of Italy, who now prepares to unsheath his sword for
+freedom and independence.'
+
+When Cavour walked out of the Chamber after the vote had been taken,
+he said: 'I am leaving the last sitting of the Piedmontese Parliament,
+the next will be that of the Kingdom of Italy.' At that moment, if
+ever in his career, the great minister who had fought so long a fight
+against incalculable obstacles learnt what it is to taste the
+sweetness of triumph.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE WAR FOR LOMBARDY
+
+1859
+
+Austria declares War--Montebello--Garibaldi's
+Campaign--Palestro--Magenta--The Allies enter Milan--Ricasoli saves
+Italian Unity--Accession of Francis II.--Solferino--The Armistice of
+Villafranca.
+
+
+Baron von Kellersperg reached Turin on the 23rd of April, bringing
+with him the Austrian ultimatum: 'Disarmament within three days, or
+war.' Cavour read the document, and then drew his watch out of his
+pocket. It was half-past five in the afternoon. At the same hour on
+the 26th, he gave Baron von Kellersperg the answer: 'Sardinia having
+accepted the principle of a general disarmament, as formulated by
+England, with the adhesion of France, Prussia and Russia, the
+Sardinian Government has no other explanation to make.' The retort was
+justified. Austria, which now required Sardinia to disarm, had refused
+to disarm herself. She must take the consequences.
+
+The British Government made a last desperate effort to maintain peace,
+and the Austrians always said that this was their ruin, as it delayed
+the invasion of Piedmont for a week. On the 29th appeared the Emperor
+Francis Joseph's Declaration of War, and on the same day the first
+Austrian columns crossed the Ticino. The Austrian commander-in-chief
+was Count Gyulai, who was in high favour with the aristocratic party,
+by which his appointment was suggested to, if not forced upon, the
+Emperor. The latter, not altogether easy in his mind about Gyulai's
+capabilities, commissioned General Hess, in whom he placed full
+confidence, to keep his eye on him. Hess could not, however, do much
+more than take notes of one of the most remarkable and providential
+series of blunders ever committed by the commander of an army.
+
+In spite of the delay which the Austrians ascribed to the English
+peace negotiations, there was time for them to destroy the Sardinian
+army before the French came up. Gyulai had 100,000 men in the theatre
+of war, a number increased up to 200,000 during the campaign. Both
+Sardinia and her ally mustered much fewer men than were spoken of at
+Plombières. The Piedmontese could dispose of 56,000 infantry, formed
+in five divisions, one division of cavalry numbering 4,000, and one
+brigade of volunteers, to which the name was given of 'Cacciatori
+delle Alpi.' The enrolment of these was stopped when it had reached
+the small figure of 4,500 men, a figure that looks out of all
+proportion with the brilliant part they played. The same influences
+which cut short the enrolment prevented Cavour from keeping his
+distinct promise to give Garibaldi, now invested with the official
+rank of major-general, 10,000 regulars, with a battery and a troop of
+horse.
+
+The French army consisted of 128,000 men, including about 10,000
+cavalry. The Emperor's Government had notified beforehand to Vienna
+that the passage of the Ticino by the Austrian troops would be
+considered equivalent to a declaration of war, and accordingly, on the
+29th of April, diplomatic relations between the two Powers were broken
+off. The French forces had been really on the move for more than a
+week--ever since, in fact, by what the Marquis of Normanby called 'an
+unpardonable breach of confidence,' the intention of Austria to invade
+Sardinia was communicated to Paris. The mobilisation was conducted
+with rapidity; in spite of the snow, which lay deep on the Mont Cenis,
+the first corps, under Marshal Baraguay d'Hilliers, made a swift march
+over the Alps, and the foremost division entered Turin on the 30th of
+April. The troops of Canrobert and Niel, who commanded the third and
+fourth corps, were sent by Toulon and Marseilles, while the generals
+themselves went on to Turin in advance. MacMahon's corps, which was
+the second, was on its way from Algiers. The fifth corps, under the
+command of Prince Napoleon, was despatched at a later date to Tuscany,
+where it was kept in a state of inactivity, which suggested rather a
+political than a military mission. General Regnault de Saint-Jean
+d'Angély commanded the Imperial Guard. Napoleon III assumed the
+supreme command of the allied armies, with General Vaillant as head of
+the staff.
+
+The condition of neither French nor Austrian army was satisfactory.
+The former had more modern arms and a greater proportion of old
+soldiers, but it was generally thought that the French cavalry, so far
+superior to the Prussian in the war of 1870, was inferior to the
+Austrian in 1859. The commissariat and ambulance arrangements of the
+French were disgraceful, though they had this advantage, that when
+there was food to be had the soldiers were allowed to eat it, while
+the Austrians were limited to half-a-pound of beef a day, and were
+only allowed to cook once in the twenty-four hours, which led to their
+having constantly to fight fasting. In point of discipline, they were
+probably superior to the French, who fought, however, and this should
+always be remembered of them in Italy, with the best will in the
+world. They carried about their pet monkeys and dogs, and were always
+good-humoured and in good spirits, even when wounded. What would have
+been the effect on them of even a single defeat is a question which it
+is useless to discuss.
+
+In Napoleon's proclamation to the French people it was stated that the
+scope of the war was to give Italy to herself, not to make her change
+masters; the recompense of France would be to have upon her frontiers
+a friendly people which owed its independence to her. As things stood
+there were but two alternatives: Austria supreme as far as the Alps,
+or Italy free to the Adriatic. On the 12th of May, the Imperial yacht,
+the _Reine Hortense_, steamed into the harbour of Genoa with the
+Emperor on board. A splendid reception awaited him, and amongst the
+first to greet him was Cavour. 'You may well rejoice,' said Napoleon,
+as he embraced the Sardinian statesman, 'for your plans are being
+realised.'
+
+Gyulai, who had insisted on invading Piedmont, contrary to the opinion
+of Hess (who counselled waiting for reinforcements on the left bank of
+the Mincio), wasted his time after crossing the Ticino in making plans
+and changing them while he could unquestionably have thrown himself on
+Turin had he possessed more resolution, and this was the only
+operation that could have justified the initial folly of the invasion.
+The taking of the capital might not have altered the fortunes of the
+war, but it would have had all the appearance of a triumph, and would
+have raised the _moral_ of the Austrian soldiers. The allies had time
+to concentrate their forces near Tortona, and it was left to them to
+assume the offensive. The Austrians retired towards the Apennines, but
+made a forward movement on the 20th of May with the object of seizing
+the heights of Casteggio which command the road to Piacenza; they were
+met by the allies at the village of Montebello where Marshal Lannes
+obtained a victory in 1800. The allies were completely successful in
+this first battle, the honours of the day falling to the Sardinian
+cavalry, which showed great gallantry. The Austrian forces were
+considerably superior in strength.
+
+Almost at the same time as the engagement of Montebello, Garibaldi
+with his diminutive army (which through the weeding-out of men unfit
+for service was reduced to about 3,500 before it took the field),
+crossed the Lago Maggiore, and advanced boldly into the heart of the
+enemy's country. The volunteers had no artillery, and by way of
+cavalry only some forty or fifty were mounted on their own horses and
+dignified with the name of 'guides.' They were badly armed and worse
+equipped; the only good thing they had was an excellent ambulance
+organised by Dr Bertani, Garibaldi's surgeon-general from Roman days
+downwards. But they formed a picturesque sight as they marched along
+gaily to the everlasting song, 'Addio, mia bella, addio'; and a
+physiognomist would have been struck by their intelligent and often
+distinguished faces: nobles and poets, budding doctors and lawyers,
+bristled in the ranks, while the officers were the still young
+veterans of 1848-1849: Cosenz, hero of Venice; Medici, the defender of
+the Vascello; Bixio, Sirtori, Cairoli--all the Knights of the Legend.
+
+Moving swiftly from place to place, and appearing where and when he
+was least expected, Garibaldi took the entire country of the Lombard
+lakes. Gyulai, who at first looked upon the Garibaldian march as a
+simple diversion intended to draw off his attention, now became
+concerned, and dispatched Urban with 10,000 men to destroy the
+volunteers, and stem the insurrection which everywhere followed in
+their wake. On the 27th of May Garibaldi drove Urban from his position
+near San Fermo, and that commander had his mission still unfulfilled
+when he received the order to retreat after the battle of Magenta. The
+volunteers were free to pursue their way to Brescia and the
+Valtellina, where they performed many feats in the latter period of
+the war, winning the admiration of Hayn, the Austrian general opposed
+to them, which he was generous enough to express in no measured terms.
+
+The great war was meanwhile approaching its climax. After Montebello
+the whole French army executed a secret flank movement, changing its
+position from Voghera, where Gyulai believed it to be, and whence he
+expected it to move on to Piacenza, to the line of the Sesia, between
+Cameriano and Casale. To mask the main operations, the Sardinian
+forces were sent to Palestro, on the other side of the Sesia. On the
+30th of May, they drove in the outposts of the enemy, and on the 31st
+fought the important engagement by which the Austrian attempt to
+retake Palestro was repelled, and great damage caused to Zobel's
+corps, which was obliged to leave eight guns sticking in the mud. The
+French Zouaves of the 3rd regiment fought with the Piedmontese, and
+made the battle famous by the reckless valour of their bayonet
+charges. Victor Emmanuel, deaf to all remonstrances, placed himself at
+their head, in consequence of which they elected him their corporal,
+an honour once paid to the first Napoleon.
+
+There is reason to think that after Palestro, Gyulai, having at last
+realised what Napoleon was about, wished to evacuate Lombardy, but was
+prevented from doing so by strong protests sent by the Emperor Francis
+Joseph, who was at Verona. The Austrian army was in full retreat when
+it was pulled up near Magenta, with the object of checking the advance
+of the French, who had already begun to cross the Ticino by the
+bridges of San Martino and Buffalora, which the Austrians had tried to
+blow up, but had not succeeded from want of proper powder. In the
+great battle of the 4th of June, Austrians and French numbered
+respectively about 60,000 men; no Piedmontese were engaged till the
+evening, when a battalion of Bersaglieri arrived. The Imperial Guard,
+with which was Napoleon, had to bear the brunt of the fight for four
+hours, and ran a good chance of being annihilated; not a brilliant
+proof of French generalship, but happily the Austrians also committed
+grave mistakes. MacMahon's arrival at five in the afternoon prevented
+a catastrophe, and the fighting, which continued far into the night,
+was from this moment attended by results on the whole advantageous to
+the French. Not much more can be said. Magenta was very like a drawn
+battle. The Austrians are calculated to have lost 10,000 men, the
+French between 4,000 and 5,000. It was expected that the Austrians
+would renew the attack, but on the 5th, Gyulai ordered the retreat,
+which was the last order he had the opportunity of giving, as he was
+deprived of his command immediately after.
+
+At mid-day on the 5th, Milan, which was trembling on the verge of
+revolution, made the pleasurable discovery that there were no
+Austrians left in the town. The municipality sent out delegates with
+the keys of the city to Victor Emmanuel. At ten a.m. on the 7th,
+MacMahon's corps began to file down the streets. Words cannot describe
+the welcome given to them. How MacMahon lifted to his saddle-bow a
+child that was in danger of being crushed by the crowd will be
+remembered from the pretty incident having passed into English poetry.
+On the 8th, the King and the Emperor made their entry amidst a new
+paroxysm of enthusiasm. Napoleon is reported to have exclaimed: 'How
+this people must have suffered!' In his proclamation 'to the Italian
+people,' which bears the same date as his entry into Milan, he renewed
+the assurance of the disinterested motives which had brought him to
+Italy: 'Your enemies, who are also mine, have endeavoured to diminish
+the universal sympathy felt in Europe for your cause, by causing it to
+be believed that I am making war for personal ambition, or to
+increase French territory. If there are men who fail to comprehend
+their epoch, I am not one of them. In the enlightened state of public
+opinion now prevailing, true greatness lies in the moral influence
+which we exercise rather than in sterile conquests.' The proclamation
+ended with the words: 'To-morrow you will be the citizens of a great
+country.' Not the least effusive demonstrations were reserved for
+Cavour, who joined his Sovereign a few days after the battle of
+Magenta.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Leaving the Milanese to put their faith in princes while yet there was
+time, a glance must be taken at what had been going on in the rest of
+Italy, which was becoming a great nation far more rapidly, and in a
+much fuller sense than Napoleon III. expected or wished. When Austria
+sent her ultimatum to Turin, the Sardinian minister at the Court of
+Tuscany invited the Grand Duke's Government to take part in the war of
+liberation. This they refused to do. On perceiving, however, that he
+could not depend on his troops, the Grand Duke promised to co-operate
+with Piedmont, but his advisers did not now think it possible to save
+the grand ducal throne, unless Leopold II. abdicated in favour of his
+son, who was not burdened with the fatal associations of the reaction
+of ten years before. Leopold probably thought that even his abdication
+would not keep out the deluge, and he took the more dignified course
+of declining to yield to force. On the 27th of April, accompanied by
+the Corps Diplomatique as far as the frontier, he left Tuscany. A
+Provisional Government was formed with Peruzzi at its head, which
+hastily raised 8000 men for immediate service under the command of
+General Ulloa. Before long Prince Napoleon, with the fifth corps of
+the French army, landed, for no reason that could be avowed, at
+Leghorn. The real motive was to prepare the way for the fabrication
+of a new kingdom of Etruria, which existed already in Napoleon's
+brain. This masterpiece of folly had but a lukewarm supporter in
+Prince Napoleon, who was the only Napoleon and about the only
+Frenchman (if he could be called one) who grasped the idea of the
+unity of Italy and sincerely applauded it. Had Jérôme Napoleon been
+born with the least comprehension of self-respect and personal
+dignity, his strong political intelligence and clear logical
+discernment must have produced something better than the most
+ineffectual career of the century.
+
+On the 8th of May, Baron Ricasoli took office under the Provisional
+Government as Minister of the Interior, and for nearly twelve months
+he was the real ruler of Tuscany. He had an ally of great strength,
+though of humble origin, in Giuseppe Dolfi, the baker, of whom it was
+currently said that any day he could summon 10,000 men to the Piazza
+della Signoria, who would obey him to the death. To Dolfi it was due
+that there were no disorders after the Grand Duke left. What Italy
+owes to the Lord of Brolio, history will never adequately state,
+because it is well-nigh impossible fully to realise how critical was
+her position during all that year, from causes external and internal,
+and how disastrous would have been the slightest mistake or wavering
+in the direction of Tuscan affairs, which formed the central hinge of
+the whole complicated situation. Fortunate, indeed, was it that there
+was a man like the Iron Baron, who, by simple force of will, outwitted
+the enemies of Italy more thoroughly than even Cavour could do with
+all his astuteness. Austere, aristocratic, immovable from his purpose,
+indifferent to praise or blame, Ricasoli aimed at one point--the
+unity of the whole country; and neither Cavour's impatience for
+annexation to Piedmont, nor the scheme of Farini and Minghetti for
+averting the wrath of the French Emperor by a temporary and
+preparatory union of the central states, drew him one inch from the
+straight road, which was the only one he had ever learnt to walk in.
+
+In June, the Duke of Modena and the Duchess-Regent of Parma found it
+impossible to remain in their states, now that Austrian protection was
+withdrawn. The latter had done what she could to preserve the duchy
+for her young son, but the tide was too strong. These revolutions were
+accomplished quietly; but, some months after, on the incautious return
+to Parma of a man deeply implicated in the abuses of Charles III.'s
+government--Colonel Anviti--he was cruelly murdered; an act of
+vengeance which happily remained alone.
+
+After the battle of Magenta, when the Austrian troops were recalled
+from the Marches and Romagna, those districts rose and demanded the
+dictatorship of Piedmont. Napoleon foresaw that this would happen as
+far back as the Plombières interview, and at that date it did not
+appear that he meant to oppose it. But now, in Paris, the Clerical
+party were seized with panic, and the Empress-Regent, then, as always,
+completely under their control, did all in her power to arouse the
+Emperor's opposition. The Pope, on his part, knowing that he was
+secure in Rome--thanks to the French garrison, which, though it hated
+its office, as the French writer Ampère and others bore witness, was
+sure to perform it faithfully--had the idea of sending his Swiss
+troops to put down the growing revolution. With these, and a few Roman
+troops of the line, Colonel Schmidt marched against Perugia, where, in
+restoring the Papal authority, he used a ferocity which, though denied
+by clerical writers, was attested by all contemporary accounts, and
+was called 'atrocious' by Sir James Hudson in a despatch to Lord John
+Russell. The significance of such facts, wrote the English minister at
+Turin, could only be the coming fall of the Pope's Temporal Power.
+
+L.C. Farini was sent by Victor Emmanuel to administer the provinces of
+Modena and Parma, and Massimo d'Azeglio was charged with the same
+mission in Romagna. The Marches of Ancona had been recovered by the
+Papal troops, which were concentrated in the district called La
+Cattolica, near Rimini. A volunteer corps, under the Piedmontese
+General Mezzacapo, was entrusted with the task of preventing them from
+crossing into the Legations.
+
+In the month of May, when the allies were reaping their first
+successes, an event occurred at Caserta which precipitated crisis in
+the South Italy. Ferdinand II. died at forty-eight years of age of a
+terrible complaint which had attacked him a few months earlier, when
+he went to meet his son's bride, the Princess Maria Sofia of Bavaria,
+sister of the Empress of Austria. The news from Upper Italy hastened
+his end; he is said to have exclaimed not long before he died: 'They
+have won the cause!'
+
+The accession of a youth, of whom nothing bad was known, to a throne
+that had been occupied by a sovereign so out of place in modern
+civilisation as Ferdinand, would appear at first sight a fortunate
+circumstance for the chances of the dynasty; but it was not so. In an
+eastern country it matters little whether the best of the inhabitants
+loathe and detest their ruler; but it matters much whether he knows
+how to cajole and frighten the masses, and especially the army, into
+obedience. Naples, more Oriental than western, possessed in Ferdinand
+a monarch consummately expert in this side of the art of government.
+Though without the higher military virtues, his army was his favourite
+plaything; he always wore uniform, never forgot a face he had once
+seen, and treated the officers with a rather vulgar familiarity,
+guessing at their weaknesses and making use of them on occasion. The
+rank and file regarded him as a sort of supernatural being. Francis
+II., who succeeded him, could scarcely appear in this light even to
+the most ignorant. Popular opinion considered him not quite sound in
+his mind. Probably his timorous, awkward ways and his seeming
+stupidity were simply the result of an education conducted by bigoted
+priests in a home that was no home: populated as it was by the
+offspring of a stepmother who hated him. His own mother, the charming
+Princess Cristina of Savoy, died while the city was rejoicing at his
+birth. The story is well known of how, shortly after the marriage,
+Ferdinand thought it diverting to draw a music-stool from under his
+wife, causing her to fall heavily. It gives a sample of the sufferings
+of her brief married life. An inheritance of sorrow descended from her
+to her child.
+
+If Francis II. was not popular, neither was the new queen. Far more
+virile in character and in tastes than her husband, her high spirit
+was not what the Neapolitans admire in women, and those who were
+devoted to the late King accused her of having shown impatience during
+his illness for the moment when the crown would fall to Francis.
+Malicious gossip of this kind, however false, serves its end. Thus,
+from one cause or another, the young King exercised a power sensibly
+weaker than that of his father, while, besides other enemies, he had
+an inveterate one in his stepmother, who began weaving a conspiracy to
+oust him from the throne and place on it the eldest of his
+half-brothers. This plot received, however, very little popular
+support.
+
+The Sardinian Government sought to persuade Francis to join in the
+war against Austria; disinterested counsel, as in taking it lay his
+only hope, but it was opposed by England, Russia and France. In July
+two of the Swiss regiments at Naples mutinied. The Swiss Government,
+becoming alive to the discredit cast on the country by mercenary
+service, had decided that Swiss subjects serving abroad should lose
+their rights as citizens of the Confederation whilst so employed, and
+that they should no longer introduce the arms of their respective
+cantons into their regimental colours. This was the immediate cause of
+their insubordination. The mutineers, most of whom were unarmed, were
+ruthlessly shot down in the Campo di Marte to the terror of the
+population, and the two Swiss regiments which remained quiet were
+dissolved; by which the monarchy lost the troops that were chiefly to
+be depended on in emergencies. The Austrians and Bavarians imported in
+their stead did not form separate regiments, but were incorporated
+among the native troops, though the regiments that contained them were
+commonly called 'Bavarian.' They only partially filled the place of
+the Swiss.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Between the 4th and the 24th of June, no engagement of any magnitude
+was fought in Lombardy except the attack on Benedek at Melegnano, a
+battle in which the French lost most men, and gained no strategical
+advantage. It was supposed to have been fought because Napoleon I. had
+gained a victory in the same neighbourhood. The Austrians retreated to
+the Mincio, destroying the bridges over the Adda, Serio, Oglio and
+Mella as they went; these rivers the allies had to make repassable,
+which is the excuse given for the dilatory nature of their pursuit of
+the enemy. The Emperor Francis Joseph had now assumed the command,
+with Hess as his principle adviser, and Wimpffen and Schlick, famous
+as the 'One-eyed,' as heads of the two great corps into which the army
+was divided.
+
+On the 22nd of June, the Austrians were ranged along the left bank of
+the Mincio from Peschiera to Mantua, and the French were massed near
+Montechiaro, on the Brescia road, which Napoleon had made his
+headquarters. In withdrawing all their men from the right bank of the
+river, the Austrians desired to create the impression that they had
+finally abandoned it. It was their plan, which did not lack boldness,
+to throw the whole army back upon the right bank, and to perform a
+concentric movement on Montechiaro, where they hoped to fall unawares
+on the French and destroy them. They were confident of success, for
+they knew what a good stand they had made at Magenta, and now that
+Gyulai was got rid of, and the young Emperor had taken the field, they
+did not doubt that fortune would turn her wheel. To these men of many
+nations, the presence of their Emperor was the one inspiration that
+could rouse them, for if they were fighting for anything, it was for
+him in the most personal sense; it was to secure his mastery of the
+splendid land over which he looked from the castle of Valleggio, on
+the 23rd of June, whilst his brilliant staff stood round, waiting for
+the signal to mount and clatter down the steep road to the Mincio
+bridge. The army now advanced along all its line.
+
+Even the soberest writers have not resisted making some reference to
+the magnificent scene of to-morrow's battle. On one side, the mountain
+bulwarks rising tier on tier, gorgeous with the trancendent beauty of
+colour and light of the Italian summer; on the other, the vine-clad
+hillocks which fall gently away from the blue lake of Garda till they
+are lost in the
+
+  ............harvest shining plain
+  Where the peasant heaps his grain
+  In the garner of his foe.
+
+The 24th of June was to decide how much longer the Lombard peasant
+should labour to fill a stranger's treasury.
+
+The calculations of the Austrians were founded on the slowness which
+had hitherto characterised Napoleon's movements. Hess thought that two
+days might be safely allowed for the Austrian advance, and that the
+enemy would remain passive on the west bank of the river Chiese,
+waiting to be attacked on the 25th. If the operation could have been
+performed in one day, and it is thought that it could, there would
+have been more prospect of success. But even then, the original plan
+of attacking the allies west of the Chiese could not have been carried
+out, as on the 23rd the whole allied army moved forward, the French
+occupying Castiglione and Lonato, and the Sardinians Rezzato and
+Desenzano, on the lake of Garda. It is not clear how far the allies
+believed in the Austrian advance; that they had warning of it from
+several quarters is certain. For instance, a gentleman living at
+Desenzano heard from the country people, who, for marketing or other
+purposes, constantly go to and fro between that place and Peschiera,
+that the Austrians had ordered a quantity of country carts and
+transport waggons to be in readiness on the 23rd, and he hastened with
+the intelligence to the Piedmontese General Delia Rocca, who, in a
+fine spirit of red-tapism, pooh-poohed the information. The French
+encountered several Austrian patrols in the course of the day, but
+they were inclined to think that the Austrians were only executing a
+reconnaissance. On the whole, it seems that the conflict came as a
+surprise to both sides.
+
+The Emperor of Austria, after accompanying the advance for a short
+distance, returned with Hess to Valleggio for the night. Napoleon
+slept at Montechiaro. The Austrian forces bivouacked on the little
+hills between Solferino and Cavriana. They rested well, still
+confident that no fighting would be done next day. At two in the
+morning, the French began to move in the direction of Solferino, and
+the Sardinians in that of Peschiera. There is a legend, that in the
+grey mists of dawn an advance party of French cavalry espied a huge
+and gaunt hussar standing by the roadside. For a moment the figure was
+lost sight of, but it reappeared, and after running across the road in
+front of the French, it turned and dealt the officer who led the party
+so tremendous a blow that he fell off his horse. Then the adventurous
+Austrian fled, followed by a volley from the French troopers; the
+sound vibrating through the dawn stillness gave the call to arms to
+the contrasted hosts. The battle of Solferino had begun.
+
+The news flew to Montechiaro and to Valleggio. Napoleon started for
+the scene of action with the Imperial Guard; Francis Joseph's staff
+was sent forward at six a.m., but the Emperor and Hess did not start
+till later. At near nine, the staff was looking for the Emperor, and
+the Emperor was looking for the staff in the open country about Volta;
+the sixty or seventy staff-officers dashed across ploughed fields and
+over hedges and ditches, in a style which would have done credit to an
+English fox-hunt. This remarkable incident was in keeping with the
+general management of the battle on the part of the Austrians, who had
+been fighting for many hours before the commander-in-chief arrived.
+After his arrival, they continued fighting without any visible plan,
+according to the expedients of the divisional generals. The particular
+expedient adopted by General Zedwitz was to withdraw 15,000 men,
+including six regiments of cavalry, from the field. At a critical
+moment, Count Clam Gallas had the misfortune to lose his artillery
+reserve, and sent everywhere to ask if anyone had seen it. The Prince
+of Hesse, acting without orders, or against orders, separated his
+division from Schwarzenberg's and brought it up at the nick of time to
+save the Austrians, when they were threatened with actual destruction,
+at two o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+At that hour the French were in possession of the Spia d'Italia, and
+of all the heights of Solferino. They had been engaged in attacking
+them since eight in the morning, Napoleon having seen at once that
+they were the key to the position, and must be taken, cost what it
+might. The cost was great; if there is any episode in French military
+history in which soldiers and officers earned all the praise that can
+be given to brave men, it is the taking of these Solferino hills.
+Again and again Forey's division and Bazaine's brigade returned to the
+charge; the cemetery and streets of Solferino were piled up with their
+dead, mingled with the dead of the defenders, who contested every inch
+of ground. The individual valour of the French soldiers in that six
+hours' struggle made it possible to win the battle.
+
+The Austrians, however, after their desperate straits at two o'clock
+recovered to so great an extent that, had Zedwitz returned with his
+cavalry, as the Emperor was hoping that he would, the day might still
+have been theirs. Even as it was, MacMahon's corps swerved under
+Zobel's repulse of his attack on San Cassiano, and Niel, in the plain,
+was dangerously hard pressed by Schwarzenberg. But, by degrees, the
+French recommenced gaining and the Austrians losing ground, and at six
+p.m., the latter were retreating in good order, defending each step
+before they yielded it.
+
+In the last stage of the battle the French limbered up their guns in
+the belief that a vast reserve of Austrian cavalry was galloping into
+action. What made them think so was a dense yellowish wall advancing
+through the air. Had they been natives, they would have recognised the
+approach of one of those frightful storms which bring devastation in
+their train, and which, as they move forward in what appears a solid
+mass, look to the inexperienced eye exactly like the clouds of dust
+raised by innumerable horsemen. The bursting of the storm hastened the
+end of the fight.
+
+All the day another fight, separate from this, had been going on
+between Benedek and the Sardinian army near the knoll of San Martino,
+overlooking the lake of Garda. The battle, which began in the early
+morning among the cypresses that crown the hillock, raged till seven
+p.m. with a fury which cost the Piedmontese over 4,000 in dead and
+wounded. It consisted largely in hand-to-hand fighting, which now gave
+an advantage to the Austrians, now to the Italians; many of the
+positions were lost and re-taken more than half-a-dozen times; the
+issue seemed long doubtful, and when Benedek, who commanded his side
+with unquestionable ability, received orders from the field of
+Solferino to begin a retreat, each combatant was firmly convinced that
+he was getting the best of it. Austrian writers allege that this order
+saved the Sardinians from defeat, while in both Italian and French
+narratives, the Piedmontese are represented as having been already
+sure of success. The courage shown alike by Piedmontese and Austrians
+could not be surpassed. Victor Emmanuel, as usual, set an example to
+his men.
+
+An incident in the battle brings into striking relief what it was this
+bloody strife was meant to end. An Austrian corporal fell, mortally
+wounded by a Bersagliere whom he conjured, in Italian, to listen to
+what he had got to say. It was this: Forced into the Austrian army, he
+had been obliged to serve through the war, but had never fired his
+rifle on his fellow-countrymen; now he preferred to die rather than
+defend himself. So he yielded up his breath with his hand clasped in
+the hand which had slain him.
+
+The Austrians lost, on the 24th of June, 13,000 men in killed and
+wounded; the French, 10,000. It was said that the frightful scene of
+carnage on the battlefield after Solferino influenced Napoleon III. in
+his desire to stop the war. Had that scene vanished from his
+recollection in June 1870?
+
+Even a field of battle, with its unburied dead, speaks only of a small
+part of the miseries of a great war. Those who were at that time at
+Brescia, to which town the greater portion of the French wounded and
+all the worst cases were brought, still shudder as they recall the
+dreadful human suffering which no skill or devotion could do more than
+a very little to assuage. The noble Brescian ladies who had once
+nursed Bayard, turned, with one accord, into sisters of charity; every
+house, every church, became a hospital, all that gratitude and pity
+could do was done; but many were to leave their bones in Italy, and
+how many more to go home maimed for life, or bearing with them the
+seeds of death.
+
+Other reasons than those of sentiment in reality decided Napoleon's
+course. Though these can only be guessed at, the guess, at the present
+date, amounts to certainty. In the first place, the skin-deep
+rejoicings in Paris at the news of the victories did not hide the fact
+that French public opinion, never genuinely favourable to the war, was
+becoming more and more hostile to it. Then there was the military
+question. It is true that the Fifth Corps, estimated at 30,000 men,
+had, at last, emerged from its crepuscular doings in Tuscany, and was
+available for future operations. Moreover, Kossuth paid a visit to the
+Imperial headquarters, and held out hopes of a revolution in Hungary
+which would oblige the Austrian Emperor to remove part of his troops
+from the scene of the war. Nevertheless, Napoleon was by no means
+convinced that his army was sufficient to take the Quadrilateral. He
+realised the bad organisation and numerous shortcomings of the forces
+under him so vividly that it seems incredible that, in the eleven
+following years, he should have done nothing to remedy them. He
+attributed his success mainly to chance, though in a less degree to a
+certain lack of energy in the Austrians, joined with the exaggerated
+fear of responsibility felt by their leaders. He never could
+thoroughly understand why the Austrians had not won Solferino.
+Naturally, he did not express these opinions to his marshals, but
+there is ample proof that he held them; and if the fact stood alone,
+it ought not to be difficult to explain why he was not anxious for a
+continuance of the war.
+
+But it does not stand alone. Napoleon feared being defeated on the
+Rhine as well as in the Quadrilateral. Prussia had six army corps
+ready, and she was about to move them. That, after her long
+hesitations, she resolved to intervene was long doubted, but it
+cannot be so after the evidence which recent years have produced.
+
+At the time things wore a different complexion. Europe was never more
+amazed than when, on the 6th of July, Napoleon the victor sent General
+Fleury to Francis Joseph the vanquished with a request for an
+armistice. One point only was plain; an armistice meant peace without
+Venetia, and never did profound sorrow so quickly succeed national joy
+than when this, to contemporaries astonishing intelligence, went
+forth. But the blow fell on no Italian with such tremendous force as
+on Cavour.
+
+There are natives of Italy who appear to be more cool, more
+calculating, more completely masters of themselves, than the men of
+any other nationality. Cavour was one of these. But there comes,
+sooner or later, the assertion of southern blood, the explosion of
+feeling the more violent because long contained, and the cool, quiet
+Italian of yesterday is not to be recognised except by those who know
+the race intimately well, and who know the volcano that underlies its
+ice and snow as well as its luxuriant vegetation.
+
+On Wednesday, the 6th of June, the French army was spread out in
+battle array along the left bank of the Mincio, and everything led to
+the supposition that a new and immediate battle was in contemplation.
+The Piedmontese were engaged in making preparations to invest
+Peschiera. Napoleon's headquarters were at Valleggio, those of the
+King at Monzambano. By the evening a very few persons had picked up
+the information that Napoleon had sent a messenger to Verona. Victor
+Emmanuel knew nothing of it, nor did any of the French generals except
+Marshal Vaillant, but such things leak out, and two or three
+individuals were aware of the journey to Verona, and spent that night
+in racking their brains as to what it might mean. Next day at eleven
+o'clock General Fleury returned; the Austrian Emperor had accepted the
+armistice. Further secrecy was impossible, and like lightning the news
+flashed through the world.
+
+Cavour rushed from Turin to Desenzano, where he arrived the day before
+the final meeting between Napoleon and Francis Joseph. He waited for a
+carnage in the little _café_ in the piazza; no one guessed who it was,
+and conversation went on undisturbed: it was full of curses on the
+French Emperor. Mazzini, someone said, was right; this is the way the
+war was sure to end. When a shabby conveyance had at length been
+found, the great statesman drove to Monzambano. There, of course, his
+arrival did not escape notice, and all who saw him were horrified by
+the change that had come over his face. Instead of the jovial, witty
+smile, there was a look of frantic rage and desperation. What passed
+between him and his Sovereign is partly a matter of conjecture; the
+exact sense of the violent words into which his grief betrayed him is
+lost, in spite of the categorical versions of the interview which have
+been printed. Even in a fit of madness he can hardly have spoken some
+of the words attributed to him. That he advised the King to withdraw
+his army or to abdicate rather than agree to the peace which was being
+plotted behind his back, seems past doubting. It is said that after
+attempting in vain to calm him, Victor Emmanuel brought the interview
+to a sudden close. Cavour came out of the house flushed and exhausted,
+and drove back to Desenzano. He had resigned office.
+
+The King showed extraordinary self-control. Bitter as the draught was,
+he saw that it must be drunk, and he was determined to drink it with
+dignity. Probably no other Italian grasped as clearly as he did the
+real reason which actuated Napoleon; at any rate his chivalrous
+appreciation of the benefits already received, closed his lips to
+reproaches. 'Whatever may be the decision of your Majesty,' he said to
+the Emperor on the eve of Villafranca, 'I shall feel an eternal
+gratitude for what you have done for the independence of Italy, and I
+beg you to believe that under all circumstances you may reckon on my
+complete fidelity.'
+
+If there was sadness in the Sardinian camp, so there was in that of
+Austria. The Austrians by no means thought that the game was up for
+them. It would be interesting to know by what arguments Napoleon
+persuaded the young Emperor to renounce the hope of retrieving his
+disasters, whilst he slowly pulled to pieces some flowers which were
+on the table before which he and Francis Joseph sat. When they left
+the house, the heir to all the Hapsburgs looked pale and sad. Did he
+remember the dying counsels of 'Father' Radetsky--not to yield if he
+was beaten on the Mincio, on the Tagliamento, on the Isonzo, before
+the gates of Vienna.
+
+When, on the evening of the same day, the Emperor of Austria signed
+the preliminaries of peace, he said to Prince Napoleon, who took the
+document to Verona for his signature: 'I pray God that if you are ever
+a sovereign He may spare you the hour of grief I have just passed.'
+Yet the defeat of Solferino and the loss of Lombardy were the first
+steps in the transformation of Radetsky's pupil from a despot, who
+hourly feared revolution in every land under his sceptre, to a wise
+and constitutional monarch ruling over a contented Empire. To some
+individuals and to some states, misfortune is fortune.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+WHAT UNITY COST
+
+1859-1860
+
+Napoleon III. and Cavour--The Cession of Savoy and Nice--Annexations
+in Central Italy.
+
+
+Napoleon's hurried journey to Turin on his way back to France was
+almost a flight. Everywhere his reception was cold in the extreme. He
+was surprised, he said, at the ingratitude of the Italians. It was
+still possible to ask for gratitude, as the services rendered had not
+been paid for; no one spoke yet of the barter of Savoy and Nice. But
+Napoleon, when he said these words to the Governor of Milan, forgot
+how the Lombards, in June 1848, absolutely refused to take their
+freedom at the cost of resigning Venice to Austria. And if Venice was
+dear to them and to Italy then, how much dearer had she not become
+since the heroic struggle in which she was the last to yield. The
+bones of Manin cried aloud for Venetian liberty from his grave of
+exile.
+
+Venice was the one absorbing thought of the moment; yet there were
+clauses in the brief preliminaries of peace more fraught with
+insidious danger than the abandonment of Venice. If the rest of Italy
+became one and free, it needed no prophet to tell that not the might
+of twenty Austrias could keep Venetia permanently outside the fold.
+But if Italy was to remain divided and enslaved, then, indeed, the
+indignant question went up to heaven, To what end had so much blood
+been shed?
+
+When he resolved to cut short the war, Napoleon still had it in his
+power to go down to history as the supreme benefactor of Italy. He
+chose instead to become her worst and by far her most dangerous enemy.
+The preliminaries of peace opened with the words: 'The Emperor of
+Austria and the Emperor of the French will favour the creation of an
+Italian Confederation under the honorary presidency of the Holy
+Father.' Further, it was stated that the Grand Duke of Tuscany and
+the Duke of Modena would return to their states. Though Napoleon
+proposed at first to add, 'without foreign armed intervention,' he
+waived the point (Rome was in his mind) and no such guarantee was
+inserted. Here, then, was the federative programme which all the
+personal influence and ingenuity of the French Emperor, all the arts
+of French diplomacy, were concentrated on maintaining, and which was
+only defeated by the true patriotism and strong good sense of the
+Italian populations, and of the men who led them through this, the
+most critical period in their history.
+
+In England Lord Derby's administration had fallen and the Liberals
+were again in power. Napoleon was so strangely deluded as to expect to
+find support in that quarter for his anti-unionist conspiracy. His
+earliest scheme was that the federative plan should be presented to
+Europe by Great Britain. Lord John Russell answered: 'We are asked to
+propose a partition (_morcellement_) of the peoples of Italy, as if we
+had the right to dispose of them.' It was a happy circumstance for
+Italy that her unity had no better friends than in the English
+Government during those difficult years. Cavour's words soon after
+Villafranca, 'It is England's turn now,' were not belied.
+
+One thing should have made Napoleon uneasy; a man like Cavour, when
+his blood is roused, when his nature is fired by the strongest
+passions that move the human heart, is an awkward adversary. If there
+was an instant in which the great statesman thought that all was lost,
+it was but an instant. With the quick rebound of virile characters he
+recovered his balance and understood his part. It was to fight and
+conquer.
+
+'Your Emperor has dishonoured me,' he said to M. Pietri in the
+presence of Kossuth (the interview taking place at Turin on the 15th
+of July). 'Yes, sir, he has dishonoured me,' and he set forth how,
+after promising to hunt the last Austrian out of Italy, after secretly
+exacting the price of his assistance to which Cavour had induced his
+good and honest King to consent, he now left them solemnly in the
+lurch; Lombardy might suffice! And, for nothing to be wanting, the
+King was to be forced into a confederation with Austria and the
+Italian princes under the presidency of the Pope. After painting the
+situation with all the irony and scorn of which he was master, he gave
+his note of warning: 'If needs be, I will become a conspirator, I will
+become a revolutionist, but this treaty shall never be executed; a
+thousand times no--never!'
+
+The routine business of the Prime Minister still fell to Cavour, as
+Rattazzi, who succeeded him, had not yet formed his cabinet. He was
+obliged, therefore, to write officially to the Royal Commissioners at
+Modena, Bologna and Florence to abandon their posts. But in the
+character of Cavour, the private citizen, he telegraphed to them at
+the same time to remain and do their duty. And they remained.
+
+On one point there was a temporary lull of anxiety. Almost the last
+words spoken by Napoleon to Victor Emmanuel before he left Turin were:
+'We shall think no more about Nice and Savoy.' The mention of Nice
+shows that though it had not been promised, Napoleon was all along set
+upon its acquisition. It is impossible to say how far, at the moment,
+he was sincere in the renunciation. That, very soon after his return
+to Paris, he was diligently weaving plans for getting both provinces
+into his net, is evident from the tenor of the articles and notes
+published in the 'inspired' French newspapers.
+
+Two chief motives can be divined for Napoleon's determined opposition
+to Italian unity which never ceased till Sedan. The first was his
+wish, shared by all French politicians, that Italy should be weak. The
+second was his regard for the Temporal Power which proceeded from his
+still being convinced that he could not reign without the Clerical
+vote. The French prelates were perpetually giving him reminders that
+this vote depended on his keeping the Pope on his throne. For
+instance, Cardinal Donnet told him at Bordeaux in October 1859, that
+he could not choose a better way of showing his appreciation of the
+Blessed Virgin than 'en ménageant un triomphe à son Fils dans la
+personne de son Vicaire.' It would be a triumph which the Catholic
+world would salute with transport. Hints of this sort, the sense of
+which was not hard to read, in spite of their recondite phraseology,
+reached him from every quarter. He feared to set them aside. The
+origins of his power were too much tainted for him to advance boldly
+on an independent policy. Thus it was that bit by bit he deliberately
+forfeited all title to the help of Italy when the same whirlwind that
+dashed him to earth, cleared the way for the final accomplishment of
+her national destinies.
+
+Whilst Victor Emmanuel was more alive than Cavour to the military
+arguments in favour of stopping hostilities when the tide of success
+was at its height, he was not one whit more disposed to stultify his
+past by becoming the vassal at once of Paris and Vienna. In a letter
+written to the Emperor of the French in October, in answer to a very
+long one in which Napoleon sought to convert him to the plan of an
+Austro-Italian Confederation, he wound up by saying: 'For the
+considerations above stated, and for many others, I cannot, Sire,
+second your Majesty's policy in Italy. If your Majesty is bound by
+treaties and cannot revoke your engagements in the (proposed)
+congress, I, Sire, am bound on my side, by honour in the face of
+Europe, by right and duty, by the interests of my house, of my people
+and of Italy. My fate is joined to that of the Italian people. We can
+succumb, but never betray. Solferino and San Martino may sometimes
+redeem Novara and Waterloo, but the apostasies of princes are always
+irreparable. I am moved to the bottom of my soul by the faith and love
+which this noble and unfortunate people has reposed in me, and rather
+than be unworthy of it, I will break my sword and throw the crown away
+as did my august father. Personal interest does not guide me in
+defending the annexations; the Sword and Time have borne my house from
+the summit of the Alps to the banks of the Mincio, and those two
+guardian angels of the Savoy race will bear it further still, when it
+pleases God.'
+
+The events in Central Italy to which the King alludes were of the
+highest importance. L.C. Farini, the Sardinian Royal Commissioner at
+Modena, when relieved of his office, assumed the dictatorship by the
+will of the people. L. Cipriani became Governor of Romagna, and at
+Florence Ricasoli continued at the head of affairs, undismayed and
+unshaken in his resolve to defeat the combined machinations of France
+and Austria. In August the populations of Modena, Reggio, Parma and
+Piacenza declared their union with Piedmont by an all but unanimous
+popular vote, the two last provinces placing themselves for temporary
+convenience under the Dictator Farini. A few days later, Tuscany and
+Romagna voted a like act of union through their Constituent
+Assemblies. The representatives of the four States, Modena, Parma,
+Romagna and Tuscany, formally announced to the great Powers their
+choice of Victor Emmanuel, in whose rule they recognised the sole hope
+of preserving their liberties and avoiding disorder. Delegates were
+sent to Turin with the offer of the crown.
+
+Peace, of which the preliminaries only were signed at Villafranca, was
+not yet definitely concluded, and a large French army was still in
+Italy. The King's government feared therefore to adopt the bold course
+of accepting the annexations outright, and facing the responsibilities
+which might arise. Victor Emmanuel thanked the delegates, expressing
+his confidence that Europe would not undo the great work that had been
+done in Central Italy. The state of things, however, in these
+provinces, whose elected King could not yet govern them, was
+anomalous, most of all in what related to defence; they being menaced
+on the Austrian side by the Duke of Modena, and on the South by the
+Papal troops in the Cattolica. An armed force of 25,000 men was
+organised, of which the Tuscan contingent was under the command of
+Garibaldi, and the rest under that of the Sardinian General Fanti,
+'lent' for the purpose. Garibaldi hoped not merely to defend the
+provinces already emancipated, but to carry war into the enemy's camp
+and make revolution possible throughout the States of the Church. To
+the Party of Action the chance seemed an unique one of hastening the
+progress of events. Unaccustomed as they were to weigh diplomatic
+difficulties, they saw the advantages but not the perils of a daring
+course. Meanwhile Napoleon threatened to occupy Piacenza with 30,000
+men on the first forward step of Garibaldi, who, on his side, seemed
+by no means inclined to yield either to the orders of the Dictator
+Farini, or to the somewhat violent measures taken to stop him by
+General Fanti, who instructed the officers under his command to
+disobey him. It was then that Victor Emmanuel tried his personal
+influence, rarely tried without success, over the revolutionary chief,
+who reposed absolute faith in the King's patriotism, and who was
+therefore amenable to his arguments when all others failed. The
+general was summoned to Turin, and in an audience given on the 16th of
+November, Victor Emmanuel persuaded him that the proposed enterprise
+would retard rather than advance the cause of Italian freedom.
+Garibaldi left for Caprera, only insisting that his 'weak services'
+should be called into requisition whenever there was an opportunity to
+act.
+
+Before quitting the Adriatic coast the hero of Rome went one evening
+with his two children, Menotti and Teresita, to the Chapel in the Pine
+Forest, where their mother was buried. Within a mile was the farmhouse
+where he had embraced her lifeless form before undertaking his
+perilous flight from sea to sea. In 1850, at Staten Island, when he
+was earning his bread as a factory hand, he wrote the prophetic words:
+'Anita, a land of slavery holds your precious dust; Italy will make
+your grave free, but what can restore to your children their
+incomparable mother?' Garibaldi's visit to Anita's grave closes the
+story of the brave and tender woman who sacrificed all to the love she
+bore him.
+
+After sitting for three months, the Conference which met at Zurich to
+establish the definite treaty of peace finished its labours on the
+10th of November. The compact was substantially the same as that
+arranged at Villafranca. Victor Emmanuel, who had signed the
+Preliminaries with the reservation implied in the note: 'In so far as
+I am concerned,' preserved the same liberty of action in the Treaty of
+Zurich. He still hesitated, however, in assuming the government of the
+central provinces, and even the plan of sending the Prince of
+Carignano as governor fell through in consequence of Napoleon's
+opposition. His hesitations sprang from the general apprehension that
+a hint from Paris might any day be followed by a new eruption of
+Austrians in Modena and Tuscany for the purpose of replacing the
+former rulers of those states on their thrones. Such a fear existed at
+the time, and Rattazzi's timid policy was the result; it is impossible
+not to ask now whether it was not exaggerated? 'What statesman,' wrote
+the Prince Consort in June 1859, 'could adopt measures to force
+Austrian rule again upon delighted, free Italy?' If this was true
+in June was it less true in November? For the rest, would not the
+supreme ridicule that would have fallen on the French Emperor if he
+encouraged the Austrians to return to Central Italy after driving
+them out of Lombardy, have obliged him to support the principle of
+non-intervention, whether he wished it or not? England was prepared to
+back up the government of Piedmont, in which lay a great moral force.
+It is plain that the long wavering about what ought to be done with
+the central provinces is what cost the country Savoy and Nice, or at
+any rate, Nice. Napoleon did all in his power to prevent and to retard
+the annexations, especially that of Tuscany, which, as he said, 'would
+make Italian unity a mere question of time,' but when he found that
+neither threats nor blandishments could move the population from their
+resolve to have Victor Emmanuel for their king, he decided to sell his
+adhesion for a good price. Compelled for the sake of appearances to
+withdraw his claim after the abrupt termination of the war, he now saw
+an excellent excuse for reviving it, and he was not likely to let the
+opportunity slip.
+
+At this period there was continual talk, which may or may not have
+been intended to end in talk, of a Congress to which the affairs of
+Italy were to be referred. It gave an opening to Napoleon for
+publishing one of the anonymous pamphlets by means of which he was in
+the habit of throwing out tentative ideas, and watching their effect.
+The chief idea broached in _Le Pape et le Congrès_ was the voluntary
+renunciation by the Pope of all but a small zone of territory round
+Rome; it being pointed out that his position as an independent
+sovereign would remain unaffected by such an act, which would smooth
+the way to his assuming the hegemony of the Italian Confederation. The
+Pope, however, let it be clearly known that he had no intention of
+ceding a rood of his possessions, or of recognising the separation of
+the part which had already escaped from him. Anyone acquainted with
+the long strife and millennial manoeuvres by which the Church had
+acquired the States called by her name, will understand the
+unwillingness there was to yield them. To do Pius IX. justice, an
+objection which merits more respect weighed then and always upon his
+mind. He thought that he was personally debarred by the oath taken on
+assuming the tiara from giving up the smallest part of the territory
+he received from his predecessor. The Ultramontane party knew that
+they had only to remind him of this oath to provoke a fresh assertion
+of _Non possumus._ The attitude of the Pope was one reason why the
+Congress was abandoned; but there was a deeper reason. A European
+Congress would certainly not have approved the cession of Nice and
+Savoy, and to that object the French Emperor was now turning all his
+attention.
+
+At Turin there was an ignoble cabal, supported not so much, perhaps,
+by Rattazzi himself as by followers, the design of which was to
+prevent Cavour from returning to power. Abroad, the Empress Eugénie,
+who looked on Cavour as the Pope's worst foe, did what she could to
+further the scheme, and its promoters counted much on the soreness
+left in Victor Emmanuel's mind by the scene after Villafranca. That
+soreness did, in fact, still exist; but when in January the Rattazzi
+ministry fell, the King saw that it was his duty to recall Cavour to
+his counsels, and he at once charged him to form a cabinet.
+
+That Cavour accepted the task is the highest proof of his abnegation
+as a statesman. He was on the point of getting into his carriage to
+catch the train for Leri when the messenger reached the Palazzo Cavour
+with the royal command to go to the castle. If he had refused office
+and returned to the congenial activity of his life as a country
+gentleman, his name would not be attached to the melancholy sacrifice
+which Napoleon was now determined to exact from Italy. The French
+envoy, Baron de Talleyrand, whose business it was to communicate the
+unwelcome intelligence, arrived at Turin before the collapse of
+Rattazzi; but, on finding that a ministerial crisis was imminent, he
+deferred carrying out his mission till a more opportune moment.
+
+On the 18th of January 1860, the Emperor admitted to Lord Cowley
+that, though there was as yet no arrangement between himself and
+Victor Emmanuel on the subject, he intended to have Savoy. After the
+long series of denials of any such design, the admission caused the
+most indignant feeling in the English ministers and in the Queen, who
+wrote to Lord John Russell: 'We have been made regular dupes.' She
+went on to say that the revival of the English Alliance, and the hymns
+of universal peace chanted in Paris on the occasion of the Commercial
+Treaty, had been simply so many blinds, 'to hide from Europe a policy
+of spoliation.' Cavour came in for a part of the blame, as, during the
+war, he denied cognisance of the proposal to give up Savoy. The best
+that can be said of that denial is, that it was diplomatically
+impracticable for one party in the understanding of Plombières to make
+a clean breast of the truth, whilst the other party was assuring the
+whole universe that he was fighting for an idea.
+
+When the war was broken off, Cavour fully expected that Napoleon, of
+whom he had the worst opinion, would then and there demand whole pay
+for his half service; and this had much to do with his furious anger
+at Villafranca; but later, in common with the best-informed persons,
+he believed that the claim was finally withdrawn. When, however,
+Napoleon asked again for the provinces--not as the price of the war,
+but of the annexations in Central Italy--Cavour instantly came to the
+conclusion that, cost what it might (and he thought that, amongst
+other things, it would cost his own reputation and popularity), the
+demand must be granted. Otherwise Italian unity would never be
+accomplished.
+
+In considering whether he was mistaken, it must not be forgotten that
+the French troops were still in Italy. Not to speak of those in Rome,
+Marshal Vaillant had five divisions of infantry and two brigades of
+cavalry in Lombardy up to the 20th of March 1860. The engagement had
+been to send this army home as soon as the definite peace was
+concluded; why, then, was it still south of the Alps four months
+after?
+
+In spite of this, however, and in spite of the difficulty of judging
+an act, all the reasons for which may not, even now, be in possession
+of the world, it is very hard indeed to pardon Cavour for having
+yielded Nice as well as Savoy to France. The Nizzards were Italians as
+the lower class of the population is Italian still; they had always
+shown warm sympathy with the hopes of Italy, which could not be said
+of the Savoyards; and Nice was the birthplace of Garibaldi!
+
+England would have supported and applauded resistance to the claim for
+Nice on general grounds, though her particular interest was in Savoy,
+or rather in that part of the Savoy Alps which was neutralised by
+treaty in 1814. It was the refusal of Napoleon to adopt the compromise
+of ceding this district to Switzerland which caused the breach between
+him and the British ministry. From that moment, also, Prussia began to
+increase her army, and resolved, when she was ready, to check the
+imperial ambition by force of arms. 'The loss of Alsace and Lorraine,'
+writes an able publicist, M.E. Tallichet, 'was the direct consequence
+of the annexation of Nice and Savoy.'
+
+If anything could have rendered more galling to Italy the deprivation
+of these two provinces, it was the tone adopted in France when
+speaking of the transaction. What were Savoy and Nice? A barren rock
+and an insignificant strip of coast! The French of thirty-four years
+ago travelled so little that they may have believed in the
+description. The vast military importance of the ceded districts has
+been already referred to. Some scraps on the Nice frontier were saved
+in a curious way: They were spots which formed part of the favourite
+playground of the Royal Hunter of the Alps, and it was pointed out to
+Napoleon that it would be a graceful act to leave these particular
+'barren rocks' to his Sardinian Majesty. The zig-zags in the line of
+demarcation which were thus introduced are said to be of great
+strategic advantage to Italy. So far, so good; but it remains true
+that France is _inside_ the Italian front-door.
+
+At the elections for the new Chamber in March 1860, the Nizzards chose
+Garibaldi; and this was their real plebiscite--not that which followed
+at a short interval, and presented the phenomenon of a population
+which appeared to change its mind as to its nationality in the course
+of a few weeks. In voting for Garibaldi, they voted for Italy.
+
+The Nizzard hero made some desperate efforts on behalf of his
+fellow-citizens in the Chamber, not his natural sphere, and was on the
+brink of making other efforts in a sphere in which he might have
+succeeded better. He had the idea of going to Nice with about 200
+followers, and exciting just enough of a revolution to let the real
+will of the people be known, and to frustrate the wiles of French
+emissaries and the pressure of government in the official plebiscite
+of the 15th of April. The story of the conspiracy, which is unknown in
+Italy, has been told by one of the conspirators, the late Lawrence
+Oliphant. The English writer, who reached Turin full of wrath at the
+proposed cession, was introduced to Garibaldi, from whom he received
+the news of the proposed enterprise. Oliphant offered his services,
+which were accepted, and he accompanied the general to Genoa, where he
+engaged a diligence which was to carry the vanguard to Nice. But, on
+going to Garibaldi for the last orders, he found him supping with
+twenty or thirty young men; 'All Sicilians!' said the chief. 'We must
+give up the Nice programme; the general opinion is that we shall lose
+all if we try for too much.' He added that he had hoped to carry out
+the Nice plan first, but now everything must be sacrificed to freeing
+Sicily. And he asked Oliphant to join the Thousand, an offer which the
+adventurous Englishman never ceased to regret that he did not accept.
+As it was, he elected to go all the same to Nice, where he was the
+spectator and became the historian of the arts which brought about the
+semblance of an unanimous vote in favour of annexation to France.
+
+The ratification of the treaty--which, by straining the constitution,
+was concluded without consulting Parliament--was reluctantly given by
+the Piedmontese Chambers, the majority of members fearing the
+responsibility of upsetting an accomplished fact. Cavour, when he laid
+down the pen after signing the deed of cession, turned to Baron de
+Talleyrand with the remark: 'Now we are accomplices!' His face, which
+had been depressed, resumed its cheerful air. In fact, though
+Napoleon's dislike of the central annexations was unabated, he could
+no longer oppose them. Victor Emmanuel accepted the four crowns of
+Central Italy, the people of which, during the long months of waiting,
+and under circumstances that applied the most crucial test to their
+resolution, had never swerved from the desire to form part of the
+Italian monarchy under the sceptre of the _Re Galantuomo_. The King of
+Sardinia, as he was still called, had eleven million subjects, and on
+his head rested one excommunication the more. The Bull fulminated
+against all who had, directly or indirectly, participated in the
+events which caused Romagna to change hands, was published a day or
+two before the opening of the new Parliament at Turin.
+
+Addressing for the first time the representatives of his widened
+realm, Victor Emmanuel said: 'True to the creed of my fathers, and,
+like them, constant in my homage to the Supreme Head of the Church,
+whenever it happens that the ecclesiastical authority employs
+spiritual arms in support of temporal interests, I shall find in my
+steadfast conscience and in the very traditions of my ancestors, the
+power to maintain civil liberty in its integrity, and my own
+authority, for which I hold myself accountable to God alone and to my
+people.'
+
+The words: 'Della quale debbo ragione a Dio solo ed ai miei popoli,'
+were added by the King to the speech prepared by his ministers; it was
+noticed that he pronounced them with remarkable energy. The speech
+concluded: 'Our country is no more the Italy of the Romans, nor the
+Italy of the Middle Ages; no longer the field for every foreign
+ambition, it becomes, henceforth, the Italy of the Italians.'
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE MARCH OF THE THOUSAND
+
+1860
+
+Origin of the Expedition--Garibaldi at Marsala--Calatafimi--The
+Taking of Palermo--Milazzo--The Bourbons evacuate Sicily.
+
+
+During the journey from Turin to Genoa, Garibaldi was occupied in
+opening, reading and tearing up into small pieces an enormous mass of
+letters, while his English companion spent the time in vainly
+speculating as to what this vast correspondence was about. When they
+approached Genoa, the floor of the railway carriage resembled a
+gigantic wastepaper basket. It was only afterwards that Lawrence
+Oliphant guessed the letters to be responses to a call for volunteers
+for Sicily.
+
+The origin of the Sicilian expedition has been related in various
+ways; there is the version which attributes it entirely to Cavour, and
+the version which attributes it to not irresponsible personages in
+England. The former was the French and Clerical official account; the
+latter has always obtained credence in Germany and Russia. For
+instance, the late Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg said that 'the mystery
+of how 150,000 men were vanquished by a thousand Red-shirts was
+wrapped in English bank-notes!' Of this theory, it need only be said
+that the notion of Lord Palmerston (for it comes to that) supporting a
+foreign revolution out of the British exchequer is not one that
+commends itself to the belief of the average Englishman. With regard
+to the other theory--namely, that Cavour 'got up' the Sicilian
+expedition, it has been favoured to a certain degree, both by his
+friends and foes; but it will not bear careful examination. As far as
+Sicily goes (Naples is another thing), the most that can be brought
+home to Cavour is a complicity of toleration; and even this statement
+should be qualified by the addition, 'after the act.' It is true that,
+in the early days after Villafranca, he had exclaimed: 'They have cut
+me off from making Italy from the north, by diplomacy; very well, I
+will make her from the south, by revolution!' True, also, that
+earlier still, in 1856, he expressed the opinion, shared by every man
+of common sense, that while the Bourbons ruled over the Two Sicilies
+there would be no real peace for Italy. Nevertheless, in April 1860,
+he neither thought the time ripe for the venture nor the means
+employed adequate for its accomplishment. He was afraid that Garibaldi
+would meet with the death of the Bandieras and Pisacane. No one was
+more convinced than Cavour of the importance of Garibaldi's life to
+Italy; and it is a sign of his true superiority of mind that this
+conviction was never entertained more strongly than at the moment when
+the general was passionately inveighing against him for the cession of
+Nice. To Cavour such invectives seemed natural, and even justified
+from one point of view; they excited in him no bitterness, and he was
+only too happy that they fell upon himself and not upon the King,
+since it was his fixed idea that, without the maintenance of a good
+understanding between Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi, Italy would not
+be made. Few men under the sting of personal attacks have shown such
+complete self-control.
+
+As has been stated, when Francis II. ascended the Neapolitan throne,
+he was invited to join in the war with Austria, and he refused. Since
+then, the same negative result had attended the reiterated counsels of
+reform which the Piedmontese Government sent to that of Naples--the
+young King showing, by repeated acts, that not Sardinia but Rome was
+his monitress and chosen ally in Italy. The Pope had lately induced
+the French General Lamoricière to take the command of the Pontifical
+troops, and he and the King of Naples were organising their armies,
+with a view to co-operating at an early date against the common enemy
+at Turin. In January 1860, Lord Russell wrote to Mr Elliot, the
+English Minister at Naples: 'You will tell the King and his Ministers
+that the Government of her Majesty the Queen does not intend to accept
+any part in the responsibility nor to guarantee the certain
+consequences of a misgovernment which has scarcely a parallel in
+Europe.' Mr Elliot replied, early in March: 'I have used all
+imaginable arguments to convince this Government of the necessity of
+stopping short on the fatal path which it has entered. I finished by
+saying that I was persuaded of the inevitable fall of his Majesty and
+the dynasty if wiser counsels did not obtain a hearing, and requested
+an audience with the King; since, when the catastrophe occurs, I do
+not wish my conscience to reproach me with not having tried all means
+of saving an inexperienced Sovereign from the ruin which threatens
+him. The Ministers of France and Spain have spoken to the same
+effect.' Even Russia advised Francis to make common cause with
+Piedmont. In April, Victor Emmanuel wrote to his cousin, 'as a near
+relative and an Italian Prince,' urging him to listen while there was
+yet time to save something, if not everything. 'If you will not hear
+me,' he said, 'the day may come when I shall be obliged to be the
+instrument of your ruin!'
+
+It has been said that the Sardinian Government, in tendering similar
+advice, hoped for its refusal and contemplated the eventuality hinted
+at with the reverse of apprehension. Of course this is true. Yet the
+responsibility of declining to take the only course which might by any
+possibility have saved him must rest with the King of Naples and not
+with Victor Emmanuel and his Ministers. The attempt to make Francis
+appear the innocent victim of a diabolical conspiracy will never
+succeed, however ingenious are the writers who devote their abilities
+to so unfruitful a task.
+
+To trace the real beginning of the expedition we must go back to the
+summer of 1859. When the war ended in the manner which he alone had
+foreseen, Mazzini projected a revolutionary enterprise in the south
+which should restore to the Italian movement its purely national
+character and defeat in advance Napoleon's plans for gathering the
+Bourbon succession for his cousin, Prince Murat. He sent agents to
+Sicily, and notably Francesco Crispi, who, as a native of the island
+and a man of resource and quick intelligence, was well qualified to
+execute the work of propaganda and to elude the Bourbon police. Crispi
+travelled in all parts of Sicily for several months, and in September
+he was able to report to Mazzini that the insurrection might be
+expected in a few weeks--which proved incorrect, but only as to date.
+Mazzini forbade his agents to agitate in favour of a republic; unity
+was the sole object to be aimed at; unity in whatever form and at
+whatever cost.
+
+In March 1860 he had an interview in London with the man who was to
+become the actual initiator of the revolutionary movement in South
+Italy. This was Rosalino Pilo, son of the Count di Capaci, and
+descended through his mother from the royal house of Anjou, whose
+name, Italianised into Gioeni, is still borne by several noble
+families in Sicily. Rosalino Pilo, who was now in his fortieth year,
+had devoted all his life to his country's liberties. After 1849, when
+he was obliged to leave Sicily, he sold his ancestral acres to supply
+the wants of his fellow exiles, and help the work of revolutionary
+propaganda. Handsome in person, cultivated in mind, ready to give his
+life, as he had already given most of what makes life tolerable, to
+the Italian cause, he won the affection of all with whom he was
+brought in contact, and especially of Mazzini, from whom he parted
+after that last interview radiant with hope, and yet with a touch of
+sadness in his smile, as if in prevision that the place allotted to
+him in the ranks of men was among the sowers, not among the reapers.
+
+Rosalino Pilo believed, as Mazzini believed, that Sicily was ripe for
+revolution, but he realised the fact that under existing circumstances
+there was an exceeding probability of a Sicilian revolution being
+rapidly crushed. It was the tendency of Mazzini's mind to think the
+contrary; to put more faith in the people themselves than in any
+leader or leaders; to imagine that the blast of the trumpet of an
+angered population was sufficient to bring down the walls of all the
+citadels of despotism, however well furnished with heavy artillery.
+Pilo saw that there was only one man who could give a real chance of
+success to a rising in his native island, and that man was Garibaldi.
+As early as February he began to write to Caprera, urging the general
+to give his co-operation to the projected movement. It is notorious
+that the scheme, until almost the last moment, did not find favour
+with Garibaldi. In spite of his perilous enterprises, the chief had
+never been a courtier of failure, and he understood more clearly than
+his correspondent what failure at that particular juncture would have
+meant. The ventures of the Bandieras and of Pisacane, similar in their
+general plan to the one now in view (though on a smaller scale). ended
+in disasters, but disasters that were useful to Italy. A disaster now
+would have been ruinous to Italy. Garibaldi's hesitations do not, as
+some writers of the extreme party have foolishly assumed, detract from
+his merit as victorious leader of the expedition; they only show him
+to have been more amenable to political prudence than most people
+have supposed.
+
+Rosalino Pilo wrote, finally, that in any case he was determined to go
+to Sicily himself to complete the preparations, and he added: 'The
+insurrection in Sicily, consider it well, will carry with it that of
+the whole south of the peninsula,' by which means not only would the
+Muratist plots be frustrated, but also a new army and fleet would
+become available for the conquest of independence and the liberation
+of Venetia. The writer concluded by wishing the general 'new glories
+in Sicily in the accomplishment of our country's redemption.'
+
+True to his word Rosalino Pilo embarked at Genoa on the 24th of March,
+on a crazy old coasting vessel, manned by five friendly sailors. He
+had with him a single companion, and carried such arms and ammunition
+as he had been able to get together. Terrible weather and the
+deplorable condition of their craft kept them at sea for fifteen days,
+during which time something of great importance happened at Palermo.
+On the 4th of April the authorities became aware that arms and
+conspirators were concealed in the convent of La Gancia, which was to
+have been the focus of the revolution. Troops were sent to besiege the
+convent, which they only succeeded in taking after four hours'
+resistance; its fall was the signal for a general slaughter of the
+inmates, both monks and laymen. The insurrection was thus stifled in
+its birth in the capital, but from this time it began to spread in the
+country, and when, at last, Rosalino Pilo landed near Messina on the
+10th of April, he found that several armed bands were already roving
+the mountains, as yet almost unperceived by the Government, which had
+gone to sleep again after its exhibition of energy on the 4th. Events
+were, however, to awake it from its slumbers, and to cause it to renew
+its vigilance. It required all Rosalino Pilo's skill and courage to
+sustain the revolution of which he became henceforth the responsible
+head, till the fated deliverer arrived.
+
+Pilo's letters, brought back to Genoa by the pilot who guided him to
+Sicilian waters, were what decided Garibaldi to go to the rescue.
+Some, like Bixio and Bertani, warmly and persistently urged him to
+accept the charge; others, like Sirtori, were convinced that the
+undertaking was foredoomed, and that its only result would be the
+death of their beloved captain: but this conviction did not lessen
+their eagerness to share his perils when once he was resolved to go.
+
+Like all born men of action, Garibaldi did not know what doubt was
+after he came to a decision. From that moment his mental atmosphere
+cleared; he saw the goal and went straight for it. In a surprisingly
+short time the expedition was organised and ready to leave. 'Few and
+good,' had been the rule laid down by Garibaldi for the enrolments; if
+he had chosen he could have taken with him a much more numerous host.
+When it was the day to start few they were (according to the most
+recent computation the exact number was 1072 men), and they were
+certainly good. The force was divided into seven companies, the first
+entrusted to the ardent Nino Bixio, who acted in a general way as
+second-in-command through both the Sicilian and Neapolitan campaigns,
+and the seventh to Benedetto Cairoli, whose mother contributed a large
+sum of money as well as three of her sons to the freeing of Southern
+Italy. Sirtori, about whom there always clung something of the
+priestly vocation for which he had been designed, was the head of the
+staff; Türr (the Hungarian) was adjutant-general. The organisation was
+identical with that of the Italian army 'to which we belong,' said
+Garibaldi in his first order of the day.
+
+One name is missing, that of Medici, who was left behind to take the
+command of a projected movement in the Papal States. By whom this plan
+was invented is not clear, but simultaneous operations in different
+parts of the peninsula had been always a favourite design of the more
+extreme members of the Party of Action, and Garibaldi probably yielded
+to their advice. All that came of it was the entry into Umbria of
+Zambianchi's small band of volunteers, which was promptly repulsed
+over the frontier. Medici, therefore, remained inactive till after the
+fall of Palermo; he headed the second expedition of 4,000 volunteers
+which arrived in time to take part in the final Sicilian battles.
+
+Garibaldi's political programme was the cry of the Hunters of the Alps
+in 1859: _Italy and Victor Emmanuel._ Those who were strict
+republicans at heart, while abstaining from preaching the republic
+till the struggle was over, would have stopped short at the first word
+_Italy_. But Garibaldi told Rosalino Pilo, who was of this way of
+thinking, that either he marched in the King's name or he did not
+march at all. This was the condition of his acceptance, because he
+esteemed it the condition on which hung the success of the enterprise,
+nay more, the existence of an united Italy.
+
+The Thousand embarked at Quarto, near Genoa, during the night of the
+5th of May on the two merchant vessels, the _Piemonte_ and _Lombardo_,
+which, with the complicity of their patriotic owner, R. Rubattino, had
+been sequestered for the use of the expedition. On hearing of
+Garibaldi's departure, Cavour ordered Admiral Persano, whose squadron
+lay in the gulf of Cagliari, to arrest the expedition if the steamers
+entered any Sardinian port, but to let it go free if they were
+encountered on the high seas. Persano asked Cavour what he was to do
+if by stress of storms Garibaldi were forced to come into port? The
+answer was that 'the Ministry' decided for his arrest, which Persano
+rightly interpreted to mean that Cavour had decided the contrary. He
+resolved, therefore, not to stop him under any circumstances, but the
+case did not occur, for the fairest of May weather favoured the
+voyage, and six days after the start the men were quietly landed at
+Marsala without let or hindrance from the two Neapolitan warships
+which arrived almost at the same time as the _Piemonte_ and
+_Lombardo_, an inconceivable stroke of good fortune which, like the
+eventful march that was to follow, seems to belong far more to romance
+than to history.
+
+On the day before, the British gunboat _Intrepid_ (Captain Marryat),
+and the steam vessel _Argus_, had cast anchor in the harbour of
+Marsala. Their presence was again and again spoken of by Garibaldi as
+the key to the mystery of why he was not attacked. No matter how it
+was done--it may have been a mere accident--but it can hardly be
+doubted that the English men-of-war did practically cover the landing
+of the Thousand. Lord John Russell denied emphatically to the House of
+Commons that they were sent there for the purpose, as to this day is
+believed by some grateful Italians, and by every Clerical writer who
+handles the subject. The British Government had early information of
+Italian revolutionary doings, just then, through Sir James Hudson, who
+was in communication with men of all shades of opinion, and it is
+credible that orders which must necessarily have been secret, were
+given to afford a refuge on board English ships to the flying patriots
+in the anticipated catastrophe. More than this is not credible, but
+the energy shown by Captain Marryat in safeguarding the interests of
+the British residents at Marsala caused the Neapolitan ships to delay
+opening fire till the very last Red-shirt was out of harm's way on dry
+land. Then and then only did they direct their guns on the _Piemonte_
+and _Lombardo_, and fire a few shots into the city, which caused no
+other damage than the destruction of two casks of wine.
+
+On the 12th, Garibaldi left Marsala for Salemi, a mountain city
+approached by a steep, winding ascent, where he was sure of a warm
+reception, as it had already taken arms against the Bourbon king.
+Hence he promulgated the decree by which he assumed the dictatorship
+of Sicily in the name of Victor Emmanuel.
+
+The Neapolitan army numbered from 120,000 to 130,000 men; of these
+30,000 were actually in Sicily at the time the Thousand landed at
+Marsala, 18,000 being in and about Palermo, and the rest distributed
+over the island. At Salemi, Garibaldi reviewed his united forces: he
+had been joined by 200 fresh volunteers, and by a fluctuating mass of
+Sicilian irregulars, which might be estimated to consist of 2,000 men,
+but it increased or decreased along the road, because it was formed of
+peasants of the districts traversed, who did not go far from their
+homes. These undisciplined bands were not useless, as they gave the
+Bourbon generals the idea that Garibaldi had more men than he could
+ever really count upon, and also the peasants knew the country well.
+When they came under fire they behaved better than anyone would have
+expected. The first batch joined the Thousand half-way between Marsala
+and Salemi. There might have been fifty of them, dressed in
+goat-skins, and armed with the old flint muskets and rusty pistols
+dear to the Sicilian heart, which he would not for the world leave
+behind were he going no farther than to buy a lamb at the fair. The
+feudal lord marched at the head of his uncouth retainers--a company
+of bandits in an opera--yet, to Garibaldi, they seemed the blessed
+assurance that this people whom he was come to save was ready and
+willing to be saved. He received the poor little band with as much
+rapture as if it had been a powerful army, and, in their turn, the
+impressionable islanders were enraptured by the affability of the man
+whom the population of Sicily soon came seriously to consider as a new
+Messiah. It is a fact that the people of Southern Italy did believe
+that Garibaldi had in him something superhuman, only the Bourbon
+troops looked rather below than above for the source of it. The
+picturesque incidents of the historic march were many; one other may
+be mentioned. While the chief watered his horse at a spring a
+Franciscan friar threw himself on his knees, and implored to be
+allowed to follow him. Some of the volunteers thought the friar a
+traitor in disguise, but larger in faith, Garibaldi said: 'Come with
+us, you will be our Ugo Bassi.' Fra Pantaleo proved of no small use to
+the expedition.
+
+A glance at the map makes clear the military situation. Garibaldi's
+objective was Palermo, and if anything shows his genius as a
+Condottiere it is this immediate determination to make straight for
+the capital where the largest number of the enemy's troops was massed,
+instead of seeking an illusionary safety for his weak army in the open
+country. As the crow flies the distance from Marsala to Palermo is not
+more than sixty or seventy miles, but the routes being mountainous,
+the actual ground to be covered is much longer. About midway lies
+Calatafimi, where all the roads leading from the eastern coast to
+Palermo converge, and above it towers the immensely strong position
+called Pianto dei Romani, from a battle in which the Romans were
+defeated. These heights command a vast prospect, and here General
+Landi, with 3,000 men and four pieces of artillery, prepared to
+intercept the Garibaldians with every probability of driving them back
+into the sea.
+
+The royal troops took the offensive towards ten o'clock on the 15th of
+May. They met the Red-shirts half way down the mountain, but were
+driven up it again, inch by inch, till, at about three o'clock, they
+were back at Pianto dei Romani. A final vigorous assault dislodged
+them from this position, and they retreated in disorder to Calatafimi.
+Not wishing to tempt fortune further for that day, Garibaldi
+bivouacqued on the field of battle. In a letter written to Bertani, on
+the spur of the moment, he bore witness with a sort of fatherly pride
+to the courage displayed by the Neapolitans: 'It was the old
+misfortune,' he said, 'a fight between Italians; but it proved to me
+what can be done with this family when united. The Neapolitan
+soldiers, when their cartridges were exhausted, threw stones at us in
+desperation.' How then, with much superior numbers and a seemingly
+impregnable position, did they end in ignominious flight? The answer
+may be found in the reply given to Bixio, bravest of the brave, who
+yet feared, at one hotly-contested point, that retreat was inevitable.
+'Here,' retorted the chief,'we _die_.' Men who really mean to conquer
+or die can do miracles.
+
+The moral effect of the victory was tremendous. The world at large had
+made absolutely sure of the destruction of the expedition. 'Garibaldi
+has chosen to go his own way,' said Victor Emmanuel; 'but if you only
+knew the fright I was in about him and the brave lads with him!' In
+Sicily, where the insurrectionary activity of April was almost totally
+spent, the news sent an electric shock of revolution through the
+whole island. In the mountains Rosalino Pilo still resisted, weary of
+waiting for the help that came not, discouraged or hopeless, but
+unyielding. Food and ammunition were almost gone; his ragged band,
+held together only by the magnetism of his personal influence, began
+to feel the pangs of hunger. A price was set on his head, and he was
+harassed on all sides by the Neapolitan troops, whose attacks became
+more frequent now that the Government realised that there was danger.
+He knew nothing of Garibaldi's movements; but he was resolved to keep
+his promise as long as he could: to hold out till the chief came. At
+the hour when everything looked most desperate, a messenger arrived in
+his camp with a letter in Garibaldi's handwriting, which bore the date
+of the 16th of May. 'Yesterday,' it ran, we fought and conquered.'
+Never was unexpected news more welcome. Filled with a joy such as few
+men have tasted, Rosalino read the glad tidings to his men. 'The cause
+is won,' he said. 'In a few days, if the enemy's balls respect me, we
+shall be in Palermo.'
+
+Meanwhile Garibaldi had occupied Calatafimi, and was proceeding
+towards Monreale, from which side he contemplated a descent on the
+capital. On the high tableland of Renda he met Rosalino Pilo with his
+reanimated band. That day the Garibaldian army, all told, amounted to
+5,000 men. On the 21st of May, Rosalino was ordered to make a
+reconnaissance in the direction of Monreale; while carrying out this
+order a Neapolitan bullet struck his forehead, causing almost
+instantaneous death. 'I am happy to be able to give my blood to Italy,
+but may heaven be propitious once for all,' he had written when he
+first landed, words realised to the letter.
+
+The Neapolitans were put in high spirits by Rosalino Pilo's death; the
+discomfiture of Calatafimi was forgotten; they represented Garibaldi
+as a mouse that was obligingly walking into a well-laid trap. In fact,
+his position could not have been more critical, but he had recourse to
+a stratagem which saved him. He succeeded in placing the enemy upon a
+completely false scent. Abandoning the idea of reaching Palermo from
+the east (Monreale), he decided to attempt the assault from the south
+(Piana de' Greci and Misilmeri), but, all the while, he continued to
+throw the Sicilian _Picciotti_ on the Monreale route, and gave them
+orders to fire stray shots in every direction and to light innumerable
+camp-fires. These troops frequently came in contact with the
+Neapolitans in trifling skirmishes, and kept their attention so well
+occupied that General Colonna, in command of the force sent in search
+of the 'Filibuster,' did not doubt that the whole Garibaldian army was
+concentrated over Monreale. Garibaldi rapidly moved his own column by
+night to its new base of operations. The ground was steep and
+difficult, and a storm raged all the night; fifteen years later he
+declared that none of his marches in the virgin forests of America was
+so arduous as this. While the Neapolitans remained in ignorance of
+these changes, three English naval officers, guided by a sort of
+sporting dog's instinct, happened to be driving through the village of
+Misilmeri just after Garibaldi established his headquarters in that
+neighbourhood. Of course it was by chance; still, Misilmeri is an odd
+place to go for an afternoon drive, and the escapade ended in the
+issue of a severe warning to Her Majesty's officers and marines to
+keep in future 'within the bounds of the sentinels of the royal
+troops.' Luckily record exists of the experiences of Lieutenant Wilmot
+and his two companions at Misilmeri. Garibaldi, on hearing that three
+English naval officers were in the village, sent to invite them to the
+vineyard where he was taking his dinner. They found him standing in a
+large enclosure in the midst of a group of followers who all, like
+himself, wore the legendary red flannel shirt and grey trousers. Fra
+Pantaleo's brown habit formed the only exception. Several Hungarian
+officers were present, and by his father stood Menotti, then a stout
+youth of nineteen, with his arm in a sling from the severe wound he
+received at Calatafimi. Around were soldiers who looked like mere
+boys. They gazed with delight on the English uniforms. Garibaldi
+requested his guests to be seated and to partake of some
+freshly-gathered strawberries. He spoke of his affection and respect
+for England, and said it was his hope soon to make the acquaintance of
+the British admiral. He mentioned how he had seen and admired from the
+heights the beautiful effect of the salutes fired in honour of the
+Queen's birthday, two days before. He then retired into his tent, made
+of an old blanket stretched over pikes; a child, under the name of a
+sentry, paced before it to keep off the crowd.
+
+To complete the deception of the enemy the Garibaldian artillery,
+under Colonel Orsini, was ordered to make a retrograde march on
+Corleone previous to joining the main force at Misilmeri. Orsini
+narrowly escaped getting caught while executing this movement, and for
+the sake of celerity was obliged to throw his five cannon (including
+one taken at Calatafimi) down deep water courses. He returned to pull
+them out again when the immediate danger was past. General Colonna,
+who followed him closely, was convinced that the whole of the
+Garibaldians were in disorderly retreat as witnessed by the mules and
+waggons purposely abandoned by Orsini along the route. For four days
+Colonna believed that he had Garibaldi flying before him, and sent
+intelligence to that effect to Naples, whence it was published through
+the world. On the fifth day he was immeasurably surprised by hearing
+that Garibaldi had entered Palermo!
+
+It was at early dawn on Whitsunday, the 27th of May, that Garibaldi
+reached the threshold of the capital, and after overcoming the guard
+at Ponte dell' Ammiraglio, pushed on to Porta Termini, the strategic
+key to the city. The royalists, though taken by surprise in the first
+instance, had time to dispose a strong force behind walls and
+barricades before Garibaldi could reach the gate, and it required two
+hours of severe fighting to take the position. Many Red-shirts were
+killed, and Benedetto Cairoli received the severe wound from which he
+never wholly recovered. Success, however, was complete, and the
+Palermitans got up to find, to their frantic joy, the Liberator within
+their gates. According to the old usage their first impulse was to run
+to the belfries in order to sound the tocsin, but they found that the
+royalists had removed the clappers of the bells. Nothing daunted, they
+beat the bells all day with hammers and other implements, and so
+produced an indescribable noise which had a material influence on the
+nerves of the terrified Neapolitan troops. Being disarmed, the only
+other help which the inhabitants could render to their deliverers was
+the erection of barricades.
+
+Even after Garibaldi's entry, it is thought that General Lanza could
+have crushed him in the streets by sheer force of superiority in
+numbers and artillery had he made proper use of his means. However, at
+about three p.m., he chose the less heroic plan of ordering the castle
+and the Neapolitan fleet to bombard the city. Most of his staff
+opposed the decision, and one officer broke his sword, but Lanza was
+inexorable. The measure so exasperated the Palermitans that even had
+it achieved its end for the moment, never after would they have proved
+governable from Naples. Thirteen hundred shells were thrown into the
+city. Lord Palmerston denounced the bombardment and its attendant
+horrors as 'unworthy of our time and of our civilisation.' The
+soldiers helped the work by setting fire to some quarters of the city.
+Among the spots where the shells fell in most abundance was the
+convent of the Sette Angeli. The Garibaldians escorted the nuns to a
+place of safety and carried their more valuable possessions after
+them. The good sisters were charmed by the courtesy with which the
+young Italians performed these duties.
+
+Fighting in the streets went on more or less continuously, and the
+liberators kept their ground, but every hour brought fresh perils. A
+Bavarian regiment arrived to reinforce General Lanza, and the return
+of the Neapolitan column from Corleone was momentarily expected. The
+Garibaldians, and this was the gravest fact of all, had used almost
+their last cartridge. The issue of the struggle was awaited with
+varying sentiments on board the English, French, Austrian, Spanish and
+Sardinian warships at anchor in the bay. Admiral Mundy had placed his
+squadron so close to the land that the ships were in danger of
+suffering from the bombardment, a course attributed to the humane
+desire to afford a refuge for non-combatants, and in fact, the
+officers were soon engaged in entertaining a frightened crowd of
+ladies and children. The _Intrepid_ in particular, was so near the
+Marina that a fair swimmer could have reached it in a few minutes;
+nobody guessed, least of all Garibaldi, that her mission in the mind
+of the British admiral was to save the chiefs own life in what seemed
+the likely case of its being placed in peril.
+
+Admiral Mundy begged the authorities to stop the bombardment before
+the city was destroyed, but Lanza appeared to have no intention of
+yielding to his counsels, and it is still uncertain what at last
+induced him on the 30th of May to sue the Filibuster, hastily
+transformed into his Excellency, for an armistice of twenty-four
+hours. 'God knows,' writes Garibaldi, 'if we had want of it!' The
+royalists had lost nearly the whole city except the palace and its
+surroundings, and, cut off from the sea, they began to feel a scarcity
+of food, but not to a severe extent. It seems most probable that with
+his men panic-stricken and constantly driven back in spite of the
+bombardment, Lanza looked upon the game as lost, when had he known the
+straits to which the Garibaldians were reduced for ammunition, he
+might have considered it as won.
+
+An unforeseen incident now occurred; the royalist column, recalled
+from Corleone, which was largely composed of Bavarians, reached Porta
+Termini and opened a furious fire on the weak Garibaldian detachment
+stationed there. Was it ignorance or bad faith? Lieutenant Wilmot, who
+happened to be passing by, energetically waved his handkerchief and
+shouted that a truce was concluded; the assailants continued the
+attack till an officer of the Neapolitan staff who was in conference
+with Garibaldi at the time hurried to the spot, at his indignant
+request, and ordered them to desist. A few minutes later, Garibaldi
+himself rode up in a wrathful mood, and while he was renewing his
+protests, a shell fell close by him, thrown from a ship which
+re-opened the bombardment on its own account. Lieutenant Wilmot, who
+witnessed the whole affair, was convinced that there was a deliberate
+plan to surprise and capture the Italian chief after he had granted
+the armistice.
+
+At a quarter past two on this eventful day, the 30th of May 1860,
+Garibaldi and the Neapolitan generals, Letizia and Chretien, stepped
+on board the flag-ship _Hannibal_ which Admiral Mundy offered as
+neutral ground for their meeting. Curiously enough, both parties,
+reaching the mole simultaneously, were rowed out in the same ship's
+boat, which was waiting in readiness. The Neapolitans insisted that
+Garibaldi should go on board first, either from courtesy or, as the
+admiral suspected, out of desire to find out whether he would be
+received with military honours. With instinctive tact he had donned
+his old and rather shabby uniform of a major-general in the Sardinian
+army; the admiral's course was, therefore, marked out, and Garibaldi
+received the same salute as the two generals who followed him. After a
+foolish attempt on the part of the Neapolitan officers to make
+themselves disagreeable, which was repressed with dignified decision
+by Admiral Mundy, business began, and things went smoothly till the
+fifth article of the proposed convention came under discussion: 'That
+the municipality should direct a humble petition to his Majesty the
+King expressing the real wants of the city.' 'No,' cried Garibaldi,
+starting to his feet, 'the time for humble petitions to the King, or
+to anyone else, is past; I am the municipality, and I refuse.' General
+Letizia grew excited at this declaration, but afterwards he agreed to
+submit the question of quashing the fifth article to his chief,
+General Lanza. The armistice was prolonged till nine the next morning.
+
+As soon as he was back on shore, Garibaldi issued a manifesto, in
+which he announced that he had refused a proposal dishonouring the
+city, and that to-morrow, at the close of the armistice, he should
+renew hostilities. There was a splendid audacity in the threat; his
+powder was literally exhausted; nothing was left for him to do but to
+die with all his men, and to do this he and they were unquestionably
+ready. The conduct of the citizens was on a level with the occasion.
+As soon as the manifesto came to be known, the inhabitants rushed to
+the Palazzo Pretorio, where the man who had so proudly answered in
+their name, addressed them in these terms: 'People of Palermo; the
+enemy has made me propositions which I judged humiliating to you, and
+knowing that you are ready to bury yourselves under the ruins of your
+city, I refused.' Those who were present say that never did Garibaldi
+seem so great as at that moment. The answer was one deafening shout,
+in which the women and children joined, of 'War! war!' In the evening
+the city was illuminated as on a feast-day.
+
+Once more in history, the game of greatly daring succeeded. Appalled
+by the reports of the dreadful threats emanating from a population
+without arms, and a handful of volunteers without powder, distrustful
+henceforth of the courage of his soldiers, and, if the truth must
+be told, of the fidelity of his fleet, Lanza sent General Letizia
+to Garibaldi betimes, on the 31st of May, with an unconditional
+demand for the continuance of the armistice. A convention was drawn up,
+which conceded the fullest liberty to the royalists to supply their
+material wants, succour the wounded, and, if they desired, embark
+them on board ships with their families for Naples. Garibaldi, always
+humane, had a special tenderness for the victims of that civil strife
+which his soul abhorred, and he never forgot that the enemy was his
+fellow-countryman. His influence sufficed to secure to the royal
+troops an immunity from reprisals which was the more creditable
+because some horrid crimes had been done by miscreants in their ranks
+when they found that they were getting the worst of it in the
+street-fighting. Unfortunately the same mercy was not extended to some
+of the secret agents of Maniscalco, head of the Sicilian police, who,
+discovered in hiding-places by the mob, were murdered before any
+protection could be given them. At the time the act of barbarity was
+judged, even by English observers, with more leniency than it deserved
+(because cruelty can have _no_ excuse), so great was the disgust
+excited by the most odious system of espionage ever put in practice.
+
+The convention bore the signatures of 'Ferdinando Lanza,
+General-in-Chief,' and of 'Francesco Crispi, Secretary of State to the
+Provisional Government of Sicily.' One article provided for the
+consignment of the Royal Mint to the victors; a large sum was stored
+in its coffers, and Garibaldi found himself in the novel position of
+being able to pay his men and the Sicilian _squadre_, and to send
+large orders for arms and ammunition to the Continent.
+
+General Letizia made two journeys to Naples, and on his return from
+the second he came invested with full powers to treat with Garibaldi
+for the evacuation of the city. On the 7th of June, 15,000 royal
+troops marched down to the Marina to the ships that were to take them
+away. At the entrance of the Toledo, the great main street of Palermo,
+Menotti Garibaldi was on guard, on a prancing black charger, with a
+few other Red-shirts of his own age around him, and before this group
+of boys defiled the might and pomp of the disciplined army to which
+King Bomba had given the thoughtful care of a life-time.
+
+The closing formalities which wound up these events at Palermo formed a
+fitting ending to the dramatic scenes which have been briefly narrated.
+On the 19th, General Lanza went on board the _Hannibal_ to take leave of
+the British admiral. He was covered with decorations and attended by his
+brilliant personal staff. There, in the beautiful bay, lay the ship on
+board which he was to sail at sunset, and twenty-four steam transports
+were also there, each filled with Neapolitan troops. The defeated
+general was deeply moved as he walked on to the quarter-deck. 'We have
+been unfortunate,' he said--words never spoken by one officer of
+unquestioned personal courage to another without striking a responsive
+chord. When he quitted the _Hannibal_, the English admiral ordered the
+White Flag of the King of the Two Sicilies to be hoisted at the
+foretop-gallant masthead for the last time in Sicilian waters; and a
+salute of nineteen guns, the salute due to the direct representative or
+_alter ego_ of a sovereign, speeded the parting guest. Thus, wrapped in
+the dignity of misfortune, vanished the last semblance of the graceless
+and treacherous thraldom of the Spanish Bourbons in the capital of
+Sicily. The flag of Italy was run up on the tower of the Semaphore.
+Everywhere the revolution triumphed except at Messina, Milazzo and
+Syracuse. Even Catania, where a rising had been put down after a
+sanguinary struggle, was now evacuated and left to itself.
+
+So the 20th of June dawned, and the Queen's ships in the harbour put
+forth all their bravery of flags in commemoration of her accession,
+which display was naturally interpreted by the Palermitans as a
+compliment to the Dictator, who had fixed that day for calling on the
+British, French and Sardinian admirals and on the captain of the
+United States frigate _Iroquois_. With what honours the American
+captain received him is not recorded; for certain it was with cordial
+goodwill; of the others, Admiral Mundy treated him as on the previous
+occasion; the French admiral affected to consider him a 'simple
+monsieur' who had unexpectedly come to call, whilst Admiral Persano,
+on board the _Maria Adelaide_, gave him a salute of nineteen guns,
+which formed a virtual recognition on the part of Piedmont of his
+assumption of the dictatorship. Cavour had ordered Persano to act on
+his own responsibility as the exigencies of the hour demanded, and the
+admiral knew that these vague instructions assigned him a more
+vigorous policy than the other ministers would have agreed to
+officially. His bold initiative was therefore justified. As some
+severe words will have to be said of Persano in a later chapter, it is
+well to remark here that during his Sicilian command he behaved like a
+thorough patriot, although it was not in his power to render such
+great moral services to freedom as were undoubtedly rendered by
+Admiral Mundy, who at the same time acted with so much tact that his
+neutrality was not impugned, and he even won the equal personal
+gratitude of both parties. On the other hand, the Austrian commodore,
+Baron von Wüllersdorf, succeeded in pleasing no one and no one pleased
+him. He did not expect that the Garibaldians would lose much love to
+him, but he took it unkindly that the royalists fired at his boat with
+himself in it, and the Austrian flag at the stern. In high dudgeon he
+related this grievance to his British colleague, who gently suggested
+that since Austria had always supported the Bourbon system of
+Government, it was hardly strange if the royalists were hurt at
+receiving neither assistance nor even sympathy from the Austrian
+squadron which witnessed their destruction. The remark was acute; even
+Austria was, in fact, tired of the Bourbons of Naples; a portent of
+their not distant doom. But it was not likely that the royalists
+should appreciate the phlegmatic attitude of their erewhile
+protectors.
+
+The concluding military operations in Sicily presented a more arduous
+task than, in the first flush of success, might have been anticipated.
+In the general panic, one, if one only, royalist officer, Colonel Del
+Bosco, turned round and stood at bay. His spirited course was not far
+from undoing all that had been done. Fortunately Garibaldi had
+received important reinforcements. General Medici touched the Sicilian
+shores three days after the evacuation of Palermo with 3500
+volunteers, well-armed and equipped out of the so-called 'Million
+Rifle Fund,' which was formed by popular subscription in the north of
+Italy. The Dictator went as far as Alcamo to meet the hero of the last
+glorious fight of Rome, whom he greeted with delight and affection.
+Later, arrived the third and last expedition, consisting of 1500 men
+under Cosenz, till recently commander-in-chief of the Italian army.
+The Sicilian _squadre_ had been brought into something like military
+organisation; and an Englishman, Colonel Dunne, had raised a picked
+corps of 400 Palermitans which contained, besides its commander,
+between thirty and forty of his countrymen, and was hence called the
+English Regiment. This battalion was ready to do anything and go
+anywhere; it performed excellent work both in Sicily and on the
+mainland.[5]
+
+Garibaldi arranged his forces in three divisions; one, under Türr, was
+sent to Catania; the second, under Bixio, to Girgenti; the third,
+under Medici, was to follow the northern sea-coast towards Messina,
+the strongest position still in the enemy's hands. All three were
+ultimately to converge with a view to the grand object of crossing
+over to the mainland. Medici had 2500 men; the royalists in and about
+Messina could dispose of 15,000. The Garibaldians did not expect much
+opposition till they got near Messina, but when they reached
+Barcelona they heard that the garrison of Milazzo had been reinforced
+by Del Bosco with 4000 men, with the evident design of cutting off
+their passage to Messina. It is said that this move was made in
+consequence of direct communications between that officer and Francis
+II., whose ministers had already decided to abandon the whole island.
+But Del Bosco secretly assured his King that such a measure was not
+necessary, and that he would undertake not only to bar Medici's
+advance, but to march over the dead bodies of the Garibaldians to
+Palermo. Milazzo is a small hilly peninsula, on which stands a fort
+and a little walled city. The spot was well chosen. On the 17th of
+July, Del Bosco attacked the Garibaldian right, and it was not without
+difficulty that Medici retained his positions. Some further
+reinforcements were sent to Del Bosco from Messina, though not so
+numerous as they ought to have been, but they would have almost
+ensured him the victory had not Medici also received help; Cosenz'
+column, and, yet more important, Garibaldi himself with the 1000 men
+he had kept in Palermo, hastening at full speed to the rescue. The
+belligerents were, for once, about equally balanced in numbers when on
+the 20th of July Garibaldi attacked Del Bosco with the purpose of
+driving him on to the tongue of the peninsula, thus cutting him off
+from Messina and leaving the road open. A desperate engagement
+followed. The Neapolitans showed that they could fight if they were
+properly led, and inflicted a loss of 800 in killed and wounded (heavy
+out of a total of 5000) on their gallant opponents. Garibaldi's own
+life was nearly sacrificed. He was standing in a field of prickly
+pears in conversation with Major Missori when a party of the enemy's
+cavalry rode up, the captain of which dealt a violent blow at him with
+his sword, without knowing who it was. Garibaldi coolly parried the
+blow, and struck down his assailant, while Missori shot the three
+nearest dragoons with his revolver. Hearing the noise, other
+Garibaldians hurried up, and the chief was saved. For a long time the
+issue of the battle remained uncertain, and it was only after hours of
+severe fighting that Del Bosco was compelled to recognise his defeat,
+and to take refuge on the projecting strip of land as Garibaldi had
+meant that he should do.
+
+A few days later, four transports arrived in the bay of Milazzo to
+carry Del Bosco and his men to Naples. The ministry had prevailed, and
+the complete abandonment of the island was decreed. General Clary,
+commandant of Messina, informed Garibaldi that he had orders to
+evacuate the town and its outlying forts; the citadel would be also
+handed over if the Dictator would engage not to cross to the mainland,
+but this conditional offer was declined. The citadel of Messina
+therefore remained in the power of the royalists, but on agreement
+that it should not resume hostilities unless attacked. It only
+capitulated in March 1861. Garibaldi reigned over the rest of the
+island. The convention was signed on the 28th of July by Marshal
+Tommaso de Clary for the King of Naples, and Major-General Giacomo
+Medici for the Dictator.
+
+Before following Garibaldi across the Straits, some allusion is called
+for to the general political situation both in Sicily and in Italy.
+And first as regards Sicily. When a government is pulled down another
+must be set up, and the last task is often not the easiest. Garibaldi
+appointed a ministry in which the ruling spirit was Francesco Crispi.
+A Sicilian patriot from his youth, and one of the Thousand, he has
+been judged the man best fitted to direct the helm of United Italy in
+days of unexampled difficulty. This is enough to prove that he was not
+the first-come ignoramus or madman that some people then liked to
+think him. But Crispi had the art of making enemies, nor has he lost
+it. Though volumes have been written on the civil administration under
+the dictatorship, the writers' judgments are so warped by their
+political leanings that it is not easy to get at the truth. It would
+have been strange had no confusion existed, had no false steps been
+made; yet some of the old English residents in Sicily say that the
+island made more real progress during the few months of Garibaldi's
+reign than in all the years that have followed. Towards the end of
+June, Garibaldi appointed Agostino Depretis as Pro-Dictator. Of the
+many decrees formulated and measures adopted at this period,
+Garibaldi, who had many other things to think of, was personally
+responsible only for those of a philanthropic nature. Busy as he was,
+he found time to inquire minutely into the State of the population of
+Palermo, and he was horrified at the ignorance and misery in which the
+poorer classes were plunged. Forthwith, out came a bushel-basket of
+edicts and appeals on behalf of these poor children of the sun. He
+visited the orphan asylum and found that eighty per cent. of the
+inmates died of starvation. One nurse had to provide for the wants of
+four infants. Garibaldi wrote off an address to the ladies of Palermo,
+in which he implored them to interest themselves in the wretched
+little beings created in the image of God, at the sight of whose
+wasted and puny bodies he, an old soldier, had wept. He had money and
+food distributed every morning to the most destitute, at the gates of
+the royal palace, where he lived with a frugality that scandalised the
+aged servants of royalty whom he kept, out of kindness, at their
+posts. Theoretically, he disapproved of indiscriminate almsgiving, but
+in the misery caused by the recent bombardment, such theories could
+not be strictly applied, or, at any rate, Garibaldi was not the man to
+so apply them; whence it happened that though, as _de facto_ head of
+the State, he allowed himself a civil list of eight francs a day, the
+morning had never far advanced before his pockets were empty, and he
+had to borrow small sums from his friends, which next morning were
+faithfully repaid.
+
+When he walked about the town, the women pressed forward to touch the
+hem of his _poncho_, and made their children kneel to receive his
+blessing. On one occasion a convent of nuns, from the youngest novice
+to the elderly abbess, insisted on giving him the kiss of peace. An
+idolatry which would have made anyone else ridiculous; but Garibaldi,
+being altogether simple and unselfconscious, was above ridicule. One
+of the good works that he initiated was the transformation of the
+Foundling Hospital, of which the large funds were turned to little
+account, into a Military School under the direction of his best
+officers. In less than a month the school could turn out two smart
+battalions, and there were few mornings that the Dictator did not go
+to watch the boys at their drill. He encouraged them with the promise
+that before long he would lead them himself to the wars.
+
+Such actions smell sweeter from the dust, than the old story of the
+antagonism that sprang up in those days between Garibaldi and Cavour,
+between Crispi and La Farina. This dualism, as it was called, was the
+fruit of a mutual distrust, which, however much to be deplored, was
+not to be avoided. Although Cavour had a far juster idea of Garibaldi
+than that entertained by his _entourage_, he was nevertheless haunted
+by the fear that the general's revolutionary friends would persuade
+him to depart from his programme of 'Italy and Victor Emmanuel,' and
+embark upon some adventure of a republican complexion. He was also
+afraid that the Government of the Dictator would, by its
+unconventional methods, discredit the Italian cause in the eyes of
+European statesmen. These reasons caused him to desire and to
+endeavour to bring about the immediate annexation of Sicily to the
+Sardinian kingdom. On the other hand, Garibaldi's faith in Cavour had
+ceased with the cession of Nice, and he believed him to be even now
+contemplating the cession of the island of Sardinia as a further sop
+to Cerberus--a project which, if it existed nowhere else, did exist in
+the mind of Napoleon III. With regard to immediate annexation, he had
+no intention of agreeing to it, and for one sufficing reason: had he
+consented he could not have carried the war of liberation across the
+Straits of Messina. His Sicilian army must have laid down their arms
+at a command from Turin were it given. And it would have been given.
+
+La Farina, like Crispi, a Sicilian by birth, arrived suddenly at
+Palermo, representing Cavour, as everyone thought, but in reality he
+represented himself. Strong-willed and prejudiced, he was, in his own
+way, a perfectly good patriot, and he had done all that was in his
+power (though not quite so much as in later years he fancied that he
+had done) to aid and further the expedition of the Thousand. But he
+tried to force the annexation scheme by means so openly hostile to the
+government of the day, that Garibaldi at length sent him on board
+Persano's flag-ship with a request that the admiral would forward him
+to Turin.
+
+After the evacuation of Messina by the royal troops, Garibaldi
+received persuasions of all sorts to let the kingdom of Naples alone.
+On the part of King Francis an offer was made to him of 50,000,000
+francs and the Neapolitan navy in aid of a war for the liberation of
+Venice. Almost simultaneously he received a letter from Victor
+Emmanuel sent by the hand of Count Giulio Litta, in which the writer
+said that in the event of the King of Naples giving up Sicily 'I think
+that our most reasonable course would be to renounce all ulterior
+undertakings against the Neapolitan kingdom.' This was the first
+direct communication between the King and Garibaldi since the latter's
+landing at Marsala; it is to be surmised that of indirect
+communications there had been several, and that they took the form of
+substantial assistance, sent, probably without Cavour being aware of
+it, for Victor Emmanuel carried on his own little conspiracies with a
+remarkable amount of secrecy. What induced him now to address words of
+restraint to Garibaldi in the midway of his work, was the arrival of a
+letter from Napoleon III. in which the Emperor urged him in the
+strongest manner to use his well-known personal influence with the
+general to hold him back. It was not easy for Victor Emmanuel to
+refuse point blank to make the last effort on behalf of his cousin.
+Francis had appointed a constitutional ministry, promised a statute,
+granted an amnesty and engaged to place himself in accord with the
+King of Sardinia, adopted even the tricolor flag with the royal arms
+of Bourbon in the centre. Concessions idle as desperate on the 25th of
+June 1860, the date which they bore. Their only consequence then was
+to facilitate the fall of the dynasty, the usual result of similar
+inspirations of the eleventh hour. Had all this been done on the day
+of the King's accession it might have imperilled Italian unity--not
+now. But the fatal words, 'Too late,' would have fallen with ill grace
+from Victor Emmanuel's lips. Garibaldi answered his royal
+correspondent that when he had made him King of Italy he would be only
+too happy to obey him for the rest of his life.
+
+The King's letter, though delivered after the battle of Milazzo, was
+written before it. That event convinced Cavour, and doubtless the King
+with him, that it was utterly impossible to arrest the tide at Cape
+Faro. It convinced him of a great deal more. He saw that if Piedmont
+continued much longer a passive spectator of the march of events, she
+would lose the lead forever And he prepared to act.
+
+Meanwhile counsels reached Garibaldi from quite a different quarter
+not to abandon Naples, but to go there from Rome instead of by
+Calabria. This daring scheme was favoured by Mazzini, Nicotera,
+Bertani; indeed, by all the republicans. A corps of about 8000
+volunteers was ready to start for a descent on the coast of the Papal
+States. At present it was in the island of Sardinia, awaiting the
+arrival of Garibaldi to assume the command. And now occurred
+Garibaldi's mysterious disappearance from Cape Faro, which at the time
+excited endless curiosity. The truth was, that he actually went to
+Sardinia, but instead of taking command of the volunteers bound for
+Rome, he induced them to alter their plans and to join his Sicilian
+army in the arduous undertaking before it of overthrowing the Bourbons
+in the Neapolitan kingdom. Thus he gained a reinforcement of which he
+knew the enormous need, for though he was willing to face
+difficulties, he was not blind to them, as were many men of the
+extreme party. He also prevented what would have been a step of
+exceeding danger to the national cause, as it would have obliged the
+Sardinian Government to break off all relations with Garibaldi and to
+use force against the patriots in suppressing a movement which, if
+successful, would have brought a hostile French army into Italy.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE MEETING OF THE WATERS
+
+1860
+
+Garibaldi's March on Naples--The Piedmontese in Umbria and the
+Marches--The Volturno--Victor Emmanuel enters Naples.
+
+
+The Italian kingdom is the fruit of the alliance between the strong
+monarchical principles of Piedmont and the dissolvent forces of
+revolution. Whenever either one side or the other, yielding to the
+influence of its individual sympathies or prejudices, failed to
+recognise that thus only, by the essential logic of events, could the
+unity of the country be achieved, the entire edifice was placed in
+danger of falling to the ground before it was completed.
+
+When Garibaldi stood on Cape Faro, conqueror and liberator, clothed in
+a glory not that of Wellington or Moltke, but that of Arthur or Roland
+or the Cid Campeador; the subject of the gossip of the Arabs in their
+tents, of the wild horsemen of the Pampas, of the fishers in ice-bound
+seas; a solar myth, nevertheless certified to be alive in the
+nineteenth century--Cavour understood that if he were left much longer
+single occupant of the field, either he would rush to disaster, which
+would be fatal to Italy, or he would become so powerful that, in the
+event of his being plunged, willingly or unwillingly, by the more
+ardent apostles of revolution into opposition with the King of
+Sardinia, the issue of the contest would be by no means sure. To guard
+against both possibilities, Cavour decided to act, and to act at once.
+He said of the conjuncture in which he was placed that it was not one
+of the most difficult, but the most difficult of his political life.
+But he proved equal to the task, which does the more honour to his
+statesmanship because his first plan failed completely. This plan was,
+that the Neapolitan population should overthrow Francis II., and
+proclaim Victor Emmanuel their King before Garibaldi crossed the
+Straits. But the Neapolitans would not move hand or foot till
+Garibaldi was among them. The fact that when Cavour was convinced
+that the Bourbon dynasty at Naples was about to fall, he tried to
+hasten its collapse by a few weeks or days, was made the most of by
+his enemies as an example of base duplicity. At this distance of time,
+it need only be said that whether his conduct of affairs was
+scrupulous or unscrupulous, it deceived no one, for the Neapolitan
+King and his friends were well convinced that the Filibuster of
+Caprera was their less deadly foe than the Prime Minister of Piedmont.
+
+But of all the foes of Franceschiello, to use the diminutive by which,
+half in pity, half in contempt, the people of Naples remember him, the
+most irrevocably fatal was himself. Two courses were open to him when,
+after losing Sicily, he saw the loss of his other kingdom and of his
+throne staring him in the face. One was to go forth like a man at the
+head of his troops to meet the storm. There had been such a thing as
+loyalty in the Kingdom of Naples; not loyalty of the highest sort, but
+still the sentiment had existed. Who knows what might not have been
+the effect of the presence of their young Sovereign on the broken
+_moral_ of the Neapolitan soldiers? 'Sire, place yourself at the head
+of the 40,000 who remain, and risk a last stake, or, at least, fall
+gloriously after an honourable battle,' was the advice given him by
+his minister of war, Pianell. But his stepmother or somebody
+(certainly not his wife) said that the sacred life of a king ought to
+be kept in cotton wool, like other curiosities. Meanwhile his uncle,
+the Count of Syracuse, proposed the other course which, though not
+heroic, would have been intelligible and even patriotic. This was to
+absolve his subjects from their obedience, and embark on the first
+available ship for foreign parts. Fitting the action to the word, the
+Count himself started for Turin. Francis awaited the doom of those
+who only know how to take half measures.
+
+The demoralisation, not only of the troops but of every branch of the
+public administration in the kingdom of Naples, was not yet a
+certified fact; and the enterprise which Garibaldi at Cape Faro had
+before him, of invading the dominions of a monarch who still had a
+large army, and whose subjects showed not the slightest visible sign
+of being disposed to strike a blow for their own freedom, looked
+rather fabulous than difficult. The only part of the _Regno_ where the
+people were taking action was in the furthermost region of Calabria; a
+fortunate circumstance, since it was the first point to be attacked.
+Calabria, which had contributed its quota to the Thousand, contained
+more patriotic energy than the rest of the _Regno_ put together. On
+the 8th of August, Garibaldi sent over a small vanguard of 200 men
+under a Calabrian officer, with the order to join the Calabrian band
+of insurgents which was hiding in the woods and gorges of Aspromonte,
+and to spread the news that his own coming would not be long delayed.
+The Neapolitan generals had acquired the idea that, instead of these
+few men, a large force had already disembarked, and so turned their
+attention to the mountains; while Garibaldi, after throwing the
+war-ships in the Straits on an equally false scent by various
+intentionally abortive operations, crossed in the night of the 19th
+and effected a landing not far from Reggio, of which, for both moral
+and strategic reasons, it was of vital importance to gain possession
+as soon as possible. He took with him 4500 men, and had between 14,000
+and 15,000 more in readiness to follow. The royalist army in Calabria
+numbered about 27,000, including the garrison of Reggio, 2000 men,
+under the command of General Galotti. On the 20th, Bixio attacked the
+outposts; and on the 21st, Garibaldi fought his way into the
+city--not, however, without meeting a strong resistance on the part of
+the garrison, which might have been continued longer, and even with a
+different result, had not the Calabrian insurgents hurried down from
+Aspromonte on hearing the sound of guns, their sudden appearance
+making the Royalists think that they were being attacked on all sides.
+Next day the castle surrendered, and thus a quantity of valuable war
+material fell into Garibaldi's hands. His luck had not deserted him.
+
+Cosenz and Medici landed their divisions in the night of the 21st of
+August, near Scilla, in the neighbourhood of which General Briganti
+had massed his Neapolitans, 7000 strong. On the 23rd, Briganti found
+himself attacked on the south and north--from Scilla by Cosenz, and
+from Reggio by Garibaldi. His position was critical but not desperate
+had he been able to depend upon his men, who were more numerous than
+their combined opponents; but he saw at once that fighting was the
+last thing they meant to do, and he had no choice but to surrender at
+discretion, almost without firing a shot. Unfortunately, Garibaldi had
+no power to keep prisoners of war, even if he wished to do so. Who was
+to feed and guard them? Now, as subsequently, he bade the disbanded
+troops go where they listed, undertaking to send to Naples by sea as
+many as desired to go there. About a thousand accepted; the rest
+dispersed, forming the first nucleus of the semi-political and wholly
+dastardly brigandage which was later to become the scourge of Southern
+Italy. Their earliest exploit was the savage murder of General
+Briganti, whom they called a traitor, after the fashion of cowards.
+This happened at Mileto on the 25th of August, when Briganti was on
+his way to join General Ghio, who had concentrated 12,000 men on the
+town of Monteleone. Garibaldi, whose sound principle it was to dispose
+of his enemies one by one as they cropped up, prepared to attack Ghio
+with his whole available forces, but he was spared the trouble. He
+came, he saw, and he had no need of conquering, for the soldiers of
+that bad thing that had been Bourbon despotism in the Italian south
+vanished before his path more quickly than the mists of the morning
+before the sun. No grounds that will bear scrutiny have ever been
+adduced for the reactionary explanation of the marvel: to wit, that
+the Neapolitan generals were bribed. By Cavour? The game would have
+been too risky. By 'English bank-notes,' that useful factor in
+European politics that has every pleasing quality except reality? It
+is not apparent how the corruptibility of the generals gives a better
+complexion to the matter, but the writers on the subject who are
+favourable to Francis II. seem to think that it does. Panic-stricken
+these helpless Neapolitan officers may deserve to be called, but they
+were not bought. And they had cause for panic with troops of whose
+untrustworthiness they held the clearest proofs, and with the country
+up in arms against them; for a few days after the taking of Reggio
+this was the case, and this was by far the greatest miracle operated
+by Garibaldi. The populations shook off their apathy, and not in
+Calabria only but in the Puglie, the Basilicata, the Abruzzi, there
+was a sudden awakening as from a too long sleep. When Garibaldi got to
+Monteleone he found that Ghio had evacuated the town. He pursued him
+to Soveria, where, on the 30th of August, the 12,000 men laid down
+their arms. A few days later, another officer, General Caldarelli,
+capitulated with 4000 men. Garibaldi's onward march was a perpetual
+_fête_; everywhere he was received with frantic demonstrations of
+delight. Still there was one point between himself and the capital
+which might reasonably cause him some anxiety. There were 30,000 men
+massed near Salerno, in positions of immense natural strength, where
+they ought to have been able to stop the advance of an army twice the
+size of Garibaldi's. How this obstacle was removed is far more
+suggestive of a scene in a comic opera than of a page in history.
+Colonel Peard, 'Garibaldi's Englishman,' went in advance of the army
+to Eboli, where he was mistaken, as commonly happened, for his chief.
+He was past middle age; very tall, with a magnificent beard and a
+stern, dictatorial air, which answered admirably to the popular idea
+of what the conqueror of Sicily ought to be like, although there was
+no resemblance to the real person. It happened that Eboli was a
+royalist town and beyond the pale of declared revolution--a placid and
+antiquated little city with a forgotten air, where life had been
+probably too easy for its inhabitants to wish for a change. But the
+supposed arrival of the Terrible Man turned everything upside-down.
+Peard, with Commander Forbes, who was following the campaign as a
+non-combatant, rode up to the house of the old Syndic, who instantly
+became their devoted servant. Like wildfire spread the news--the whole
+population besieged the house, brass bands resounded, chinese lanterns
+were hung out; the Church, led by the bishop, hurried to the spot, the
+Law, headed by a judge, closely following, while the wives of the
+local officials appeared in perfectly new bonnets. They all craved an
+audience, and the same answer was given to all: that General
+Garibaldi was much fatigued and was asleep--so he was, but ninety
+miles away. He would be pleased to receive the deputations if they
+would return punctually at half-past three a.m. In the meantime, Peard
+was in an inner room, engaged in cannonading Naples with telegrams. He
+had sent for the telegraph master, who came trembling like an aspen,
+and from whom it was elicited that he had already telegraphed to the
+Home Office at Naples, and to the general commanding at Salerno, that
+Garibaldi was in the town. Peard remarked casually that he supposed he
+knew his life was in jeopardy, and then handed him the following
+message: 'Eboli, 11.30 p.m.--Garibaldi has arrived with 5000 of his
+own men, and 5000 Calabrese are momentarily expected. Disembarkations
+are expected in the bay of Naples and the gulf of Salerno to-night. I
+strongly advise your withdrawing the garrison from the latter place
+without delay, or they will be cut off.' This was despatched to
+General Ulloa, whom rumour reported to have been just made minister of
+war, and was signed in the name of one of his personal friends. The
+rumour was false; but the telegram, of course, reached the desired
+quarter, and the name attached removed all doubt of its genuineness.
+It was hardly sent off when a despatch came from the real war
+minister, asking the telegraph clerk if news had been received of the
+division Caldarelli? To this Peard answered that General Caldarelli
+and his division had gone over to Garibaldi yesterday, and now formed
+part of the national army. Similar information was sent to General
+Scotti at Salerno. Finally, the Syndic of Salerno was asked if he had
+seen anything of the Garibaldian expeditions by sea?
+
+Satisfied with his work, Colonel Peard, who knew that there were
+Neapolitan troops within four miles of Eboli, and who did not think
+that things looked entirely reassuring, decided to beat a somewhat
+precipitous retreat. He told the Syndic that he was going to
+reconnoitre in the direction of Salerno, and that his departure must
+be kept a dead secret, but as soon as he was out of the town he turned
+the horses' heads backwards towards the Garibaldian lines. He was
+still accompanied by Commander Forbes, to whom, during their midnight
+drive, he related his performance on the telegraph wires. 'What on
+earth is the good of all this?' said Forbes; 'you don't imagine they
+will be fools enough to believe it?' 'You will see,' answered the
+colonel, 'it will frighten them to death, and to-morrow they will
+evacuate Salerno.' And, in fact, at four o'clock in the morning the
+evacuation was begun in obedience to telegraphic orders from Naples.
+
+The 30,000 men recalled from Salerno and the adjacent districts
+marched towards Capua. The river Volturno, which runs by that
+fortified town, was now chosen as the line of defence of the Bourbon
+monarchy.
+
+On the 5th of September the King and Queen with the Austrian,
+Prussian, Bavarian and Spanish ministers, left Naples for Gaeta on
+board a Spanish man-of-war. The King issued a proclamation of which
+the language was dignified and even pathetic: it is believed to have
+been written by Liborio Romano, the Prime Minister, who was at the
+same moment betraying his master. Be that as it may, the King's
+farewell to his subjects and fellow-citizens might have touched hearts
+of stone could they but have forgotten the record of the hundred and
+twenty-six years of rule to which he fondly alluded. As it was, in the
+vast crowds that watched him go, there was not found a man who said,
+'God bless him;' not a woman who shed a tear. Had any one of the
+bullets aimed at Ferdinand II. taken fatal effect, it would have been
+a less striking punishment for his political sins than this leaden
+weight of indifference which descended on his son.
+
+In the Royal Proclamation Francis II. stated that he had adhered to
+the great principles of Italian nationality, and had irrevocably
+surrounded his throne with free institutions; nevertheless it is
+alleged on what seems good authority that in those last days he veered
+round to the party of the Queen Dowager, who was doing all she could
+to provoke the lazzaroni to reaction. It was also believed at Naples
+that he left orders for Castel Sant' Elmo to bombard the town if
+Garibaldi entered.
+
+The Dictator was so much pleased with Colonel Peard's telegraphic
+feats at Eboli, that he sent him on to Salerno to repeat the farce.
+Peard's despatches determined the departure of the Court, and it was
+to him (in the belief that he was Garibaldi) that Liborio Romano,
+three hours before the King embarked, addressed the celebrated
+telegram invoking the 'most desired presence' of the Dictator in
+Naples. With this document in his hand, Peard went out with the
+National Guard to meet the real Garibaldi who was on his way from
+Auletta. The Dictator hailed his double with the cry of 'Viva
+Garibaldi,' in which Cosenz and the other officers cordially joined.
+The entry of the Liberator into Salerno was greeted with the wildest
+enthusiasm, the wonderful beauty of the surroundings seeming a fitting
+setting for a scene like the vision of some freedom-loving poet.
+
+Next morning at half-past nine, Garibaldi, with thirteen of his staff,
+started by special train for the capital.
+
+It must be remembered that though the army of Salerno was recalled to
+the Volturno, no troops had been withdrawn from Naples. The sentries
+still paced before the palaces and public offices, the barracks held
+their full complement, Castel Sant' Elmo had all its guns in position.
+These troops quartered in the capital, where everything contributed to
+stimulate their fidelity, were of different stuff from Ghio's or
+Caldarelli's frightened sheep; a White Terror, a repetition of the
+15th of May 1848, would have been much to their mind. There had been
+no actual revolution; nothing officially proved that Naples had thrown
+off the royal allegiance. Such were the strange circumstances under
+which Garibaldi, without a single battalion, came to take possession
+of a city of 300,000 inhabitants.
+
+Courage of this sort either does not exist, or it is supremely
+unconscious. It is likely, therefore, that the Dictator gave no
+thought to the enormous risk he ran, but his passage from the station
+to the palace of the Foresteria, where he descended, was a bad
+quarter-of-an-hour to the friends who followed him, and to whom his
+life seemed the point on which Italian regeneration yet hung. A chance
+shot fired by some Royalist fanatic, and who could measure the result?
+As he passed under the muzzle of the guns at the opening of the
+Toledo, he gave the order: 'Drive slower, slower--more slowly still.'
+And he rose and stood up for a moment in the carriage with his arms
+crossed. The artillerymen, who had begun to make a kind of hostile
+demonstration, changed their minds and saluted. The sullen looks of
+the royal soldiers was the only jarring note in the display of
+intoxicating joy with which the Neapolitans welcomed the bringer of
+their freedom; freedom all too easily had, for if anything could have
+purified the Neapolitans from the evil influences of servitude, it
+would have been the necessity of paying dearly for their liberties.
+The delirium in the streets lasted for several days and nights; what
+the consequences would have been of such a state of madness under a
+paler sky, it is not pleasant to reflect; here, at least, there were
+no robberies, no drunken person was seen; if there were some murders,
+a careful inquiry made by an Englishman showed that the number was the
+same as the average number of street-murders through the year. At
+night, when the word passed 'Il Dittatore dorme,' it was enough to
+clear the streets as if by magic near the palace (a private one) where
+in a sixth floor room the idol of the hour slept. The National Guard,
+who were the sole guardians of order, behaved admirably.
+
+For a few days such of the townsfolk as had not completely lost their
+heads, underwent acute anxiety as they gazed at the frowning pile of
+Sant' Elmo; but finally the officers in command of the garrison
+decided to capitulate, contrary, in this instance, to the wishes of
+the soldiery. The royal troops marched out of the city towards Capua
+on the 11th of September.
+
+Garibaldi's first act had been to hand over the Neapolitan fleet in
+the bay to Admiral Persano, a solemn reassertion of his loyalty to
+Victor Emmanuel, whom, in his every utterance, he held up to the
+people as the best of kings and the father of his country. He
+instructed his Neapolitan officer, Cosenz, to form a ministry, and
+wrote to the Marquis Pallavicini, the prisoner of Spielberg, inviting
+him to become Pro-Dictator. Had a man of authority like Pallavicini,
+who also entirely possessed the Dictator's confidence, at once assumed
+that office, much of the friction which followed might have been
+spared. But he did not enter into his functions till October, and in
+the meanwhile the 'dualism' of Sicily broke out in an exaggerated
+form, each side sincerely believing the other to be on the verge of
+ruining the country to which they were both sincerely attached. The
+appointment of Dr Bertani as Secretary of the Dictatorship gave rise
+to controversies which even now, when the grave has closed over the
+actors, are hardly at rest. It is time that they should be. Apart from
+the war about persons, some of them not very wise persons, and apart
+from the fears entertained at Turin, that the freeing of the Two
+Sicilies would drift into a republican movement: fears which were
+invincible, though, as far as they regarded Garibaldi, they were
+neither just nor generous, the question resolved itself, as was the
+case in Sicily, into whether the unification of Italy was to go on or
+whether it was to halt? Garibaldi refused to give up Sicily to the
+King's government because he intended making it the base for the
+liberation of Naples. Events had justified him. He now refused to hand
+over Naples because he intended making it the base for the liberation
+of Rome. It has been seen that he and he alone prevented an attempt at
+a landing in the Papal states from being made in the month of August.
+In deciding, however, that it was expedient to finish one enterprise
+before beginning another, he did not give up Rome: he merely chose
+what he thought a safer road to go there. And he now declared without
+the least concealment that he intended to proclaim Victor Emmanuel
+King of Italy from the Quirinal.
+
+Would events have justified him again? There was a French garrison in
+Rome; this, to Cavour, seemed a conclusive answer.
+
+Cavour was engaged on a series of measures, unscrupulous manoeuvres as
+some have called them, masterpieces of statesmanship as they have been
+described by others, by which he got back the reins of the Italian
+team into his own hands. The plan of an annexionist revolution in
+Naples before Garibaldi arrived had failed. So much discontent was
+felt at the apparent indifference, or, at least, 'masterly inactivity'
+of the Sardinian government in presence of the great struggle in the
+south that Cavour began to be afraid of a revolution breaking out in
+quite a different quarter, in Victor Emmanuel's own kingdom. It was at
+this critical juncture that he resolved to invade the Papal states,
+and take possession of the Province of Umbria and the Marches of
+Ancona.
+
+The decision was one of extreme boldness. For three months Cavour had
+been stormed at by all the Foreign Ministers in Turin, excepting Sir
+James Hudson, but, as he wrote to the Marquis E. D'Azeglio: 'I shall
+not draw back save before fleets and armies.'
+
+Austria, France, Spain, Russia and Prussia now broke off diplomatic
+relations with Sardinia. What would be their next act? The danger of
+Austria intervening was smaller than it then appeared; Austria was too
+much embarrassed in her own house, and especially in Hungary, for her
+to covet adventures in Italy. But the French Government did, in the
+plainest terms, threaten to intervene, and this notwithstanding that
+the Emperor himself appeared to be convinced by Cavour's argument,
+that the proposed scheme was the only means of checking the march of
+revolution, which from Rome might spread to Paris. By announcing one
+line of policy in public and another in private, Napoleon left the
+door open to adopt either one or the other, according to the
+development of events. In the sequel, the Papal party had a right to
+say that he lured them to their destruction, as their plan of
+operations, and in particular the defence of Ancona, was undertaken in
+the distinct expectation of being supported by the French fleet.
+
+As early as April 1860, the Pope invited the Orleanist General
+Lamoricière to organise and command the forces for the defence of the
+Temporal Power, which he had summoned from the four quarters of the
+Catholic world. 5000 men, more or less, answered the call; they came
+chiefly from France, Belgium and Ireland. Of his own subjects the Pope
+had 10,000 under arms. In a proclamation, issued on assuming the
+command, Lamoricière compared the Italian movement with Islamism, a
+comparison which aroused intense exasperation in Italy, where the
+rally of a foreign crusade against the object which was nearest to
+Italian hearts, and for which so many of the best Italians had
+suffered and died, could not but call up feelings which in their turn
+were expressed in no moderate language. It was a fresh illustration of
+the old truth--that the Papal throne existed only by force of foreign
+arms, foreign influence. Lamoricière's 'mercenaries' did much harm to
+the Pope's cause by bringing home this truth once more to the minds of
+all. That the corps contained some of the bluest blood of France, that
+there were good young men in it, who thought heaven the sure reward
+for death in defence of dominions painfully added in the course of
+centuries by devices not heavenly to the original patrimony of Peter,
+did not and could not reconcile the Italians to the defiance thrown
+down to them by a band of strangers in their own country.
+
+Before the opening of hostilities, Victor Emmanuel offered Pius IX. to
+assume the administration of the Papal states (barring Rome) while
+leaving the nominal sovereignty to the Pope. Nothing came of the
+proposal, which was followed by a formal demand for the dissolution of
+Lamoricière's army, and an intimation that the Sardinian troops would
+intervene were force used to put down risings within the Papal border.
+On the 11th of September, symptoms of revolution having meanwhile
+broken out in the Marches, General Fanti in command of 35,000 men
+crossed the frontier. Half these forces under Fanti himself were
+directed on Perugia; the other half under Cialdini marched towards
+Ancona. The garrisons of Perugia and Spoleto were compelled to
+surrender, and Lamoricière found his communications cut off, so that
+he could only reach the last fortress in the power of the Papal
+troops, Ancona, by fighting his way through Cialdini's division, which
+by rapid marches had reached the heights of Castelfidardo. His men
+passed the day of the 17th in religious exercises, and in going to
+confession; the vicinity of the Holy House of Loreto, brought hither
+by angels from Bethlehem, filled the young Breton soldiers with
+transports of religious fervour. Lamoricière had taken from the Santa
+Casa some of the flags of the victors of Lepanto to wave over his
+columns. In the battle of the next day the French fought with the
+gallantry of the Vendéans whose descendants they were, and the Irish
+behaved as Irishmen generally behave under fire, but the Swiss and
+Romans mostly fought ill or not at all. Lamoricière excused the
+conduct of the latter on the ground that they were young troops; it is
+likely that they had but little eagerness to fire on their
+fellow-countrymen. Being Italians, and above all being Romans, they
+assuredly were not sustained by one scrap of the mystical enthusiasm
+of the French: such a state of mind would have been incomprehensible
+to them. They knew that so far as dogmas went Victor Emmanuel was as
+good a Catholic as the Pope. It is surprising that with part of his
+force demoralised Lamoricière was still able to hold his own for three
+or four hours. General Pimodan and many of the French officers were
+killed; Lamoricière could say truly: 'All the best names of France are
+left on the battlefield.'
+
+After the victory of Castelfidardo, the Sardinian attack was
+concentrated on Ancona. Admiral Persano brought the squadron from
+Naples to co-operate with Fanti's land forces, and the fortress
+capitulated on the 29th of September. The campaign had lasted eighteen
+days. The Piedmontese held Umbria and the Marches, and a road was thus
+opened for the army of Victor Emmanuel to march to Naples. During the
+progress of these events Garibaldi was preparing for the final
+struggle on the Volturno. He had not yet given up the hope of carrying
+his victorious arms to the Capitol, and from the Capitol to the Square
+of St Mark. The whole republican party, and Mazzini himself, who had
+arrived in Naples, ardently adhered to this programme. Their argument
+was not without force, risk or no risk, when would there be another
+opportunity as good as the present? It was very well for Cavour to
+look forward, as he did to the day of his death, to a pacific solution
+of the Roman question; Mazzini saw--in which he was far more
+clear-sighted than Cavour--that such a solution would never take
+place. His arrival at Naples caused alarm at Turin, both on account of
+his presumed influence over Garibaldi, the extent of which was much
+exaggerated, and from the terror his name spread among European
+diplomatists. The Dictator was asked to proscribe the man whose latest
+act had been to give the last 30,000 francs he possessed in the world
+to the expenses of the Calabrian campaign. He refused to do this. 'How
+could I have insisted upon sending Mazzini into exile when he has done
+so much for Italian unity?' he said afterwards to Victor Emmanuel, who
+agreed that he was right. However, he allowed the Pro-Dictator
+Pallavicini to write a letter to Mazzini, inviting him to show his
+generosity by spontaneously leaving Naples in order to remove the
+unjust fears occasioned by his presence. Mazzini replied, as he had a
+perfect right to do, that every citizen is entitled to remain in a
+free country as long as he does not break the laws. And so the
+incident closed.
+
+While the Party of Action urged Garibaldi not to give up Rome, other
+influences were brought to bear on him in the opposite sense, and
+especially that of the English Government, which instructed Admiral
+Mundy to arrange a 'chance' meeting between the Dictator and the
+English Minister at Naples, Mr. Elliot, on board the flagship
+_Hannibal_. Mr. Elliot pointed out the likelihood of a European war
+arising from an attack on Venice, and the certainty of French
+intervention in case of a revolutionary dash on Rome. Garibaldi
+replied that Rome was an Italian city, and that neither the Emperor
+nor anyone else had a right to keep him out of it. 'He was evidently,'
+writes Admiral Mundy in reporting the interview, 'not to be swayed by
+any dictates of prudence.'
+
+In Sicily, the rival factions were bringing about a state approaching
+anarchy, but a flying visit from Garibaldi in the middle of September
+averted the storm. At this time, Garibaldi's headquarters were at
+Caserta, in the vast palace where Ferdinand II. breathed his last. The
+Garibaldian and the Royal armies lay face to face with one another,
+and each was engaged in completing its preparations. It might have
+been expected, and for a moment it seems that Garibaldi did expect,
+that after the solemn collapse of the Neapolitan army south of Naples,
+the comedy was now only awaiting its final act and the fall of the
+curtain. But it soon became apparent that, instead of the last act of
+a comedy, the next might be the first of a tragedy. The troops
+concentrated on the right bank of the Volturno amounted to 35,000,
+with 6000 garrisoning Capua. About 15,000 more formed the reserves and
+the garrison of Gaeta. The position on the Volturno was favourable to
+the Royalists; the fortress of Capua on the left bank gave them a free
+passage to and fro, while the Volturno, which is rather wide and very
+deep, formed a grave impediment to the advance of their opponents. But
+the chief reason why there was a serious possibility of the fortunes
+of war being reversed, lay in the fact that the _moral_ of these
+troops was good. All the picked regiments of the army were here,
+including 2500 cavalry. The men were ashamed of the stampede from the
+south, and were sincerely anxious to take their revenge. Thus the
+Neapolitan plan of a pitched battle and a victorious march on Naples
+was by no means foredoomed, on the face of things, to failure.
+
+In Garibaldi's short absence at Palermo, the Southern Army (as he now
+called his forces) was left under the command of the Hungarian General
+Türr, as brave an officer as ever lived, and a fast friend to Italy,
+but his merits do not undo the fact that as soon as the Dictator's
+back was turned, everything got into a muddle. Pontoon bridges had
+been thrown across the river at four points; availing himself of one
+of these, Türr crossed the Volturno with a view to taking up a
+position on the right bank at a place called Caiazzo, a step which, if
+attempted at all, ought to have been supported by a very strong force.
+On the 19th of September, Caiazzo was actually taken, but on the 21st
+the Royalists came out of Capua with 3000 men and defeated with great
+loss the thousand or fewer Garibaldians charged with its defence, only
+a small number of whom were able to recross the bridges and join their
+companions. The saddest part of this adventure was the slaughter of
+nearly the whole of the boys' company--lads under fifteen, who had run
+away from home or school to fight with Garibaldi. Fight they did for
+five mortal hours, with the heroism of veterans or of children. Only
+about twenty were left.
+
+When Garibaldi returned from Sicily, this was the first news he heard,
+and it was not cheering. The Royalists, who thought they had won
+another Waterloo, were in the wildest spirits, and the march on Naples
+was talked of in their camp as being as good as accomplished.
+
+Garibaldi's lines were spread in the shape of a semi-circle, of which
+the two ends started from Santa Maria on the left, and Maddaloni on
+the right, with Castel Morone at the apex. The country is hilly, and
+this fact, together with the great distance covered, divided the
+20,000 men into a number of practically distinct bodies, each of
+which, in the decisive battle, had to fight its own fight. Here and
+there improvised fortifications were thrown up. Garibaldi was aware
+that his line of battle was perilously extended, but the necessity of
+blocking all the roads and by-ways which led to Naples, dictated
+tactics which he was the last to defend.
+
+The best policy for the Royalists would have been to bring
+overwhelming numbers to bear on a single point, and, breaking the
+line, to march straight on the capital. They were doubtless afraid of
+an advance which would have left a portion of the Garibaldian army
+unbeaten in their rear. Nevertheless, of the chances that remained to
+them, this was the best. At Naples there were no Garibaldian troops to
+speak of, and the powers of reaction had been working night and day to
+procure for the rightful King the reception due to a saviour of
+society. Perhaps they would not have completely failed. There were
+nobles who were sulking, shopkeepers who were frightened,
+professional beggars with whom the Dictator had opened a fierce but
+unequal contest, for no blue-bottle fly is more difficult to tackle
+than a genuine Neapolitan mendicant; there were priests who, though
+not by any means all unpatriotic, were beginning to be scared by
+Garibaldi's gift of a piece of land for the erection of an English
+church, and by the sale of Diodati's Bible in the streets. And
+finally, there was the Carrozzella driver whom a Garibaldian officer
+had struck because he beat his horse. These individuals formed a
+nucleus respectably numerous, if not otherwise respectable, of anxious
+watchers for the Happy Return.
+
+If anyone question the fairness of this catalogue of the partisans of
+the fallen dynasty, the answer is, that had their ranks contained
+worthier elements, they would not have carefully reserved the
+demonstration of their allegiance till the King should prove that he
+had the right of the strongest.
+
+Towards five o'clock in the morning of the 1st of October, the
+royalists, who crossed the river in three columns, fired the first
+shots, and the fight soon became general. King Francis had come from
+Gaeta to Capua to witness what was meant to be an auspicious
+celebration of his birthday. General Ritucci held the chief command.
+Of the Garibaldians, Milbitz and Medici commanded the left wing (Santa
+Maria and Sant' Angelo), and Bixio the right (Maddaloni), while Castel
+Morone, through which a road led to Caserta, was entrusted to Colonel
+Pilade Bronzetti and three hundred picked volunteers. Garibaldi's own
+headquarters was with the reserves at Caserta, but he appeared, as if
+by magic, at all parts of the line during the day, sometimes bringing
+up reinforcements, sometimes almost alone, always arriving at the
+nick of time whenever things looked serious, to help, direct and
+reanimate the men. A dozen times in these journeys by the rugged
+mountain paths he narrowly escaped falling into the enemy's hands. No
+trace of uneasiness was visible on his placid face; there was,
+however, more than enough to make a man uneasy. In the early part of
+the battle, both Medici and Bixio were pushed back from their
+positions. Only Pilade Bronzetti with his handful of Lombard
+Bersaglieri never swerved, and held in check an entire Neapolitan
+column, whose commander (Perrone) has been blamed for wasting so much
+time in trying to take that position instead of joining his 2000 men
+to the troops attacking Bixio, but his object was to march on Caserta,
+where his appearance might have caused very serious embarrassment.
+
+Up to midday the Royalists advanced, not fast, indeed, but surely.
+They fired all the buildings on their path, and amongst others one in
+which there were thirty wounded Garibaldians who were burned to death.
+It was said to be an accident, but such accidents had better not
+happen. Victory seemed assured to them. It is not disputed that on
+this occasion they fought well, and they had all the advantages of
+ground, numbers and artillery. But the volunteers, also, were at their
+best; they surpassed themselves. If every man of them had not shown
+the best military qualities, skill, resource, the power of recovery,
+Francis II. would have slept that night at Naples.
+
+Medici acted with splendid firmness, but at the most critical moment
+he had Garibaldi by his side. Bixio was left to fight his separate
+battle unaided (so great was the chief's confidence in him), and
+consummately well he fought it. After the middle of the day, the
+Garibaldians began to retake their positions, and at some points to
+assume the offensive; still it was five o'clock before Garibaldi could
+send his famous despatch to Naples: 'Victory along all the line.' The
+battle had lasted ten hours.
+
+The Sicilians and Calabrese under Dunne, who stemmed the first onset
+at Casa Brucciata, and under Eber, whose desperate charge at Porta
+Capua ushered in the changing fortunes of the day, rivalled the North
+Italians in steadiness and in dash. The French company and the
+Hungarian Legion covered themselves with glory; it was a pity there
+was not the English brigade, 600 strong, which mismanaged to arrive at
+Naples the day after the fair. Had they been in time for the fight,
+they would doubtless have left a brighter record than the only one
+which they did leave: that of being out of place in a country where
+wine was cheap.
+
+Putting aside Dunne and a few other English officers, England was
+represented on the Volturno by three or four Royal Marines who had
+slipped away from their ship, the _Renown_, and were come over to see
+the 'fun.' It seems that they did ask for rifles, but they did not get
+them, their martial deeds consisting in the help they gave in dragging
+off two captured field-pieces. Never did an exploit cause so much
+discussion in proportion with its importance; the Neapolitan Minister
+in London informed Lord John Russell that a body of armed men from the
+British fleet had been sent by Admiral Mundy to serve pieces of
+Garibaldian artillery.
+
+Of all the striking incidents of the day, that which should be
+remembered while Italy endures, was the defence of the hillock of
+Castel Morone by Bronzetti and his Lombards. Their invincible courage
+contributed in no small degree to the final result. One man to eight,
+they held their own for ten hours; when summoned to yield by the
+Neapolitan officer, who could not help admiring his courage, Pilade
+Bronzetti replied: 'Soldiers of liberty never surrender!' It was only
+in the moment of victory that Perrone passed over their dead bodies
+and uselessly advanced--which cost him dear on the morrow.
+
+The Garibaldian losses were 2000 killed and wounded and 150 prisoners;
+the Neapolitans had the same number placed _hors de combat_, and lost
+3000 prisoners.
+
+Garibaldi had none but his own men; the report that the battle had
+been won by soldiers of the Sardinian army who arrived in the
+afternoon was false, because they did not arrive till next day, when a
+battalion of Piedmontese Bersaglieri took part in defeating Perrone's
+column, which (it is hard to say with what idea) descended nearly to
+Caserta, as its commander wished to do on the first. Did Perrone not
+know of the defeat of yesterday? His column was surrounded and all the
+men were taken prisoners.
+
+After the battle of the Volturno the belligerents re-occupied the
+positions on the right and left banks of that river which they held
+before. Military critics speculate as to why Garibaldi did not follow
+up his advantage, and the opinion seems general that he did not feel
+himself strong enough to do so. The fortress of Capua was a serious
+obstacle, but Garibaldi was not accustomed to attach much weight to
+obstacles whatever they were, and it is pretty certain that he would
+have gone in pursuit had he not received a letter from Victor
+Emmanuel, who bade him wait till he came.
+
+By this time he had abandoned all thoughts of marching on Rome. From
+the moment that the King's army started for Naples he understood that
+persistence in the Roman programme would lead to something graver than
+a war of words with the authorities at Turin. Always positive, he
+gathered some consolation from the gain to Italy of two Roman
+provinces, Umbria and the Marches, and trusted the future with the
+larger hope.
+
+Constitutional government triumphed over the old absolutism and over
+the new dictatorship. And here it may be noted which Constitutional
+government, which never had a more sincere and faithful votary than
+Cavour, found no favour with Garibaldi at any period of his life. Its
+hampering restrictions, its slow processes, irritated his mind,
+intolerant of constraint, and he failed to see that this cumbersome
+mechanism still gives the best, if not the only, guarantee for the
+maintenance of freedom. The sudden transition of Southern Italy from a
+corrupt despotism to free institutions brought with it a train of
+evils, but there was no alternative. If Italy was to be one, all parts
+of it must be placed under the same laws, and that at once.
+
+On the 11th of October the Sardinian parliament sitting at Turin
+passed all but unanimously the motion authorising the King's
+Government to accept the annexation of those Italian provinces which
+manifested, by universal suffrage, their desire to form part of the
+Constitutional Monarchy. Cavour's speech on this occasion was
+memorable: 'Rome,' he said, 'would inevitably become the splendid
+capital of the Italian kingdom, but that great result would be reached
+by means of moral force; it was impossible that enlightened Catholics
+should not end by recognising that the Head of Catholicism would
+exercise his high office with truer freedom and independence guarded
+by the love and respect of 22,000,000 Italians than entrenched behind
+25,000 bayonets.' Of Venice, the martyr-city, he said 'that public
+opinion was rapidly turning against its retention by Austria, and that
+when the great majority of Germans refused to be any longer
+accomplices in its subjection, that subjection would be brought to a
+close either by force of arms or by pacific negotiations.'
+
+The words were strangely prescient at a time when the Prince Regent of
+Prussia was making most melancholy wails over the fall of the
+Neapolitan King. The Prussian Government issued a formal protest,
+which Cavour met by observing that Prussia, of all Powers, had the
+least reason to object, as Piedmont was simply setting her an example
+which she ought to follow and would follow, the mission of the two
+nations being identical. He already thought of Prussia as an ally:
+'Never more French alliances,' he was once heard to say.
+
+On the same day, the 11th of October, Victor Emmanuel crossed the
+Neapolitan frontier at the head of the army which Cialdini led to
+victory at Castelfidardo. The King published a proclamation, in which
+he said that he closed the era of revolution in Italy. Other bodies of
+Piedmontese troops had been despatched by sea to Naples and
+Manfredonia. The passage of the Piedmontese troops over the Abruzzi
+mountains was opposed both by a division of the Bourbon army and by
+armed peasants, who burnt a man alive at a place called Isernia; but
+their advance was not long delayed.
+
+The Neapolitans now began to retire from the right bank of the
+Volturno, and retreat towards the Garigliano, their last line of
+defence. Garibaldi crossed the river with 5000 men, and moved in the
+direction by which the vanguard of the Piedmontese was expected to
+arrive. At daybreak on the 26th of October, near Teano, the
+Piedmontese came in sight. Garibaldi, who had dismounted, walked up
+to Victor Emmanuel and said: 'Hail, King of Italy!'
+
+Once before the title was given to a prince of the House of Savoy--to
+Charles Albert, in the bitterest irony by the Austrian officers who
+saw him flying from his friends and country by order of his implacable
+uncle. A change had come since then.
+
+Victor Emmanuel answered simply: 'Thanks,' and remained talking for a
+quarter of an hour in the particularly kind and affectionate manner he
+used with Garibaldi, but at the end of the interview, when the leader
+of the volunteers asked that in the imminent battle on the Garigliano
+they might have the honour of occupying the front line, he received
+the reply: 'Your troops are tired, mine are fresh, it is my turn now.'
+
+Garibaldi said sadly that evening to an English friend: 'They have
+sent us to the rear.' It was the first sign of the ungenerous
+treatment meted out to the Garibaldian array to which the King lent
+himself more than he ought to have done. He promised to be present on
+the 6th of November, when Garibaldi reviewed his volunteers, but after
+keeping them waiting, sent a message to say that he could not come.
+The last meeting of all between the chief and his faithful followers
+was at Naples, on the occasion of the distribution of medals to as
+many as were left of the Thousand--less than half. In all his farewell
+addresses the same note sounded: 'We have done much in a short
+time.... I thank you in the name of our country.... We shall meet
+again.'
+
+The plebiscites in Umbria and the Marches and in the kingdoms of
+Naples and Sicily took place in October. The formula adopted at Naples
+was more broadly framed than in the previous plebiscites; it ran:
+'The people desire an united Italy under the sceptre of the House of
+Savoy.' The vote was almost unanimous.
+
+On the 7th of November, Victor Emmanuel made his entry into Naples,
+with Garibaldi at his side. Next day, in the great throne-room of the
+palace, the king-maker delivered to the King the plebiscites of the
+Two Sicilies.
+
+Garibaldi had nothing more to do except to pay a last visit to Admiral
+Mundy, whose flagship still lay at anchor in the bay. This duty was
+performed in the grey dawn of the 9th of November. 'There is the ship
+which is to carry me away to my island home,' he said, pointing to an
+American merchant vessel, 'but, Admiral, I could not depart without
+paying you a farewell visit. Your conduct to me since our first
+meeting at Palermo has been so kind, so generous, that it can never be
+erased from my memory; it is engraven there indelibly--it will last my
+life.'
+
+On leaving the flagship he rowed straight to the American vessel,
+which soon afterwards steamed out of the bay. The parting salute fired
+by the guns of the _Hannibal_ was all the pomp that attended his
+departure. Several hours later the people of Naples knew that their
+liberator had gone to dig up the potatoes which he had planted in the
+spring.
+
+By Cavour's advice, Victor Emmanuel offered Garibaldi a dukedom and
+the Collar of the Annunziata, which confers the rank of cousin to the
+King, besides riches to support these honours. He refused everything,
+and returned to Caprera poorer than when he left it.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+BEGINNINGS OF THE ITALIAN KINGDOM
+
+1860-1861
+
+Beginnings of the Italian Kingdom--The Fall of Gaeta--Political
+Brigandage--The Proclamation of the Italian Kingdom--Cavour's Death.
+
+
+The Neapolitan army retreated, as has been already stated, beyond the
+Garigliano. Capua, isolated and surrounded, could render no material
+service to the royal cause; it capitulated on the 2nd of November,
+though not until the town had been bombarded for forty-eight hours.
+The siege was witnessed by Victor Emmanuel, who said to General Delia
+Rocca: 'It breaks my heart to think that we are sending death and
+destruction into an Italian town.' Two days after the surrender of
+Capua, Cialdini threw a bridge over the Garigliano near its mouth, an
+operation covered by the guns of Admiral Persano's squadron. His first
+attempt on the 29th of October had met with a decided repulse, another
+proof that this last remnant of the Neapolitan army was not an enemy
+to be despised. The second attempt, however, was successful; part of
+the Neapolitans fell back upon Gaeta, and the other part fled over the
+Papal frontier.
+
+Gaeta, the refuge of the Pope and the fugitive Princes in 1848, now
+became the ultimate rock of defence of the Bourbon dynasty. The
+position of the fortress is extremely strong and not unlike Gibraltar
+in its main features. A headland running out into the sea and rising
+to a height of three or four hundred feet, it is divided by a strip of
+sand from the shore-line. The principal defences were then composed of
+a triple semi-circle of ditches and ramparts one higher than the
+other. Had the country been flat the difficulties of the siege would
+have been much increased; its hilly character allowed Cialdini to fix
+his batteries on heights which commanded the top of the Gaeta hill.
+But to profit by this, the Piedmontese were obliged to make fourteen
+miles of roads by which to bring up their artillery. For a month,
+10,000 out of the 20,000 besiegers were at work with the spade. The
+defending force amounted to 11,000 men, and was commanded by General
+Ritucci. From the first, it was certain that the obstinate stand made
+at Gaeta could only result in what Lord John Russell called a useless
+effusion of blood; nevertheless it seems to have been prompted by a
+real belief that Francis would still recover his kingdom. The
+precedent of his father's return from Gaeta may have strengthened the
+King's illusion; every day he received highly-coloured reports of a
+gathering reaction, and as the French fleet in the bay prevented
+Admiral Persano from attacking from the sea, he believed that the time
+which he could hold out was indefinite. This policy of the French
+Government need not have greatly cheered him, as its motive was less
+to help Francis than to prepare the way, by hampering the Piedmontese,
+for a little fishing in troubled waters. Prince Murat, descendant of
+the _Beau Sabreur_, was busy writing proclamations to remind the world
+that if Francis were impossible and Victor Emmanuel 'wanted finish,'
+there was an eligible young man ready to sacrifice the charms of the
+Boulevards for the cares of kingship.
+
+On the representations of the British Government the Emperor withdrew
+his fleet in January, advising Francis II. to renounce a hopeless
+resistance. But at this eleventh hour the King had adopted the
+principle of 'no surrender,' and he meant to stick to it. It is
+difficult to blame him; at anyrate, much more serious is the blame due
+to the methods of warfare which he was to adopt or to approve
+thereafter. His young Queen, who was frequently seen on the ramparts
+encouraging the artillerymen at their guns, had probably much to do
+with his virile resolution. The fortress was now attacked by land and
+by sea, and the bursting of a powder-magazine inside the walls
+hastened its doom. On the 15th of January the Neapolitans laid down
+their arms, the King having left his dominions by sea. The first act
+of the conquerors in the half-ruined town was to attend a mass for the
+repose of the souls of the brave men, friends and foes, who had fallen
+during the siege. Noisy rejoicings would have been unseemly, for the
+vanquished were fellow-countrymen.
+
+The telegram announcing the fall of Gaeta went to Caprera; Garibaldi
+read it, and a weight was taken off his mind. 'Civil war is at an
+end,' he announced to the little party round the supper-table;
+'Cialdini with our army is in Gaeta; now the Italians will not cut one
+another's throats any more.' Later in the evening he seemed so
+depressed that they thought him ill; Colonel Vecchj went to his
+bedside to discover what was the matter. He found him reading the
+_Times_, and inquired why he had become so suddenly sad. After a
+pause, Garibaldi said: 'Poor boy! Born at the foot of a throne and
+perhaps not by his own fault, hurled from it. He too will have to feel
+the bitterness of exile without preparation.' 'Is that all?' asked
+Vecchj. 'Do you think it nothing?' was the answer. 'Why then,'
+persisted Vecchj, half in jest, 'did you go to Marsala?' 'It was the
+duty of us all to go,' Garibaldi said quickly, 'else how could there
+have been one Italy?'
+
+Francis II. would have been happy had he found counsellors to persuade
+him to keep pure such titles to sympathy as he then possessed.
+Decorum, if not humanity, should have urged him to retire, surrounded
+by the solitary flash of glory cast on his fallen cause by the brave
+defence of Gaeta. But the revolution, the new Islam, if it could not
+be conquered must be made to suffer for its triumph. Hence the exiled
+King was advised to call in murder, pillage and rapine as
+accomplices. The political brigandage which followed the downfall of
+the King of the Two Sicilies began after the battle of the Volturno
+and extended over five years. Its effect on the general situation was
+nil; it harassed and distracted the Italian Government and created the
+odious necessity of using severe repressive measures, but it never
+placed the crown in danger. One effect it did have, and that was to
+raise all over Italy a feeling of reprobation for the late dynasty,
+which not all the crimes and follies of the two Ferdinands and the
+first Francis had succeeded in evoking. How many bright lives, full of
+promise, were lost in that warfare which even the sacred name of duty
+could not save from being ungrateful and inglorious! Italians who have
+lost their children in their country's battles have never been heard
+to complain; nowhere was the seemliness of death for native land
+better understood than it has been in the Italy of this century, but
+to lose son or brother in a brigand ambush by the hand of an escaped
+galley-slave--this was hard. The thrust was sharpened by the knowledge
+that the fomenter of the mischief was dwelling securely in the heart
+of Italy, the guest of the Head of the Church. From Rome came money
+and instructions; from Rome, whether with or without the cognizance of
+the authorities, came recruits. The Roman frontier afforded a means of
+escape for all who could reach it, however red their hands were with
+blood. What further evidence was needed of the impossibility of an
+indefinite duration of this state within a state?
+
+King Francis held back at first, but his uncle, the Count of Trapani,
+who openly abetted the brigand partisans, drew him more and more into
+collusion with them and their works. The Belgian ecclesiastic, Mgr. de
+Mérode, who had then an influence at the Vatican not possessed even
+by Antonelli, looked, unless he was much belied, with a very kind eye
+upon the new defenders of throne and altar. Efforts have been made to
+represent the war as one carried on by loyal peasants. No one denies
+that every peasants' war must assume, more or less, an aspect of
+brigandage; nevertheless there have been righteous and patriotic
+peasants' wars, such as that of the Klephts in Greece. The question
+is, Whether the political brigandage in South Italy had any real
+affinity with the wars of the Klephts, or even of the Carlists? And
+the answer must be a negative.
+
+The partisan chiefs in the kingdom of Naples were brigands, pure and
+simple, most of whom had either been long wanted by the police, or had
+already suffered in prison for their crimes. They organised their
+troops on the strict principles of brigand bands, and proposed to them
+the same object: pillage. 'Lieut-General' Chiavone who had a mania for
+imitating Garibaldi, was the least bad among them; unlike his
+prototype, he did not like being under fire, but neither did he care
+to spill innocent blood. What, however, can be said for Pilone,
+'commander of His Majesty's forces' on Vesuvius; for Ninco Nanco,
+Bianco dei Bianchi, Tardio, Palma; for Carusso, who cut the throats of
+thirteen out of fourteen labourers and told the one left to go and
+tell the tale; for the brothers La Gala, who roasted and ate a priest?
+It was said that no horror committed during the Indian Mutiny was here
+without a parallel.
+
+Of respectable Neapolitans who held responsible posts under the late
+_régime_ not one joined the bands, but they contained French, Austrian
+and Belgian officers, and one Prussian. A nephew of Mgr. de Mérode,
+the young Marquis de Trazégnies, was with Chiavone; the Carlist, Josè
+Borjès, was with a scoundrel named Crocco. Borjès' case is a hard one.
+He had been made to believe in the genuine character of the
+insurrection and thought that he was giving his sword to an honourable
+cause. The melancholy disillusion can be traced in the pages of a
+note-book which he kept from day to day, and which fell into the hands
+of the Italians when he was captured. The brief entries show a poetic
+mind; he observes the fertile soil, deploring, only, that it is not
+better cultivated; he admires the smiling valleys and the magnificent
+woods whose kings of the forest show no mark of the centuries that
+passed over their fresh verdure. At first Borjès was pleased with the
+peasants who came to him, but as they were few, he was obliged to join
+Crocco's large band, and he now began to see, with horror, what kind
+of associates he had fallen amongst. He had no authority; the brigands
+laughed at his rebukes; never in his life, he writes, had he come
+across such thieves. Before the enemy they ran away like a flock of
+sheep, but when it was safe to do so, they murdered both men and
+women. In desperation, Borjès resolved to try and get to Rome, that he
+might lay the whole truth before the King, but after suffering many
+hardships, he was taken with a few others close to the Papal frontier
+and was immediately shot. He died bravely, chanting a Spanish litany.
+
+Borjès' journal notes the opposition of all classes, except the very
+poorest and most ignorant. Was it to be believed, therefore, that this
+mountain warfare, however long drawn out, could alter one iota the
+course of events? If Francis II. supposed the insurrection to be the
+work of a virtuous peasantry, why did he allow them to rush to their
+destruction?
+
+The task of restoring order was assigned to General Cialdini. He
+found the whole country, from the Abruzzi to Calabria, terrorised by
+the league of native assassins and foreign noblemen. The Modenese
+general was a severe officer who had learnt war in Spain, not a gentle
+school. If he exceeded the bounds of dire necessity he merits blame;
+but no one then hoped in the efficacy of half measures.
+
+One element in the epidemic of brigandage, and looking forward, the
+most serious of all, was an unconscious but profoundly real socialism.
+If half-a-dozen socialistic emissaries had assumed the office of
+guides and instructors, it is even odds that the red flag of communism
+would have displaced the white one of Bourbon. This feature became
+more accentuated as the struggle wore on, and after experience had
+been made of the new political state. The economic condition of a
+great part of the southern population was deplorable, but liberty, so
+many thought, would exercise an instantaneous effect, filling the
+mouths of the hungry, clothing the naked, providing firing in winter,
+sending rain or sunshine as it was wanted. But liberty does none of
+these things. The disappointment of the discovery did not count for
+nothing in the difficulties of that period; it counts for everything
+in the difficulties of this.
+
+The reorganisation of the southern provinces proceeded very slowly. The
+post of Lieutenant-Governor was successively conferred on L.C. Farini,
+Prince Eugene of Carignano, and Count Ponza di San Martino; for a short
+time Cialdini was invested with the supreme civil as well as military
+power. None of these changes met with entire success. The government was
+sometimes too weak, sometimes too arbitrary; of the great number of
+Piedmontese officials distributed through the south, a few won general
+approval, but the majority betrayed want of knowledge and tact, and were
+judged accordingly. It was a misfortune for the new administration that
+it was not assisted by the steam power of moral enthusiasm which
+appeared and disappeared with Garibaldi. There is a great amount of
+certainty that the vast bulk of the population desired union with Italy;
+but it is equally certain that the new Government, though not without
+good intentions, began by failing to please anybody, and the seeds of
+much future trouble were planted.
+
+On the 18th of February 1861, the first Italian legislature assembled
+at Turin in the old Chamber, where, by long years of patient work and
+self-sacrificing fidelity to principle, the possibility of
+establishing an Italian constitutional monarchy had been laboriously
+tested and established. Only the deputies of Rome and Venice were
+still missing. The first act of the new parliament was to pass an
+unanimous vote to the effect that Victor Emmanuel and his heirs should
+assume the title of King of Italy. The Italian kingdom thus
+constituted was recognised by England in a fortnight, by France in
+three months, by Prussia in a year, by Spain in four years, by the
+Pope never.
+
+After the merging of Naples in the Italian body-politic, one of the
+thorniest questions that arose was the disposal of the Garibaldian
+forces. The chief implored Victor Emmanuel to receive his comrades
+into his own army, a prayer which the King had not the power, even if
+he had the will, to grant, as in the constitutional course of things
+the decision was referred to the ministers, who, again, were crippled
+in their action by the military authorities at Turin. Though it is
+natural to sympathise with Garibaldi in his eagerness to obtain
+generous terms for his old companions-in-arms, it may be true that his
+demand was not one that could be satisfied in its full extent. The
+volunteers were not inferior to the ordinary soldier; about half of
+them were decidedly his superior, but they were a political body
+improvised for a special purpose, and it is easy to see how many were
+the reasons against their forming a division of a conventional army
+like that of Piedmont. Nevertheless, the means ought to have been
+found of convincing them that their King and country were proud of
+them, that their great, their incalculable services were appreciated.
+That such means were not found was supposed to be the fault of Cavour.
+It was only in 1885, on the publication of the fourth volume of the
+Count's letters, that it became known how strenuously he had fought
+for justice. Military prejudice was what was really to blame; General
+Fanti, the Minister of War, even provoked Cavour into telling him
+'that they were not in Spain, and that in Italy the army obeyed.' 'A
+cry of reprobation would be raised,' he wrote, 'if, while the Bourbon
+officers who ran away disgracefully were confirmed in their rank, the
+Garibaldians who beat them were coolly sent about their business.
+Rather than bear the responsibility of such an act of black
+ingratitude, I would go and bury myself at Leri. I despise the
+ungrateful to the point of not feeling angered by them, and I forgive
+their abuse. But, by Heaven, I could not bear the merited blot of
+having failed to recognise services such as the conquest of a kingdom
+of 9,000,000 inhabitants.'
+
+Cavour, in fact, did obtain something; much more than the army
+authorities wished to give, but much less than Garibaldi asked or than
+the Count would doubtless have given had not his hands been tied. And,
+doubtless, he would have given it with more grace.
+
+As it was, the volunteers were deeply offended and sent their griefs
+by every post to Caprera. Garibaldi, who refused every favour and
+honour for himself, was worked up into a state of fury by what he
+deemed the wrongs of his faithful followers, and in April he arrived
+unexpectedly at Turin to plead their cause before the Chamber of
+Deputies. Perhaps by a wise presentiment he had refused to stand for
+any constituency; but when Naples elected him her representative,
+almost without opposition, he submitted to the popular will. At Turin
+he fell ill with rheumatic fever, but on the day of the debate on the
+Southern Army he rose from his bed to take his seat in the Chamber.
+The case for the volunteers was opened, and this is worthy of note, by
+Baron Ricasoli, aristocrat and conservative. Afterwards Garibaldi got
+up--at first he tried to make out the statistics and particulars which
+he had on paper, but blinded by passion and by fever, he threw down
+his notes and launched into a fierce invective against 'the man who
+had made him a foreigner in his own birthplace and the government
+which was driving the country straight into civil war.' At the words
+'civil war' Cavour sprang to his feet, unwontedly moved, and uttered
+some expressions of protest, which were lost in the general uproar.
+When this was quieted, Garibaldi finished his speech in a moderate
+tone, and then General Bixio rose to make that noble appeal to concord
+which, had he done nothing else for Italy, should be a lasting title
+to her gratitude. 'I am one of those,' he said, 'who believe in the
+sacredness of the thoughts which have guided General Garibaldi, but
+I am also one of those who have faith in the patriotism of Count
+Cavour. In God's holy name let us make an Italy superior to the
+strife of parties.' He might not be making a parliamentary speech,
+he added, but he would give his children and his life to see peace
+established--words flowing so plainly from his honest heart that
+savage indeed would have been the enmity which, for the time, at
+least, was not quelled. Cavour grasped the olive branch at once; all
+his momentary ire vanished. He made excuses for his adversary; from
+the grief which he had felt himself when he advised the King to cede
+Savoy and Nice, he could understand the general's resentment. He had
+always been, he said in general terms, a friend to the volunteers.
+What he did not even remotely suggest was the dissension which existed
+between himself and his military colleague on the subject of the
+Garibaldians. The least hint would have gained for Cavour any amount
+of applause and popularity; but he preferred to bear all the blame
+rather than bring the national army into disfavour. Garibaldi replied
+'that he had never doubted the Count's patriotism;' but at the end of
+the three days' debate he declared himself dissatisfied with the
+Ministerial assurances touching the volunteers in particular and the
+country's armaments as a whole. As Cavour left the Chamber after the
+final night's sitting, he remarked to a friend--all his fine
+equanimity returned: 'And yet, and yet, when the time comes for war, I
+shall take General Garibaldi under my arm and say: "Let's go and see
+what they are about inside Verona!"'
+
+Cialdini tried to stir up the quarrel anew by a letter full of foolish
+personalities; but to this sort of attack Garibaldi was impervious. It
+mattered nothing to him that a man should make rude remarks about his
+wearing a red shirt. He admired the victor of Castelfidardo as one of
+Italy's best soldiers. He was, therefore, perfectly ready to embrace
+Cialdini at the King's request before he left Turin for Caprera. It
+cost him more to consent to an interview of reconciliation with the
+Prime Minister in the royal presence, because his disagreement with
+Cavour was purely political and impersonal, and was rooted more deeply
+in his heart than any private irritation could be; but he did consent,
+and the interview took place on the 23rd of April. Probably Victor
+Emmanuel in after days was never gladder of anything he had done than
+of having caused his two great subjects--both his subjects born--to
+part for the last time in this mortal life in peace.
+
+On one other memorable occasion the man who, at twenty-two, said that
+he meant to be Prime Minister of Italy, and who now, at fifty-one, was
+keeping his word, filled with his presence the Chamber of which he
+seemed to incarnate the life and history--which may be said to have
+been his only home, for Cavour hardly had a private life. Very soon
+the familiar figure was to vacate the accustomed place for ever.
+
+An obscure deputy put a question on the 25th of May, which gave Cavour
+the opportunity of expounding his views about Rome still more
+explicitly than in the previous autumn. It was impossible, he said, to
+conceive Italian unity without Rome as capital. Were there any other
+solution to the problem he would be willing to give it due
+consideration, but there was not. The position of a capital was not
+decided by climatic or topographical reasons: a glance at capitals of
+Europe was sufficient to certify the fact; it was decided by moral
+reasons. Now Rome, alone out of the Italian cities, had an undisputed
+moral claim to primacy. 'As far as I am personally concerned,' he
+said, 'I shall go to Rome with sorrow; not caring for art, I am sure
+that among the most splendid monuments of ancient and modern Rome I
+shall regret the sedate and unpoetic streets of my native town.' It
+grieved him to think that Turin must resign her most cherished
+privilege, but he knew his fellow-citizens, and he knew them to be
+ready to make this last sacrifice to their country. Might Italy not
+forget the cradle of her liberties when her seat of government was
+firmly established in the Eternal City!
+
+He went on to say that he had not lost the hope that France and the
+Head of the Church would yield to the inexorable logic of the
+situation, and that the same generation which had resuscitated Italy
+would accomplish the still grander task of concluding a peace between
+the State and the Church, liberty and religion. These were no formal
+words; Cavour's whole heart was set on their realisation. He did not
+doubt that the knot, if not untied, would be cut by the sword sooner
+or later. He felt as sure as Mazzini felt that this would happen; but
+more than any man of any party he had reckoned the cost of ranging the
+Church with its vast potential powers for good, for order, for public
+morality, among the implacable enemies of the nascent kingdom. And,
+therefore, his last public utterance was a cry for religious peace.
+
+Always an immense worker, in these latter months Cavour had been
+possessed by a feverish activity. 'I must make haste to finish my
+work,' he said; 'I feel that this miserable body of mine is giving way
+beneath the mind and will which still urge it on. Some fine day you
+will see me break down upon the road.' On the 6th of June, after two
+or three days of so-called sudden illness, he broke down upon the
+road.
+
+Fra Giacomo, faithful to his old promise, administered the sacraments
+to the dying minister, who told Farini 'to tell the good people of
+Turin that he died a Christian.' After this his mind rambled, but
+always upon the themes that had so completely absorbed it: Rome,
+Venice, Naples--'no state of siege,' was one of his broken sayings
+that referred to Naples. It was his farewell protest against brute
+force in which he had never believed. 'Cleanse them, cleanse them,' he
+repeated; cleanse the people of the South of their moral contagion;
+that, not force, was the remedy. He was able to recognise the King,
+but unable to collect the ideas which he wished to express to him.
+
+Cavour's death caused a profound sensation in Europe, and in Italy and
+in England awakened great sorrow. Hardly any public man has received
+so splendid a tribute as that rendered to his memory in the British
+Houses of Parliament. The same words were on the lips of all: What
+would Italy do without him? Death is commonly the great reminder that
+no man is necessary. Nations fulfil their destinies even though their
+greatest sons be laid under the turf. And Italy has fulfilled her
+destinies, but there are Italians who believe that had Cavour lived to
+complete his task, although his dream of an Eirenicon might never have
+been realised, their country would not have passed through the _selva
+selvaggia_ of mistakes and humiliations into which she now entered.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+ROME OR DEATH
+
+1861-1864
+
+Cavour's Successors--Aspromonte--The September Convention--Garibaldi's
+Visit to England.
+
+
+There were two possible successors to Cavour, the Tuscan, Bettino
+Ricasoli, and Urban Rattazzi, a Piedmontese barrister. The first
+belonged to the right, the second to the left centre in the
+Parliamentary combinations. Cavour had no very close personal
+relations with either, but he knew their characters. Rattazzi formerly
+held ministerial office under him, and the long Tuscan crisis of 1859,
+looked at, as he looked at it, from the inside, gave him opportunities
+of judging the Iron Baron who opposed even his own will on more than
+one occasion in that great emergency. Ricasoli was rigid, frigid, a
+frequenter of the straightest possible roads; Rattazzi, supple,
+accommodating, with an incorrigible partiality for umbrageous by-ways.
+He was already an 'old parliamentary hand,' and in the future, through
+a series of ministerial lapses, any one of which would have condemned
+most men to seclusion, he preserved his talent for manufacturing
+majorities and holding his party together. Choosing between these two
+candidates, Cavour before he died gave his preference to Ricasoli, who
+was charged by the King with the formation of a ministry in which he
+took the Treasury and the Foreign Office.
+
+Ricasoli was without ambition, and he rather under than over-rated his
+abilities, but he went to work with considerable confidence in his power
+of setting everything right. A perfectly open and honest statesman
+ought to be able, he imagined, to solve the most difficult problems. Why
+not, except that the world is not what it ought to be? In home politics
+he offended the Party of Action by telling them plainly that if they
+broke the law they would have to pay the cost, and he offended his own
+party by refusing to interfere with the right of meeting or any other
+constitutional right of citizens, whether they were followers of Mazzini
+or of anybody else, as long as they kept within legal bounds. He wrote
+an elaborate letter to Pius IX., in which he sought to persuade the
+Pontiff of the sweet reasonableness of renouncing claims which, for a
+very long spell, had cast nothing but discredit on religion. Ricasoli's
+attitude towards the Temporal Power was unique in this century. Like
+Dante's, his hatred of it was religious. He was a Catholic, not because
+he had never thought or studied, but because, having thought and
+studied, he assented, and from this standpoint he ascribed most of the
+wounds of the Church to her subordination of her spiritual mission to
+material interests. He encouraged Padre Passaglia to collect the
+signatures of priests for a petition praying the Pope to cease opposing
+the desires of all Italy; 8943 names were affixed in a short time. The
+only result of these transactions was that Cardinal Antonelli remarked
+to the French Government that the Holy See would never come to terms
+with robbers, and that, although at war with the Turin Cabinet, 'the
+Pope's relations with Italy were excellent.' More harmful to Ricasoli
+than the fulminations of the Vatican was the veiled but determined
+hostility of Napoleon III. Cavour succeeded in more or less keeping the
+Emperor in ignorance of the degree to which their long partnership
+resembled a duel. He made him think that he was leading while he was
+being led. With Ricasoli there could be no such illusions. Napoleon
+understood him to be a man whom he might break, not bend. He thought it
+desirable to break him, and Imperial desires had many channels, at that
+time, towards fulfilment.
+
+The Ricasoli ministry fell in February 1862, and, as a matter of
+course, Rattazzi was called to power. The new premier soon
+ingratiated himself with the King, who found him easier to get on with
+than the Florentine _grand seigneur_; with Garibaldi, whom he
+persuaded that some great step in the national redemption was on the
+eve of accomplishment; with Napoleon, who divined in him an
+instrument. Meanwhile, in his own mind, he proposed to eclipse Cavour,
+out-manoeuvre all parties, and make his name immortal. This remains
+the most probable, as it is the most lenient interpretation to which
+his strange policy is open.
+
+Garibaldi was encouraged to visit the principal towns of North Italy
+in order to institute the _Tiro Nazionale_ or Rifle Association, which
+was said to be meant to form the basis of a permanent volunteer force
+on the English pattern. For many reasons, such a scheme was not likely
+to succeed in Italy, but most people supposed the object to be
+different--namely, the preparation of the youth of the nation for an
+immediate war. The idea was strengthened when it was observed that
+Trescorre, in the province of Bergamo, where Garibaldi stopped to take
+a course of sulphur baths, became the centre of a gathering which
+included the greater part of his old Sicilian staff. There was no
+concealment in what was done, and the Government manifested no alarm.
+The air was full of rumours, and in particular much was said about a
+Garibaldian expedition to Greece, for which, it was stated and
+re-stated, Rattazzi had promised £40,000. That Garibaldi meant to cast
+his lot in any struggle not bearing directly on Italian affairs, as
+long as the questions of Rome and Venice still hung in the balance, is
+not to be believed. A little earlier than this date, President Lincoln
+invited him to take the supreme command of the Federal army in the war
+for the Union, and he declined the offer, attractive though it must
+have been to him, both as a soldier and an abhorrer of slavery,
+because he did not think that Italy could spare him. But the 'Greek
+Expedition,' though a misleading name, was not altogether a blind.
+Before Cavour's death, there had been frequent discussion of a project
+for revolutionising the east of Europe on a grand scale; Hungary and
+the southern provinces of the Austrian Empire were to co-operate with
+the Slavs and other populations under Turkey in a movement which, even
+if only partially successful, would go far to facilitate the
+liberation of Venice. It cannot be doubted that Rattazzi's brain was
+at work on something of this sort, but the mobilisation, so to speak,
+of the Garibaldians suggested proceedings nearer home. Trescorre was
+very far from the sea, very near the Austrian frontier.
+
+In spite of contradictions, a plan for invading the Trentino, or South
+Tyrol, almost certainly did exist. Whether Garibaldi was alone
+answerable for it cannot be determined. The Government became suddenly
+alive to the enormous peril such an attack would involve, and arrested
+several of the Garibaldian officers at Sarnico. They were conveyed to
+Brescia, where a popular attempt was made to liberate them; the troops
+fired on the crowd, and some blood was shed. Garibaldi wrote an
+indignant protest and retired, first to the villa of Signora Cairoli
+at Belgirate, and then to Caprera. He did not, however, remain there
+long.
+
+After this point, the thread of events becomes tangled beyond the hope
+of unravelment. What were the causes which led Garibaldi into the
+desperate venture that ended at Aspromonte? Recollecting his
+hesitation before assuming the leadership of the Sicilian expedition,
+it seemed the more unintelligible that he should now undertake an
+enterprise which, unless he could rely on the complicity of
+Government, had not a single possibility of success. His own old
+comrades were opposed to it, and it was notorious that Mazzini, to
+whom the counsels of despair were generally either rightly or wrongly
+attributed, had nothing to do with inspiring this attempt. In justice
+to Rattazzi, it must be allowed that, after the arrests at Sarnico,
+Garibaldi went into open opposition to the ministry, which he
+denounced as subservient to Napoleon. Nevertheless, with the
+remembrance of past circumstances in his mind, he may have felt
+convinced that the Prime Minister did not mean or that he would not
+dare to oppose him by force. One thing is certain; from beginning to
+end he never contemplated civil war. His disobedience to the King of
+Italy had only one purpose--to give him Rome. He was no more a rebel
+to Victor Emmanuel than when he marched through Sicily in 1860.
+
+The earlier stages of the affair were not calculated to weaken a
+belief in the effective non-intervention of Government. Garibaldi went
+to Palermo, where he arrived in the evening of the 28th of June. The
+young Princes Umberto and Amedeo were on a visit to the Prefect, the
+Marquis Pallavicini, and happened to be that night at the opera. All
+at once they perceived the spectators leave the house in a body, and
+they were left alone; on asking the reason, they heard that Garibaldi
+had just landed--all were gone to greet him! Before the departure of
+the Princes next day, the chief and his future King had an
+affectionate meeting, while the population renewed the scenes of wild
+enthusiasm of two years ago. Some of Garibaldi's intimate friends
+assert that when he reached Palermo he had still no intention of
+taking up arms. He soon began, however, to speak in a warlike tone,
+and at a review of the National Guard in presence of the Prefect, the
+Syndic, and all the authorities, he told the 'People of the Vespers'
+that if another Vespers were wanted to do it, Napoleon III., head of
+the brigands, must be ejected from Rome. The epithet was not bestowed
+at random; Lord Palmerston confirmed it when he said from his place in
+the House of Commons: 'In Rome there is a French garrison; under its
+shelter there exists a committee of 200, whose practice is to organise
+a band of murderers, the scum and dross of every nation, and send them
+into the Neapolitan territory to commit every atrocity!' As a
+criticism the words are not less strong; but the public defiance of
+Napoleon, and the threat with which it was accompanied, dictated one
+plain duty to the Italian Government if they meant to keep the
+peace--the arrest of Garibaldi and his embarkation for Caprera.
+
+This they did not do; confining themselves to the recall of the
+Marquis Pallavicini. Garibaldi went over the ground made glorious by
+his former exploits--past Calatafimi to Marsala. It was at Marsala
+that, while he harangued his followers in a church, a voice in the
+crowd raised a cry of '_Rome or death!_' 'Yes; Rome or death!'
+repeated Garibaldi; and thus the watchword originated which will
+endure written in blood on the Bitter Mount and on the Plain of
+Nomentum. Who raised it first? Perhaps some humble Sicilian fisherman.
+Its haunting music coming he knew not whence, sounding in his ear like
+an omen, was what wedded Garibaldi irrevocably to the undertaking. It
+was the casting interposition of chance, or, shall it be said, of
+Providence? Like all men of his mould, Garibaldi was governed by
+poetry, by romance. Besides the general patriotic sentiment, he had a
+peculiar personal feeling about Rome, 'which for me,' he once wrote,
+'is Italy.' In 1849, the Assembly in its last moments invested him
+with plenary powers for the defence of the Eternal City, and this
+vote, never revoked, imposed on his imagination a permanent mandate.
+'Rome or death' suggested an idea to him which he had never before
+entertained, prodigal though he had been of his person in a hundred
+fights: What if his own death were the one thing needful to
+precipitate the solution of the problem?
+
+From Marsala he returned to Palermo, where, in the broad light of day,
+he summoned the Faithful, who came, as usual, at his bidding, without
+asking why or where?--the happy few who followed him in 1859 and 1860;
+who would follow him in 1867, and even in 1870, when they gave their
+lives for a people that did not thank them, because he willed it so.
+He sent out also a call to the Sicilian _Picciotti_, the _Squadre_ of
+last year; and it is much to their credit that they too who cared
+possibly remarkably little for _Roma Capitale_, obeyed the man who had
+freed them. And Rattazzi knew of all this, and did nothing.
+
+On the 1st of August, Garibaldi took command of 3000 volunteers in the
+woods of Ficuzza. Then, indeed, the Government wasted much paper on
+proclamations, and closed the door of the stable when the horse was
+gone. General Cugia was sent to Palermo to repress the movement.
+Nevertheless Garibaldi, with his constantly increasing band, made a
+triumphant progress across the island, and a more than royal entry
+into Catania. At Mezzojuso he was present at a _Te Deum_ chanted in
+his honour. On the 22nd, when the royal troops were, it seems, really
+ordered to march on Catania, Garibaldi took possession of a couple of
+merchant vessels that had just reached the port, and sailed away by
+night for the Calabrian coast with about 1000 of his men.
+
+By this time the Italian Government, whether by spontaneous conviction
+or by pressure from without, had resolved that the band should never
+get as far as the Papal frontier. If Garibaldi knew or realised their
+resolution, it is a mystery why he did not attempt to effect a landing
+nearer that frontier, if not actually within it. The deserted shore of
+the Pontine marshes would, one would think, have offered attractions
+to men who were as little afraid of fever as of bullets. A sort of
+superstition may have ruled the choice of the path, which was that
+which led to victory in 1860. It was not practicable, however, to
+follow it exactly. The tactics were different. Then the desire was to
+meet the enemy anywhere and everywhere; now the pursuer had to be
+eluded, because Garibaldi was determined not to fight him. Thus,
+instead of marching straight on Reggio, the volunteers sought
+concealment in the great mountain mass which forms the southernmost
+bulwark of the Apennines. The dense and trackless forests could have
+given cover for a long while to a native brigand troop, with intimate
+knowledge of the country and ways and means of obtaining
+provisions--not to a band like this of Garibaldi. They wandered about
+for three days, suffering from almost total want of food, and from the
+great fatigue of climbing the dried-up watercourses which serve as
+paths. On the 28th of August they reached the heights of Aspromonte--a
+strong position, from which only a large force could have dislodged
+them had they defended it.
+
+General La Marmora, then Prefect of Naples, and commander-in-chief of
+the army in the south, reinforced the troops in Calabria to prevent
+Garibaldi's advance, but the direction of the decisive operation fell
+by accident to Cialdini, whom the Government despatched to Sicily
+when they tardily made up their minds to take energetic measures. On
+his voyage to Messina, Cialdini heard that the volunteers had already
+crossed the Straits; he therefore changed his course, and hastening to
+Reggio, invested himself with the command on the mainland. At Reggio
+he met Colonel Pallavicini, whom he ordered in terms that might have
+been more suitable had he been engaged in hunting brigands, 'to crush
+Garibaldi completely, and only accept from him unconditional
+surrender.' Pallavicini started with six or seven battalions of
+Bersaglieri. It was the 29th of August. Garibaldi saw them coming when
+they were still three miles off. He could have dispersed his men in
+the forest and himself escaped, for the time, and perhaps altogether,
+for the sea which had so often befriended him was not far off. But
+although he did not mean to resist, a dogged instinct drove away the
+thought of flight. In the official account it was stated that an
+officer was sent in advance of the royal troops to demand surrender.
+No such officer was seen in the Garibaldian encampment till after the
+attack. The troops rapidly ascended an eminence, facing that on which
+the Garibaldians were posted, and opened a violent fusillade, which,
+to Garibaldi's dismay, was returned for a few minutes by his right,
+consisting of young Sicilians who were not sufficiently disciplined to
+stand being made targets of without replying. The contention, however,
+that they were the first to fire, has the testimony of every
+eye-witness on the side of the volunteers against it. All the
+Garibaldian bugles sounded 'Cease firing,' and Garibaldi walked down
+in front of the ranks conjuring the men to obey. While he was thus
+employed, a spent ball struck his thigh, and a bullet entered his
+right foot. At first he remained standing, and repeated, 'Do not
+fire,' but he was obliged to sit down, and some of his officers
+carried him under a tree. The whole 'feat of arms,' as General
+Cialdini described it, did not last more than a quarter of an hour.
+
+Pallavicini approached the wounded hero bareheaded, and said that he
+made his acquaintance on the most unfortunate day of his own life. He
+was received with nothing but kind praise for doing his duty. The
+first night was passed by the prisoner in a shepherd's hut. The few
+devoted followers who were with him were strangely impressed by that
+midnight watch; the moon shining on the forest, the shepherds' dogs
+howling in the mountain silence, and their chief lying wounded, it
+might be to death, in the name of the King to whom he had given this
+land.
+
+Next day, in a litter sheltered from the sun with branches of wild
+laurel, Garibaldi was carried down the steep rocks to Scilla, whence
+he was conveyed by sea to the fort of Varignano. It was not till after
+months of acute suffering, borne with a gentleness that made the
+doctors say: 'This man is not a soldier, but a saint,' that, through
+the skill of the French surgeon, Nélaton, the position of the ball was
+determined, and its extraction rendered possible.
+
+A general amnesty issued on the occasion of the marriage of the King's
+second daughter with the King of Portugal relieved the Government of
+having to decide whether Garibaldi was to be tried, and if so, what
+for; but the unpopularity into which the ministry had fallen could not
+be so easily dissipated. The Minister of Foreign Affairs (Durando)
+published a note in which it was stated that Garibaldi had only
+attempted to realise, in an irregular way, the desire of the whole
+nation, and that, although he had been checked, the tension of the
+situation was such that it could not be indefinitely prolonged. This
+was true, but it hardly improved the case for the Government. In Latin
+countries, ministers do not cling to power; as soon as the wind blows
+against them, they resign to give the public time to forget their
+faults, and to become dissatisfied with their political rivals.
+Usually a very short time is required. Therefore, forestalling a vote
+of censure in the Chambers, where he had never yet had a real
+majority, Rattazzi resigned office with a parting homily in which he
+claimed to have saved the national institutions.
+
+The administration which followed contained the well-known names of
+Farini, Minghetti, Pasolini, Peruzzi, Delia Rovere, Menabrea. When
+Farini's fatal illness set in, Minghetti replaced him as Prime
+Minister, and Visconti Venosta took the Foreign Office. They found the
+country in a lamentable state, embittered by Aspromonte, still
+infected with brigandage, and suffering from an increasing deficit,
+coupled with a diminishing revenue. The administrative and financial
+unification of Italy, still far from complete, presented the gravest
+difficulties. The political aspect of affairs, and especially the
+presence of the French in Rome, provoked a general sense of
+instability which was contrary to the organisation of the new state
+and the development of its resources. The ministers sought remedies or
+palliatives for these several evils, and to meet the last they opened
+negotiations with France, which resulted in the compromise known as
+the September Convention. It was long before the treaty was concluded,
+as for more than a year the French Government refused to remove the
+garrison on any terms; but in the autumn of 1864 the following
+arrangement was signed by both parties: that Italy should protect the
+Papal frontier from all attack from the outside; that France should
+gradually withdraw her troops, the complete evacuation to take place
+within two years; that Italy should waive the right of protest against
+the internal organisation of the Papal army unless its proportions
+became such as to be a manifest threat to the Italian kingdom; that
+the Italian capital should be moved to Florence within six months of
+the approval of the Convention by Parliament.
+
+These terms were in part the same as those proposed by Prince Napoleon
+to Cavour shortly before the death of that statesman, who had promised
+to support them as a temporary makeshift, and in order to get the
+French out of Italy. But they were in part different, and they
+contained two new provisions which it is morally certain that Cavour
+would never have agreed to--the prolongation of the French occupation
+for two years (Cavour had insisted that it should cease in a
+fortnight), and the transfer of the capital, which was now made a
+_sine quâ non_ by Napoleon, for evident reasons. While it was clear
+that Turin could not be the permanent capital of a kingdom that
+stretched to Ætna, if once the seat of government were removed to
+Florence a thousand arguments and interests would spring up in favour
+of keeping it there. So, at least, it was sure to seem to a foreigner.
+As a matter of fact, the solution was no solution; the Italians could
+not be reconciled to the loss of Rome either by the beauty and
+historic splendour of the city on the Arno, or by its immunity from
+malaria, which was then feared as a serious drawback, though Rome has
+become, under its present rulers, the healthiest capital in Europe.
+But Napoleon thought that he was playing a trump card when he dictated
+the sacrifice of Turin.
+
+The patriotic Turinese were unprepared for the blow. They had been
+told again and again that till the seat of government was established
+on the Tiber, it should abide under the shadow of the Alps--white
+guardian angels of Italy--in the custody of the hardy population which
+had shown itself so well worthy of the trust. The ministry foresaw the
+effect which the convention would have on the minds of the Turinese,
+and they resorted to the weak subterfuge of keeping its terms secret
+as long as they could. Rumours, however, leaked out, and these, as
+usual, exaggerated the evil. It was said that Rome was categorically
+abandoned. On the 20th of September crowds began to fill the streets,
+crying: 'Rome or Turin!' and on the two following days there were
+encounters between the populace and the military, in which the latter
+resorted to unnecessary and almost provocative violence. Amidst the
+chorus of censure aroused by these events, the Minghetti cabinet
+resigned, and General La Marmora, who, as a Piedmontese, was fitted to
+soothe the excited feelings of his fellow-citizens, was called upon to
+form a ministry.
+
+The change of capital received the sanction of Parliament on the 19th
+of November. Outside Piedmont it was not unpopular; people felt that,
+after all, it rested with themselves to make Florence no final
+halting-place, but a step towards Rome. The Papal Government, which
+had been a stranger to the late negotiations, expressed a supreme
+indifference to the whole affair, even to the contemplated departure
+of the French troops, 'which concerned the Imperial Government, not
+the Pope,' said Cardinal Antonelli, 'since the occupation had been
+determined by French interests.' It cannot be asserted that the Pope
+ever assumed a gratitude which he did not feel towards the monarch who
+kept him on his throne for twenty years.
+
+This year, 1864, was marked by an incident which, though not a
+political event, should never be forgotten in the history of Italian
+liberation--Garibaldi's visit to England. He came, the prisoner of
+Aspromonte, not the conqueror of Sicily: a distinction that might have
+made a difference elsewhere, but the English sometimes worship
+misfortune as other peoples worship success. No sovereign from oversea
+was ever received by them as they received the Italian hero; a
+reception showing the sympathies of a century rather than the caprice
+or curiosity of an hour. Half a million throats shouted London's
+welcome; the soldier of two worlds knew the roar of battle, and the
+roar of the sea was familiar to the Nizzard sailor, but it is said
+that when Garibaldi heard the stupendous and almost awful British roar
+which greeted him as he came out of the Nine Elms station, and took
+his seat in the carriage that was to convey him to Stafford House, he
+looked completely disconcerted. From the heir to the throne to the
+crossing-sweeper, all combined to do him honour; where Garibaldi was
+not, through the breadth of the land the very poor bought his portrait
+and pasted it on their whitewashed cottage walls. London made him its
+citizen. The greatest living English poet invited him to plant a tree
+in his garden: a memory he recalled nearly at the close of his own
+honoured life:--
+
+  Or watch the waving pine which here
+    The warrior of Caprera set,
+    A name that earth shall not forget
+  Till earth has rolled her latest year.
+
+Garibaldi showed himself mindful of old friends; at the opera he
+recognised Admiral Mundy in a box, and immediately rose and went to
+offer him his respects. At Portsmouth, he not only went to see the
+mother of Signora White-Mario (the providence of his wounded in many a
+campaign), but also paid an unrecorded visit to two maiden sisters in
+humble circumstances, who had shown him kindness when he was an exile
+in England; they related ever afterwards the sensation caused by his
+appearance in their narrow courtyard, where it was difficult to turn
+the big carriage which the authorities had placed at his disposal. He
+twice met the great Italian whom he addressed as Master: transferring,
+as it were, to Mazzini's brows the crown of glory that surrounded his
+own. Another exile, Louis Blanc, used to tell how, when he went to
+call on Garibaldi, he found him seated on a sofa, receiving the homage
+of the fairest and most illustrious members of the English
+aristocracy; when the Friend of the People was announced (a title
+deserved by Louis Blanc, if not for his possibly fallacious theories,
+still for the rare sincerity of his life), the hero started to his
+feet and most earnestly begged him to sit beside him. 'Which I could
+not do!' the narrator of the scene would add with a look of comical
+alarm for his threatened modesty.
+
+These friendly passages with the proscripts in London, as well as the
+stirring appeal spoken by Garibaldi on behalf of the Poles, did not
+please foreign Powers. The Austrian ambassador shut himself up in his
+house; it was remarked that the only members of the diplomatic body
+who were seen at the Garibaldi _fêtes_ were the representatives of the
+United States and of the Sublime Porte. The Emperor Napoleon was said
+to be angry. Lord Palmerston assured the House of Commons that no
+remonstrance had been received from France or from any foreign
+government, and that if it had been received, it would not have been
+heeded. Yet the English Government took the course of hinting to the
+guest of England that his visit had lasted long enough. In some
+quarters it was reported that they feared disturbances among the Irish
+operatives in the manufacturing towns, had he gone, as he intended,
+to the north. Whatever were the motives that inspired it, their action
+in the matter cannot be remembered with complacency, but it was
+powerless to undo the significance of the great current of enthusiasm
+which had passed through the English land.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE WAR FOR VENICE
+
+1864-1866
+
+The Prussian Alliance--Custoza--Lissa--The Volunteers--Acquisition of
+Venetia.
+
+
+The change of capital was carried out in 1865, and the lull which
+followed gave an appearance of correctness to the surmise that if the
+September Convention had not solved the Roman question, it had,
+anyhow, reduced it to a state of quiescence. But there were other
+reasons why Rome was kept, for the moment, not indeed out of mind, but
+out of sight. The opinion grew that the emancipation of Venice, too
+long delayed, ought to take precedence of every other political
+object. On this point there was no disagreement among the 22,000,000
+free Italians, who felt the servitude of Venice to be an hourly
+disgrace and reproach; no one even ventured to preach patience. A
+curious chapter might be written on the schemes woven between the
+Peace of Villafranca and the year 1866, for the realisation of the
+unfulfilled promise of freedom from Alps to sea. Foremost among the
+schemers was Victor Emmanuel, and if some persons may be shocked by
+the idea of a royal conspirator, more will admire the patriotism which
+made the King hold out his hand to Mazzini, whose sentiments about
+monarchy, and especially about the Savoy dynasty, were a secret to no
+one, least of all to him. But as Mazzini placed those sentiments on
+second rank to the grand end of Italian unity, so the King, to serve
+the same end, showed himself superior to prejudices which in most men
+would have proved insuperable. The fact that Victor Emmanuel opened
+negotiations with Mazzini, and maintained them, off and on, for years,
+proves amongst other things, that he knew the exiled patriot better
+than the world yet knew him. He may have understood that by turning
+republican sympathies into the groove of unity (not their necessary or
+even their most natural groove), Mazzini made an Italian kingdom
+possible. There is reason to think that the King's ministers were
+kept entirely ignorant of his correspondence with the Agitator. The
+letters were impersonal drafts carried to and fro by means of trusted
+emissaries; each party freely expounded his views, and stated the
+terms on which his support could be given. Victor Emmanuel's favourite
+idea was a revolution in Galicia. When Garibaldi returned from England
+he was nearly commissioned to start for Constantinople, whence he was
+to lead an expedition through Roumania into Galicia. It seems to have
+been due to Garibaldi's own good sense that so extremely unpromising a
+project was abandoned. General Klapka was another of Victor Emmanuel's
+secret revolutionary correspondents. The very wildness of the plans
+that floated in the air betokened the feverish anxiety to do something
+which had taken hold of all minds.
+
+In 1865 a scheme of a different sort, and of momentous consequences,
+grew into shape. It was a scheme of which Cavour first guessed the
+possibility, as well as the far-reaching results. In August 1865 Count
+Bismarck asked General La Marmora whether Italy would join Prussia in
+the contingency of a war with Austria? Only a year before he was still
+thinking of carrying out his policy with the aid of Austria, and he
+had offered to help her to wrench Lombardy from Italy (and from France
+if she intervened), in payment for her consent to his designs. But
+now, though the Austrians did not even remotely suspect it, his
+thoughts were resolutely turned to the Italian alliance. Without this
+alliance Italy might, indeed, have acquired Venice, but would the
+German Empire have been founded?
+
+For a time the proposal was suspended, owing to the temporary
+understanding concluded between Prussia and Austria at Gastein; and
+in the interim, General La Marmora urged the Viennese Government to
+cede Venetia in return for a compensation of five hundred million
+francs. But those whom the gods would destroy they make mad. Austria
+preserved her infatuated sense of security almost till the rude
+awakening caused by the rifle-shots that ushered in the campaign of
+Sadowa.
+
+One thing which contributed to keeping Europe in the dark as to the
+impending cataclysm was the character and known tendencies of King
+William I. of Prussia, whose conservative, not to say retrograde
+sentiments made it difficult to picture him at the head of what was
+really a great revolutionary movement, in spite of the militarism that
+surrounded it. With consummate art, Count Bismarck little by little
+concentrated all his master's ideas about royal divinity in general
+into one overwhelming belief in his own divine right to be German
+Emperor, and so transformed an obstacle into the corner-stone of the
+edifice he wished to build. But this could hardly be foreseen. At the
+New Year's Day reception of 1866, Napoleon announced an era of
+universal peace; henceforth all nations were to arrange their
+differences amicably, as had been done at Gastein If the illusion was
+complete, it was destined to be of short duration.
+
+In the spring the Prussian proposal to Italy was formally renewed, and
+this time it was accepted. The secret treaty of an offensive and
+defensive alliance for three months was signed on the 8th of April.
+Less than three weeks later, Austria, which was slowly beginning to
+feel some uneasiness, proposed to Napoleon the cession of Venetia,
+while exacting from Italy only a simple promise of neutrality in case
+of war. General La Marmora held the honour of the country and his own
+to compel fidelity to the prior arrangement with Prussia, and he
+refused the tempting offer. His choice has been variously
+characterised as one of common honesty and of uncommon magnanimity; at
+all events, it was of incalculable advantage to Prussia, which already
+gave signs of not being a particularly delicate-minded ally. When La
+Marmora asked Bismarck whether, in case Austria took the initiative of
+attacking Italy, Prussia would intervene, the answer was 'No.'
+
+The three countries now pushed on their war preparations: Austria with
+less ardour than the others, as she still failed to more than faintly
+realise her danger. The Italian army, which the opening of the year
+found in a deplorably unserviceable condition, was rapidly placed on a
+war-footing, and, considering the shortness of the time allowed for
+the work, and the secrecy with which, at the outset, it had to be
+conducted, it is generally agreed that La Marmora produced surprising
+results. As was natural in an army which, except for the old
+Piedmontese nucleus, might almost be called improvised, the weakest
+points were the cavalry and the artillery. The infantry was good; not
+only the picked corps of Bersaglieri, but also the line regiments were
+equal to any troops likely to be opposed to them. No one can see the
+fine appearance of a line regiment marching down the streets of an
+Italian town without receiving the impression that, however much the
+other branches of the service may have improved since the Sixties, the
+fondest hopes of Italy in case of war still lie in that common soldier
+who best supported the rigours of the Russian snows.
+
+Unfortunately, the attention paid to the army was not extended to the
+fleet, which continued totally unready; nor was the organisation of
+the volunteers carried out in an efficient manner. The excuse
+afterwards advanced was that not more than 15,000 enrolments were
+expected, while the actual figure reached 35,000. Besides being from
+its very bulk less manageable than the 'few and good' of 1859, this
+mass of men was ill-provided with officers who could inspire and keep
+discipline. Garibaldi's own generals, Bixio, Medici, Cosenz and
+Sirtori, were now all in the regular army, and therefore not free to
+join him. He begged for the loan of a few regular officers, indicating
+amongst other names that of Colonel Pallavicini, who commanded against
+him at Aspromonte: a trait characteristic of the man. But this
+assistance, though promised, was not granted, and the same was the
+case with the guns which were vainly asked for. Without charging La
+Marmora with a deliberate intention of neglecting the volunteers, it
+must be owned that under the influence of the prejudice which holds
+irregular troops in small esteem, he did not do for them what ought to
+have been done if their services were accepted at all.
+
+The Austrian Southern Army, excellent in discipline and equipment
+though weak in numbers, was commanded up to the outbreak of the war by
+Field-Marshal Benedek, but he was called to Vienna to take command of
+the unfortunate army of operation against Prussia, and was succeeded
+in Italy by the Archduke Albrecht, with General Von John, an officer
+of the first capacity, as chief of the staff.
+
+The numerical strength of the forces which could be put in the field
+has been stated with startling divergence by different military
+writers on the war, but every calculation gives the Italian side
+(exclusive of the volunteers) a superiority of not less than two to
+one. The Austrian mobilised army has been reckoned at as low a figure
+as 63,000, certainly an understatement, as it appears that the
+Archduke mustered not less than 70,000 at the battle of Custoza. That
+he mustered on that day every man he could produce is probably a fact.
+Had the Italian generals followed the same rule, however enormous
+their other errors might have been, they would have won. Of all
+conceivable faults in a military commander that which is the least
+pardonable is the neglect to crush his antagonist by force of superior
+numbers when he has them at his disposal. How many great military
+reputations have been built up, and justly built up, on the care never
+to meet an enemy without the odds being largely in your favour!
+
+For obvious political reasons the King of Italy assumed the supreme
+command of the army, with General La Marmora as chief of the staff.
+Cialdini had been offered the latter post, but he declined it,
+objecting, it is said, to the arrangement by which the real head of
+the army has no guarantee against the possible interference of its
+nominal head. When La Marmora went to the front, Baron Ricasoli took
+his place as Prime Minister; Visconti-Venosta became Minister of
+Foreign Affairs; and the Ministry of the Marine was offered to
+Quintino Sella, who refused it on the ground that he knew nothing of
+naval matters. It was then offered to and accepted by a man who knew
+still less, because he did not even know his own ignorance, Agostino
+Depretis, a Piedmontese advocate.
+
+Before the commencement of hostilities a secret treaty was concluded
+between Napoleon III. and the Austrian Government, according to which
+Venetia was to be ceded to the Emperor for Italy, even if Austrian
+arms were victorious both on the Mincio and on the Maine. Napoleon's
+real purpose in this singular transaction is not perfectly clear; but
+he was probably acting under a semi-romantic desire to have the
+appearance of completing his programme of freeing Italy from the Alps
+to the Adriatic which had been interrupted at Villafranca. In spite of
+his enmity towards Italian unity, there is no reason to doubt that he
+was in very few things as sincere as in the wish to see the Austrians
+out of Italy. His reckonings at this time were all founded on the
+assumption that Prussia would be defeated; he even seems to have had
+some hopes of getting the Rhine bank in return for his good offices on
+behalf of that Power with triumphant Austria. Be this as it may, he
+inspired the Italian Government (or rather La Marmora, for there were
+then two Italian Governments, and the real one was on the Mincio) with
+his own expectation of Prussian disasters, and it is possible that
+this expectation had a material and unfavourable influence on the
+manner of conducting the war in Italy.
+
+Through the Prussian Minister at Florence, General La Marmora received
+the draft of a plan of campaign which is known to have been prepared
+by Count Moltke; in it the great feature was a descent on the
+Dalmatian coast. From an independent quarter he received another plan
+in which a descent on the east coast of the Adriatic was contemplated,
+the main difference being that Istria, instead of Dalmatia, was
+proposed for the landing-point. This second plan was modestly
+submitted to him by Garibaldi, who was thus in substantial accord with
+the Prussian strategist. The prospect which either of these plans
+opened was one of great fascination. What Italian can look across the
+sea to where the sun rises and forget that along that horizon lies a
+land colonised by Rome and guarded for four hundred years by Venice?
+
+Istria was marked out by Dante as the frontier province of Italy:
+
+  Si come a Pola presso del Quarnero
+  Che Italia chiude e i suoi termini bagna.
+
+It forms, with the Trentino, what is called _Italia Irredenta_.
+Although the feeling of Italians for unredeemed Italy is not what
+their feeling was for Lombardy or Venetia, it is a mistake to imagine
+that they have renounced all aspirations in that direction. Only
+fanatics of the worst kind would be disposed to attempt, in the
+present situation, to win those provinces by force, but that has
+nothing to do with the matter. The aspiration exists and cannot help
+existing. It has always been shared by patriots of all denominations.
+An English statesman who called on Pius IX. was somewhat surprised by
+the Pope saying that Italian unity was very well, but it was a pity it
+did not include Trento and Trieste.
+
+The case of Dalmatia is different; there the mass of the population is
+unquestionably of a non-Italian race, though that race is one which,
+whenever left to itself, seems created to amalgamate with the Italian.
+Slav and Teuton are racially antagonistic, but the Slav falls into
+Italian ways, speaks the Italian language and mixes his blood with
+Italian blood: with what results Venice can tell. For more than two
+thousand years the civilisation of Dalmatia has been exclusively
+Latin; the Roman column points to the Venetian Campanile; all the
+proudest memories are gathered round the Lion of St Mark, which in
+every town, almost in every village, recalls the splendid though not
+blameless suzerainty of the Serene Republic. The sky, the
+olive-groves, the wild pomegranates make us think of Salerno; by the
+spoken tongue we are often reminded of Tuscany, for few Italian
+dialects are so pure. The political subjection of the country to Italy
+dates from Augustus; its political subjection to Austria dates from
+Napoleon. Dalmatia, with the glorious little commonwealth of Ragusa,
+and the free city of Cattaro, was bartered away with Venice at Campo
+Formio; and as with Venice, so with Dalmatia, the Holy Alliance
+violated its own principle of restoring the proe-Napoleonic state of
+things and confirmed the sale.
+
+At the beginning of the war, Austria did not ignore that her loss of
+territory might exceed Venetia. The Archduke Albrecht, in his
+proclamation to his soldiers, appealed to them to protect their
+mothers, wives and sisters from being ruled by a foreign race.
+
+Even a successful raid upon Dalmatia or Istria need not have given
+those districts to Italy, but it would have brought such an event
+within the range of a moderately strong political telescope. The Slavs
+(erected since into a party hostile to their Italian fellow-citizens
+by a fostering of Panslavism which may not, in the long run, prove
+sound policy for Austria) were then ready to make friends with anyone
+opposed to their actual rulers. They would not have been easy to
+govern after an Italian invasion; still less easy to govern would the
+Latin element have been, which was and is _Italianissimo_. Since
+Prussia became the German Empire, she has set her face against Italian
+extension eastward, but in 1866, had her advice been intelligently
+acted upon, it might have generated facts the logic of which none
+would have had the power to stay.
+
+Moltke's plan more than hinted at a march on Vienna by the Semmering,
+and this is what is supposed to have induced La Marmora to treat it with
+scorn. With the bogey of Prussia vanquished before his eyes, he
+doubtless asked what the Italians would do at Vienna if they got there?
+He put the plan in his pocket, and showed it neither to his staff nor to
+the King, who would certainly have been attracted by it, as he had set
+his heart on the volunteers, at least, crossing the Adriatic. With
+regard to the campaign at home, both Moltke and Garibaldi counselled
+turning the Quadrilateral in preference to a direct attack upon
+fortresses which had been proved impregnable except with the assistance
+of hunger, and at present they were better provisioned than in 1848. The
+turning of the Quadrilateral meant the adoption of a route into Venetia
+across the Po below Mantua. An objection not without gravity to that
+route was the unfavourable nature of the ground which, being marshy, is
+liable after heavy rains to become impassable. But against this
+disadvantage had to be weighed the advantage of keeping out of the
+mouse-trap, the fatality of which needed no new demonstration.
+
+In Italy it is common to hear it said that it was necessary to station
+a large army on the Mincio to bar the Archduke's path to Milan. But
+apart from the rumoured existence of a promise to the French Emperor
+not to invade Lombardy, it was unlikely that so good a general as the
+Archduke would have taken his small army far from the security it
+enjoyed among the four fortresses which, if the worst came to the
+worst, assured him a safe line of retreat.
+
+The plan adopted by La Marmora is vaguely said to have been that which
+was prepared by the French and Sardinian staffs for use in 1859, had
+the war been continued. But in what it really consisted is not to this
+day placed beyond dispute. The army, roughly speaking, was divided
+into halves; one (the larger) half under the King and La Marmora was
+to operate on the Mincio; the other, under Cialdini, was to operate on
+the lower Po. It is supposed that one of these portions was intended
+to act as a blind to deceive the enemy as to the movements of the
+other portion; the undecided question is, which was meant to be the
+principal and which the accessory?
+
+The volunteers were thrown against the precipices of the Tridentine
+mountains, where a detachment of the regular army, well-armed and
+properly supplied with artillery, would have been better suited for
+the work. The Garibaldian headquarters was at Salò on the Lake of
+Garda. Less than half of the 35,000 volunteers who appear upon paper,
+were ever ready to be sent to the front. It was widely said that only
+patriotism prevented Garibaldi from throwing up his command, so
+dissatisfied was he with the conduct of affairs.
+
+Prussia invaded Hanover and Saxony on the 16th of June, and declared
+war with Austria on the 21st, one day after the Italian declaration of
+war had been delivered to the Archduke Albrecht. On the 23rd La
+Marmora's army began to cross the Mincio. It consisted of three _corps
+d'armée_ under the command of Generals Durando, Cucchiari and Delia
+Rocca, each corps containing four divisions. The force under Cialdini
+was composed of eight divisions forming one _corps d'armée._ An
+Italian military writer rates the numbers at 133,000 and 82,000
+respectively. La Marmora acquired the belief that the Archduke's
+attention was absorbed by Cialdini's movements on the Po, and that his
+own operations on the Mincio would pass unobserved.
+
+While the Italian commander had no information of what was going on in
+the enemy's camp, the Archduke's intelligence department was so
+efficient that he knew quite well the disposition of both Italian
+armies. Cialdini's advance, if he meant to advance, was checked by
+floods. On the night of the 23rd most of La Marmora's force bivouacked
+on the left (Venetian) bank of the Mincio. No reconnaissances were made;
+everyone supposed that the Austrians were still beyond the Adige, and
+that they intended to stay there. The King slept at Goito.
+
+Before the early dawn next morning the whole Italian army of the
+Mincio had orders to advance. The soldiers marched with heavy
+knapsacks and empty stomachs, and with no more precautions than in
+time of peace. The Austrian Archduke was in the saddle at four a.m.,
+and watched from an eminence the moving clouds of dust which announced
+the approach of his unsuspecting foe.
+
+La Marmora's intention had been to occupy the heights of Santa
+Giustina, Sona and Somma Campagna, but the Archduke anticipated his
+design, and while the Italians were moving from the Mincio, the
+Austrians were ranging themselves in those positions. At half-past
+five on the midsummer Sunday morning, the Austrian advance guard led
+by Colonel Pulz came up with Prince Humbert's division near
+Villafranca. The battle began dramatically, with a charge of the
+splendid Polish and Hungarian Hussars, who dashed their horses against
+the Italian squares, in one of which, opportunely formed for his
+shelter, was the gallant heir to the throne. Bixio's division was also
+engaged in this prelude, which augured not ill for the Italians, since
+at about eight o'clock Pulz received the Archduke's orders to retire.
+
+The first hours of the battle were spent in fortuitous encounters
+along the extensive chain of hillocks which La Marmora had intended to
+occupy. As the Italians approached each position they found it in the
+possession of a strong force of the enemy. On the right, however,
+Custoza and the heights between it and Somma Campagna had not been
+occupied by the Austrians. Here La Marmora placed the flower of his
+army, the Sardinian and Lombard Grenadiers, the latter commanded by
+Prince Amedeo. The fighting continued through the day over very
+widely distributed ground, but from about nine in the morning the
+supreme interest was concentrated at and near Custoza, in which the
+Archduke promptly detected the turning-point of the battle. To wrest
+Custoza from the hold of the Italians was to the Austrians on the 24th
+of June 1866, what the taking of the crest of Solferino had been to
+the French on the 24th of June 1859. La Marmora in person led the
+Grenadiers into action; they proved worthy of their reputation, but
+after losing a great many men, Prince Amedeo being among the wounded,
+they were obliged to retreat. At about midday, however, the Italian
+prospects improved so much that in the opinion of Austrian military
+writers, with moderate reinforcements they would have had a strong
+probability of winning the battle. La Marmora saw the importance of
+getting fresh troops into the field, but, instead of sending for the
+divisions under Bixio and Prince Humbert, which since eight a.m. had
+been fretting in inaction close by, at Villafranca, he rode himself to
+Goito, a great distance away, to look after the reserves belonging to
+the 2nd _corps d'armée_; a task which any staff officer could have
+performed as well. This inexplicable proceeding left the army without
+a commander-in-chief. The generals of division followed their
+individual inspirations, Govone, Pianel and Cugia especially
+distinguishing themselves: it is sad to think that death has removed
+these three officers from the Italian ranks. But the Austrians fatally
+gained ground, and as the afternoon closed in the Archduke began to
+feel sure that the Italian reinforcements whose arrival he had so much
+feared, were never coming. He therefore prepared for the final effort
+which was to give him the well-deserved honours of the day. Towards
+seven o'clock in the evening, his soldiers succeeded in storming the
+heights of Custoza, and Austria could write a second battle of that
+name among her victories.
+
+The Italians lost 720 killed, 3112 wounded and 3608 prisoners. The
+Austrian loss was 960 killed, 3690 wounded and 1000 prisoners. Both
+sides were much tried by the scorching midsummer sun, but the Italians
+laboured under the additional drawback of having to fight fasting. In
+his report, the Archduke Albrecht mentioned that the prisoners said
+they had not tasted food for twenty-four hours. In the same report, he
+did ample justice to the courage of the Italian soldiers.
+
+As has been stated, the Archduke fought Custoza with not less,
+probably with rather more, than 70,000 men. The force which La Marmora
+placed in the field was actually inferior in number. The divisions of
+Bixio and Prince Humbert were kept doing nothing all day at a stone's
+throw from the scene of action. Of the whole 2nd _corps d'armée_ only
+a trifling detachment ever reached the ground. Inexplicably little use
+was made of the Italian cavalry.
+
+This bungling had lost the battle, but the fact that on the morrow,
+six divisions of the army of the Mincio were practically fresh, might
+have suggested to a general of enterprise to try again, since it was
+known that the Archduke had not a single new man to fall back on. And
+there was Cialdini on the Po with his eight divisions that had not
+been engaged at all. But, instead of adopting a spirited course, the
+Italian authorities gave way to unreasoning panic. It appears,
+unfortunately, that the King was the first to be overcome by this
+moral vertigo. The long and fiercely discussed question of who
+telegraphed to Cialdini: 'Irreparable disaster; cover the capital,'
+seems to have been settled since that general's death in 1892. It is
+now alleged that the telegram, the authorship of which was disowned by
+La Marmora, was signed by the King's adjutant, Count Verasio di
+Castiglione. Cialdini obeyed the order and fell back on Modena.
+Whether he was bound to obey an almost anonymous communication signed
+by an irresponsible officer is a moot point; it is reported that he
+repented having done so to the last day of his life.
+
+A great event now happened across the Alps; one of the decisive
+battles of the world was lost and won on the 5th of July at Sadowa
+near Königgrätz in Bohemia. The fate of Europe was shaped on that day
+for decades, if not for centuries. Of the immediate results, the first
+was the scattering to the wind of all calculations based upon a long
+continuance of the war, the issue of which, as far as Prussia was
+concerned, could not be regarded as doubtful. In respect to Italy,
+Austria's first thought was to prevent her from taking a revenge for
+Custoza. She attempted to compass this by ceding Venetia to Napoleon
+two days after Sadowa. It was making a virtue of necessity, as she was
+bound in any case to cede it at the conclusion of the war; but as the
+secret of the treaty had been well kept, the step caused great
+surprise, and in Italy, where the public mind had leapt from profound
+discouragement to buoyant hope, the impression was one of
+embarrassment and mortification. Italy was distinctly precluded by her
+engagement with Prussia from accepting Napoleon's invitation to
+conclude a separate peace. Meanwhile, Austria gained by the move, as
+it set her at liberty to recall the larger part of her troops from
+Venetia for the defence of Vienna. Her honour did not require her to
+contest the ground in a province which she had already given away.
+When Cialdini, at the head of the reorganised Italian army of which he
+now held the chief command, advanced across the Po to Padua, he found
+the path practically open.
+
+It was still possible for Italy to accomplish two things which would
+have in a great measure retrieved her _prestige_. The first was to
+occupy the Trentino; the second was to destroy the Austrian fleet.
+With the means at her disposal she ought to have been able to do both.
+
+In the earlier phases of Italian liberation, no one disputed that if
+Lombardy and Venetia were lost to the Empire the Tridentine province,
+wedged in as it is between them, would follow suit. When, in 1848,
+Lord Palmerston offered his services as mediator between Austria and
+revolted Italy, it was on a minimum basis of a frontier north of
+Trento. The arguments for the retention of Trieste--that Austria had
+made it what it was; that Germany needed it as a seaport, etc.--were
+inapplicable here; and even after the defeat of Custoza, an occupation
+of the Trentino, had it happened in conjunction with a naval victory,
+would have opened a fair prospect to possession. But there was no time
+to lose, and much time was lost by ordering Garibaldi to descend to
+the southern extremity of the lake of Garda to 'cover Brescia' from an
+imaginary attack. When the fear of an Austrian invasion subsided, and
+Garibaldi returned to the mountains, he endeavoured to re-take the
+position of Monte Suello which he had previously held, but the attempt
+failed. The volunteers were forced to retire with great loss, and the
+chief himself was wounded. On the 16th of July the volunteers renewed
+their advance up the mountain ravines, and, after taking Fort Ampola,
+reached the village of Bezzecca, where they were attacked by the
+Austrians early on the 21st. Each side claimed that sanguinary day as
+a victory; the Garibaldians remained masters of the ground, but the
+Austrians, in retiring, took with them a large number of prisoners.
+The losses of the volunteers on this and other occasions when they
+were engaged were disproportionately heavy. They were spendthrift of
+their lives, but in war, and especially in mountain warfare, caution
+is as needful as courage, and in caution they were so deficient that
+they were always being surprised. General Kuhn's numerically inferior
+force of tried marksmen, supported by good artillery and favoured by
+ground which may be described as one great natural fortification, had
+succeeded up till now in holding the Trentino, but his position was
+becoming critical, because while Garibaldi sought to approach Trento
+from the west, Medici with 10,000 men detached from the main army at
+Padua, was ascending the Venetian valleys that lead to the same
+destination from the east. Kuhn was therefore on the point of being
+taken between two fires when the armistice saved him.
+
+These operations on the Tridentine frontier, though not without a real
+importance, passed almost unnoticed in the excitement which attended
+the first calamitous appearance of United Italy as a naval power.
+
+When invited to assume the command of the Italian fleet, Admiral
+Persano twice refused; it was only when the King pressed upon him a
+third invitation that he weakly accepted a charge to which he felt
+himself unequal. He had been living in retirement for some years, and
+neither knew nor was known by most of the officers and men whom he was
+now to command. The fleet under his orders comprised thirty-three
+vessels, of which twelve were ironclads. The Austrian fleet numbered
+twenty-seven ships, including seven ironclads. When the war broke out,
+both fleets were far from ready for active service; but, while the
+Austrian Admiral Tegethoff said nothing, but worked night and day at
+Pola to make his ships and his men serviceable, Persano despatched
+hourly lamentable reports to the Minister of Marine, without finding
+the way to bring about a change for the better. He wasted time in
+minutiæ, and took into his head to paint all the Italian ships a
+light grey, which was of the greatest use to the Austrians in the
+battle of Lissa, as it enabled them to distinguish between them and
+their own dark-coloured ships.
+
+After long delaying at Taranto, Persano brought his fleet to Ancona;
+and, two days later, Tegethoff appeared in front of that town--not
+knowing, it seems, that the Italian squadrons had arrived. Tegethoff
+was bound on a simple reconnaissance, and, after firing a few shots,
+he sailed away. On this occasion, Persano issued orders so hesitating
+and confused that the Austrian admiral must have correctly gauged the
+capacity of the man opposed to him, while the superior officers of the
+Italian fleet were filled with little less than dismay. A strong
+effort was made to induce Depretis to supersede Persano then and
+there; he promised to do so, but it is said that the fear of offending
+the King prevented him. Instead, he set about showering instructions
+on the admiral, the worth of which may be easily imagined. The
+mistrust felt by the fleet in its commander invaded all ranks; and if
+it did not break out in open insubordination, it deprived officers and
+men of all confidence in the issue of the campaign.
+
+Left to himself, Persano would have stayed quietly at Ancona, but the
+imperative orders of a cabinet council, presided over by the King,
+forced him to take some action. Against the advice of Admiral Albini,
+but in agreement with another admiral, Vacca, Persano decided to
+attack the fortified island of Lissa, on the Dalmatian coast. Though
+Lissa is a strong position, the usual comparison of it with Gibraltar
+is exaggerated. It ought to have been possible to land the Italian
+troops which Persano had with him under cover of his guns, and to take
+the island before Tegethoff came up. The surf caused by the rough
+weather, to which he chiefly attributed his failure, would not have
+proved an insuperable obstacle had the ships' crews been exercised in
+landing troops under similar circumstances.
+
+Persano reached Lissa on the morning of the 18th of July, and began a
+tremendous bombardment of the forts, which, though answered with the
+highest spirit by the Austrians, did most deadly damage to their
+batteries. In fact, by the evening, except one or two at a high
+elevation, they were practically silenced. At six o'clock Captain
+Saint Bon took the _Formidabile_ into the narrow harbour to silence
+the inner works: a murderous fire rained on the corvette from Fort
+Wellington, which was too high for the Italian guns to get it into
+range. Though Saint Bon's attempt was not successful, the Italians had
+effected most of what they aimed at, and might have effected the rest
+had they continued the bombardment through the night, and so given the
+Austrians no time to repair their batteries, but at sunset Persano
+withdrew his fleet to a distance of eight miles. The Austrians worked
+all night at mending the batteries that could still be used, and hoped
+in the coming of Tegethoff.
+
+The telegraph cable connecting the neighbouring island of Lesina with
+the coast, and so with Pola, had been cut by Persano's orders; but
+either (as the writer was told on the spot last year) there was another
+line that was not noticed, or before the cable was destroyed the
+official in charge got off a message to Tegethoff, informing him of the
+arrival of the Italian fleet. An answer, to the effect that Tegethoff
+would come to the rescue as soon as possible, fell into the hands of the
+Italians, but Persano appears not to have believed in it.
+
+The 19th was spent in attempts at landing, which the surf and the
+energetic play of the repaired batteries rendered fruitless. The
+bombardment was renewed, but it was not well conducted. Saint Bon, who
+made another plucky entry into the harbour, was unsupported, and,
+after an hour's fighting, he was obliged to retire, his ship having
+suffered severely.
+
+Next morning there was a blinding summer storm, but at about eight
+o'clock the _Esploratore_ distinguished the forms of ironclads through
+the rain, and signalled to Persano: 'Suspicious vessels in sight.'
+Persano answered: 'No doubt they are fishing-boats.' When obliged to
+admit the truth he gave the order to unite, his ships being scattered
+in all directions with everything on board at sixes and sevens. The
+troops which had again been attempting to land, were in boats, tossed
+about by the heavy sea. The surprise was complete.
+
+Persano fought the battle of Lissa with nine ironclads, most of which
+had received some injuries during the bombardment. He ordered his
+wooden ships to keep out of the action altogether. Tegethoff had seven
+ironclads and fourteen wooden vessels, all of which he turned to the
+best account.
+
+Just before the battle Persano left his flagship, the _Re_ _d'Italia_,
+and went on board the _Affondatore_. By somebody's mistake it was a
+long time before the _Affondatore_ hoisted the admiral's flag, and
+the fleet continued to look to the _Re d'Italia_ for signals when he
+was no longer on board.
+
+Contrary to a well-known rule in naval science, Persano formed his
+squadron in single file, and quite at the beginning of the battle
+Tegethoff managed to break the line by dashing in between the first
+and second division whilst they were going at full speed, and under a
+furious cannonade from their guns. This daring operation placed him
+in the middle of the Italian ironclads, which, well directed, could
+have closed round him and destroyed him, but they were not directed
+either well nor ill--they were not directed at all. Persano put up
+contradictory signals, most of which were not seen, and those which
+were seen meant nothing. The plan followed by Admiral Tegethoff may be
+best described in his own words: 'It was hard to make out friend from
+foe, so I just rammed away at anything I saw painted grey.' Two
+Italian vessels had been already damaged, but not vitally injured, by
+the _Ferdinand Max_, when in the dense smoke a vast wall of grey
+appeared close to the bows of the Austrian flagship, which, to the cry
+of 'Ram her!' put on full steam and crashed into the enemy's flank.
+The shock was so great that the crew of the _Max_ were thrown about in
+indescribable confusion. The Italian ship was the _Re d'Italia,_ the
+flagship which did not carry the admiral. She quivered for one, two,
+some say for three minutes in her death agony, and then went down in
+two hundred fathoms of water.
+
+After the _Re d'Italia_ was struck, one of her seamen, thinking to
+assert a claim to pity, began to lower her flag, but a young officer
+pushed him aside and hoisted it again; so the great ship sank with her
+colours flying. The incident was noticed by the Austrians, who spoke
+of it in feeling terms. Willing enough were they to help, for after
+the first cheer of triumph they felt sick with horror at their own
+work, the fearful work of modern naval warfare. There were 550 men on
+board the doomed ship. Tegethoff shouted for the boats to be lowered,
+and signalled to the despatch boat _Elisabeth_ to pick up all she
+could, but two Italian ironclads were bearing down upon him, and
+little could be done to save the drowning multitude either by the
+Austrians or by their own people. Persano did not know of the
+disaster till some hours after it happened.
+
+The sea had scarcely closed over the _Re d'Italia_ when another
+misfortune occurred; the gunboat _Palestro_ took fire. Her captain,
+Alfredo Cappellini, disembarked the sick and wounded, but remained
+himself with the rest of the crew, endeavouring to put out the fire.
+The ship blew up at 2.30 p.m., and over two hundred perished with her.
+
+Persano, still on the _Affondatore_, now led his fleet out of action,
+and it was the first time he had led it during the day. Tegethoff
+gazed after the vanishing squadron with anxiety, as had Persano turned
+and renewed the battle from a distance, he could have revenged his
+defeat at close quarters without receiving a shot, owing to the longer
+range of his guns. But for such an operation skilful manoeuvring was
+wanted, and also, perhaps, more precision in firing than the Italian
+gunners possessed. At any rate, Persano had no mind for new
+adventures. He took what remained of his fleet straight back to
+Ancona, where the _Affondatore_ sank in the harbour from injuries
+received during the battle. For three days the Italian people were
+told that they had won a victory, then the bitter truth was known. The
+admiral, tried before the Senate, was deprived of his rank and command
+in the Italian navy. The politician who, when convinced of his
+unfitness, yet had not the nerve to remove him from his post, died,
+full of years and honours, Prime Minister of Italy.
+
+Lissa was fought on the 20th of July. On the 25th, Prussia signed the
+preliminaries of peace with Austria without consulting her ally, who,
+if unfortunate, had been eminently loyal to her. Thus the whole forces
+of the Empire, not less than 350,000 men, were let loose to fall upon
+Italy. Such was the wrathful disappointment of the Italians at their
+defeats by land and sea, that if a vote had been taken they would
+possibly have decided for a renewal of the struggle. Ricasoli was
+inclined to risk war rather than bow to the Austrian demand that the
+evacuation of the Trentino should precede the conclusion of an
+armistice. At this crisis, La Marmora acted as a true patriot in
+forcing the hand of the Ministry by ordering the recall of the troops
+and sending General Petitti to treat directly with the Austrian
+military authorities. 'They will say that we have betrayed the
+country,' said the King in the interview in which these measures were
+concerted; to which La Marmora answered: 'Come what may, I take the
+whole responsibility upon myself.' 'This is too much,' replied Victor
+Emmanuel with tears in his eyes; 'I, also, will have my part in it.'
+In which brief dialogue the character of the two men stands revealed;
+men who might fall short in talent or in judgment, not in honour.
+
+The volunteers, so many of whose comrades lay dead along the mountain
+gorges--who believed, too, that they were in sight of the reward of
+their sacrifices--were thrown into a ferment, almost into a revolt by
+the order to retreat. They had expected in a day or two to shake hands
+with Medici, who, after some hard fighting, was within a march of
+Trento. The order was explicit: instant evacuation of the enemy's
+territory. Garibaldi, to whom from first to last had fallen an
+ungrateful part, took up his pen and wrote the laconic telegram:
+'Obbedisco.' 'I have obeyed,' he said to the would-be mutineers, 'do
+you obey likewise.' Someone murmured 'Rome.' 'Yes,' said the chief,
+'we will march on Rome.'
+
+The armistice was signed at Cormons on the 12th of August, and the
+treaty of peace on the 3rd of October at Vienna. Italy received Venice
+from the hands of the French Emperor, whose interference since the
+beginning of the campaign had incensed Prussia against her ally
+without benefiting the Power which he affected and, perhaps, really
+meant to serve. Italy would have received Venetia without his
+interposition, for besides the Prussian obligation to claim it for
+her, Austria had no further wish to keep it. Despite the fact that
+Italian populations still remained under the rule of the Empire, the
+melancholy book of Austrian dominion in Italy might be fairly said to
+be closed forever. A new era was dawning for the House of Hapsburg,
+which was to show that, unlike the Bourbons, it could learn and
+unlearn.
+
+The comedy of the cession of Venice to Napoleon was enacted between
+General Le Boeuf and General Alemann, the Austrian military
+commandant. Among other formalities, the French delegate went the
+round of the museums and galleries to see that everything was in its
+place. Suddenly he came upon a most suspicious blank. 'A picture is
+missing here,' he said. 'It is, blandly assented the Austrian officer.
+'Well, but it must be sent back immediately--where is it?' 'In the
+Louvre.'
+
+At last Austrians and French departed, and Italy shook off her
+mourning, for however it had come about, the great object which had
+cost so much blood, so many tears, was attained; the stranger was
+gone!
+
+Out of 642,000 votes, only 69 were recorded against the union of
+Venetia with the Italian kingdom. When the plebiscite was presented
+to the King, he said: 'This is the greatest day of my life: Italy is
+made, though not complete.' On the 7th of November he entered Venice,
+and of all the pageants that greeted him in the hundred cities of
+Italy, the welcome of the Bride of the Adriatic was, if not the most
+imposing, certainly the fairest to see. More touching, however, than
+the glorious beauty of the Piazza San Marco and the Grand Canal in
+their rich adornment, was the universal decoration of the poorest
+quarters, which were all flagged and festooned so thickly that little
+could be seen of the stones of Venice. One poor cobbler, however,
+living at the end of a blind alley, had no flag, no garland to deck
+his abode: he had therefore pasted three strips of coloured paper,
+red, white and green, over his door, inscribing on the middle strip
+these words, which in their sublime simplicity merit to be rescued
+from oblivion: 'O mia cara Italia, voglio ma non posso fare più per
+te.'
+
+The Iron Crown of the Lombard Kings of Italy, which the Austrians had
+taken away in 1859, was brought back and restored to the Cathedral of
+Monza. Less presumptuous than Napoleon, Victor Emmanuel never placed
+the mystical fillet upon his head, but it was carried after his coffin
+to the Pantheon.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE LAST CRUSADE
+
+1867
+
+The French leave Rome--Garibaldi's Arrest and Escape--The Second
+French Intervention--Monte Rotondo--Mentana.
+
+
+The words of Victor Emmanuel to the Venetian Deputation contained a
+riddle easy to solve: what was meant by the 'completion' of Italy was
+the establishment of her capital on the Tiber. In most minds there was
+an intense belief in the inevitability of the union of Rome with the
+rest of Italy, but no one saw how it was to be brought about. What
+soothsayer foretold Sédan?
+
+In the first period after the war, domestic difficulties fixed the
+attention of the Italian Government on the present rather than on the
+future. An insurrection at Palermo assumed threatening proportions
+owing to the smallness of the garrison, and might have had still more
+serious consequences but for the courage and presence of mind shown by
+the Syndic, the young Marquis di Rudini. Crime and poverty, republican
+hankerings, the irritation of the priesthood at recent legislation,
+and most of all, the feeling that little had been done since 1860 to
+realise the millennium then promised, contributed to the outbreak
+which was quelled when troops arrived from the mainland, but the
+ministers were blamed for not having taken better precautions against
+its occurrence. Another stumbling-block lay in the path of Ricasoli,
+namely, the application of the law for the suppression of religious
+houses, and the expropriation of ecclesiastical property. After an
+unsuccessful endeavour to cope with it, he dissolved the Chamber, but
+the new Parliament proved no more willing to support his measures,
+which were of the nature of a compromise, than the old one, and he
+finally resigned office. He was succeeded by Urban Rattazzi, under
+whose administration a measure was passed which, though drastic in
+appearance, has not prevented the re-establishment of a great many
+convents of which the property was bought in under the name of
+private individuals. Every Catholic country has seen the necessity
+sooner or later of putting a check to the increase of monasticism, but
+it may be a matter of regret that in Italy, the toleration granted to
+the learned community of Monte Cassino was not extended to more of the
+historic monasteries. The abstention of the Clerical party from the
+voting urns deprived them of an influence which, on such points as
+these, they might have exercised legitimately and perhaps
+beneficially. To that abstention, the disequilibrium of Italian
+political life, from first to last, is largely due.
+
+The time allowed to the French under the September Convention for the
+evacuation of Rome expired in December 1866, and at the opening of the
+new year, for the first time since 1849, the Eternal City was without
+a garrison in the service of a foreign Power. While executing their
+engagement, the French Government took occasion to say that they kept
+their hands perfectly free as concerned future action. The anomalous
+obligations of the September Convention now came into force, and it
+was not long before their inconvenience was felt. Had Ricasoli
+remained at the head of affairs the _status quo_ might have lasted for
+a time; because, although he was an unflinching opponent of the
+Temporal Power, he would have made it clear that since the Convention
+existed he meant to respect it, and to make others respect it. He had
+shown that he could dare, but that was when he bore himself the whole
+responsibility of his daring. He was not the man to tolerate heroic
+imprudence in others with the mental reservation of owning or
+disowning the results, as might prove convenient. Rattazzi, on the
+other hand, was believed to answer very closely to this description;
+and patriots who were willing to bear all the blame in case of
+failure and yield all the praise in case of success, began once more
+to speculate on the profit to the national cause which might be
+extracted from the peculiarities of his character. Aspromonte, that
+should have placed them on their guard, had the contrary effect, for
+it was supposed that the Prime Minister was very anxious to wipe that
+stain from his reputation.
+
+Nevertheless, the Party of Action considered that, for the present,
+the wisest course was to wait and watch the development of events.
+This was Mazzini's personal view, but Garibaldi, almost alone in his
+dissent, did not share it. Impelled partly, no doubt, by the
+impatience of a man who sees the years going by and his own life
+ebbing away without the realisation of its dearest dream, but partly
+also by the deliberate belief that the political situation offered
+some favourable features which might not soon be repeated, Garibaldi
+decided to take the field in the autumn of 1867. His friends, who one
+and all tried to dissuade him, found him immovable. It is too much to
+say that he expected assistance from the Government, but that he hoped
+to draw Rattazzi after him is scarcely doubtful, and he had good
+reason for the hope.
+
+In Rattazzi's own version and defence of his policy, it is set forth
+that before the die was cast he did all that was humanly possible to
+prevent the expedition, but that having failed, he intended sending the
+Italian army over the frontier in the wake of the broken-loose
+condottiere. Though this gives a colour of consistency to his conduct,
+it is not satisfactory as an explanation, and still less as an apology.
+
+General La Marmora, who had always opposed the Convention, though he
+belonged to the party which made it, once declared that 200,000 men
+would not be sufficient to hold the Papal frontier against a guerilla
+invasion. True as this may be, it is impossible to resist the
+conclusion that a minister who had resolutely made up his mind to
+prevent any attempt from being made would not have acted as Rattazzi
+acted. The Prime Minister thought that he was imitating Cavour, but in
+reality he simply imitated the pendulum of a clock.
+
+Rattazzi's taste was for intrigue rather than for adventure in the
+grand sense. An adventurous minister would have accelerated the
+enterprise to the utmost, in secret or not in secret, and would then
+have preceded Garibaldi to Rome before the Clerical party in France
+had time to force Napoleon to act. The rest could have been left to
+the Roman people. What they did in 1870 they would have done in 1867;
+they were ready to acclaim any conquering liberator; they were not
+ready to make a revolution on their own account, and with all their
+leaders in prison or in exile, they are hardly to be blamed for it.
+For such a policy Italy might have pleaded that necessity which knows
+no law. Everybody allowed that if Garibaldi went to Rome the Italians
+must go there too: the very security of the Pope demanded it--at
+least, he said so. As to the first part of the programme, complicity
+in the preparation of the movement, it would have been an infringement
+of the Convention, but had France kept the Convention? French bishops
+recruited soldiers for the Pope in every province of France, and the
+Antibes Legion was drawn, officers and men, from the French army. When
+some of the men deserted, the French War Office sent General Dumont to
+Rome to look to the discipline of the regiment. Those who argued that
+the spirit, if not the letter, of the agreement had been already
+evaded, could make out a good case for their position.
+
+It has been suggested that this is what Rattazzi's policy would have
+been, but for the opposition of the King. Were it so, the minister
+ought to have resigned at the beginning of the proceedings instead of
+at the end. That in the ultimate crisis it was the King who prevented
+the troops from moving is a fact, but the propitious moment was then
+past and gone. 'Do as you like, but do it quickly,' Napoleon said to
+Cavour when Cialdini was to be sent to the Cattolica. And it was done
+quickly.
+
+After letting Garibaldi make what arrangements and issue what
+manifestoes he chose for six weeks, Rattazzi suddenly had him arrested
+at Sinalunga on the 23rd of September. The only consequence was fatal
+delay; not knowing what to do with their prisoner, the Government
+shipped him to Caprera. Personally he was perfectly free; no
+conditions were imposed; but nine men-of-war were despatched to the
+island to sweep the seas of erratic heroes. In spite of which,
+Garibaldi escaped in a canoe on the 14th of October.
+
+That night, between sundown and moonrise, there was only one hour's
+dark, but it sufficed the fugitive to make good his passage from
+Caprera to the island of Maddalena. A strong south-east breeze was
+blowing; the waves, however, were rather favourable to the venture, as
+they hid the frail bark from any eyes that might be peering through
+the night. Garibaldi did not fear; he had often put out on this
+terrible sea when lashed to fury to succour sailors in their peril. On
+reaching Maddalena he scrambled over the rocks to the house of an
+English lady who was delighted to give him hospitality. Next evening
+he proceeded to Sardinia, from which, after several adventures, he
+sailed for the Tuscan coast in a boat held in readiness by his
+son-in-law, Canzio. And so, to the amazement of friends and foes, he
+arrived in Florence, where, before many hours were past, he was
+haranguing the enthusiastic crowd from a balcony.
+
+Garibaldi had escaped, but the mischief done to the movement by the
+loss of nearly a month could not be remedied. Although large armed
+bands under Acerbi, Nicotera and Menotti Garibaldi were gathered near
+Viterbo, as usually happened in the absence of the chief, nothing
+effectual was done. But it was in Paris that the delay brought the
+most ruinous results.
+
+The history of the second French expedition to Rome will never be
+satisfactorily told, because, while the outward circumstances point
+one way, the inward probabilities point another. Napoleon had said
+that if the Convention were not observed he would intervene, and he
+did intervene; nothing could seem simpler. Yet it is not doubtful
+that, in his inmost heart, he was wishing day and night that something
+would turn up to extricate him from the Roman dilemma once for all.
+While he hesitated, the Clerical party in France did not hesitate. Not
+a moment was thrown away by them. Towards the middle of October, it
+was reported that 'half royalist and half Catholic France will be in
+Rome in the course of the week. Men with names belonging to the
+proudest French nobility--the De Lusignans, De Clissons, De Lumleys,
+De Bourbon-Chalens, etc., are chartering vessels, arriving in Rome by
+scores and hundreds, and hence hurrying to the front to take their
+places as privates in the Zouaves.' That, however, does not describe
+the most important sphere of their activity which was the
+ante-chamber, nay, the boudoir of St Cloud. In that palace, three
+years later to be rased to the ground by the Germans, the net was
+woven which every day closed tighter and tighter round Napoleon, till
+he was enveloped in its meshes past escape. Ever since De Morny's
+death, the influence nearest the throne had been increasing in
+strength; it is needless to say in which direction it was exercised.
+Napoleon was ill; Maximilian's ghost floated over him; he felt his
+power slipping from his hands in spite of the noise and show of the
+Exhibition, which was supposed to mark its zenith. The words of the
+old pact with the Royalists buzzed in his ears: 'Do you keep the Pope
+on his throne, and we will keep you on yours.' And he yielded.
+
+The 'principle' of French intervention was adopted by the council of
+ministers on the 17th of October. Then, and not till then, Rattazzi
+decided to send the Italian troops over the frontier. On finding that
+neither the King nor several of his colleagues in the ministry would
+support him, he resigned office on the 19th of the month.
+
+It was on the day after that Garibaldi appeared in Florence. As there
+was no ministry, no one thought it his business to interfere with him.
+Cialdini, whom the King had requested to form a cabinet, did go and
+ask him to keep quiet till there was some properly qualified person to
+arrest him; but this, not unnaturally, he declined to do. He left
+Florence by special train for Terni, whence he crossed the frontier
+and joined the insurgent bands near Rome.
+
+From the 19th to the 26th, Napoleon again and again ordered and
+countermanded the departure of the transports from Toulon. On the last
+date the final order was given and the ships started. The news must
+have just reached Paris that the King had called upon General Menabrea
+to undertake the task which had been abandoned by Cialdini, whose name
+recalled Castelfidardo too strongly to have a sound welcome either in
+the Vatican or at St Cloud. When Napoleon heard that Menabrea was to
+be Rattazzi's successor, he knew that there was no fear that the new
+Government, carried away by the popular current which was manifestly
+having its effect on the King, should, after all, order the Italian
+army to the front. Menabrea, the Savoyard who in 1860 chose the
+Italian nationality which his son has lately cast away, was the old
+opponent of Cavour in the Turinese chamber, and of all Italian
+politicians he was the most lukewarm on the Roman question. All chance
+of a collision between the French and Italian armies was removed.
+Menabrea did occupy some positions over the Papal frontier, it would
+be hard to say with what intention, unless it were to appear to fulfil
+a sort of promise given by the King during the ministerial
+interregnum. The troops were ordered on no account to attack the
+French, and as soon as the Garibaldian campaign was at an end, they
+were brought home. It was not worth while to send them with their
+hands tied to almost within earshot of where other Italians were
+fighting and falling. Menabrea's attitude towards the volunteers was
+immediately revealed by the issue of a royal proclamation, in which
+they were declared rebels. The French were free to act.
+
+All this time the revolution in Rome, which it was admitted on all
+sides would have gone far towards cutting the knot, did not begin.
+Besides the cause already assigned, the absence of the heads, there was
+another, the almost total lack of arms. To remedy this, Enrico and
+Giovanni Cairoli, with some seventy followers, tried to take a supply of
+arms up the Tiber to Rome. Only the immense importance of the object
+could have justified so desperate an attempt. Obliged to abandon their
+boats near Ponte Molle, they struck off into the Monti Parioli, where
+they were attacked, within sight of the promised land, at a spot called
+Villa Gloria. Their assailants were three times their number, and those
+who were not killed were carried prisoners to Rome. Among the killed was
+the captain of the band, who fell in the arms of his young brother. As
+Enrico Cairoli lay dying, the French Zouaves (was this the chivalry of
+France?) charged the two brothers with their bayonets, piercing Giovanni
+with ten wounds, from injuries arising from one of which he expired a
+year later, after long torments. 'Dastardly French!' cried Enrico with
+his last breath. They were the third and fourth sons of Adelaide Cairoli
+who died for their country. One only of her five children remained to
+stand by her own death-bed--Benedetto, the future Prime Minister, and
+saviour of King Humbert from the knife of an assassin.
+
+The Papal army was composed of 13,000 men, General de Courten
+commanding the portion of it which could be spared out of Rome. The
+Breton, Colonel Charette, had charge of the Zouaves. Since the French
+garrison left, much trouble had been taken to make this force
+efficient. Under Garibaldi's own orders there were between 7000 and
+8000 volunteers. Those who have made a higher estimate have included
+other bands which, either from the difficulty of provisioning a larger
+number, or from want of time for concentration, remained at a
+distance.
+
+The chief's arrival soon infused new life into the camp. On the 24th
+he moved towards Monte Rotondo, one of the castellated heights near
+Rome, which commands the Nomentane and Tiburtine ways to the south,
+and the railway and Via Salara to the west. It was generally
+considered the most important military position in the Papal states.
+The garrison was small, but, perched as they were on a hill crest
+which looks inaccessible, the defenders might well hope to hold out
+till help came from Rome. They had artillery, of which the volunteers
+had none, and the old castle of the Orsini, where they made their
+principal stand, was well adapted for defence. From the morning of the
+25th till midnight, the Garibaldians hurled themselves against the
+walls of the rock town without making much way; but at last the
+resistance grew weak, and when the morning light came, the white flag
+was seen flying. At four in the afternoon of the 26th a Papal column
+tardily arrived upon the scene, but they perceived that all was over
+at Monte Rotondo, and, after firing a few musket shots, they fled to
+Rome in disorder.
+
+Garibaldi rode into the cathedral, where he fixed his quarters for the
+night. In Italy churches have ever been applied to such uses. After
+the reduction of Milan, Francesco Sforza rode into the Duomo, and when
+King Ladislaus of Naples conquered Rome, he rode into the basilica of
+St John Lateran. The guerilla chief bivouacked in a confessional,
+while his Red-shirts slept where they could on the cathedral floor.
+Four hundred of them had been killed or wounded in the assault.
+
+The prisoners of war were brought before Garibaldi, who praised their
+valour and sent them under an escort to the Italian frontier. Two or
+three were retained for the following reason. Garibaldi had heard of
+the Cairolis' heroic failure, and after his victory his first thought
+was of them and of their sorrowing mother. He asked Signora Mario if
+there were any notabilities among the Papal prisoners. She mentioned
+Captain Quatrebras and others, and he sent her into Rome on a mission
+to the Papal commander with a view to exchanging these prisoners for
+the wounded Giovanni and for his brother's body. The proposal was
+accepted, and the compact kept after Mentana had changed the aspect of
+affairs.
+
+'Garibaldi at the gates!' was the news that spread like wildfire
+through Rome on the evening of the 26th of October. Terror, real
+terror, and no less real joy filled all hearts; but the sides were
+soon to be reversed. Another piece of news was not long in coming:
+'The French at Civita Vecchia!'
+
+The French arrived on the 29th, and on the same day Garibaldi advanced
+almost to the walls of Rome, still hoping for a revolutionary movement
+to break out within the city; but the information which he then
+received deprived him finally of this hope, and he gave the order to
+return to Monte Rotondo. Volunteers have the defect of being soldiers
+who _think_; on this occasion they thought that the backward march was
+the beginning of the end--that, in short, the game was up. A third of
+the whole number deserted, and took the road towards the Italian
+frontier. Garibaldi himself seems to have had a first idea of crossing
+into the Abruzzi, and there waiting to see what turn events would
+take; but he did not long entertain it, and, when he again left Monte
+Rotondo, it was with the fixed design of fighting a battle. He
+expected, however, to fight the Papal troops alone, and not the
+French.
+
+This was very nearly being the case. On the 1st of November, the Papal
+General Kanzler called on General De Failly at Civita Vecchia, and
+found him, to his concern, by no means anxious to rush into the fray.
+Even when sending the troops, Napoleon seems to have hoped to escape
+from being seriously compromised. He probably thought that the moral
+effect of their landing would cause Garibaldi to retire, and that thus
+the whole affair would collapse. But the Papal authorities did not
+want it to collapse; they wanted more bloodshed, and if the words
+which express the ungarnished truth as acknowledged by their own
+writers and apologists, sound indecent when describing the government
+of the Vicar of Christ, it only shows once more the irreconcilability
+of the offices of priest and king in the nineteenth century. Kanzler
+insisted that a crushing blow must be inflicted on the volunteers
+before they had time to retreat. He argued so long and so well that De
+Failly promised him a brigade under General Polhès to aid in the
+attack which he proposed to make on Monte Rotondo.
+
+The Papal forces left Rome by Porta Pia, and took the Via Nomentana,
+which leads to Monte Rotondo by Mentana. They were on the march at
+four o'clock a.m. Garibaldi had ordered his men to be ready at dawn on
+the same day (it was the 3rd of November); but Menotti suggested that,
+before they started, there should be a distribution of shoes, a
+consignment of which had just reached the camp. Many of the volunteers
+were barefoot, which gives a notion of their general equipment.
+Garibaldi, who rarely took advice, yielded to his son. Had he not done
+so, before the Papal army reached Mentana, he would have been at
+Tivoli. One delay brings another, and it was midday when the march
+began. Garibaldi looked sad, and spoke to no one, but hummed some bars
+of Riego's hymn, the Spanish song of freedom, full of a wild, sweet
+pathos, to which his tanned-faced legionaries had marched under the
+Monte Videan sun. Could he but have had with him those strong warriors
+now! He mounted his horse, put it to a gallop, which he rarely did,
+and, riding down the ranks of the column, took his place at its head.
+When he arrived at the village of Mentana, he heard that the
+Pontificals were close by, and he waited to give them battle.
+
+Mentana lies in a depression commanded by the neighbouring mounds,
+not a good configuration for defence. This village in the Roman
+Campagna sprang into history on a November day one thousand and
+sixty-seven years before, as the meeting-place of Charlemagne and Leo
+III. Here they shook hands over their bargain: that the Pope should
+crown the great Charles Emperor, and that the Emperor should assure to
+the Pope his temporal power. And now the ragged band of Italian youths
+was come to say that of bargains between Popes and Emperors there had
+been enough.
+
+They numbered less than 5000. General De Failly reckoned the Papal
+troops engaged at 3000 and the French at 2000, but Italian authorities
+compute the former at a higher figure. The most experienced of the
+Garibaldian officers thought that the attackers were twice as numerous
+as they were. At the first onslaught great confusion prevailed among
+the volunteers. Mentana seemed lost, but the sound of the guns they
+had captured at Monte Rotondo restored their _moral_, and making a
+gallant rush forward they retook the principal positions with the
+bayonet. As they saw the Pontificals swerve back they uttered cries of
+joy. It was two o'clock. The enemy's fire slackened; something was
+going on which the volunteers could not make out. All at once there
+was a sharp unfamiliar detonation, resembling the whirring sound of a
+machine. The French had come into action.
+
+A hailstorm of bullets mowed down the Garibaldian ranks. Their two
+guns were useless, for the ammunition, seventy rounds in all, was
+exhausted. They fought till four o'clock--till nearly their last
+cartridge was gone; then they slowly retreated. Very few of them
+guessed what that peculiar sound meant, or imagined that they had been
+engaged with the French, but next morning Europe knew from General De
+Failly's report that 'the Chassepots had done wonders.'
+
+Garibaldi left the field, haggard and aged, unable to reconcile
+himself to a defeat which he thought that more discipline, more
+steadiness in his rank and file, would have turned into a victory. He
+had always demanded the impossible of his men; till now they had given
+it to him. In time he judged more justly. Those miserably-armed lads
+who lately had been glad to eat the herbs of the field, if haply they
+found any, stood out for four hours against the pick of two regular
+armies, one of which was supposed to be the finest in the world. They
+had done well.
+
+Mentana remained that night in the hands of 1500 Garibaldians, who
+still occupied the castle and most of the houses when the general
+retreat was ordered. In the morning the Garibaldian officer who held
+the castle capitulated, on condition that the volunteers 'shut up in
+Mentana' should be reconducted across the frontier; terms which the
+French and Papal generals interpreted to embrace only the defenders of
+the castle. Eight hundred of the others were taken in triumph to Rome.
+It would have been wiser to let them go. The Romans had been told that
+the Garibaldians were cut-throats, incendiaries, human bloodhounds
+waiting to fly at them. What did they behold? 'The beast is gentle,'
+as Euripides makes his captors say of Dionysius. The stalwart Romans
+saw a host of boys, with pale, wistful, very young-looking faces. If
+anything was wanting to seal the fate of the Temporal Power it was the
+sight of that procession of famished and wounded Italians brought to
+Rome by the foreigner.
+
+The victors, however, were jubilant. Their inharmonious shouts of
+_Vive Pie Neuf_ vexed the delicate Roman ears. It was the battle-cry
+of the day of Mentana. Begun by the masked, finished by the unmasked
+soldiers of France, Mentana was a French victory, and it was the last.
+
+The Garibaldian retreat continued through the night to Passo Corese on
+the Italian frontier. The silence of the Campagna was only broken by
+little gusts of a chilly wind off the Tiber; it seemed as if a
+spectral army moved without sound. Garibaldi rode with his hat pressed
+down over his eyes; only once he spoke: 'It is the first time they
+make me turn my back like this,' he said to an old comrade, 'it would
+have been better ...' He stopped, but it was easy to supply the words:
+'to die.'
+
+As he was getting into the train at Figline, with the intention of
+going straight to Caprera, he was placed under arrest by order of the
+Italian Government. His officers had their hands on their swords, but
+he forbade their using force. The arrest seemed an unnecessary slight
+on the beaten man, who had loved Italy too well. But General Menabrea,
+who ordered it, believes that he thereby saved Italian unity.
+According to an account given by him many years after to the
+correspondent of an English newspaper, Napoleon wrote at this juncture
+to King Victor Emmanuel, that as he was not strong enough to govern
+his kingdom, he, Napoleon, was about to help him by relieving him of
+all parts of it except Piedmont, Lombardy and Venetia. The arrest of
+Garibaldi, by showing that the King 'could govern,' averted the
+impending danger. In communicating it to Napoleon, the King is said to
+have added 'that Italians would lose their last drop of blood before
+consenting to disruption,' a warning which he was not unlikely to
+give, but the whole story lacks verisimilitude. It appears more
+credible that an old man's memory is at fault than that a letter, so
+colossally insolent, was actually written. Menabrea, and even the
+King, may have feared that something of the kind was in the mind of
+the Emperor.
+
+As after Aspromonte so after Mentana; Garibaldi was confined in the
+fortress of Varignano, on the bay of Spezia. A few weeks later he was
+released and sent to Caprera. As he left the fortress-prison he wrote
+the words: 'Farewell, Rome; farewell, Capitol; who knows who will
+think of thee, and when?'
+
+The last crusade was over; destiny would do the rest.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+ROME, THE CAPITAL
+
+1867-1870
+
+M. Rouher's 'Never'--Papal Infallibility--Sédan--The Breach in Porta
+Pia--The King of Italy in Rome.
+
+
+Mentana had its epilogue in the debate in the French Corps Législatif,
+which lasted from the 2nd to the 5th of December. Jules Favre proposed
+a vote of censure on the Ministry for their Roman policy. The most
+distinguished speaker who followed him was Thiers, who said that
+though in opposition, he would support the Government tooth and nail
+in their defence of French interests at Rome. The debate was wound up
+by the memorable declaration of the Prime Minister, Rouher, that
+'never' should Italy get possession of Rome. 'Is that clear?' he
+asked. It was quite clear. The word escaped him, he afterwards said,
+in 'the heat of improvisation.' The French Chamber confirmed it by
+throwing out Favre's motion by 237 votes against 17.
+
+Now, indeed, the Ultramontanes were jubilant throughout the world.
+Napoleon was compromised, enmeshed beyond extrication.
+
+Of all these events, Prussia, or rather the great man who was the
+brain of Prussia, took attentive note. He was convinced that the
+wonders accomplished by the Chassepot at Mentana would soon lead
+France to try the effect of the new rifle on larger game. Among the
+measures which he took with a view to that contingency, his
+correspondence with Mazzini is not the least remarkable. It began in
+November 1867, and was continued for a year. The object of both
+Bismarck and Mazzini was to prevent Italy from taking sides with
+France. The negotiations were carried on partly through Count
+d'Usedom, Prussian Minister at Florence, and partly through other
+intermediaries. Mazzini began by saying, that although the
+Chancellor's methods of unification had not his sympathy, he admired
+his energy, tenacity and independence; that he believed in German
+unity and opposed the supremacy which France arrogated to herself in
+Europe. He engaged to use his influence in Italy to make it difficult
+for an Italian Government to take up arms for the victors of Mentana.
+Bismarck was well aware that in speaking of his influence the writer
+used no idle phrase, but possibly one of his reasons for continuing
+the correspondence was to find out what Mazzini knew of the hidden
+plots and counter plots then in manufacture both in Paris and at
+Florence, because the Italian was more conversant with diplomatic
+secrets than any man living, except, perhaps, Cardinal Antonelli. In
+April 1868, Mazzini received through the Prussian Embassy at Florence,
+a document which even now possesses real interest on the relative
+advantages to Italy of a French or German Alliance. The whole question
+turned, observed the Prussian Chancellor, on the mastery of the
+Mediterranean: here France and Italy must find themselves at variance
+whether they willed it or not. 'The configuration of the terrestrial
+globe not being amenable to change, they will be always rivals and
+often enemies.' Nature has thrown between them an apple of discord,
+the possession of which they will not cease to contest. The
+Mediterranean ought to become an Italian lake. 'It is impossible for
+Italy to put up with the perpetual threats of France to obtain the
+mastery over Tunis, which would be for her the first stage to arriving
+in Sardinia.'
+
+At the Berlin Congress eight years later, Prince Bismarck pressed the
+same views upon Count Corti, the Italian delegate. He would have been
+glad to see the Italians go to Tunis, but Count Corti ingenuously
+replied: 'You want to make us quarrel with France.' Meanwhile the
+Englishman who represented France and the Englishman who represented
+England were discussing the same subject, and out of their discussion
+arose the French occupation of Tunis. Disquieting rumours got about at
+once, but they were dispelled. 'No French Government would be so
+rash,' said Gambetta, 'as to make Italy the _irreconcilable_ foe of
+France.' M. Waddington declared that he was personally opposed to the
+acquisition of Tunis, and gave his word of honour that nothing would
+be done without the full consent of Italy. What was done and how it
+was done is known to all. And so it happens that a great French naval
+station is in course of construction almost within sight of Sicily
+_and of Malta._
+
+In the document communicated by Bismarck to Mazzini, there is a
+curious inclusion of Trieste among Italian seaports which seems to
+indicate that he was still not averse from a rectification of the
+Italian north-east frontier. Whence it may be supposed that he
+expected to find Austria ranged on the part of France in the struggle
+for the Rhine bank. To explain how it was that this did not happen, we
+must leave the Chancellor and the Revolutionist, and see what at the
+same time was going on between Napoleon on the one side and Austria
+and Italy on the other.
+
+The French Emperor was not so infatuated as to court the risk of
+making war on Prussia single-handed if he could avoid it. He hoped for
+a triple alliance of France, Austria and Italy, or, if that could not
+be compassed, a dual alliance of France with either of these Powers.
+Now, wisely or unwisely, both the Italian and Austrian Governments
+were far from rejecting these proposals off-hand. The secret
+negotiations lasted from 1868 till June 1869. They took the shape of
+informal letters between the King of Italy and Napoleon, and of
+private communications with Count Beust through Prince Metternich, the
+Austrian Ambassador in Paris, who was the intimate friend and
+confidant of the Emperor and Empress. General Menabrea was not let
+into the secret till later. With regard to Victor Emmanuel, there is
+no doubt that he wished with all his heart to be able to do a good
+turn to his Imperial ally of 1859 if the occasion presented itself.
+Some men see their wives even to old age as they saw them when they
+were young and fair. The first print on the retina of the mental
+vision was so strong that no later impression can change or efface it.
+This hallucination is not confined to the marital relationship, and
+Victor Emmanuel never left off seeing Napoleon in one sole light: as
+the friend of Solferino. It may be that he perceived what the Italians
+did not perceive: that the obligation was owed to Napoleon alone,
+while all France had a part in the subsequent injuries. At any rate
+the idea of refusing the Emperor's appeal was repugnant in the extreme
+to the Italian King, who personally would have strained any point
+rather than give that refusal.
+
+The King, however, and General Menabrea, who was finally admitted into
+the conspiracy, could not be blind to the fact that an unpopular war
+might create so great an agitation in the country that the dynasty
+itself would be in danger. A war for France while the French were in
+Rome would have raised one storm of indignation from Palermo to Turin.
+So their ultimatum was this: Rome capital of Italy, or no alliance.
+
+There remained Austria, but if Napoleon ever hoped to conclude a
+separate treaty with her, he was to discover his mistake. From the
+moment that Austria resigned the Iron Crown, the symbol of her Italian
+power, she acted towards Italy with a loyalty that has few parallels
+in history. And she, too, replied to Napoleon: Rome capital of Italy,
+or no alliance.
+
+The Vatican has never forgiven this to Austria. At the present hour,
+while republican France with her open antagonism to all religion, is
+the favoured daughter of the Church, Austria, the only country in
+Europe except Spain where the Roman Catholic cultus retains all its
+original pomp and almost all its mediæval privileges, meets from the
+Vatican a studied plan of opposition, the object of which can only be
+to bring her Government to a deadlock. From France the Pope still
+hopes for aid in the recovery of his temporalities; from Austria he
+knows that he will never receive it. So much have politics and so
+little has religion to do now, as in all ages, with the motives that
+govern the Holy See.
+
+  Ahi, Costantin, di quanto mal fu matre
+    Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote
+  Che da te prese il primo ricco patre!
+
+The years 1868 and 1869 passed uneventfully for Italy. In the former
+year Prince Humbert married his cousin Margherita of Savoy. He was
+previously engaged to the Archduchess Matilda, the only daughter of
+the Victor of Custoza, but the young Princess met with a terrible
+death just when the betrothal was about to be announced. No one
+worthier to receive from Adelaide of Burgundy the lovely title of
+Queen of Italy could have been found than the Princess Margaret, who
+inherited the sunny charm which had endeared her father, the Duke of
+Genoa, to all who knew him.
+
+In the autumn of 1869 another domestic event, the severe illness of
+Victor Emmanuel, gave rise to an incident which made a deep impression
+in Italy, and attached the nation by one link more to the King of its
+choice. The illness which seized Victor Emmanuel at his hunting-box
+of San Rossore, in a malarious part of Tuscany, proved so serious
+that his life was despaired of. A priest was called to hear the King's
+last confession, and to administer the Sacraments for the dying. After
+hearing the confession, the priest said he could not give absolution
+unless Victor Emmanuel signed a solemn retractation of all the acts
+performed during his reign that were contrary to the interests of the
+Church. The King answered, without a moment's hesitation, that he died
+a Christian and a Catholic, and that if he had wronged anyone he
+sincerely repented and asked pardon of God, but the signature demanded
+was a political act, and if the priest wished to talk politics his
+ministers were in the next room. Thither the ecclesiastic retired, but
+he very soon returned, and administered the rite without more ado.
+What had passed was this: General Menabrea, with a decision for which
+he cannot be too much praised, threatened the priest with instant
+arrest unless he surrendered his pretensions. Only those who know the
+extraordinary terror inspired in an Italian Catholic by the prospect
+of dying unshriven can appreciate the merit of the King, whose faith
+was childlike, in standing as firm in the presence of supernatural
+arms as he stood before the Austrian guns.
+
+Menabrea's administration was then upon the eve of falling. The cause
+was one of those financial crises that were symptomatic of a mischief
+which has been growing from then till now, when some critics think
+they see in it the fatal upas tree of Italy. The process of
+transforming a country where everything was wanting--roads, railways,
+lines of navigation, schools, water, lighting, sanitary provisions,
+and the other hundred thousand requirements of modern life--into the
+Italy of to-day, where all these things have made leaps almost
+incredible to those who knew her in her former state, has proved
+costly without example. During the whole period it has been necessary
+to spend in ever-increasing ratio on the army and navy, and this
+expenditure, though emphatically not the chief, has yet been a
+concomitant cause of financial trouble. The point cannot be inquired
+into here of how far greater wisdom and higher character in Italian
+public servants might have limited the evil and reconciled progress
+with economy; but it may be said that if the path entered upon by the
+man who took charge of the exchequer after Menabrea's fall, Quintino
+Sella, had been rigorously followed by his successors, the present
+situation would not be what it is.
+
+Giovanni Lanza assumed the premiership in the government in which
+Sella was Minister of Finance. Both these politicians were
+Piedmontese, and both were known as men of conspicuous integrity, but
+Lanza's rigid conservatism made it seem unlikely that the Roman
+question would take a fresh turn under his administration. In
+politics, however, the unlikely is what generally happens; events are
+stronger than men.
+
+On the 8th of December the twenty-first Ecumenical Council assembled
+in Rome. From the day of its meeting, in spite of the strenuous
+opposition of its most learned and illustrious members, there was no
+more doubt that the dogma under consideration would be voted by the
+partly astute and partly complaisant majority than that it would have
+been rejected in the twenty preceding Councils. On the 18th of July
+1870, the Pope was proclaimed Infallible.
+
+That was a moment of excitement such as has not often thrilled Europe,
+but the cause was not the Infallibility of Pius IX. On the 16th,
+Napoleon declared war with Prussia. War, like death, comes as a shock,
+however plainly it has been foreseen; besides, it was only the
+well-informed who knew how near the match had been to the
+powder-magazine for two years and more. Whether the explosion, at the
+last, was timed by Napoleon or by Bismarck is not of great importance;
+it could have been but little delayed. Napoleon was beset alike by the
+revolutionary spectre and by the gaunt King of Terrors; he knew the
+throw was desperate, but with the gambler's instinct, which had always
+been so strong in him, he was magnetised by it because it was
+desperate. Pitiful egotist though he was, history may forgive him
+sooner than it forgives the selfish Chauvinism of Thiers, who had been
+goading his countrymen to war ever since Sadowa, or the insane bigotry
+of the party which, having triumphed over revolution at Mentana, now
+sought to triumph over heresy in what the Empress called 'Ma guerre.'
+
+Napoleon had the remaining sagacity to see the extreme danger of
+leaving a few thousand men isolated in Rome at a time when, happen
+what might, it would be impossible to reinforce them. Directly after
+declaring war, notwithstanding the cries of the Ultramontanes, he
+decided on recalling the French troops. He induced the Italian
+Government to resume the obligations of the September Convention, by
+which the inviolability of the Papal frontier was guaranteed. Lanza is
+open to grave criticism for entering into a contract which it was
+morally certain that he would not be able to keep. Perhaps he hoped
+that Napoleon would himself release Italy from her bond. But the
+'Jamais' of Rouher stood in the way. Could the Emperor, after such
+boasting, coolly throw the Pope overboard the first time it suited his
+convenience? Moreover, his present Prime Minister, M. Emile Olivier,
+when the question was put to him, did not hesitate to renew the
+declaration that the Italians must not be allowed to go to Rome.
+
+Napoleon made some last frantic efforts to get Austria and Italy to
+befriend him unconditionally. How far he knew the real state of his
+army before he declared war may be doubtful, but that he possessed
+overwhelming proof of it, even before the first defeats, cannot be
+doubted at all. His heart was not so light as his Prime Minister's. At
+the end of July he sent General Türr on a secret mission to try and
+obtain the help of Austria and Italy. The Hungarian general wrote from
+Florence, that unless something could be done to assure Italy that the
+national question would be settled in accordance with the wishes of
+her people, the Italian alliance was not possible. The Convention, he
+pointed out, was a bane instead of a boon to Italy. This letter was
+answered by a telegram through the French Ambassador at Vienna: 'Can't
+do anything for Rome; if Italy will not march, let her stand still.
+
+As in the former negotiations, Austria took her stand on precisely the
+same ground as Italy. And thus it was that France plunged into the
+campaign of 1870 single-handed.
+
+After Wörth, and once more after Gravelotte, the endeavour to draw
+Italy into the struggle was renewed. Napoleon was aware that Victor
+Emmanuel was wildly anxious to come to the rescue, and on this
+personal goodwill his last hope was built. Prince Napoleon was
+despatched from the camp at Châlons to see what he could do. At this
+eleventh hour (19th August) Napoleon was ready to yield about Rome. At
+the camp, the influence which guided him in Paris was less felt, or it
+is probable that he would not have yielded even now. Prince Napoleon
+carried a sheet of white paper with the Emperor's signature at the
+foot. He showed it to Lanza when he reached Florence, and told him to
+fill it up as he chose. Whatever he asked for was already granted. A
+month before, such terms would have won both Italy and Austria--not
+now.
+
+The Prince found his father-in-law eager to give the 50,000 men that
+were asked for, but the ministers protested that the Italian army was
+unprepared for war. Still, to satisfy the King, who signified his
+irritation so clearly to Lanza that this good servant was on the point
+of resigning, they agreed to submit the case to Austria; if Austria
+would co-operate, they would re-consider their decision. Austria
+replied: 'Too late.'
+
+When, in 1873, Victor Emmanuel paid a visit to Berlin, he caused some
+sensation at a grand State banquet by saying to his host: 'But for
+these gentlemen' (and he waved his hand towards the ministers who
+accompanied him) 'I should have gone to war with you.' Courtiers did
+not know which way to look, but the aged Emperor was not displeased by
+the soldierly bluntness of the avowal.
+
+Prince Napoleon remained in Florence, throwing away his eloquence,
+till the 2nd of September cut short the argument. When he had left his
+cousin, the Emperor was resolved to fall back on Paris according to
+MacMahon's plan, but the ministers and the Empress Regent forced him
+to his doom. On the 2nd of September Sédan was lost; on the 4th the
+Empire fell.
+
+'And to think,' exclaimed Victor Emmanuel when he heard the news,
+'that this good man was always wanting to give me advice!'
+
+From the date of the declaration of war, and still more since the
+evacuation of Rome by the French troops (begun on the 29th of July,
+ended on the 19th of August), Italy had been too deeply agitated for
+any sane person to suppose that the prescriptive right of the nation
+to seize the opportunity which offered itself of completing its unity
+could be resisted by the artificial dyke of a compromise which made
+the Government the instrument of France. Lanza was determined to
+maintain order; he had Mazzini arrested at Palermo, and suppressed
+disorders where they occurred, but the rising tide of the will of the
+people could not be suppressed, and had the ministry resisted it,
+something more than the ministry would have fallen.
+
+In justification of Lanza's slowness to move, and of the apparent, if
+not real, unwillingness with which he took every forward step, it is
+contended that more precipitate action would have caused what most
+people will agree would have been a misfortune for Italy, the
+departure of the Pope from Rome. It was only on the 20th of August
+that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Visconti-Venosta, sent a
+memorandum to the European Powers which announced that the Government
+had decided on occupying Rome at once. A week after, the fall of the
+Empire came as a godsend to the ministry which had possibly hardly
+deserved such a stroke of luck. They were no longer hampered by the
+September Convention, because the September Convention was dead. This
+was amply admitted by Jules Favre, though he declined to denounce the
+treaty formally; even a French Radical, in the hour of setting up the
+Republic, was afraid to proclaim aloud that France renounced all claim
+to interfere in her neighbour's concerns.
+
+Of the other Powers, Switzerland signified her approval, and the rest
+engaged to abstain from any opposition.
+
+The King addressed a letter to the Pope, in which, with the affection
+of a son and the faith of a Catholic, he appealed to his spirit of
+benevolence and his Italian patriotism to speak the word of peace in
+the midst of the storm of war that was distracting Europe, and to
+accept the love and protection of the people of Italy in lieu of a
+sovereignty which could not stand without the support of foreign arms.
+Pius IX. merely answered by saying that the letter was not worthy of
+an affectionate son, and that he prayed God to bestow upon His Majesty
+the mercy of which he had much need. To the bearer of the royal
+appeal, Count Ponza di San Martino, he said that he might yield to
+violence, but would never sanction injustice.
+
+This was about the time that the Pope, on his side, wrote an appeal
+not, be it observed, to any Catholic monarch, but to King William of
+Prussia, who would certainly not have read unmoved the complaint of
+one who, like himself, was crowned with white hairs, but Count
+Bismarck took the precaution of causing the letter not to reach his
+master's hands till the Italians were in Rome.
+
+The day following the Pope's interview with Count Ponza, the 11th of
+September, the Italian troops received the order to enter the Papal
+states. For several weeks five divisions under General Cadorna had
+been in course of concentration along the frontier; this force now
+marched on Rome. Bixio was sent to Civita Vecchia where resistance was
+expected, and had been ordered by Kanzler, but the native element
+prevailed over the foreign in the garrison, and the Spanish
+commandant, Colonel Serra, interpreting the wishes of the Roman
+troops, surrendered without firing a shot.
+
+Great was the indignation of the French and Belgian Zouaves. They were
+resolved that the same thing should not happen in Rome. That there was
+a chance of avoiding bloodshed may be inferred, from Count Arnim's
+numerous journeys between the Vatican and General Cadorna's
+headquarters outside Porta Salara; the Prussian representative hoping
+till the last moment to arrange matters in a pacific sense. Cardinal
+Antonelli is said to have been nearly persuaded, when he received a
+message from Colonel Charette in these terms: 'You had better go and
+say mass while we look after defending you.' The war party so far
+carried the day that the Pope adhered to his plan of 'sufficient
+resistance to show that he yielded only to force.'
+
+At half-past five on the morning of the 20th of September, all
+attempts at conciliation having failed, the Italian attack was opened
+upon five different points, Porta San Pancrazio, Porta San Giovanni
+Laterano, Porta San Lorenzo, Porta del Popolo and Porta Pia. General
+Maze de la Roche's division attacked the latter gate, and the wall
+near it, in which a breach was rapidly effected by the steady fire of
+the Italian batteries, though it was not till past eight o'clock that
+it seemed large enough to admit of an assault. Then the 41st of the
+line, and the 12th and 34th Bersaglieri were ordered up, and dashed
+into the breach with the cry of 'Savoia! Savoia!' The challenge was
+returned by the Zouaves with their 'Vive Pie Neuf.' They had been
+already ordered to desist, as the Pope's instructions were clear, 'to
+stop when a breach was made;' but on the plea that the order was sent
+to them verbally they continued firing. When the written order came,
+they displayed a white handkerchief fastened to a bayonet, and at this
+point the fight was over. Hundreds of Roman exiles poured through the
+breach after the soldiers; 15,000 of them had arrived or were arriving
+at the gates of the city.
+
+At the same time the white flag was hoisted on Porta Pia, but on the
+advance of the 40th Regiment and a battalion of Bersaglieri, shots
+were fired which killed and wounded several officers and men; when
+they saw their companions falling, the troops could not be restrained
+from scaling the barricade which had been formed to defend the gate,
+and surrounding and capturing the Zouaves who were behind it. The
+whole Diplomatic Corps now came out in full uniform to urge General
+Cadorna to effect the occupation as quickly as possible, that order
+might be maintained. By midday, the Italian troops had penetrated into
+most parts of the city left of the Tiber; as yet there was no formal
+capitulation on the part of the Zouaves, and their attitude was not
+exactly reassuring. This did not prevent the population, both men and
+women, from filling the streets and greeting the Italians with every
+sign of rejoicing. They cheered, they wept, they kissed the national
+flag, and the cry of _Roma Capitale_ drowned all other cries, even as
+the fact it saluted closed the discords and the factions of ages.
+
+In the afternoon all the Papal troops were persuaded to lay down their
+arms, which, in the case of the foreigners, were given back to them.
+Next day they were reviewed by General Cadorna. As the Italians
+presented arms to the retiring host, some of the Antibes Legion
+shouted at them: 'We are French, we shall meet you again.' The Roman
+troops were sent to their homes; the foreigners conducted to the
+frontier, Charette and other of the French officers went to the
+battlefields of their prostrate country, and thus it came to pass that
+the Pope's defenders were found fighting side by side with Garibaldi;
+they, indeed, only doing their simple duty, but he, acting on an
+impulse of Quixotic generosity which was repaid--the world knows how!
+
+Cadorna received three pressing requests from the Pope to occupy the
+Leonine City, and the third he granted. The idea of leaving the part
+of Rome on which the Vatican stands under the Pope's jurisdiction had
+been long favoured by a certain class of politicians, and Lanza made
+a last effort to give it effect by excluding the Leonine City from the
+plebiscite which was ordered to take place in Rome and in the Roman
+province on the 2nd of October. It was in vain. The first voting urn
+to arrive at the Capitol on the appointed day was a glass receptacle
+borne by a huge Trasteverino, and preceded by a banner inscribed:
+'Città Leonina Si.' As the Government had not supplied the inhabitants
+with an official urn, it occurred to them to provide themselves with
+an unofficial one in which they duly deposited their votes. The Roman
+plebiscite yielded the results of 133,681 affirmative and 1507
+negative votes.
+
+In December the Italian Parliament met for the last time in the Hall
+of the Five Hundred. 'Italy,' said the King in the speech from the
+throne, 'is free and united; it depends on us to make her great and
+happy.' Of this last session at Florence the principal labour was the
+Act embodying the Papal guarantees which was intended to safeguard the
+legitimate independence and decorum of the Holy See on the lines
+formerly advocated by Cavour. Neither extreme party was satisfied, but
+it seemed at first not unlikely that the Pope would tacitly acquiesce
+in the arrangement. The first monthly payment of the national
+dotation, calculated to correspond with his civil list, was accepted.
+But though the influence of Cardinal Antonelli and the Italian
+prelates had been sufficient to keep the Pope in Rome, the influence
+of those who wished him to leave it was strong enough to establish at
+the Vatican the intransigent policy which has been pursued till now.
+
+During the flood of the Tiber which devastated the city that winter,
+the King of Italy paid a first informal visit to his capital,
+accompanied only by a few attendants, and bent on bringing help to
+the suffering population. In July 1872, he made his solemn entry, and
+at the same time the seat of Government was transferred to the Eternal
+City.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Victor Emmanuel could say what few men have been able to say of so
+large a promise: 'I have kept my word.' He gathered up the Italian
+flag from the dust of Novara, and carried it to the Capitol. In spite
+of the grandeur of republican tradition in Italy, and the lofty
+character of the men who represented it during the struggle for unity,
+a study of these events leaves on the mind the conviction that, at
+least in our time, the country could neither have been freed from the
+stranger nor welded into a single body-politic without a symbol which
+appealed to the imagination, and a centre of gravity which kept the
+diverse elements together by giving the whole its proper balance. The
+Liberating Prince whom Machiavelli sought was found in the Savoyard
+King. 'Quali porte se gli serrerebbono? Quali popoli gli negherebbono
+la obbedienza? Quale invidia se gli opporrebbe? Quale Italiano gli
+negherebbe l'ossequio?' To fill the appointed part Victor Emmanuel
+possessed the supreme qualification, which was patriotism. Though he
+came of an ambitious race, not even his enemies could with any
+seriousness bring to his charge personal ambition, since every step
+which took him further from the Alps, his fathers' cradle, involved a
+sacrifice of tastes and habits, and of most that made life congenial.
+When his work was finished, though he was not old, he had the
+presentiment that he should not long survive its completion. And so it
+proved.
+
+In the first days of January 1878, the King was seized with one of
+those attacks on the lungs which his vigorous constitution had
+hitherto enabled him to throw off. But in Rome this kind of illness is
+more fatal than elsewhere, and the doctors were soon obliged to tell
+him that there was no hope. 'Are we come to that?' he asked; and then
+directed that the chaplain should be summoned. There was no repetition
+of the scene at San Rossore; the highest authority had already
+sanctioned the administration of the Sacraments to the dying King, nay,
+it is said that the Pope's first impulse was to be himself the bearer
+of them. At that hour the man got the better of the priest; Francis
+drove out Dominic. The heart that had been made to pity and the lips
+that had been formed to bless returned to their natural functions.
+When the aged Pius heard that all was over, exclaimed: 'He died like a
+Christian, a Sovereign and an honest man (galantuomo).' Very soon the
+Pope followed the King to the grave, and so, almost together, these
+two historical figures disappear.
+
+Six years before, solitary and unsatisfied, Mazzini died at Pisa, his
+heart gnawed with the desire of the extreme, as the hearts have been
+of all those who aspired less to change what men do, or even what they
+believe, than what they are. More deep than political regrets was the
+pain with which he watched the absorption of human energies, in the
+race for wealth, for ease, for material happiness; he discerned that
+if the egotism of capital led to oppression, the egotism of labour
+would lead to anarchy. To the end he preached the moral law of which
+he had been the apostle through life. His last message to his
+countrymen, written when the pen was falling from his hand, was a
+warning to Italian workingmen to beware of the false gods of the new
+socialism. When others saw darkness he saw light; now, Cassandra-like,
+he saw darkness when others saw light; yet he did not doubt the
+ultimate triumph of the light, but he no longer thought that his eyes
+would see it, and he was glad to close them.
+
+Less sad, notwithstanding his physical martyrdom, were Garibaldi's
+last years. Italy showed him an unforgetting love; when he came to the
+continent, the same multitudes waited for him as of old, but instead
+of cheers there was a not less impressive silence now, lest the
+invalid should be disturbed. Soon after the transfer of the capital he
+went to Rome to speak in favour of the works by which it was proposed
+to control the inundations of the Tiber, and it was curious to hear it
+said on all sides that, of course, the Tiber works must be taken in
+hand as Garibaldi wished it. Pius IX. summed up the situation wittily
+in the remark: 'Lately we were two here; now we are three.' The old
+hero invoked the day when bayonets might be turned into pruning-hooks,
+but he by no means thought that it had arrived, and in the meanwhile
+he urged the Italians to look to their defences, and above all, 'to be
+strong on the sea, like England.' In the matter of government he
+remained the impenitent advocate of the rule of one honest man--call
+him Dictator or what you please, so he be one! Garibaldi died at
+Caprera on the 2nd of June 1882. The play was ended, the actors
+vanished:
+
+  [Greek: Dote kroton, kai pantes hymeis meta charas ktypêsate.]
+
+A new epoch has begun which need not detain the chronicler of Italian
+Liberation. The prose of possession succeeds the poetry of desire.
+Nothing, however, can lessen the greatness of the achievement. With
+regard to the future, it may be allowable to recall the superstition
+which, like so many other seemingly meaningless beliefs, becomes full
+of meaning when read according to the spirit: that a house stands long
+if its foundations be watered with the blood of sacrifice. No work of
+man was ever watered with a purer blood than the restoration of Italy
+to the ranks of living nations. And the last word of this book shall
+be Hope.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Colston and Company, Printers, Edinburgh.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  Albrecht, Archduke, 364, 369.
+
+  Alessandria, 225.
+
+  Alfieri, 8, 18.
+
+  Alemann, General, 379.
+
+  Amedeo, Prince, 169, 344, 368.
+
+  Amadeus, Victor, 73.
+
+  Amadeus with the Tail, 172.
+
+  Ampère, 237.
+
+  Andreoli, Giuseppe, 51.
+
+  Antonelli, Cardinal, 101, 130, 184, 189, 191, 398, 409.
+
+  Anzani, Francesco, 124.
+
+  Appel, General, 140.
+
+  Arnim, Count, 409.
+
+  Aspre, d', General, 104, 139, 140.
+
+  Aspromonte, 300, 348, 350.
+
+  Austerlitz, 5.
+
+  Azeglio, Massimo d', 73, 74, 113, 175, 190, 195, 206.
+
+
+  Bandiera, 67-69.
+
+  Bassi, Ugo, 154. 163.
+
+  Bastide, Jules, 117.
+
+  Bava, General, 106, 114.
+
+  Bazaine, Marshal, 243
+
+  Beauharnais, Eugène, 6-9.
+
+  Beauregard, Costa de, 224.
+
+  Bellegarde, Marshal, 9-11.
+
+  Benedek, 240, 244, 245.
+
+  Bentinck, Lord William, 7, 11, 13, 14.
+
+  Bentivegna, Count, 209.
+
+  Berlin, Congress of, 399.
+
+  Bertani, Dr, 231, 297, 309.
+
+  Beust, Count, 400.
+
+  Bianchi, B. dei, 330.
+
+  Bismarck, 358, 397-8, 408.
+
+  Bixio, 101, 272, 301, 318, 360, 368, 408.
+
+  Boccheciampi, 68.
+
+  Borjès, Josè, 331.
+
+  Brescia, Revolution at, 142, 232, 245, 343.
+
+  Briganti, General, 301, 302,
+
+  Brofferio, 179.
+
+  Bronzetta, Pilade, 318, 320.
+
+  Bubna, Count, 43.
+
+  Brunetti, Angelo, 82.
+
+  Buol, Count, 223.
+
+  Buonaparte, Joseph, 6.
+
+  Buonaparte, Lucien, 213.
+
+
+  Cadorna, Gen., 408-9, 410-11.
+
+  Caiazzo, 316.
+
+  Cairoli, Benedetto, 281, 380, 391.
+
+  Calabria helps Garibaldi, 300.
+
+  Calandrelli, 184.
+
+  Calatafimi, 278.
+
+  Calderai del Contrapeso, 24.
+
+  Campo Formio, Treaty of, 4.
+
+  Canrobert, General, 229.
+
+  Capponi, 39, 135.
+
+  Caprera, 221, 325, 328, 337, 385, 396.
+
+  Capua, War around, 305, 318;
+    capitulation, 326.
+
+  Carignano, Prince of, 30, 32, 37.
+
+  Carignano. Eugene de, 333.
+
+  Carlyle, Thomas, 69.
+
+  Caroline, Queen, 13.
+
+  Casati, 100.
+
+  Caserta, 314, 318.
+
+  Carusso, 331.
+
+  Castelfidardo, 322, 337.
+
+  Castelnuovo, burning of village, 107.
+
+  Castel Sant Elmo, 306, 307.
+
+  Castiglione, Count, 370.
+
+  Castlereagh, Lord, 11, 12, 14, 27.
+
+  Cattaneo, 100; party of,
+
+  Cavour, Count, 85;
+    becomes minister, 192;
+    resolves Piedmont shall join Allies in Crimean War, 202;
+    visits England, 204;
+    meets Napoleon at Plombières, 247;
+    resigns office, 249;
+    recalled, 260;
+    resolves to invade Papal States, 310;
+    Garibaldi's veterans, 335;
+    Rome to be capital, 337;
+    death, 339.
+
+  Centurioni, Society of, 78.
+
+  Charette, General, 389.
+
+  Charles III, 208, 236.
+
+  Charles Albert, 30, 31, 34, 36, 38, 46;
+    accession 56;
+    Re Tentenna, 74;
+    promulgates Charter, 94;
+    retreat to Milan, 114;
+    abdicates, 141;
+    burial, 181.
+
+  Charles Emmanuel. 19, 30.
+
+  Charles Felix, Duke of Genoa, 30, 31, 36, 56.
+
+  Charles Ludovico, 87.
+
+  Chiavone, General, 330.
+
+  Chretien, General, 284, 286.
+
+  Chrzanowski, 139, 140.
+
+  Cialdini, General, 322, 328, 332, 348, 366, 370, 337.
+
+  Cipriani, L., 255.
+
+  Civita Vecchia, the French at, 391-408.
+
+  Clam Gallas, Count, 243.
+
+  Clarendon, Lord, 185, 206.
+
+  Clary, General, 292.
+
+  Clotilde, Princess, 217, 218.
+
+  Colonna, General, 281.
+
+  Commacchio, 16.
+
+  Confalonieri, Count, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45, 64.
+
+  Conneau, 216.
+
+  Corsini, Prince, 130, 135.
+
+  Corti, Count, 399.
+
+  Cosenz, 301, 308, 360.
+
+  Cowley, Lord, 260.
+
+  Crispi, Francesco, 269, 292, 294.
+
+  Cristina, Princess, 238.
+
+  Crocco, 331.
+
+  Custozza, 114, 370.
+
+
+  Dalmatia, sold with Venice, 364.
+
+  Dante, 1-3, 341, 363.
+
+  De Castillia, 42.
+
+  Del Bosco, 290, 291.
+
+  Depretis, Agostino, 293.
+
+  D'Este, Francis. 31, 51.
+
+  Dolfi, Giuseppe, 235.
+
+  Drouyn de Lhuys, 184.
+
+  Dunne, Colonel, 289, 319.
+
+  Durando, General. 102, 107, 112.
+
+
+  Eboli. 303.
+
+  Elliot, Mr, 314.
+
+  Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg, 199, 266.
+
+
+  Falloux, de, 185.
+
+  Fanti, General, 257, 312, 334.
+
+  Farini, L.C., 73, 127, 237, 255, 257, 333, 339.
+
+  Faro, Cape of, 297, 298, 300.
+
+  Favre, Jules. 215, 397.
+
+  Ferdinand II., 48, 90, 92, 93, 102, 188, 237.
+
+  Ferdinand III., 12, 26, 28.
+
+  Ferdinand, Emperor of Austria, 118.
+
+  Ferrara, Austrians in, 16.
+
+  Ferretti, Cardinal, 82.
+
+  Fleury, General, 247.
+
+  Florence, capital of Italy, 352-411.
+
+  Forbes, Commander, 304, 305.
+
+  Foscolo, Ugo, 17, 18.
+
+  Fra Giacomo. 201, 339.
+
+  Francis I., 47.
+
+  Francis II., 238, 267, 295, 299, 306, 327, 330.
+
+  Francis Joseph, Emperor, 119, 160, 227, 240, 242, 249.
+
+
+  Gaeta, Fall of, 317-326.
+
+  Gamba, Pietro, 24, 50.
+
+  Gambetta, 399.
+
+  Gaminara, Emmanuele, 9.
+
+  Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 64, 120;
+    declared enemy of the State, 121;
+    in South America, 123;
+    marries Anita, 123;
+    in Rome, 148;
+    death of Anita, 158;
+    leaves Caprera, 221, 256-263;
+    Sicilian expedition, 256;
+    march on Naples, 298;
+    Battle of Solferino, 319;
+    of Garigliano, 323;
+    returns to Caprera, 325, 334, 347;
+    wounded, 349; arrested, 383; in Rome, 391;
+    defeat at Mentana, 394; death, 414.
+
+  Garibaldi, Menotti, 257, 280, 286, 386, 392.
+
+  Garigliano, Battle of, 323.
+
+  Genoa, ceded to Sardinia, 13-15.
+
+  Genoa, Charles Felix, Duke of, 30-32.
+
+  Ghio, General, 302, 303.
+
+  Giacinta di Collegno, 38.
+
+  Gioberti, 78, 133.
+
+  Gladstone, W.E., 187.
+
+  Goito, Battle of, 112.
+
+  Gravelotte, Battle of, 405.
+
+  Gregory XVI., 50, 76, 77.
+
+  Guerrazzi, 135, 136.
+
+  Gyulai, Count, 227, 230, 231, 240.
+
+
+  Haynau, General, 145, 162.
+
+  Hess, General, 228, 230, 242.
+
+  Hilliers, Baraguay d', 229.
+
+  Hoche, 5.
+
+  Hortense, Queen, 55.
+
+  Humbert of the White Hands, 172.
+
+
+  Immaculate Conception, Doctrine of, 77.
+
+
+  Jesuits, 51, 75, 128, 379.
+
+
+  Kanzler, General, 392.
+
+  Kellersperg, Baron von, 227.
+
+  Klapka, General, 357.
+
+  Kohlen-Brenners, 22.
+
+  Kossuth, 246, 253.
+
+  Kuhn, General, 372.
+
+
+  Laderchi, Count, 40.
+
+  La Farina, 295.
+
+  La Gala, 331.
+
+  Lamartine, 117
+
+  La Marmora, General, 170, 171, 202. 348, 352,
+    357, 359, 361-366
+
+  Lamoricière, General, 311, 313.
+
+  Lannes, Marshal, 231.
+
+  Lanza, General, 282, 283, 286, 403, 406, 407.
+
+  Le Boeuf, General, 379.
+
+  Leo XII., 49.
+
+  Leopardi, 186.
+
+  Leopold II., 89, 159, 234.
+
+  Lesseps, Ferdinand, 151, 154.
+
+  Letizia, General, 284, 286.
+
+  Liborio Romano, 306.
+
+  Lincoln, President, 343.
+
+  Lissa, Battle of, 374.
+
+  Lodi, 4.
+
+  Lombardy, trials in, 40; Revolution, 100, 162.
+
+  Louis Philippe, 128.
+
+  Lucca, 16.
+
+
+  Machiavelli, 2, 3, 52, 412.
+
+  MacMahon, Marshal, 229, 233, 244, 406.
+
+  Magenta, Battle of, 232, 234, 236.
+
+  Malghella, 23.
+
+  Malmesbury, Lord, 223.
+
+  Mamelli, Goffredo, 154, 155.
+
+  Manin, Daniel, 99, 116, 160, 168, 203.
+
+  Mantua, Prince Eugene in, 8-10;
+    gallant defence, 105.
+
+  Manzoni, Alessandro, 19.
+
+  Margaret, Queen, 199, 401.
+
+  Maria Adelaide, Queen, 169.
+
+  Maria Teresa, Queen, 31.
+
+  Marie Louise, Empress, 12, 31;
+    death, 88.
+
+  Marie Sofia, Princess, 237.
+
+  Mamiani, Terenzio, 126, 131.
+
+  Maroncelli, Pietro, 44.
+
+  Marryat, Captain, 274.
+
+  Marsala, 274, 276, 345.
+
+  Martinengo, Count, 145.
+
+  Mary, Princess, of Cambridge, 205
+
+  Mastai Ferretti, Cardinal, 77.
+
+  Matilda, Archduchess, 401.
+
+  Maximilian, Archduke, 211.
+
+  Mazzini, Giuseppe, 53, 57, 58;
+    early life, 59;
+    becomes a Carbonaro, 60;
+    Association of Young Italy, 63;
+    takes refuge in England, 66;
+    writes 'Duties of Man,' 67;
+    meets Garibaldi, 120;
+    at Rome, 132, 157;
+    letters from Orsini, 214;
+    protests against Napoleonic war, 220;
+    in Naples, 313, 354-357;
+    corresponds with the king, 398;
+    arrested, 407;
+    death, 413.
+
+  Medici, Giacomo, 124, 125, 155, 231, 273, 289,
+    292, 301, 318, 360.
+
+  Melegnano, Battle of, 240.
+
+  Menabrea, General, 388-395, 400-402.
+
+  Menechini, 25.
+
+  Menotti, Ciro, 52, 55, 64.
+
+  Mentana, Battle of, 392-397, 404.
+
+  Merode, Marquis de, 330.
+
+  Messina, held by Royal troops, 290;
+    evacuated, 295.
+
+  Metternich, Prince, 15, 32, 46, 56, 83, 84, 86,
+    95, 400.
+
+  Mezzacapo, 237.
+
+  Micca, Pietro, 36.
+
+  Milan, revolt, 8-10;
+    fighting in the city, 95;
+    Austrians depart, 233.
+
+  Milano, Ageslao, 208.
+
+  Milazzo, Battle of, 290.
+
+  Mincio, Battle of. 107, 241, 365, 366, 369.
+
+  Minghetti, Marco, 101, 129.
+
+  Minto, Lord, 87, 116
+
+  Misilmeri, 280.
+
+  Misley, Dr, 52.
+
+  Missori, Major. 291.
+
+  Modena, revolution in, 53.
+
+  Monreale, 278.
+
+  Montalembert, 185.
+
+  Montanelli, Giuseppe, 112, 135, 136.
+
+  Monti, 16.
+
+  Montebello, Battle of, 231.
+
+  Morelli. 25, 29.
+
+  Moro, Domenico, 68.
+
+  Moscow, retreat from, 8.
+
+  Mundy, Admiral, 282, 283, 287, 288, 314, 320,
+    324, 354.
+
+  Murat, Joachim, 6, 7, 10, 13, 23.
+
+
+  Napier, Lord, 90, 92.
+
+  Naples, 25-29, 101;
+    massacre, 110;
+    misrule in, 186-187;
+    Garibaldi's march on, 299;
+    King enters, 324.
+
+  Napoleon Buonaparte, 2-10, 240.
+
+  Napoleon III., 55;
+    elected President of French Republic, 119, 149;
+    letter to Ney, 185;
+    attempt on his life, 212;
+    compact at Plombières, 217, 253;
+    demands Nice and Savoy, 260-262;
+    era of peace, 358.
+
+  Napoleon, Prince, 185, 229, 235, 351, 406.
+
+  Nélaton, Dr, 349.
+
+  Ney, Edgar, 185.
+
+  Nice, cession of. 221, 224, 258, 262
+
+  Nicotera, 209, 297.
+
+  Niel, 229, 244.
+
+  Ninco-Nanco, 330.
+
+  Normanby, Lord, 117, 228.
+
+  Novara, 37-39;
+    battle of, 141, 412.
+
+  Nugent, General, 107, 112, 113, 143.
+
+
+  O'Donnel, Count, 95.
+
+  Oliphant, Laurence, 263, 266.
+
+  Olivier, Emile, 405.
+
+  Orsini, Colonel, 280.
+
+  Orsini, Felice, 213, 216.
+
+  Oudinot, General, 150, 156.
+
+
+  Palermo, strange discovery, 92;
+    Sicilian expedition, 271-290;
+    insurrection, 381.
+
+  Pallavicini, Giorgio, 42, 137, 309, 314, 344, 348, 360.
+
+  Palma, 330.
+
+  Palmerston, Lord, 83, 111, 117: 161, 266, 282, 355, 371.
+
+  Panizzi, Anthony, 52.
+
+  Paris, Treaty of, 13;
+    Congress of, 185.
+
+  Parma, 12-16.
+
+  Passaglia, 341.
+
+  Pastrengo, Battle of, 109.
+
+  Peard, Colonel, 303-306.
+
+  Pellico, Silvio, 40, 43.
+
+  Pepe, Guglielmo, 29, 111, 126.
+
+  Périer, Casimir, 53.
+
+  Persano, Admiral, 274, 288, 308, 372, 377.
+
+  Peschiera, 112, 240, 242, 248.
+
+  Petitti. General, 378.
+
+  Petre, 81, 82.
+
+  Piacenza, garrisoned by Austrians, 16.
+
+  Piedmont, Revolution in, 33;
+    struggle within the Church, 189-192.
+
+  Pietri, 253.
+
+  Pilone, 330.
+
+  Pilo, Rosalino, 170, 278.
+
+  Pisacane, Carlo, 209
+
+  Pius VII., 12, 49.
+
+  Pius VIII., 50
+
+  Pius IX., 78;
+    election, 79, 93;
+    grants constitution, 101;
+    encyclical letter, 108;
+    flight to Gaeta, 130;
+    calls foreign aid to support temporal power, 132;
+    thanksgiving, 183, 259;
+    character, 311;
+    calls to arms, 363, 408;
+    death, 413.
+
+  Plombières, 217;
+    meeting between Napoleon and Cavour.
+
+  Poerio, Carlo, 90, 126, 134.
+
+  Pralormo, Count, 176.
+
+  Prina, General, 8.
+
+  Prince Consort, 198, 258.
+
+
+  Radetsky, 96, 104, 111, 139, 162, 167, 195, 249.
+
+  Raimondi, Captain, 35
+
+  Rattazzi, 138, 200, 207, 252, 260, 340, 342, 350, 382, 384.
+
+  Reggio, 301, 347.
+
+  Renzi, Pietro, 73.
+
+  Ricasoli, Baron, 135, 235, 236, 255, 335, 340, 361.
+
+  Rienzi, Cola di, 132.
+
+  Rimini, 9.
+
+  Risorgimento, 194.
+
+  Rolandis, de, 51.
+
+  Romagna, Carbonarism in the, 24, 50.
+
+  Rome, Entry of French, 157;
+    French depart from, 382;
+    declared capital, 412
+
+  Romeo, Domenico, 90.
+
+  Rossaroll, General, 29.
+
+  Rossetti, Gabriele, 49.
+
+  Rossi, 81, 128.
+
+  Rouher, 397, 405.
+
+  Ruffini, Jacobo, 65.
+
+  Ruskin, J., 192.
+
+  Russell, Lord John, 252, 268, 274. 327.
+
+  Russell, Odo, 225.
+
+
+  Sadowa, Battle of, 370.
+
+  Salemi, 275.
+
+  Salerno, 305.
+
+  San Bon, 374.
+
+  Sanfedesti, Secret Society of, 50.
+
+  San Marino, 13, 73.
+
+  San Martino, Count, 408.
+
+  Santa Rosa, 191.
+
+  Santorre di Santa Rosa, 38.
+
+  Sardinia--War with Austria, 137.
+
+  Savoy, 13;
+    cession of, 221, 224, 258, 259, 262.
+
+  Schmidt, Colonel, 237.
+
+  Schwarzenberg, Prince, 176, 187,243, 244.
+
+  Sella, Quintino, 361.
+
+  Settembrini, 209.
+
+  Sicily--Insurrection, 91;
+    Sicilian expedition, 266.
+
+  Silvati, 25, 29.
+
+  Sirtori, 272, 360.
+
+  Speri, Tito, 144.
+
+  Spielberg, 44.
+
+  Solaro della Margherita, 223.
+
+  Solferino, Battle of, 243, 245.
+
+  Superga, the, 181.
+
+
+  Talleyrand, Prince, 32, 260, 264.
+
+  Tardio, 330.
+
+  Tchernaja, Battle of, 202.
+
+  Tegethoff, Admiral, 373-377.
+
+  Theobald de Brie, 22.
+
+  Theodolinda, Crown of, 6.
+
+  Thiers, 175, 397, 404.
+
+  Thurn, General, 140.
+
+  Ticino, 120, 139, 226, 228, 233.
+
+  Tolentino, Battle of, 10.
+
+  Torelli, Prince, 134.
+
+  Tortona, 230.
+
+  Trazégnies, Marquis de, 331.
+
+  Trentino, 343, 363, 371.
+
+  Trescorre, 342, 343.
+
+  Türr, General, 315, 405.
+
+
+  Ulloa, General, 304.
+
+  Ultramontanes, 190, 259, 397, 404.
+
+  Umberto, Prince, 169, 344, 367, 368, 401.
+
+  Urban, 231, 232.
+
+
+  Vacca, Admiral, 374.
+
+  Vaillant, General, 229, 261.
+
+  Vecchj, Colonel, 328.
+
+  Venice, 3-5;
+    political trials in, 40-44;
+    Austrians expelled, 99;
+    re-occupied by Austria, 160-163, 251, 322, 356, 371;
+    united to Italy, 379.
+
+  Venosta, 350, 361, 407.
+
+  Verona, Congress of, 56.
+
+  Victor Amadeus, 181.
+
+  Victor Emmanuel I.,
+    at Turin, 12;
+    King of Sardinia, 30;
+    abdicates, 36;
+    recommends mercy, 38.
+
+  Victor Emmanuel II.;
+    accession, 141;
+    unpopularity, 165-166;
+    visits English and French courts, 204;
+    invites Garibaldi to join his army, 221;
+    enters Milan, 234;
+    courage at Soferino, 245;
+    peace with Austria, 249;
+    letter to Napoleon, 255;
+    hailed King of Italy, 323;
+    entry into Naples, 324;
+    in Venice, 380;
+    illness, 402;
+    visit to Berlin, 406;
+    death, 413.
+
+  Victoria, Queen, 261.
+
+  Vienna, Congress of, 13, 15, 32, 10;
+    Treaty of, 379.
+
+  Vimercati, Count, 168, 169.
+
+  Volturno, 307, 313, 315;
+    Battle of, 319.
+
+
+  Waddington, 399.
+
+  Welden, General, 127.
+
+  Wellesley, Admiral, 68.
+
+  Wellington, Duke of, 56.
+
+  William I., Emperor, 358, 408.
+
+  Wilmot, Lieutenant, 280, 284
+
+  Wörth, Battle of, 405.
+
+  Wratislaw, 140.
+
+
+  Young Italy, Association of, founded by Mazzini, 63.
+
+
+  Zamboni, Luigi, 51.
+
+  Zedwitz, 243, 244.
+
+  Zobel, 232.
+
+  Zorzi, 126.
+
+  Zucchi, General, 54.
+
+  Zurich, Conference of, 257;
+
+    Treaty of, 258.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: See _Memoirs of Lord Castlereagh_, 1848, Vol. i. p. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 2: It is now Carlyle's turn to be aspersed. Let Mazzini
+speak for him from the grave: 'I do not know if I told you,' he wrote
+to the Marchesa Eleonora Curlo Ruffini, in a letter published a few
+months ago, 'that I have met upon my path, deserted enough, I hope,
+by choice, a Scotchman of mind and things, the first person here, up
+till now, with whom I sympathise and who sympathises with me. We
+differ in nearly all opinions, but his are so sincere and
+disinterested that I respect them. He is good, good, good; he has
+been, and I think he is still, unhappy in spite of the fame which
+surrounds him; he has a wife with talent and feeling; always ailing;
+no children. They live out of town, and I go to see them every now and
+then. They have no insular or other prejudices that jar upon me. I
+have grown more intimate with this man in consequence, I think, of an
+article I wrote here, after knowing him, against an historical work of
+his; perhaps, accustomed as he is to common-place praise, to which he
+is indifferent, my frankness pleased him. For the rest I shall see him
+rarely, and I can only give him esteem and the warmest sympathy--not
+friendship, which I can henceforth give to no one.' (22nd March
+1840.)]
+
+[Footnote 3: On the production of Verdi's opera, _I Lombardi alla
+prima Crociata_, the Austrian Archbishop of Milan wished the
+Commissary of Police to prohibit the performance because it treated of
+sacred subjects. When it was recognised as one of the accelerating
+causes of the revolution, he drily remarked that they would have done
+better to take his advice. The grand chorus, 'O Signore dal tetto
+natiò,' in which the censor had only seen a pious chant, became the
+morning-song of national resurrection.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Long live who has money and who has none.']
+
+[Footnote 5: Of Garibaldi's foreign officers, Colonel (afterwards
+General) Dunne was one of the most marked personalities. When quite a
+young man he sold his commission in the English army and took to
+fighting under many flags. In the Crimean War he commanded a company
+of Bashi Bazouks. He had in him more than a dash of Gordon, of Burton,
+and like them he could do what he chose with untamed natures. If he
+was not obeyed fast enough he adopted rather strong measures. A
+Sicilian company, under fire for the first time, failed to show
+sufficient promptitude in executing an order to escalade a wall and
+jump into a garden, from which the enemy was keeping up a brisk fire.
+Dunne caught up half-a-dozen of the men into his saddle and pitched
+them bodily over the wall. The effect was singular, for seeing the
+Garibaldians falling from the clouds, the Neapolitans took to their
+heels, exclaiming: 'They can fly! they can fly!' Generally, however,
+he infused his own courage into all who served under him with a touch,
+perhaps, of his own fatalistic mysticism. It was a strange experience
+to hear this courteous, mild-mannered gentleman lament that Rome had
+not been burnt down; the disappearance of the scene of so many awful
+crimes he regarded necessary as a moral sanitary measure.]
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14078 ***
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14078 ***</div>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Liberation of Italy, by Countess Evelyn
+Martinengo-Cesaresco</h1>
+<hr class="full" />
+<div>
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image1.jpg" alt="FRONTISPIECE: GUISEPPE
+GARIBALDI" /><br />
+<a name="GUISEPPE_GARIBALDI"></a> <span class="caption">GIUSEPPE
+GARIBALDI</span></div>
+
+<br />
+ <br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<h1>THE LIBERATION OF ITALY</h1>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<h3>1815-1870</h3>
+
+<h3>BY THE</h3>
+
+<h2>COUNTESS EVELYN MARTINENGO CESARESCO</h2>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<h4>AUTHOR OF 'ITALIAN CHARACTERS IN THE EPOCH OF UNIFICATION'<br />
+ (<i>Patriotti Italiani</i>), ETC.</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<h4><i>WITH PORTRAITS</i></h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<h6>LONDON<br />
+ SEELEY AND CO, LIMITED<br />
+ ESSEX STREET, STRAND</h6>
+<h4>1895</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<ul>
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CONTENTS"><b>CONTENTS.</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#PREFACE"><b>PREFACE.</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"><b>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>CHAPTER XVIII</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>CHAPTER XIX</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>CHAPTER XX</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+</ul>
+
+<a name="PREFACE"></a>
+
+<h3><i>PREFACE</i></h3>
+
+<p>The old figure of speech 'in the fulness of time' embodies a truth too
+often forgotten. History knows nothing of spontaneous generation; the
+chain of cause and effect is unbroken, and however modest be the scale on
+which an historical work is cast, the reader has a right to ask that it
+should give him some idea, not only of what happened, but of why it
+happened. A catalogue of dates and names is as meaningless as the
+photograph of a crowd. In the following retrospect, I have attempted to
+trace the principal factors that worked towards Italian unity. The
+Liberation of Italy is a cycle waiting to be turned into an epic.</p>
+
+<p>In other words, it presents the appearance of a series of detached
+episodes, but the parts have an intimate connection with the whole, which,
+as time wears on, will constantly emerge into plainer light. Every year
+brings with it the issue of documents, letters, memoirs, that help to
+unravel the tangled threads in which this subject has been enveloped, and
+which have made it less generally understood than the two other great
+struggles of the century, the American fight for the Union, and the
+unification of Germany.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot too strongly state my indebtedness to the voluminous
+literature which has grown up in Italy round the <i>Risorgimento</i> since
+its completion; yet it must not be supposed that the witness of
+contemporaries published from hour to hour, in every European tongue,
+while the events were going on, has become or will ever become valueless.
+I have had access to a collection of these older writings, formed with
+much care between the years 1850-1870, and some authorities that were
+wanting, I found in the library of Sir James Hudson, given by him to Count
+Giuseppe Martinengo Cesaresco after he left the British legation at
+Turin.</p>
+
+<p>There are, of course, many books in which the affairs of Italy figure
+only incidentally, which ought to be consulted by anyone who wishes to
+study the inner working of the Italian movement. Of such are Lord
+Castlereagh's <i>Despatches and Correspondence</i>, and the
+autobiographies of Prince Metternich and Count Beust.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps I have been helped in describing the events clearly, by the
+fact that I am familiar with almost all the places where they occurred,
+from the heights of Calatafimi to the unhappy rock of Lissa. Wherever the
+language of the <i>Si</i> sounds, we tread upon the history of the
+Revolution that achieved what a great English orator once called, 'the
+noblest work ever undertaken by man.'</p>
+
+<p>The supreme interest of the re-casting of Italy arises from the new
+spectacle of a nation made one not by conquest but by consent. Above and
+beyond the other causes that contributed to the conclusion must always be
+reckoned the gathering of an emotional wave, only comparable to the
+phenomena displayed by the medi&aelig;val religious revivals. Sentiment,
+it is said, is what makes the real historical miracles. A writer on
+Italian Liberation would be indeed misleading who failed to take account
+of the passionate longing which stirred and swayed even the most outwardly
+cold of those who took part in it, and nerved an entire people to heroic
+effort.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sal&ograve;, Lago di Garda.</i></p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+ <a name="CONTENTS"></a>
+
+<h3><i>CONTENTS</i></h3>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER I</p>
+
+<p>RESURGAM</p>
+
+<p>Italy from the Battle of Lodi to the Congress of Vienna.......... <a
+href="#Page_1">1</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER II</p>
+
+<p>THE WORK OF THE CARBONARI</p>
+
+<p>Revolutions in the Kingdom of Naples and in Piedmont&mdash;The<br />
+Conspiracy against Charles
+Albert........................................... <a href="#Page_21">
+21</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER III</p>
+
+<p>PRISON AND SCAFFOLD</p>
+
+<p>Political Trials in Venetia and Lombardy&mdash;Risings in the South
+and<br />
+ Centre&mdash;Ciro Menotti............................................. <a
+href="#Page_40">40</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER IV</p>
+
+<p>YOUNG ITALY</p>
+
+<p>Accession of Charles Albert&mdash;Mazzini's Unitarian
+Propaganda&mdash;The<br />
+Brothers Bandiera................................................ <a href=
+"#Page_56">56</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER V</p>
+
+<p>THE POPE LIBERATOR</p>
+
+<p>Events leading to the Election of Pius IX.&mdash;The Petty
+Princes&mdash;Charles<br />
+Albert, Leopold and Ferdinand................... ........<a href=
+"#Page_71">71</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER VI</p>
+
+<p>THE YEAR OF REVOLUTION</p>
+
+<p>Insurrection in Sicily&mdash;The Austrians expelled from Milan
+and<br />
+ Venice&mdash;Charles Albert takes the Field&mdash;Withdrawal of the<br />
+ Pope and King of Naples&mdash;Piedmont defeated&mdash;The Retreat...<a
+href="#Page_91">91</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER VII</p>
+
+<p>THE DOWNFALL OF THRONES</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi arrives&mdash;Venice under Manin&mdash;The Dissolution of
+the<br />
+ Temporal Power&mdash;Republics at Rome and Florence......<a href=
+"#Page_120">120</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER VIII</p>
+
+<p>AT BAY</p>
+
+<p>Novara&mdash;Abdication of Charles Albert&mdash;Brescia
+crushed&mdash;French<br />
+ Intervention&mdash;The Fall of Rome&mdash;The Fall of Venice..........<a
+href="#Page_137">137</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER IX</p>
+
+<p>'J'ATTENDS MON ASTRE'</p>
+
+<p>The House of Savoy&mdash;A King who Keeps his Word&mdash;Sufferings of
+the<br />
+ Lombards&mdash;Charles Albert's
+death...................................<a href="#Page_165">165</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER X</p>
+
+<p>THE REVIVAL OF PIEDMONT</p>
+
+<p>Restoration of the Pope and Grand-Duke of Tuscany&mdash;Misrule
+at<br />
+ Naples&mdash;The Struggle with the Church in Piedmont&mdash;The
+Crimean<br />
+ War.................................................................................<a
+href="#Page_183">183</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XI</p>
+
+<p>PREMONITIONS OF THE STORM</p>
+
+<p>Pisacane's Landing&mdash;Orsini's Attempt&mdash;The Compact of<br />
+ Plombi&egrave;res&mdash;Cavour's
+Triumph....................................... <a href="#Page_208">
+208</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XII</p>
+
+<p>THE WAR FOR LOMBARDY</p>
+
+<p>Austria declares War&mdash;Montebello&mdash;Garibaldi's<br />
+ Campaign&mdash;Palestro&mdash;Magenta&mdash;The Allies enter
+Milan&mdash;Ricasoli saves<br />
+ Italian Unity&mdash;Accession of Francis II.&mdash;Solferino&mdash;The
+Armistice of<br />
+ Villafranca.....................................................................
+<a href="#Page_227">227</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XIII</p>
+
+<p>WHAT UNITY COST</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon III. and Cavour&mdash;The Cession of Savoy and
+Nice&mdash;Annexations<br />
+ in Central
+Italy...............................................................<a
+href="#Page_251">251</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XIV</p>
+
+<p>THE MARCH OF THE THOUSAND</p>
+
+<p>Origin of the Expedition&mdash;Garibaldi at
+Marsala&mdash;Calatafimi&mdash;The Taking<br />
+ of Palermo&mdash;Milazzo&mdash;The Bourbons evacuate Sicily........<a
+href="#Page_266">266</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XV</p>
+
+<p>THE MEETING OF THE WATERS</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi's March on Naples&mdash;The Piedmontese in Umbria and
+the<br />
+ Marches&mdash;The Volturno. Victor Emmanuel enters Naples..... <a href=
+"#Page_298">298</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XVI</p>
+
+<p>BEGINNINGS OF THE ITALIAN KINGDOM</p>
+
+<p>The Fall of Gaeta&mdash;Political Brigandage&mdash;The Proclamation of
+the<br />
+ Italian Kingdom&mdash;Cavour's Death...................................<a
+href="#Page_326">326</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XVII</p>
+
+<p>'ROME OR DEATH!'</p>
+
+<p>Cavour's Successors&mdash;Aspromonte&mdash;The September
+Convention&mdash;Garibaldi's<br />
+ Visit to England.................................................. <a
+href="#Page_340">340</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XVIII</p>
+
+<p>THE WAR FOR VENICE</p>
+
+<p>The Prussian Alliance&mdash;Custoza&mdash;Lissa&mdash;The
+Volunteers&mdash;Acquisition of<br />
+ Venetia......................................................... <a href=
+"#Page_356">356</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XIX</p>
+
+<p>THE LAST CRUSADE</p>
+
+<p>The French leave Rome&mdash;Garibaldi's Arrest and Escape&mdash;The
+Second<br />
+ French Intervention&mdash;Monte
+Rotondo&mdash;Mentana............................ <a href="#Page_381">
+381</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XX</p>
+
+<p>ROME THE CAPITAL</p>
+
+<p>M. Rouher's 'Never!'&mdash;Papal
+Infallibility&mdash;S&eacute;dan&mdash;The Breach in Porta<br />
+ Pia&mdash;The King of Italy in Rome.................................. <a
+href="#Page_397">397</a></p>
+
+<br />
+ <a name="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>
+
+<h3><i>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</i></h3>
+
+<p>GUISEPPE GARIBALDI....................<a href=
+"#GUISEPPE_GARIBALDI">FRONTISPIECE</a></p>
+
+<p>GIUSEPPE MAZZINI.......................<a href="#Page_60">60</a></p>
+
+<p>KING VICTOR EMMANUEL............<a href="#Page_166">166</a></p>
+
+<p>COUNT CAVOUR...........................<a href="#Page_192">192</a></p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+ <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg.1]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<div class="center">
+<h2><strong>The Liberation of Italy</strong></h2>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_I"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+
+<h4>RESURGAM</h4>
+
+<h5>Italy from the Battle of Lodi to the Congress of Vienna.</h5>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>The unity of Italy, which the statesmen of Europe and all save a small
+number of the Italians themselves still regarded as an utopia when it was
+on the verge of accomplishment, was, nevertheless, desired and foreseen by
+the two greatest intellects produced by the Italian race. Dante conceived
+an Italy united under the Empire, which returning from a shameful because
+self-imposed exile would assume its natural seat in Rome. To him it was a
+point of secondary interest that the Imperial Lord happened to be bred
+beyond the Alps, that he was of Teutonic, not of Latin blood. If the
+Emperor brought the talisman of his authority to the banks of the Tiber,
+Italy would overcome the factions which rent her, and would not only rule
+herself, but lead mankind. Vast as the vision was, Dante cannot be called
+presumptuous for having entertained it. The Rome of the C&aelig;sars, the
+Rome of the Popes, had each transformed the world: Italy was transforming
+it for a third time at that moment by the spiritual awakening which,
+beginning with the <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">
+[Pg.2]</a></span> Renaissance, led by inevitable steps to the Reformation.
+The great Florentine poet had the right to dream that his country was
+invested with a providential mission, that his people was a chosen people,
+which, by its own fault and by the fault of others, had lost its way, but
+would find it again. Such was Dante's so-called Ghibelline
+programme&mdash;less Ghibelline than intensely and magnificently Italian.
+His was a mind too mighty to be caged within the limits of partisan
+ambitions. The same may be said of Machiavelli. He also imagined, or
+rather discerned in the future, a regenerate Italy under a single head,
+and this, not the advancement of any particular man, was the grand event
+he endeavoured to hasten. With the impatience of a heart consumed by the
+single passion of patriotism, he conjured his fellow-countrymen to seize
+the first chance that presented itself, promising or unpromising, of
+reaching the goal. The concluding passage in the <i>Principe</i> was meant
+as an exhortation; it reads as a prophecy. 'We ought not therefore,'
+writes Machiavelli, 'to let this occasion pass whereby, after so long
+waiting, Italy may behold the coming of a saviour. Nor can I express with
+what love he would be received in all those provinces which have suffered
+from the foreign inundations; with what thirst of vengeance, with what
+obstinate faith, with what worship, with what tears! What doors would be
+closed against him? What people would deny him obedience? What jealousy
+would oppose him? What Italian would not do him honour? The barbarous
+dominion of the stranger stinks in the nostrils of all.'</p>
+
+<p>Another man of genius, an Italian whom a fortuitous circumstance made
+the citizen and the master of a country not his own, grasped both the
+vital necessity of unity from an Italian point of view, and the certainty
+of its ultimate achievement. Napoleon's notes on the <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg.3]</a></span> subject, written
+at St Helena, sum up the whole question without rhetoric but with
+unanswerable logic:&mdash;'Italy is surrounded by the Alps and the sea.
+Her natural limits are defined with as much exactitude as if she were an
+island. Italy is only united to the Continent by 150 leagues of frontier,
+and these 150 leagues are fortified by the highest barrier that can be
+opposed to man. Italy, isolated between her natural limits, is destined to
+form a great and powerful nation. Italy is one nation; unity of customs,
+language and literature must, within a period more or less distant, unite
+her inhabitants under one sole government. And Rome will, without the
+slightest doubt, be chosen by the Italians as their capital.'</p>
+
+<p>Unlike Dante and Machiavelli, who could only sow the seed, not gather
+the fruit, the man who wrote these lines might have made them a reality.
+Had Napoleon wished to unite Italy&mdash;had he had the greatness of mind
+to proclaim Rome the capital of a free and independent state instead of
+turning it into the chief town of a French department&mdash;there was a
+time when he could plainly have done it. Whether redemption too easily won
+would have proved a gain or a loss in the long run to the populations
+welded together, not after their own long and laborious efforts, but by
+the sudden exercise of the will of a conqueror, is, of course, a different
+matter. The experiment was not tried. Napoleon, whom the simple splendour
+of such a scheme ought to have fascinated, did a very poor thing instead
+of a very great one: he divided Italy among his relations, keeping the
+lion's share for himself.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon's policy in Italy was permanently compromised by the
+abominable sale of Venice, with her two thousand years of freedom, to the
+empire which, as no one knew better than he did, was the pivot of European
+despotism. After that transaction he could never again come before the
+Italians with clean hands; they might for a season make him <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg.4]</a></span> their idol,
+carried away by the intoxication of his fame; they could never trust him
+in their inmost conscience. The ruinous consequences of the Treaty of
+Campo Formio only; ceased in 1866. The Venetians have been severely
+blamed, most of all by Italian historians, for making Campo Formio
+possible by opening the door to the French six months before. Napoleon
+could not have bartered away Venice if it had not belonged to him. The
+reason that it belonged to him was that, on the 12th of May 1797, the
+Grand Council committed political suicide by dissolving the old
+aristocratic form of government, in compliance with a mere rumour,
+conveyed to them through the ignoble medium of a petty shopkeeper, that
+such was the wish of General Buonaparte. In extenuation of their fatal
+supineness, it may be urged that they felt the inherent weakness of an
+oligarchy out of date; and in the second place, that the victor of Lodi,
+the deliverer of Lombardy, then in the first flush of his scarcely
+tarnished glory, was a dazzling figure, calculated indeed to turn men's
+heads. But, after all, the only really valid excuse for them would have
+been that Venice lacked the means of defence, and this was not the case.
+She had 14,000 regular troops, 8000 marines, a good stock of
+guns&mdash;how well she might have resisted the French, had they, which
+was probable, attacked her, was to be proved in 1849. Her people,
+moreover, that <i>basso popolo</i> which nowhere in the world is more free
+from crime, more patient in suffering, more intelligent and
+public-spirited than in Venice, was anxious and ready to resist; when the
+nobles offered themselves a sacrifice on the Gallic altar by welcoming the
+proposed democratic institutions, the populace, neither hoodwinked nor
+scared into <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">
+[Pg.5]</a></span> hysterics, rose to the old cry of San Marco, and
+attempted a righteous reaction, which was only smothered when the
+treacherous introduction of French troops by night on board Venetian
+vessels settled the doom of Venice's independence.</p>
+
+<p>'Under all circumstances,' Napoleon wrote to the Venetian Municipality,
+'I shall do what lies in my power to prove to you my desire to see your
+liberty consolidated, and miserable Italy assume, at last, a glorious
+place, free and independent of strangers.' On the 10th of the following
+October he made over Venice to Austria, sending as a parting word the
+cynical message to the Venetians 'that they were little fitted for
+liberty: if they were capable of appreciating it, and had the virtue
+necessary for acquiring it well and good; existing circumstances gave them
+an excellent opportunity of proving it.' At the time, the act of betrayal
+was generally regarded as part of a well-considered plot laid by the
+French Directory, but it seems certain that it was not made known to that
+body before it was carried out, and that with Napoleon himself it was a
+sort of after-thought, sprung from the desire to patch up an immediate
+peace with Austria on account of the appointment of Hoche to the chief
+command of the army in Germany. The god to which he immolated Venice was
+the selfish fear lest another general should reap his German laurels.</p>
+
+<p>Venice remained for eight years under the Austrians, who thereby
+obtained what, in flagrant perversion of the principles on which the
+Congress of Vienna professed to act, was accepted in 1815 as their
+title-deeds to its possession. Meanwhile, after the battle of Austerlitz,
+the city of the sea was tossed back to Napoleon, who incorporated it in
+the newly-created kingdom of Italy, which no more corresponded to its name
+than did the Gothic kingdom of which he <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg.6]</a></span> arrogated to himself the heirship,
+when, placing the Iron Crown of Theodolinda upon his brow, he uttered the
+celebrated phrase: 'Dieu me l'a donn&eacute;e, gare &agrave; qui la
+touche.'</p>
+
+<p>This is not the place to write a history of French supremacy in Italy,
+but several points connected with it must be glanced at, because, without
+bearing them in mind, it is impossible to understand the events which
+followed. The viceroyalty of Eug&egrave;ne Beauharnais in North Italy, and
+the government of Joseph Buonaparte, and afterwards of Joachim Murat, in
+the South, brought much that was an improvement on what had gone before:
+there were better laws, a better administration, a quickening of
+intelligence. 'The French have done much for the regeneration of Italy,'
+wrote an English observer in 1810; 'they have destroyed the prejudices of
+the inhabitants of the small states of Upper Italy by uniting them; they
+have done away with the Pope; they have made them soldiers.' But there was
+the reverse side of the medal: the absence everywhere of the national
+spirit which alone could have consolidated the new <i>r&eacute;gime</i> on
+a firm basis; the danger which the language ran of losing its purity by
+the introduction of Gallicisms; the shameless robbery of pictures,
+statues, and national heirlooms of every kind for the replenishment of
+French museums; the bad impression left in the country districts by the
+abuses committed by the French soldiery on their first descent, and kept
+alive by the blood-tax levied in the persons of thousands of Italian
+conscripts sent to die, nobody knew where or why; the fields untilled, and
+Rachel weeping for her children: all these elements combined in rendering
+it difficult for the governments established under French auspices to
+survive the downfall of the man to whose sword they owed their existence.
+Their <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg.7]</a></span>
+dissolution was precipitated, however, by the discordant action of Murat
+and Eug&egrave;ne Beauharnais. Had these two pulled together, whatever the
+issue was it would have differed in much from what actually happened.
+Murat was jealous of Eug&egrave;ne, and did not love his brother-in-law,
+who had annoyed and thwarted him through his whole reign; he was uneasy
+about his Neapolitan throne, and, in all likelihood, was already dreaming
+of acquiring the crown of an independent Italy. Throwing off his
+allegiance to Napoleon, he imagined the vain thing that he might gain his
+object by taking sides with the Austrians. It must be remembered that
+there was a time when the Allied Powers had distinctly contemplated
+Italian independence as a dyke to France, and there were people foolish
+enough to think that Austria, now she felt herself as strong as she had
+then felt weak, would consent to such a plan. Liberators, self-called,
+were absolutely swarming in Italy; Lord William Bentinck was promising
+entire emancipation from Leghorn; the Austrian and English allies in
+Romagna ransacked the dictionary for expressions in praise of liberty; an
+English officer was made the mouthpiece for the lying assurance of the
+Austrian Emperor Francis, that he had no intention of re-asserting any
+claims to the possession of Lombardy or Venetia.</p>
+
+<p>In 1814, Napoleon empowered Prince Eug&egrave;ne to adopt whatever
+attitude he thought best fitted to make head against Austria; for himself,
+he resigned the Iron Crown, and his Italian soldiers were freed from their
+oaths. It was not, therefore, Eugene's loyal scruples which prevented him
+from throwing down a grand stake when he led his 60,000 men to the attack.
+It was want of genius, or of what would have done instead, a flash of
+genuine enthusiasm for the Italian idea. In place <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg.8]</a></span> of appealing to all Italians
+to unite in winning a country, he appealed to one sentiment only, fidelity
+to Napoleon, which no longer woke any echo in the hearts of a population
+that had grown more and more to associate the name of the Emperor with
+exactions which never came to an end, and with wars which had not now even
+the merit of being successful. It is estimated that although the Italian
+troops amply proved the truth of Alfieri's maxim, that 'the plant man is
+more vigorous in Italy than elsewhere,' by bearing the hardships and
+resisting the cold in Russia better than the soldiers of any other
+nationality, nevertheless 26,000 Italians were lost in the retreat from
+Moscow. That happened a year ago. Exhausted patience got the better of
+judgment; in April 1814, the Milanese committed the irremediable error of
+revolting against their Viceroy, who commanded the only army which could
+still save Italy: the pent-up passions of a long period broke loose, the
+peasants from the country, who had always hated the French, flooded the
+streets of Milan, and allying themselves unimpeded with the dregs of the
+townsfolk, they murdered with great brutality General Prina, the Minister
+of Finance, whose remarkable abilities had been devoted towards raising
+funds for the Imperial Exchequer. Personally incorruptible, Prina was
+looked upon as the general representative of French voracity; he met his
+death with the utmost calmness, only praying that he might be the last
+victim. No one else was, in fact, killed, and next day quiet was resumed,
+but the affair had another victim&mdash;Italy. You cannot change horses
+when you are crossing a stream. Prince Eug&egrave;ne was in Mantua with a
+fine army, practically intact, though it had suffered some slight
+reverses; the fortress was believed to be impregnable; by merely waiting,
+Eugene <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">
+[Pg.9]</a></span> might, if nothing else, have exacted favourable terms.
+But the news of Prina's murder, and the blow dealt at his own authority in
+Milan, caused him to give over the fortress and the army to the Austrians
+without more ado; an act which looked like revenge, but it was most likely
+prompted by moral cowardice. The capitulation signed with Field-Marshal
+Bellegarde on the 23rd of April, so exasperated the army that the officers
+in command of the garrison decided to arrest Eugene, but it was found that
+he was already on his way to Germany, taking with him his treasure, in
+accordance with a secret agreement entered into with the Austrian
+Field-Marshal. Such was the end to the Italian career of Eug&egrave;ne
+Beauharnais.</p>
+
+<p>For the <i>Beau Sabreur</i> another ending was in store. Back on
+Napoleon's side in 1815, his Austrian allies having given him plenty of
+reason for suspecting their sincerity, he issued from Rimini, on the 30th
+of March, the proclamation of an independent Italy from the Alps to
+Sicily. There was no popular reply to his call. Italy, prostrate and
+impoverished, was unequal to a great resolve. The Napoleonic legend was
+not only dead, but buried; Napoleon had literally no friends left in Italy
+except those of his old soldiers who had managed to get back to their
+homes, many of them deprived of an arm or a leg, but so toughened that
+they lived to great ages. These cherished to their last hour the worship
+of their Captain, which it was his highest gift to be able to inspire. 'I
+have that feeling for him still, that if he were to rise from the dead I
+should go to him, if I could, wherever he was,' said the old conscript
+Emmanuele Gaminara of Genoa, who died at nearly a hundred in a Norfolk
+village in 1892: the last, perhaps, of the Italian veterans, and the type
+of them all.</p>
+
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg.10]</a></span>
+
+<p>But a few scattered invalids do not make a nation, and the Italian
+nation in 1815 had not the least wish to support any one who came in the
+name of Napoleon. So Murat failed without even raising a strong current of
+sympathy. Beaten by the Austrians at Tolentino on the 3rd of May, he
+retreated with his shattered army. In the last desperate moment, he issued
+the constitution which he ought to have granted years before. Nothing
+could be of any avail now; his admirable Queen, the best of all the House
+of Buonaparte, surrendered Naples to the English admiral; and Murat,
+harried by a crushing Austrian force, renounced his kingdom on the 30th of
+May. After Waterloo, when a price was set on his head in France, he
+meditated one more forlorn hope; but, deserted by the treachery of his few
+followers, and driven out of his course by the violence of the waves, he
+was thrown on the coast of Calabria with only twenty-six men, and was shot
+by order of Ferdinand of Naples, who especially directed that he should be
+only allowed half-an-hour for his religious duties after sentence had been
+delivered by the mock court-martial. His dauntless courage did not desert
+him: he died like a soldier. It was a better end for an Italian prince
+than escaping with money-bags to Germany. Great as were Murat's faults, an
+Italian should remember that it was he who first took up arms to the cry
+which was later to redeem Italy: independence from Alps to sea; and if he
+stand on the ill-omened shore of Pizzo, he need not refuse to uncover his
+head in silence.</p>
+
+<p>When Mantua surrendered, the Milanese sent a deputation to Paris with a
+view of securing for Lombardy the position of an independent kingdom under
+an Austrian prince. They hoped to obtain the first by <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg.11]</a></span> acquiescing in
+the second. They were aroused from their unheroic illusions with startling
+rapidity. Lord Castlereagh, to whom they went first (for they fancied that
+the English were interested in liberty), referred them 'to their master,
+the Austrian Emperor.' The Emperor Francis replied to their memorial that
+Lombardy was his by right of conquest; they would hear soon enough at
+Milan what orders he had to give them. Even after that, the distracted
+Lombards hoped that the English at Genoa would befriend them. All
+uncertainty ceased on the 23rd of May 1814, when Field-Marshal Bellegarde
+formally took possession of Lombardy on behalf of his Sovereign, dissolved
+the Electoral Colleges, and proclaimed himself Regent. There was no
+question of reviving the conditions under which Austria ruled Lombardy
+while there was still a German Empire: conditions which, though despotic
+in theory, were comparatively easy-going in practice, and did not exclude
+the native element from the administration. Henceforth the despotism was
+pure and simple; for Italians to even think of politics was an act of high
+treason.</p>
+
+<p>It is not generally known that a British army ultimately sent to Spain
+was intended for Italy,<a name="FNanchor1"></a><a href=
+"#Footnote_1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> but its destination was changed because
+the Italians showed so little disposition to rise against Napoleon. The
+English Government was continually advised by its agents in Italy to make
+Sicily, which was wholly in its power, the <i>point d'app&ugrave;i</i> for
+a really great intervention in the destinies of the peninsula. 'The grand
+end of all the operations in the Mediterranean,' wrote one of Lord
+Castlereagh's correspondents, 'is the emancipation of Italy, and its union
+in one great state.' Lord William Bentinck urged that if Sicily were
+reunited to Naples under the Bourbons, liberty, <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg.12]</a></span> established there by his
+own incredible efforts, would be crushed, and the King would wreck
+vengeance on the Constitution and its supporters. Universal terror, he
+said, was felt at 'the unforgiving temper of their Majesties.' He strongly
+supported a course proposed for her own reasons by Queen Caroline: the
+purchase of Sicily by the English Government which could make it 'not only
+the model but the instrument of Italian independence.'</p>
+
+<p>This way of talking was not confined to private despatches, and it was
+no wonder if the Italians were disappointed when they found that England
+declined to plead their cause with the Allies in Paris, and afterwards at
+Vienna. When charged directly with breach of faith before the House of
+Commons, Lord Castlereagh said that Austria, being 'in truth the great
+hinge on which the fate of mankind must ultimately depend,' had to be paid
+(this was exactly the sense, though not the form, of his defence) by
+letting her do what she liked with Italy. There is a certain brutal
+straightforwardness in the line of argument. Lord Castlereagh did not say
+that independence was not a good thing. He had tried to obtain it for
+Poland and had failed; he had not tried to obtain it for Italy, because he
+was afraid of offending Austria. At least he had the courage to tell the
+truth, and did not prate about the felicity of being subjects of the
+Austrian Emperor, as many English partisans of Austria prated in days to
+come.</p>
+
+<p>The political map of Italy in the summer of 1814 showed the Pope (Pius
+VII.) reinstated in Rome, Victor Emmanuel I. at Turin, Ferdinand III. of
+Hapsburg-Lorraine in Tuscany, the Genoese Republic for the moment restored
+by the English, Parma and Piacenza assigned to the Empress Marie-Louise,
+and Modena to the Austrian Archduke Francis, who was heir through the
+female line to the last of the Estes. Murat was still <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg.13]</a></span> at Naples,
+Ferdinand IV. in Sicily, Austria acknowledged supreme in Lombardy and
+Venetia, and the island of Elba ironically handed over to Napoleon. These
+were the chief features, so far as Italy was concerned, of the Treaty of
+Paris, signed on the 30th of May 1814. Next year the Congress of Vienna
+modified the arrangement by providing that the Spanish Infanta Maria
+Louisa, on whom had been bestowed the ex-republic of Lucca, should have
+the reversion of Parma and Piacenza, while Lucca was to go in the end to
+Tuscany. Murat having been destroyed, the Neapolitan Bourbons recovered
+all their old possessions. San Marino and Monaco were graciously
+recognised as independent, which brought the number of Italian states up
+to ten. The Sardinian monarchy received back the part of Savoy which by
+the Treaty of Paris had been reserved to France. It was also offered a
+splendid and unexpected gift&mdash;Genoa.</p>
+
+<p>Lord William Bentinck entered Genoa by a convention concluded with the
+authorities on the 18th of April 1814. A naval demonstration following an
+ably-conducted operation, by which Bentinck's hybrid force of Greeks and
+Calabrese, with a handful of English, became master of the two principal
+forts, hastened this conclusion, but the Genoese had no reluctance to open
+their gates to the English commander, who inspired them with the fullest
+confidence. He came invested with the halo of a
+constitution-maker-under-difficulties; it was known that he had stopped at
+nothing in carrying out his mission in Sicily; not even at getting rid of
+the Queen, who found in Bentinck the Nemesis for having led a greater
+Englishman to stain his fame in the roads of Naples. Driven rather than
+persuaded to leave Sicily, Marie Antoinette's sister encountered so
+frightful a sea voyage that she died soon after <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg.14]</a></span> joining her relations at
+Vienna. Lord William had acquired the art of writing the finest appeals to
+the love of freedom; a collection of his manifestoes would serve as
+handy-book to anyone instructed to stir up an oppressed nationality. He
+immediately gave the Genoese some specimens of his skill as a writer, and
+by granting them at once a provisional constitution, he dispelled all
+doubts about the future recognition of their republic. What was not,
+therefore, their dismay, when they were suddenly informed of the decision
+of the Holy Alliance to make a present of them to the people whom, of all
+others, they probably disliked the most. Italians had not ceased yet from
+reserving their best aversion for their nearest neighbours.</p>
+
+<p>Bentinck did not mean to deceive; perhaps he thought that by going
+beyond the letter of his instructions he should draw his government after
+him. That he did, in effect, deceive, cannot be denied; even Lord
+Castlereagh, while necessarily refusing to admit that definite promises
+had been made, yet allowed that, 'Of course he would have been glad if the
+proclamation issued to the Genoese had been more precisely worded.' The
+motive of the determination to sacrifice the republic was, he said, 'a
+sincere conviction of the necessity of a barrier between France and Italy,
+which ought to be made effectual on the side of Piedmont. The object was
+to commit the defence of the Alps and of the great road leading round them
+by the Gulf of Genoa, between France and Italy, to the same power to which
+it had formerly been entrusted. On that principle, the question relating
+to Genoa had been entertained and decided upon by the allied sovereigns.
+It was not resolved upon because any particular state had unworthy or
+sordid views, or from any interest or feeling in favour of the King of
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg.15]</a></span>
+Sardinia, but solely to make him, as far as was necessary, the instrument
+of the general policy of Europe.'</p>
+
+<p>A better defence might have been made. Piedmont was destined to serve
+as a bulwark, not so much against France, which for the time was not to be
+feared, as against Austria, absolute except for the subalpine kingdom in
+all Italy. But this belongs to the shaping of rough-hewn ends, which is in
+higher hands than those of English ministers. The ends then looked very
+rough-hewn.</p>
+
+<p>Piedmont was a hotbed of reaction and bigotry. True, she had a history
+differing vastly from that of the other Italian states, but the facts of
+the hour presented her in a most unattractive light. The Genoese felt the
+keenest heart-burnings in submitting to a decision in which they had no
+voice, and which came to them as a mandate of political extinction from
+the same powers that confirmed the sentence of death on Genoa's ancient
+and glorious rival. The seeds were laid of disaffection, always
+smouldering among the Genoese, till Piedmont's king became King of Italy.
+It might almost be said that the reconciliation was not consummated till
+the day when the heir and namesake of Humbert of the White Hands received
+the squadrons of Europe in the harbour of Genoa, and the proud republican
+city showed what a welcome she had prepared for her sovereign of the Savoy
+race.</p>
+
+<p>After the Congress of Vienna finished its labours, there were, as has
+been remarked, ten states in Italy, but out of Sardinia (whose subjugation
+Prince Metternich esteemed a mere matter of time) there was one master.
+The authority of the Emperor Francis was practically as undisputed from
+Venice to the Bay of Naples as it was in the Grand Duchy of Austria. The
+Austrians garrisoned Piacenza, Ferrara and <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg.16]</a></span> Commacchio; Austrian princes
+reigned in Tuscany, Parma, Modena and Lucca; the King of Naples, who paid
+Austria twenty-six million francs for getting back his throne, thankfully
+agreed to support a German army to protect him against his subjects. In
+the secret treaty concluded between himself and the Emperor of Austria, it
+was stipulated that the King of the Two Sicilies should not introduce into
+his government any principles irreconcilable with those adopted by His
+Imperial Majesty in the government of his Italian provinces. As for the
+Roman States, Austria reckoned on her influence in always securing the
+election of a Pope who would give her no trouble. Seeing herself without
+rivals and all-powerful, she deemed her position unassailable. She forgot
+that, by giving Italy an unity of misery, she was preparing the way for
+another unity. Common hatred engendered common love; common sufferings led
+on to a common effort. If some prejudices passed away under the Napoleonic
+rule, many more still remained, and possibly, to eradicate so old an evil,
+no cure less drastic than universal servitude would have sufficed.
+Italians felt for the first time what before only the greatest among them
+had felt&mdash;that they were brothers in one household, children of one
+mother whom they were bound to redeem. Jealousies and millennial feuds
+died out; the intense municipal spirit which, imperfect as it was, had yet
+in it precious political germs, widened into patriotism. Italy was
+re-born.</p>
+
+<p>Black, however, was the present outlook. Total commercial stagnation
+and famine increased the sentiment of unmitigated hopelessness which
+spread through the land. The poet Monti, who, alas! sang for bread the
+festival songs of the Austrians as he had sung those of Napoleon, said
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg.17]</a></span> in
+private to an Englishman who asked him why he did not give his voice to
+the liberties of his country which he desired, though he did not expect to
+see them: 'It would be <i>vox clamantis in deserto</i>; besides, how can
+the grievances of Italy be made known? No one dares to
+write&mdash;scarcely to think&mdash;politics; if truth is to be told, it
+must be told by the English; England is the only tribunal yet open to the
+complaints of Europe.' A greater poet and nobler man, Ugo Foscolo, had but
+lately uttered a wail still more despondent: 'Italy will soon be nothing
+but a lifeless carcass, and her generous sons should only weep in silence
+without the impotent complaints and mutual recriminations of slaves.' That
+as patriotic a heart as ever beat should have been afflicted to this point
+by the canker of despair tells of the quagmire&mdash;not only political
+but spiritual&mdash;into which Italy was sunk. The first thing needful was
+to restore the people to consciousness, to animation of some sort, it did
+not matter what, so it were a sign of life. Foscolo himself, who impressed
+on what he wrote his own proud and scornful temperament, almost savage in
+its independence, fired his countrymen to better things than the
+despairing inertia which he preached. Few works have had more effect than
+his <i>Letters of Jacobo Ortis</i>. As often happens with books which
+strongly move contemporaries, the reader may wonder now what was the
+secret of its power, but if the form and sentiment of the Italian <i>
+Werther</i> strike us as antiquated, the intense, though melancholy
+patriotism that pervades it explains the excitement it caused when
+patriotism was a statutory offence. Such mutilated copies as were allowed
+to pass by the censor were eagerly sought; the young read it, women read
+it&mdash;who so rarely read&mdash;the mothers of the fighters of <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg.18]</a></span>
+to-morrow. Foscolo's life gave force to his words: when all were
+flattering Napoleon, he had reminded him that no man can be rightly
+praised till he is dead, and that his one sure way of winning the praise
+of posterity was to establish the independence of Italy. The warning was
+contained in a 'discourse' which Foscolo afterwards printed with the motto
+from Sophocles: 'My soul groans for my country, for myself and for thee.'
+Sooner than live under the Austrians, he went into voluntary exile, and
+finally took refuge in England, where he was the <i>f&ecirc;ted</i> lion
+of a season, and then forgotten, and left almost without the necessaries
+of life. No one was much to blame; Foscolo was born to misunderstand and
+to be misunderstood; he hid himself to hide his poverty, which, had it
+been known, might have been alleviated. His individual tragedy seemed a
+part of the universal tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>With Foscolo, his literary predecessor Alfieri must be mentioned as
+having helped in rekindling the embers, of patriotic feeling, because,
+though dead, he spoke; and his plays, one of which was prophetically
+dedicated <i>al libero Popolo Italiano</i>, had never been so much read.
+The <i>Misogallo</i>, published for the first time after the fall of
+Napoleon, though aimed at the French, served equally well as an onslaught
+on every foreign dominion or even moral or intellectual influence. 'Shall
+<i>we</i> learn liberty of the Gauls, <i>we</i> who taught every lofty
+thing to others?' was a healthy remonstrance to a race that had lost faith
+in itself; and the Austrians were wise in discountenancing the sale of a
+work that contained the line which gave a watchword to the
+future:&mdash;</p>
+
+<pre>
+       <i>Schiavi or siam si; ma schiavi almen frementi</i>.
+</pre>
+
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg.19]</a></span>
+
+<p>Like Foscolo's, Alfieri's life was a lesson in independence: angry at
+the scant measure of freedom in Piedmont, he could never be induced to go
+near his sovereign till Charles Emmanuel was staying at Florence as a
+proscript. Then the poet went to pay his respects to him, and was received
+with the good-humoured banter: 'Well, Signor Conte, here am I, a king, in
+the condition you would like to see them all.'</p>
+
+<p>Against the classical, not to say pagan, leanings of these two poets, a
+reaction set in with Alessandro Manzoni, the founder of Italian
+Romanticism, to which he gave an aspect differing from that which the same
+movement wore in France, because he was an ardent Catholic at a time when
+Christianity had almost the charm of novelty. His religious outpourings
+combine the fervour of the Middle Ages with modern expansion, and he freed
+the Italian language from pedantic restrictions without impairing its
+dignity. It was once the fashion to inveigh against Manzoni for, as it was
+said, inculcating resignation; but he did nothing of the kind. As a young
+man he had sung of the Italians as 'Figli tutti d'un solo Riscatto,' and
+though he was not of those who fight either with the sword or the pen, yet
+that 'Riscatto' was the dream of his youth and manhood, and the joy of his
+old age. His gentleness was never contaminated by servility, and the love
+for his country, profound if placid, which appears in every line of his
+writings, appealed to a class that could not be reached by fiery
+turbulence of thought.</p>
+
+<p>In an age when newspapers have taken the place of books, it may seem
+strange to ascribe any serious effect to the works of poets and
+romancists; but in the Italy of that date there were no newspapers to
+speak of; the ordinary channels of opinion were blocked up. Books were
+still not only read, but discussed and thought over, and every slight
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg.20]</a></span>
+allusion to the times was instantly applied. In the prevailing
+listlessness, the mere fact of increased mental activity was of
+importance. A spark of genius does much to raise a nation. It is in itself
+the incontrovertible proof that the race lives: a dead people does not
+produce men of genius. Whatever awakes one part of the intelligence reacts
+on all its parts. You cannot lift, any more than you can degrade, the
+heart of man piecemeal. In this sense not literature only but also music
+helped, who can say how effectually, to bring Italy back to life. The land
+was refreshed by a flood of purely national song, full of the laughter and
+the tears of Italian character, of the sunshine and the storms of Italian
+nature. Music, the only art uncageable as the human soul, descended as a
+gift from heaven upon the people whose articulate utterance was stifled.
+And</p>
+
+<pre>
+         ... No speech may evince
+         Feeling like music.
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+ <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg.21]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_II"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+
+<h4>THE WORK OF THE CARBONARI</h4>
+
+<h5>1815-1821</h5>
+
+<h5>Revolutions in the Kingdom of Naples and in Piedmont&mdash;The
+Conspiracy against Charles Albert.</h5>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>Considering what the state of the country was after 1815, and how
+apparently inexhaustible were the resources of the Empire of which the
+petty princes of the peninsula were but puppets, it is remarkable that
+political agitation, with a view to reversing the decisions of Vienna,
+should have begun so soon, and on so large a scale. Not that the nation,
+as a whole, was yet prepared to move; every revolution, till 1848, was
+partial in the sense that the mass of the people stood aloof, because
+unconvinced of the possibility of loosening their chains. But, during that
+long succession of years, the number of Italians ready to embark on
+enterprises of the most desperate character, accounting as nothing the
+smallness of the chance of success, seems enormous when the risks they ran
+and the difficulties they faced are fully recognised. Among the means
+which were effective in first rousing Italy from her lethargy, and in
+fostering the will to acquire her independence at all costs, the secret
+society of the Carbonari undoubtedly occupies the front rank. The
+Carbonari acted in two ways; by what they did and by what they caused to
+be done by others who were outside their society, and perhaps unfavourable
+to it, <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">
+[Pg.22]</a></span> but who were none the less sensible of the pressure it
+exercised. The origin of Carbonarism has been sought in vain; as a
+specimen of the childish fables that once passed for its history may be
+noticed the legend that Francis I. of France once stumbled on a charcoal
+burner's hut when hunting 'on the frontiers of his kingdom next to
+Scotland,' and was initiated into the rites similar to those in use among
+the sectaries of the nineteenth century. Those rites referred to vengeance
+which was to be taken on the wolf that slew the lamb; the wolf standing
+for tyrants and oppressors, and the lamb for Jesus Christ, the sinless
+victim, by whom all the oppressed were represented. The Carbonari
+themselves generally believed that they were heirs to an organisation
+started in Germany before the eleventh century, under the name of the
+Faith of the Kohlen-Brenners, of which Theobald de Brie, who was
+afterwards canonised, was a member. Theobald was adopted as patron saint
+of the modern society, and his fancied portrait figured in all the lodges.
+That any weight should have been attached to these pretensions to
+antiquity may appear strange to us, as it certainly did not matter whether
+an association bent on the liberation of Italy had or had not existed in
+German forests eight hundred years before; age and mystery, however, have
+a great popular attraction, the first as an object of reverence, the
+second as food for curiosity with the profane, and a bond of union among
+the initiated. The religious symbolism of the Carbonari, their oaths and
+ceremonies, and the axes, blocks and other furniture of the initiatory
+chamber, were well calculated to impress the poorer and more ignorant and
+excitable of the brethren. The Vatican affected to believe that
+Carbonarism was an offshoot of Freemasonry, but, in spite of sundry points
+of <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg.23]</a></span>
+resemblance, such as the engagements of mutual help assumed by members,
+there seems to have been no real connection between the two. Political
+Freemasonry remained somewhat of an exotic in Italy, and was inclined to
+regard France as its centre. As far as can be ascertained, it gave a
+general support to Napoleon, while Carbonarism rejected every foreign
+yoke. The practical aims of the Carbonari may be summed up in two words:
+freedom and independence. From the first they had the penetration to grasp
+the fact that independence, even if obtained, could not be preserved
+without freedom; but though their predilections were theoretically
+republican, they did not make a particular form of government a matter of
+principle. Nor were they agreed in a definite advocacy of the unity of
+Italy.</p>
+
+<p>A Genoese of the name of Malghella, who was Murat's Minister of Police,
+was the first person to give a powerful impetus to Carbonarism, of which
+he has even been called the inventor, but the inference goes too far.
+Malghella ended miserably; after the fall of Murat he was arrested by the
+Austrians, who consigned him as a new subject to the Sardinian Government,
+which immediately put him in prison. His name is hardly known, but no
+Italian of his time worked more assiduously, or in some respects more
+intelligently, for the emancipation of Italy. Whatever was truly Italian
+in Murat's policy must be mainly attributed to him. As early as 1813 he
+urged the King to declare himself frankly for independence, and to grant a
+constitution to his Neapolitan subjects. But Malghella did not find the
+destined saviour of Italy in Murat; his one lasting work was to establish
+Carbonarism on so strong a basis that, when the Bourbons returned, there
+were thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Carbonari in all parts of
+the realm. The discovery was not a pleasant one to the restored rulers,
+and the Prince of Canosa, the new Minister <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg.24]</a></span> of Police, thought to counteract
+the evil done by his predecessor by setting up an abominable secret
+society called the Calderai del Contrapeso (Braziers of the Counterpoise),
+principally recruited from the refuse of the people, lazzaroni, bandits
+and let-out convicts, who were provided by Government with 20,000 muskets,
+and were sworn to exterminate all enemies of the Church of Rome, whether
+Jansenists, Freemasons or Carbonari. This association committed some
+horrible excesses, but otherwise it had no results. The Carbonari closed
+in their ranks, and learnt to observe more strictly their rules of
+secrecy. From the kingdom of Naples, Carbonarism spread to the Roman
+states, and found a congenial soil in Romagna, which became the focus
+whence it spread over the rest of Italy. It was natural that it should
+take the colour, more or less, of the places where it grew. In Romagna,
+where political assassination is in the blood of the people, a dagger was
+substituted for the symbolical woodman's axe in the initiatory rites. It
+was probably only in Romagna that the conventional threat against
+informers was often carried out. The Romagnols invested Carbonarism with
+the wild intensity of their own temperament, resolute even to crime, but
+capable of supreme impersonal enthusiasm. The ferment of expectancy that
+prevailed in Romagna is reflected in the Letters and Journals of Lord
+Byron, whom young Count Pietro Gamba made a Carbonaro, and who looked
+forward to seeing the Italians send the barbarians of all nations back to
+their own dens, as to the most interesting spectacle and moment in
+existence. His lower apartments, he writes, were full of the bayonets,
+fusils and cartridges of his Carbonari cronies; 'I suppose that they
+consider me <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">
+[Pg.25]</a></span> as a d&eacute;p&ocirc;t, to be sacrificed in case of
+accidents. It is no great matter, supposing that Italy could be liberated,
+who or what is sacrificed. It is a grand object&mdash;the very poetry of
+politics. Only think&mdash;free Italy!!! Why, there has been nothing like
+it since the days of Augustus.'</p>
+
+<p>The movement on which such great hopes were set was to begin in the
+kingdom of Naples in the spring of 1820. The concession of the hard-won
+Spanish Constitution in the month of March encouraged the Neapolitans to
+believe that they might get a like boon from their own King if they
+directed all the forces at their command to this single end. To avoid
+being compromised, they sought rather to dissociate themselves from the
+patriots of other parts of Italy than to co-operate with them in an united
+effort. The Carbonari of the Neapolitan kingdom, who were the entire
+authors of the revolution, which, after many unfortunate delays, broke out
+on the 1st of July, had good cause for thinking that they were in a
+position to dictate terms; the mistake they made was to suppose that a
+charter conceded by a Bourbon of Naples could ever be worth the paper on
+which it was written. Not only among the people, but in the army the
+Carbonari had thousands of followers on whom they could rely, and several
+whole regiments were only waiting their orders to rise in open revolt. The
+scheme was to take possession of the persons of the King and the royal
+family, and retain them as hostages till the Constitution was granted.
+Such extreme measures were not necessary. The standard of rebellion was
+raised at Monteforte by two officers named Morelli and Silvati, who had
+brought over a troop of cavalry from Nola, and by the priest Menechini. In
+all Neapolitan insurrections there was sure to be a priest; the Neapolitan
+Church, much though there is to be laid to its account, must be admitted
+to have frequently shown sympathy with the <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg.26]</a></span> popular side. Menechini enjoyed
+an immense, if brief, popularity which he used to allay the anger of the
+mob and to procure the safety of obnoxious persons. The King sent two
+generals and a body of troops against the Chartists, but when the
+Carbonari symbols were recognised on the insurgent flags, the troops
+showed such clear signs of wishing to go over to the enemy that they were
+quietly taken back to Naples. The cry of 'God, the King, and the
+Constitution,' was taken up through the land; General Pepe, who had long
+been a Carbonaro in secret, was enthusiastically hailed as commander of
+the Chartist forces, which practically comprised the whole army. The King
+was powerless; besides which, when pushed up into any corner people who do
+not mind breaking their word have a facility for hard swearing. On the
+13th of July, Ferdinand standing at the altar of the royal chapel, with
+his hand on the Bible, swore to defend and maintain the Constitution which
+he had just granted. If he failed to do so, he called upon his subjects to
+disobey him, and God to call him to account. These words he read from a
+written form; as if they were not enough, he added, with his eyes on the
+cross, and his face turned towards heaven: 'Omnipotent God, who with Thine
+infinite power canst read the soul of man and the future, do Thou, if I
+speak falsely, or intend to break my oath, at this moment direct the
+thunder of Thy vengeance on my head.'</p>
+
+<p>The Neapolitans had got their liberties, but they soon found themselves
+face to face with perplexities which would have taxed the powers of men
+both wiser and more experienced in free government than they were. In the
+first place, although a revolution may be made by a sect, a government
+cannot be carried on by one. The Carbonari who had <span class="newpage">
+<a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg.27]</a></span> won the day were blind
+to this self-evident truth; and, to make matters worse, there was a split
+in their party, some of them being disposed to throw off the Bourbon yoke
+altogether; a natural desire, but as it was only felt by a minority, it
+added to the general confusion. Then came, as it was sure to come, the cry
+for separation from Sicily. The Sicilians wanted back the violated
+constitution obtained for them by the English in 1812, and would have
+nothing to do with that offered them from Naples. In every one of the
+struggles between Sicily and Naples, it is impossible to refuse sympathy
+to the islanders, who, in the pride of their splendid independent history,
+deemed themselves the victims of an inferior race; but it is equally
+impossible to ignore that, politically, they were in the wrong. In union,
+and in union alone, lay the only chance of resisting the international
+plot to keep the South Italian populations in perpetual bondage. The
+Sicilian revolt was put down at first mildly, and finally, as mildness had
+no effect, with the usual violence by the Neapolitan Constitutional
+Government, which could not avoid losing credit and popularity in the
+operation. Meanwhile, the three persons who traded under the name of
+Europe met at Troppau, and came readily to the conclusion that 'the
+sovereigns of the Holy Alliance exercised an incontestable right in taking
+common measures of security against states which the overthrow of
+authority by revolt placed in a hostile attitude towards every legitimate
+government.' The assumption was too broadly stated, even for Lord
+Castlereagh's acceptance; but he was contented to make a gentle protest,
+which he further nullified by allowing that, in the present case,
+intervention was very likely justified. France expressed no disapproval.
+Only the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden and Spain gave the
+Constitutional <i>r&eacute;gime</i> tacit <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg.28]</a></span> support by recognising it. The
+Emperor of Russia was very anxious to take part in the business, and would
+have sent off an army instantly had not his royal brother of Prussia
+hesitated to consent to the inconvenience of a Cossack march through his
+territory. The work was left, therefore, to the Emperor of Austria. Before
+entering upon it, it occurred to these three to invite the King of Naples
+to meet them at Laybach. They knew his character.</p>
+
+<p>Ferdinand assured his Parliament that he was going to Laybach solely to
+induce the Holy Alliance to think better of its opposition, and to agree,
+at least, to all the principal features of the new state of things. Most
+foolishly the Parliament, which, according to the Constitution, might have
+vetoed his leaving the country, let him go. Before starting he wrote an
+open letter to his dear son, the Duke of Calabria, who was appointed
+Regent, in which he said: 'I shall defend the events of the past July
+before the Congress. I firmly desire the Spanish Constitution for my
+kingdom; and although I rely on the justice of the assembled sovereigns,
+and on their old friendship, still it is well to tell you that, in
+whatever circumstance it may please God to place me, my course will be
+what I have manifested on this sheet, strong and unchangeable either by
+force or by the flattery of others.'</p>
+
+<p>Brave words! News came in due time of the sequel. On the 9th of
+February 1821, the Regent received a letter from the King, in which he
+gave the one piece of advice that the people should submit to their fate
+quietly. He was coming back with 50,000 Austrians, and a Russian army was
+ready to start if wanted. Nevertheless, to prevent a sudden outbreak
+before the foreign troops arrived, the Regent carried on a game of
+duplicity to the last, and pretended to second, whilst he <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg.29]</a></span> really
+baulked, the preparations for resistance decreed by Parliament. Baron
+Poerio, the father of two patriot martyrs of the future, sustained the
+national dignity by urging Parliament to yield only to force, and to defy
+the barbarous horde which was bearing down on the country. The closing
+scene is soon told. On the 7th of March, in the mountains near Rieti,
+General Guglielmo Pepe, with 8000 regular troops and a handful of militia,
+encountered an overwhelmingly superior force of Austrians. The Neapolitans
+stood out well for six hours, but on the Austrian reserves coming up, they
+were completely routed, and obliged to fly in all directions.</p>
+
+<p>'Order reigned' in the kingdom of Naples. In Sicily, a gallant attempt
+at insurrection was begun, but there was not the spirit to go on with it,
+and General Rossaroll, its initiator, had to fly to Spain. The afterpiece
+is what might have been expected; an insensate desire for vengeance got
+hold of Ferdinand, and the last years of his life were spent in hunting
+down his enemies, real or imaginary. Morelli and Silvati were hung, the
+fugitives, Pepe and Rossaroll, were condemned to death, but this was only
+the beginning. The Austrian commander counselled mercy, but in this
+respect the King showed an independent mind. A court-martial was
+instituted to examine the conduct of ecclesiastics, public functionaries
+and soldiers, from the year 1793 downwards. No one was safe who had
+expressed a dislike of absolutism within the last thirty years. A
+blameless gentleman who was a Carbonaro, was conducted through Naples on
+the back of an ass, and beaten with a whip, to which nails were attached.
+Eight hundred persons are said to have perished at the hands of the state
+in one year. Ferdinand himself expired on the 3rd of January 1825, after
+misgoverning for sixty-five years.</p>
+
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg.30]</a></span>
+
+<p>The Neapolitan revolution had just collapsed, when another broke out in
+Piedmont, which, though short in duration, was to have far-reaching
+consequences.</p>
+
+<p>At that time, the King of Sardinia was Victor Emmanuel I., who
+succeeded his brother Charles Emmanuel in 1802, when the latter abdicated
+and retired to Rome, where he joined the Society of Jesus. Victor
+Emmanuel's only son was dead, and the throne would devolve on his youngest
+brother, Charles Felix, Duke of Genoa, whom reasons of state led to
+abandon the wish to become a monk, which he had formed as a boy of eleven,
+on being taken to visit a convent near Turin. But Charles Felix, though
+married, was without children, and the legitimate heir-presumptive was
+Charles Albert, Prince of Carignano, who represented the younger branch of
+the family, which divided from the main line in the early part of the
+seventeenth century. Charles Albert's father was the luckless Prince
+Charles of Carignano, who, alone of his house, came to terms with
+Napoleon, who promised him a pension, which was not paid. His mother, a
+Saxon Princess, paraded the streets of Turin, dressed in the last
+republican fashion, with her infant son in her arms. Afterwards, she gave
+him a miscellaneous education, that included a large dose of Rousseau from
+a Swiss professor. The boy was shifted from place to place, happier when
+his mother forgot him, than when, in temporary recollection of his
+existence, she called him to her. Once when he was travelling with the
+Princess and her second husband, M. de Montl&eacute;art, Charles Albert
+was made to sit on the box of the carriage, in a temperature many degrees
+below zero.</p>
+
+<p>His uncles (as the King and Charles Felix called themselves, though
+they were his cousins) heard with natural horror of the vagaries of <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg.31]</a></span> the
+Princess of Carignano, and they extended their antipathy from the mother
+to the son, even when he was a child. In Victor Emmanuel, this antipathy
+was moderated by the easy good-nature of his character; in Charles Felix,
+it degenerated into an intense hatred.</p>
+
+<p>It is a singular thing that Prince Metternich, from the very first, had
+an instinctive feeling that the unfortunate boy, who seemed the most
+hopeless and helpless of human creatures, would prove the evil genius of
+the Austrian power. He therefore set to work to deprive him of his
+eventual rights. He was confident of success, as fortune had arranged
+matters in a manner that offered a ready-made plan for carrying out the
+design. Victor Emmanuel had four daughters, precluded from reigning by the
+Salic law, which was in force in Piedmont. His wife, the Queen Maria
+Teresa, a woman of great beauty and insatiable ambition, was sister to the
+Austrian Archduke Francis d'Este, Duke of Modena. Francis had never
+married, having been robbed of his intended bride, the Archduchess
+Marie-Louise, by her betrothal to Napoleon. What simpler than to marry the
+eldest of the Sardinian princesses to her uncle, abrogate the Salic law,
+and calmly await the desired consummation of an Austrian prince, by right
+of his wife, occupying the Sardinian throne?</p>
+
+<p>The first step was soon taken; princesses came into the world to be
+sacrificed. The plot ran on for some time, the Queen, who was in the habit
+of calling Charles Albert 'that little vagrant,' giving it her
+indefatigable support. Victor Emmanuel was weak, and stood in considerable
+awe of his wife, who had obtained a great ascendancy over him in the
+miserable days of their residence in the island of Sardinia. His nephew,
+who was almost or wholly unknown to him, partook <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg.32]</a></span> of the nature of a
+disagreeable myth. Nevertheless he had a sense of justice, as well as
+Savoy blood, in his veins&mdash;he resisted; but the day came when his
+surrender seemed probable. Just at that moment, however, the Duke of
+Modena prematurely revealed the project by asking through his
+representative at the Congress of Vienna for the port of Spezia, in order
+that he might conveniently connect his own state with his prospective
+possession, the island of Sardinia. Prince Talleyrand was alarmed by the
+vision of Austria supreme in the Mediterranean, and through his opposition
+the conspiracy, for the time, was upset, and the rights of Charles Albert
+were recognised.</p>
+
+<p>Curiously enough, Prince Metternich had insisted on the young Prince,
+then seventeen, visiting the headquarters of the Allies. Charles Felix
+(who was unconnected with the Modena scheme) wrote a letter to the King on
+this subject, in which he stated it as his belief that the Austrian plan
+was to get Charles Albert accidentally killed, or to plunge him in vice,
+or to make him contract a discreditable marriage. This was why they had
+invited him to their camp. He adds the characteristic remark that their
+nephew would be in no less danger at the headquarters of the Duke of
+Wellington '&agrave; cause de la religion.' Have him home and have him
+married, is his advice. 'We are well treated, because there is the
+expectation of soon devouring our remains by extinguishing the House of
+Savoy. It is the habit of the cabinet of Vienna; it was thus they made an
+end of the House of Este.'</p>
+
+<p>These counsels were the more likely to impress Victor Emmanuel from his
+knowledge that they were inspired by no shadow of personal interest in
+'the little vagrant,' but by the race-feeling alone. The Queen contrived
+to prevent the immediate recall of the Prince of <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg.33]</a></span> Carignano, but she was
+obliged to give way, and he was definitely established in Piedmont. In
+1818 he was married at Florence to the Archduchess Maria Teresa of
+Tuscany, who, on the 14th of March 1820, gave birth to the child that was
+to become the first King of Italy.</p>
+
+<p>Very soon after his return to his country, the hopes of the Liberal
+party began to centre in the young Prince, whom some of their more ardent
+spirits already saluted as the rising sun. Those who made his acquaintance
+were fascinated by the charm of manner which he could always exert when he
+chose, and were confirmed in their hopes by his evident susceptibility to
+the magnetism of new ideas and fatalistic ambitions. What they did not
+perceive was, that in his nature lay that ingrained tendency to drift
+before the wind, which is the most dangerous thing in politics. In the
+mid-sea of events he might change his course without conscious
+insincerity, but with the self-abandonment of a mind which, under
+pressure, loses the sense of personal responsibility.</p>
+
+<p>In Piedmont, Carbonarism had made great way among the upper classes and
+among the younger officers; the flower of the country was enrolled in its
+ranks, and the impatience to take some action towards procuring free
+institutions for themselves, and doing something for their Lombard
+brothers, had reached fever heat in the spring of 1821, when the affairs
+of Naples were creating much excitement. The principal conspirators, noble
+young men, full of unselfish ardour, were the chosen friends and
+companions of the Prince of Carignano. It was formerly the opinion that
+they made him the confidant of their plans from the first, that he was one
+of them, in short&mdash;a Carbonaro bound by all the oaths and obligations
+of the society. The judgment of his conduct afterwards is, of course, much
+affected by this point; were <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_34" id=
+"Page_34">[Pg.34]</a></span> the assumption correct, the invectives
+launched against him, not by any means only by republican writers, would
+hardly seem excessive. But by the light of documents issued in recent
+times, it appears more just as well as more charitable to suppose that
+Charles Albert's complicity was of a much less precise character. A little
+encouragement from a prince goes a long way.</p>
+
+<p>According to his own account, he was taken by surprise when, on the and
+or 3rd of March, his friends Carail, Collegno, Santa Rosa and Lisio came
+to tell him in secret that they belonged to societies which had been long
+working for the independence of Italy, and that they reckoned on him,
+knowing well his affection for his country, to aid them in obtaining from
+the King some few first concessions, which would be the prelude of a
+glorious future. It is clear that he ought either to have broken with them
+altogether from that moment or to have cast his lot with them for good or
+evil. He tried a middle course. He induced the conspirators to put off the
+revolution by which they intended to enforce their demands, and he
+conveyed to the King information of what had happened, asking at the same
+time that no measures should be taken against incriminated persons.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, no precautions of any kind seem to have been taken. Victor
+Emmanuel, frightened at first, was soon reassured. The revolution, which
+was to have begun on the 8th, actually broke out on the 10th of March at
+Alessandria, where the counter orders issued at Charles. Albert's request,
+after the interview just described, were not obeyed. The garrison
+'pronounced' in favour of the Spanish Constitution. It was now impossible
+to draw back. From Alessandria the revolution spread to the capital. The
+bulk of the army sympathised with the movement, and relied on the support
+of the people. <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">
+[Pg.35]</a></span> The greatest ladies mixed with the crowds which
+gathered under the Carbonaro flag&mdash;black, blue and red. On the other
+hand, there were a few devoted servants of the House of Savoy who beheld
+these novelties with the sensations of a quiet person who sees from his
+window the breaking loose of a menagerie. Invincibly ignorant of all that
+was really inspiring in this first breath of freedom, they saw nothing in
+it but an unwarrantable attack on the authority of their amiable, if weak,
+old King, for whom they would gladly have shed every drop of their
+blood&mdash;not from the rational esteem which the people of Italy, like
+the people of England, now feel for their sovereign, but from the pure
+passion of loyalty which made the cavalier stand blindly by his prince,
+whether he was good or bad, in the right or in the wrong. Men of their
+type watched the evolution of Piedmont into Italy from first to last with
+the same presentiment of evil, the same moral incapacity of appreciation.
+A handful of these loyal servitors hurried to Victor Emmanuel to offer
+their assistance. They marshalled their troop in battle-array in the
+courtyard of the palace. Their arms were antiquated pistols and rapiers,
+and they themselves were veterans, some of them of eighty years, mounted
+on steeds as ancient. The King thanked them, but declined their services;
+nor would he give <i>carte blanche</i> to Captain Raimondi, who assured
+him that with his one company he could suppress the insurrection if
+invested with full powers. Soon after this refusal, a firing of guns
+announced that the citadel was in the hands of the insurgents. The troops
+within and without fraternised; it was a fine moment for those who knew
+history and who were bent in their hearts on driving the foreigner out of
+Italy. Here at the citadel of Turin, during the siege of 1706, occurred
+the memorable deed of Pietro Micca, the peasant-soldier, who, <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg.36]</a></span> when he heard
+the enemy thundering at the door of the gallery, thought life and the
+welcome of wife and child and the happy return to his village of less
+account than duty, and fired the mine which sent him and three companies
+of French Grenadiers to their final reckoning.</p>
+
+<p>After vacillating for two or three days, Victor Emmanuel abdicated on
+the 13th of March. The Queen desired to be appointed regent, but, to her
+intense vexation, the appointment was given to Charles Albert. A more
+unenviable honour never fell to the lot of man.</p>
+
+<p>Deserted by the ministers of the crown, who resigned in a body, alone
+in the midst of a triumphant revolution, appealed to in the name of those
+sentiments of patriotism which he could never hear invoked unmoved, the
+young Prince uttered the words which were as good as a surrender: 'I, too,
+am an Italian!' That evening he allowed the Spanish Constitution to be
+proclaimed subject to the arrival of the orders of the new King.</p>
+
+<p>The new King! No one remembered that there existed such a person. Nor
+had anyone recollected that the Spanish Constitution abrogated the Salic
+law, and that hence, instead of a new King, they had a new Queen&mdash;the
+wife of the Duke of Modena! An eminent Turinese jurisconsulist, who was
+probably the only possessor of a copy of the charter in the town which was
+screaming itself hoarse for it, divulged this awkward
+discovery.&mdash;Several hours were spent in anxious discussion, when the
+brilliant suggestion was made that the article should be cancelled. The
+article was cancelled.</p>
+
+<p>But Charles Felix could not be disposed of so easily. The news of the
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg.37]</a></span>
+late events reached him at Modena of all places in the world, the
+rallying-point of the Prince of Carignano's bitterest foes. He was not
+long in sending his orders. He repudiated everything that had been done,
+and commanded Charles Albert, 'if he had a drop of our royal blood left in
+his veins,' to leave the capital instantly for Novara, where he was to
+await his further instructions.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Albert obeyed. He was accompanied on his journey&mdash;or, as
+it may be called, his flight&mdash;by such of the troops as remained
+loyal. At Novara he found a sentence of exile, in a fresh order, to quit
+Piedmontese territory. Tuscany was indicated as the state where he was to
+reside.</p>
+
+<p>The Austrians crossed the frontier with the consent of the King.
+Charles Felix's opinion of Austria has been already given; another time he
+said: 'Austria is a sort of bird-lime which, if you get it on your
+fingers, you can never rub off.' If anything was needed to increase his
+loathing for the revolution, it was the necessity in which it placed him,
+as he thought, of calling in this unloved ally. But Charles Felix was not
+the man to hesitate. Not caring a straw for the privilege of wearing a
+crown himself, his belief in the divine right of kings, and the obligation
+to defend it, amounted to monomania. The Austrian offer was therefore
+accepted. On her part Austria declined the obliging proposal of the Czar
+of a loan of 100,000 men. She felt that she could do the work unaided, nor
+was she mistaken.</p>
+
+<p>On the 8th of April the Constitutionalist troops which marched towards
+Novara, sanguine that the loyal regiments there quartered would end by
+joining them, were met by an armed resistance, in which the newly-arrived
+Austrians assisted. Their defeat was complete, and it was the signal of
+the downfall of the revolution. The leaders retired <span class="newpage">
+<a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg.38]</a></span> from Turin to
+Alessandria, and thence to Genoa, that had risen last and was last to
+submit. Thus most of them escaped by sea, which was fortunate, as Charles
+Felix had the will to establish a White Terror, and was only prevented by
+the circumstance that nearly all the proposed victims were outside his
+kingdom. Capital sentences were sent after them by the folio: there was
+hardly a noble family which had not one of its members condemned to death.
+When his brother, Victor Emmanuel, recommended mercy, he told him that he
+was entirely ready to give him back the crown, but that, while he reigned,
+he should reign after his own ideas. He seems to have had thoughts of
+hanging the Prince of Carignano, and for a long time he seriously meant to
+devise the kingdom to his son, the infant Prince Victor. Thus a new set of
+obstacles arose between Charles Albert and the throne.</p>
+
+<p>Of the personal friends of that ill-starred Prince all escaped. One of
+them, the noble-minded Count Santorre di Santa Rosa, died fighting for
+liberty in Greece. In the miseries of exile and poverty he had never lost
+faith in his country, but fearlessly maintained that 'the emancipation of
+Italy was an event of the nineteenth century.' To another, Giacinta di
+Collegno, it was reserved to receive the dying breath of Charles Albert,
+when as an exiled and crownless king he found rest, at last, at
+Oporto.</p>
+
+<p>There were deeper reasons than any which appear on the surface for the
+failure of the revolutionary movements of this period. North and south,
+though the populations exhibited a childish delight at the overthrow of
+the old, despotic form of government, their effervescence ended as rapidly
+as it began. They did not really understand what was going on.
+'By-the-bye, what <i>is</i> this same constitution they are making such a
+noise about?' asked a lazzarone who had been shouting <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg.39]</a></span> 'Viva la
+Costituzione' all the day. Within a few weeks of the breakdown at Novara,
+Count Confalonieri wrote wisely to Gino Capponi that revolutions are not
+made by high intelligences, but by the masses which are moved by
+enthusiasm, and for a possibility of success, the word Constitution, the
+least magical of words, should have been replaced by the more
+comprehensible and stirring call: 'War to the stranger.' But this, instead
+of sounding from every housetop, was purposely stifled at Naples, and kept
+a mysterious secret in Piedmont.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg.40]</a></span> <a
+name="CHAPTER_III"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
+
+<h4>PRISON AND SCAFFOLD</h4>
+
+<h5>1821-1831</h5>
+
+<h5>Political Trials in Venetia and Lombardy&mdash;Risings in the South
+and Centre&mdash;Ciro Menotti.</h5>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>The Austrians fully expected a rising in Lombardy in the middle of
+March, and that they were not without serious fears as to its consequences
+is proved by the preparations which they quietly made to abandon Milan, if
+necessary. The Court travelling-carriages were got ready, and the younger
+princes were sent away. Carbonarism had been introduced into Lombardy the
+year before by two Romagnols, Count Laderchi and Pietro Maroncelli. It was
+their propaganda that put the Austrian Government on the alert, and was
+the cause of the Imperial decree which denounced the society as a
+subversive conspiracy, aiming at the destruction of all constituted
+authority, and pointed to death and confiscation of property as the
+penalty for joining it. There was the additional clause, destined to bear
+terrible fruit, which declared accomplices, punishable with
+life-imprisonment, all who knew of the existence of lodges
+(<i>Vendite</i>, as they were called) or the names of associates, without
+informing the police. In the autumn of 1820, Maroncelli and many others,
+including Silvio Pellico, the young Piedmontese poet, were arrested as
+Carbonari, while the arrest of the so-called accomplices began with Count
+Giovanni Arrivabene of Mantua, who had no connection with the society, but
+was charged with having heard from Pellico that he was a member. Pellico
+and his companions <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">
+[Pg.41]</a></span> were still lying untried in the horrible Venetian
+prisons, called, from their leaden roofs, the 'Piombi,' when the events of
+1821 gave rise to a wholesale batch of new arrests. As soon as they knew
+of a movement in Piedmont, the Lombard patriots prepared to co-operate in
+it; that they were actually able to do nothing, was because it broke out
+prematurely, and also, to some extent, because their head, Count
+Confalonieri, was incapacitated by severe illness. But though their
+activity profited not at all to the cause, it was fatal to themselves. The
+Austrian Government had, as has been stated, a correct general notion of
+what was going on, but at the beginning it almost entirely lacked proofs
+which could inculpate individuals. In the matter of arrests, however,
+there was one sovereign rule which all the despotic Governments in Italy
+could and did follow in every emergency: it was to lay hands on the most
+intelligent, distinguished and upright members of the community. This plan
+never failed; these were the patriots, the conspirators of those days. The
+second thing which the Austrians made a rule of doing, was to extort from
+the prisoners some incautious word, some shadow of an assent or admission
+which would place them on the track of other compromised persons, and
+furnish them with such scraps of evidence as they deemed sufficient, in
+order to proceed against those already in their power. In their secret
+examination of prisoners, they had reduced the system of provocative
+interrogation to a science. They made use of every subterfuge, and, above
+all, of fabricated confessions fathered on friends of the prisoner, to
+extract the exclamation, the nod of the head, the confused answer, which
+served their purpose. The prisoners, <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg.42]</a></span> men of good faith, and
+inexperienced in the arts of deception, were but children in their hands,
+and scarcely one of them was not doomed to be the involuntary cause of
+some other person's ruin&mdash;generally that of a dear and intimate
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>The first to be arrested was Gaetano De-Castillia, who went with the
+Marquis Giorgio Pallavicini on a mission to Piedmont while the revolution
+there was at its height. They even had an interview with the Prince of
+Carignano, 'a pale and tall young man, with a charming expression' (so
+Pallavicini describes him), but had obtained from him no assurance, except
+the characteristic parting word: 'Let us hope in the future.' When
+De-Castillia was arrested, Pallavicini, then a youth of twenty, and full
+of noble sentiments, rushed to the director of the police with the avowal:
+'It was I who induced De-Castillia to go to Piedmont; if the journey was a
+crime, the fault is mine; punish me!' No error could have proved more
+calamitous; till that moment the Austrians were in ignorance of the
+Piedmontese mission; De-Castillia was arrested on some far more trifling
+charge. Pallavicini's generous folly was rewarded by fourteen years'
+imprisonment, and its first consequence was the arrest of Count
+Confalonieri, at whose instance the visit to Turin had been made. For
+months the Austrians had desired to have a clue against him; the
+opportunity was come at last.</p>
+
+<p>Federico Confalonieri, brilliant, handsome, persuasive, of great wealth
+and ancient lineage, innately aristocratic, but in the best sense, was
+morally at the head of Lombardy, by the selection of the fittest, which at
+certain junctures makes one man pre-appointed leader while he is still
+untried. When in England, the Duke of Sussex prevailed upon him to become
+a Freemason, but he was not a Carbonaro <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg.43]</a></span> in the technical sense, though
+both friends and foes believed him to be one. He knew, however, more about
+this and the other secret societies then existing in Italy&mdash;even
+those of the reactionary party&mdash;than did most of the initiated. In an
+amusing passage in his memoirs he relates how, when once forcibly detained
+in a miserable hostelry in the Calabrian Mountains, a den of brigands, of
+whom the chief was the landlord, he guessed that this man was a Calderaio,
+and it occurred to him to make the sign of that bloodthirsty sect. Things
+changed in a second; the brigand innkeeper was at his feet, the complete
+household was set in motion to serve him. In 1821, he founded at Milan,
+not a secret society, but an association in which all the best patriots
+were enrolled, and of which the sole engagement was the formula, repeated
+on entering its ranks: 'I swear to God, and on my honour, to exert myself
+to the utmost of my power, and even at the sacrifice of my life, to redeem
+Italy from foreign dominion.'</p>
+
+<p>Knowing to what extent he was a marked man, Confalonieri would have
+only exercised common prudence in leaving the country, but he could not
+reconcile himself to the idea of flight. Anonymous warnings rained upon
+him: most likely they all came from the same quarter, from Count Bubna,
+the Austrian Field-Marshal, with whom Confalonieri was personally on
+friendly terms. On the 12th of December the Countess Bubna made a last
+effort to save him; her carriage was ready, she implored him to take it
+and escape across the frontier. He refused, and next day he was
+arrested.</p>
+
+<p>Austrian legal procedure was slow; the trial of the first Carbonari,
+Silvio Pellico and his companions, did not take place till 1822. On the
+22nd of February the sentence of death was read to Silvio Pellico in his
+Venetian prison, to be commuted to one of fifteen years' <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg.44]</a></span> imprisonment
+at Spielberg, a fortress converted into a convict prison in a bleak
+position in Moravia. To that rock of sorrow, consecrated for ever by the
+sufferings of some of the purest of men, Silvio Pellico and Pietro
+Maroncelli, with nine or ten companions, condemned at the same time, were
+the first Italians to take the road. Here they remained for the eight
+years described by the author of <i>Francesca da Rimini</i>, in <i>Le Mie
+Prigioni</i>, a book that served the Italian cause throughout the world.
+Even now some Italians are indignant at the spirit of saintly resignation
+which breathes upon Silvio Pellico's pages, at the veil which is drawn
+over many shocking features in the treatment of the prisoners; they do not
+know the tremendous force which such reticence gave his narrative. <i>Le
+Mie Prigioni</i> has the reserve strength of a Greek tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>Maroncelli contracted a disease of the leg through the hardships
+endured; amputation became necessary, but could not be performed till
+permission was received from Vienna&mdash;a detail showing the red-tapism
+which governed all branches of the Austrian administration. This patriot
+went, after his release, to America, where he died, poor, blind and mad.
+Pellico, crushed in soul, devoted his latter years entirely to religion.
+Only men of iron fibre could come out as they went in. The Spielberg
+prisoners wore chains, and their food was so bad and scanty that they
+suffered from continual hunger, with its attendant diseases. Unlike the
+thieves and assassins confined in the same fortress, the State prisoners
+were given no news of their families. Such was Spielberg, 'a sepulchre
+without the peace of the dead.'</p>
+
+<p>The State trials of the Lombard patriots in 1823 resulted in seven
+capital sentences on the Milanese, thirteen on the Brescians, and four
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg.45]</a></span> on
+the Mantuans. The fate of the other prisoners depended on that of Count
+Confalonieri. If the sentence on him were not carried out, the lives at
+least of the others might be regarded as safe, since he was looked upon as
+the head. It is certain that the authorities, and the Emperor himself, had
+the most firm intention of having him executed; the more merciful decision
+was solely due to the Countess Confalonieri's journey to Vienna.
+Accompanied by the prisoner's aged father, this beautiful and heroic
+woman, a daughter of the noble Milanese house of Casati, went to Vienna
+before the conclusion of the trial, to be ready for any eventuality. When
+the sentence of death was passed, it was announced by the Emperor to old
+Count Confalonieri, whom he advised to return with the Countess Teresa as
+fast as possible if they wished to see the condemned man alive. Undaunted
+by the news, the brave wife sought an interview with the Empress, in whom
+she found a warm advocate, but who was obliged to own, after several
+attempts to obtain a reprieve, that she despaired of success. Teresa
+Confalonieri hurried back to Milan through the bitter winter weather, in
+doubt whether she should arrive before the execution had taken place. But
+the unceasing efforts of the Empress won the day. The respite was granted
+on the 13th of January; life-imprisonment was substituted for death. The
+countess sent her husband the pillow which she had bathed with her tears
+during her terrible journey; needless to say that it was not given to him.
+She died broken-hearted with waiting before he was set at liberty in the
+year 1836.</p>
+
+<p>When Count Confalonieri reached Vienna on his way to Spielberg, he was
+surprised to find himself installed in a luxurious apartment, with <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg.46]</a></span> three
+servants to wait upon him. Though too ill to touch solid food, a sumptuous
+breakfast and dinner were daily set before him; and but for the constant
+jingle of his chains, he would have thought himself in a first-class hotel
+on a journey of pleasure. The object of these attentions was clear when
+one evening Prince Metternich came to see him, and stayed for three hours,
+endeavouring by every exquisite flattery, by every promise and persuasion,
+to worm out of him the secrets of which he alone was believed to be the
+depositary. The Austrian Government had spent &pound;60,000 on the Milan
+Commission, and, practically, they were no wiser than when it began. Would
+Confalonieri enlighten them? Whatever scruples he might have felt during
+the trial could be now laid aside; there was no question of new arrests.
+It was from pure, abstract love of knowledge that the Government, or,
+rather, the Emperor, desired to get at the truth. If he preferred to open
+his mind to the Emperor in person, His Majesty would grant him a secret
+audience. Above all, what was the real truth about the Prince of
+Carignano?</p>
+
+<p>All the rest was a blind; it was the wish to have some damnatory
+evidence against Charles Albert, such as would for ever exclude him from
+the throne, that had induced the Emperor and his astute minister to make
+this final attempt.</p>
+
+<p>'Confalonieri need never go to Spielberg,' said the Prince; 'let him
+think of his family, of his adored wife, of his own talents, of his future
+career, which was on the brink of being blotted out as completely as if he
+were dead!' Confalonieri was worthy of his race, of his class, of himself;
+he stood firm, and next morning, almost with a sense of relief, he started
+for the living grave.</p>
+
+<p>'The struggle was decided,' Prince Metternich had said in the course
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg.47]</a></span> of
+the interview, 'and decided not only for our own, but for many
+generations. Those who still hoped to the contrary were madmen.'</p>
+
+<p>Some years of outward quiet doubtless confirmed him in the first
+opinion, while the second was not likely to be shaken by the next attempt
+that was made to take up arms for freedom. On the 28th of June 1828,
+several villages in the province of Salerno rose in obedience to the
+harangues of two patriotic ecclesiastics, Canon de Luca and Carlo da
+Celle, superior of a capuchin convent. This was meant to develop into a
+general insurrection, but it was nowhere followed up, and the sword of
+vengeance fell speedily on the wretched villagers. Surrounded by the royal
+troops, they were forced into submission, many were shot on the spot,
+others were dragged in chains to Salerno, not even a drop of water being
+allowed them during the journey under the scorching sun. The village of
+Bosco was rased to the ground. The priest, the monk, and twenty-two
+insurgents were shot after the repression. The heads of the victims were
+cut off and placed in iron cages where their wives or mothers were likely
+to see them. A woman went to Naples to beg for the pardon of her two
+grandsons, by name Diego and Emilio. The King, with barbarous clemency,
+told her to choose one. In vain she entreated that if both could not be
+saved the choice should be left to chance, or decided by someone else. But
+no; unless she chose they would both be shot. At last she chose Diego.
+Afterwards she went mad, and was constantly heard wailing: 'I have killed
+my grandson Emilio.' This anecdote gives a fair notion of Francis I.,
+whose short reign was, however, less signalised by acts of cruelty, though
+there were enough of these, than by a venality never surpassed. The
+grooms-in-waiting and ladies-of-the-bedchamber sold the public offices
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg.48]</a></span> in
+the daylight; and the King, who was aware of it, thought it a subject for
+vulgar jokes with his intimates. Francis died in 1830 of bad humour at the
+Paris revolution, and was succeeded by Ferdinand II., to be known
+hereafter as Bomba&mdash;then a clownish youth, one of whose first kingly
+cares was to create St Ignatius Loyola a Field-Marshal.</p>
+
+<p>The revolution which upset the throne of Charles X., and ushered in the
+eighteen years' reign of the Citizen King, seemed likely to have momentous
+consequences for Italy. The principle of non-intervention proclaimed by
+French politicians would, if logically enforced, sound the death-knell of
+the Austrian power in Italy. Dupin, the Minister of War, enlarged on the
+theme in a speech which appeared to remove all doubt as to the real
+intentions of the Government. 'One phrase,' he remarked, 'has made a
+general impression; it expresses the true position of a loyal and generous
+Government. Not only has the President of the Council laid down the
+principle that France should abstain from intervention; he has declared
+that she would not tolerate intervention on the part of others. France
+might have shut herself up in a cold egotism, and simply said that she
+would not intervene; this would have been contemptible, but the
+proclamation of not suffering the interventions of others is the noblest
+attitude a strong and magnanimous people can assume; it amounts to saying:
+Not only will I not attack or disturb other nations, but I, France, whose
+voice is respected by Europe and by the whole world, will never permit
+others to do so. This is the language held by the ministry and by the
+ambassadors of Louis Philippe; and it is this which the army, the National
+Guard, France entire, is ready to maintain.'</p>
+
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg.49]</a></span>
+
+<p>Truly language was invented to travesty the truth, and when French
+politicians say they are going to the right it is an almost sure sign that
+they are going to the left; nevertheless, is it possible to blame the
+Italians who read in these assurances a positive promise affecting their
+own case?</p>
+
+<p>The same assurances were repeated again and again through the winter of
+1830-31; they were repeated authoritatively as late as March in the latter
+year. Well may a French writer inquire: 'Was it insanity or
+treachery?'</p>
+
+<p>The good tidings were published by the Italian exiles, who, living
+close to the great centres of European politics, were the first to
+intoxicate themselves with the great delusion. From London, Gabriele
+Rossetti sent the exultant summons:</p>
+
+<pre>
+       Cingi l'elmo, la mitra deponi,
+       O vetusta Signora del mondo:
+       Sorgi, sorgi dal sonno profondo,
+       Io son l'alba del nuovo tuo d&igrave;.
+
+      Saran rotte le vostre catene,
+     O Fratelli che in ceppi languite;
+     O Fratelli che il giogo soffrite
+     Calcherete quel giogo col pi&egrave;.
+</pre>
+
+<p>The child beside whose cradle the ode was written, was to grow to
+manhood while Italy still remained 'the weeping, desolate mother.' The cry
+of the poet was not, however, without an echo. In 1831, Romagna, Parma and
+Modena rose in rebellion.</p>
+
+<p>Things had been going, without much variation, from bad to worse in the
+Roman states, ever since 1815. Pius VII. (Chiaramonti), who died in 1823,
+was succeeded by Leo XII. (Genga), an old man who was in such enfeebled
+health that his death was expected at the time of his <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg.50]</a></span> election, but,
+like a more famous pontiff, he made a sudden recovery, which was
+attributed to the act of a prelate, who, in prayer, offered his own life
+for the Pope's, and who died a few days after resolving on the sacrifice.
+During this Pope's reign, the smallpox was rife in Rome, in consequence of
+the suppression of public vaccination. The next conclave, held in 1829,
+resulted in the election of Pius VIII. (Castiglioni da Cingoli), who died
+on the 30th of November 1830, and was followed by Gregory XVI.
+(Cappellari). In each conclave, Austria had secured the choice of a
+'Zealot,' as the party afterwards called Ultramontane was then designated.
+The last traces of reforms introduced by the French disappeared; criminal
+justice was again administered in secret; the police were arbitrary and
+irresponsible. All over the Roman states, but especially in Romagna, the
+secret society of the Sanfedesti flourished exceedingly; whether, as is
+probable, an offshoot of the Calderai or of indigenous growth, its aims
+were the same. The affiliated swore to spill the last drop of the blood of
+the Liberals, without regard to sex or rank, and to spare neither children
+nor old men. Many Romagnols had left their country after the abortive
+agitation of 1821, and amongst these were the Gambas. Count Pietro died in
+Greece, where he had gone on the service of freedom. Had he lived, this
+young man would have been sure to win a fair name in the annals of Italian
+patriotism; he should not, as it is, be quite forgotten, as it was chiefly
+due to him that Byron's life took the redeeming direction which led to
+Missolonghi.</p>
+
+<p>In February 1831, Romagna and the Marches of Ancona threw off the Papal
+Government with an ease which must have surprised the most sanguine. The
+white, red and green tricolor was hoisted at Bologna, <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg.51]</a></span> where, as far
+as is known, this combination of colours first became a political badge.
+Thirty-six years before Luigi Zamboni and Gian Battista De Rolandis of
+Bologna had distributed rosettes of white, red and green ribbon; Zamboni
+was arrested, and strangled himself, afraid of betraying his friends; De
+Rolandis was hung on the 23rd of April 1796. Such was the origin of the
+flag, but, until 1831, the Carbonaro red, blue and black was the common
+standard of the revolution. From that year forth, the destinies of Italy
+were accomplished under the colours of better augury, so fit to recall her
+fiery volcanoes, her wooded Apennines, her snow-crowned Alps; colours
+which in one sense she receives from Dante, who clothes in them the vision
+of the glorified Beatrice.</p>
+
+<p>The rising at Parma requires but little comment. The Empress
+Marie-Louise neither hated her subjects, nor was hated by them, but her
+engagements with Austria prevented her from granting the demanded
+concessions, and she abandoned her state, to return to it, indeed, under
+Austrian protection, but without the odious corollary of vindictive
+measures which was generally meant by a restoration.</p>
+
+<p>Much more important is the history of the Modenese revolution.
+Apologists have been found for the Bourbons of Naples, but, if anyone ever
+said a good word for Francesco d'Este, it has escaped the notice of the
+present writer. Under a despotism without laws (for the edicts of the
+Prince daily overrode the Este statute book which was supposed to be in
+force), Modena was far more in the power of the priests, or rather of the
+Jesuits, than any portion of the states of the Church. Squint-eyed,
+crooked in mind and bloodthirsty, Francis was as ideal a bogey-tyrant as
+can be discovered outside fiction. In 1822, he hung the priest Giuseppe
+Andreoli on the charge of Carbonarism; and his <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg.52]</a></span> theory of justice is
+amusingly illustrated by the story of his sending in a bill to Sir Anthony
+Panizzi&mdash;who had escaped to England&mdash;for the expenses of hanging
+him in effigy.</p>
+
+<p>Francis felt deeply annoyed by the narrow limits of his dominions, and
+his annoyance did not decrease with the decreasing chances of his ousting
+the Prince of Carignano from the Sardinian throne. He was intensely
+ambitious, and one of his subjects, a man, in other respects, of high
+intelligence, thought that his ambition could be turned to account for
+Italy. It was the mistake over again that Machiavelli had made with Cesare
+Borgia.</p>
+
+<p>Ciro Menotti, who conceived the plan of uniting Italy under the Duke of
+Modena, was a Modenese landed proprietor who had exerted himself to
+promote the industry of straw-plaiting, and the other branches of commerce
+likely to be of advantage to an agricultural population. He was known as a
+sound philanthropist, an excellent husband and father, a model member of
+society. Francis professed to take an interest in industrial matters;
+Menotti, therefore, easily gained access to his person. In all the
+negotiations that followed, the Modenese patriot was supported and
+encouraged by a certain Dr Misley, who was of English extraction, with
+whom the Duke seems to have been on familiar terms. It appears not
+doubtful that Menotti was led to believe that his political views were
+regarded with favour, and that he also received the royal promise that,
+whatever happened, his life would be safe. This promise was given because
+he had the opportunity of saving the Duke from some great
+peril&mdash;probably from assassination, though the particulars were never
+divulged.</p>
+
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg.53]</a></span>
+
+<p>Misley went to Paris to concert with the Italian committee which had
+its seat there; the movement in Modena was fixed for the first days of
+February. But spies got information of the preparations, and on the
+evening of the 3rd, before anything had been done, Menotti's house was
+surrounded by troops, and after defending it, with the help of his
+friends, for two hours, he was wounded and captured. Next day the Duke
+despatched the following note to the Governor of Reggio-Emilia: 'A
+terrible conspiracy against me has broken out. The conspirators are in my
+hands. Send me the hangman.&mdash;Francis.'</p>
+
+<p>Not all, however, of the conspirators were in his hands; the movement
+matured, in spite of the seizure of Menotti, and Francis, 'the first
+captain in the world,' as he made his troops call him, was so overcome
+with fright that on the 5th of February he left Modena with his family,
+under a strong military escort, dragging after him Giro Menotti, who, when
+Mantua was reached, was consigned to an Austrian fortress.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the revolution triumphed. Modena chose one of her citizens
+as dictator, Biagio Nardi, who issued a proclamation in which the words
+'Italy is one; the Italian nation is one sole nation,' testified that the
+great lesson which Menotti had sought to teach had not fallen on
+unfruitful ground. Wild as were the methods by which, for a moment, he
+sought to gain his end, his insistance on unity nevertheless gives Menotti
+the right to be considered the true precursor of Mazzini in the Italian
+Revolution.</p>
+
+<p>Now that the testing-time was come, France threw to the winds the
+principle announced in her name with such solemn emphasis. 'Precious
+French blood should never be shed except on behalf of French interests,'
+said Casimir P&eacute;rier, the new President of the Council. A <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg.54]</a></span> month
+after the flight of the Duke of Modena, the inevitable Austrians marched
+into his state to win it back for him. The hastily-organised little army
+of the new government was commanded by General Zucchi, an old general of
+Napoleon, who, when Lombardy passed to Austria, had entered the Austrian
+service. He now offered his sword to the Dictator of Modena, who accepted
+it, but there was little to be done save to retire with honour before the
+6000 Austrians. Zucchi capitulated at Ancona to Cardinal Benvenuti, the
+Papal delegate. Those of the volunteers who desired it were furnished with
+regular passports, and authorised to take ship for any foreign port. The
+most compromised availed themselves of this arrangement, but the vessel
+which was to bear Zucchi and 103 others to Marseilles, was captured by the
+Austrian Admiral Bandiera, by whom its passengers were kidnapped and
+thrown into Venetian prisons, where they were kept till the end of May
+1832. This act of piracy was chiefly performed with a view to getting
+possession of General Zucchi, who was tried as a deserter, and condemned
+to twenty years' imprisonment. Among the prisoners was the young wife of
+Captain Silvestro Castiglioni of Modena. 'Go, do your duty as a citizen,'
+she had said, when her husband left her to join the insurrection. 'Do not
+betray it for me, as perhaps it would make me love you less.' She shared
+his imprisonment, but just at the moment of the release, she died from the
+hardships endured.</p>
+
+<p>By the end of the month of March, the Austrians had restored Romagna to
+the Pope, and Modena to Francis IV. In Romagna the amnesty published by
+Cardinal Benvenuti was revoked, but there were no executions; this was not
+the case in Modena. The Duke brought back <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg.55]</a></span> Ciro Menotti attached to his
+triumphal car, and when he felt that all danger was past, and that the
+presence of the Austrians was a guarantee against a popular expression of
+anger, he had him hung.</p>
+
+<p>'When my children are grown up, let them know how well I loved my
+country,' Menotti wrote to his wife on the morning of his execution. The
+letter was intercepted, and only delivered to his family in 1848. The
+revolutionists found it in the archives of Modena. On the scaffold he
+recalled how he was once the means of saving the Duke's life, and added
+that he pardoned his murderer, and prayed that his blood might not fall
+upon his head.</p>
+
+<p>During the insurrection in Romagna, an event occurred which was not
+without importance to Europe, though it passed almost unnoticed at the
+time. The eldest son of Queen Hortense died in her arms at Forl&igrave;,
+of a neglected attack of measles; some said of poison, but the report was
+unfounded. He and his brother Louis, who had been closely mixed up with
+Italian conspiracies for more than a year, went to Romagna to offer their
+services as volunteers in the national army. By the death of the elder of
+the two, Louis Napoleon became heir to what seemed then the shadowy
+sovereignty of the Buonapartes.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had the Austrians retired from the Legations in July 1831,
+than the revolution broke out again. Many things had been promised,
+nothing performed; disaffection was universal, anarchy became chronic, and
+was increased by the indiscipline of the Papal troops that were sent to
+put it down. The Austrians returned and the French occupied Ancona, much
+to the Pope's displeasure, and not one whit to the advantage of the
+Liberals. This dual foreign occupation of the Papal states lasted till the
+winter of 1838.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg.56]</a></span> <a
+name="CHAPTER_IV"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
+
+<h4>'YOUNG ITALY' 1831-1844</h4>
+
+<h5>Accession of Charles Albert&mdash;Mazzini's Unitarian
+Propaganda&mdash;The Brothers Bandiera.</h5>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>On 27 April 1831, Charles Albert came to the throne he had so nearly
+lost. His reconciliation with his uncle, Charles Felix, had been effected
+after long and melancholy preliminaries. To wash off the Liberal sins of
+his youth, or possibly with a vague hope of finding an escape from his
+false position in a soldier's death, he joined the Duc d'Angoul&ecirc;me's
+expedition against the Spanish Constitutionalists. His extraordinary
+daring in the assault of the Trocadero caused him to be the hero of the
+hour when he returned with the army to Paris; but the King of Sardinia
+still refused to receive him with favour&mdash;a sufficiently icy favour
+when it was granted&mdash;until he signed an engagement, which remained
+secret, to preserve intact during his reign the laws and principles of
+government which he found in force at his accession. If there had been an
+Order of the Millstone, Charles Felix would doubtless have conferred it
+upon his dutiful nephew; failing that, he presented to him for signature
+this wonderful document, the invention of which he owed to Prince
+Metternich. At the Congress of Verona in 1822, Charles Albert's claims to
+the succession were recognised, thanks chiefly to the Duke of Wellington,
+who represented England in place of Lord Londonderry (Castlereagh), that
+statesman <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">
+[Pg.57]</a></span> having committed suicide just as he was starting for
+Verona. Prince Metternich then proposed that the Prince of Carignano
+should be called upon to enter into an agreement identical with the
+compact he was brought to sign a couple of years later. In communicating
+the proposal to Canning, the Duke of Wellington wrote that he had
+demonstrated to Prince Metternich 'the fatality of such an arrangement,'
+but that he did not think that he had made the slightest impression on
+him. So the event proved; baffled for the moment, the Prince managed to
+put his plan in execution through a surer channel.</p>
+
+<p>With the accession of Charles Albert appears upon the political scene a
+great actor in the Liberation of Italy, Giuseppe Mazzini. Young and
+unknown, except for a vague reputation for restlessness and for talent
+which caused the government of Charles Felix to imprison him for six or
+seven months at Savona, Mazzini proposed to the new King the terms on
+which he might keep his throne, as calmly as Metternich had proposed to
+him the terms on which he might ascend it. The contrast is striking; on
+the one side the statesman, who still commanded the armed force of
+three-fourths of Europe, doing battle for the holy alliance of autocrats,
+for the international law of repression, for all the traditions of the old
+diplomacy; on the other, the young student with little money and few
+friends, already an exile, having no allies but his brain and his pen, who
+set himself, certain of success, to dissolve that mighty array of power
+and pomp. All his life Charles Albert was a Faust for the possession of
+whose soul two irreconcilable forces contended; the struggle was never
+more dramatically represented than at this moment in the person of these
+two champions.</p>
+
+<p>Mazzini's letter to Charles Albert, which was read by the King, and
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg.58]</a></span>
+widely, though secretly, circulated in Piedmont, began by telling him that
+his fellow-countrymen were ready to believe his line of conduct in 1821 to
+have been forced on him by circumstances, and that there was not a heart
+in Italy that did not quicken at his accession, nor an eye in Europe that
+was not turned to watch his first steps in the career that now unfolded
+before him. Then he went on to show, with the logical strength in
+developing an argument which, joined to a novel and eloquent style, caused
+his writings to attract notice from the first, that the King could take no
+middle course. He would be one of the first of men, or the last of Italian
+tyrants; let him choose. Had he never looked upon Italy, radiant with the
+smile of nature, crowned with twenty centuries of sublime memories, the
+mother of genius, possessing infinite means, to which only union was
+lacking, girt round with such defences that a strong will and a few
+courageous breasts would suffice to defend her? Had it never struck him
+that she was created for a glorious destiny? Did he not contemplate her
+people, splendid still, in spite of the shadow of servitude, the vigour of
+whose intellect, the energy of whose passions, even when turned to evil,
+showed that the making of a nation was there? Did not the thought come to
+him: 'Draw a world out of these dispersed elements like a god from chaos;
+unite into one whole the scattered members, and pronounce the words, "It
+is mine, and it is happy"?'</p>
+
+<p>Mazzini in 1831 was twenty-six years of age. His father was a Genoese
+physician, his mother a native of Chiavari. She was a superior woman, and
+devoted more than a mother's care to the excitable and delicate child, who
+seemed to her (mothers have sometimes the gift of prophecy) <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg.50]</a></span> to be meant
+for an uncommon lot. One of the few personal reminiscences that Mazzini
+left recorded, relates to the time and manner in which the idea first came
+to him of the possibility of Italians doing something for their country.
+He was walking with his mother in the Strada Nuova at Genoa one Sunday in
+April 1821, when a tall, black-bearded man with a fiery glance held
+towards them a white handkerchief, saying: 'For the refugees of Italy.'
+Mazzini's mother, gave him some money, and he passed on. In the streets
+were many unfamiliar faces; the fugitives from Turin and Alessandria were
+gathered at Genoa before they departed by sea into exile. The impression
+which that scene made on the mind of the boy of sixteen was never
+effaced.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to his delicate health, Mazzini's early education was carried on
+at home, where the social atmosphere was that of one of those little
+centres in a provincial capital which are composed of a few people, mostly
+kindred, of similar tastes, who lead useful and refined lives, content
+with moderate ease. The real exclusiveness of such centres exceeds any
+that exists in the most aristocratic sphere in the world. The Mazzinis
+were, moreover, Genoese to the core; and this was another reason for
+exclusiveness, and for holding aloof from the governing class. Mazzini was
+born a few days after Napoleon entered Genoa as its lord. He had not,
+therefore, breathed the air of the ancient Republic; but there was the
+unadulterated republicanism of a thousand years in his veins.</p>
+
+<p>When he grew to manhood his appearance was striking. The black, flowing
+hair, the pale, olive complexion, the finely-cut features and lofty brow,
+the deep-set eyes, which could smile as only Italian eyes can smile, but
+which could also flash astral infinitudes of scorn, the <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg.60]</a></span> fragile
+figure, even the long, delicate, tapering fingers, marked him for a man
+apart&mdash;though whether a poet or an apostle, a seer or a saint, it was
+not easy to decide. Yet this could be said at once: if this man
+concentrated all his being on a single point, he would wield the power,
+call it what we will, which in every age has worked miracles and moved
+mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Mazzini became a Carbonaro, though the want of clear, guiding
+principles in Carbonarism made him misdoubt its efficacy, and its
+hierarchical mysteries and initiatory ordeals repelled him by their
+childishness. Then followed his arrest, and his detention in the fortress
+of Savona, which was the turning-point in his mental life. Before that
+date he learnt, after it he taught. From his high-perched cell he saw the
+sea and the sky&mdash;with the Alps, the sublimest things in Nature. The
+voices of the fishermen reached his ears, though he could not see them. A
+tame goldfinch was his companion. Here, in a solitude and peace which he
+remembered with regret in the stormy and sorrowful years that were to
+come, he conceived his message and the mission, in which he believed to
+the last day of his life.</p>
+
+<p>He resolved to found a new association on broader and simpler lines
+than the secret societies of the past, which should aim not only at the
+material freeing of Italy from her present bondage, but at her moral and
+religious regeneration. To aim at material progress of any kind, without
+at the same time aiming at a higher moral progress, seemed to Mazzini
+absurd; to attempt to pull down without attempting to build up seemed to
+him criminal. Thus he accused the Socialists of substituting the progress
+of humanity's kitchen for the progress of humanity. He believed that
+Italy, united and redeemed, was destined to <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg.61]</a></span> shed through the world the light
+of a new moral unity, which should end the reign of Scepticism, triumphant
+among discordant creeds. Mazzini's religious belief was the motor of his
+whole being. The Catholicism in which he was outwardly brought up never
+seems to have touched his inner nature; he went through no spiritual
+wrench in leaving a faith that was never a reality to him. The same is
+true of innumerable young Italians, who, when they begin to read and
+study, drift out of their childhood's religion without a struggle or a
+regret. But thought and study brought Mazzini what it rarely brings to
+these young men&mdash;the necessity to find something in which he could
+believe. He had not long to seek for a basis to his creed, because he was
+one of the men from the prophets of old to Spinoza, from Spinoza to
+Gordon, to whom the existence of God is a matter of experience rather than
+an object of faith. Starting from this point, he formed his religion out
+of what he regarded as its inevitable deductions. If God existed, his
+creatures must be intended for perfection; if this were the Divine scheme,
+man's one business was to carry it out. He considered the idea of duty
+separated from the idea of God to be illogical. Either the development of
+human things depended on a providential law, or it was left to chance and
+passing circumstance, and to the dexterity of the man who turned these to
+most account. God was the sole source of duty; duty the sole law of life.
+Mazzini did not denounce Catholicism or any other religion as false. He
+saw in it a stepping-stone to purer comprehension, which would be reached
+when man's intellect was sufficiently developed for him to be able to do
+without symbols.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image2.jpg" alt="GIUSEPPE MAZZINI" /><br />
+ <span class="caption">GIUSEPPE MAZZINI</span></div>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>The conscience of humanity is the last tribunal. Ideas, as well as
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg.62]</a></span>
+institutions, change and expand, but certain fundamental principles are
+fixed. The family would always exist; property would always exist. The
+first, 'the heart's fatherland,' was the source of the only true
+happiness, the only joys untainted by grief, which were given to man.
+Those who wished to abolish the second were like the savage who cut down
+the tree in order to gather the fruit. In the future, free association
+would be the great agent of moral and material progress. The authority
+which once rested in popes and emperors now devolved on the people.
+Instead of 'God and the King,' Mazzini proposed the new formula 'God and
+the People.' By the people he understood no caste or class, whether high
+or low, but the universality of men composing the nation. The nation is
+the sole sovereign; its will, expressed by delegates, must be law to all
+its citizens.</p>
+
+<p>By degrees certain words acquired more and more a mystical significance
+in Mazzini's mind; the very name of Rome, for instance, had for him a sort
+of talismanic fascination, not unlike that possessed by Jerusalem for the
+medi&aelig;val Christian. When he spoke of the people or the republic he
+frequently used those terms in an ideal and visionary sense (as
+theologians use the Church) rather than in one strictly corresponding with
+the case of any existing nation, or any hitherto tried form of government.
+This does not alter the fact that his theories, which have been briefly
+summarised, are not hard to comprehend, as has been said by those who did
+not know in what they consisted, nor, taken one by one, are they novel.
+What was new in the nineteenth century was the appearance of a
+revolutionary leader, who was before all things a religious and ethical
+teacher. And though Mazzini never founded the Church of Precursors, of
+which he dreamt, his influence was as surely due to his belief in his
+religious <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">
+[Pg.63]</a></span> mission, as was the influence of Savonarola. The
+Italians are not a mystical people, but they have always followed mystical
+leaders. The less men are prone to ideal enthusiasm the more attracted are
+they by it; Don Quixote, as Heine remarked, always draws Sancho Panza
+after him.</p>
+
+<p>Mazzini had a natural capacity for organisation, and the Association of
+Young Italy which he founded at Marseilles, the first nucleus being a
+group of young, penniless refugees, soon obtained an astonishing
+development. Up to the time of his 'Letter to Charles Albert,' his exile
+had been so far voluntary that he might have remained in Piedmont had he
+agreed to live in one of the smaller towns under the watchful care of the
+police, but he declined the terms, and the first effect of the 'Letter'
+was a stringent order to arrest him if he recrossed the frontier. He was
+not surprised at that result. Mazzini's attitude towards the Sardinian
+monarchy was perfectly well defined. Republican himself, even to
+fanaticism, he placed the question of unity, which for him meant national
+existence, above the question of the republic. He did not believe that the
+House of Savoy would unite Italy, but if unity could only be had under
+what he looked upon as the inauspicious form of monarchy, he would not
+reject it. He was like the real mother in the judgment of Solomon, who,
+because she loved her child, was ready to give it up sooner than see it
+cut in two.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from personal hereditary instincts and predilections, Mazzini
+thought that he saw in the glorious memories of the Italian republics a
+clear indication that the commonwealth was the form of government which
+ought and would be adopted by the Italy of the future. But, <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg.64]</a></span> unlike most
+politicians, he laid down the principle that, after all, when free, the
+nation must decide for itself. 'To what purpose,' he asks, 'do we
+constantly speak of the sovereignty of the people, and of our reverence
+for the national will, if we are to disregard it as soon as it pronounces
+in contradiction to our wishes?'</p>
+
+<p>He did not succeed in making the majority of his countrymen
+republicans, but he contributed more than any other man towards inspiring
+the whole country with the desire for unity. Herein lies his great work.
+Without Mazzini, when would the Italians have got beyond the fallacies of
+federal republics, leagues of princes, provincial autonomy, insular
+home-rule, and all the other dreams of independence reft of its only
+safeguard which possessed the minds of patriots of every party in Italy
+and of nearly every well-wisher to Italian freedom abroad?</p>
+
+<p>In 1831, most educated Italians did not even wish for unity, and this
+is still truer of the republicans than of the monarchists. Some, like
+Manzoni, did wish for it, but, like him, said nothing about it, for fear
+of being thought madmen. A flash of the true light illuminated the mind of
+Giro Menotti, but that was extinguished on the scaffold. Then it was that
+Mazzini came forward with the news that Italy could <i>only</i> be made
+free and independent by being united; unity was the ruling tendency of the
+century, and, as far as Italy went, no Utopia, but a certain conclusion.
+This was repeated over and over again, wherever there were Italians, over
+the inhabited globe. By means of sailors, 'Young Italy' spread like
+lightning. Giuseppe Garibaldi was made a member by a sailor on the shores
+of the Black Sea.</p>
+
+<p>With the masses, unity proved the wonder-working word which
+Confalonieri had said was the one thing needful&mdash;a word yet fitter to
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg.65]</a></span>
+work wonders than 'War to the Stranger.' Among the cultivated classes, it
+was much slower in gaining ground, and particularly among statesmen and
+diplomatists. But in the end it was to convert them all.</p>
+
+<p>'"Young Italy,"' writes Mazzini, 'closed the period of political sects,
+and initiated that of educational associations.' 'Great revolutions,' he
+says again, 'are the work of principles rather than of bayonets.' It was
+by the diffusion of ideas that 'Young Italy' became a commanding factor in
+the events of the next thirty years. The insurrectional attempts planned
+under its guidance did not succeed, nor was it likely that they should
+succeed. Devised by exiles, at a distance, they lacked the first elements
+of success. The earliest of these attempts aimed at an invasion of Savoy;
+it was hoped that the Sardinian army and people would join the little band
+of exiles in a movement for the liberation of Lombardy. The revolution of
+1821 had evidently suggested this plan to Mazzini, but it was foredoomed
+to misfortune. The Piedmontese authorities got wind of it, and a hunt
+followed for the members of 'Young Italy'; most severe measures were
+taken; there were eleven executions, and numberless sentences to long
+terms of imprisonment. Jacobo Ruffini, the younger brother of the author
+of <i>Dr Antonio</i>, and Mazzini's most beloved friend, committed suicide
+in prison, fearing to reveal the names of his associates. The apologists
+for Charles Albert say that if he had not shown the will and ability to
+deal severely with the conspirators, Austria would have insisted on a
+military occupation. Whatever were his motives, this is the saddest page
+of his unhappy reign.</p>
+
+<p>Checked in 1833, the descent on Savoy was actually attempted in 1834,
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg.66]</a></span>
+with Mazzini's consent, though not by his wish. An officer who had won
+some celebrity in the Polish revolution, General Ramorino, a Savoyard by
+origin, was given the command. Ramorino was a gambler, who could not be
+trusted with money, but Mazzini's suspicion that on this occasion he
+played the part of traitor is not proved. However that may be, the
+expedition ended almost as soon as it began. Ramorino crossed the frontier
+of Savoy at the head of the column, but when he heard that a Polish
+reinforcement had been stopped on the Lake of Geneva, he retreated into
+Switzerland, and advised the band to follow him.</p>
+
+<p>After these events, Mazzini could no longer carry on his propaganda in
+France. He took refuge in England, where a great part of his life was to
+be passed, and of which he spoke, to the last, as his second country. The
+first period of his residence in England was darkened by the deep distress
+and discouragement into which the recent events had plunged him; but his
+faith in the future prevailed, and he went on with his work. His
+endeavours to help his fellow-exiles reduced him to the last stage of
+poverty; the day came when he was obliged to pawn a coat and an old pair
+of boots. These money difficulties did not afflict him, and by degrees his
+writings in English periodicals brought some addition to the small
+quarterly allowance which he received from his mother. It seems strange,
+though it is easily explained, that it was in London that he first got to
+know the Italian working classes. He was surprised and gladdened by the
+abundance of good elements which he found in them. No country, indeed, has
+more reason to hope in her working men than the land whose sons have
+tunnelled the Alps, cut the most arduous railway lines in America and
+India, brought up English ships from the deep, laid the caissons (a <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg.67]</a></span> task of
+extreme danger) which support the great structure of the Bridge of the
+Firth of Forth, and left their bones to whiten at Panama. 'It is the
+universal testimony,' writes a high American authority, 'that no more
+faithful men have come among us.' What was the cause of the slaughter of
+the Aigues Mortes? That the Italians worked too well.</p>
+
+<p>Mazzini wrote for his humble friends the treatise on <i>The Duties of
+Man</i>, in which he told them that he loved them too well to flatter
+them. Another work that occupied him and consoled him was the rescue and
+moral improvement of the children employed by organ-grinders, and he was
+the first to call attention to the white slavery to which many of them
+were subjected. He opened a school in Hatton Garden, in which he taught,
+and which he mainly supported for the seven years from 1841 to 1848.</p>
+
+<p>The enterprise of the Brothers Bandiera belongs to the history of
+'Young Italy,' though Mazzini himself had tried to prevent it, believing
+that it could only end in the sacrifice of all concerned. Nor, at the
+last, did the actors in it expect anything else. They had hoped for better
+things; for a general movement in the South of Italy, or at least for an
+undertaking on a larger and less irrational basis. But promises failed,
+money was not forthcoming, and it was a choice between doing nothing or a
+piece of heroic folly. Contrary to Mazzini's entreaties, they chose the
+second alternative.</p>
+
+<p>Attilio and Emilio Bandiera were sons of the Austrian admiral who, in
+1831, arrested Italian fugitives at sea. Placed by their father in the
+Austrian navy, they renounced every prospect of a brilliant career to
+enter the service of their down-trodden country. When they deserted, <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg.68]</a></span> strong
+efforts were made by the Archduke Rainieri, through their mother, to win
+them back, but neither the offers of pardon nor the poor woman's tears and
+reproaches turned them from their purpose. Another deserter was with them,
+Lieutenant Domenico Moro, a youth of great charm of person and
+disposition, who had been employed with a mixed force of Englishmen and
+Austrians in the Lebanon, where he formed a warm friendship with
+Lieutenant, now Admiral, Sir George Wellesley, who still preserves an
+affectionate remembrance of him. Nicola Ricciotti, a Roman subject who had
+devoted all his life to Italy, and Anacarsi Nardi, son of the dictator of
+Modena, were also of the band, which counted about twenty.</p>
+
+<p>The Bandieras and their companions sailed from Corfu for the coast of
+Calabria on the 11th of June 1844. 'If we fall,' they wrote to Mazzini,
+'tell our countrymen to imitate our example, for life was given to us to
+be nobly and usefully employed, and the cause for which we shall have
+fought and died is the purest and holiest that ever warmed the heart of
+man.' It was their last letter. After they landed in Calabria one of their
+number disappeared; there is every reason to suppose that he went to
+betray them. They wandered for a few days in the mountains, looking for
+the insurgent band which they had been falsely told was waiting for them,
+and then fell into an ambush prepared by the Neapolitan troops. Some died
+fighting; nine were shot at Cosenza, including the Bandieras, Mori,
+Ricciotti and Nardi. Boccheciampi the Corsican, whom they suspected of
+treason, was brought up to be confronted with them during the trial; when
+asked if he knew who he was, Nardi replied: 'I know no word in my divine
+Italian language that can fitly describe that man.' Boccheciampi was
+condemned to a nominal imprisonment; when he came out of prison he wrote
+to a <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">
+[Pg.69]</a></span> Greek girl of Corfu, to whom he was engaged, to join
+him at Naples, that they might be married. The girl had been deeply in
+love with him, and had already given him part of her dowry, but she
+answered: 'A traitor cannot wed a Greek maiden; I bear with me the
+blessing of my parents; upon you rests the curse of God.'</p>
+
+<p>The martyrdom of the Bandieras made a great impression, especially in
+England, where the circumstance came to light that their correspondence
+with Mazzini had been tampered with in the English Post Office, and that
+information as to their plans had reached the Austrian and Neapolitan
+Governments through the British Foreign Office. The affair was brought
+before the House of Commons by Thomas Duncombe. The Home Secretary
+repeated a calumny which had appeared many years before in a French
+newspaper, to the effect that the murder of an Italian in Rodez by two of
+his fellow-countrymen was the result of an order from the Association of
+Young Italy. Sir James Graham had to apologise afterwards for 'the injury
+inflicted on Mr Mazzini' by this statement, which he was obliged to admit
+was supported by no evidence, and was contrary to the opinion of the Judge
+who tried the case.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Times</i> having observed in a leading article that the gravity
+of the fact in question, the violation of private correspondence in the
+Post Office, was not affected by the merits or demerits of Mr Mazzini, of
+whom it professed to 'know nothing,' Thomas Carlyle wrote next day a
+letter containing words which may be quoted as some of the best and truest
+ever written about the great Italian: 'I have had the honour to know Mr
+Mazzini for a series of years, and, whatever I may think of his practical
+insight and skill in worldly affairs, I can with great <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg.70]</a></span> freedom
+testify that he, if I have ever seen one such, is a man of genius and
+virtue, one of those rare men, numerable unfortunately but as units in
+this world, who are worthy to be called martyr souls; who in silence,
+piously in their daily life, understand and practise what is meant by
+that.' <a name="FNanchor2"></a><a href=
+"#Footnote_2"><sup>[2]</sup></a></p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg.71]</a></span> <a
+name="CHAPTER_V"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER V</h3>
+
+<h4>THE POPE LIBERATOR</h4>
+
+<h5>1844-1847</h5>
+
+<h5>Events leading to the Election of Pius IX.&mdash;The Petty
+Princes&mdash;Charles Albert, Leopold and Ferdinand.</h5>
+
+<p><br />
+ The day is drawing near when the century which witnessed the liberation
+of Italy will have passed away. Already a generation has grown up which
+can but faintly realise the passionate hopes and fears with which the
+steps that led through defeat to the ultimate victory were watched, not
+only by Italians, but by thousands who had never set foot in Italy. Never
+did a series of political events evoke a sympathy so wide and so
+disinterested, and it may be foretold with confidence that it never will
+again. Italy rising from the grave was the living romance of myriads of
+young hearts that were lifted from the common level of trivial interests
+and selfish ends, from the routine of work or pleasure, both deadening
+without some diviner spark, by a sustained enthusiasm that can hardly be
+imagined now. There were, indeed, some who asked what was all this to
+them? What were the 'extraneous Austrian Emperor,' or the 'old chimera of
+a Pope' (Carlyle's designations) to the British taxpayer? Some there were
+in England who were deeply attached still to the 'Great Hinge on which
+Europe depended,' and even to the most clement Spanish Bourbons of Naples,
+about whom strangely beautiful things are to be read in old numbers of
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg.72]</a></span>
+the <i>Quarterly Review</i>. But on the whole, English men and
+women&mdash;in mind half Italian, whether they will it or not, from the
+day they begin to read their own literature from Chaucer to Shakespeare,
+from Shakespeare to Shelley, from Shelley to Rossetti and
+Swinburne&mdash;were united at that time in warmth of feeling towards
+struggling Italy as they have been united in no political sentiment
+relating to another nation, and in few concerning their own country.</p>
+
+<p>It would be vain to expect that the record of Italian vicissitudes
+during the years when the fate of Italy hung in the balance can awake or
+renew the spellbound interest caused by the events themselves. The reader
+of recent history is like the novel reader who begins at the last
+chapter&mdash;he is too familiar with how it all ended to be keenly
+affected by the development of the plot. Yet it is plain that we are in a
+better position to appreciate the process of development than was the case
+when the issue remained uncertain. We can estimate more accurately the
+difficulties which stood in the way, and judge more impartially the means
+that were taken to remove them. One outcome of this fuller knowledge is
+the conviction that patriotism was the monopoly of no single Italian
+party. The leaders, and still more their henchmen, were in the habit of
+saying very hard things about each other. It was natural and unavoidable;
+but there is no excuse now for failing to recognise that there were pure
+and devoted patriots on the one side as well as on the other&mdash;men
+whose only desire was the salvation of Italy, to effect which no sacrifice
+seemed too great. Nor were their labours unfruitful, for there was work
+for all of them to do; and the very diversity of opinion, though
+unfortunate under some aspects, was not so under all. If no one had raised
+the question of unity before all things, Italy might be still a
+geographical expression. If no one had tried to wring concessions from the
+old <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">
+[Pg.73]</a></span> governments, their inherent and irremediable vices
+would never have been proved; and though they might have been overturned,
+they would have left behind a lasting possibility of ignorant
+reaction.</p>
+
+<p>The Great Powers had presented to the Court of Rome in 1831 a
+memorandum, in which various moderate reforms and improvements were
+proposed as urgently necessary to put an end to the intolerable abuses
+which were rife in the states of the Church, and, most of all, in Romagna.
+The abolition of the tribunal of the Holy Office, the institution of a
+Council of State, lay education, and the secularisation of the
+administration were among the measures recommended. In 1845 a certain
+Pietro Renzi collected a body of spirited young men at San Marino, and
+made a dash on Rimini, where he disarmed the small garrison. The other
+towns were not prepared, and Renzi and his companions were obliged to
+retire into Tuscany; but the revolution, partial as it had been, raised
+discussion in consequence of the manifesto issued by its promoters, in
+which a demand was made for the identical reforms vainly advocated by
+European diplomacy fourteen years before. If these were granted, the
+insurgents engaged to lay down their arms. The manifesto was written by
+Luigi Carlo Farini, who was destined to play a large part in future
+affairs. It proved to Europe that even the most conservative elements in
+the nation were driven to revolution by the sheer hopelessness of the
+dead-lock which the Italian rulers sought by every means to prolong.
+Massimo d'Azeglio, who was then known only as a painter of talent and a
+writer of historical novels, first made his mark as a politician by the
+pamphlet entitled <i>Gli ultimi casi di Romagna</i>, in which his
+arguments derived force from the fact that, when travelling in the
+district, he had done all in his power to induce the Liberals to keep
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg.74]</a></span>
+within the bounds of legality. But he confessed that, when someone says:
+'I suffer too much,' it is an unsatisfactory answer to retort: 'You have
+not suffered enough.' Massimo d'Azeglio had lived for many years an
+artist's life in Rome and the country round, where his aristocratic birth
+and handsome face made him popular with all classes. The transparent
+integrity of his nature overcame the diffidence usually inspired by
+strangers among a somewhat suspicious people, and he got to know more
+thoroughly than any other North Italian the real aspirations of the Pope's
+subjects. He listened to their complaints and their plans, and if they
+asked his advice, he invariably replied: 'Let us speak clearly. What is it
+that you wish and I with you? You wish to have done with priestly rule,
+and to send the Teutons out of Italy? If you invite them to decamp, they
+will probably say, "No, thank you!" Therefore you must use force; and
+where is it to be had? If you have not got it, you must find somebody who
+has. In Italy who has it, or, to speak more precisely, who has a little of
+it? Piedmont, because it, at least, enjoys an independent life, and
+possesses an army and a surplus in the treasury.' His friends answered:
+'What of Charles Albert, of 1821, of 1832?' Now, there was no one who felt
+less trust in Charles Albert than Massimo d'Azeglio; he admitted it with
+something like remorse in later years. But he believed in his ambition,
+and he thought it madness to throw away what he regarded as the sole
+chance of freeing Italy on account of private doubts of the King of
+Sardinia's sincerity.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Albert had reigned for fourteen years, and still the mystery
+which surrounded his character formed as impenetrable a veil as ever. The
+popular nickname of <i>Re Tentenna</i> (King Waverer) seemed, in a <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg.75]</a></span> sense,
+accepted by him when he said to the Duke d'Aumale in 1843: 'I am between
+the dagger of the Carbonari and the chocolate of the Jesuits.' He chose,
+as bride for his eldest son, an Austrian princess, who, however, had known
+no country but Italy. His internal policy was not simply stationary, it
+was retrograde. If his consent was obtained to some progressive measure,
+he withdrew it at the last moment, or insisted on the introduction of
+modifications which nullified the whole. His want of stability drove one
+of his ministers to jump out of a window. In spite of the candid reference
+to the Jesuit's cup of chocolate, he allowed the Society of Jesus to
+dictate its will in Piedmont. Victor Amadeus, the first King of Sardinia,
+took public education out of the hands of the Jesuits, after receiving the
+following deathbed communication from one of the Order who was his own
+confessor: 'Deeply sensible of your many favours, I can only show my
+gratitude by a final piece of advice, but of such importance that perhaps
+it may suffice to discharge my debt. Never have a Jesuit for confessor. Do
+not ask me the grounds of this advice, I should not be at liberty to tell
+them to you.' The lesson was forgotten now. Charles Albert was not content
+to wear a hair-shirt himself; he would have liked to see all his subjects
+furnished with the same garment. The result was, that Piedmont was not a
+comfortable place for Liberals to live in, nor a lively place for anyone.
+Yet there is hardly anything more certain than that all this time the King
+was constantly dreaming of turning the Austrians out of Italy. His
+government kept its attention fixed on two points: the improvement of the
+army, and the accumulation of a reserve fund to be available in case of
+war. Drill and thrift, which made the German Empire out of Prussia, if
+they did <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">
+[Pg.76]</a></span> not lead straight to equally splendid results south of
+the Alps, were still what rendered it possible for Piedmont to defy
+Austria when the time came. In 1840, Charles Albert wrote to his Minister
+of War: 'It is a fine thing to win twenty battles; as for me, I should be
+content to win ten on behalf of a cause I know of, and to fall in the
+tenth&mdash;then, indeed, I would die blessing the Lord.' A year or two
+later, he unearthed and reassumed the ancient motto of the House of Savoy:
+'J'attends mon astre.' Nevertheless, to the outward world his intentions
+remained enigmatical, and it was therefore with extreme surprise that
+Massimo d'Azeglio (who, on his return from the Roman states, asked
+permission to inform the King of the impressions made on him by his
+travels) received the injunction to tell his Liberal friends 'that when
+the occasion presented itself, his life, the life of his sons, his
+treasure, and his army would all be spent for the Italian cause.'</p>
+
+<p>The fifteen years' pontificate of Gregory XVI. ended on the 1st June of
+1846. In spite of the care taken by those around him to keep the aged
+pontiff in a fool's paradise with regard to the real state of his
+dominions, a copy of <i>The Late Events in Romagna</i> fell into his
+hands, and considerably disturbed his peace of mind. He sent two prelates
+to look into the condition of the congested provinces, and their tour,
+though it resulted in nothing else, called forth new protests and
+supplications from the inhabitants, of which the most noteworthy was an
+address written by Count Aurelio Saffi, who was destined to pass many
+honourable years of exile in England. This address attacked the root of
+the evil in a passage which exposed the unbearable vexations of a
+government based on espionage. The acknowledged power of an irresponsible
+police was backed by the secret force of an army of private spies and
+informers. The sentiment of legality was being <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg.77]</a></span> stamped out of the public
+conscience, and with it religion and morality. 'Bishops have been heard to
+preach civil war&mdash;a crusade against the Liberals; priests seem to mix
+themselves in wretched party strife, egging on the mob to vent its worst
+passions. There is not a Catholic country in which the really Christian
+priest is so rarely found as in the States of the Church.'</p>
+
+<p>If Gregory XVI. was not without reasons for disquietude in his last
+hours, he could take comfort in the fact that he had succeeded in keeping
+railways out of all parts of his dominions. Gas and suspension bridges
+were also classed as works of the Evil One, and vigorously tabooed. Among
+the Pope's subjects there was a young prelate who had never been able to
+make out what there was subversive to theology in a steam-engine, or why
+the safety of the Papal government should depend on its opposing every
+form of material improvement, although in discussing these subjects he
+generally ended by saying: 'After all I am no politician, and I may be
+mistaken.' This prelate was Cardinal Mastai-Ferretti, Bishop of Imola.
+Born in 1792 at Sinigaglia, of a good though rather needy family, Count
+Giovanni Maria Mastai was piously brought up by his mother, who dedicated
+him at an early age to the Virgin, to whom she believed that she owed his
+recovery from an illness which had been pronounced fatal. Roman Catholic
+writers connect the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception
+with this incident of childhood. After entering the priesthood, young
+Mastai devoted most of his energies to active charity, and remained, as he
+said, 'no politician,' being singularly ignorant of the world and of
+public affairs, though full of amiable wishes that everyone should be
+happy. Some years spent in missionary work in South America <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg.78]</a></span> failed to
+enlarge his practical knowledge, the limits of which he was the first to
+recognise&mdash;a fact that tended to make him all his life the
+instrument, not of his own will, but of the wills of men whom he honestly
+thought cleverer and more experienced than himself. His chief friends in
+his Romagnol diocese, friends on the intimate basis of social equality and
+common provincial interests, were sound patriots, though not
+revolutionists, and the future Pio Nono involuntarily adopted their ideas
+and sympathies. He saw with his eyes certain abuses so glaring that they
+admitted of no two opinions, and these helped to convince him of the truth
+of his friends' arguments in favour of a completely new order of things.
+One such abuse was the encouragement given by government to the Society of
+the Centurioni, the latest evolution of the Calderai; the Centurions,
+recruited among roughs and peasants, were set upon the respectable middle
+classes, over which they tyrannised by secret accusations or open
+violence: it was well understood that anyone called a Liberal, or
+Freemason, or Carbonaro could be beaten or killed without inquiries being
+made.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop of Imola was frequently in the house of the Count and
+Countess Pasolini, who kept their friend well supplied with the new books
+on Italian affairs; thus he read not only D'Azeglio's <i>Cast di
+Romagna</i>, but also Cesare Balbo's <i>Le Speranze d'Italia,</i> which
+propounded a plan for an Italian federation, and Gioberti's <i>Primato
+morale e civile degli Italiani</i>, in which this plan was elaborately
+developed. Gioberti indicated the Supreme Pontiff as the natural head of
+the Italian Union, and the King of Sardinia as Italy's natural deliverer
+from foreign domination. The eternal fitness of things, and the history of
+many centuries, proved the Pope to be the proper paramount civil authority
+in Italy, 'which is the capital of Europe, <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg.79]</a></span> because Rome is the religious
+metropolis of the world.' An ex-member of 'Young Italy,' a Piedmontese by
+birth, a priest by ordination, Gioberti's profession of faith was derived
+from these three sources, and it attracted thousands of Italians by its
+apparent reconciliation of the interests of the papacy, and of the
+Sardinian monarchy, with the most advanced views of the newest school.
+History, to which Gioberti appealed, might have told him that a reversal
+of the law of gravity was as likely to happen as the performance by the
+papacy of the mission he proposed to it; but men believe what they wish to
+believe, and his work found, as has been said, thousands of admirers,
+among whom none was more sincere than Cardinal Mastai. The day on which
+Count Pasolini gave him a copy of <i>Il Primato</i> he created that great,
+and under some aspects pathetic illusion, the reforming Pope.</p>
+
+<p>The Conclave opened on the 14th of June 1846. During the Bishop of
+Imola's journey to Rome a white pigeon had perched several times on his
+carriage. The story became known; people said the same thing had occurred
+to a coming Pope on former occasions, and the augury was accepted with joy
+and satisfaction. He was, in fact, elected after the Conclave had lasted
+only two days, while the Conclave which elected his predecessor lasted
+sixty-four. The brevity of that to which Pius IX. owed the tiara was
+looked upon by the populace as something miraculous, but it was the result
+of the well-considered determination of the Italian Cardinals not to allow
+time for Austrian intrigues to obtain the election of a Pope who would be
+ruled from Vienna. When the new Pope appeared on the balcony of the
+Quirinal to give his first benediction, the people, carried away by his
+youthful yet majestic bearing, and by the hopes which already centred in
+him, broke into <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">
+[Pg.80]</a></span> frantic cries of: 'We have a Pope! He loves us! He is
+our Father!' If they had cried: 'We have a new heaven and a new earth,'
+they would but have expressed the delirium which, starting from Rome,
+spread throughout Italy.</p>
+
+<p>On the night of the 6th of December 1846, the whole line of the
+Apennines from Liguria to Calabria was illuminated. A hundred years
+before, a stone thrown by the child Balilla had given the signal for the
+expulsion of the Austrians from Genoa: this was the memory flashed from
+height to height by countless beacons, but while celebrating the past,
+they were the fiery heralds of a greater revolution.</p>
+
+<p>The upheaval of Europe did not become a fact, however, for another
+year. Meantime, the Roman States attracted more attention than any other
+part of the peninsula, from the curiosity awakened by the progress of the
+experiment of which they were the scene. It is not doubtful that at the
+first moment Pius IX. was under the impression that the problem he had
+taken in hand was eminently simple. A little goodwill on the part of
+everybody, an amnesty to heal old sores, and a few administrative reforms,
+ought, he thought, to set everything right. Such was not the opinion of
+intelligent onlookers who were students of politics&mdash;especially if
+they were foreigners, and could therefore keep their heads moderately cool
+in the prevailing excitement. The wave of a wand may seem to effect
+marvels, but long and silent causes prepare the way for each event. Now
+what had been going on for years in the Roman States was not the process
+of gradual growth, but the process of rapid disintegration. The Temporal
+Power of the Popes had died without anyone noticing it, and there was
+nothing <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">
+[Pg.81]</a></span> left but a body in the course of dissolution. Every
+foreigner in Rome during the reign of Gregory XVI. bore witness that his
+government depended for its existence absolutely on the Swiss Guards. In
+1845, Count Rossi told Guizot that without the Swiss regiments the
+government in the Legations and the Marches 'would be overthrown in the
+twinkling of an eye.' The British agent in Rome, writing during the
+Conclave, bore this out by the statement, which applied not to one portion
+of the Roman states, but to all, that 'the government could not stand
+without the protection of Austria and the immediate presence of the
+Swiss.' On the accession of Pius IX., the props, such as they were, which
+had prevented an earlier collapse of the Temporal Power, were either
+removed or rendered useless. The Swiss might as well have been disbanded
+at once as retained merely to be a bone of contention between the new
+government and the people, since it was understood that a vigorous use of
+their services would never be resorted to; while Austrian protection was
+transferred from the Pope to the disaffected party in the Church, which
+consisted in a large proportion of the cardinals and of the inferior
+clergy who were afraid that, with the reform of abuses, they would lose
+their influence over the lower class of their flocks. The English
+diplomatic agents in Italy also firmly believed that Austria coupled with
+her support of the ultramontane malcontents the direct encouragement of
+the disorderly elements of the population. To resist all these contrary
+forces, Pius IX. had only a popularity which, though for the time immense,
+was founded almost completely on imagination. 'It was,' said Mr Petre,
+'the name and known views of Pius, rather than his acts, <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg.82]</a></span> which aroused
+so much interest.' If for 'known views' be substituted 'supposed views,'
+the remark exactly describes the situation.</p>
+
+<p>Popularity is very well, but a government cannot long subsist on the
+single fact of the popularity of the sovereign. When the Roman mob began
+to cry: 'Viva Pio Nono <i>solo</i>,' the fate of the experiment was
+sealed. Real control slipped from the hands that nominally wielded it.
+'The influence,' Mr Petre wrote to Sir George Hamilton, 'of one individual
+of the lower class, Angelo Brunetti, hardly known but by his nickname of
+Ciceruacchio, has for the last month kept the peace of the city more than
+any power possessed by the authorities, from the command which he exerts
+over the populace.' It was Ciceruacchio who preserved order when in July
+1847 the air was full of rumours of a vast reactionary plot, which aimed
+at carrying off the Pope, and putting things back as they were under
+Gregory. That such a plot was ever conceived, or, at anyrate, that it
+received the sanction of the high personages whose names were mentioned in
+connection with it, is generally doubted now; but it was believed in by
+many of the representatives of foreign Powers then in Italy. The public
+mind in Rome was violently disturbed. Austria made the excitement the
+excuse for occupying the town of Ferrara, where, by the accepted
+interpretation of the Treaty of Vienna, she had only the right to garrison
+the fortress. This aggression called forth a strong remonstrance from the
+Pope's Secretary of State, Cardinal Ferretti; and though a compromise was
+arrived at through the mediation of Lord Palmerston, the feeling against
+Austria grew more and more exasperated in the Roman states, and the Pope
+consented, not, it seemed, much against the grain, to preparations being
+taken in hand with a view to the possible eventuality of war.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg.83]</a></span>
+At this date the Italian question was better apprehended at Vienna than in
+any other part of Europe. A man of Prince Metternich's talents does not
+devote a long life to statecraft without learning to distinguish the real
+drift of political currents. While Lord Palmerston still felt sure that
+reforms, and nothing but reforms, were what Italy wanted, Prince
+Metternich saw that two real forces were at work from the Alps to the
+Straits of Messina, and two only: desire for union, hatred of Austria. Nor
+was it his fault if the English Cabinet or the rest of the world remained
+unenlightened. Besides enlarging on this truth in frequent diplomatic
+communications, he caused it to be continually dwelt upon in the Vienna
+<i>Observer</i>, the organ of the Austrian Government, which printed
+illustrative quotations from the writings of Mazzini, of whom it said that
+'he has the one merit of despising hypocrisy, and proceeding firmly and
+directly to his true end. Persons who are versed in history will know that
+this is exactly the same end as that at which Arnold of Brescia and Cola
+di Rienzi formerly aimed. The only difference is, that the revolutionary
+dream has in the course of centuries gained in self-reliance and
+confidence.' It may truly be affirmed after this that Metternich 'had the
+one merit of despising hypocrisy.' Exactly the same end as Arnold of
+Brescia and Cola di Rienzi&mdash;who better could have described the
+scheme of Italian redemption?</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the summer of 1847, the Prince said more than once to
+the British Ambassador: 'The Emperor is determined not to lose his Italian
+dominions.' It was no idle boast, the speaker felt confident, that the
+troops in Lombardy and Venetia could keep those provinces from taking an
+active part in the 'revolution' which he declared to be <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg.84]</a></span> already
+complete over all central Italy, though the word revolution had never yet
+been mentioned. Nor was it only in the Austrian army that he trusted;
+Metternich was persuaded that neither in Lombardy nor in Venetia was there
+any fear of a really popular and, therefore, formidable movement. He
+believed that Austria's only enemy was the aristocracy. He even threw out
+hints that if the Austrian Government condescended to do so, it could
+raise a social or peasants' war of the country people against their
+masters. This is the policy which has been elaborately followed by the
+Russians in Poland. The Austrians pointed to their virtue in not resorting
+to it; but some tentative experiments in such a direction had not given
+results of a kind to encourage them to go on. The Italian peasant, though
+ignorant, had a far quicker innate intelligence than his unfortunate
+Polish brother. He did not dislike his masters, who treated him at least
+with easy familiarity, and he detested foreigners&mdash;those foreigners,
+no matter of what nation, who for two thousand years had brought the
+everlasting curse of war upon his fields. The conscription, which carried
+off his sons for eight years into distant lands, of which he could not
+pronounce the name, was alone enough to alienate him from the Austrian
+Government. In hoping to find a friend in the Italian peasant, Metternich
+reckoned without his host. On the other hand, he was strictly correct in
+his estimate of the patriotism of the aristocracy. The fact always seemed
+to the Prince a violation of eternal laws. According to him, the
+fore-ordained disaffected in every country were drawn from the middle
+classes. What business had noblemen with ancient names and fine estates to
+prefer Spielberg to their beautiful palaces and fairy-like villas on the
+Lombard lakes? Was it on purpose to spite the best of governments, and the
+one most favourable to the <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_85" id=
+"Page_85">[Pg.85]</a></span> aristocratic principle, which had always held
+out paternal hands to them? Could anything be imagined more
+aggravating?</p>
+
+<p>This feature in Italian liberation has been kept mostly in the
+background. Democratic chroniclers were satisfied to ignore it, and to the
+men themselves their enormous sacrifices seemed so natural that they were
+very willing to let them pass out of mind. It is in the works of those
+who, while sympathising with Italy, are not Italians, that the best record
+of it is to be found; nowhere better than in a recent book by a French
+writer, M. Paul Bourget, in which occurs the following just and eloquent
+tribute: 'We must say in praise of the aristocracy on this side of the
+Alps that the best soldiers of independence were nobles. If Italy owes the
+final success to the superior capabilities of Victor Emmanuel and Cavour,
+and to the agitating power of the General of the Thousand, it is well not
+to forget the struggles sustained for years by gentlemen whose example did
+so much to raise partisans among the humble. These aristocrats, passionate
+for liberty, have (like our own of the eighteenth century) done more for
+the people than the people itself. The veritable history of this <i>
+Risorgimento</i> would be in great part that of the Italian nobility in
+which the heroic blood of feudal chiefs revolted against the oppressions
+and, above all, the perpetual humiliation, born of the presence of the
+stranger.'</p>
+
+<p>When Prince Metternich looked beyond the borders of those provinces
+which he said that his Sovereign did not intend to lose, he saw sooner
+than most people that a ball was set rolling which would not stop half way
+down the hill. The one element in the situation which came as a surprise
+to him, was that introduced by Pius IX. 'A liberal Pope is an impossible
+being!' he exclaimed. <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_86" id=
+"Page_86">[Pg.86]</a></span> Nevertheless this impossible being was a
+reality which had to be dealt with. He hoped all along, however, that Pius
+would fall a victim to the Frankenstein he had called into existence, and
+his only real anxiety lay where it had always lain&mdash;on the side of
+Piedmont. 'Charles Albert ought to let us know,' he wrote to the Austrian
+Minister at Turin, 'whether his reign has been only a mask under which was
+hidden the Prince of Carignano, who ascended the throne through the order
+of succession re-established in his favour by the Emperor Francis.'
+Considering all things, the endeavour to make it appear that the King was
+indebted for his crown to Austria was somewhat venturesome. Charles
+Albert, Metternich went on to say, had to choose between two systems, the
+system now in force, or 'the crassest revolution.' He wrote again: 'The
+King is sliding back upon the path which he enters for the second time in
+his life, <i>and which he will never really quit</i>.' Words of a bitter
+enemy, but juster than the 'Esecrato o Carignano,' hurled for a quarter of
+a century at Charles Albert by those who only saw in him a traitor.</p>
+
+<p>The constant invocation of the revolutionary spectre by the Austrian
+statesman convinced the King that the wish was father to the thought, and,
+afraid of introducing the thin end of the wedge, he showed himself more
+than ever averse to reforming the antiquated machinery of the Sardinian
+Government. Instead of being the first of Italian princes to yield to
+popular demands, he was almost the last. He believed that the question of
+nationality, of independence, could be separated from the question of free
+institutions. Of all the chimerical ideas then afloat, this was the most
+chimerical. Even the example of the Pope, for whom Charles Albert felt a
+romantic devotion, <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">
+[Pg.87]</a></span> was not enough to induce him to open the road to
+reforms. The person who seems first to have impressed him with their
+absolute necessity was Lord Minto, whose visit to Turin, in October 1847,
+coincided with the dismissal of Count della Margherita, the minister most
+closely associated with the absolutist and Jesuitical <i>
+r&eacute;gime</i>. Lord Minto was sent to Italy to encourage in the ways
+of political virtue those Italian princes who were not entirely
+incorrigible. His mission excited exaggerated hopes on the part of the
+Liberals, and exaggerated wrath in the retrograde party&mdash;both failing
+to understand its limitations. The hopes died a natural death, but long
+afterwards, reactionary writers attributed all the 'troubles' in Italy to
+this estimable British diplomatist. What is not doubtful is, that,
+accustomed as they were to being lectured and bullied by foreign courts,
+the Italians derived the greatest encouragement from the openly expressed
+sympathy of well-known English visitors, whether they came in an official
+capacity like Lord Minto, or unofficially like Mr Cobden, who travelled as
+a missionary of Free Trade, and was received with rapture&mdash;with
+which, it is to be feared, Free Trade had little to do&mdash;by the
+leading Liberals in Italy: Massimo d'Azeglio at Genoa, Mancini at Naples
+Cavour and Scialoja at Turin, Minghetti at Bologna, Ridolfi at Florence,
+and Manin and Tommaseo at Venice.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the end of 1847, there was a curious shuffling of the cards in
+the small states of Lucca and Parma, resulting in much irritation, which,
+in an atmosphere so charged with revolutionary electricity, was not
+without importance. The dissolute Bourbon prince who reigned in Lucca,
+Charles Ludovico, had but one desire, which was to increase his civil
+list. He hit upon an English jockey named Ward, who came to <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg.88]</a></span> Italy in the
+service of a German count, and this person he made his Chancellor of the
+Exchequer. By various luminous strokes, Ward furthered his Sovereign's
+object without much increasing the taxation, and when matters began to
+grow complicated, and here, too, a cry was raised for a Constitution
+(which had been solemnly guaranteed to the people of Lucca at the Congress
+of Vienna, but had never been heard of since), he proposed the sale of the
+Duchy off-hand to Tuscany, with which it would, in any case, be united,
+when, on the death of the ex-Empress Marie-Louise, the Duchy of Parma
+devolved on the Duke of Lucca. At the same time, by a prior agreement, a
+district of Tuscany called the Lunigiana was consigned, one-half to the
+Duchess of Parma, and the other to the Duke of Modena. The indignation of
+the population, which was made, by force, subject to the Duke of Modena,
+was intense, and the whole transaction of handing about Italians to suit
+the pleasure of princes, or to obey the articles of forgotten treaties,
+reminded the least sensitive of the everyday opprobrium of their lot.</p>
+
+<p>The bargain with Tuscany had been struck only eight days when
+Marie-Louise died&mdash;unlamented, since the latter years of her reign
+formed a sad contrast to the earlier. Marie-Louise had not a bad
+disposition, but she always let her husband of the hour govern as he
+chose; of the four or five of these husbands, the last two, and
+particularly the hated Count de Bombelles, undid all the good done by
+their more humane predecessors. The Parmese petitioned their new Duke to
+send the man away, and to grant them some measure of freedom. The answer
+he gave was the confirmation of Bombelles in all his honours, and the
+conclusion of a treaty with Austria, securing the assistance of her arms.
+A military force had been sent to Parma to escort the <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg.89]</a></span> body of the
+late Duchess to Vienna; but on the principle that the living are of more
+consequence than the dead, it remained there to protect the new Duke from
+his subjects. Marie-Louise and her lovers, Charles Ludovico and his
+jockey-minister, are instructive illustrations of the scandalous point
+things had reached in the small states of Italy.</p>
+
+<p>There was, indeed, one state in which, though the dynasty was Austrian,
+the government was conducted without ferocity and without scandal. This
+was Tuscany. The branch of the Hapsburg-Lorraine family established in
+Tuscany produced a series of rulers who, if they exhibited no magnificent
+qualities, were respectable as individuals, and mild as rulers. Giusti
+dubbed Leopold II. 'the Tuscan Morpheus, crowned with poppies and lettuce
+leaves,' and the clear intelligence of Ricasoli was angered by the
+languid, let-be policy of the Grand-Ducal government, but, compared with
+the other populations of Italy, the Tuscans might well deem themselves
+fortunate. Only on one occasion had the Grand Duke given up a fugitive
+from the more favoured provinces, and the presence of distinguished exiles
+lent brilliancy to his capital. Leopold II. hesitated between the desire
+to please his subjects and the fear of his Viennese relations, who sent
+him through Metternich the ominous reminder, 'that the Italian Governments
+had only subsisted for the last ten years by the support they received
+from Austria'&mdash;an assertion at which Charles Albert took umbrage, but
+he was curtly told that he was not intended. In spite of his fears,
+however, the Grand Duke instituted a National Guard on the 4th of
+September, which was correctly judged the augury of further concessions.
+In August, the Austrian Minister had distinctly threatened to occupy
+Tuscany, or any other of the Italian duchies <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg.90]</a></span> where a National Guard was
+granted; its institution was therefore interpreted as a decisive act of
+rebellion against the Imperial dictatorship. The red, white and green
+tricolor, not yet permitted in Piedmont, floated already from all the
+towers of the city on the Arno.</p>
+
+<p>Where there were no signs of improvement was in the government of the
+Two Sicilies. King Ferdinand undertook a journey through several parts of
+the country, but as Lord Napier, the British Minister, expressed it:
+'Exactly where the grace of the royal countenance was principally
+conferred, the rebels sprung up most thickly.' A revolution was planned to
+break out in all the cities of the kingdom, but the project only took
+effect at Messina and at Reggio, and in both places the movement was
+stifled with prompt and barbarous severity. When the leader of the
+Calabrian attempt, Domenico Romeo, a landed proprietor, was caught on the
+heights of Aspromonte, his captors, after cutting off his head, carried it
+to his young nephew, whom they ordered to take it to Reggio with the cry
+of 'Long live the King.' The youth refused, and was immediately killed. In
+the capital, Carlo Poerio and many patriots were thrown into prison on
+suspicion. Settembrini had just time to escape to Malta.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1847 closed amid outward appearances of quiet.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg.91]</a></span> <a
+name="CHAPTER_VI"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3>
+
+<h4>THE YEAR OF REVOLUTION</h4>
+
+<h5>1848</h5>
+
+<h5>Insurrection in Sicily&mdash;The Austrians expelled from Milan and
+Venice &mdash;Charles Albert takes the Field&mdash;Withdrawal of the Pope
+and King of Naples&mdash;Piedmont defeated&mdash;The Retreat.</h5>
+
+<p><br />
+ On the 12th of January, the birthday of the King of the Two Sicilies,
+another insurrection broke out in Sicily; this time it was serious indeed.
+The City of the Vespers lit the torch which set Europe on fire.</p>
+
+<p>So began the year of revolution which was to see the kings of the earth
+flying, with or without umbrellas, and the principle of monarchy more
+shaken by the royal see-saw of submission and vengeance than ever it was
+by the block of Whitehall or the guillotine of the Place Louis XV.</p>
+
+<p>In Italy, the errors and follies of that year were not confined to
+princes and governments, but it will remain memorable as the time when the
+Italian nation, not a dreamer here or there, or a handful of heroic
+madmen, or an isolated city, but the nation as a whole, with an unanimity
+new in history, asserted its right and its resolve to exist.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg.92]</a></span>
+King Ferdinand sent 5000 soldiers to 'make a garden,' as he described it,
+of Palermo, if the offers sent at the same time failed to pacify the
+inhabitants. These offers were refused with the comment: 'Too late,' and
+the Palermitans prepared to resist to the death under the guidance of the
+veteran patriot Ruggiero Settimo, Prince of Fitalia. 'Separation,' they
+said, 'or our English Constitution of 1812.' Increased irritation was
+awakened by the discovery in the head office of the police at Palermo of a
+secret room full of skeletons, which were supposed to belong to persons
+privately murdered. The Neapolitans were compelled to withdraw with a loss
+of 3000 men, but before they went, the general in command let out 4000
+convicts, who had been kept without food for forty-eight hours. The
+convicts, however, did not fulfil the intentions of their liberator, and
+did but little mischief. Not so the Neapolitan troops, who committed
+horrors on the peasantry as they retreated, which provoked acts of
+retaliation almost as barbarous. In a short time all Sicily was in its own
+hands except the citadel of Messina.</p>
+
+<p>It is not possible to follow the Sicilians in their long struggle for
+their autonomy. They stood out for some fourteen months. An English
+Blue-book is full of the interminable negotiations conducted by Lord
+Napier and the Earl of Minto in the hope of bringing the strife to an end.
+When the parliament summoned by the revolutionary government declared the
+downfall of the House of Bourbon, all the stray princes in Europe,
+including Louis Napoleon, were reviewed as candidates for the throne. The
+choice fell on the Duke of Genoa; it was well received in England, and the
+British men-of-war were immediately ordered to salute the Sicilian flag.
+But the Duke's reign never became a reality. <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg.93]</a></span> After an heroic struggle,
+the islanders were subjugated in the spring of 1849.</p>
+
+<p>So stout a fight for independence must win admiration, if not approval.
+The political reasons against the course taken by the Sicilians have been
+suggested in a former chapter. In separating their lot from that of
+Naples, in rejecting even freedom unless it was accompanied by disruption,
+they hastened the ruin of the Neapolitans and of themselves, and surely
+played into the hands of the crafty tyrant who desired nothing better than
+to fish in the troubled waters of his subjects' dissensions.</p>
+
+<p>In the gathering storm of January 1848, the first idea that occurred to
+Ferdinand II. was the good old plan of calling in Austrian assistance. But
+the Austrians were told by Pius IX. that he would not allow their troops
+to pass through his territory. Had they attempted to pass in spite of his
+warning, events would have taken a different turn, as the Pope would have
+been driven into a war with Austria then and there; perhaps he would have
+been glad, as weak people commonly are, of the compulsion to do what he
+dared not do without compulsion. The Austrian Government was too wise to
+force a quarrel; it was easy to lock up Austrian subjects for crying 'Viva
+Pio Nono,' but the enormous importance of keeping the Head of the Church,
+if possible, in a neutral attitude could not be overlooked. All thoughts
+of going to Ferdinand's help were politely abandoned, and he, seeing
+himself in a defenceless position, and pondering deeply on the upsetting
+of Louis Philippe's throne, which was just then the latest news, decided
+on that device, dear to all political conjurors, which is known as taking
+the wind out of your enemy's sails. The Pope, the Grand Duke of <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg.94]</a></span> Tuscany
+and the King of Sardinia, had worried him for six months with admonitions.
+'Very well,' he now said; 'they urge me forward, I will precipitate them.'
+Constitution, representative government, unbridled liberty of the press, a
+civic guard, the expulsion of the Jesuits; what mattered a trifle more or
+less when everything could be revoked at the small expense of perjury?
+Ferdinand posed to perfection in the character of Citizen King. He
+reassured those who ventured to show the least signs of apprehension by
+saying: 'If I had not intended to carry out the Statute, I should not have
+granted it.'</p>
+
+<p>Not many days later, the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the King of Sardinia
+each promulgated a Charter. In the case of Charles Albert, it had been
+formally promised on the 8th of February, after sleepless nights, severe
+fasts, much searching of the heart&mdash;contrasting strangely with the
+gay transformation scene at Naples; but promises have a more serious
+meaning to some persons than to others. Nor did Charles Albert take any
+pleasure in the shouts of a grateful people. 'Born in revolution,' he once
+wrote, 'I have traversed all its phases, and I know well enough what
+popularity is worth&mdash;<i>viva</i> to-day, <i>morte</i> to-morrow.'</p>
+
+<p>In the Lombardo-Venetian provinces all seemed still quiet, but the
+brooding discontent of the masses increased with the increasing
+aggressiveness of the Austrian soldiers, while the refusal to grant the
+studiously moderate demands of men like Nazari of Bergamo and Manin and
+Tommasco of Venice, who were engaged in a campaign of legal agitation,
+brought conviction to the most cautious that no measure of political
+liberty was obtainable under Austrian rule.</p>
+
+<p>At the Scala Theatre some of the audience had raised cries of 'Viva Pio
+Nono' during a performance of <i>I Lombardi.</i><a name="FNanchor3"></a><a
+href="#Footnote_3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> This was the excuse <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg.95]</a></span> for
+prohibiting every direct or indirect public reference to the reigning
+Pontiff. Nevertheless, a few young men were caught singing the Pope's
+hymn, upon which the military charged the crowd. On the 3rd of January the
+soldiers fell on the people in the Piazza San Carlo, killing six and
+wounding fifty-three. The parish priest of the Duomo said that he had seen
+Russians, French and Austrians enter Milan as invaders; but a scene like
+that of the 3rd of January he had never witnessed; 'they simply murdered
+in the streets.'</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Judicium Statuarium</i>, equivalent to martial law, was
+proclaimed in February; but the Viennese revolution of the 8th of March,
+and Prince Metternich's flight to England, were followed by promises to
+abolish the censure, and to convoke the central congregations of the
+Lombardo-Venetian kingdom. The utmost privilege of these assemblies was
+consultative. In 1815 they were invested with the right to 'make known
+grievances,' but they had only once managed to perform this modest
+function. It was hardly worth while to talk about them on the 18th of
+March 1848.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of that day, Count O'Donnel, the Vice-Governor of Milan,
+announced the Emperor's concessions. Before night he was the hostage of
+the revolution, signing whatever decrees were demanded of him till in a
+few hours even his signature was dispensed with. The Milanese had begun
+their historic struggle.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg.96]</a></span>
+Taking refuge in the Citadel, Radetsky wrote to the Podest&agrave;, Count
+Gabrio Casati (brother of Teresa Confalonieri), that he acknowledged no
+authority at Milan except his own and that of his soldiers. Those who
+resisted would be guilty of high treason. If arguments did not avail, he
+would make use of all the means placed in his hands by an army of 100,000
+men to bring the rebel city to obedience. Unhappily for Radetsky, there
+were not any such 100,000 men in Italy, though long before this he had
+told Metternich that he could not guarantee the safety of Lombardy with
+less than 150,000. In spite of partial reinforcements, the number did not
+amount to more than from 72,000 to 75,000, while at Milan it stood at
+between 15,000 and 20,000. But if we take the lower estimate, 15,000
+regular troops under such a commander, who, most rare in similar
+emergencies, knew his own mind, and had no thought except the recovery of
+the town for his Sovereign, constituted a formidable force against a
+civilian population, which began the fight with only a few hundred
+fowling-pieces. The odds on the side of Austria were tremendous.</p>
+
+<p>If the Milan revolt had been one of the customary revolutions, arranged
+with the help of pen and paper, its first day would have been certainly
+its last. But even more than the Sicilian Vespers, it was the
+unpremeditated, irresistible act of a people sick of being slaves. At the
+beginning Casati tried to restrain it; so, with equal or still stronger
+endeavours, did the republican Carlo Cattaneo, whose influence was great.
+'You have no arms,' he said again and again. Not a single man of weight
+took upon himself the awful responsibility of urging the unarmed masses
+upon so desperate an enterprise; but when the die was cast none held back.
+Initiated by the populace, the revolt <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg.97]</a></span> was led to its victorious close
+by the nerve and ability of the influential men who directed its
+course.</p>
+
+<p>Towards nightfall on the 18th, during which day there had been only
+scuffles between the soldiers and the people, Radetsky took the Broletto,
+where the Municipality sat, after a two hours' siege, and sent forthwith a
+special messenger to the Emperor with the news that the revolution was on
+a fair way to being completely crushed. Meanwhile, he massed his troops at
+all the entrances to the city, so that at dawn he might strangle the
+insurrection by a concentric movement, as in a noose. The plan was good;
+but to-morrow does not belong even to the most experienced of
+Field-Marshals.</p>
+
+<p>In all quarters of the city barricades sprang up like mushrooms.
+Everything went, freely given, to their construction; the benches of the
+Scala, the beds of the young seminarists, the court carriages, found
+hidden in a disused church, building materials of the half-finished
+Palazzo d'Adda, grand pianofortes, valuable pieces of artistic furniture,
+and the old kitchen table of the artisan. Before the end of the fight the
+barricades numbered 1523. Young nobles, dressed in the velvet suits then
+in vogue, cooks in their white aprons, even women and children, rushed to
+the defence of the improvised fortifications. Luciano Manara and other
+heroes, who afterwards fell at Rome, were there to lead. In the first
+straits for want of arms the museums of the Uboldi and Poldi-Pozzoli
+families were emptied of their rare treasures by permission of the owners;
+the crowd brandished priceless old swords and specimens of early firearms.
+More serviceable weapons were obtained by degrees from the Austrian killed
+and wounded, and from the public offices which fell into their hands.
+Bolza, long the hated agent of the Austrian police, was discovered by
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg.98]</a></span>
+the people, but they did not harm him. Throughout the five days, the
+Milanese showed a forbearance which was the more admirable, because there
+can be no doubt that when the Austrians found they were getting the worst
+of it, they vented their rage in deplorable outrages on non-combatants.
+That Radetsky was personally to blame for these excesses has never been
+alleged, and it was perhaps beyond the power of the officers to keep
+discipline among soldiers who, towards the end, were wild with panic.</p>
+
+<p>'The very foundations of the city were torn up,' wrote the
+Field-Marshal in his official report; 'not hundreds, but thousands of
+barricades crossed the streets. Such circumspection and audacity were
+displayed that it was evident military leaders were at the head of the
+people. The character of the Milanese had become quite changed. Fanaticism
+had seized every rank and age and both sexes.'</p>
+
+<p>As always happens with street-fighting, the number of the slain has
+never been really known; the loss of the citizens was small compared with
+that of the Austrians, who, according to some authorities, lost 5000,
+between killed and wounded.</p>
+
+<p>Radetsky ordered the evacuation of the town and citadel on the night of
+Wednesday, the 22nd of March. The Milanese had won much more than
+freedom&mdash;they had won the right to it. And what they had done they
+had done alone. When the news that the capital was up in arms spread
+through Lombardy, there was but one gallant impulse, to fly to its aid.
+But the earliest to arrive, Giuseppe Martinengo Cesaresco, with his troop
+of Brescian peasants, found when he reached Milan that they were a few
+hours too late to share in the last shots fired upon the retreating
+Austrians.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg.99]</a></span>
+Nowhere, except in Milan, did the revolution meet with a Radetsky. The
+Austrian authorities became convinced that their position was untenable,
+and they desired to avoid a useless sacrifice of life. This, rather than
+cowardly fears, was the motive which induced Count Palffy and Count Zichy,
+the civil and military governors of Venice, to yield the city without
+deluging it in blood. The latter had been guilty of negligence in leaving
+the Venetian arsenal in charge of troops so untrustworthy that Manin could
+take it on the 22nd of March by a simple display of his own courage, and
+without striking a blow, but after this first success on the side of the
+revolution, which supplied the people with an unlimited stock of arms and
+ammunition, the Austrians did well to give way even from their own point
+of view. At seven o'clock on the evening of the 22nd of March, the famous
+capitulation was signed. Manin's prediction of the previous day,
+'To-morrow the city will be in my power, or I shall be dead,' had been
+realised in the first alternative.</p>
+
+<p>Daniel Manin, who was now forty-four years of age, was by profession a
+lawyer, by race a Jew. His father became a Christian, and, according to
+custom, took the surname of his godfather, who belonged to the family of
+the last Doge of Venice. Manin and the Dalmatian scholar, Niccol&ograve;
+Tommaseo, had been engaged in patiently adducing proof after proof that
+Austria did not even abide by her own laws when the expression of
+political opinion was concerned. At the beginning of the revolution they
+were in prison, and Palffy's first act of surrender was to set them free.
+Henceforth Manin was undisputed lord of the city. It is strange how, all
+at once, a man who was only slightly known to the world should have been
+chosen as spokesman and ruler. It did not, however, happen by chance. The
+people in Italy are observant; <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_100"
+id="Page_100">[Pg.100]</a></span> the Venetians had observed Manin, and
+they trusted him. The power of inspiring trust was what gave this Jewish
+lawyer his ascendancy, not the talents which usually appeal to the masses.
+He had not the advantage of an imposing presence, for he was short,
+slight, with blue eyes and bushy hair; in all things he was the opposite
+to a demagogue; he never beguiled, or flattered, or told others what he
+did not believe himself. But, on his side, he <i>knew</i> the people, whom
+most revolutionary leaders know not at all. 'That is my sole merit,' he
+used to say. It was that which enabled him to cleanse Venice from the
+stain of having bartered her freedom for the smile of a conqueror, and
+give her back the name and inheritance of 'eldest child of liberty.'</p>
+
+<p>It was a matter of course that emancipated Venice should assume a
+republican form of government. Here the republic was a restoration. At
+Milan the case was different; there were two parties, that of Cattaneo,
+which was strongly republican, that of Casati, which was strongly
+monarchical. There was a third party, which thought of nothing except of
+never again seeing a soldier with a white coat. By mutual agreement, the
+Provisional Government declared that the decision as to the form of
+government should be left to calmer days. For a time this compromise
+produced satisfactory results.</p>
+
+<p>The revolution gained ground. Francis of Modena executed a rapid
+flight, and the Duke of Parma presently followed him. By the end of March,
+Lombardy and Venetia were free, saving the fortresses of the
+Quadrilateral. The exception was of far greater moment than, in the
+enchantment of the hour, anyone dreamt of confessing. Mantua, Legnano,
+Peschiera and Verona were so many cities of refuge to the flying Austrian
+troops, where they could rest in safety and nurse their strength. <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg.101]</a></span>
+Still, the results achieved were great, almost incredible; with the
+expectation that Rome, Naples, Tuscany and Piedmont would send their
+armies to consolidate the work already done, it was natural to think that,
+whatever else might happen, Austrian dominion was a thing of the past.
+Alessandro Bixio (brother of the General), who was a naturalised
+Frenchman, wrote to the French Government on the 7th of April from Turin:
+'In the ministries, in meetings, in the streets, you only see and hear
+people to whom the question of Italian independence seems to be one of
+those historical questions about which the time is past for talking.
+According to the general opinion, Austria is nothing but a phantom, and
+the army of Radetsky a shadow.' Such were the hopes that prevailed. They
+were vain, but they did not appear so then.</p>
+
+<p>Pius IX. seemed to throw in his lot definitely with the revolution
+when, on the 19th of March, he too granted a Constitution, having
+previously formed a lay ministry, which included Marco Minghetti and Count
+Pasolini, under the presidency of Cardinal Antonelli, who thus makes his
+first appearance as Liberal Premier. That the Roman Constitution was an
+unworkable attempt to reconcile lay and ecclesiastical pretensions, that
+the proposed Chamber of Deputies, which was not to make laws affecting
+education, religious corporations, the registration of births and
+marriages; or to confer civil rights on non-catholics, or to touch the
+privileges and immunities of the clergy, might have suited
+Cloud-cuckoo-town, but would not suit the solid earth, were facts easy to
+recognise, but no one had time to pause and consider. It was sufficient to
+hear Pius proclaim that in the wind which was uprooting oaks and cedars
+might be clearly distinguished the Voice of the Lord. Such utterances,
+mingled <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">
+[Pg.102]</a></span> with blessings on Italy, brought balm to patriotic
+souls. The Liberals had no fear that the Pope would veto the participation
+of his troops in the national war, for they were blind to the
+complications with which a fighting Pope would find himself embarrassed in
+the middle of the nineteenth century. But the other party discerned these
+complications from the first, and knew what use to make of them.</p>
+
+<p>The powers of reaction had only to catch hold of a perfectly modern
+sentiment, the doctrine that ecclesiastics should be men of peace, in
+order to dissipate the myth of a Pope liberator. It was beside the
+question that, from the moment he accepted such a doctrine, the Pope
+condemned the institution of prince-bishoprics, of which he represented
+the last survival. Nor was it material that, if he adopted it, consistency
+should have made him carry it to its logical consequence of
+non-resistance. By aid of this theory of a peaceful Pontiff, with the
+threat, in reserve, of a schism, Austria felt confident that she could
+avoid the enormous moral inconvenience of a Pope in arms against her.</p>
+
+<p>Either, however, the full force of the influence which caused Pius IX.
+to draw back was not brought to bear till somewhat late in the day, or the
+part acted by him during the months of March and April can be hardly
+acquitted of dissimulation. War preparations were continued, with the warm
+co-operation of the Cardinal President of the Council, and when General
+Durando started for the frontier with 17,000 men, he would have been a
+bold man who had said openly in Rome that they were intended not to
+fight.</p>
+
+<p>While the Pope was still supposed to favour the war, Ferdinand of
+Naples did not dare to oppose the enthusiasm of his subjects, and the
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg.103]</a></span>
+demand that a Neapolitan contingent should be sent to Lombardy. The first
+relay of troops actually started, but the generals had secret orders to
+take the longest route, and to lose as much time as possible.</p>
+
+<p>Tuscany had a very small army, but such assistance as she could give
+was both promised and given. The fate of the Tuscan corps of 6000 men will
+be related hereafter. The Grand Duke Leopold identified himself with the
+Italian cause with more sincerity than was to be found at Rome or Naples;
+still, the material aid that he could offer counted as next to
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>There remained Piedmont and Charles Albert. Now was the time for the
+army which he had created (for Charles Felix left no army worthy of the
+name) to assert upon the Lombard fields the reason of its existence. War
+with Austria was declared on the 23rd of March. It was midnight; a vast
+crowd waited in silence in Piazza Castello. At last the windows of the
+palace were opened, a sudden flood of light from within illuminating the
+scene. Charles Albert stepped upon the balcony between his two sons. He
+was even paler than usual, but a smile such as no one had seen before was
+on his lips. He waved the long proscribed tricolor slowly over the heads
+of the people.</p>
+
+<p>The King said in his proclamation that 'God had placed Italy in a
+position to provide for herself ('in grado di fare da s&egrave;'). Hence
+the often repeated phrase: 'L'Italia far&agrave; da s&egrave;.' He told
+the Lombard delegates, who met him at Pavia that he would not enter their
+capital, which had shown such signal valour, till after he had won a
+victory. He declared to all that his only aim was to complete the splendid
+work of liberation so happily begun; questions of government would be
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg.104]</a></span>
+reserved for the conclusion of the war. Joy was the order of the day, but
+the fatal mistakes of the campaign had already commenced; there had been
+inexcusable delay in declaring war; if it was pardonable to wait for the
+Milanese initiative, it was as inexpedient as it seemed ungenerous to wait
+till the issue of the struggle at Milan was decided. Then, after the
+declaration of war, considering that the Sardinian Government must have
+seen its imminence for weeks, and indeed for months, there was more time
+lost than ought to have been the case in getting the troops under weigh.
+Still, at the opening of the campaign, two grand possibilities were left.
+The first was obviously to cut Radetsky off in his painful retreat,
+largely performed along country by-roads, as he had to avoid the principal
+cities which were already free. Had Charles Albert caught him up while he
+was far from the Quadrilateral, the decisive blow would have been struck,
+and the only man who could save Austria in Italy would have been taken
+prisoner. Radetsky chose the route of Lodi and the lower Brescian plains
+to Montechiaro, where the encampments were ready for the Austrian spring
+manoeuvres: from this point an easy march carried him under the walls of
+Verona. Here he met General d'Aspre, who had just arrived with the
+garrison of Padua. D'Aspre, by skill and resolution, had brought his men
+from Padua without losing one, having refused the Paduans arms for a
+national guard, though ordered from Milan to grant them. 'You come to tell
+me all is lost,' said the Field-Marshal when they met 'No,' rejoined the
+younger general, 'I come to tell you all is saved.'</p>
+
+<p>This great chance missed, there was another which could have been
+seized. Mantua, extraordinary to relate, was defended by only three
+hundred artillerymen and a handful of hussars. It would have fallen <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg.105]</a></span> into
+the hands of its own citizens but for the presence of mind of its
+commandant, the Polish General Gorzhowsky, who told them that to no one on
+earth would he deliver the keys of the fortress except to his Emperor, and
+that the moment he could no longer defend it he would blow it into the
+air, with himself and half Mantua. He showed them the flint and the steel
+with which he intended to do the deed. Enemy though he was, that incident
+ought to be recorded in letters of gold on the gates of Mantua, as a
+perpetual lesson of that most difficult thing for a country founded in
+revolution to learn: the meaning of a soldier's duty.</p>
+
+<p>It is easy to see that, if Charles Albert had made an immediate dash on
+Mantua, the fortress, or its ruins, would have been his, to the enormous
+detriment of the Austrian position. But this chance too was missed. On the
+31st of March, the 9000 men sent with all speed by Radetsky to the
+defenceless fortress arrived, and henceforth Mantua was safe. Charles
+Albert only got within fifteen or sixteen miles of it five days later, to
+find that all hope of its capture was gone.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign began with political as well as with military mistakes. At
+the same time that the King of Sardinia was declaring in the Proclamation
+addressed to the Lombards that, full of admiration of the glorious feats
+performed in their capital, he came to their aid as brother to brother,
+friend to friend, his ambassadors were trying to persuade the foreign
+Powers, and especially Austria, Prussia and Russia, that the only object
+of the war was to avoid a revolution in Piedmont, and to prevent the
+establishment of a republic in Lombardy. No one was convinced or placated
+by these assurances; far better as policy than so ignominious an attempt
+at hedging would have been the <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_106"
+id="Page_106">[Pg.106]</a></span> acknowledgment to all the world of the
+noble crime of patriotism. But, as Massimo d'Azeglio once observed,
+Charles Albert had the incurable defect of thinking himself cunning. It
+was, moreover, only too true that, although in these diplomatic
+communications the King allowed the case against him to be stated with
+glaring exaggeration, yet they contained an element of fact. He <i>was</i>
+afraid of revolution at home; he <i>was</i> afraid of a Lombard republic;
+these were not the only, nor were they the strongest, motives which drove
+him into the war, but they were motives which, associated with deeper
+causes, contributed to the disasters of the future.</p>
+
+<p>The Piedmontese force was composed of two <i>corps d'arm&eacute;e,</i>
+the first under General Bava and the second under General Sonnaz: each
+amounted to 24,000 men. The reserves, under the Duke of Savoy, numbered
+12,000. Radetsky, at first (after strengthening the garrisons in the
+fortresses), could not put into the field more than 40,000 men. As has
+been stated, the King assumed the supreme command, which led to a constant
+wavering between the original plan of General Bava, a capable officer, and
+the criticisms and suggestions of the staff. The greatest mistake of all,
+that of never bringing into the field at once more than about half the
+army, was not without connection with the supposed necessity, based on
+political reasons, of garrisoning places in the rear which might have been
+safely left to the care of their national guards.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the royal army, there were in the field 17,000 Romans, 3000
+Modenese and Parmese, and 6000 Tuscans. There were also several companies
+of Lombard volunteers, Free Corps, as they were called, which might have
+been increased to almost any extent had they not been discouraged by the
+King, who was believed to look coldly on all these <span class="newpage">
+<a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg.107]</a></span> extraneous allies,
+either from doubt of their efficiency, or from the wish to keep the whole
+glory of the campaign for his Piedmontese army.</p>
+
+<p>The first engagements were on the line of the Mincio. On the 8th of
+April the Sardinians carried the bridge of Goito after a fight of four
+hours. The burning of the village of Castelnuovo on the 12th, as a
+punishment for its having received Manara's band of volunteers, excited
+great exasperation; many of the unfortunate villagers perished in the
+flames, and this and other incidents of the same kind did much towards
+awakening a more vivid hatred of the Austrians among the peasants.</p>
+
+<p>After easily gaining possession of the left (Venetian) bank of the
+Mincio, Charles Albert employed himself in losing time over chimerical
+operations with a view to taking the fortresses of Peschiera and Mantua,
+now strongly garrisoned, and impregnable while their provisions lasted.
+This object governed the conduct of the campaign, and caused the waste of
+precious months during every day of which General Nugent, with his 30,000
+men, was approaching one step nearer from the mountains of Friuli, and
+General Welden, with his 10,000, down the passes of Tyrol. If, instead of
+playing at sieges, Charles Albert had cut off these reinforcements,
+Radetsky would have been rendered powerless, and the campaign would have
+had another termination. Never was there a war in which the adoption of
+Napoleon's system of crushing his opponents one by one, when he could not
+outnumber them if united, was more clearly indicated.</p>
+
+<p>General Durando crossed the Po on the 21st of April with 17,000 men,
+partly Pontifical troops and partly volunteers, to which weak corps fell
+the task of opposing Nugent's advance in Venetia. The colours of the
+Pontifical troops were solemnly blessed before they left Rome, but <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg.108]</a></span> as
+the order was only given to go to the frontier, and nothing was said,
+though everything was understood, about crossing it, the Pope was
+technically able to assert that the war was none of his making. His
+ministry ventured to suggest to him that the situation was peculiar. Now
+it was that Catholic Austria and Russia, herself schismatic, flourished in
+the face of the Pope the portentous scare of a new schism. It is said that
+the Pope's confessor, a firm Liberal, died just at this time, not without
+suspicion of poison. Thoroughly alarmed in his spiritual capacity, the
+Pope issued his Encyclical Letter of the 29th of April&mdash;when his
+ministers and the whole country still hoped from day to day that he would
+formally declare war&mdash;in which he protested that his sacred office
+obliged him to embrace all nations in an equal paternal love. If his
+subjects, he added, followed the example of the other Italians, he could
+not help it: a half-hearted admission which could not mitigate the
+indignation which the document called forth. With regard to Durando's
+corps, the Pope did what was the best thing under the altered
+circumstances; he sent L.C. Farini as envoy to the King of Sardinia, with
+the request that he would take the Roman troops under his supreme command,
+the Papal Government agreeing to continue the pay of such of them as
+belonged to the regular army. Pius IX. made one last effort to help his
+fellow-countrymen which people hardly noticed, so futile did it appear,
+but which was probably made in profound seriousness. He wrote a letter to
+the Emperor of Austria begging him to make all things right and pleasant
+by voluntarily withdrawing from his Italian dominions. Popes had dictated
+to sovereigns before now; was there not Canossa? Besides, if a miracle was
+sought, why should not a miracle <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_109"
+id="Page_109">[Pg.100]</a></span> happen? Pope and Emperor shaking hands
+over a free Italy and a world reconciled&mdash;how delightful the
+prospect! Who can doubt that when the Pope wrote that letter all the
+beautiful dreams of Cardinal Mastai carried him once more away (it was the
+last time) in an ecstasy of blissful hopes? 'Let not your Majesty take
+offence,' ran the appeal, 'if we turn to your pity and religion, exhorting
+you with fatherly affection to desist from a war which, powerless to
+re-conquer the hearts of the Lombards and Venetians, can only lead to a
+dark series of calamities. Nor let the generous Germanic nation take
+offence if we invite it to abandon old hatreds, and convert into useful
+relations of friendly neighbourhood a dominion which can be neither noble
+nor happy if it depend only on the sword. Thus we trust in the nation
+itself, honestly proud of its own nationality, to no longer make a point
+of honour of sanguinary attempts against the Italian nation, but rather to
+perceive that its true honour lies in recognising Italy as a sister.'</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor received the bearer of the letter with coldness, and
+referred him to his ministers, who simply called his attention to the fact
+that the Pope owed the Temporal Power to the same treaties as those which
+gave Austria the possession of Lombardy and Venetia.</p>
+
+<p>The day after the publication of the Encyclical, that is to say, the
+30th of April, the Piedmontese obtained their first important success in
+the battle of Pastrengo, near Peschiera. Fighting from daybreak to
+sundown, they drove the enemy back into Verona, with a loss of 1200 killed
+and wounded. The Austrians were in rather inferior numbers; but the
+victory was highly creditable to the hitherto untried army of Piedmont,
+and showed that it contained excellent fighting material. It <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg.110]</a></span> was not
+followed up, and might nearly as well have never been fought.</p>
+
+<p>The Neapolitan troops, of whom 41,000 were promised, 17,000 being on
+the way already, were intended to reinforce Durando's corps in Venetia.
+With the two or three battalions which Manin could spare from the little
+army of Venice, the Italian forces opposed to Nugent's advance would have
+been brought up to 60,000 men; in which case not even Charles Albert's
+'masterly inactivity' could have given Austria the victory.</p>
+
+<p>The Neapolitan Parliament convoked under the new Constitution was to
+meet on the 15th of May. A dispute had been going on for several days
+between the Sovereign and the deputies about the form of the parliamentary
+oath, the deputies wishing that the Chambers should be left free to amend
+or alter the Statute, while the King desired that they should be bound by
+oath to maintain it as it was presented to them. It was unwise to provoke
+a disagreement which was sure to irritate the King. However, late on the
+14th, he appeared to yield, and consented that the wording of the oath
+should be referred to the discussion of Parliament itself. It seems that,
+at the same time, he ordered the troops of the garrison to take up certain
+positions in the city. A colonel of the National Guard raised the cry of
+royal treason, calling upon the people to rise, which a portion of them
+did, and barricades were constructed in the Toledo and other of the
+principal streets. A more insane and culpable thing than this attempt at
+revolution was never put in practice. It was worse even than that 20th of
+May at Milan, which threw Eugene into the arms of Austria. Its
+consequences were those which everyone could have foreseen&mdash;a two
+days' massacre in the streets of Naples, begun by the troops and <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg.111]</a></span>
+continued by the lazzaroni, who were allowed to pillage to their hearts'
+content; the deputies dispersed with threats of violence, Parliament
+dissolved before it had sat, the original Statute torn up, and (by far the
+most important) the Neapolitan troops, now at Bologna, recalled to Naples.
+This was the pretty work of the few hundred reckless rioters on the 15th
+of May.</p>
+
+<p>Had not Pius IX. by this time repudiated all part in the war, the King
+of the Two Sicilies would have thought twice before he recalled his
+contingent, though the counsels of neutrality which he received from
+another quarter&mdash;from Lord Palmerston in the name of the English
+Government&mdash;strengthened his hand not a little in carrying out a
+defection which was the direct ruin of the Italian cause. When the order
+to return reached Bologna, the veteran patriot, General Pepe, who had been
+summoned from exile to take the chief command, resolved to disobey, and
+invited the rest to follow him. Nearly the whole of the troops were,
+however, faithful to their military oath. The situation was horrible. The
+choice lay between the country in danger and the King, who, false and
+perjured though he might be, was still the head of the State, to whom each
+soldier had sworn obedience. One gallant officer escaped from the dilemma
+by shooting himself. Pepe, with a single battalion of the line, a company
+of engineers, and two battalions of volunteers, went to Venice, where they
+fought like heroes to the end.</p>
+
+<p>On the 27th of May, Radetsky, taking the offensive with about 40,000
+men, marched towards Mantua, near which was stationed the small Tuscan
+corps, whose commander only received when too late General Bava's order to
+retire from an untenable position. On the 29th the Austrians, <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg.112]</a></span> in
+overwhelming numbers, bore down upon the 6000 Tuscans at Montanara and
+Curtatone, and defeated them after a resistance of six hours. The Tuscan
+professor, Giuseppe Montanelli, fell severely wounded while holding the
+dead body of his favourite pupil, but he recovered to show less discretion
+in politics than he had shown valour in the field.</p>
+
+<p>Peschiera, where the supplies were exhausted, capitulated on the 30th,
+and the day after found 22,000 Piedmontese ready to give Radetsky battle
+at Goito, whence, after a severe contest, they drove him back to Mantua.
+The Austrians lost 3000 out of 25,000 men. The honours of the day fell to
+the Savoy brigade, which was worthy of its own fame and of the future King
+of Italy, who was slightly wounded while leading it. Outwardly this seemed
+the most fortunate period of the war for Charles Albert, but that had
+already happened which was to cause the turning of the tide. Nugent, with
+his 30,000 men, had joined Radetsky. His march across Venetia was harassed
+by the inhabitants, who left him no peace, especially in the mountain
+districts, but the poor little force of Romans and volunteers under
+Durando and Ferrari was unable to seriously check his progress in the open
+country, though he failed in the attempt to take the towns of Treviso and
+Vicenza in his passage. The repulse of the Austrians, 18,000 strong, from
+Vicenza on the 23rd of May, did great credit to Durando, who only had
+10,000 men, most of them <i>Crociati</i>, as the volunteers were called,
+whose ideas about fighting were original. It is hard to see how this
+General could have done more than he did with the materials at his
+disposal, or in what way he merited the abuse which was heaped upon him.
+The case would have been very different if his hybrid force had been
+supported by the Neapolitan army.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">
+[Pg.113]</a></span> Nugent was ordered by Radetsky to let the intermediate
+places alone, and to come on to him as fast as circumstances would admit.
+The junction of their troops was, the Field-Marshal saw, of vital
+necessity, but when this was achieved, and when Welden had also brought
+his 15,000 fresh men from Tyrol, he turned his attention to Vicenza,
+since, as long as that town remained in Durando's hands, Venetia would
+still be free. He conceived the bold plan of making an excursion to
+Vicenza with his complete army, while Charles Albert enjoyed the pleasant
+illusion that the Austrians were in full retreat owing to his success at
+Goito. The result of Radetsky's attack was not doubtful, but the defence
+of the town on the 10th of June could not have been more gallant; the 3500
+Swiss, the Pontifical Carabineers, and the few other troops belonging to
+the regular army of the Pope did wonders. Cialdini, the future general,
+and Massimo d'Azeglio, the future prime minister, fought in this action,
+and the latter was severely wounded. After several hours' resistance there
+was nothing to be done but to hoist the white flag; Radetsky's object was
+accomplished, the Venetian <i>terra firma</i> was practically once more in
+the power of Austria. On the 14th he was back again at Verona without the
+least harm having happened in his absence.</p>
+
+<p>Only military genius of the first order could now have saved the
+Piedmontese, and what prevailed was the usual infatuation. Charles
+Albert's lines were extended across forty miles of country, from Peschiera
+to Goito. On the 23rd of July the Austrians fell upon their weakest point,
+and obliged Sonnaz' division to cross over to the right bank of the
+Mincio. On the 24th, the King succeeded in dislodging the Austrians from
+Custozza after four hours' struggle; but next day, <span class="newpage">
+<a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg.114]</a></span> which was spent
+entirely in fighting, Radetsky retook Custozza, and obliged the King to
+fall back on Villafranca. Now began the terrible retreat on Milan,
+performed under the ceaseless fire of the pursuers, who attacked and
+defeated the retreating army for the last time, close to Milan, on the 4th
+of August. Radetsky had with him 45,000 men; Charles Albert's forces were
+reduced to 25,000. He had lost 5000 since he recrossed the Mincio. He
+begged for a truce, and, defeated and undone, he entered the city which he
+had vowed should only receive him victorious.</p>
+
+<p>To suppose that anything could have been gained by subjecting Milan to
+the horrors of a siege seems at this date the veriest madness; whatever
+Charles Albert's sins were, the capitulation of Milan was not among them.
+The members of a wild faction, however, demanded resistance to the death,
+or the death of the King if he refused. It is their severest censure to
+say that their pitiless fury is not excused even by the tragic fate of a
+population which, having gained freedom unaided less than six months
+before, saw itself given back to its ancestral foe by the man in whom it
+had hoped as a saviour. They saw crimes where there were only blunders,
+which had brought the King to a pass only one degree less wretched than
+their own. Crushed, humiliated, his army half destroyed, his personal
+ambition&mdash;to rate no higher the motive of his actions&mdash;trodden
+in the dust; and now the name of traitor was hissed in his ears by those
+for whom he had made these sacrifices.</p>
+
+<p>Stung to the heart, the King instructed General Bava to tell the
+Milanese that if they were ready to bury themselves under the ruins of the
+city, he and his sons were ready to do the same. But the Municipality,
+convinced of the desperateness of the situation, had <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg.115]</a></span> already
+entered into negotiations with Radetsky, by which the capitulation was
+ratified. On this becoming known, the Palazzo Greppi, where Charles Albert
+lodged, was the object of a new display of rage; an attempt was even made
+to set it on fire. During the night, the King succeeded in leaving the
+palace on foot, guarded by a company of Bersaglieri and accompanied by his
+son, the Duke of Genoa, who, on hearing of his father's critical position,
+disobeyed the order to stay with his regiment, and came into the city to
+share his danger.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, the 6th of August, the Austrians reentered Milan. They
+themselves said that the Milanese seemed distraught. The Municipality was
+to blame for having concealed from the people the real state of things, by
+publishing reports of imaginary victories. Had the unthinking fury of the
+mob ended, as it so nearly ended, in an irreparable crime, the authors of
+these falsehoods would have been, more than anyone else, responsible for
+the catastrophe.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign of 1848 was finished. From the frontier, Charles Albert
+issued a proclamation to his people, calling upon the Piedmontese to
+render the common misfortunes less difficult to bear by giving his army a
+brotherly reception. 'In its ranks,' he concluded, 'are my sons and I,
+ready, as we all are, for new sacrifices, new hardships, or for death
+itself for our beloved fatherland.'</p>
+
+<p>The political and diplomatic transactions connected with the war in
+Lombardy were the subject after it closed of much discussion, and of some
+violent recriminations. Even from the short account given in these pages,
+it ought to be apparent that the supreme cause of disaster was simply bad
+generalship. Contemporaries, however, judged <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg.116]</a></span> otherwise; if they were
+monarchists, they attributed the failure to the want of whole-hearted
+co-operation of the Provisional Governments of Lombardy with the
+liberating King; if they were republicans, they attributed it to the
+King's want of trust in the popular element, and anxiety lest, instead of
+receiving an increase of territory, he should find himself confronted with
+a new republic at his door. Both parties were so far correct that the
+strain of double purposes, or, at least, of incompatible aspirations which
+ran through the conduct of affairs, militated against a fortunate ending.
+The Piedmontese Government, even had it wished, would have found it
+difficult to adhere strictly to the programme of leaving all political
+matters for discussion after the war. What actually happened was that the
+union, under the not altogether attractive form of Fusion with Piedmont
+(instead of in the shape of the formation of an Italian kingdom), was
+effected at the end of June and beginning of July over the whole of
+Lombardy and Venetia, including Venice, where, perhaps alone, the feeling
+against it was not that of a party, but of the bulk of the population.
+Manin shared that feeling, but his true patriotism induced him to push on
+the Fusion in order to avoid the risk of civil war. He retired into
+private life the day it was accomplished, only to become again by
+acclamation Head of the State when the reverses of Sardinia obliged the
+King's Government to renounce the whole of his scarcely&mdash;acquired
+possessions, not excepting Modena, which had been the first, by a
+spontaneous plebiscite, to elect him Sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>The diplomatic history of the war is chiefly the history of the efforts
+of the English Cabinet to pull up a runaway horse. Lord Minto had been
+sent to urge the Italian princes to grant those concessions which Austria
+always said (and she was perfectly right) would lead to <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg.117]</a></span> a general
+attack upon her power, but when the attack began, the British Government
+strained every nerve to limit its extension and diminish its force. That
+Lord Palmerston in his own mind disliked Austria, and would have been glad
+to see North Italy free, does not alter the fact that he played the
+Austrian game, and played it with success. He strongly advised every
+Italian prince to abstain from the conflict, and it is further as certain
+as anything can well be, that his influence, exercised through Lord
+Normanby, alone averted French intervention in August 1848, when the
+desperate state of things made the Italians willing to accept foreign aid.
+What would have happened if the French had intervened it is interesting to
+speculate, but impossible to decide. Their help was not desired, except as
+a last resource, by any party in Italy, nor by any man of note except
+Manin. The republicans wished Italy to owe her liberation to herself;
+Charles Albert wished her to owe it to him. The King also feared a
+republican propaganda, and was uneasy, not without reason, about Savoy and
+Nice. Lamartine would probably have been satisfied with the former, but it
+is doubtful if Charles Albert, though capable of giving up his crown for
+Italy, would have been capable of renouncing the cradle of his race. When
+Lamartine was succeeded by Cavaignac, perhaps Nice would have been
+demanded as well as Savoy. That both the King and Mazzini were right in
+mistrusting the sentiments of the French Government, is amply testified by
+a letter written by Jules Bastide to the French representative at Turin,
+in which the Minister of Foreign Affairs speaks of the danger to France of
+the formation of a strong monarchy at the foot of the Alps, that would
+tend to assimilate the rest of Italy, adding the significant words: 'We
+could admit the unity of <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_118" id=
+"Page_118">[Pg.118]</a></span> Italy on the principle and in the form of a
+federation of independent states, each balancing the other, but never a
+unity which placed the whole of Italy under the dominion of one of these
+states.'</p>
+
+<p>Whether, in spite of all this, a political mistake was not made in not
+accepting French aid when it was first offered (in the spring of 1848)
+must remain an open question. When the French came eleven years later,
+they were actuated by no purer motives, but who would say that Cavour,
+instead of seeking, should have refused the French alliance?</p>
+
+<p>One other point has still to be noticed: the proposal made by Austria
+in the month of May to give up Lombardy unconditionally if she might keep
+Venetia, which was promised a separate administration and a national army.
+Nothing shows the state of mind then prevailing in a more distinct light
+than the scorn with which this offer was everywhere treated. Lord
+Palmerston declined to mediate on such a basis 'because there was no
+chance of the proposal being entertained,' which proved correct, as when
+it was submitted to the Provisional Government of Milan, it was not even
+thought worth taking into consideration. No one would contemplate the
+sacrifice of Venice by a new Campo Formio.</p>
+
+<p>Far, indeed, was Austria the victorious in August from Austria the
+humiliated in May. On the 9th of August, Hess and Salasco signed the
+armistice between the lately contending Powers. The next day the Emperor
+Ferdinand returned to his capital, from which he had been chased in the
+spring. He might well congratulate himself upon the marvellous recovery of
+his empire; but the revolution in Hungary was yet to be quelled, and
+another rising at Vienna in October tried his nerves, which were never of
+the strongest. On the 2nd of December he <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg.119]</a></span> abdicated in favour of his
+young nephew, the Archduke Francis Joseph, who had been brought face to
+face more than once on the Mincio with the Duke of Savoy, whom he rivalled
+in personal courage.</p>
+
+<p>On the 10th of December, another event occurred which placed a new
+piece on the European chess-board: Louis Napoleon was elected to the
+Presidency of the French Republic.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg.120]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_VII"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3>
+
+<h4>THE DOWNFALL OF THRONES</h4>
+
+<h5>1848-1849</h5>
+
+<h5>Garibaldi Arrives&mdash;Venice under Manin&mdash;The Dissolution of
+the Temporal Power&mdash;Republics at Rome and Florence.</h5>
+
+<p><br />
+ While the remnant of the Piedmontese army recrossed the bridge over the
+Ticino at Pavia, crushed, though not though want of valour, outraged in
+the person of its King, surely the saddest vanquished host that ever
+retraced in sorrow the path it had traced in the wildest joy, a few
+thousand volunteers in Lombardy still refused to lay down their arms or to
+recognise that, after the capitulation of Milan, all was lost. Valueless
+as a fact, their defiance of Austria had value as a prophecy, and its
+prophetic aspect comes more clearly into view when it is seen that the
+leader of the little band was Garibaldi, while its standard-bearer was
+Mazzini. These two had lately met for the first time since 1833, when
+Garibaldi, or 'Borel,' as he was called in the ranks of 'Young Italy,'
+went to Marseilles to make the acquaintance of the head and brain of the
+society which he had joined, as has been mentioned, on the banks of the
+Black Sea.</p>
+
+<p>'When I was young and had only aspirations,' said Garibaldi in London
+in April 1864, 'I sought out a man who could give me counsel and guide my
+youthful years; I sought him as the thirsty man seeks water. This man I
+found; he alone kept alive the sacred fire, he alone watched <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg.121]</a></span> while all
+the world slept; he has always remained my friend, full of love for his
+country, full of devotion for the cause of freedom: this man is Joseph
+Mazzini.'</p>
+
+<p>The words spoken then&mdash;when the younger patriot was the chosen
+hero of the greatest of free nations, while the elder, still misunderstood
+by almost all, was shunned and calumniated, and even called 'the worst
+enemy of Italy'&mdash;gave one fresh proof, had one been wanting, that,
+though there have been more flawless characters than Garibaldi, never in a
+human breast beat a more generous heart. Politically, there was nearly as
+much divergence between Mazzini and Garibaldi as between Mazzini and
+Cavour; the master thought the pupil lacked ideality, the pupil thought
+the master lacked practicalness; but they were at one in the love of their
+land and in the desire to serve her.</p>
+
+<p>On parting with Mazzini in 1833, Garibaldi, then captain of a sailing
+vessel, went to Genoa and enrolled himself as a common sailor in the Royal
+Piedmontese Navy. The step, strange in appearance, was certainly taken on
+Mazzini's advice, and the immediate purpose was doubtless to make converts
+for 'Young Italy' among the marines. Had Garibaldi been caught when the
+ruthless persecution of all connected with 'Young Italy' set in, he would
+have been shot offhand, as were all those who were found dabbling with
+politics in the army and navy. He escaped just in time, and sailed for
+South America.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Gazzetta Piemontese</i> of the 17th of June 1834 published the
+sentence of death passed upon him, with the rider which declared him
+exposed to public vengeance 'as an enemy of the State, and liable to all
+the penalties of a brigand of the first category.' He saw the paper; and
+it was the first time that he or anyone else had seen the <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg.122]</a></span> name of
+Giuseppe Garibaldi in print; a name of which Victor Emmanuel would one day
+say that 'it filled the furthest ends of the earth.'</p>
+
+<p>Profitable to Italy, over nearly every page of whose recent history
+might be written 'out of evil cometh forth good,' was the banishment which
+threw Garibaldi into his romantic career of the next twelve years between
+the Amazon and the Plata. Soldier of fortune who did not seek to enrich
+himself; soldier of freedom who never aimed at power, he always meant to
+turn to account for his own country the experience gained in the art of
+war in that distant land, where he rapidly became the centre of a legend,
+almost the origin of a myth. Antique in simplicity, singleness,
+superabundance of life, and in a sort of naturalism which is not of
+to-day; unselfconscious, trustful in others, forgiving, incapable of fear,
+abounding in compassion, Garibaldi's true place is not in the aggregation
+of facts which we call history, but in the apotheosis of character which
+we call the <i>Iliad</i>, the <i>Mahabharata</i>, the <i>Edda</i>, the
+cycles of Arthur and of Roland, and the <i>Romancero del Cid</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In childhood he rescued a drowning washerwoman; in youth he nursed men
+dying of cholera; as a veteran soldier he passed the night among the rocks
+of Caprera hunting for a lamb that was lost. No amount of habit could
+remove the repugnance he felt at uttering the word 'fire.' Yet this gentle
+warrior, when his career was closed and he lay chained to his bed of pain,
+endorsed his memoirs with the Spanish motto: 'La guerra es la verdadera
+vida del hombre.' War was the veritable life of Garibaldi; war, not
+conspiracy; war, not politics; war, not, alas! model farming, for which
+the old chief fancied in his later years that he had discovered in himself
+a vocation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">
+[Pg.123]</a></span> Riding the wild horses and chasing the wild cattle of
+the Pampas, his eyes covering the immense spaces untrodden by man, this
+corsair of five-and-twenty drank deep of the innocent pleasures of untamed
+nature, when not occupied in fighting by land or sea, with equal fortune;
+or rather, perhaps, with greater fortune and greater proof of inborn
+genius as commander of the naval campaign of the Paran[=a] than as
+defender of Monte Video. No adventures were wanting to him; he was even
+imprisoned and tortured. In South America he found the one woman worthy to
+bear his name, the lion-hearted Anita, whom he carried off, she
+consenting, from her father and the man to whom her father had betrothed
+her. Garibaldi in after years expressed such deep contrition for the act
+which bore Anita away from the quiet life in store for her, and plunged
+her into hardships which only ended when she died, that, misinterpreting
+his remorse, many supposed the man from whom he took her to have been
+already her husband. It was not so. Shortly before the Church of San
+Francisco at Monte Video was burnt down (some twenty years ago), the
+marriage register of Garibaldi and Anita was found in its archives, and a
+legal copy was made. In it she is described as 'Do&ntilde;a Ana Maria de
+Jesus, unmarried daughter of Don Benito Rivevio de Silva, of Laguna, in
+Brazil.' The bridegroom, who during all his American career had scarcely
+clothes to cover him, parted with his only possession, an old silver
+watch, to pay the priest's fees. Head of the Italian Legion, he only took
+the rations of a common soldier, and as candles were not included in the
+rations, he sat in the dark. Someone reported this to the Government, who
+sent him a present of &pound;20, half of which he gave to a poor
+widow.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">
+[Pg.124]</a></span> When the first rumours that something was preparing in
+Italy reached Monte Video, Garibaldi wrote a letter offering his services
+to the Pope, still hailed as Champion of Freedom, and soon embarked
+himself for the Old World, with eighty-five of his best soldiers, among
+whom was his beloved friend, Francesco Anzani. Giacomo Medici had been
+despatched a little in advance to confer with Mazzini. At starting, the
+Legion knew nothing of the revolution in Milan and Venice, or of Charles
+Albert having taken the field. Great was their wonder, therefore, on
+reaching Gibraltar, to see hoisted on a Sardinian ship a perfectly new
+flag, never beheld by them out of dreams&mdash;the Italian tricolor.</p>
+
+<p>So Garibaldi returned at forty-one years of age to the country where
+the sentence of death passed upon him had never been revoked. Before the
+law he was still 'a brigand of the first category.' Nor was he quite sure
+that he would not be arrested, and, as a precaution, when he cast anchor
+in the harbour of his native Nice, he ran up the Monte Videan colours. It
+was needless. Throngs of people crowded the quays to welcome home the
+Ligurian captain, who had done great things over sea. Anita was there; she
+had preceded him to Europe with their three children, Teresita, Menotti
+and Ricciotti. There, also, was his old mother, who never ceased to be
+beautiful, the 'Signora Rosa,' as the Nizzards called her. She was almost
+a woman of the people, but the simple dignity of her life made all treat
+her as a superior being. To her prayers, while she lived, Garibaldi
+believed that he owed his safety in so many perils, and after her death
+the soldiers used to say that on the eve of battles he walked apart
+communing with her spirit.</p>
+
+<p>From Nice, Garibaldi went to Genoa, where he took a last leave of his
+friend Anzani, who returned from exile not to fight, as he had hoped,
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg.125]</a></span>
+but to die. The day before he expired, Medici arrived at Genoa; he was
+very angry with the Chief, in consequence of some disagreement as to the
+place of landing. Anzani said to him entreatingly: 'Do not be hard,
+Medici, on Garibaldi; he is a predestined man: a great part of the future
+of Italy is in his hands.' The counsel from dying lips sank deep into
+Medici's heart; he often disagreed with Garibaldi, but to his last day he
+never quarrelled with him again. Long years after, if friction arose
+between Garibaldi and his King, it was Medici's part to throw oil on the
+waters.</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi sought an interview with Charles Albert, and offered him his
+arms and the arms of his Legion, 'not unused to war.' Pope or prince,
+little it mattered to him who the saviour of Italy should be. But Charles
+Albert, though he was polite, merely referred his visitor to his
+ministers, and the inestimable sword of the hero went begging for a month
+or more, till the Provisional Government of Milan gave him the command of
+the few thousand volunteers with whom we saw him at the conclusion of the
+campaign. The war was over before he had a chance of striking a blow. His
+indignant cry of defiance could not be long sustained, for Garibaldi never
+drove men to certain and useless slaughter; when the real position of
+things became known to him, he led his band over the Swiss confines, and
+bid them wait for a better and not distant day.</p>
+
+<p>Under Manin's wise rule, which was directed solely to the preservation
+of peace within the city, and resistance to the enemy at its gates, Venice
+remained undaunted by the catastrophes in Lombardy, after all the Venetian
+<i>terra firma</i> had been restored to Austria. (Even the heroic little
+mountain fort of Osopo in the Friuli was compelled to capitulate on the
+12th of October.) The blockade of the city on the <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg.126]</a></span> lagunes did not prevent
+Venice from acting not only on the defensive but on the offensive; in the
+sortie of the 27th of October, 2500 Venetians drove the Austrians from
+Mestre with severe losses, carrying back six captured guns, which the
+people dragged in triumph to the Doge's palace. A cabin-boy named Zorzi
+was borne on the shoulders of the soldiers enveloped in the Italian flag;
+his story was this: the national colours, floating from the mast of the
+pinnace on which he served, were detached by a ball and dropped into the
+water; the child sprang in after them, and with a shout of <i>Viva
+l'Italia,</i> fixed them again at the masthead under a sharp fire. Zorzi
+was, of course, the small hero of the hour, especially among the women.
+General Pepe commanded the sortie, with Ulloa, Fontana and Cosenz as his
+lieutenants; Ugo Bassi, the patriot monk of Bologna, marched at the head
+of a battalion with the crucifix, the only arms he ever carried, in his
+hand. The success cost Italy dear, as Alessandro Poerio, poet and patriot,
+the brother of Baron Carlo Poerio of Naples, lost his life by a wound
+received at Mestre. But the confidence of Venice in her little army was
+increased a hundredfold.</p>
+
+<p>The most important event of the autumn of 1848 was the gradual but
+continuous break-up of the Papal authority in Rome. The meeting of the new
+Parliament only served to accentuate the want of harmony between the Pope
+and his ministers; assassinations were frequent; what law there was was
+administered by the political clubs. In Count Terenzio Mamiani, Pius IX.
+found a Prime Minister who, for eloquence and patriotism, could hardly be
+rivalled, but hampered as he was by the opposition he encountered from the
+Sovereign, and by the absence of any real or solid moderate constitutional
+party in the Chamber of <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_127" id=
+"Page_127">[Pg.127]</a></span> Deputies, Mamiani could carry out very few
+of the improvements he desired to effect, and in August he retired from an
+impracticable task, to be replaced by men of less note and talent than
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>Wishing to create fresh complications for the Pope, the Austrians
+invaded the Legations, regardless of his protests, and after the fall of
+Milan, General Welden advanced on Bologna, where, however, his forces were
+so furiously attacked by the inhabitants and the few carabineers who were
+all the troops in the town, that they were dislodged from the strong
+position they had taken up on the Montagnola, the hill which forms the
+public park, and obliged to fly beyond the city walls. Radetsky
+disapproved of Welden's movements on Bologna, and ordered him not to
+return to the assault.</p>
+
+<p>Had the Austrians returned and massacred half the population of
+Bologna, the Pope might have been saved. When Rome heard that the stormy
+capital of Romagna was up in arms, once more, for a moment, there were
+united counsels. 'His Holiness,' ran the official proclamation, 'was
+firmly resolved to repel the Austrian invasion with all the means which
+his State and the well-regulated enthusiasm of his people could supply.'
+The Chamber confirmed the ministerial proposal to demand French help
+against Austria. But all this brave show of energy vanished with the
+pressing danger, and Bologna, which, by its manly courage, had galvanised
+the whole bloodless body-politic, now hastened the hour of dissolution by
+lapsing into a state of deplorable anarchy, the populace using the arms
+with which they had driven out the Austrians, to establish a reign of
+murder and pillage. L.C. Farini restored something like order, but the
+general weakness of the power of government became every day more
+apparent.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">
+[Pg.128]</a></span> The Pope made a last endeavour to avert the
+catastrophe by calling to his counsels Count Pellegrino Rossi, a man of
+unyielding will, who was as much opposed to demagogic as to theocratic
+government. Rossi, having been compromised when very young in Murat's
+enterprises, lived long abroad, and attained the highest offices under
+Louis Philippe, who sent him to Rome to arrange with the Pope the delicate
+question of the expulsion of the Jesuits from France, which he conducted
+to an amicable settlement, though one not pleasing to the great Society.
+Not being one of those who change masters as they change their boots
+according to the state of the roads, the ambassador retired from the
+French service when Louis Philippe was dethroned. As minister to the Pope,
+he made his influence instantly felt; measures were taken to restore order
+in the finances, discipline in the army, public security in the streets,
+and method and activity in the Government offices. The tax on
+ecclesiastical property was enforced; fomenters of anarchy, even though
+they wore the garb of patriots, and perhaps honestly believed themselves
+to be such, were vigorously dealt with. If anyone could have given the
+Temporal Power a new lease of life, it would have been a man so gifted and
+so devoted as Pellegrino Rossi, but the entire forces, both of subversion
+and of reaction, were against him, and most of all was against him the
+fatality of dates. Not at human bidding do the dead arise and walk. The
+most deeply to be regretted event that happened in the course of the
+Italian revolution gave his inevitable failure the appearance of a
+fortuitous accident.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">
+[Pg.129]</a></span> Parliament, which had been prorogued on the 26th of
+August, was to open on the 15th of November. Anarchy, black and red, was
+in the air. Though disorders were expected, Rossi made no provision for
+keeping the space clear round the palace where Parliament met; knots of
+men, with sinister faces, gathered in all parts of the square. Rossi was
+warned in the morning that an attempt would be made to assassinate him; he
+was entreated not to go to the Chamber, to which he replied that it was
+his duty to be present, and that if people wanted his blood they would
+have it sooner or later, whether he took precautions or not. Two policemen
+to keep the passage free when he reached the Chamber would, nevertheless,
+have saved his life. As he walked from his carriage to the stairs, an
+unknown individual pushed against him on the right side, and when he
+turned to see who it was, the assassin plunged a dagger in his throat. He
+fell, bathed in blood, to expire without uttering a word.</p>
+
+<p>In the Chamber, the deputies proceeded to business; not one raised an
+indignant protest against a crime which violated the independence of the
+representatives of the nation. The mere understanding of what liberty
+means is absolutely wanting in most populations when they first emerge
+from servitude.</p>
+
+<p>After the craven conduct of the deputies, it is no wonder if the dregs
+of the people went further, and paraded the streets singing songs in
+praise of the assassin. The Pope summoned the Presidents of the two
+Chambers and Marco Minghetti, whom he requested to form a new ministry.
+But the time for regular proceeding was past; the city was in the hands of
+the mob, which imposed on the Pope the acceptance of a ministry of
+nonentities nominated by it. The Swiss Guard fired on the crowd which
+attempted to gain access to the Quirinal; the crowd, reinforced by the
+Civic Guard, returned to the attack and fired <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg.130]</a></span> against the walls, a
+stray shot killing Monsignor Palma, who was in one of the rooms. The Pope
+decided on flight. He left Rome in disguise during the evening of the 25th
+of November. After gaining the Neapolitan frontier, he took the road to
+Gaeta. The illusion of the Pope Liberator ended with the Encyclical; the
+illusion of the Constitutional Pope ended with the flight to Gaeta. Pius
+IX. was only in a limited degree responsible for his want of success,
+because the task he had set before him was the quadrature of the circle in
+politics.</p>
+
+<p>The weight of a less qualified responsibility rests upon him for his
+subsequent actions. On the 3rd of December Parliament voted a proposal to
+send a deputation to the Pope, praying him to return to his States. To
+give the deputation greater authority, the Municipality of Rome proposed
+that the Syndic, the octogenarian Prince Corsini, should accompany it. It
+also comprised two ecclesiastics, and thus constituted, it left Rome for
+Gaeta on the 5th of December. On the borders of the Neapolitan kingdom its
+passage was barred by the police, and it was obliged to retrace its steps
+to Terracina. Here the deputation drew up a letter to Cardinal Antonelli
+(no longer the patriotic minister of the spring), in which an audience
+with the Sovereign Pontiff was respectfully requested. The answer came
+that the Pope would not receive the deputation. It was an answer that he
+was at liberty to make, but it should have meant abdication. If, called
+back by the will of the Parliament of his own making, the Sovereign
+deigned not even to receive the bearers of the invitation, in what way did
+he contemplate resuming the throne? It was only too easy to guess. The
+Head of Christendom had become a convert of King Ferdinand of Naples,
+otherwise Bomba. By a path strewn with the sinister flowers of war did
+Pius IX. meditate returning to his subjects&mdash;by that path and no
+other.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">
+[Pg.131]</a></span> The Galetti-Sterbini ministry, appointed by the Pope
+under popular pressure a few days before his departure, remained in charge
+of affairs, somewhat strengthened by the adhesion of Terenzio Mamiani as
+Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mamiani at first declined to form part of the
+ministry, but joined it afterwards with self-sacrificing patriotism, in
+the hope of saving things from going to complete rack and ruin during the
+interregnum caused by the withdrawal of the Head of the State. He only
+retired from the ungrateful office when he saw the imminence of a radical
+change in the form of government, which was not desired by him any more
+than it had been by Rossi.</p>
+
+<p>The mass of the population of the Roman States had desired such a
+change ever since the days of Gregory; the temporary enthusiasm for Pius,
+if it arrested the flow of the stream, did not prevent the waters from
+accumulating beyond the dyke. One day the dyke would burst, and the waters
+sweep all before them.</p>
+
+<p>A Constituent Assembly was convoked for the 5th of February 1849. The
+elections, which took place on the 21st of January, were on this basis:
+every citizen of more than twenty-one years was allowed to vote; every
+citizen over twenty-five could become a deputy; the number of deputies was
+fixed at two hundred; a candidate who received less than 500 votes would
+not be elected. On the 9th of February, the Constituent Assembly voted the
+downfall of the Temporal Power (free exercise of his spiritual functions
+being, at the same time, assured to the Supreme Pontiff), and the
+establishment of a republican form of government. The Roman Republic was
+proclaimed from the Capitol.</p>
+
+<p>Ten votes were given against the republic. No government ever came
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg.132]</a></span>
+into existence in a more strictly legal manner. Had it not represented the
+true will of the people, the last Roman Commonwealth could not have left
+behind so glorious, albeit brief, a record.</p>
+
+<p>A youthful poet, descendant of the Doges of Genoa, Goffredo Mameli,
+whose 'Fratelli d'Italia' was the battle-hymn to which Italy marched,
+wrote these three words to Mazzini: 'Roma, Repubblica, Venite.' So Mazzini
+came to Rome, which confided her destinies to him, as she had once
+confided them to the Brescian Arnold and to Cola di Rienzi. Not
+Arnold&mdash;not Rienzi in his nobler days&mdash;dreamed a more sublime
+dream of Roman liberty than did Giuseppe Mazzini, or more nearly wrote
+down that dream in facts.</p>
+
+<p>Originally the executive power was delegated to a committee, but this
+was changed to a Triumvirate, the Triumvirs being Armellini, Saffi and
+Mazzini. Mazzini's mind and will directed the whole.</p>
+
+<p>On the 18th of February, Cardinal Antonelli demanded in the Pope's name
+the armed intervention of France, Austria, Spain and Naples, 'as in this
+way alone can order be restored in the States of the Church, and the Holy
+Father re-established in the exercise of his supreme authority, in
+compliance with the imperious exigencies of his august and sacred
+character, the interests of the universal Church, and the peace of
+nations. In this way he will be enabled to retain the patrimony which he
+received at his accession, and transmit it in its integrity to his
+successors.'</p>
+
+<p>The Pope, who could not bring himself to stain his white robes with the
+blood of the enemies of Italy, called in four armies to shoot down his
+subjects, because in no other way could he recover his lost throne.</p>
+
+<p>Pius IX. was the twenty-sixth Pontiff who called the foreigner into
+Italy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">
+[Pg.133]</a></span> The final conquest of the Pope by the party of
+universal reaction could only be effected by his isolation from all but
+one set of influences; this is precisely what happened at Gaeta. There are
+reasons for thinking that his choice of the hospitality of the King of the
+Two Sicilies, rather than that of France or Spain or Sardinia, was the
+result of an intrigue in which Count Spaur, the Bavarian minister who
+represented the interests of Austria in Rome after that power withdrew her
+ambassador, played a principal part. Even after Pius arrived at Gaeta, it
+is said that he talked of it as the first stage of a longer journey. He
+had never shown any liking for the Neapolitan Bourbons, and the
+willingness which he expressed to Gioberti to crown Charles Albert King of
+Italy if his arms were successful, was probably duly appreciated by
+Ferdinand II. To save the Pope from absorption by the retrograde party,
+and to avoid the certainty of a foreign invasion, Gioberti, who became
+Prime Minister of Piedmont in November 1848, was anxious to occupy the
+Roman states with Sardinian troops immediately after the Pope's flight,
+when his subjects still recognised his sovereignty. Gioberti resigned
+because this policy was opposed by Rattazzi and other of his colleagues in
+the ministry. It would have been a difficult <i>r&ocirc;le</i> to play;
+Sardinia, while endeavouring to checkmate the reaction, might have become
+its instrument. The failure of Gioberti's plan cannot be regretted, but
+his forecast of what would happen if it were not attempted proved to be
+correct.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after the arrival of his exalted guest, King Ferdinand with his
+family, a great number of priests, and a strong escort, moved his
+residence from the capital to Gaeta. The modified Constitution,
+substituted for the first charter after the events of the 15th of May, was
+still nominally in force; Parliament had met during the summer, <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg.134]</a></span> but
+the King solved the riddle of governing through his ministers, on purely
+retrograde principles, without paying more heed to the representatives of
+the nations than to the benches on which they sat. Prorogued on the 5th of
+September, Parliament was to have met on the 30th of November, but when
+that date approached, it was prorogued again to the 1st of February. 'Our
+misery has reached such a climax,' wrote Baron Carlo Poerio, 'that it is
+enough to drive us mad. Every faculty of the soul revolts against the
+ferocious reactionary movement, the more disgraceful from its execrable
+hypocrisy. We are governed by an oligarchy; the only article maintained is
+that respecting the taxes. The laws have ceased to exist; the Statute is
+buried; a licentious soldiery rules over everything, and the press is
+constantly employed to asperse honest men. The lives of the deputies are
+menaced. Another night of St Bartholomew is threatened to all who will not
+sell body and soul.' Ferdinand only waited till he had recovered
+substantial hold over Sicily to do away with even the fiction of
+parliamentary government. Messina had fallen in September, though not till
+half the city was in flames, the barbarous cruelties practised on the
+inhabitants after the surrender exciting the indignation of the English
+and French admirals who witnessed the bombardment. This was the first step
+to the subjection of Sicily, but not till after Syracuse and Catania fell
+did the King feel that there was no further cause for anxiety&mdash;the
+taking of the capital becoming a mere question of time. He was so much
+pleased at the fall of Catania that he had a mock representation of the
+siege performed at Gaeta in presence of the Pope and of half the sacred
+college.</p>
+
+<p>On the 13th of March Prince Torelli handed the President of the <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg.135]</a></span>
+Neapolitan Chamber of Deputies a sealed packet which contained a royal
+decree dissolving Parliament. Naples was once more under an irresponsible
+despotism. The lazzaroni of both the lower and higher classes, if by
+lazzaroni may be understood the born allies of ignorance, idleness and
+bigotry, rejoiced and were glad. Nor were they few. Unlike the Austrians
+in the north, Ferdinand had his party; the 'fidelity of his subjects' of
+which he boasted, was not purely mythical. Whether, considering its basis,
+it was much to boast of, need not be discussed.</p>
+
+<p>In March, the happy family at Gaeta was increased by a new arrival. Had
+he been better advised, Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, would have never
+gone to breathe that malarious atmosphere. He had played no conjuror's
+tricks with his promises to his people; Austrian though he was, he had
+really acted the part of an Italian prince, and there was nothing to show
+that he had not acted it sincerely. But a persistent bad luck attended his
+efforts. Though the ministers appointed by him included men as
+distinguished as the Marquis Gino Capponi, Baron Ricasoli and Prince
+Corsini, they failed in winning a strong popular support. Leghorn, where
+the population, unlike that of the rest of Tuscany, is by nature
+turbulent, broke into open revolution. In the last crisis, the Grand Duke
+entrusted the government to the extreme Liberals, Montanelli the
+professor, and Guerrazzi the novelist; both were honourable men, and
+Guerrazzi was thought by many to be a man of genius. The vigorous rhetoric
+of his <i>Assedio di Firenze</i> had warmed the patriotism of many young
+hearts. But, as statesmen, the only talent they showed was for upsetting
+any <i>r&eacute;gime</i> with which they were connected.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">
+[Pg.136]</a></span> The Grand Duke was asked to convoke a Constituent
+Assembly, following the example of Rome. If every part of Italy were to do
+the same, the constitution and form of government of the whole country
+could be settled by a convention of the various assemblies. The idea was
+worthy of respect because it pointed to unity; but in view of the existing
+situation, Tuscany's solitary adhesion would hardly have helped the
+nation, while it was accompanied by serious risks to the state. The Grand
+Duke seemed about to yield to the proposal, but, on receiving a strong
+protest from the Pope, he refused to do so on the ground that it would
+expose himself and his subjects to the terrors of ecclesiastical censure.
+He still remained in Tuscany, near Viareggio, till he was informed that a
+band of Leghornese had set out with the intention of capturing his person.
+Then he left for Gaeta on board the English ship <i>Bull Dog.</i> The
+republic had been already proclaimed at Florence, with Montanelli and
+Guerrazzi as its chief administrators. It succeeded in pleasing no one.
+Civil war was more than once at the threshhold of Florence, for the
+peasants rose in armed resistance to the new government. In less than two
+months the restoration of the Grand. Ducal authority was accomplished
+almost of itself. Unfortunately, the Grand Duke who was to come back was
+not the same man as he who went away. The air of Gaeta did its work.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">
+[Pg.137]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3>
+
+<h4>AT BAY</h4>
+
+<h5>1849</h5>
+
+<h5>Novara&mdash;Abdication of Charles Albert&mdash;Brescia
+crushed&mdash;French Intervention&mdash;The Fall of Rome&mdash;The Fall of
+Venice.</h5>
+
+<p><br />
+ In the spring of 1848, a date might be found when every Italian ruler
+except the Duke of Modena wore the appearance of a friend to freedom and
+independence. In the spring of 1849 no Italian prince preserved that
+appearance except the King of Sardinia. Many causes contributed to the
+elimination, but most of all the logic of events. It was a case of the
+survival of the fittest. What seemed a calamity was a step in advance.</p>
+
+<p>Early in March, the Marquis Pallavicini, prisoner of Spielberg, had a
+long interview with Charles Albert. They sat face to face talking over
+Italian matters, and the King said confidently that the army was now
+flourishing; if the die were cast anew, they would win. At parting he
+embraced the Lombard patriot with the words: 'Dear Pallavicini, how glad I
+am to have seen you again! You and I had always the same thought; the
+independence of Italy was the first dream of my youth; it is my dream
+still, it will be till I die.'</p>
+
+<p>Some characters grow small in misfortune, others grow great. The
+terrible scene at the Palazzo Greppi, the charge of treason, the <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg.138]</a></span>
+shouts of 'death,' had left only one trace on Charles Albert's mind: the
+burning desire to deliver his accusers.</p>
+
+<p>The armistice was denounced on the 12th of March, a truce of eight days
+being allowed before the recommencement of hostilities. There is such a
+thing in politics as necessary madness, and it may be doubted if the
+Sardinian war of 1849 was not this thing. The programme of <i>fare da
+s&egrave;</i> had now to be carried out in stern earnest. Sardinia stood
+alone, neither from south of the Apennines nor from north of the Alps
+could help be hoped for. France, which was meditating quite another sort
+of intervention, refused the loan even of a general. 'They were not going
+to offend Austria to please Piedmont,' said the French Cabinet. Worse than
+this, the army was not in the flourishing state of which the King had
+spoken. The miseries of the retreat, but infinitely more, the incidents of
+Milan, though wiped out by the King from his own memory, were vividly
+recollected by all ranks. Affection was not the feeling with which the
+Piedmontese soldiers regarded the 'fratelli Lombardi.' Did anyone beside
+the King believe that this army, which had lost faith in its cause, in its
+leaders and in itself, was going to beat Radetsky? The old Field-Marshal
+might well show the wildest joy when the denunciation of the armistice was
+communicated to him. And yet the higher expediency demanded that the
+sacrifice of Piedmont and of her King for Italy should be consummated.</p>
+
+<p>Rattazzi announced the coming campaign to the Chambers on the 14th of
+March; the news was well received; there was a general feeling that,
+whatever happened, the present situation could not be prolonged. With
+regard to the numbers they could put in the field, Austria and <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg.139]</a></span>
+Sardinia were evenly balanced, each having about 80,000 disposable men.
+The request for a French marshal having been refused, the chief command
+was given to Chrzanowski, a Pole, who did not know Italian, had not
+studied the theatre of the war, and was so little favoured by nature that,
+to the impressionable Italians, his appearance seemed ludicrous. This
+deplorable appointment was made to satisfy the outcry against Piedmontese
+generalship; as if it was not enough, the other Polish general, Ramorino,
+accused of treachery by the revolutionists in 1832, but now praised to the
+skies by the democratic party, was placed in command of the fifth or
+Lombard division.</p>
+
+<p>Though Radetsky openly gave the word 'To Turin!' Chrzanowski seems to
+have failed to realise that the Austrians intended to invade Piedmont. He
+ordered Ramorino, however, with his 8000 Lombards, to occupy the fork
+formed by the Po and the Ticino, so as to defend the bridge at Pavia, if,
+by chance, any fraction of the enemy tried to cross it. What Ramorino did
+was to place his division on the right bank of the Po, and to destroy the
+bridge of boats at Mezzana Corte <i>between</i> himself and the enemy. The
+Austrians crossed the Ticino in the night of the 20th of April, not with a
+fraction, but with a complete army. Ramorino was deprived of his command,
+and was afterwards tried by court-martial and shot. Whether his treason
+was intentional or involuntary, it is certain that, had he stemmed the
+Austrian advance even for half a day, the future disasters, if not
+averted, would not have come so rapidly, because the Piedmontese would
+have been forewarned. On the evening of the 21st, General D'Aspre, with
+15,000 men, took a portion of the Sardinian army unawares near Mortara,
+and, owing to the scattered distribution of the Piedmontese, who would
+have <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">
+[Pg.140]</a></span> outnumbered him had they been concentrated, he
+succeeded in forcing his way into Mortara by nightfall. The moral effect
+of this first reverse was bad, but Chrzanowski rashly decided staking the
+whole fate of the campaign in a field-day, for which purpose he gathered
+what troops he could collect at La Biccocca, a hill capped with a village
+about a mile and a half from Novara. Not more than 50,000 men were
+collected; some had already deserted, and 20,000 were doing nothing on the
+other side of the Po.</p>
+
+<p>Towards eleven o'clock D'Aspre arrived, and lost no time in beginning
+the attack. He sent post-haste to Radetsky, Appel and Thurn to bring all
+the reinforcements in their power as fast as possible. D'Aspre's daring
+was rewarded by his carrying La Biccocca at about mid-day, but the Duke of
+Genoa retook the position with the aid of the valorous 'Piemonte' brigade,
+and by two p.m. D'Aspre's brave soldiers were so thoroughly beaten, that
+nothing could have saved his division from destruction, as he afterwards
+admitted, had Chrzanowski joined in the pursuit instead of staying behind
+with more than half the army, in accordance with a preconceived plan of
+remaining on the defensive.</p>
+
+<p>At two o'clock on the 23rd of March, the news started on the wings of
+the wind, and, as great news will do, swiftly reached every part of the
+waiting country, that the Sardinians were getting the best of it, that the
+cause was saved. Men who are not very old remember this as the first
+strong sensation of their lives&mdash;this, and its sequel.</p>
+
+<p>Appel and Thurn, and Wratislaw and the old Field-Marshal were on the
+march, and by four o'clock they were pouring their fresh troops upon the
+Piedmontese, who had not known how to profit by their success. <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg.141]</a></span>
+Heroism such as few battlefields have seen, disorder such as has rarely
+disgraced a beaten army, were displayed side by side in Charles Albert's
+ranks. At eight in the evening, the whole Sardinian army retired into
+Novara; the Austrians bivouacked on La Biccocca. The Sardinians had lost
+4000 in dead and wounded; the losses of the victors were a thousand
+less.</p>
+
+<p>All the day long the King courted death, pressing forward where the
+balls fell like hail and the confusion was at its height, with the answer
+of despair to the devoted officers who sought to hold him back: 'Let me
+die, this is my last day.' But death shuns the seeker. Men fell close
+beside him, but no charitable ball struck his breast. In the evening he
+said to his generals: 'We have still 40,000 men, cannot we fall back on
+Alessandria and still make an honourable stand?' They told him that it
+could not be done. Radetsky was asked on what terms he would grant an
+armistice; he replied: 'The occupation of a large district in Piedmont,
+and the heir to the throne as a hostage.' Then Charles Albert knew what he
+must do. 'For eighteen years,' he said, 'I have made every effort for the
+good of the people; I grieve to see that my hopes have failed, not so much
+for myself as for the country. I have not found death on the field of
+battle as I ardently desired; perhaps my person is the only obstacle to
+obtaining juster terms. I abdicate the crown in favour of my son, Victor
+Emmanuel.' And turning to the Duke of Savoy he said: 'There is your
+King.'</p>
+
+<p>In the night he left Novara alone for Nice. As he passed through the
+Austrian lines, the sentinels were nearly firing upon his carriage;
+General Thurn, before whom he was brought, asked for some proof that <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg.142]</a></span> he
+was in fact the 'Count de Barge' in whose name his passport was made out.
+A Bersagliere prisoner who recognised the King, at a sign from him gave
+the required testimony, and he was allowed to pass. At Nice he was
+received by the governor, a son of Santorre di Santa Rosa, and to him he
+addressed the last words spoken by him on Italian ground: 'In whatever
+time, in whatever place, a regular government raises the flag of war with
+Austria, the Austrians will find me among their enemies as a simple
+soldier.' Then he continued his journey to Oporto.</p>
+
+<p>The principal side-issue of the campaign of 1849 was the revolution at
+Brescia. Had the original plan been carried out, which was to throw the
+Sardinian army into Lombardy (and it is doubtful whether, even after
+Radetsky's invasion of Piedmont, it would not have been better to adhere
+to it), a corresponding movement on the part of the inhabitants would have
+become of the greatest importance. To Brescia, which was the one Lombard
+town where the Piedmontese had been received in 1848 with real effusion,
+the Sardinian Minister of War despatched Count Giuseppe Martinengo
+Cesaresco with arms and ammunition, and orders to reassume the colonelcy
+of the National Guard which he held in the previous year, and to take the
+general control of the movement as far as Brescia was concerned.
+Martinengo succeeded in transporting the arms through the enemy's country
+from the Piedmontese frontier to Iseo, and thence to his native city. When
+he reached Brescia, he found that the Austrians had evacuated the town,
+though they still occupied the castle which frowns down upon it. This was
+the 23rd of March: Novara was fought and lost, Piedmont was powerless to
+come to the <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">
+[Pg.143]</a></span> assistance of the people she had commanded to rise.
+What was to be done? Plainly common sense suggested an honourable
+compromise with the Austrian commandant, by which he should be allowed to
+reoccupy the city on condition that no hair of the citizens' heads was
+touched. This is what Bergamo and the other towns did, nor are they to be
+blamed.</p>
+
+<p>Not so Brescia. Here, where love of liberty was an hereditary instinct
+from the long connection of Brescia with free Venice, where hatred of the
+stranger, planted by the ruthless soldiery of Gaston de Foix, had but gone
+on maturing through three centuries, where the historical title of
+'Valiant,' coming down from a remote antiquity, was still no fable; here,
+with a single mind, the inhabitants resolved upon as desperate a
+resistance as was ever offered by one little town to a great army.</p>
+
+<p>The Austrian bombardment was begun by the Irish General, Nugent-Lavall,
+who, dying in the midst of it, left all his fortune to the heroic city
+which he was attacking. The Austrians, flushed with their victory over
+Charles Albert's army of 80,000, were seized with rage at the sight of
+their power defied by a town of less than half that number of souls. But
+with that rage was mingled, even in the mind of Haynau, an admiration not
+to be repressed.</p>
+
+<p>Haynau who was sent to replace Nugent, was already known at Brescia,
+where he had been appointed military governor after the resumption of
+Austrian authority in 1848. In order to punish the 'persistent opposition
+manifested to the legitimate Imperial and Royal Government,' and as an
+example to the other towns, he had imposed on the Brescian householders
+and the landed proprietors of the province a <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg.144]</a></span> fine of half a million
+francs.</p>
+
+<p>He now returned, and what he did may be best read in his own report on
+the operations. 'It was then,' he wrote, 'that began the most murderous
+fight; a fight prolonged by the insurgents from barricade to barricade,
+from house to house, with extraordinary obstinacy. I should never have
+believed that so bad a cause could have been sustained with such
+perseverance. In spite of this desperate defence, and although the assault
+could only be effected in part, and with the help of cannons of heavy
+calibre, our brave troops with heroic courage, but at the cost of great
+losses, occupied a first line of houses; but as all my columns could not
+penetrate into the town at the same time, I ordered the suspension of the
+attack at nightfall, limiting myself to holding the ground conquered. In
+spite of that, the combat continued late into the night. On the 1st of
+April, in the earliest morning light, the tocsin was heard ringing with
+more fury than ever, and the insurgents reopened fire with an entirely new
+desperation. Considering the gravity of our losses, as well as the
+obstinacy and fury of the enemy, it was necessary to adopt a most rigorous
+measure. I ordered that no prisoners should be taken, but that every
+person seized with arms in his hand should be immediately put to death,
+and that the houses from which shots came should be burnt. It is thus that
+conflagrations, partly caused by the troops, partly by the bombardment,
+broke out in various parts of the town.'</p>
+
+<p>During the ten days' struggle, the citizens did not flinch for a
+moment. Count Martinengo was the guiding spirit of the defence, and
+scarcely left the most exposed of the barricades night or day. From the
+nobles to the poorest of the people, all did their duty. A youth named
+Tito Speri led and animated the populace. The horrors of the <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg.145]</a></span> repression
+make one think of the fall of Khartoum. Not even in Hungary, where he went
+from Brescia to continue his 'system,' did Haynau so blacken his own and
+his country's name as here. In a boys' school kept by a certain Guidi, the
+master's wife, his mother and ten of his pupils were slaughtered. A little
+hunchback tailor was carried to the barracks to be slowly burnt alive. But
+stray details do not give the faintest idea of the whole. And for all
+this, Haynau was in a far higher degree responsible than the actual
+executants of the vengeance to which he hounded on his ignorant soldiers,
+maddened with the lust of blood.</p>
+
+<p>Such was General Haynau, 'whose brave devotion to his master's service
+was the veteran's sole crime,' said the <i>Quarterly Review</i> (June
+1853), but who was judged otherwise by some in England. Wherefore was he
+soundly beaten by the brewers in the employment of Messrs Barclay &amp;
+Perkins; and the nice words of the <i>Quarterly</i> could not undo that
+beating, redress for which Lord Palmerston blandly advised the complainant
+to seek 'before the common tribunals.' He thought it best to neglect the
+advice, and to leave the country.</p>
+
+<p>Among the curious taxes levied at Brescia during the six months after
+its fall was one of &pound;500 for 'the expenses of the hangman.' Count
+Martinengo escaped after the Austrians were in possession of the town
+through the courageous assistance given to him by a few young men of the
+working class. Camozzi's band of Bergamasques, which started for the
+relief of the sister city, was driven back with loss.</p>
+
+<p>The end was come, but woe to the victors.</p>
+
+<p>Following the Italian flag to where it still floated, we pass from
+Brescia in the dust to Rome still inviolate, though soon to be assailed by
+the bearers of another tricolor. A few days after Novara, <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg.146]</a></span> the
+Triumvirate issued a proclamation, in which they said: 'The Republic in
+Rome has to prove to Italy and to Europe that our work is eminently
+religious, a work of education and of morality; that the accusations of
+intolerance, anarchy and violent upturning of things are false; that,
+thanks to the republican principle, united as one family of good men under
+the eye of God, and following the impulse of those who are first among us
+in genius and virtue, we march to the attainment of true order, law and
+power united.' Englishmen who were in Rome at the time attest how well the
+pledge was kept. Peace and true freedom prevailed under the republican
+banner as no man remembered them to have prevailed before in Rome. The
+bitter provocation of the quadruple attack was not followed by revengeful
+acts on the parts of the government against those who were politically and
+religiously associated with him at whose bidding that attack was made.
+Nothing like a national party was terrorised or kept under by fear of
+violence. 'That at such a time,' writes Henry Lushington, who was not
+favourable to Mazzini, 'not one lawless or evil deed was done would have
+been rather a miracle than a merit, but on much concurrent testimony it is
+clear that the efforts of the government to preserve order were incessant,
+and to a remarkable degree successful.' He adds that the streets were far
+safer for ordinary passengers under the Triumvirs than under the
+Papacy.</p>
+
+<p>Of great help in quieting the passions of the lower orders was the
+people's tribune, Ciceruacchio, who had not put on black cloth clothes, or
+asked for the ministry of war, or of fine arts, according to the usual
+wont of successful tribunes. Ciceruacchio had the sense of humour of the
+genuine Roman <i>popolano</i>, and it never came into his <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg.147]</a></span> head to
+make himself ridiculous. His influence had been first acquired by works of
+charity in the Tiber floods. Being a strong swimmer, he ventured where no
+one else would go, and had saved many lives. At first a wine-carrier, he
+made money by letting out conveyances and dealing in forage, but he gave
+away most of what he made. He opposed the whole force of his popularity to
+a war of classes. 'Viva chi c'ia e chi non c'ia quattrini!' <a name=
+"FNanchor4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4"><sup>[4]</sup></a> was his favourite
+cry. Once when a young poet read him a sonnet in his honour he stopped him
+at the line 'Thou art greater than all patricians,' saying that he would
+not have that published: 'I respect the nobility, and never dream of being
+higher than they. I am a poor man of the people, and such I will always
+remain.'</p>
+
+<p>When the siege came, Ciceruacchio was invaluable in providing the
+troops with forage, horses, and even victuals, which he procured by making
+private sorties on his own account during the night; his intimate
+knowledge of every path enabling him to go unobserved. He planned the
+earthworks, at which he laboured with his hands, and when fighting was
+going on, he shouldered a musket and ran with his two sons, one of them a
+mere child, to wherever the noise of guns directed him. No picture of Rome
+in 1849 would be complete without the burly figure and jocund face of
+Angelo Brunetti.</p>
+
+<p>The republican government found Rome with a mere shadow of an army; the
+efforts to create one had been too spasmodic to do anything but make
+confusion worse confounded by changes and experiments soon abandoned.
+Perseverance and intelligence now had a different result, and the little
+army, called into existence by the republic, proved admirable in
+discipline, various and fantastic as were its components.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">
+[Pg.148]</a></span> Towards the end of April, Garibaldi, who had been
+stationed at Rieti, was ordered to bring his legion to Rome. Those who
+witnessed the arrival saw one of the strangest scenes ever beheld in the
+Eternal City. The men wore pointed hats with black, waving plumes; thin
+and gaunt, their faces dark as copper, with naked legs, long beards and
+wild dark hair hanging down their backs, they looked like a company of
+Salvator Rosa's brigands. Beautiful as a statue amidst his extraordinary
+host rode the Chief, mounted on a white horse, which he sat like a
+centaur. 'He was quite a show, everyone stopping to look at him,' adds the
+sculptor Gibson, to whom these details are owed. 'Probably,' writes
+another Englishman, 'a human face so like a lion, and still retaining the
+humanity nearest the image of its Maker, was never seen.' Garibaldi wore
+the historic red shirt, and a small cap ornamented with gold.</p>
+
+<p>The origin of the red shirt might have remained in poetic uncertainty
+had it not been mentioned a few years ago in a volume of reminiscences
+published by an English naval officer. The men employed in the
+Salad&eacute;ros or great slaughtering and salting establishments for
+cattle in the Argentine provinces wore scarlet woollen shirts; owing to
+the blockade of Buenos Ayres, a merchant at Monte Video had a quantity of
+these on his hands, and as economy was a great object to the government,
+they bought the lot cheap for their Italian legion, little thinking that
+they were making the 'Camicia Rossa' immortal in song and story.</p>
+
+<p>The coming to Rome of the 1200 legionaries aroused private fears in the
+hearts of the more timid inhabitants, but Garibaldi knew how to keep his
+wild followers in hand, and gallant was the service they rendered to Roman
+liberty.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">
+[Pg.149]</a></span> That liberty was now on the eve of its peril. The
+preliminaries of the French intervention in Rome are tolerably well known;
+here it suffices to say that every new contribution to a more precise
+knowledge of the facts only serves to confirm the charge of dissimulation,
+or, to use a plainer and far better adapted word, of dishonesty, brought
+against the French government for their part in the matter. White, indeed,
+do Austria, Spain and Naples appear&mdash;the avowed upholders of priestly
+despotism&mdash;beside the ruler of republican France and his ministers,
+whose plan it was not to fight the Roman republic: fighting was far from
+their counsels, but to betray it. It is proved that the restoration of the
+Temporal Power was the aim of the expedition from the first; it is equally
+proved that the French sought to get inside Rome by distinct disclaimers
+of any such intention. 'We do not go to Italy,' they said, 'to impose with
+our arms a system of government, but to assure the rights of liberty, and
+to preserve a legitimate interference in the affairs of the peninsula.'
+They adopted a curious method of assuring the rights of liberty.</p>
+
+<p>The Pope would not have anything to do with the affair. 'If you say
+openly that you are going to give me back my Temporal Power, well and
+good; if not, I prefer the aid of Austria.' So he replied to the
+flattering tales whispered in his ear, while tales no less flattering were
+being whispered in the ear of Mazzini. He declined to give the French any
+guarantees as to his future mode of governing; it cannot be said,
+therefore, that they were under the delusion that they were restoring a
+constitutional sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>Efforts have been made to cast the responsibility of the Roman
+intervention entirely on Louis Napoleon. Even Mazzini favoured that view,
+but it is impossible to separate the President of the Republic <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg.150]</a></span> from
+the 325 deputies who voted the supplies for the expedition on the 2nd of
+April. Does anyone pretend that they were hoodwinked any more than Ledru
+Rollin was hoodwinked, or the minority, which, roused by his vigorous
+speech, voted against the grant? Louis Napoleon was far less Papal in his
+sentiments than were most of the assenting deputies; his own opinion was
+more truly represented by the letter which, as a private citizen, he wrote
+to the 'Constitutionnel' in December 1848 than by his subsequent course as
+President. In this letter he declared that a military demonstration would
+be perilous even to the interests which it was intended to safeguard. He
+had but one fixed purpose: to please France, so as to get himself made
+Emperor. France must be held answerable for the means taken to please
+her.</p>
+
+<p>General Oudinot landed at Civitavecchia on the 25th of April, his
+friendly assurances having persuaded the local authorities to oppose no
+resistance, an unfortunate error, but the last. The correct judgment
+formed by the Roman Government of the designs of the invaders was
+considerably assisted by a French officer, Colonel Leblanc, who was sent
+to Rome by Oudinot to come to an agreement with Mazzini for the amicable
+reception of the French, and who, losing his temper, revealed more than he
+was meant to reveal. His last words, 'Les Italiens ne se battent pas,'
+unquestionably expressed the belief of the whole French force, from the
+general-in-chief to the youngest drummer. They were soon going to have a
+chance of testing its accuracy.</p>
+
+<p>The Roman Assembly passed a vote that 'force should be repelled by
+force.' Well-warned, therefore, but with the proverbial <i>coeur
+l&eacute;ger</i>, Oudinot advanced on Rome with 8000 men early on the 30th
+of April. At <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">
+[Pg.151]</a></span> eleven o'clock the two columns came in sight of St
+Peter's, and soon after, the first which moved towards Porta Angelica was
+attacked by Colonel Masi. Garibaldi attacked the second column a mile out
+of Porta San Pancrazio. At the first moment the superior numbers of the
+French told, and the Italians fell back on Villa Pamphilli, but Colonel
+Galetti arrived with reinforcements, and before long Garibaldi drove the
+French from the Pamphilli Gardens and had them in full retreat along the
+Civitavecchia road. Oudinot was beaten, Rome was victorious. 'This does
+not surprise us Romans; but it will astonish Paris!' ran a manifesto of
+the hour; the words are a little childish, but men are apt to be childish
+when they are deeply moved. And as to the astonishment of Paris, all the
+words in the world would fail to paint its proportions. Paris was indeed
+astonished.</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi had not the chief command of the Roman army, or he would have
+done more; there was nothing to prevent the Italians from driving Oudinot
+into the sea. The Triumvirate, when appealed to directly by Garibaldi,
+refused their sanction, either fearing to leave the capital exposed to the
+Neapolitans who were advancing, or (and this seems to have been the real
+reason) still hoping that France would repudiate Oudinot and come to
+terms. Garibaldi was right on this occasion, and Mazzini was wrong. When
+you are at war, nothing is so ruinous as to be afraid of damaging the
+enemy.</p>
+
+<p>The French ministers, bombarded with reproaches by friends and foes,
+and most uneasy lest their troops in Italy should be destroyed before they
+could send reinforcements, did disown Oudinot's march on Rome, and
+Ferdinand de Lesseps was despatched nominally 'to arrange matters in a
+pacific sense,' but actually to gain time.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">
+[Pg.152]</a></span> In a sitting in the French Assembly, a member of the
+opposition said to the President of the Council: 'You are going to
+reinstate the Pope!' 'No, no,' ejaculated Odilon Barrot. 'You are going to
+do the same as Austria,' cried Lamorici&egrave;re. 'We should be culpable
+if we did,' was the answer. Lesseps' instructions, very vague, for the
+rest, were given to him in this spirit. That Lesseps acted in good faith
+has been generally admitted, and was always believed by Mazzini. It was to
+the interest of the French Government to choose a tool who did not see how
+far he was a tool. But if Lesseps had no suspicions, if he had not strong
+suspicions of the real object of his employers, then he was already at
+this date a man singularly easy to deceive.</p>
+
+<p>The French envoy was commissioned to treat, not with the Triumvirate,
+but with the Roman Assembly: a piece of insolence which the former would
+have done well to reply to by sending him about his business. Lesseps,
+however, thought that he would gain by speaking in person to Mazzini, and
+in order that the interview should remain a secret, he decided to go to
+him alone in the dead of the night and unannounced. Having made the
+needful inquiries, he proceeded to the palace of the Consulta, the doors
+of which seem to have been left open all night; there were guards, but
+they were asleep, and the French diplomatist traversed the long suite of
+splendid apartments, opening one into the other without corridors. At last
+he reached the simply-furnished room where, upon an iron bedstead, Mazzini
+slept. Lesseps watched him sleeping, fascinated by the beauty of his
+magnificent head as it lay in repose. He still looked very young, though
+there was hardly a state in Europe where he was not proscribed. When
+Lesseps had gazed his full, he called 'Mazzini, Mazzini!' The Triumvir
+awoke, sat up and <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">
+[Pg.153]</a></span> asked if he had come to assassinate him? Lesseps told
+him his name, and a long conversation followed. One thing, at least, that
+Lesseps said in this interview was strictly true, namely, that Mazzini
+must not count on the French republican soldiers objecting to fire on
+republicans: 'The French soldier would burn down the cottage of his mother
+if ordered by his superiors to do so.' The discipline of a great army is
+proof against politics.</p>
+
+<p>Lesseps was himself in much fear of being assassinated. He believed
+that his footsteps were dogged by three individuals, one of whom was an
+ex-French convict. He complained to Mazzini, who said that he could do
+nothing, which probably shows that he gave no credence to the story. Then
+Lesseps had recourse to Ciceruacchio, 'a man of the people who had great
+influence on the population, and who had organised the revolution.' The
+tribune seems to have quieted his fears and guaranteed his safety.</p>
+
+<p>The French envoy could not help being struck by the tender care taken
+of his wounded fellow-countrymen by the Princess Belgiojoso and other
+noble ladies who attended the hospitals. Of prisoners who were not wounded
+there were none, as they had been sent back scot-free to their general a
+few days after the 30th of April. He was struck also by the firm resolve
+of all classes not to restore the Pope. Some liked the existing
+government, some did not, but all prayed heaven to be henceforth delivered
+from the rule of an infallible sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever was the measure of confidence which Mazzini felt in Lesseps,
+he was firm as iron on the main point&mdash;the non-admittance of the
+'friendly' French troops into Rome. Lesseps dragged on the negotiations
+till his government had finished the preparations for <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg.154]</a></span> sending to
+Rome a force which should not be much less than twice in number the whole
+military resources of the republic. Then they recalled him, and, in order
+not to be bound by anything that he might have said, they set about the
+rumour that he was mad. Indignant at such treatment, Lesseps left the
+diplomatic service, and turned his attention to engineering. This was the
+origin of the Suez Canal.</p>
+
+<p>While all these things were going on, the Austrians moved from Ferrara
+and Modena towards Bologna, the Spaniards landed at Fiumicino, and 16,000
+Neapolitans, commanded by Ferdinand II., encamped near Albano. Garibaldi
+was attacked on the 9th of May by the Neapolitan vanguard, which he
+obliged to fall back. On the 18th, he completely defeated King Ferdinand's
+army near Velletri, and the King ordered a general retreat into his own
+dominions, which was accomplished in haste and confusion.</p>
+
+<p>By the end of May, Oudinot's forces were increased to over 35,000 men.
+The defenders of Rome, under the chief command of General Rosselli, were
+about 20,000, of whom half were volunteers. Colonel Marnara's Lombard
+Legion of Bersaglieri was, in smartness of appearance and perfect
+discipline, equal to any regular troops; in its ranks were the sons of the
+best and richest Lombard families, such as Dandolo, Morosini and many
+others. Medici's legion was also composed of educated and well-to-do young
+men. The Bolognese, under the Marquis Melara, had the impetuous daring of
+their race, and Count Angelo Masina did wonders with his forty lancers.
+Wherever Garibaldi was&mdash;it was always in the hottest
+places&mdash;there were to be seen, at no great distance, the patriot
+monk, Ugo Bassi, riding upon a fiery horse, and the young poet of Free
+Italy, Goffredo Mameli, with his slight, boyish <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg.155]</a></span> figure, and his fair
+hair floating in the breeze. Nor must we omit from the list of Garibaldi's
+bodyguard Forbes, the Englishman, and Anghiar, the devoted negro, who
+followed his master like a dog.</p>
+
+<p>Oudinot formally disavowed all Lesseps' proceedings from first to last,
+and announced, on the 1st of June, that he had orders to take Rome as soon
+as possible. Out of regard, however, for the French residents, he would
+not begin the attack 'till the morning of Monday the 4th.' Now, though no
+one knew it but the French general, that Monday morning began with
+Sunday's dawn, when the French attacked Melara's sleeping battalion at the
+Roman outposts. It was easy for the French to drive back these 300 men,
+and to occupy the Villa Corsini ('Villa,' in the Roman sense, means a
+garden) and the position dominating Porta San Pancrazio; but Galetti came
+up and retook them all, to lose them again by nine o'clock. Then
+Garibaldi, who was ill, hurried to the scene from his sick-bed, and thrice
+that day he retook and thrice he lost the contested positions&mdash;a
+brief statement, which represents prodigies of valour, and the oblation of
+as noble blood as ever watered the earth of Rome. Melara, Masina, Daverio,
+Dandolo, Mameli: every schoolboy would know these names if they belonged
+to ancient, not to modern, history. Bright careers, full of promise, cut
+short; lives renounced, not only voluntarily, but with joy, and to what
+end? Not for interest or fame&mdash;not even in the hope of winning; but
+that, erect and crowned with the roses of martyrdom, Rome might send her
+dying salutation to the world.</p>
+
+<p>At sunset the French had established their possession of all the points
+outside the Gate of San Pancrazio, except the Vascello, a villa which had
+been seized from their very teeth by Medici, who held it against all
+comers. Monte Mario was also in their hands.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">
+[Pg.156]</a></span> Mazzini, whose judgment was obscured by his
+attribution of the Italian policy of France to Louis Napoleon alone, hoped
+for a revolution in Paris, but Ledru Rollin's attempt at agitation
+completely failed, and the country applauded its government now that the
+mask was thrown away. The reasons for revolutions in Paris have always
+been the same; they have to do with something else than the garrotting of
+sister-republics.</p>
+
+<p>Oudinot tightened his cordon; on the 12th of June he invited the city
+to capitulate. The answer was a refusal; so, with the aid of his excellent
+artillery, he crept on, his passage contested at each step, but not
+arrested, till, on the 27th, the Villa Savorelli, Garibaldi's
+headquarters, fell into the hands of the enemy, and, on the night of the
+29th, the French were within the city walls. St Peter's day is the great
+feast of Rome, and this time, as usual, the cupola of St Peter's was
+illuminated, the Italian flag flying from the highest point. The
+thunderstorm, which proverbially accompanies the feast, raged during the
+night; the French shells flew in all directions; the fight raged fiercer
+than the storm; Medici held out among the crumbling walls of the Vascello,
+which had been bombarded for a week; the heroic Manara fell fighting at
+Villa Spada; Garibaldi, descending into the <i>m&ecirc;l&eacute;e</i>,
+dealt blows right and left: he seemed possessed by some supernatural
+power. Those around him say that it is impossible that he would have much
+longer escaped death, but suddenly a message came summoning him to the
+Assembly&mdash;it saved his life. When he appeared at the door of the
+Chamber, the deputies rose and burst into wild applause. He seemed
+puzzled, but, looking down upon himself, he read the explanation; he was
+covered with blood, his clothes were honeycombed by balls and <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg.157]</a></span> bayonet
+thrusts, his sabre was so bent with striking that it would not go more
+than half into its sheath.</p>
+
+<p>What the Assembly wanted to know was whether the defence could be
+prolonged; Garibaldi had only to say that it could not. They voted,
+therefore, the following decree: 'In the name of God and of the People:
+the Roman Constituent Assembly discontinues a defence which has become
+impossible, and remains at its post.' At its post it remained till the
+French soldiers invaded the Capitol, where it sat, when, yielding to brute
+force, the deputies dispersed.</p>
+
+<p>Mazzini, who would have resisted still, when all resistance was
+impossible, wandered openly about the city like a man in a dream. He felt
+as though he were looking on at the funeral of his best-beloved. How it
+was that he was not killed or arrested is a mystery. At the end of a week
+his friends induced him to leave Rome with an English passport.</p>
+
+<p>On the 2nd of July, before the French made their official entry,
+Garibaldi called his soldiers together in the square of the Vatican, and
+told them that he was going to seek some field where the foreigner could
+still be fought. Who would might follow him; 'I cannot offer you honours
+or pay; I offer you hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles, death.'</p>
+
+<p>Three thousand followed him. Beside her husband rode Anita; not even
+for the sake of the child soon to come would she stay behind in safety.
+Ugo Bassi was there; Anghiar was dead, Mameli was dying in a hospital, but
+there was 'the partisan or brigand Forbes,' as he was described in a
+letter of the Austrian general D'Aspre to the French general Oudinot, with
+a good handful of Garibaldi's best surviving officers. Ciceruacchio came
+with his two sons, and offered himself as <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg.158]</a></span> guide. No one knew what the
+plan was, or if there was one. Like knights of old in search of
+adventures, they set out in search of their country's foes. It was the
+last desperate venture of men who did not know how to yield.</p>
+
+<p>After wandering hither and thither, and suffering severe hardships, the
+column reached the republic of San Marino. The brave hospitality of that
+Rock of freedom prevented Garibaldi from falling into the clutches of the
+Austrians, who surrounded the republic. He treated with the Regent for the
+immunity of his followers, who had laid down their arms; and, in the
+night, he himself escaped with Anita, Ugo Bassi, Forbes, Ciceruacchio and
+a few others. They hoped to take their swords to Venice, but a storm
+arose, and the boats on which they embarked were driven out of their
+course. Some of them were stranded on the shore which bounds the
+pine-forest of Ravenna, and here, hope being indeed gone, the Chief
+separated from his companions. Of these, Ugo Bassi, and an officer named
+Livraghi, were soon captured by the Austrians, who conveyed them to
+Bologna, where they were shot. Ciceruacchio and his sons were taken in
+another place, and shot as soon as taken. The boat which contained Colonel
+Forbes was caught at sea by an Austrian cruiser: he was kept in Austrian
+prisons for two months, and was constantly reminded that he would be
+either shot or hung; but the English Government succeeded in getting him
+liberated, and he lived to take part in more fortunate fights under
+Garibaldi's standard.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Anita was dying in a peasant's cottage, to which Garibaldi
+carried her when the strong will and dauntless heart could no longer stand
+in place of the strength that was finished. This was the 4th of August.
+Scarcely had she breathed her last breath when Garibaldi, <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg.159]</a></span> broken down
+with grief as he was, had to fly from the spot. The Austrians were hunting
+for him in all directions. All the Roman fugitives were proclaimed
+outlaws, and the population was forbidden to give them even bread or
+water. Nevertheless&mdash;aided in secret by peasants, priests and all
+whose help he was obliged to seek&mdash;Garibaldi made good his flight
+from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean, the whole route being overrun by
+Austrians. When once the western coast was reached, he was able, partly by
+sea and partly by land, to reach the Piedmontese territory, where his life
+was safe. Not even there, however, could he rest; he was told, politely
+but firmly, that his presence was embarrassing, and for the second time he
+left Europe&mdash;first for Tunis and then for the United States.</p>
+
+<p>While the French besieged Rome, the Austrians had not been idle. They
+took Bologna in May, after eight days' resistance; and in June, after
+twenty days' attack by sea and land, Ancona fell into their hands. In
+these towns they pursued means of 'pacification' resembling those employed
+at Brescia. All who possessed what by a fiction could be called arms were
+summarily slaughtered. At Ancona, a woman of bad character hid a rusty
+nail in the bed of her husband, whom she wished to get rid of; she then
+denounced him to the military tribunal, and two hours later an English
+family, whose house was near the barracks, heard the ring of the volley of
+musketry which despatched him. Austria had also occupied the Grand Duchy
+of Tuscany; and when, in July, Leopold II. returned to his state, which
+had restored him by general consent and without any foreign intervention,
+he entered Florence between two files of Austrian soldiery, in violation
+of the article of the Statute to which he had sworn, which stipulated that
+no foreign <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">
+[Pg.160]</a></span> occupation should be invited or tolerated. The Grand
+Duke wrote to the Emperor of Austria, from Gaeta, humbly begging the loan
+of his arms. Francis Joseph replied with supreme contempt, that it would
+have been a better thing if Leopold had never forgotten to whose family he
+belonged, but he granted the prayer. Such was the way in which the House
+of Hapsburg-Lorraine, that had done much in Tuscany to win respect if not
+love, destroyed all its rights to the goodwill of the Tuscan people, and
+removed what might have been a serious obstacle to Italian unity.</p>
+
+<p>Austria, unable alone to cope with Hungary, committed the immeasurable
+blunder of calling in the 200,000 Russians who made conquest certain, but
+the price of whose aid she may still have to pay. Venice, and Venice only,
+continued to defy her power. Since Novara, the first result of which was
+the withdrawal of the Sardinian Commissioners, who had taken over the
+government after the Fusion, Venice had been ruled by Manin on the terms
+which he himself proposed: 'Are you ready,' he asked the Venetian
+Assembly, 'to invest the Government with unlimited powers in order to
+direct the defence and maintain order?' He warned them that he should be
+obliged to impose upon them enormous sacrifices, but they replied by
+voting the order of the day: 'Venice resists the Austrians at all costs;
+to this end the President Manin is invested with plenary powers.' All the
+deputies then raised their right hand, and swore to defend the city to the
+last extremity. They kept their word.</p>
+
+<p>It is hard to say which was the most admirable: Manin's fidelity to his
+trust, or the people's fidelity to him. To keep up the spirits, to
+maintain the decorum of a besieged city even for a few weeks or a few
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg.161]</a></span>
+months, is a task not without difficulty; but when the months run into a
+second year, when the real pinch of privations has been felt by everyone,
+not as a sudden twinge, but as a long-drawn-out pain, when the bare
+necessities of life fail, and a horrible disease, cholera, enters as
+auxiliary under the enemy's black-and-yellow, death-and-pestilence flag;
+then, indeed, the task becomes one which only a born leader of men could
+perform.</p>
+
+<p>The financial administration of the republic was a model of order and
+economy. Generous voluntary assistance was afforded by all classes, from
+the wealthy patrician and the Jewish merchant to the poorest gondolier.
+Mazzini once said bitterly that it was easier to get his countrymen to
+give their blood than their money; here they gave both. The capable manner
+in which Manin conducted the foreign policy of the republic is also a
+point that deserves mention, as it won the esteem even of statesmen of the
+old school, though it was powerless to obtain their help.</p>
+
+<p>The time was gone when France was disposed to do anything for Venice;
+no one except the Archbishop of Paris, who was afterwards to die by the
+hand of an assassin, said a word for her.</p>
+
+<p>In the past year, Lord Palmerston, though he tried to localise the war,
+and to prevent the co-operation of the south, abounded in good advice to
+Austria. He repeated till he was tired of repeating, that she would do
+well to retire from her Italian possessions of her own accord. If the
+French did not come now, he said, they would come some day, and then her
+friends and allies would give her scanty support. As for Lombardy, it was
+notorious that a considerable Austrian party was in favour of giving it
+up, including the Archduke Ranieri, who was strongly attached to Italy,
+which was the land of his birth. As for <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg.162]</a></span> Venice, Austria had against
+her both the principle of nationality, now the rallying cry of Germany,
+and the principle of ancient prescription which could be energetically
+invoked against her by a state to which her title went back no farther
+than the transfer effected by Buonaparte in the treaty of Campo Formio.
+These were his arguments; but he was convinced, by this time, that
+arguments unsupported by big battalions might as well be bestowed on the
+winds as on the Cabinet of Vienna. From the moment that Radetsky recovered
+Lombardy for his master, the Italian policy of the Austrian Government was
+entirely inspired by him, and he was determined that while he lived, what
+Austria had got she should keep. It was thus that, in reply to Manin's
+appeal to Lord Palmerston, he only received the cold comfort of the
+recommendation that Venice should come to terms with her enemy.</p>
+
+<p>The Venetian army of 20,000 men was reduced by casualties and sickness
+to 18,000 or less. It always did its duty. The defence of Fort Malghera,
+the great fort which commanded the road to Padua and the bridge of the
+Venice railway, would have done credit to the most experienced troops in
+the world. The garrison numbered 2500; the besiegers, under Haynau,
+30,000. Radetsky, with three archdukes, came to see the siege, but, tired
+with waiting, they went away before it was ended. The bombardment began on
+the 4th of May; in the three days and nights ending with the 25th over
+60,000 projectiles fell on the fort. During the night of the 25th the
+Commandant, Ulloa, by order of Government, quietly evacuated the place,
+and withdrew his troops; only the next morning the Austrians found out
+that Malghera was abandoned, and proceeded to take possession of the heap
+of ruins, which was all <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_163" id=
+"Page_163">[Pg.163]</a></span> that remained.</p>
+
+<p>After the beginning of July, an incessant bombardment was directed
+against the city itself. Women and children lived in the cellars; fever
+stalked through the place, but the war feeling was as strong as
+ever&mdash;nay, stronger. Moreover, the provisions became daily scarcer,
+the day came when hunger was already acutely felt, when the time might be
+reckoned by hours before the famished defenders must let drop their
+weapons, and Venice, her works of art and her population, must fall a prey
+to the savage vengeance of the Austrians, who would enter by force and
+without conditions.</p>
+
+<p>And this is what Manin prevented. The cry was still for resistance; for
+the first time bitter words were spoken against the man who had served his
+country so well. But he, who had never sacrificed one iota to popularity,
+did not swerve. His great influence prevailed. The capitulation was
+arranged on the 22nd, and signed on the 24th of July. Manin had calculated
+correctly; on that day there was literally nothing left to eat in
+Venice.</p>
+
+<p>In the last sad hours that Manin spent in Venice all the love of his
+people, clouded for an instant, burst forth anew. Not, indeed, in shouts
+and acclamations, but in tears and sobs; 'Our poor father, how much he has
+suffered!' they were heard saying. He embarked on a French vessel bound
+for Marseilles, poor, worn out and exiled for ever from the city which he
+had guided for eighteen months; if, indeed, no spark of his spirit
+animated the dust which it was the first care of liberated Venice to
+welcome home. The Austrians broke up his doorstep on which, according to a
+Venetian custom, his name was engraved. Another martyr, Ugo Bassi, had
+kissed the stone, exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">
+[Pg.164]</a></span> 'Next to God and Italy&mdash;before the
+Pope&mdash;Manin!' The people gathered up the broken fragments and kept
+them as relics, even as in their hearts they kept his memory, till the
+arrival of that day of redemption which, in the darkest hour, he
+foretold.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg.165]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_IX"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3>
+
+<h4>'J'ATTENDS MON ASTRE'</h4>
+
+<h5>1849-1850</h5>
+
+<h5>The House of Savoy&mdash;A King who keeps his Word&mdash;Sufferings of
+the Lombards&mdash;Charles Albert's Death.</h5>
+
+<p>Circumstances more gloomy than those under which Victor Emmanuel II.
+ascended the throne of his ancestors it would be hard to imagine.</p>
+
+<p>An army twice beaten, a bankrupt exchequer, a triumphant invader
+waiting to dictate terms; this was but the beginning of the inventory of
+the royal inheritance. The internal condition of the kingdom, even apart
+from the financial ruin which had succeeded to the handsome surplus of two
+years before, was full of embarrassments of the gravest kind. There was a
+party representing the darkest-dyed clericalism and reaction whose
+machinations had not been absent in the disaster of Novara. Who was it
+that disseminated among the troops engaged in the battle broadsides
+printed with the words: 'Soldiers, for whom do you think you are fighting?
+The King is betrayed; at Turin they have proclaimed the republic'? There
+were other broadsides in which Austria was called the supporter of thrones
+and altars. The dreadful indiscipline witnessed towards the end of, and
+after the conflict was due more to the demoralising doctrines that had
+been introduced into the army than to the insubordination of panic. There
+was another party <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">
+[Pg.166]</a></span> strengthened by the recent misfortunes and recruited
+by exiles from all parts of Italy, which was democratic to the verge of
+republicanism in Piedmont and over that verge at Genoa, where a revolution
+broke out before the new King's reign was a week old. Constitutional
+government stood between the fires of these two parties, both fanned by
+Austrian bellows, the first openly, the second in secret.</p>
+
+<p>Victor Emmanuel was not popular. The indifference to danger which he
+had shown conspicuously during the war would have awakened enthusiasm in
+most countries, but in Piedmont it was so thoroughly taken for granted
+that the Princes of the House of Savoy did not know fear, that it was
+looked on as an ordinary fact. The Austrian origin of the Duchess of Savoy
+formed a peg on which to hang unfriendly theories. It is impossible not to
+compassionate the poor young wife who now found herself Queen of a people
+which hated her race, after having lived since her marriage the most
+dreary of lives at the dismallest court in Europe. At first, as a bride,
+she seemed to have a desire to break through the frozen etiquette which
+surrounded her; it is told how she once begged and prayed her husband to
+take her for a walk under the Porticoes of Turin, which she had looked at
+only from the outside. The young couple enjoyed their airing, but when it
+reached Charles Albert's ears, he ordered his son to be immediately placed
+under military arrest. The chilling formalism which invaded even the
+private life of these royal personages, shutting the door to 'good
+comradeship' even between husband and wife, may have had much to do with
+driving Victor Emmanuel from the side of the Princess, whom, nevertheless,
+he loved and venerated, to unworthy pleasures, the habit of indulgence in
+which is far easier to contract than to cure.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image3.jpg" alt="VICTOR IMMANUEL" /><br />
+ <span class="caption">VICTOR IMMANUEL</span></div>
+
+<br />
+ <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">
+[Pg.167]</a></span> The King's address at this time was not conciliatory,
+and, indeed, it never lost a bluntness which later harmonised well enough
+with the reputation he gained for soldierly integrity, but which then
+passed for aristocratic haughtiness. His personal friends were said to
+belong to the aristocratic or even the reactionary party. In the
+perplexities which encompassed him, he could not reckon on the
+encouragement of any consensus of good opinion or confidence. He was
+simply an unknown man, against whom there was a good deal of
+prejudice.<br />
+<br />
+<p>Radetsky did not refuse to treat with Charles Albert, as has been
+sometimes said, but the intolerably onerous terms first proposed by him
+showed that he wished to force the abdication which Charles Albert had
+always contemplated in the event of new reverses of fortune. Radetsky was
+favourably disposed to the young Duke of Savoy, as far as his personal
+feeling was concerned, a fact which was made out in certain quarters to be
+almost a crime to be marked to the account of Victor Emmanuel. The
+Field-Marshal did not forget that he was the son-in-law of the Austrian
+Archduke Ranieri; it is probable, if not proved, that he expected to find
+him pliable; but Radetsky, besides being a politician of the purest
+blood-and-iron type, was an old soldier with not a bad heart, and some of
+his sympathy is to be ascribed to a veteran's natural admiration for a
+daring young officer.</p>
+
+<p>On the 24th of March, Victor Emmanuel, with the manliness that was born
+with him, decided to go and treat himself for the conditions of the
+armistice. It was the first act of his reign, and it was an act of
+abnegation; but of how much less humiliation than that performed by his
+father twenty-eight years before, when almost on the same day, by <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg.168]</a></span> order
+of King Charles Felix, the Prince of Carignano betook himself to the
+Austrian camp at Novara, to be greeted with the derisive shout of: 'Behold
+the King of Italy!' Little did Radetsky think that the words, addressed
+then in scorn to the father, might to-day have been addressed in truthful
+anticipation to the son.</p>
+
+<p>The Field-Marshal took good care, however, that nothing but respect
+should be paid to his visitor, whom he received half-way, surrounded by
+his superb staff, all mounted on fine horses and clad in splendid
+accoutrements. As soon as the King saw him coming, he sprang from his
+saddle, and Radetsky would have done the same had not he required, owing
+to his great age, the aid of two officers to help him to the ground. After
+he had laboriously dismounted, he made a military salute, and then
+embraced Victor Emmanuel with the greatest cordiality. The King was
+accompanied by very few officers, but the presence of one of these was
+significant, namely, of the Lombard Count Vimercati, whom he particularly
+pointed out to Radetsky.</p>
+
+<p>While observing the most courteous forms, the Field-Marshal was not
+long in coming to the point. The negotiations would be greatly
+facilitated, nay, more, instead of beginning his reign with a large slice
+of territory occupied by a foreign enemy for an indefinite period, the
+King might open it with an actual enlargement of his frontier, if he would
+only give the easy assurance of ruling on the good old system, and of
+re-hoisting the blue banner of Piedmont instead of the revolutionary
+tricolor. The moment was opportune; Victor Emmanuel had not yet sworn to
+maintain the Constitution. But he replied, without hesitation, that though
+he was ready, if needs be, to accept the full penalties of defeat, he was
+determined to observe the <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_169" id=
+"Page_169">[Pg.169]</a></span> engagements entered into by his father
+towards the people over whom he was called to reign.</p>
+
+<p>One person had already received from his lips the same declaration,
+with another of wider meaning. During the previous night, speaking to the
+Lombard officer above mentioned, the King said: 'I shall preserve intact
+the institutions given by my father; I shall uphold the tricolor flag,
+symbol of Italian nationality, which is vanquished to-day, but which one
+day will triumph. This triumph will be, henceforth, the aim of all my
+efforts.' In 1874, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Novara, Count
+Vimercati wrote to the King of Italy from Paris to remind him of the words
+he had then spoken.</p>
+
+<p>When the King started for his capital, Radetsky offered to draw up his
+troops as a guard of honour over the whole extent of occupied territory
+between Novara and Turin. The offer was declined, and Victor Emmanuel took
+a circuitous route to avoid observation. His journey was marked throughout
+by a complete absence of state. Before he arrived, a trusty hand consigned
+to him a note written in haste and in much anguish by the Queen, in which
+she warned him to enter by night, as he was likely to have a very bad
+reception. On the 27th of March he reviewed the National Guard in the
+Piazza Castello on the occasion of its taking the oath of allegiance. The
+ceremony was attended by Queen Maria Adelaide in a carriage with her two
+little boys, the Princes Umberto and Amedeo. There was no hostile
+demonstration, but there was a most general and icy coldness.</p>
+
+<p>That evening, the terms of the armistice were communicated to the
+Chamber. As was natural, they evoked the wildest indignation, a part of
+which fell undeservedly on the King. Twenty thousand Austrians were <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg.170]</a></span> to
+occupy the district between the Po, Sesia and Ticino and half the citadel
+of Alessandria. The excitement rose to its height when it was announced
+that the Sardinian Fleet must be recalled from Venetian waters, depriving
+that struggling city of the last visible sign of support from without. The
+Chamber sent a deputation to the King, who succeeded in persuading its
+members that, hard though the terms were, there was no avoiding their
+acceptance, and that the original stipulations were harder still.</p>
+
+<p>On the 29th, Victor Emmanuel took the oath to observe the Statute, to
+exercise the royal authority only in virtue of the laws, to cause justice
+to be fairly and fearlessly administered, and to conduct himself in all
+things with the sole view to the interest, honour and prosperity of the
+nation.</p>
+
+<p>A trifling accident occurred which might have been far from trifling;
+one of the ornaments of the ceiling of the Palazzo Madama, where the
+Parliament assembled, fell close to the King. As it was of great weight,
+it would have killed anyone on whom it had fallen. 'Never mind that,' said
+the King in Piedmontese dialect to Colonel Menabrea, who was near him, 'it
+will not be the last!'</p>
+
+<p>The ministry which held office under the late King resigned; a new one
+was formed, in which General Delaunay was President of the Council, and
+Gioberti minister without a portfolio. The King was advised to dissolve
+the Chamber, which had been elected as a war parliament, and was
+ill-constituted to perform the work now required. General La Marmora had
+orders to quell the insurrection at Genoa, the motive of which was not
+nominally a change of government, but the continuance of the war at all
+costs. Its deeper cause lay in the old <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg.171]</a></span> irreconcilability of
+republican Genoa with her Piedmontese masters, breaking out now afresh
+under the strain of patriotic disappointment. Like the 15th of May at
+Naples, the Genoese revolution was a folly which can hardly be otherwise
+described than as a crime; it happened, however, that in Piedmont there
+was a King who had not the slightest intention of turning it into an
+excuse for a royal hark-back. Austria and France offered Victor Emmanuel
+their arms to put down the revolution, but, declining the not exactly
+disinterested attention, he made a wise choice in La Marmora, who
+accomplished the ungrateful task with expedition and humanity. An amnesty
+was granted to all but a very few participators in the revolt. On the
+brief black list when it was submitted to the King was the name of the
+Marquis Lorenzo Pareto, who at one time had held the Foreign Office under
+Charles Albert. As Colonel of the Genoese National Guard, his
+responsibility in joining the insurrection was judged to be particularly
+heavy; but the King refused to confirm his exclusion from the amnesty. 'I
+would not have it said,' he objected, 'that I was harsh to one of my
+father's old ministers.'</p>
+
+<p>The conception of Victor Emmanuel as a bluff, easy-going monarch is
+mistaken. Very few princes have had a keener sense of the royal dignity,
+or a more deeply-rooted family pride, or, when he thought fit to resort to
+it, a more decisive method of preventing people from taking liberties with
+him. But he knew that, in nearly all cases, pardon is the best of a king's
+prerogatives.</p>
+
+<p>An instance to the point happened when he came to the throne. Two
+officers of the royal household had caused him annoyance while he was Duke
+of Savoy by telling tales of his unconventionality to his
+easily-scandalised father. To them, perhaps, he owed the condign <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg.172]</a></span>
+punishment he had undergone for the famous promenade under the Porticoes.
+At anyrate, they had procured for the Duke many bad quarters-of-an-hour,
+but the King, when he became King, chose to be completely oblivious of
+their conduct, and they remained undisturbed at their posts. To those who
+pointed to King Leopold of the Belgians, or to any other foreign example
+of a loyal sovereign who understood the needs of his people as a model for
+Victor Emmanuel to imitate, he was in the habit of replying: 'I remember
+the history of my fathers, and it is enough.'</p>
+
+<p>'The Persians,' says the Greek historian, 'taught their children to
+ride and to speak the truth.' In a land that had seen as much of enthroned
+effeminacy and mendacity as Italy had seen, a prince fond of manly
+exercise and observant of his word was more valuable than a heaven-sent
+genius, and more welcome than a calendar saint. Piedmont only could give
+such a prince to Italy. Its kings were not Spaniards who, by way of
+improvement, became lazzaroni, nor were they Austrians condemned by a
+fatal law to revert to their original type; they were children of the ice
+and snow, the fellow-countrymen of their subjects. All their traditions
+told of obstinacy and hardihood. They brought their useful if scarcely
+amiable moral qualities from Maurienne in the eleventh century. The second
+Count of Savoy, known as Amadeus with the Tail, son of Humbert of the
+White Hands, founder of the House, went to the Holy Roman Emperor with
+such a body of retainers that the guards refused them entrance to the
+Council Chamber. 'Either I shall go in with my Tail or not at all,' said
+Humbert, and with his Tail he went in. This was the metal of the race.
+Even at the time when they were vassals of the Empire, they expected to
+dictate rather than to obey. They studiously married into all the great
+royal houses of Europe. <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_173" id=
+"Page_173">[Pg.173]</a></span> Though they persecuted their Vaudois
+subjects, who were only in 1848 rewarded by emancipation for centuries of
+unmerited sufferings and splendid fidelity, yet the Princes of Savoy had
+from the first, from the White-Handed Humbert himself, held their heads
+high in all transactions with the Holy See, between which and them there
+was an ever-returning antagonism. Not to the early part of the nineteenth
+century, when the rebound from revolutionary chaos did not suffice to
+denationalise the Kings of Sardinia, but sufficed to ally them with
+reaction, ought we to turn if we would seize the true bearings of the
+development of the Counts of Maurienne into Kings of Italy. At that moment
+the mission of Piedmont, though not lost, was obscured. What has rather to
+be contemplated is the historic tendency, viewed as a whole, of both
+reigning house and people. No one has pointed out that tendency more
+clearly than the anonymous author of a pamphlet entitled <i>Le Testament
+politique du Chevalier Walpole</i> (published at Amsterdam in 1769), who
+was able to draw the horoscope of the House of Savoy with a correctness
+which seems almost startling. He was not helped by either sympathy or
+poetic imagination, but simply by political logic. Sardinia, he said, was
+the best governed state in Europe. Instead of yielding to the indolent
+apathy in which other reigning families were sunk, its princes sought to
+improve its laws and develop its resources according to the wants of the
+population and the exigences of the climate. Finance, police, the
+administration of justice, military discipline, presented the picture of
+order. From the nature of the situation, a King of Sardinia must be
+ambitious, and to satisfy his ambition he had only to bide his time.
+Placed between two great Powers he could choose for his ally whichever
+would give him the most, and by playing this mute <i>r&ocirc;le</i>, it
+was impossible that he would not <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_174"
+id="Page_174">[Pg.174]</a></span> hereafter be called upon to play one of
+the most important parts in Europe. Italy was the oyster disputed by
+Austria and France; might it not happen that the King of Sardinia,
+becoming judge and party, would devour the oyster and leave the shells to
+the rival aspirants? It was unlikely, added this far-seeing observer, that
+the Italian populations should have got so innured to their chains as to
+prefer the harsh, vexatious government of Austria to the happy lot which
+Sardinian domination would secure to them, but even if they had become
+demoralised to this extent, they could not resist the providential advance
+of a temperate, robust and warlike nation like Piedmont, led by a prince
+as enlightened as the King (Charles Emmanuel) who then reigned over
+it.</p>
+
+<p>The metaphor of the oyster recalls another, that of Italy being an
+artichoke which the House of Savoy was to devour, a leaf at a time.
+Whether or not a Duke of Savoy really invented this often-quoted
+comparison, it is certain that power was what the rulers of Piedmont cared
+for. They were no more a race of scholars and art patrons than their
+people was a people of artists and poets. There is a story to the effect
+that one Duke of Savoy could never make out what poetry was, except that
+it was written in half lines, which caused a great waste of paper. The
+only poet born in Piedmont found the country unlivable. Recent research
+among the archives at Turin revealed facts which were thought to be not
+creditable to certain princely persons, and a gleaning was therefore made
+of documents to which the historical student will no longer have access.
+The step was ill advised; what can documents tell us on the subject that
+we do not know? Did anyone suppose that the Savoy princes were commonly
+saints? Sainthood has been the privilege of the women of the family, and
+they have kept it <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">
+[Pg.175]</a></span> mostly to themselves. But peccable and rough though
+the members of this royal house may have been, very few of them were
+without the governing faculty. 'C'est bien le souverain le plus fin que
+j'ai connu en Europe,' said Thiers of Victor Emmanuel, whose acquaintance
+he made in 1870, and in whom he found an able politician instead of the
+common soldier he had expected. The remark might be extended back to all
+the race. They understood the business of kings. A word not unlike the 'Tu
+regere imperio populos, Romane, memento' of Virgil was breathed over the
+cradle at Maurienne. If it did not send forth sons to rule the world, its
+children were, at least, to be enthroned in the capital of the
+C&aelig;sars, and to make Italy one for the first time since Augustus.</p>
+
+<p>From April to August 1849, the peace negotiations dragged on. The
+pretensions of Austria were still exorbitant, and she resisted the demand
+which Piedmont, weak and reduced though she was, did not fear to make,
+that she should amnesty her Italian subjects who had taken part in the
+revolution. Unequal to cope with the difficulties of the situation, the
+Delaunay ministry fell, and Massimo d'Azeglio was appointed President of
+the Council. This was a good augury for Piedmont; D'Azeglio's patriotism
+had received a seal in the wound which he carried away from the defence of
+Vicenza. Honour was safe in his hands, whatever were the sacrifices to
+which he might be obliged to consent.</p>
+
+<p>Some pressure having been put on Austria by France and England, she
+agreed in July to evacuate Alessandria, and to reduce the war indemnity
+from 230,000,000 francs to 75,000,000, which Piedmont undertook to pay,
+onerous though the charge was in her deplorable financial condition. But
+the amnesty question was the last to be <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg.176]</a></span> settled, and in this Piedmont
+stood alone. France and England gave her no support; The other powers were
+against her. The Piedmontese special envoy at Milan, Count Pralormo, wrote
+to Prince Schwarzenberg on the 2nd of July that his Government could not
+give up this point. It was a conscientious duty so universally and
+strongly felt, that they were readier to submit to the consequences,
+whatever they might be, than to dishonour themselves by renouncing it. In
+other words, they were ready to face a new war, abandoned to their fate by
+all Europe, to undergo a new invasion, which meant the utter destruction
+of their country, rather than leave their Lombard and Venetian
+fellow-countrymen to the revenge of Austria. Count Pralormo added that he
+was speaking not only in the name of the ministry, but of the King and the
+whole nation. The risk was no imaginary one; there were many in Austria
+who desired an excuse for crushing the life out of the small state which
+was the eternal thorn in the side of that great Empire. Few remember now
+the sufferings of Piedmont for Italy, or the perils, only too real, which
+she braved again and again, not from selfish motives&mdash;for the
+Piedmontese of the old, narrow school, who said that their orderly little
+country had nothing to gain from being merged in a state of 25,000,000
+were by no means in error&mdash;but from genuine Italian fellow-feeling
+for their less happy compatriots beyond their confines.</p>
+
+<p>At last, when the armistice concluded on the morrow of Novara had been
+prolonged for five months, the treaty of peace was signed. Prince
+Schwarzenberg offered to further reduce the indemnity, 75,000,000 to
+71,000,000, but D'Azeglio having agreed to the former figure, preferred to
+abide by his agreement. He thought, probably, that he would thus gain some
+concession as to the amnesty, and, in fact, <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg.177]</a></span> Austria finally consented to
+pardon all but a small number of the persons compromised in the late
+events. D'Azeglio still stood out, but finding that there was no shadow of
+a chance of obtaining more than this, he reluctantly accepted it. The
+great mass, the hundred thousand and more fugitives who had left their
+homes in Lombardy and Venetia, were, at any rate, promised a safe return.
+The city of Venice, as yet undominated, though on the brink of her fall,
+was totally excluded. The list of those whose banishment from Lombardy was
+confirmed, comprises the noblest names in the province; with the exception
+of a few who were excluded from the amnesty on the score that, before the
+revolution, they were Austrian functionaries, nearly every unpardoned
+Lombard was noble: Casati, Arese, Borromeo, Litta, Greppi, Pallavicini,
+and the Princess Cristina Belgiojoso of Milan, the two Camozzis of
+Bergamo, and G. Martinengo Cesaresco of Brescia.</p>
+
+<p>It must not be imagined that this amnesty ushered in a reign of
+oblivion and mildness. It seemed, rather, that Austria, afraid of the
+moral consequences of the return of so many unloving subjects, redoubled
+her severity. The day following the promulgation of the amnesty was the
+18th of August, the Emperor of Austria's birthday. In the morning,
+placards dissuading the citizens from taking part in the official
+rejoicings were to be seen on the walls of Milan. The persons who put
+these up were not caught, but in the course of the day a crowd, consisting
+of all classes, made what the official report called 'a scandalous and
+anti-politic demonstration,' raising revolutionary cries, and even saying
+uncomplimentary things of His Majesty, and worse still, of the Austrian
+soldiers. During this 'shameful scene,' <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg.178]</a></span> of which the above is the
+Austrian and hence the most highly-coloured description, the military
+arrested at hazard some of the crowd, who, by a 'superior order,' were
+condemned to the following pains and penalties:&mdash;</p>
+
+<pre>
+     1. Angelo Negroni, of Padua, aged thirty, proprietor, forty
+      strokes;
+
+     2. Carlo Bossi, watchmaker, aged twenty-two, forty strokes;
+
+     3. Paolo Lodi, of Monza, student, aged twenty-one, thirty strokes;
+
+     4. Giovanni Mazzuchetti, Milanese, barrister, aged twenty-four,
+     thirty strokes;
+
+     5. Bonnetti, Milanese, lithographer, aged thirty-one, fifty
+     strokes;
+
+     6. Moretti, Milanese, domestic servant, aged twenty-six, fifty
+     strokes;
+
+     7. Cesana, artist, aged thirty-two, forty strokes;
+
+     8. Scotti, shopkeeper, of Monza, fifty strokes;
+
+     9. Vigorelli, Milanese, proprietor, fifty strokes;
+
+     10. Garavaglia, of Novara, aged thirty-nine, thirty strokes;
+
+     11. Giuseppe Tandea, Milanese, aged forty, twenty-five strokes;
+
+     12. Rossi, Milanese, student, thirty strokes;
+
+     13. Carabelli, workman, forty strokes;
+
+     14. Giuseppe Berlusconi, fifty strokes;
+
+     15. Ferrandi, bookseller, thirty strokes;
+
+     16. Ernestina Galli, of Cremona, operatic singer, aged twenty,
+     forty strokes;
+
+     17. Maria Conti, of Florence, operatic singer, aged eighteen,
+     thirty strokes.
+</pre>
+
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg.179]</a></span>
+
+
+<p>There were other sentences of imprisonment in irons and on bread and
+water, but the roll of the bastinado, extracted from the official <i>
+Gazzetta di Milano</i> may be left to speak for all the rest, and to tell,
+with a laconicism more eloquent than the finest rhetoric, what the
+Austrian yoke in Italy really meant.</p>
+
+<p>A few days after, the military commandant sent the Milanese
+Municipality a bill for thirty-nine florins, the cost of rods broken or
+worn-out, and of ice used to prevent gangrene, in the punishment
+administered to the persons arrested on the 18th of August. Sixty strokes
+with the Austrian stick were generally enough to prove fatal. Women were
+flogged half-naked, together with the men, and in the presence of the
+Austrian officers, who came to see the spectacle.</p>
+
+<p>When the treaty of peace with Austria was signed, there arose a new
+difficulty; the Sardinian Chamber of Deputies refused to approve it. Some
+of the deputies asked why they should be called upon either to accept or
+reject it, on which they were reminded of the 75,000,000 francs indemnity,
+funds for the discharge of which could not be legally raised without a
+parliamentary vote. The reluctance to share in an odious though necessary
+responsibility made these novices in representative government anxious to
+throw away the greatest, if not the sole guarantee of constitutional
+freedom. Brofferio, by far the ablest man of the extreme radical party,
+who had opposed all peace proposals as long as Rome and Venice still
+resisted, now advised his friends to bow before the inevitable. But they
+did not comply, and the ministers had no other alternative than to resort
+to a fresh appeal to the country.</p>
+
+<p>The crisis was serious, because no amount of loyalty on the part of the
+head of the state can save liberty when the representatives of a <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg.180]</a></span>
+nation, taking the bit between their teeth, set themselves deliberately to
+work to make government impossible. People are too fond of talking of
+liberty as if it were something locked up in a box which remains safe as
+long as the guardian of the box does not steal it or sell it. Liberty is
+in the charge of all and at the mercy of all. There were not wanting
+persons who blamed the new dissolution as unconstitutional, and who called
+the proclamation of Moncalieri which announced it an act of despotism and
+of improper interference with the independence of the electors. It is
+hardly too much to say that it was this royal proclamation that saved
+Piedmont. The King appealed to Italy and to Europe for judgment on the
+conduct of the late Chamber. Having signed, he said, a 'not ruinous'
+treaty with Austria, which the honour of the country and the sanctity of
+his word required to be faithfully executed, the majority sought to make
+that execution legally impracticable. He continued: 'I have promised to
+save the nation from the tyranny of parties, whatever be the name, scope
+and position of the men who constitute them. These promises I fulfil by
+dissolving a Chamber which had become impossible, and by convoking the
+immediate assemblage of another parliament; but if the electors of the
+country deny me their help, not on me will fall henceforth the
+responsibility of the future; and if disorders follow, let them complain,
+not of me, but of themselves. Never, up till now, has the House of Savoy
+had recourse in vain to the faithfulness, wisdom and honour of its
+peoples. I have therefore the right to trust in them on the present
+occasion, and to hold for certain that, united together, we shall save the
+constitution and the country from the dangers by which they are
+menaced.'</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">
+[Pg.181]</a></span> The Proclamation produced a great effect, and the
+parliament which met on the 20th of December contained a working majority
+of men who were not only patriotic, but who were also endowed with common
+sense. When the ratification of the peace came on for discussion, there
+was, indeed, one deputy who spoke in favour of immediate war, which, in a
+fortnight, was to effect the liberation, not only of Lombardy and Venetia,
+but also of Hungary, a speech worth recalling, as it shows how far madness
+will go. The debate concluded with a vote authorising the King's
+government to fully carry out the treaty of peace which was concluded at
+Milan on the 6th of August 1849, the ayes being 137 against 17 noes.
+Piedmont had learnt the bitter but useful lesson, that if you play and
+lose, you must pay the cost. He who had played and lost his crown had
+already paid the last fee to fortune. Charles Albert was now a denizen of
+the Superga&mdash;of all kings' burial places, the most inspiring in its
+history, the most sublime in its situation. Here Victor Amadeus, as he
+looked down on the great French army which, for three months, had besieged
+his capital, vowed to erect a temple if it should please the Lord of Hosts
+to grant him and his people deliverance from the hands of the enemy. Five
+days later the French were in flight. All the Alps, from Mon Viso to the
+Simplon, all Piedmont, and beyond Piedmont, Italy to the Apennines, can be
+scanned from the church which fulfilled the royal vow.</p>
+
+<p>To the Superga the body of Charles Albert was brought from the place of
+exile. Before the coffin, his sword was carried; after it, they led the
+war-horse he had ridden in all the battles. After the war-horse followed a
+great multitude. He had said truly that it was an opportune <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg.182]</a></span> time for
+him to die. The pathos of his end rekindled the affections of the people
+for the dynasty.</p>
+
+<p>As in the Mosque of dead Sultans in Stamboul, so in the Mausoleum of
+the Superga, each sovereign occupied the post of honour only till the next
+one came to join him. But the post of honour remains, and will remain, to
+Charles Albert. His son lies elsewhere.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_X"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER X</h3>
+
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg.183]</a></span>
+
+
+<h4>THE REVIVAL OF PIEDMONT</h4>
+
+<h5>1850-1856</h5>
+
+<h5>Restoration of the Pope and Grand Duke of Tuscany&mdash;Misrule at
+Naples&mdash;The Struggle with the Church in Piedmont&mdash;The Crimean
+War.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>The decade from 1849 to 1859 may seem, at first sight, to resemble an
+interregnum, but it was an evolution. There is no pause in the life of
+nations any more than in the life of individuals: they go forward or they
+go backward. In these ten years Piedmont went forward; the other Italian
+governments did not stand still, they went backward. The diseases from
+which they suffered gained daily upon the whole body-politic, and even
+those clever foreign doctors who had been the most convinced that this or
+that remedy would set them on their feet, were in the end persuaded that
+there was only one place for them&mdash;the Hospital for Incurables. After
+the fall of Rome, Pius IX. issued a sort of canticle from Gaeta, in which
+he thanked the Lord at whose bidding the stormy ocean had been arrested,
+but he did not even so much as say thank you to the French, without whom,
+nevertheless, the stormy ocean would have proceeded on its way. To all
+suggestions from Paris that now that victory had been won by force the
+time was come for the Sovereign to give some guarantee that it would not
+be abused, <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">
+[Pg.184]</a></span> the Pope turned a completely deaf ear. 'The Pope,'
+said M. Drouyn de Lhuys, 'prefers to return to Rome upon the dead bodies
+of his subjects rather than amidst the applause which would have greeted
+him had he taken our advice.' That advice referred in particular to the
+secularisation of the public administration, and this was exactly what the
+Pope and the ex-Liberal Cardinal Antonelli, now and henceforth his most
+influential counsellor, were determined not to concede. They had grown
+wise in their generation, for a priest whose ministers are laymen is as
+much an anomaly as a layman whose ministers are priests. The French
+government desired that the Statute should be maintained, and demanded
+judicial reforms and an amnesty for political offenders. None of these
+points was accepted except the last, and that only nominally, as the
+amnesty of the 18th of September did not put a stop to proscriptions and
+vindictive measures. Count Mamiani, whose stainless character was
+venerated in all Italy, and who had devoted all his energies to the
+attempt to save the Papal government after the Pope's flight, was
+ruthlessly excluded, and so were many other persons who, though
+liberal-minded, had shown signal devotion to the Holy See. All sorts of
+means were used to serve the ends of vengeance; for instance, Alessandro
+Calandrelli, a Roman of high reputation, who held office under the
+republic, was condemned to death for high treason, and to twenty years at
+the galleys, on a trumped-up charge of theft, which was palpably absurd;
+but the Pope, while quashing the first sentence, confirmed the second, and
+Calandrelli would have remained in prison till the year of grace 1870, as
+many others did, but for the chance circumstance that his father had been
+a friend of the King of Prussia, who took up his cause so warmly that
+after two years he was <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_185" id=
+"Page_185">[Pg.185]</a></span> let out and sent to Berlin, where the King
+and A. von Humboldt received him with open arms.</p>
+
+<p>These were the auspices under which Pius IX. returned to Rome after
+seventeen months' absence. A four-fold invasion restored the Temporal
+Power, which F&eacute;nelon said was the root of all evil to the Church,
+but which, according to Pius IX., was necessary to the preservation of the
+Catholic religion. The re-established <i>r&eacute;gime</i> was
+characterised by Lord Clarendon at the Congress of Paris as 'the
+opprobrium of Europe.' The Pope tried to compensate for his real want of
+independence (for a prince who could not stand a day without foreign
+bayonets, whatever else he was, was not independent) by laughing at the
+entreaties of France to relieve that advanced nation from the annoyance of
+having set up a government fit for the Middle Ages. He rated at its
+correct value the support of Napoleon, and believing it to be purely
+interested, he believed in its permanence. The President had thought of
+nothing in the world but votes, and he thought of them still. The Roman
+Expedition secured him the services of M. de Falloux as minister, and won
+over to him the entire Clerical Party, including Montalembert and the
+so-called Liberal Catholics. Thus, and thus only, was the leap from the
+Presidential chair to the Imperial throne made possible. The result was
+flattering, but still there are reasons to think (apart from Prince
+J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Napoleon's express statement to that effect) that
+Napoleon III. hated the whole business from the bottom of his soul, and
+that of his not few questionable acts, this was the only one of which he
+felt lastingly ashamed. Seeing that the communications of his ministers
+failed in their object, he tried the expedient of writing a private letter
+to his friend Edgar Ney, couched in the <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg.186]</a></span> strongest terms of
+disapproval of the recalcitrant attitude of the Papal Government. This
+letter was published as it was intended to be, but in the Roman States,
+except that its circulation was forbidden, no notice was taken of it.
+Though the incident may be regarded as a stroke of facing-both-ways
+policy, the anger expressed was probably as sincere as any of Napoleon's
+sentiments could be, and the letter had the effect of awakening the idea
+in many minds that something of the former Italian conspirator still
+existed in the ruler of France. The question arose, What sort of pressure
+would be needed to turn that germ to account for Italy?</p>
+
+<p>In the kingdom of Naples, where the laws, to look at them on paper,
+were incomparably better than those in force in the Roman States, the
+administration was such as would have disgraced a remote province of the
+Turkish Empire. The King's naturally suspicious temperament was worked
+upon by his courtiers and priests till he came to detect in every Liberal
+a personal antagonist, whose immunity from harm was incompatible with his
+own, and in Liberalism a plague dangerous to society, which must be
+stamped out at all costs. Over 800 Liberals were sent to the galleys. The
+convictions were obtained, in a great proportion of cases, by false
+testimony. Bribes and secret protection in high quarters were the only
+means by which an innocent man could hope to escape; 50,000 persons were
+under police supervision, to be imprisoned at will. The police often
+refused to set at liberty those whom the judges had acquitted. The
+government had a Turkish or Russian fear of printed matter. A wretched
+barber was fined 1000 ducats for having in his possession a volume of
+Leopardi's poems, which was described as 'contrary to religion and
+morals.'</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">
+[Pg.187]</a></span> What was meant by being an inmate of a Neapolitan
+prison was told by Mr Gladstone in his two 'Letters to the Earl of
+Aberdeen,' which the latter sent to Prince Schwarzenberg, the Austrian
+Prime Minister, with a strong appeal to him to make known their contents
+to the King of the Two Sicilies, and to use his influence in procuring a
+mitigation of the abuses complained of. Prince Schwarzenberg did nothing,
+and it was then that the 'Letters' were published. The impression created
+on public opinion was almost without a parallel. The celebrated phrase,
+'The negation of God erected into a system of government,' passing into
+currency as a short history of Bourbon rule at Naples, kept alive the
+wrathful feelings which the 'Letters' aroused, even when these ceased to
+be read. Some small errors of fact (such as that of stating that all the
+prisoners were chained, whereas an exception was made of those undergoing
+life sentences) were magnified by the partisans of Ferdinand II.; but the
+truth of the picture as a whole was amply confirmed from independent
+sources. Baron Carlo Poerio (condemned to nineteen years' imprisonment)
+<i>was</i> chained to a common malefactor, the chain never being undone,
+and producing in the end a disease of the bone from which he never
+recovered. His case was that of all the political prisoners in the same
+category with himself. Luigi Settembrini and the others on whom sentence
+of death had been passed, but commuted into one of life imprisonment, were
+not chained, but they were put to associate with the worst thieves and
+assassins, while their material surroundings accorded with the moral
+atmosphere they were forced to breathe.</p>
+
+<p>The Neapolitan prisoners did more than suffer for freedom; they
+delivered the name of their country from being a reproach among the
+nations. They showed what men the South of Italy can produce. Those <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg.188]</a></span> who
+wish to know what types of probity, honour and ideal patriotism may grow
+out of that soil, which is sometimes charged with yielding only the rank
+weeds planted by despotism, may read the letters and memoirs of the noble
+Poerios, of Settembrini, gentlest but most fearless of human souls, of the
+Calabrian Morellis, all patriots and martyrs; of the Duke of
+Castromediano, who lately, in his old age, has set down a few
+recollections of the years he spent at the Neapolitan galleys. He records
+in these notes what he calls the most perilous moment in his life. It was
+when he was summoned, with six fellow-prisoners who had asked for and
+obtained freedom, to hear, as he feared, his own pardon pronounced. For
+pardon was equivalent to dishonour; it was granted either in consequence
+of real submission and retraction, or in order to be able to blacken the
+character of the pardoned man by falsely asserting that such submission
+had been made. His fear was groundless. He had been led out, perhaps, in
+the hope that the example of the others would prove contagious. He was not
+pardoned. As he returned to his prison, he thanked Divine Providence for
+the chains which left him pure.</p>
+
+<p>Strange to tell, Ferdinand II. rendered one considerable service to the
+national cause; not that he saw it in that light, but the service was none
+the less real because its motive was a narrow one. Austria proposed a
+defensive league between the Italian Sovereigns: defensive not only with
+the view to outward attack, but also and chiefly against 'internal
+disorder.' Piedmont was to be invited to join as soon as she had renounced
+her constitutional sins, which it was sanguinely expected she would do
+before very long. Meanwhile Parma, Modena, Tuscany and Rome embraced the
+idea with enthusiasm, but the King of <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg.189]</a></span> the Two Sicilies, who dimly
+saw in it an opening for interference in his own peculiar governmental
+ways, boldly declined to have anything to do with it. And so, to Prince
+Schwarzenberg's serious disappointment, the scheme by which he had hoped
+to create an absolutist Italian federation, came to an untimely end.</p>
+
+<p>The Grand Duke of Tuscany timidly inquired of the Austrian premier if
+he might renew the constitutional <i>r&eacute;gime</i> in his state.
+Schwarzenberg replied with the artful suggestion that he should hear what
+the Dukes of Modena and Parma, the Pope, and King Ferdinand had to say on
+the subject. Their advice was unanimously negative: Cardinal Antonelli
+going so far as to declare that Constitutionalism in Tuscany would be
+regarded as a constant menace and danger to the States of the Church. The
+different counsels of Piedmont, conveyed by Count Balbo, weighed little
+against so imposing an array of opinion, backed as it was by the Power
+which still stabled its horses in the Convent of San Marco. The Tuscan
+Statute was formally suspended in September 1850.</p>
+
+<p>From that day forth, Tuscany sank lower and lower in the slough. To
+please the Pope, havoc was made of the Leopoldine laws&mdash;named after
+the son of Maria Theresa, the wise Grand Duke Leopold I.&mdash;laws by
+which a bridle was put on the power and extension of the Church. The
+prosecution and imprisonment of a Protestant couple who were accused of
+wishing to make proselytes, proclaimed the depth of intolerance into which
+what was once the freest and best-ordered government in Italy had
+descended.</p>
+
+<p>The ecclesiastical question became the true test question in Piedmont
+as well as in Tuscany, but there it had another issue.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">
+[Pg.190]</a></span> It had also a different basis. In Piedmont there were
+no Leopoldine laws to destroy; what was necessary was to create them. To
+privileges dating from the Middle Ages which in the kingdom of Sardinia
+almost alone had been restored without curtailment after the storm of the
+French Revolution, were added the favours, the vast wealth, the
+preponderating influence acquired during Charles Felix' reign, and the
+first seventeen years of that of Charles Albert. Theoretically, the
+Statute swept away all privileges of classes and sects, and made citizens
+equal before the law, but to put this theory into practice further
+legislation was needed, because, as a matter of fact, the clergy preserved
+their immunities untouched and showed not the slightest disposition to
+yield one jot of them. The Piedmontese clergy, more numerous in proportion
+to the population than in any state except Rome, were more intransigent
+than any ecclesiastical body in the world. The Italian priest of old days,
+whatever else might be said about him, was rarely a fanatic. The very
+nickname 'Ultramontane' given by Italians to the religious extremists
+north of the Alps, shows how foreign such excesses were to their own
+temperaments. But the Ultramontane spirit had already invaded Piedmont,
+and was embraced by its clergy with all the zeal of converts. There was
+still a <i>Foro Ecclesiastico</i> for the arraignment of religious
+offenders, and this was one of the first privileges against which Massimo
+d'Azeglio lifted his 'sacrilegious' hand. To go through all the list would
+be tedious, and would demand more explanation regarding the local modes of
+acquisition and tenure of religious property than would be interesting
+now. The object of the Siccardi laws, as they were named after the
+Minister of Grace and Justice who introduced them, and of the stronger
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg.191]</a></span>
+measures to which they led up, was to make the priest amenable to the
+common law of the land in all except that which referred to his spiritual
+functions; to put a limit on the amassment of wealth by religious
+corporations; to check the multiplication of convents and the
+multiplication of feast days, both of which encouraged the people in sloth
+and idleness; to withdraw education from the sole control of
+ecclesiastics; and finally, to authorise civil marriage, but without
+making it compulsory. The programme was large, and it took years to carry
+it out. The Vatican contended that it was contrary to the Concordat which
+existed between the Holy See and the Court of Sardinia. Massimo d'Azeglio
+replied that the maintenance of the Concordat, in all its parts, meant the
+ruin of the state; that he had tried every means of conciliation, made
+every effort towards arriving at a compromise, and that since his
+endeavours had failed in consequence of the refusal of the Vatican to
+abate pretensions which it neither could nor did enforce in Austria,
+Naples or Spain, heaven and the world must judge between Rome and
+Piedmont, between Cardinal Antonelli and himself.</p>
+
+<p>The struggle throughout was bitter in the extreme, but its most
+striking incident was the denial of the last Sacraments to a member of the
+Government, the Minister of Agriculture, Santa Rosa, who happened to die
+soon after the passing of the Act abolishing the <i>Foro
+Ecclesiastico</i>. Santa Rosa was a sincerely religious man, but he
+resisted all the attempts of the priest to extort a retractation, and died
+unabsolved rather than leave a dishonoured name to his children. The
+popular indignation excited by this incident was in proportion with the
+importance attached to outward observances of religion in Catholic
+countries; the government had to protect the Archbishop of <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg.192]</a></span> Turin from
+violence, while, at the same time, they sent him for a month to the
+Citadel for having forbidden his clergy to obey the law on the <i>Foro
+Ecclesiastico</i>. He and one or two of the other bishops were afterwards
+expelled from the kingdom. An unwelcome necessity, but whose was the
+fault? In other countries, where the privileges claimed by the Piedmontese
+clergy had been abolished for centuries, did the bishops dictate revolt
+against the law? If not, why should they do so in Piedmont?</p>
+
+<p>The successor of Santa Rosa in the ministry was Count Cavour, who thus
+in 1850 for the first time became an official servant of the state. When
+D'Azeglio submitted the appointment to the King, Victor Emmanuel remarked
+that, though he did not object to it in the least, they had better take
+care, as this man would turn them all out before long. This man was, in
+fact, to stand at the helm of Piedmont, with short intervals, till he
+died, and was to carve out from the block of formless marble, not the
+Italy of sublime dreams, which, owing her deliverance to her sons alone,
+should arise immaculate from the grave a Messiah among the nations, but
+the actual Italy which has been accomplished; imperfect and peccable as
+human things mostly are, belonging rather to prose than to poetry, to
+matter than to spirit, but, for all that, an Italy which is one and is
+free.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image4.jpg" alt="COUNT CAVOUR" /><br />
+ <span class="caption">COUNT CAVOUR</span></div>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>Fifty years ago a great English writer pointed out what the real Italy
+would be, if it were to be; 'The prosperity of nations as of individuals,'
+wrote Mr Ruskin in one of his earliest papers, 'is cold and hard-hearted
+and forgetful. The dead lie, indeed, trampled down by the living; the
+place thereof shall know them no more, for that place is not in the hearts
+of the survivors, for whose interest they have made way.<span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg.193]</a></span> But
+adversity and ruin point to the sepulchre, and it is not trodden on; to
+the chronicle, and it does not decay. Who would substitute the rush of a
+new nation, the struggle of an awakening power, for the dreamy sleep of
+Italy's desolation, for the sweet silence of melancholy thought, her
+twilight time of everlasting memories?'</p>
+
+<p>There is the case, stated with beautiful lucidity, of the somewhat
+ghoulish dilettantism which, enjoying tombs, would condemn all mankind to
+breathe their atmosphere. It is not, however, in order to discuss that
+view that the passage is quoted, but because of its relevancy to what
+Cavour attempted and what he did. Never was there a mind which cherished
+fewer illusions. He believed that the pursuit of the unattainable was
+still more a political crime than a political blunder. He was, in this,
+what is now called an opportunist, and he was also an opportunist in
+believing that though in politics you can choose your aim, you can very
+rarely choose your means. He held (and this was the reason that he was so
+profoundly hated by men of very different parties) that to accomplish
+great changes you have to make sacrifices, not only of the higher sort,
+but, in a certain sense, also of the lower. As he thought that the
+Austrians could not be expelled from Italy for good and all without
+foreign help, he contemplated from the first securing that foreign help,
+though no one would have been more glad than he to do without it. He
+thought that Italian freedom could not be won without a closer alliance
+with the democratic party than politicians like D'Azeglio, who had the
+fear of the ermine, of tarnishing its whiteness, would have ever brought
+themselves to acquiesce in, and he therefore immediately took steps to
+establish that alliance. Cavour had no faith in the creation of ideally
+perfect <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">
+[Pg.194]</a></span> states, such as the Monarchy of Dante or the Republic
+of Mazzini, but he did think that a living land was better than a dead
+one, that the struggle of an awakening power, the rush of a new nation,
+was infinitely to be preferred to the desolation of dreamy sleeps, sweet
+silences, and everlasting memories that spelt regrets.</p>
+
+<p>It may be possible now to see clearly that if no one had tried for the
+unattainable, Cavour would not have found the ground prepared for his
+work. The appreciation of his rank among Italian liberators rests on a
+different point, and it is this: without a man of his positive mould, of
+his practical genius, of his force of will and force of patience, would
+the era of splendid endeavours have passed into the era of accomplished
+facts? If the answer to this is 'No,' then nothing can take from Cavour
+the glory of having conferred an incalculable boon on the country which he
+loved with a love that was not the less strong because it lacked the
+divinising qualities of imagination.</p>
+
+<p>An aristocrat by birth and the inheritor of considerable wealth, Cavour
+was singularly free from prejudices; his favourite study was political
+economy, and in quiet times he would probably have given all his energies
+to the interests of commerce and agriculture. He was an advocate of free
+trade, and was, perhaps, the only one of the many Italians who <i>
+f&ecirc;ted</i> Mr Cobden on his visit to Italy who cared in the least for
+the motive of his campaign. Cavour understood English politics better than
+they have ever been understood by a foreign statesman; his article on
+Ireland, written in 1843, may still be read with profit. Before
+parliamentary life existed in Piedmont, he took the only way open of
+influencing public opinion by founding a newspaper, the <i>
+Risorgimento,</i> in which he continued to write for <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg.195]</a></span> several
+years. In the Chamber of Deputies he soon made his power felt&mdash;power
+is the word, for he was no orator in the ordinary sense; his speeches read
+well, as hard hitting and logical expositions, but they were not well
+delivered. Cavour never spoke Italian with true grace and ease though he
+selected it for his speeches, and not French, which was also allowed and
+which he spoke admirably. His presence, too, did not lend itself to
+oratory; short and thickset, and careless in his dress, he formed a
+contrast to the romantic figure of D'Azeglio. Yet his prosaic face, when
+animated, gave an impressive sense of that attribute which seemed to
+emanate from the whole man: power.</p>
+
+<p>It needed a more wary hand than D'Azeglio's to steer out of the
+troubled waters caused by the ecclesiastical bills, and to put the final
+touches to the legislation which he, to his lasting honour be it said, had
+courageously and successfully initiated. In the autumn of 1852 D'Azeglio
+resigned, and Cavour was requested by the King to form a ministry. He was
+to remain, with short breaks, at the head of public affairs for the nine
+following years.</p>
+
+<p>At this time the government of Lombardy and Venetia was vested in
+Field-Marshal Radetsky, with two lieutenant-governors under him, who only
+executed his orders. Radetsky resided at Verona. Politically and
+economically the two provinces were then undergoing an extremity of
+misery; the diseases of the vines and the silkworms had reached the point
+of causing absolute ruin to the great mass of proprietors who, reckoning
+on having always enough to live on, had not laid by. Many noble families
+sank to the condition of peasants. The taxation was heavier than in any
+other part of the Austrian Empire; in proof of <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg.196]</a></span> which it may be
+mentioned that Lombardy paid 80,000,000 francs into the Austrian treasury,
+which, had the Empire been taxed equally, would have given an annual total
+of 1,100,000,000, whereas the revenue amounted to only 736,000,000. The
+landtax was almost double what it was in the German provinces. Italians,
+however, have a great capacity for supporting such burdens with patience,
+and it is doubtful whether the material aspect of the case did much to
+increase their hatred of foreign dominion. Its moral aspect grew daily
+worse; the terror became chronic. The possession of a sheet of printed
+paper issued by the revolutionary press at Capolago, on the lake of
+Lugano, was enough to send a man to the gallows. These old, badly printed
+leaflets, with no name of author or publisher attached, but chiefly
+written in the unmistakable style of Mazzini, can still be picked up in
+the little booksellers' shops in Canton Ticino, and it is difficult to
+look at them without emotion. What hopes were carried by them. What risks
+were run in passing them from hand to hand. Of what tragedies were they
+not the cause! In August 1851, Antonio Sciesa, of Milan, was shot for
+having one such leaflet on his person. The gendarmes led him past his own
+house, hoping that the sight of it would weaken his nerve, and make him
+accept the clemency which was eagerly proffered if he would reveal the
+names of others engaged in the patriotic propaganda. 'Tiremm innanz!'
+('come along') he said, in his rough Milanese dialect, and marched
+incorruptible to death. On a similar charge, Dottesio and Grioli, the
+latter a priest, suffered in the same year, and early in 1852 the long
+trial was begun at Mantua of about fifty <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg.197]</a></span> patriots whose names had been
+obtained by the aid of the bastinado from one or two unhappy wretches who
+had not the fortitude to endure. Of these fifty, nine were executed, among
+whom were the priests Grazioli and Tazzoli, Count Montanari of Verona, and
+Tito Speri, the young hero of the defence of Brescia. Speri had a trifling
+part in the propaganda, but the remembrance of his conduct in 1849 ensured
+his condemnation. He was deeply attached to the religion in which he was
+born, and his last letters show the fervour of a Christian joined to the
+calmness of a stoic. If he had a regret, it was that he had been unable to
+do more for his country; but here too his simple faith sustained him.
+Surely the Giver of all good would not refuse to listen to the prayers of
+the soul which passed to Him through martyrdom. 'To-morrow they lead me
+forth,' he wrote. 'I have done with this world, but, in the bosom of God,
+I promise you I will do what I can.' So did this clear and childlike
+spirit carry its cause from the Austrian Assizes to a higher tribunal.</p>
+
+<p>In the spring of 1853 there was an attempt at a rising in Milan from
+which the mass of the citizens stood aloof, if they even knew of it till
+it was over; an attempt ill-considered and not easily justified from any
+point of view, the blame for which has been generally cast on Mazzini; but
+though he knew of it, he was unwilling that its authors should choose the
+time and mode of action which they chose. He was, moreover, misinformed as
+to the extent of the preparations, since no Milanese of any standing gave
+his support to the plan.</p>
+
+<p>On the plea that the Lombard emigration was concerned in the abortive
+movement, which was by no means consistent with facts, the Austrian
+Government sequestered the landed property of the exiles and voluntary
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg.198]</a></span>
+emigrants, reducing them and their families (which in most instances
+remained behind) to complete beggary. Nine hundred and seventy-eight
+estates were placed under sequestration. The Court of Sardinia held the
+measure to be a violation of the amnesty, which was one of the conditions
+of the peace of 1850. The Sardinian Minister was recalled from Vienna, and
+the relations between the two governments were once more on a footing of
+open rupture.</p>
+
+<p>Not less important was the moral effect of the sequestrations in France
+and England, but particularly in England. They acted as the last straw,
+coming as they did on the top of the flogging system which had already
+enraged the English public mind to the highest degree. The Prince Consort
+wrote in March to his brother: 'To give you a conception of the maxims of
+justice and policy which Austria has been lately developing, I enclose an
+extract of a report from Turin which treats of the decrees of confiscation
+in Italy. People here will be very indignant.' He goes on to say (somewhat
+too broadly) that the English upper classes were till then thoroughly
+Austrian, but that she had succeeded in turning the whole of England
+against her, and there was now no one left to defend her.</p>
+
+<p>Austria, through Count Buol, complained that she was 'dying of
+legality,' but England took the Sardinian view that the sequestrations
+directly violated the treaty between the two Powers. In the Austrian Note
+of the 9th of March, it was distinctly declared that Piedmont would be
+crushed if she did not perform the part of police-agent to Austria.
+Cavour's uncowed attitude at this crisis was what first fixed upon him the
+eyes of European diplomacy.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the summer, the Duke of Genoa, Victor Emmanuel's
+brother, paid a visit to the English Court, where the Duke of <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg.199]</a></span> Saxe-Coburg
+was also staying, by whom he was described as 'one of the cleverest and
+most amiable men of our time.' Sunny Italy, adds Duke Ernest, seemed to
+have sent him to England so that by his mere presence alone, in the prime
+of his age, he might make propaganda for the cause of his country. The
+Queen presented her guest with a handsome riding-horse, and when he
+thanked her in warm and feeling terms, she spoke the memorable words, the
+effect of which spoken at that date by the Queen of England can hardly be
+imagined: 'I hope you will ride this horse when the battles are fought for
+the liberation of Italy.'</p>
+
+<p>The battle-day was indeed to come, but when it came the sword which the
+young Duke wielded with such gallantry in the siege of Peschiera would be
+sheathed for ever. The Prince Charming of Casa Savoia died in February
+1855, leaving a daughter to Italy, the beloved Queen Margaret.</p>
+
+<p>In the space of a few weeks, Victor Emmanuel lost his brother, his
+mother, and his wife. The King, who felt keenly when he did feel, was
+driven distraught with grief; no circumstance was wanting which could
+sharpen the edge of his sorrow. The two Queens, both Austrian princesses,
+had never interfered in foreign politics; what they suffered they suffered
+in silence. But they were greatly influenced by the ministers of the
+religion which had been a comfort of their not too happy lives, and they
+had frequently told Victor Emmanuel that they would die of grief if the
+anti-papal policy of his government were persisted in. Now that they were
+dead, every partisan of the Church declared, without a shadow of
+reticence, that the mourning in which the House of Savoy was plunged was a
+clear manifestation of Divine wrath. Victor Emmanuel had been brought up
+in superstitious surroundings; it was hardly possible that he should
+listen to these <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">
+[Pg.200]</a></span> things altogether unmoved. But on this as on the other
+occasions in his life when he was to be threatened with ghostly terrors,
+he did not belie the name of 'Re Galantuomo,' which he had written down as
+his profession when filling up the papers of the first census taken after
+his accession&mdash;a jest that gave him the title he will ever be known
+by. Harassed and tormented as the King was, when the law on religious
+corporations had been voted by the Senate and the Chamber, and was
+presented to him by Cavour for signature, he did his duty and signed it.
+The commentary which came from the Vatican was the decree of major
+excommunication promulgated in the Consistory of the 27th of July against
+all who had approved or sanctioned the measure, or who were concerned in
+putting it into execution.</p>
+
+<p>The law was known as the 'Rattazziana,' from Urbano Rattazzi, whom
+Cavour appointed Minister of Grace and Justice, thereby effecting a
+coalition between the Right Centre, which he led himself, and the Left
+Centre, which was led by Rattazzi; an alliance not pleasing to the Pure
+Right or to the Advanced Left, but necessary to give the Prime Minister
+sufficient strength to command the respect, both at home and abroad, which
+can only be won by a statesman who is not afraid of being overturned by
+every whiff of the parliamentary wind. The 'Legge Rattazziana' certainly
+aimed at asserting the supremacy of the state, but in substance it was an
+arrangement for raising the stipend of the poorer clergy at the expense of
+the richer benefices and corporations, and save for the bitter animosity
+of Rome, it would not have excited the degree of anger that descended upon
+its promoters. In a country where the Church had a rental of 15,000,000
+francs, there were many <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_201" id=
+"Page_201">[Pg.201]</a></span> parish priests who had not an income of
+&pound;20; a state of things seen to be anomalous by the best
+ecclesiastics themselves, but their efforts at conciliation failed because
+the Holy See would not recognise the right of the civil authority to
+interfere in any question affecting the status or property of the clergy,
+and this right was the real point at issue.</p>
+
+<p>In these days, Cavour came to an understanding with a friendly monk in
+order that when his last hour arrived, he should not, like Santa Rosa, go
+unshriven to his account. In 1861, Fra Giacomo performed his part in the
+agreement, and was duly punished for having saved his Church from a
+scandal which, from the position of the great minister, would have reached
+European dimensions.</p>
+
+<p>Cavour's work of bringing into order the Sardinian finances, which,
+from the flourishing state they had attained prior to 1848, had fallen
+into what appeared the hopeless confusion of a large and steadily
+increasing deficit, is not to the ordinary observer his most brilliant
+achievement, but it is possibly the one for which he deserves most praise.
+It could not have been carried through except by a statesman who was
+completely indifferent to the applause of the hour. During all the earlier
+years that he held office, Cavour was extraordinarily unpopular. The
+nickname of 'la bestia neira' conferred on him by Victor Emmanuel referred
+to the opinion entertained of him by the Clerical party, but he was almost
+as much a 'bestia neira' to a large portion of the Liberals as to the
+Clericals or to the old Piedmontese party. His house was attacked by the
+mob in 1853, and had not his servants barred the entrance, something
+serious might have occurred. Happily the King and the majority in the
+Chamber and in the country had, if not much love for Cavour, a profound
+conviction that he could not be done without, and that, consequently, he
+must be allowed to do <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_202" id=
+"Page_202">[Pg.202]</a></span> what he liked. Thus the large sacrifices he
+demanded of the taxpayers were regularly voted, and Cavour could afford to
+despise the abuse heaped upon himself since he saw his policy advancing to
+maturity along a steady line of success.</p>
+
+<p>When, in 1854, Cavour resolved that Piedmont should join France and
+England in the coming war with Russia, it seemed to a large number of his
+countrymen that he had taken leave of his senses, but the firm support
+which in this instance he found in the King enabled him next year to equip
+and despatch the contingent, 15,000 strong, commanded by General La
+Marmora, which not only won the respect of friends and foes in the field,
+but offered an example of efficiency in all departments that compared
+favourably with the faulty organisation of the great armies beside which
+it fought. Its gallant conduct at the battle of the Tchernaja flattered
+the native pride, and when, in due time, 12,000 returned of the 15,000
+that had gone forth, the increased credit of Piedmont in Europe was
+already felt to compensate for the heavy cost of the expedition.</p>
+
+<p>Among the Italians living abroad, Cavour's motives in taking part in
+the Crimean War were, from the first, better understood than they were at
+home. Piedmont, by qualifying for the part of Italian advocate in the
+Councils of Europe, gave a guarantee of good faith which patriots like
+Daniel Manin and Giorgio Pallavicini accepted as a happy promise for the
+future. It was then that a large section of the republican party frankly
+embraced the programme of Italian unity under Victor Emmanuel. They
+foresaw that a repetition of the discordant action of 1848 would end in
+the same way. Manin wrote to Lorenzo Valerio in September 1855: 'I, who am
+a republican, plant the banner of <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_203"
+id="Page_203">[Pg.203]</a></span> unification; let all who desire that
+Italy should exist, rally round it, and Italy will exist.' The ex-dictator
+of Venice was eking out a scanty livelihood by giving lessons in Paris; he
+had only three years left to live, and was not destined to see his words
+verified. But, poor and sick and obscure though he was, his support was
+worth legions.</p>
+
+<p>It was not the first time that Italian republicans had said to the
+House of Savoy: If you will free Italy we are with you; but the
+circumstances of the case were completely changed since Mazzini wrote in
+somewhat the same language to Charles Albert a quarter of a century
+before. Both times the proposal contained an ultimatum as well as an
+offer, but Manin made it without second thoughts in the strongest hope
+that the pact would be accepted and full of anticipatory joy at the
+prospect of its success; while by the Genoese republican it was made in
+mistrust and in the knowledge that were it accepted (which he did not
+believe), its acceptance, though bringing with it for Italy a state of
+things which he recognised as preferable to that which prevailed, would
+bring to him personally nothing but disappointment and the forfeiture of
+his dearest wishes.</p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to say what were at this date Cavour's own private
+sentiments about Italian unity. Though he once confessed that as a young
+man he had fancied himself Prime Minister of Italy, whenever the subject
+was now discussed he disclaimed any belief in the feasibility of uniting
+all parts of the peninsula in one whole. He even called Manin 'a very good
+man, but mad about Italian unification.' It wanted, in truth, the
+prescience of the seer rather than the acumen of the politician to discern
+the unity of Italy in 1855. All outward facts seemed more adverse to its
+accomplishment than at any period since <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg.204]</a></span> 1815. Yet it was for Italy
+that Cavour always pleaded; Italy, and not Piedmont or even Lombardy and
+Venetia. He invariably asserted the right of his King to uphold the cause
+of all the populations from the Alps to the Straits of Messina. If he
+adopted the proverb 'Chi va piano va sano,' he kept in view the end of it,
+'Chi va sano va lontano.' In short, if he did not believe in Italian
+unity, he acted in the same way as he would have acted had he believed in
+it.</p>
+
+<p>It is evident that one thing he could not do. Whatever was in his
+thoughts, unless he was prepared to retire into private life then and
+there, he could not proclaim from the house-tops that he espoused the
+artichoke theory attributed to Victor Amadeus. There were only too many
+old diplomatists as it was, who sought to cripple Cavour's resources by
+reviving that story. The time was not come when, without manifest damage
+to the cause, he could plead guilty to the charge of preparing an Italian
+crown for his Sovereign. 'The rule in politics,' Cavour once observed, 'is
+to be as moderate in language as you are resolute in act.'</p>
+
+<p>At the end of 1855, Victor Emmanuel, with Cavour and Massimo d'Azeglio,
+paid a visit to the French and English Courts. He was received with more
+marked cordiality at the English Court than at the French. No Prince
+Charming, indeed, but the ideal of a bluff and burly Longobard chief, he
+managed to win the good graces of his entertainers, even if they thought
+him a trifle barbaric. The Duchess of Sutherland declared that of all the
+knights of St George whom she had ever seen, he was the only one who would
+have had the best of it in the fight with the dragon. The Queen rose at
+four o'clock in the morning to take leave of him. Cavour was so much
+struck by the <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">
+[Pg.205]</a></span> interest which Her Majesty evinced in the efforts of
+Piedmont for constitutional freedom, that he did not hesitate to call her
+the best friend his country possessed in England.</p>
+
+<p>It is not generally known, but it is quite true, that Victor Emmanuel
+wished to contract a matrimonial alliance with the English royal family.
+He did not take Cavour into his confidence, but a high English personage
+was sounded on the matter, a hint being given to him to say nothing about
+it to the Count. The lady who might have become Queen of Italy was the
+Princess Mary of Cambridge. The negotiations were broken off because the
+young Princess would not hear of any marriage which would have required
+her living out of England.</p>
+
+<p>The Congress which met in Paris in February 1856 for the conclusion of
+the peace between the Allies and Russia was to have far more momentous
+results for Italy than for the countries more immediately concerned in its
+discussions, but, contrary to the general impression, it does not appear
+that these results were anticipated by Cavour. He even said that it was
+idle for Sardinia to send delegates to a congress in which they would be
+treated like children. Cavour feared, perhaps, to lose the ground he had
+gained in the previous year with Napoleon III., when the Emperor's rather
+surprising question: 'Que peut-on faire pour l'Italie?' had suggested to
+the Piedmontese statesman that definite scheme of a French alliance, which
+henceforth he never let go. In any case, when D'Azeglio, who was appointed
+Sardinian representative, refused at the last moment to undertake a charge
+for which he knew he was not fitted, it was only at the urgent request of
+the King that Cavour consented to take his place. When once in Paris,
+however, he <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">
+[Pg.206]</a></span> warmed to the work, finding an unexpectedly strong
+ally in Lord Clarendon. He won what was considered in all Europe a great
+diplomatic triumph, by getting a special sitting assigned to the
+examination of Italian affairs, which had as little to do with the natural
+work of the Congress as the affairs of China. The chief points discussed
+at the secret sitting of the 8th of April were the foreign occupations in
+Central Italy, and the state of the Roman and Neapolitian governments,
+which was stigmatised by Lord Clarendon in terms much more severe than
+Cavour himself thought it prudent to use. Count Buol, the chief Austrian
+representative, grew very angry, and his opposition was successful in
+reducing the sitting to a mere conversation; but what had been said had
+been said, and Cavour prepared the way for his future policy by remarking
+to everyone: 'You see that diplomacy can do nothing for us; the question
+needs another solution.' Lord Clarendon's vigorous support made him think
+for a moment that England might take an active part in that other
+solution, and with this idea in his mind he hurried over the Channel to
+see Lord Palmerston, but he left England convinced that nothing more than
+moral assistance was ever to be expected from that quarter. The Marquis
+Emmanuel d'Azeglio, who for many years represented Sardinia, and
+afterwards Italy, at the Court of St James, has placed it on record that
+the English Premier repeatedly assured him that an armed intervention on
+behalf of Italian freedom would have been much to his taste, but that the
+country would not have been with him. It is certain that Cavour would have
+preferred an English to a French alliance; as it was not to be had, he
+reposed his sole hopes in the Emperor Napoleon, who had not the French
+people <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">
+[Pg.207]</a></span> really more with him in this matter than Lord
+Palmerston had the English&mdash;nay, he had them less with him, for in
+England there would have been a party of Italian sympathisers favourable
+to the war, and in France, there was no one except Prince Napoleon and the
+workmen of Paris. But the French Emperor was a despotic sovereign, and not
+the Prime Minister of a self-governing country. After all, some good may
+come out of despotism.</p>
+
+<p>Upon Cavour's return to Turin, he received not only the approval of the
+King and Parliament, but also congratulations from all parts of Italy. His
+position had gained immensely in strength, both at home and abroad. Yet
+the power of the Clerical party in Piedmont was still such that, in the
+elections of 1857&mdash;the first that had taken place since the
+legislation affecting the Church&mdash;they obtained seventy seats out of
+a total of two hundred. Cavour did not conceal his alarm. What if eight
+years' labour were thrown away, and the movement of the State turned
+backward? 'Never,' he said, 'would he advise a <i>coup d'&eacute;tat,</i>
+nor would his master resort to one; but if the King abdicated, what then?'
+Victor Emmanuel said to his Prime Minister: 'Let us do our duty; stand
+firm, and we shall see!' He often declared that, sooner than beat a
+retreat from the path he had entered on, he would go to America and become
+plain <i>Mons&ugrave; Savoia</i>; but he never lost faith in the
+predominating patriotism and good sense of his subjects; and at this time,
+as at others, he proved to be right. The crisis was surmounted. On the one
+hand, some elections were invalidated where the priests had exercised
+undue influence; and, on the other, Rattazzi, who was especially obnoxious
+to the Clerical party, retired from office. Cavour thus found himself
+still able to command the Chamber.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg.208]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XI"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XI</h3>
+
+<h4>PREMONITIONS OF THE STORM</h4>
+
+<h5>1857-1858</h5>
+
+<h5>Pisacane's Landing&mdash;Orsini's Attempt&mdash;The Compact of
+Plombi&egrave;res&mdash;Cavour's Triumph.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>In spite of the accusation of favouring political assassination which
+was frequently launched against the Italian secret societies, only one of
+the faithless Italian princes came to a violent death, and his murder had
+no connection with politics. Charles III., Duke of Parma, was mortally
+stabbed in March 1854; some said that the assassin was a groom whom he had
+struck with a riding-whip; others, that he was the father or brother of
+one of the victims of the Duke's dissolute habits. The Duchess, a daughter
+of the Duke de Berry, assumed the Regency on behalf of her son, who was a
+child. She began by initiating many reforms; but a street disturbance in
+July gave Austria the desired excuse for meddling in the government, when
+all progress was, of course, arrested.</p>
+
+<p>In December 1856, a soldier named Ageslao Milano attempted to
+assassinate the King of the Two Sicilies at a review. He belonged to no
+sect, but he had long premeditated the act. A few days later an earthquake
+occurred in the kingdom of Naples, by which over ten thousand persons lost
+their lives. Ferdinand II. grew morose, and shut <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg.209]</a></span> himself up in the royal
+palace of Caserta. The constant lectures of France and England annoyed him
+without persuading him to take the means to put a stop to them. Not till
+1859 did he open the doors of the prisons in which Poerio, Settembrini and
+their companions were confined. Many plans were made, meanwhile, for their
+liberation, and English friends even provided a ship by which they were to
+escape; but the ship foundered: perhaps fortunately, as Garibaldi, with
+characteristic disinterestedness, had agreed to direct the enterprise,
+which could not have been otherwise than perilous, and was not unlikely to
+end in the loss of all concerned.</p>
+
+<p>Disaster attended Baron Bentivegna's attempt at a rising at Taormina in
+1856, and Carlo Pisacane's landing at Sapri in the summer of the following
+year had no better result. Pisacane, a son of the Duke Gennaro di San
+Giovanni of Naples, had fought in the defence of Rome and was a firm
+adherent of Mazzini, in conjunction with whom he planned his unlucky
+venture. Pisacane watched the growing ascendency of Piedmont with sorrow;
+he was one of the few, if not the only one of his party to say that he
+would as soon have the dominion of Austria as that of the House of Savoy.
+But if he was an extremist in politics, none the less he was a patriot,
+who took his life in his hands and offered it up to his country in the
+spirit of the noblest devotion. He had the slenderest hope of success, but
+he believed that only by such failures could the people be roused from
+their apathy. 'For me,' he wrote, 'it will be victory even if I die on the
+scaffold. This is all I can do, and this I do; the rest depends on the
+country, not on me. I have only my affections and my life to give, and I
+give them without hesitation.'</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">
+[Pg.210]</a></span> With the young Baron Nicotera and twenty-three others,
+Pisacane embarked on the <i>Cagliari</i>, a steamer belonging to a
+Sardinian mercantile line, which was bound for Tunis. When at sea, the
+captain was frightened into obedience, and the ship's course was directed
+to the isle of Ponza, where several hundred prisoners, mostly political,
+were undergoing their sentences. The guards made little resistance, and
+Pisacane opened the prisons, inviting who would to follow him. The first
+plan had been to make a descent on San Stefano, the island where
+Settembrini was imprisoned, but that good citizen had refused to admit the
+liberation of the non-political prisoners, which was an unavoidable
+feature in the scheme. With the addition of about three hundred men,
+Pisacane left Ponza for the mainland and disembarked near the village of
+Sapri, in the province of Salerno. From information received, he imagined
+that a revolutionary movement was on the point of breaking out in that
+district. Nothing could be further from the fact. The country people did
+all the harm they could to the band, which, after making a brave stand
+against the local militia, was cut to pieces by the royal troops. Pisacane
+fell fighting; those who were not killed were taken, and amongst these was
+Nicotera, who was kept in prison till set free by Garibaldi.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Cagliari</i> was captured and detained with its crew. As two of
+the seamen were British subjects, the English Government joined Sardinia
+in demanding its restitution, which, after long delays, was conceded.</p>
+
+<p>In 1857, the Emperor of Austria relieved Field-Marshal Radetsky, then
+in his ninety-third year, of the burden of office. He was given the right
+of living in any of the royal palaces, even in the Emperor's own residence
+at Vienna, but he preferred to spend the one remaining year <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg.211]</a></span> of his life
+in Italy. At the same time, the Archduke Maximilian was appointed Viceroy
+of Lombardy and Venetia. A more naturally amiable and cultivated Prince
+never had the evil fate forced upon him of attempting impossible tasks.
+Just married to the lovely Princess Charlotte of Belgium, he came to Italy
+radiant with happiness, and wishing to make everyone as happy as he was
+himself. Not even the chilling welcome he received damped his enthusiasm,
+for he thought the aversion of the population depended on undoubted
+wrongs, which it was his full intention to redress. He was to learn two
+things; firstly, that the day of reconciliation was past: there were too
+many ghosts between the Lombards and Venetians, and the House of Hapsburg.
+Secondly, that an unseen hand beyond the Brenner would diligently thwart
+each one of his benevolent designs. The system was, and was to remain,
+unchanged. It was not carried out quite as it was carried out in the first
+years after 1849. The exiles were allowed to return and the sequestrations
+were revoked. It should be said, because it shows the one white spot in
+Austrian despotism, its civil administration, that on resuming their
+rights of ownership the proprietors found that their estates had not been
+badly managed. But the depressing and deadening influence of an
+anti-national rule continued unabated. Lombardy and Venetia were governed
+not from Milan, but from Vienna. Very small were the crumbs which the
+Viceroy obtained, though he went on a journey to Austria expressly to
+plead for concessions. It is sad to think what an enlightened heir to the
+great Austrian empire was lost, when Napoleon III. and his own family sent
+Maximilian of Hapsburg to Queretaro.</p>
+
+<p>While Cavour had come to the conclusion that the aid which he believed
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg.212]</a></span>
+essential for the expulsion of the Austrians could only come from the
+French Emperor, this sovereign was regarded by a not inconsiderable party
+of Italians as the greatest, if not the sole, obstacle to their
+liberation. All those, in particular, who came in contact with the French
+exiles, were impressed by them with the notion that France, the real
+France, was only waiting for the disappearance of the Man of December to
+throw herself into their arms. Among the Italians who held these opinions,
+there were a few with whom it became a fixed idea that the greatest
+service they could render their country was the removal of Napoleon from
+the political scene. They conceived and nourished the thought
+independently of one another; they belonged to no league, but for that
+reason they were the more dangerous; somewhere or other there was always
+someone planning to put an end to the Emperor's life. It is not worth
+while to pause to discuss the ethics of political assassination;
+civilisation has decided against it, and history proves its usual failure
+to promote the desired object. What benefit did the Confederate cause
+derive from the assassination of the good President Lincoln, or the cause
+of Russian liberty from that of Alexander II.? What will Anarchy gain by
+the murder of Carnot? It is certain, however, that never were men more
+convinced that they were executing a wild kind of justice than were the
+men who plotted against Napoleon III. They looked upon him as one of
+themselves who had turned traitor. There is a great probability that, in
+his early days when he was playing at conspiracy in Italy, he was actually
+enrolled as a Carbonaro. At all events, he had conspired for Italian
+freedom, and afterwards, to serve his own selfish interests, he
+extinguished it in Rome. The temporal power of the Pope was kept alive
+through him. <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">
+[Pg.213]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A true account of the attempts on Napoleon's life will never be
+written, because the only persons who were able and willing to throw light
+on the subject, ex-police agents and their kind, are authorities whose
+word is worth a very limited acceptance. It is pretty sure that there were
+more plots than the public ever knew of, and that in some cases the
+plotters were disposed of summarily. Most of them were poor, ignorant
+creatures, but in January 1858 an attempt was made by a man of an entirely
+different stamp, Felice Orsini.</p>
+
+<p>Born at Meldola in Romagna in 1819, he was of the true Romagnol type in
+mind and body; daring, resourceful, intolerant of control. From his
+earliest youth all his actions had but one object, the liberation of his
+country. His youthful brain was enflamed by Alfieri and Foscolo, who
+remained his favourite authors. He hated Austria well, and he hated the
+Papal government as no one but one of its own subjects could hate it.
+'When the French landed in Italy' (he told his judges) 'it was hoped that
+they were come as friends, but they proved the worst of enemies. For a
+time they were repulsed, then they resumed the cloak of friendship, but
+only to wait for reinforcements. When these arrived they returned to the
+assault, a thousand against ten, and we were judicially assassinated.' A
+succinct and true narrative. During the republic Orsini was sent to
+Ancona, where anarchy had broken out; by vigorous measures he restored
+perfect order. In 1854 he was arrested in Hungary and condemned to death,
+but he escaped from Mantua under romantic circumstances and reached
+England, where the story of his audacious flight won for him many
+sympathisers. He was often seen in society. On one occasion he was asked
+to meet Prince Lucien Buonaparte. Orsini knew Mazzini, but he was
+impatient of his <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">
+[Pg.214]</a></span> mystical leanings, and he disapproved of such
+enterprises as Pisacane's, by which, as he thought, twenty or thirty men
+were sacrificed here or there without anything coming of it. He finally
+repudiated Mazzini's leadership, and in March 1857 he wrote to Cavour,
+asking him for a passport to return to Italy, and placing at the disposal
+of the Sardinian government 'the courage and energy which it had pleased
+God to give him,' provided that government left wavering behind, and
+showed its unmistakable will to achieve the independence of Italy. Cavour
+sent no reply, 'because,' he said later, 'the letter was noble and
+energetic, and I should have had to pay Orsini compliments which I did not
+deem fitting. 'Unlike Victor Emmanuel, who in after years carried on
+regular negotiations with Mazzini, Cavour, while ready to make an alliance
+with the Radicals in the Chamber, was extremely loth to have anything to
+do with actual revolutionists. His not answering Orsini's letter certainly
+led up to the attempt of the 14th of January 1858.</p>
+
+<p>Having quarrelled with Mazzini, and receiving no encouragement from
+Cavour, Orsini evolved the plan which on that day he endeavoured to put
+into execution. He would have preferred to act alone, but since that was
+impossible, he sought and found without much difficulty two or three
+accomplices. One of these, Pieri, a teacher of languages, was arrested by
+the police, who recognised him as an old conspirator, before he threw the
+bomb which he was carrying. The other bombs were thrown just as the
+carriage containing the Imperial party drove up to the opera house. A
+number of people in the street were killed or injured, but the Emperor and
+Empress escaped unhurt. When they entered the theatre the Rutli scene of
+the conspirators in <i>Guillaume Tell</i> was being performed. Not a
+breath of applause greeted them, though <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg.215]</a></span> everyone knew what had
+happened. Napoleon III. had a striking proof of how little hold he
+possessed on the affections of his subjects.</p>
+
+<p>When at his trial Orsini was asked what he expected would happen if he
+had succeeded in killing the Emperor he answered: 'We were convinced that
+the surest way of making a revolution in Italy was to excite one in
+France, and that the surest way of making a revolution in France was to
+kill the Emperor.' There is a good deal of curious evidence to show that
+very elaborate preparations had been made for a revolution in Paris. The
+French police had orders, however, to keep all this aspect of the affair
+out of sight. It was to be made to appear the isolated act of a misguided
+Italian patriot. 'The world possesses an Orsini legend,' writes the late
+Duke of Saxe-Coburg, who was present at the event, having been invited to
+join the Emperor at the opera, 'which is quite at variance with facts.'
+The duke clearly thinks that the conviction of the instability of his
+throne which was brought home to the Emperor on this occasion, was one of
+the causes which decided him to try the diversion of public opinion into
+other channels by means of a foreign war.</p>
+
+<p>Everything was done to make Orsini a hero in the eyes of the French
+public, and to excite sympathy in his cause. Jules Favre by his eloquent
+defence in which he pleaded not for the life, but for the honour of his
+client, and still more Orsini's own letter to the Emperor, produced a
+powerful impression; there was a dramatic interest in the man who,
+disdaining to crave clemency for himself, tried a last supreme effort in
+the service of the country he had loved too well. 'Deliver my fatherland,
+and the blessings of twenty-five million citizens will be with you.' So
+concluded the letter in which Orsini <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg.216]</a></span> told Napoleon, that till
+Italy was free there would be no peace for Europe&mdash;nor for him. It
+was whispered that the Emperor had a secret interview with the condemned
+man at the Mazas prison; at any rate, when Orsini mounted the scaffold, he
+was borne up, not only by his invincible courage, but by the strongest
+hope, if not the certainty that his last prayer would have only a short
+time to wait for fulfilment.</p>
+
+<p>Though persons who were able to read the signs of the times no longer
+doubted that Napoleon had resolved to solve the Italian question by force
+of arms, it suited his purpose to occupy the public mind for the moment
+with the furious agitation against England and Piedmont as 'dens of
+assassins,' which led to the fall of the Palmerston administration on the
+Conspiracy Bill, and seemed to almost place in jeopardy the throne of
+Victor Emmanuel. Napoleon sent the King of Sardinia demands so sweeping in
+language so threatening, that the old Savoy blood was fired, and Victor
+Emmanuel returned the answer: 'Tell the Emperor in whatever terms you
+think best that this is not the way to treat a faithful ally; that I have
+never tolerated violence from anyone; that I follow the path of unstained
+honour, and for that honour I am only answerable to God and to my people.
+That we have carried our head high for 850 years, and no one will make me
+lower it; and that, nevertheless, I desire nothing better than to remain
+his friend.' This reply was benevolently received; Cavour passed through
+the Chambers a bill which, though not corresponding to the extravagant
+pretensions of the French Government, gave reasonable security against the
+concoction of plots of a criminal nature; Napoleon expressed himself
+satisfied, and three months after, despatched Dr Conneau to Turin, to
+mention, quite by the way, to the Piedmontese minister, that <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg.217]</a></span> he would be
+glad to have a conversation with him on Italian affairs. This was the
+preliminary of the interview of Plombi&egrave;res.</p>
+
+<p>Plombi&egrave;res is a watering-place in the Vosges, which became
+famous on the 20th of July 1858, the day on which Napoleon III. and Cavour
+entered into the compact that laid down the conditions of the Italian war.
+The Emperor was to bring 200,000 men into Italy, and the King of Sardinia
+undertook to furnish 100,000. The Austrians were to be expelled from
+Italy. The kingdom of Upper Italy would embrace the Legations and the
+Marches then under the Pope. Savoy would be ceded to France. The marriage
+of the Emperor's cousin with the Princess Clotilde was not made a
+condition of the war, and only in case it had been made a condition, was
+Cavour empowered to agree to it. He, therefore, left it uncertain; but he
+came away from Plombi&egrave;res convinced that nearly everything depended
+upon its happening. Napoleon was beyond measure anxious for a marriage
+which would ally him with one of the oldest reigning families in Europe.
+It would be a fatal mistake, Cavour thought, to join the Emperor, and at
+the same time, to offend him in a way which he would never forget.
+Directly after the interview, he wrote a long letter to the King to
+persuade him to yield the point. After all, where would the Princess find
+a more promising match? Was it easy to provide husbands for princesses?
+Were not they generally extremely unhappy in marriage? What had happened
+to the King's four aunts, all charming princesses, who had married the
+Duke of Modena, the Duke of Lucca, the Emperor Ferdinand of Austria, and
+the King of Naples? Had they been happy? Prince Napoleon could not be so
+very bad, as he was known to have hurried to Cannes to pay a last visit to
+a woman whom he had loved, a great actress, then upon her <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg.218]</a></span> deathbed.
+This reminiscence was a singular one to evoke under the circumstances, but
+Cavour was not an Englishman, and he was not impressed by the propriety of
+drawing a veil over facts which everyone knew.</p>
+
+<p>The King's instinct told him that his young daughter, pious and simple
+and destitute even of that seasoning of vanity which is so good and
+necessary a thing in a woman, but proud at heart like all her race, would
+derive no compensation from the outward brilliancy of the Imperial Court
+for the absence of domestic joy which would be her wedded lot unless a
+surprising change came over the bridegroom. When, however, he was
+persuaded of the importance, or rather, of the essential character of the
+concession, he said to Cavour: 'I am making a great sacrifice, but I yield
+to your arguments. Still my consent is subordinate to the freely given
+consent of my daughter.' The matter was referred to the Princess, who
+answered: 'It is the wish of my father; therefore this marriage will be
+useful to my family and my country, and I accept.' An answer worthy of one
+who, twelve years later, when the members of the Imperial House were
+flying, remained quietly in Paris, saying: 'Savoy and fear are not
+acquainted.'</p>
+
+<p>The marriage was celebrated at Turin in January. The King made a
+present to Cavour, as a souvenir of the event, of a ring representing two
+heartseases. In thanking him, the minister said: 'Your Majesty knows that
+I shall never marry.' 'I know,' replied the King; 'your bride is the
+country.'</p>
+
+<p>Though warlike rumours circulated off and on, the secret of the
+understanding arrived at in the Plombi&egrave;res interview was well
+preserved, and the words spoken by Napoleon to the Austrian Ambassador at
+the New Year's Day reception fell on Europe with the effect of a <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg.219]</a></span>
+bombshell. Turning to Baron Hubner, he said: 'Je regrette que les
+relations entre nous soient si mauvaises; d&icirc;tes cependant &agrave;
+votre souverain que mes sentiments pour lui ne sont pas
+chang&eacute;s.'</p>
+
+<p>Even Cavour was startled. Probably till that moment he had never felt
+sure that Napoleon would not after all throw the Italian cause to the
+winds. The Emperor's invariable method in dealing with men was to mystify
+them. He was pleased to pose as a faithful ally, but human intellect was
+insufficient to fathom what he meant. On this system, skilfully pursued,
+was reared the whole fabric of Louis Napoleon's reputation for being a
+profound politician. Bearing the fact in mind, we can easily see why that
+reputation crumbled away almost entirely when the present became the past.
+There are few cases in which there is more disagreement between the
+judgment of contemporaries and that of immediate posterity than the case
+of the French Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>The least surprised, and, among Italians, the most dissatisfied at the
+New Year's Day pronouncement was Mazzini, who when he read it in the <i>
+Times</i> next morning felt that the Napoleonic war closed the heroic
+period of Italian Liberation. To men like Mazzini failure is apt to seem
+more heroic than success, and the war of 1859 did close the period of
+failure. The justification for calling in foreign arms could only be in
+necessity, and Mazzini denied the necessity. Charles Albert denied it in
+1848 with no less confident a voice. Then, indeed, there did appear a
+chance of Italy making herself, but was there the slightest prospect,
+eleven years later, of that chance being repeated? Each student of history
+may answer for himself. What is plain is, that France and Sardinia <i>
+together</i> were to find it an exceedingly hard task even to drive the
+Austrians out of Lombardy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">
+[Pg.220]</a></span> The unconquerable dislike of men of principle, like
+Mazzini, to joining hands with the author of the <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i>
+was perfectly explicable. There were doubtless some sincere Bulgarian
+patriots who disliked joining hands with the Autocrat of all the Russias.
+The gift of freedom from a despot means a long list of evils. Mazzini
+grasped the maleficent influence which Napoleon III. would be in a
+position to exercise over the young state; he knew, moreover, when only
+two or three other persons in Europe knew it, that the bargain of
+Plombi&egrave;res was on the principle of give-and-take. How Mazzini was
+for many years better informed than any cabinet in Europe, remains a
+secret. 'I know positively,' he wrote on the 4th of January 1859, 'that
+the idea of the war is only to hand over a zone of Lombardy to Piedmont,
+and the cession of Savoy and Nice to France: the peace, upon the offer of
+which they count, would abandon the whole of Venetia to Austria.' A month
+before this he had disclosed what was certainly true, namely, that
+Napoleon wanted to place a Murat on the throne of Naples, and to
+substitute Prince Napoleon for the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The point that
+is doubtful in the above revelation is the statement that the Emperor
+never meant to emancipate Venetia. The probabilities are against this. He
+may, however, have questioned all along whether his troops, with those of
+the King of Sardinia, would display a superiority over the Austrian forces
+sufficiently incontestable for him to risk taking them into the mouse-trap
+of the Quadrilateral. In this one thing Napoleon was amply
+justified&mdash;in having no sort of desire to take a beaten army back to
+Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Mazzini, with the more extreme members of the Party of Action
+(including Crispi), issued a protest against the Napoleonic war, with
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg.221]</a></span>
+the advice to have nothing to do with it or its authors. But Italy thought
+otherwise, and Garibaldi, the man who of all others most nearly
+represented the heart of Italy, rejoiced and was glad. He did not believe
+a word about the proposed cession of Savoy and Nice; no one did, except
+Mazzini and his few disciples. What he saw was, that a great step towards
+independence was about to be taken. In 1856, he not only adhered to
+Manin's call to all Italians to rally round the house of Savoy, but went
+further than Manin in accepting unconditionally what he called the 'Savoy
+Dictatorship,' to which he left full liberty of choice in the matter of
+ways and means. He did justice then to Cavour's patriotism: it was only
+after the sacrifice of Nice that a feeling of bitter antagonism grew up in
+him for the man who he thought had deceived Italy and himself. In December
+1858, on a summons from Cavour, he left Caprera (the island which he had
+bought with a little inheritance falling to him on the death of his
+brother) and proceeded to Turin, where he was informed of a plan for a
+rising in Massa and Carrara, which was originally intended to be the
+signal of the war. The plan was given up, but in March 1859, Garibaldi was
+told by Victor Emmanuel in person of the imminence of war, and was invited
+to take part in it as commander of an auxiliary corps of volunteers which
+took the name of 'Cacciatori delle Alpi.' In this way, all his own
+followers, not only those in arms, but the great mass of the people which
+was obedient to his lead, became enrolled in the service of the Sardinian
+monarchy; a fact of capital importance in the future development of
+affairs. Without it, the Italian kingdom could not have been formed. And
+this fact was due to Cavour, who had to fight the arrayed strength of the
+old, narrow, military caste at Turin, which <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg.222]</a></span> had succeeded in getting
+Garibaldi's sword refused in 1848, and wished for nothing in the world
+more than to get it refused in 1859. Near the end of his life, Cavour said
+in the Chamber that the difficulties he encountered in inducing the
+Sardinian War Office to sanction the appointment were all but
+insurmountable. Unfortunately, the jealousy of the heads of the regular
+army for the revolutionary captain never ceased. As for Cavour, even when
+he opposed Garibaldi politically, he always strove to have the highest
+personal honour paid to the man of whom he once wrote 'that he had
+rendered Italy the greatest service it was possible to render her.'</p>
+
+<p>True to his <i>r&ocirc;le</i> of mystification, one week after the shot
+fired on the 1st of January, Napoleon inserted an official statement in
+the <i>Moniteur</i> to the effect that, although public opinion had been
+agitated by alarming rumours, there was nothing in the foreign relations
+of France to justify the fears these rumours tended to create. He
+continued on this tack, with more or less consistency, to the very verge
+of the outbreak of hostilities. 'The Empire was peace,' as it was always
+announced to be in the intervals when it was not war; there was no more
+harmless dove in Europe than the person enthroned in the Tuileries. These
+assurances were given more credence than they deserved by the Conservative
+Cabinet then in power in England, and the British ministers believed to
+the last that war would be averted, to which end they strained every
+nerve. Besides the wish felt by every English government to preserve
+European peace, there was at this juncture, not only in the Cabinet, but
+in the country, so much fear of Napoleon's ambition and restlessness, that
+for the time being, <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_223" id=
+"Page_223">[Pg.223]</a></span> sympathy with Italy was relegated to a
+second place.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile there was no want of plainness in the language employed in
+Piedmont. In opening the second session of the sixth Sardinian Parliament,
+Victor Emmanuel pronounced, on 10th January, the historic phrase declaring
+that he could not remain insensible to the cry of grief, <i>il grido di
+dolore</i>, that reached him from all parts of Italy. Every corner of the
+fair country where the <i>Si</i> sounds was electrified. The words, as has
+since become known, were introduced into the speech by the King himself.
+As Cavour had foreseen, Austria played into his hands. To Lord
+Malmesbury's appeal to evacuate the Roman Legations, and to use Austrian
+influence with the Italian princes in procuring the concession of
+necessary reforms, Count Buol replied in terms that were the reverse of
+obliging: 'We do not mean to abdicate our right of intervention, and if we
+are called upon to help the Italian sovereigns with our arms, we shall do
+so. We shall not recommend their governments to undertake any reforms.
+France plays the part of protectress of nationalities; we are, and shall
+be, protectors of dynastic rights.' Finally, England proposed a congress
+with a view to general disarmament. Piedmont, counting on the madness of
+her adversary, risked agreement with this plan. Austria gave a peremptory
+refusal to have anything to do with it.</p>
+
+<p>Cavour now asked Parliament to vote a war loan of &pound;2,000,000,
+which was passed by a majority of 81 out of 151 votes. No foreign banker
+would undertake to negotiate the loan, but it was twice covered by Italian
+buyers, nearly all small capitalists, who put their money into it as a
+patriotic duty. Amongst the few deputies who opposed the loan was the old
+apostle of retrogression, Count Solaro della Margherita, who raised his
+solitary voice against the tide of revolution; and the Savoyard the
+Marquis Costa de Beauregard whose speech was pathetic <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg.224]</a></span> from the
+melancholy foreboding which pervaded it that the making of Italy meant the
+unmaking of Savoy. Speaking in the name of his fellow-countrymen, the
+Marquis reconfirmed the profound love of Savoy for her Royal House and her
+total lack of solidarity with the aspirations of Italy. With time the
+Savoyards might have learnt to be Italians as their king had learnt to be
+an Italian king. Or they might not. Possibly the best solution would have
+been to join Savoy to the Swiss Confederation, though the martial
+instincts of the race were not favourable to their Conversion into
+peaceful Helvetic citizens. From one point of view, that of military
+defence, the retention of the province was of infinitely more moment to
+the future Italy than to little Piedmont. Sardinia could keep the peace
+with France for an indefinite period; Italy cannot. What is true of Savoy
+is far more true of Nice. To have it in foreign keeping is to have a very
+partially reformed burglar inside your house.</p>
+
+<p>'Notre roi,' said an old ragged fisherman of the Lac de Bourget to the
+writer of this book,&mdash;'Notre roi nous a vendus.' Not willingly did
+Victor Emmanuel incur that charge, in which the rebound from love to hate
+was so clearly heard; not willingly did he give up Maurienne, cradle of
+his race, Hautecombe, grave of his fathers. It was the greatest sacrifice,
+he said, that Italy could have asked of him. Nor is there any reason to
+doubt his word. But it is incorrect to suppose, as many have supposed,
+that Cavour promised at Plombi&egrave;res to give up Savoy (Nice he did
+not promise) without the King's knowledge. Before he went there, he had
+brought Victor Emmanuel over to his own belief, justified or not, that
+without a bait Napoleon could not be got to <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg.225]</a></span> move. Directly after the
+interview, he wrote a full account of it to the King, in which he said:
+'When the future fate of Italy was arranged, the Emperor asked me what
+France would have, and if your Majesty would cede Savoy and the county of
+Nice?' To which Cavour answered 'Yes' as to Savoy, but objected that Nice
+was essentially Italian. The Emperor twirled his moustache several times,
+and only said that these were secondary questions, about which there would
+be time to think later.</p>
+
+<p>Austria was always appealing to the right of treaties and the right of
+nations; not, as it happened, with much reason, for she had ridden or
+tried to ride rough-shod through as many treaties and through quite as
+many rights as most European Powers. In 1816 she was so determined to
+possess herself of Alessandria and the Upper Novarese that Lord
+Castlereagh advised Piedmont to join the Austrian Confederation, as then
+and only then the Emperor might withdraw his pretensions to this large
+slice of territory of a Prince with whom he was at peace. If he did
+withdraw them, it was not from respect for the treaties which, a year
+before, had confirmed the King of Sardinia's rights as an independent
+sovereign, but from respect for the untoward results to himself which he
+was afraid, on reflection, might arise from enforcing his claims with the
+bayonet. But people forget; and it was of vital consequence that virtuous
+Austria should figure in the coming conflict not as the victim of
+aggression but as the aggressor. On all sides it was said that the
+Austrian Government would never commit an error of such magnitude; only
+Cavour thought the contrary. 'I shall <i>force</i> her to declare war
+against us,' he told Mr Odo Russell in December 1858. When asked by the
+incredulous diplomatist at what date he expected to <span class="newpage">
+<a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg.226]</a></span> perform so great a
+feat, Cavour quietly answered: 'In the first week of May.' War was
+actually declared a few days sooner.</p>
+
+<p>For months Austria had been pouring troops into Italy, a large portion
+of which were massed on the frontier line of the Ticino. Who shall count
+the number of the men brought to fight and die in the Italian plains
+between 1848 and 1866 to sustain for that short time the weight of a
+condemned despotism? The supply was inexhaustible; they came from the
+Hungarian steppes, from the green valleys of Styria, from the mountains of
+Tyrol, from the woodlands of the Banat and of Bohemia; a blind million
+battling for a chimera. They came, and how many did not return?</p>
+
+<p>Austria's final refusal to adhere to the Congress scheme meant, of
+course, war, and Cavour called the Chamber and demanded a vote conferring
+upon Government the power to take such prompt measures as the situation
+required. 'We trust,' he said, 'that the Chamber will not hesitate to
+sanction the proposal to invest the King with plenary powers. Who could be
+a better guardian of our liberty? Who more worthy of the faith of the
+nation? He it is whose name a ten years' reign had made synonymous with
+honour and loyalty; who has always held high the tricolor standard of
+Italy, who now prepares to unsheath his sword for freedom and
+independence.'</p>
+
+<p>When Cavour walked out of the Chamber after the vote had been taken, he
+said: 'I am leaving the last sitting of the Piedmontese Parliament, the
+next will be that of the Kingdom of Italy.' At that moment, if ever in his
+career, the great minister who had fought so long a fight against
+incalculable obstacles learnt what it is to taste the sweetness of
+triumph.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg.227]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XII"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XII</h3>
+
+<h4>THE WAR FOR LOMBARDY</h4>
+
+<h5>1859</h5>
+
+<h5>Austria declares War&mdash;Montebello&mdash;Garibaldi's
+Campaign&mdash;Palestro&mdash;Magenta&mdash;The Allies enter
+Milan&mdash;Ricasoli saves Italian Unity&mdash;Accession of Francis
+II.&mdash;Solferino&mdash;The Armistice of Villafranca.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>Baron von Kellersperg reached Turin on the 23rd of April, bringing with
+him the Austrian ultimatum: 'Disarmament within three days, or war.'
+Cavour read the document, and then drew his watch out of his pocket. It
+was half-past five in the afternoon. At the same hour on the 26th, he gave
+Baron von Kellersperg the answer: 'Sardinia having accepted the principle
+of a general disarmament, as formulated by England, with the adhesion of
+France, Prussia and Russia, the Sardinian Government has no other
+explanation to make.' The retort was justified. Austria, which now
+required Sardinia to disarm, had refused to disarm herself. She must take
+the consequences.</p>
+
+<p>The British Government made a last desperate effort to maintain peace,
+and the Austrians always said that this was their ruin, as it delayed the
+invasion of Piedmont for a week. On the 29th appeared the Emperor Francis
+Joseph's Declaration of War, and on the same day the first Austrian
+columns crossed the Ticino. The Austrian commander-in-chief was Count
+Gyulai, who was in high favour with the aristocratic party, <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg.228]</a></span> by which
+his appointment was suggested to, if not forced upon, the Emperor. The
+latter, not altogether easy in his mind about Gyulai's capabilities,
+commissioned General Hess, in whom he placed full confidence, to keep his
+eye on him. Hess could not, however, do much more than take notes of one
+of the most remarkable and providential series of blunders ever committed
+by the commander of an army.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the delay which the Austrians ascribed to the English peace
+negotiations, there was time for them to destroy the Sardinian army before
+the French came up. Gyulai had 100,000 men in the theatre of war, a number
+increased up to 200,000 during the campaign. Both Sardinia and her ally
+mustered much fewer men than were spoken of at Plombi&egrave;res. The
+Piedmontese could dispose of 56,000 infantry, formed in five divisions,
+one division of cavalry numbering 4,000, and one brigade of volunteers, to
+which the name was given of 'Cacciatori delle Alpi.' The enrolment of
+these was stopped when it had reached the small figure of 4,500 men, a
+figure that looks out of all proportion with the brilliant part they
+played. The same influences which cut short the enrolment prevented Cavour
+from keeping his distinct promise to give Garibaldi, now invested with the
+official rank of major-general, 10,000 regulars, with a battery and a
+troop of horse.</p>
+
+<p>The French army consisted of 128,000 men, including about 10,000
+cavalry. The Emperor's Government had notified beforehand to Vienna that
+the passage of the Ticino by the Austrian troops would be considered
+equivalent to a declaration of war, and accordingly, on the 29th of April,
+diplomatic relations between the two Powers were broken off. The French
+forces had been really on the move for more than a week&mdash;ever since,
+in fact, by what the Marquis of Normanby called 'an <span class="newpage">
+<a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg.229]</a></span> unpardonable breach
+of confidence,' the intention of Austria to invade Sardinia was
+communicated to Paris. The mobilisation was conducted with rapidity; in
+spite of the snow, which lay deep on the Mont Cenis, the first corps,
+under Marshal Baraguay d'Hilliers, made a swift march over the Alps, and
+the foremost division entered Turin on the 30th of April. The troops of
+Canrobert and Niel, who commanded the third and fourth corps, were sent by
+Toulon and Marseilles, while the generals themselves went on to Turin in
+advance. MacMahon's corps, which was the second, was on its way from
+Algiers. The fifth corps, under the command of Prince Napoleon, was
+despatched at a later date to Tuscany, where it was kept in a state of
+inactivity, which suggested rather a political than a military mission.
+General Regnault de Saint-Jean d'Ang&eacute;ly commanded the Imperial
+Guard. Napoleon III assumed the supreme command of the allied armies, with
+General Vaillant as head of the staff.</p>
+
+<p>The condition of neither French nor Austrian army was satisfactory. The
+former had more modern arms and a greater proportion of old soldiers, but
+it was generally thought that the French cavalry, so far superior to the
+Prussian in the war of 1870, was inferior to the Austrian in 1859. The
+commissariat and ambulance arrangements of the French were disgraceful,
+though they had this advantage, that when there was food to be had the
+soldiers were allowed to eat it, while the Austrians were limited to
+half-a-pound of beef a day, and were only allowed to cook once in the
+twenty-four hours, which led to their having constantly to fight fasting.
+In point of discipline, they were probably superior to the French, who
+fought, however, and this should always be remembered of them in Italy,
+with the best will in the <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_230" id=
+"Page_230">[Pg.230]</a></span> world. They carried about their pet monkeys
+and dogs, and were always good-humoured and in good spirits, even when
+wounded. What would have been the effect on them of even a single defeat
+is a question which it is useless to discuss.</p>
+
+<p>In Napoleon's proclamation to the French people it was stated that the
+scope of the war was to give Italy to herself, not to make her change
+masters; the recompense of France would be to have upon her frontiers a
+friendly people which owed its independence to her. As things stood there
+were but two alternatives: Austria supreme as far as the Alps, or Italy
+free to the Adriatic. On the 12th of May, the Imperial yacht, the <i>Reine
+Hortense</i>, steamed into the harbour of Genoa with the Emperor on board.
+A splendid reception awaited him, and amongst the first to greet him was
+Cavour. 'You may well rejoice,' said Napoleon, as he embraced the
+Sardinian statesman, 'for your plans are being realised.'</p>
+
+<p>Gyulai, who had insisted on invading Piedmont, contrary to the opinion
+of Hess (who counselled waiting for reinforcements on the left bank of the
+Mincio), wasted his time after crossing the Ticino in making plans and
+changing them while he could unquestionably have thrown himself on Turin
+had he possessed more resolution, and this was the only operation that
+could have justified the initial folly of the invasion. The taking of the
+capital might not have altered the fortunes of the war, but it would have
+had all the appearance of a triumph, and would have raised the <i>
+moral</i> of the Austrian soldiers. The allies had time to concentrate
+their forces near Tortona, and it was left to them to assume the
+offensive. The Austrians retired towards the Apennines, but made a forward
+movement on the 20th of May with the object of seizing <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg.231]</a></span> the heights
+of Casteggio which command the road to Piacenza; they were met by the
+allies at the village of Montebello where Marshal Lannes obtained a
+victory in 1800. The allies were completely successful in this first
+battle, the honours of the day falling to the Sardinian cavalry, which
+showed great gallantry. The Austrian forces were considerably superior in
+strength.</p>
+
+<p>Almost at the same time as the engagement of Montebello, Garibaldi with
+his diminutive army (which through the weeding-out of men unfit for
+service was reduced to about 3,500 before it took the field), crossed the
+Lago Maggiore, and advanced boldly into the heart of the enemy's country.
+The volunteers had no artillery, and by way of cavalry only some forty or
+fifty were mounted on their own horses and dignified with the name of
+'guides.' They were badly armed and worse equipped; the only good thing
+they had was an excellent ambulance organised by Dr Bertani, Garibaldi's
+surgeon-general from Roman days downwards. But they formed a picturesque
+sight as they marched along gaily to the everlasting song, 'Addio, mia
+bella, addio'; and a physiognomist would have been struck by their
+intelligent and often distinguished faces: nobles and poets, budding
+doctors and lawyers, bristled in the ranks, while the officers were the
+still young veterans of 1848-1849: Cosenz, hero of Venice; Medici, the
+defender of the Vascello; Bixio, Sirtori, Cairoli&mdash;all the Knights of
+the Legend.</p>
+
+<p>Moving swiftly from place to place, and appearing where and when he was
+least expected, Garibaldi took the entire country of the Lombard lakes.
+Gyulai, who at first looked upon the Garibaldian march as a simple
+diversion intended to draw off his attention, now became <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg.232]</a></span> concerned,
+and dispatched Urban with 10,000 men to destroy the volunteers, and stem
+the insurrection which everywhere followed in their wake. On the 27th of
+May Garibaldi drove Urban from his position near San Fermo, and that
+commander had his mission still unfulfilled when he received the order to
+retreat after the battle of Magenta. The volunteers were free to pursue
+their way to Brescia and the Valtellina, where they performed many feats
+in the latter period of the war, winning the admiration of Hayn, the
+Austrian general opposed to them, which he was generous enough to express
+in no measured terms.</p>
+
+<p>The great war was meanwhile approaching its climax. After Montebello
+the whole French army executed a secret flank movement, changing its
+position from Voghera, where Gyulai believed it to be, and whence he
+expected it to move on to Piacenza, to the line of the Sesia, between
+Cameriano and Casale. To mask the main operations, the Sardinian forces
+were sent to Palestro, on the other side of the Sesia. On the 30th of May,
+they drove in the outposts of the enemy, and on the 31st fought the
+important engagement by which the Austrian attempt to retake Palestro was
+repelled, and great damage caused to Zobel's corps, which was obliged to
+leave eight guns sticking in the mud. The French Zouaves of the 3rd
+regiment fought with the Piedmontese, and made the battle famous by the
+reckless valour of their bayonet charges. Victor Emmanuel, deaf to all
+remonstrances, placed himself at their head, in consequence of which they
+elected him their corporal, an honour once paid to the first Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>There is reason to think that after Palestro, Gyulai, having at last
+realised what Napoleon was about, wished to evacuate Lombardy, but was
+prevented from doing so by strong protests sent by the Emperor Francis
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg.233]</a></span>
+Joseph, who was at Verona. The Austrian army was in full retreat when it
+was pulled up near Magenta, with the object of checking the advance of the
+French, who had already begun to cross the Ticino by the bridges of San
+Martino and Buffalora, which the Austrians had tried to blow up, but had
+not succeeded from want of proper powder. In the great battle of the 4th
+of June, Austrians and French numbered respectively about 60,000 men; no
+Piedmontese were engaged till the evening, when a battalion of Bersaglieri
+arrived. The Imperial Guard, with which was Napoleon, had to bear the
+brunt of the fight for four hours, and ran a good chance of being
+annihilated; not a brilliant proof of French generalship, but happily the
+Austrians also committed grave mistakes. MacMahon's arrival at five in the
+afternoon prevented a catastrophe, and the fighting, which continued far
+into the night, was from this moment attended by results on the whole
+advantageous to the French. Not much more can be said. Magenta was very
+like a drawn battle. The Austrians are calculated to have lost 10,000 men,
+the French between 4,000 and 5,000. It was expected that the Austrians
+would renew the attack, but on the 5th, Gyulai ordered the retreat, which
+was the last order he had the opportunity of giving, as he was deprived of
+his command immediately after.</p>
+
+<p>At mid-day on the 5th, Milan, which was trembling on the verge of
+revolution, made the pleasurable discovery that there were no Austrians
+left in the town. The municipality sent out delegates with the keys of the
+city to Victor Emmanuel. At ten a.m. on the 7th, MacMahon's corps began to
+file down the streets. Words cannot describe the welcome given to them.
+How MacMahon lifted to his saddle-bow a child that was in danger of being
+crushed by the crowd will be <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_234" id=
+"Page_234">[Pg.234]</a></span> remembered from the pretty incident having
+passed into English poetry. On the 8th, the King and the Emperor made
+their entry amidst a new paroxysm of enthusiasm. Napoleon is reported to
+have exclaimed: 'How this people must have suffered!' In his proclamation
+'to the Italian people,' which bears the same date as his entry into
+Milan, he renewed the assurance of the disinterested motives which had
+brought him to Italy: 'Your enemies, who are also mine, have endeavoured
+to diminish the universal sympathy felt in Europe for your cause, by
+causing it to be believed that I am making war for personal ambition, or
+to increase French territory. If there are men who fail to comprehend
+their epoch, I am not one of them. In the enlightened state of public
+opinion now prevailing, true greatness lies in the moral influence which
+we exercise rather than in sterile conquests.' The proclamation ended with
+the words: 'To-morrow you will be the citizens of a great country.' Not
+the least effusive demonstrations were reserved for Cavour, who joined his
+Sovereign a few days after the battle of Magenta.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p>Leaving the Milanese to put their faith in princes while yet there was
+time, a glance must be taken at what had been going on in the rest of
+Italy, which was becoming a great nation far more rapidly, and in a much
+fuller sense than Napoleon III. expected or wished. When Austria sent her
+ultimatum to Turin, the Sardinian minister at the Court of Tuscany invited
+the Grand Duke's Government to take part in the war of liberation. This
+they refused to do. On perceiving, however, that he could not depend on
+his troops, the Grand Duke promised to co-operate with Piedmont, but his
+advisers did not now think it possible to save the grand ducal throne,
+unless Leopold II. abdicated in favour of his <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg.235]</a></span> son, who was not
+burdened with the fatal associations of the reaction of ten years before.
+Leopold probably thought that even his abdication would not keep out the
+deluge, and he took the more dignified course of declining to yield to
+force. On the 27th of April, accompanied by the Corps Diplomatique as far
+as the frontier, he left Tuscany. A Provisional Government was formed with
+Peruzzi at its head, which hastily raised 8000 men for immediate service
+under the command of General Ulloa. Before long Prince Napoleon, with the
+fifth corps of the French army, landed, for no reason that could be
+avowed, at Leghorn. The real motive was to prepare the way for the
+fabrication of a new kingdom of Etruria, which existed already in
+Napoleon's brain. This masterpiece of folly had but a lukewarm supporter
+in Prince Napoleon, who was the only Napoleon and about the only Frenchman
+(if he could be called one) who grasped the idea of the unity of Italy and
+sincerely applauded it. Had J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Napoleon been born with
+the least comprehension of self-respect and personal dignity, his strong
+political intelligence and clear logical discernment must have produced
+something better than the most ineffectual career of the century.</p>
+
+<p>On the 8th of May, Baron Ricasoli took office under the Provisional
+Government as Minister of the Interior, and for nearly twelve months he
+was the real ruler of Tuscany. He had an ally of great strength, though of
+humble origin, in Giuseppe Dolfi, the baker, of whom it was currently said
+that any day he could summon 10,000 men to the Piazza della Signoria, who
+would obey him to the death. To Dolfi it was due that there were no
+disorders after the Grand Duke left. What Italy owes to the Lord of
+Brolio, history will never adequately state, because it is well-nigh
+impossible fully to realise how critical was <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg.236]</a></span> her position during all
+that year, from causes external and internal, and how disastrous would
+have been the slightest mistake or wavering in the direction of Tuscan
+affairs, which formed the central hinge of the whole complicated
+situation. Fortunate, indeed, was it that there was a man like the Iron
+Baron, who, by simple force of will, outwitted the enemies of Italy more
+thoroughly than even Cavour could do with all his astuteness. Austere,
+aristocratic, immovable from his purpose, indifferent to praise or blame,
+Ricasoli aimed at one point&mdash;the unity of the whole country; and
+neither Cavour's impatience for annexation to Piedmont, nor the scheme of
+Farini and Minghetti for averting the wrath of the French Emperor by a
+temporary and preparatory union of the central states, drew him one inch
+from the straight road, which was the only one he had ever learnt to walk
+in.</p>
+
+<p>In June, the Duke of Modena and the Duchess-Regent of Parma found it
+impossible to remain in their states, now that Austrian protection was
+withdrawn. The latter had done what she could to preserve the duchy for
+her young son, but the tide was too strong. These revolutions were
+accomplished quietly; but, some months after, on the incautious return to
+Parma of a man deeply implicated in the abuses of Charles III.'s
+government&mdash;Colonel Anviti&mdash;he was cruelly murdered; an act of
+vengeance which happily remained alone.</p>
+
+<p>After the battle of Magenta, when the Austrian troops were recalled
+from the Marches and Romagna, those districts rose and demanded the
+dictatorship of Piedmont. Napoleon foresaw that this would happen as far
+back as the Plombi&egrave;res interview, and at that date it did not
+appear that he meant to oppose it. But now, in Paris, the Clerical party
+were seized with panic, and the Empress-Regent, then, as always,
+completely under their control, did all in her power to arouse the <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg.237]</a></span>
+Emperor's opposition. The Pope , on his part, knowing that he was secure
+in Rome&mdash;thanks to the French garrison, which, though it hated its
+office, as the French writer Amp&egrave;re and others bore witness, was
+sure to perform it faithfully&mdash;had the idea of sending his Swiss
+troops to put down the growing revolution. With these, and a few Roman
+troops of the line, Colonel Schmidt marched against Perugia, where, in
+restoring the Papal authority, he used a ferocity which, though denied by
+clerical writers, was attested by all contemporary accounts, and was
+called 'atrocious' by Sir James Hudson in a despatch to Lord John Russell.
+The significance of such facts, wrote the English minister at Turin, could
+only be the coming fall of the Pope's Temporal Power.</p>
+
+<p>L.C. Farini was sent by Victor Emmanuel to administer the provinces of
+Modena and Parma, and Massimo d'Azeglio was charged with the same mission
+in Romagna. The Marches of Ancona had been recovered by the Papal troops,
+which were concentrated in the district called La Cattolica, near Rimini.
+A volunteer corps, under the Piedmontese General Mezzacapo, was entrusted
+with the task of preventing them from crossing into the Legations.</p>
+
+<p>In the month of May, when the allies were reaping their first
+successes, an event occurred at Caserta which precipitated crisis in the
+South Italy. Ferdinand II. died at forty-eight years of age of a terrible
+complaint which had attacked him a few months earlier, when he went to
+meet his son's bride, the Princess Maria Sofia of Bavaria, sister of the
+Empress of Austria. The news from Upper Italy hastened his end; he is said
+to have exclaimed not long before he died: 'They have won the cause!'</p>
+
+<p>The accession of a youth, of whom nothing bad was known, to a throne
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg.238]</a></span>
+that had been occupied by a sovereign so out of place in modern
+civilisation as Ferdinand, would appear at first sight a fortunate
+circumstance for the chances of the dynasty; but it was not so. In an
+eastern country it matters little whether the best of the inhabitants
+loathe and detest their ruler; but it matters much whether he knows how to
+cajole and frighten the masses, and especially the army, into obedience.
+Naples, more Oriental than western, possessed in Ferdinand a monarch
+consummately expert in this side of the art of government. Though without
+the higher military virtues, his army was his favourite plaything; he
+always wore uniform, never forgot a face he had once seen, and treated the
+officers with a rather vulgar familiarity, guessing at their weaknesses
+and making use of them on occasion. The rank and file regarded him as a
+sort of supernatural being. Francis II., who succeeded him, could scarcely
+appear in this light even to the most ignorant. Popular opinion considered
+him not quite sound in his mind. Probably his timorous, awkward ways and
+his seeming stupidity were simply the result of an education conducted by
+bigoted priests in a home that was no home: populated as it was by the
+offspring of a stepmother who hated him. His own mother, the charming
+Princess Cristina of Savoy, died while the city was rejoicing at his
+birth. The story is well known of how, shortly after the marriage,
+Ferdinand thought it diverting to draw a music-stool from under his wife,
+causing her to fall heavily. It gives a sample of the sufferings of her
+brief married life. An inheritance of sorrow descended from her to her
+child.</p>
+
+<p>If Francis II. was not popular, neither was the new queen. Far more
+virile in character and in tastes than her husband, her high spirit was
+not what the Neapolitans admire in women, and those who were <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg.239]</a></span> devoted to
+the late King accused her of having shown impatience during his illness
+for the moment when the crown would fall to Francis. Malicious gossip of
+this kind, however false, serves its end. Thus, from one cause or another,
+the young King exercised a power sensibly weaker than that of his father,
+while, besides other enemies, he had an inveterate one in his stepmother,
+who began weaving a conspiracy to oust him from the throne and place on it
+the eldest of his half-brothers. This plot received, however, very little
+popular support.</p>
+
+<p>The Sardinian Government sought to persuade Francis to join in the war
+against Austria; disinterested counsel, as in taking it lay his only hope,
+but it was opposed by England, Russia and France. In July two of the Swiss
+regiments at Naples mutinied. The Swiss Government, becoming alive to the
+discredit cast on the country by mercenary service, had decided that Swiss
+subjects serving abroad should lose their rights as citizens of the
+Confederation whilst so employed, and that they should no longer introduce
+the arms of their respective cantons into their regimental colours. This
+was the immediate cause of their insubordination. The mutineers, most of
+whom were unarmed, were ruthlessly shot down in the Campo di Marte to the
+terror of the population, and the two Swiss regiments which remained quiet
+were dissolved; by which the monarchy lost the troops that were chiefly to
+be depended on in emergencies. The Austrians and Bavarians imported in
+their stead did not form separate regiments, but were incorporated among
+the native troops, though the regiments that contained them were commonly
+called 'Bavarian.' They only partially filled the place of the Swiss.</p>
+
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg.240]</a></span>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p>Between the 4th and the 24th of June, no engagement of any magnitude
+was fought in Lombardy except the attack on Benedek at Melegnano, a battle
+in which the French lost most men, and gained no strategical advantage. It
+was supposed to have been fought because Napoleon I. had gained a victory
+in the same neighbourhood. The Austrians retreated to the Mincio,
+destroying the bridges over the Adda, Serio, Oglio and Mella as they went;
+these rivers the allies had to make repassable, which is the excuse given
+for the dilatory nature of their pursuit of the enemy. The Emperor Francis
+Joseph had now assumed the command, with Hess as his principle adviser,
+and Wimpffen and Schlick, famous as the 'One-eyed,' as heads of the two
+great corps into which the army was divided.</p>
+
+<p>On the 22nd of June, the Austrians were ranged along the left bank of
+the Mincio from Peschiera to Mantua, and the French were massed near
+Montechiaro, on the Brescia road, which Napoleon had made his
+headquarters. In withdrawing all their men from the right bank of the
+river, the Austrians desired to create the impression that they had
+finally abandoned it. It was their plan, which did not lack boldness, to
+throw the whole army back upon the right bank, and to perform a concentric
+movement on Montechiaro, where they hoped to fall unawares on the French
+and destroy them. They were confident of success, for they knew what a
+good stand they had made at Magenta, and now that Gyulai was got rid of,
+and the young Emperor had taken the field, they did not doubt that fortune
+would turn her wheel. To these men of many nations, the presence of their
+Emperor was the one inspiration that could rouse them, for if they were
+fighting for anything, it was for him in the most personal sense; it was
+to secure his mastery of the <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_241" id=
+"Page_241">[Pg.241]</a></span> splendid land over which he looked from the
+castle of Valleggio, on the 23rd of June, whilst his brilliant staff stood
+round, waiting for the signal to mount and clatter down the steep road to
+the Mincio bridge. The army now advanced along all its line.</p>
+
+<p>Even the soberest writers have not resisted making some reference to
+the magnificent scene of to-morrow's battle. On one side, the mountain
+bulwarks rising tier on tier, gorgeous with the trancendent beauty of
+colour and light of the Italian summer; on the other, the vine-clad
+hillocks which fall gently away from the blue lake of Garda till they are
+lost in the</p>
+
+<pre>
+        .....harvest shining plain
+        Where the peasant heaps his grain
+        In the garner of his foe.
+</pre>
+
+<p>The 24th of June was to decide how much longer the Lombard peasant
+should labour to fill a stranger's treasury.</p>
+
+<p>The calculations of the Austrians were founded on the slowness which
+had hitherto characterised Napoleon's movements. Hess thought that two
+days might be safely allowed for the Austrian advance, and that the enemy
+would remain passive on the west bank of the river Chiese, waiting to be
+attacked on the 25th. If the operation could have been performed in one
+day, and it is thought that it could, there would have been more prospect
+of success. But even then, the original plan of attacking the allies west
+of the Chiese could not have been carried out, as on the 23rd the whole
+allied army moved forward, the French occupying Castiglione and Lonato,
+and the Sardinians Rezzato and Desenzano, on the lake of Garda. It is not
+clear how far the allies believed in the Austrian advance; that they had
+warning of it from several quarters is certain. For instance, a gentleman
+living at <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">
+[Pg.242]</a></span> Desenzano heard from the country people, who, for
+marketing or other purposes, constantly go to and fro between that place
+and Peschiera, that the Austrians had ordered a quantity of country carts
+and transport waggons to be in readiness on the 23rd, and he hastened with
+the intelligence to the Piedmontese General Delia Rocca, who, in a fine
+spirit of red-tapism, pooh-poohed the information. The French encountered
+several Austrian patrols in the course of the day, but they were inclined
+to think that the Austrians were only executing a reconnaissance. On the
+whole, it seems that the conflict came as a surprise to both sides.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor of Austria, after accompanying the advance for a short
+distance, returned with Hess to Valleggio for the night. Napoleon slept at
+Montechiaro. The Austrian forces bivouacked on the little hills between
+Solferino and Cavriana. They rested well, still confident that no fighting
+would be done next day. At two in the morning, the French began to move in
+the direction of Solferino, and the Sardinians in that of Peschiera. There
+is a legend, that in the grey mists of dawn an advance party of French
+cavalry espied a huge and gaunt hussar standing by the roadside. For a
+moment the figure was lost sight of, but it reappeared, and after running
+across the road in front of the French, it turned and dealt the officer
+who led the party so tremendous a blow that he fell off his horse. Then
+the adventurous Austrian fled, followed by a volley from the French
+troopers; the sound vibrating through the dawn stillness gave the call to
+arms to the contrasted hosts. The battle of Solferino had begun.</p>
+
+<p>The news flew to Montechiaro and to Valleggio. Napoleon started for
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg.243]</a></span>
+the scene of action with the Imperial Guard; Francis Joseph's staff was
+sent forward at six a.m., but the Emperor and Hess did not start till
+later. At near nine, the staff was looking for the Emperor, and the
+Emperor was looking for the staff in the open country about Volta; the
+sixty or seventy staff-officers dashed across ploughed fields and over
+hedges and ditches, in a style which would have done credit to an English
+fox-hunt. This remarkable incident was in keeping with the general
+management of the battle on the part of the Austrians, who had been
+fighting for many hours before the commander-in-chief arrived. After his
+arrival, they continued fighting without any visible plan, according to
+the expedients of the divisional generals. The particular expedient
+adopted by General Zedwitz was to withdraw 15,000 men, including six
+regiments of cavalry, from the field. At a critical moment, Count Clam
+Gallas had the misfortune to lose his artillery reserve, and sent
+everywhere to ask if anyone had seen it. The Prince of Hesse, acting
+without orders, or against orders, separated his division from
+Schwarzenberg's and brought it up at the nick of time to save the
+Austrians, when they were threatened with actual destruction, at two
+o'clock in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>At that hour the French were in possession of the Spia d'Italia, and of
+all the heights of Solferino. They had been engaged in attacking them
+since eight in the morning, Napoleon having seen at once that they were
+the key to the position, and must be taken, cost what it might. The cost
+was great; if there is any episode in French military history in which
+soldiers and officers earned all the praise that can be given to brave
+men, it is the taking of these Solferino hills. Again and again Forey's
+division and Bazaine's brigade returned to the <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg.244]</a></span> charge; the cemetery and
+streets of Solferino were piled up with their dead, mingled with the dead
+of the defenders, who contested every inch of ground. The individual
+valour of the French soldiers in that six hours' struggle made it possible
+to win the battle.</p>
+
+<p>The Austrians, however, after their desperate straits at two o'clock
+recovered to so great an extent that, had Zedwitz returned with his
+cavalry, as the Emperor was hoping that he would, the day might still have
+been theirs. Even as it was, MacMahon's corps swerved under Zobel's
+repulse of his attack on San Cassiano, and Niel, in the plain, was
+dangerously hard pressed by Schwarzenberg. But, by degrees, the French
+recommenced gaining and the Austrians losing ground, and at six p.m., the
+latter were retreating in good order, defending each step before they
+yielded it.</p>
+
+<p>In the last stage of the battle the French limbered up their guns in
+the belief that a vast reserve of Austrian cavalry was galloping into
+action. What made them think so was a dense yellowish wall advancing
+through the air. Had they been natives, they would have recognised the
+approach of one of those frightful storms which bring devastation in their
+train, and which, as they move forward in what appears a solid mass, look
+to the inexperienced eye exactly like the clouds of dust raised by
+innumerable horsemen. The bursting of the storm hastened the end of the
+fight.</p>
+
+<p>All the day another fight, separate from this, had been going on
+between Benedek and the Sardinian army near the knoll of San Martino,
+overlooking the lake of Garda. The battle, which began in the early
+morning among the cypresses that crown the hillock, raged till seven <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg.245]</a></span> p.m.
+with a fury which cost the Piedmontese over 4,000 in dead and wounded. It
+consisted largely in hand-to-hand fighting, which now gave an advantage to
+the Austrians, now to the Italians; many of the positions were lost and
+re-taken more than half-a-dozen times; the issue seemed long doubtful, and
+when Benedek, who commanded his side with unquestionable ability, received
+orders from the field of Solferino to begin a retreat, each combatant was
+firmly convinced that he was getting the best of it. Austrian writers
+allege that this order saved the Sardinians from defeat, while in both
+Italian and French narratives, the Piedmontese are represented as having
+been already sure of success. The courage shown alike by Piedmontese and
+Austrians could not be surpassed. Victor Emmanuel, as usual, set an
+example to his men.</p>
+
+<p>An incident in the battle brings into striking relief what it was this
+bloody strife was meant to end. An Austrian corporal fell, mortally
+wounded by a Bersagliere whom he conjured, in Italian, to listen to what
+he had got to say. It was this: Forced into the Austrian army, he had been
+obliged to serve through the war, but had never fired his rifle on his
+fellow-countrymen; now he preferred to die rather than defend himself. So
+he yielded up his breath with his hand clasped in the hand which had slain
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The Austrians lost, on the 24th of June, 13,000 men in killed and
+wounded; the French, 10,000. It was said that the frightful scene of
+carnage on the battlefield after Solferino influenced Napoleon III. in his
+desire to stop the war. Had that scene vanished from his recollection in
+June 1870?</p>
+
+<p>Even a field of battle, with its unburied dead, speaks only of a small
+part of the miseries of a great war. Those who were at that time at <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg.246]</a></span>
+Brescia, to which town the greater portion of the French wounded and all
+the worst cases were brought, still shudder as they recall the dreadful
+human suffering which no skill or devotion could do more than a very
+little to assuage. The noble Brescian ladies who had once nursed Bayard,
+turned, with one accord, into sisters of charity; every house, every
+church, became a hospital, all that gratitude and pity could do was done;
+but many were to leave their bones in Italy, and how many more to go home
+maimed for life, or bearing with them the seeds of death.</p>
+
+<p>Other reasons than those of sentiment in reality decided Napoleon's
+course. Though these can only be guessed at, the guess, at the present
+date, amounts to certainty. In the first place, the skin-deep rejoicings
+in Paris at the news of the victories did not hide the fact that French
+public opinion, never genuinely favourable to the war, was becoming more
+and more hostile to it. Then there was the military question. It is true
+that the Fifth Corps, estimated at 30,000 men, had, at last, emerged from
+its crepuscular doings in Tuscany, and was available for future
+operations. Moreover, Kossuth paid a visit to the Imperial headquarters,
+and held out hopes of a revolution in Hungary which would oblige the
+Austrian Emperor to remove part of his troops from the scene of the war.
+Nevertheless, Napoleon was by no means convinced that his army was
+sufficient to take the Quadrilateral. He realised the bad organisation and
+numerous shortcomings of the forces under him so vividly that it seems
+incredible that, in the eleven following years, he should have done
+nothing to remedy them. He attributed his success mainly to chance, though
+in a less degree to a certain lack of energy in the Austrians, joined with
+the exaggerated fear of responsibility felt by their leaders. He never
+could <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">
+[Pg.247]</a></span> thoroughly understand why the Austrians had not won
+Solferino. Naturally, he did not express these opinions to his marshals,
+but there is ample proof that he held them; and if the fact stood alone,
+it ought not to be difficult to explain why he was not anxious for a
+continuance of the war.</p>
+
+<p>But it does not stand alone. Napoleon feared being defeated on the
+Rhine as well as in the Quadrilateral. Prussia had six army corps ready,
+and she was about to move them. That, after her long hesitations, she
+resolved to intervene was long doubted, but it cannot be so after the
+evidence which recent years have produced.</p>
+
+<p>At the time things wore a different complexion. Europe was never more
+amazed than when, on the 6th of July, Napoleon the victor sent General
+Fleury to Francis Joseph the vanquished with a request for an armistice.
+One point only was plain; an armistice meant peace without Venetia, and
+never did profound sorrow so quickly succeed national joy than when this,
+to contemporaries astonishing intelligence, went forth. But the blow fell
+on no Italian with such tremendous force as on Cavour.</p>
+
+<p>There are natives of Italy who appear to be more cool, more
+calculating, more completely masters of themselves, than the men of any
+other nationality. Cavour was one of these. But there comes, sooner or
+later, the assertion of southern blood, the explosion of feeling the more
+violent because long contained, and the cool, quiet Italian of yesterday
+is not to be recognised except by those who know the race intimately well,
+and who know the volcano that underlies its ice and snow as well as its
+luxuriant vegetation.</p>
+
+<p>On Wednesday, the 6th of June, the French army was spread out in <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg.248]</a></span>
+battle array along the left bank of the Mincio, and everything led to the
+supposition that a new and immediate battle was in contemplation. The
+Piedmontese were engaged in making preparations to invest Peschiera.
+Napoleon's headquarters were at Valleggio, those of the King at
+Monzambano. By the evening a very few persons had picked up the
+information that Napoleon had sent a messenger to Verona. Victor Emmanuel
+knew nothing of it, nor did any of the French generals except Marshal
+Vaillant, but such things leak out, and two or three individuals were
+aware of the journey to Verona, and spent that night in racking their
+brains as to what it might mean. Next day at eleven o'clock General Fleury
+returned; the Austrian Emperor had accepted the armistice. Further secrecy
+was impossible, and like lightning the news flashed through the world.</p>
+
+<p>Cavour rushed from Turin to Desenzano, where he arrived the day before
+the final meeting between Napoleon and Francis Joseph. He waited for a
+carnage in the little <i>caf&eacute;</i> in the piazza; no one guessed who
+it was, and conversation went on undisturbed: it was full of curses on the
+French Emperor. Mazzini, someone said, was right; this is the way the war
+was sure to end. When a shabby conveyance had at length been found, the
+great statesman drove to Monzambano. There, of course, his arrival did not
+escape notice, and all who saw him were horrified by the change that had
+come over his face. Instead of the jovial, witty smile, there was a look
+of frantic rage and desperation. What passed between him and his Sovereign
+is partly a matter of conjecture; the exact sense of the violent words
+into which his grief betrayed him is lost, in spite of the categorical
+versions of the interview which have been printed. Even in a fit of
+madness he can hardly have spoken some of the words attributed to him.
+That he advised the King to withdraw <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg.249]</a></span> his army or to abdicate
+rather than agree to the peace which was being plotted behind his back,
+seems past doubting. It is said that after attempting in vain to calm him,
+Victor Emmanuel brought the interview to a sudden close. Cavour came out
+of the house flushed and exhausted, and drove back to Desenzano. He had
+resigned office.</p>
+
+<p>The King showed extraordinary self-control. Bitter as the draught was,
+he saw that it must be drunk, and he was determined to drink it with
+dignity. Probably no other Italian grasped as clearly as he did the real
+reason which actuated Napoleon; at any rate his chivalrous appreciation of
+the benefits already received, closed his lips to reproaches. 'Whatever
+may be the decision of your Majesty,' he said to the Emperor on the eve of
+Villafranca, 'I shall feel an eternal gratitude for what you have done for
+the independence of Italy, and I beg you to believe that under all
+circumstances you may reckon on my complete fidelity.'</p>
+
+<p>If there was sadness in the Sardinian camp, so there was in that of
+Austria. The Austrians by no means thought that the game was up for them.
+It would be interesting to know by what arguments Napoleon persuaded the
+young Emperor to renounce the hope of retrieving his disasters, whilst he
+slowly pulled to pieces some flowers which were on the table before which
+he and Francis Joseph sat. When they left the house, the heir to all the
+Hapsburgs looked pale and sad. Did he remember the dying counsels of
+'Father' Radetsky&mdash;not to yield if he was beaten on the Mincio, on
+the Tagliamento, on the Isonzo, before the gates of Vienna.</p>
+
+<p>When, on the evening of the same day, the Emperor of Austria signed the
+preliminaries of peace, he said to Prince Napoleon, who took the <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg.250]</a></span>
+document to Verona for his signature: 'I pray God that if you are ever a
+sovereign He may spare you the hour of grief I have just passed.' Yet the
+defeat of Solferino and the loss of Lombardy were the first steps in the
+transformation of Radetsky's pupil from a despot, who hourly feared
+revolution in every land under his sceptre, to a wise and constitutional
+monarch ruling over a contented Empire. To some individuals and to some
+states, misfortune is fortune.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg.251]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIII</h3>
+
+<h4>WHAT UNITY COST</h4>
+
+<h5>1859-1860</h5>
+
+<h5>Napoleon III. and Cavour&mdash;The Cession of Savoy and
+Nice&mdash;Annexations in Central Italy.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>Napoleon's hurried journey to Turin on his way back to France was
+almost a flight. Everywhere his reception was cold in the extreme. He was
+surprised, he said, at the ingratitude of the Italians. It was still
+possible to ask for gratitude, as the services rendered had not been paid
+for; no one spoke yet of the barter of Savoy and Nice. But Napoleon, when
+he said these words to the Governor of Milan, forgot how the Lombards, in
+June 1848, absolutely refused to take their freedom at the cost of
+resigning Venice to Austria. And if Venice was dear to them and to Italy
+then, how much dearer had she not become since the heroic struggle in
+which she was the last to yield. The bones of Manin cried aloud for
+Venetian liberty from his grave of exile.</p>
+
+<p>Venice was the one absorbing thought of the moment; yet there were
+clauses in the brief preliminaries of peace more fraught with insidious
+danger than the abandonment of Venice. If the rest of Italy became one and
+free, it needed no prophet to tell that not the might of twenty Austrias
+could keep Venetia permanently outside the fold. <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg.252]</a></span> But if Italy was to
+remain divided and enslaved, then, indeed, the indignant question went up
+to heaven, To what end had so much blood been shed?</p>
+
+<p>When he resolved to cut short the war, Napoleon still had it in his
+power to go down to history as the supreme benefactor of Italy. He chose
+instead to become her worst and by far her most dangerous enemy. The
+preliminaries of peace opened with the words: 'The Emperor of Austria and
+the Emperor of the French will favour the creation of an Italian
+Confederation under the honorary presidency of the Holy Father.' Further,
+it was stated that the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Duke of Modena would
+return to their states. Though Napoleon proposed at first to add, 'without
+foreign armed intervention,' he waived the point (Rome was in his mind)
+and no such guarantee was inserted. Here, then, was the federative
+programme which all the personal influence and ingenuity of the French
+Emperor, all the arts of French diplomacy, were concentrated on
+maintaining, and which was only defeated by the true patriotism and strong
+good sense of the Italian populations, and of the men who led them through
+this, the most critical period in their history.</p>
+
+<p>In England Lord Derby's administration had fallen and the Liberals were
+again in power. Napoleon was so strangely deluded as to expect to find
+support in that quarter for his anti-unionist conspiracy. His earliest
+scheme was that the federative plan should be presented to Europe by Great
+Britain. Lord John Russell answered: 'We are asked to propose a partition
+(<i>morcellement</i>) of the peoples of Italy, as if we had the right to
+dispose of them.' It was a happy circumstance for Italy that her unity had
+no better friends than in the English Government during those difficult
+years. Cavour's words soon after Villafranca, 'It is England's turn now,'
+were not belied.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">
+[Pg.253]</a></span> One thing should have made Napoleon uneasy; a man like
+Cavour, when his blood is roused, when his nature is fired by the
+strongest passions that move the human heart, is an awkward adversary. If
+there was an instant in which the great statesman thought that all was
+lost, it was but an instant. With the quick rebound of virile characters
+he recovered his balance and understood his part. It was to fight and
+conquer.</p>
+
+<p>'Your Emperor has dishonoured me,' he said to M. Pietri in the presence
+of Kossuth (the interview taking place at Turin on the 15th of July).
+'Yes, sir, he has dishonoured me,' and he set forth how, after promising
+to hunt the last Austrian out of Italy, after secretly exacting the price
+of his assistance to which Cavour had induced his good and honest King to
+consent, he now left them solemnly in the lurch; Lombardy might suffice!
+And, for nothing to be wanting, the King was to be forced into a
+confederation with Austria and the Italian princes under the presidency of
+the Pope. After painting the situation with all the irony and scorn of
+which he was master, he gave his note of warning: 'If needs be, I will
+become a conspirator, I will become a revolutionist, but this treaty shall
+never be executed; a thousand times no&mdash;never!'</p>
+
+<p>The routine business of the Prime Minister still fell to Cavour, as
+Rattazzi, who succeeded him, had not yet formed his cabinet. He was
+obliged, therefore, to write officially to the Royal Commissioners at
+Modena, Bologna and Florence to abandon their posts. But in the character
+of Cavour, the private citizen, he telegraphed to them at the same time to
+remain and do their duty. And they remained.</p>
+
+<p>On one point there was a temporary lull of anxiety. Almost the last
+words spoken by Napoleon to Victor Emmanuel before he left Turin were:
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg.254]</a></span>
+'We shall think no more about Nice and Savoy.' The mention of Nice shows
+that though it had not been promised, Napoleon was all along set upon its
+acquisition. It is impossible to say how far, at the moment, he was
+sincere in the renunciation. That, very soon after his return to Paris, he
+was diligently weaving plans for getting both provinces into his net, is
+evident from the tenor of the articles and notes published in the
+'inspired' French newspapers.</p>
+
+<p>Two chief motives can be divined for Napoleon's determined opposition
+to Italian unity which never ceased till Sedan. The first was his wish,
+shared by all French politicians, that Italy should be weak. The second
+was his regard for the Temporal Power which proceeded from his still being
+convinced that he could not reign without the Clerical vote. The French
+prelates were perpetually giving him reminders that this vote depended on
+his keeping the Pope on his throne. For instance, Cardinal Donnet told him
+at Bordeaux in October 1859, that he could not choose a better way of
+showing his appreciation of the Blessed Virgin than 'en m&eacute;nageant
+un triomphe &agrave; son Fils dans la personne de son Vicaire.' It would
+be a triumph which the Catholic world would salute with transport. Hints
+of this sort, the sense of which was not hard to read, in spite of their
+recondite phraseology, reached him from every quarter. He feared to set
+them aside. The origins of his power were too much tainted for him to
+advance boldly on an independent policy. Thus it was that bit by bit he
+deliberately forfeited all title to the help of Italy when the same
+whirlwind that dashed him to earth, cleared the way for the final
+accomplishment of her national destinies.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst Victor Emmanuel was more alive than Cavour to the military
+arguments in favour of stopping hostilities when the tide of success <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg.255]</a></span> was
+at its height, he was not one whit more disposed to stultify his past by
+becoming the vassal at once of Paris and Vienna. In a letter written to
+the Emperor of the French in October, in answer to a very long one in
+which Napoleon sought to convert him to the plan of an Austro-Italian
+Confederation, he wound up by saying: 'For the considerations above
+stated, and for many others, I cannot, Sire, second your Majesty's policy
+in Italy. If your Majesty is bound by treaties and cannot revoke your
+engagements in the (proposed) congress, I, Sire, am bound on my side, by
+honour in the face of Europe, by right and duty, by the interests of my
+house, of my people and of Italy. My fate is joined to that of the Italian
+people. We can succumb, but never betray. Solferino and San Martino may
+sometimes redeem Novara and Waterloo, but the apostasies of princes are
+always irreparable. I am moved to the bottom of my soul by the faith and
+love which this noble and unfortunate people has reposed in me, and rather
+than be unworthy of it, I will break my sword and throw the crown away as
+did my august father. Personal interest does not guide me in defending the
+annexations; the Sword and Time have borne my house from the summit of the
+Alps to the banks of the Mincio, and those two guardian angels of the
+Savoy race will bear it further still, when it pleases God.'</p>
+
+<p>The events in Central Italy to which the King alludes were of the
+highest importance. L.C. Farini, the Sardinian Royal Commissioner at
+Modena, when relieved of his office, assumed the dictatorship by the will
+of the people. L. Cipriani became Governor of Romagna, and at Florence
+Ricasoli continued at the head of affairs, undismayed and unshaken in his
+resolve to defeat the combined machinations of France and Austria. In
+August the populations of Modena, Reggio, Parma and <span class="newpage">
+<a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg.256]</a></span> Piacenza declared
+their union with Piedmont by an all but unanimous popular vote, the two
+last provinces placing themselves for temporary convenience under the
+Dictator Farini. A few days later, Tuscany and Romagna voted a like act of
+union through their Constituent Assemblies. The representatives of the
+four States, Modena, Parma, Romagna and Tuscany, formally announced to the
+great Powers their choice of Victor Emmanuel, in whose rule they
+recognised the sole hope of preserving their liberties and avoiding
+disorder. Delegates were sent to Turin with the offer of the crown.</p>
+
+<p>Peace, of which the preliminaries only were signed at Villafranca, was
+not yet definitely concluded, and a large French army was still in Italy.
+The King's government feared therefore to adopt the bold course of
+accepting the annexations outright, and facing the responsibilities which
+might arise. Victor Emmanuel thanked the delegates, expressing his
+confidence that Europe would not undo the great work that had been done in
+Central Italy. The state of things, however, in these provinces, whose
+elected King could not yet govern them, was anomalous, most of all in what
+related to defence; they being menaced on the Austrian side by the Duke of
+Modena, and on the South by the Papal troops in the Cattolica. An armed
+force of 25,000 men was organised, of which the Tuscan contingent was
+under the command of Garibaldi, and the rest under that of the Sardinian
+General Fanti, 'lent' for the purpose. Garibaldi hoped not merely to
+defend the provinces already emancipated, but to carry war into the
+enemy's camp and make revolution possible throughout the States of the
+Church. To the Party of Action the chance seemed an unique one of
+hastening the progress of events. Unaccustomed as they were to weigh
+diplomatic <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">
+[Pg.257]</a></span> difficulties, they saw the advantages but not the
+perils of a daring course. Meanwhile Napoleon threatened to occupy
+Piacenza with 30,000 men on the first forward step of Garibaldi, who, on
+his side, seemed by no means inclined to yield either to the orders of the
+Dictator Farini, or to the somewhat violent measures taken to stop him by
+General Fanti, who instructed the officers under his command to disobey
+him. It was then that Victor Emmanuel tried his personal influence, rarely
+tried without success, over the revolutionary chief, who reposed absolute
+faith in the King's patriotism, and who was therefore amenable to his
+arguments when all others failed. The general was summoned to Turin, and
+in an audience given on the 16th of November, Victor Emmanuel persuaded
+him that the proposed enterprise would retard rather than advance the
+cause of Italian freedom. Garibaldi left for Caprera, only insisting that
+his 'weak services' should be called into requisition whenever there was
+an opportunity to act.</p>
+
+<p>Before quitting the Adriatic coast the hero of Rome went one evening
+with his two children, Menotti and Teresita, to the Chapel in the Pine
+Forest, where their mother was buried. Within a mile was the farmhouse
+where he had embraced her lifeless form before undertaking his perilous
+flight from sea to sea. In 1850, at Staten Island, when he was earning his
+bread as a factory hand, he wrote the prophetic words: 'Anita, a land of
+slavery holds your precious dust; Italy will make your grave free, but
+what can restore to your children their incomparable mother?' Garibaldi's
+visit to Anita's grave closes the story of the brave and tender woman who
+sacrificed all to the love she bore him.</p>
+
+<p>After sitting for three months, the Conference which met at Zurich to
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg.258]</a></span>
+establish the definite treaty of peace finished its labours on the 10th of
+November. The compact was substantially the same as that arranged at
+Villafranca. Victor Emmanuel, who had signed the Preliminaries with the
+reservation implied in the note: 'In so far as I am concerned,' preserved
+the same liberty of action in the Treaty of Zurich. He still hesitated,
+however, in assuming the government of the central provinces, and even the
+plan of sending the Prince of Carignano as governor fell through in
+consequence of Napoleon's opposition. His hesitations sprang from the
+general apprehension that a hint from Paris might any day be followed by a
+new eruption of Austrians in Modena and Tuscany for the purpose of
+replacing the former rulers of those states on their thrones. Such a fear
+existed at the time, and Rattazzi's timid policy was the result; it is
+impossible not to ask now whether it was not exaggerated? 'What
+statesman,' wrote the Prince Consort in June 1859, 'could adopt measures
+to force Austrian rule again upon delighted, free Italy?' If this was true
+in June was it less true in November? For the rest, would not the supreme
+ridicule that would have fallen on the French Emperor if he encouraged the
+Austrians to return to Central Italy after driving them out of Lombardy,
+have obliged him to support the principle of non-intervention, whether he
+wished it or not? England was prepared to back up the government of
+Piedmont, in which lay a great moral force. It is plain that the long
+wavering about what ought to be done with the central provinces is what
+cost the country Savoy and Nice, or at any rate, Nice. Napoleon did all in
+his power to prevent and to retard the annexations, especially that of
+Tuscany, which, as he said, 'would make Italian unity a mere question of
+time,' but when he found that neither threats nor blandishments could move
+the population from their <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_259" id=
+"Page_259">[Pg.259]</a></span> resolve to have Victor Emmanuel for their
+king, he decided to sell his adhesion for a good price. Compelled for the
+sake of appearances to withdraw his claim after the abrupt termination of
+the war, he now saw an excellent excuse for reviving it, and he was not
+likely to let the opportunity slip.</p>
+
+<p>At this period there was continual talk, which may or may not have been
+intended to end in talk, of a Congress to which the affairs of Italy were
+to be referred. It gave an opening to Napoleon for publishing one of the
+anonymous pamphlets by means of which he was in the habit of throwing out
+tentative ideas, and watching their effect. The chief idea broached in <i>
+Le Pape et le Congr&egrave;s</i> was the voluntary renunciation by the
+Pope of all but a small zone of territory round Rome; it being pointed out
+that his position as an independent sovereign would remain unaffected by
+such an act, which would smooth the way to his assuming the hegemony of
+the Italian Confederation. The Pope, however, let it be clearly known that
+he had no intention of ceding a rood of his possessions, or of recognising
+the separation of the part which had already escaped from him. Anyone
+acquainted with the long strife and millennial manoeuvres by which the
+Church had acquired the States called by her name, will understand the
+unwillingness there was to yield them. To do Pius IX. justice, an
+objection which merits more respect weighed then and always upon his mind.
+He thought that he was personally debarred by the oath taken on assuming
+the tiara from giving up the smallest part of the territory he received
+from his predecessor. The Ultramontane party knew that they had only to
+remind him of this oath to provoke a fresh assertion of <i>Non
+possumus.</i> The attitude of the Pope was one reason why the Congress was
+abandoned; but there was a deeper reason. A European <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg.260]</a></span> Congress
+would certainly not have approved the cession of Nice and Savoy, and to
+that object the French Emperor was now turning all his attention.</p>
+
+<p>At Turin there was an ignoble cabal, supported not so much, perhaps, by
+Rattazzi himself as by followers, the design of which was to prevent
+Cavour from returning to power. Abroad, the Empress Eug&eacute;nie, who
+looked on Cavour as the Pope's worst foe, did what she could to further
+the scheme, and its promoters counted much on the soreness left in Victor
+Emmanuel's mind by the scene after Villafranca. That soreness did, in
+fact, still exist; but when in January the Rattazzi ministry fell, the
+King saw that it was his duty to recall Cavour to his counsels, and he at
+once charged him to form a cabinet.</p>
+
+<p>That Cavour accepted the task is the highest proof of his abnegation as
+a statesman. He was on the point of getting into his carriage to catch the
+train for Leri when the messenger reached the Palazzo Cavour with the
+royal command to go to the castle. If he had refused office and returned
+to the congenial activity of his life as a country gentleman, his name
+would not be attached to the melancholy sacrifice which Napoleon was now
+determined to exact from Italy. The French envoy, Baron de Talleyrand,
+whose business it was to communicate the unwelcome intelligence, arrived
+at Turin before the collapse of Rattazzi; but, on finding that a
+ministerial crisis was imminent, he deferred carrying out his mission till
+a more opportune moment.</p>
+
+<p>On the 18th of January 1860, the Emperor admitted to Lord Cowley that,
+though there was as yet no arrangement between himself and Victor Emmanuel
+on the subject, he intended to have Savoy. After the long series of
+denials of any such design, the admission caused the most indignant
+feeling in the English ministers and in the Queen, who <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg.261]</a></span> wrote to
+Lord John Russell: 'We have been made regular dupes.' She went on to say
+that the revival of the English Alliance, and the hymns of universal peace
+chanted in Paris on the occasion of the Commercial Treaty, had been simply
+so many blinds, 'to hide from Europe a policy of spoliation.' Cavour came
+in for a part of the blame, as, during the war, he denied cognisance of
+the proposal to give up Savoy. The best that can be said of that denial
+is, that it was diplomatically impracticable for one party in the
+understanding of Plombi&egrave;res to make a clean breast of the truth,
+whilst the other party was assuring the whole universe that he was
+fighting for an idea.</p>
+
+<p>When the war was broken off, Cavour fully expected that Napoleon, of
+whom he had the worst opinion, would then and there demand whole pay for
+his half service; and this had much to do with his furious anger at
+Villafranca; but later, in common with the best-informed persons, he
+believed that the claim was finally withdrawn. When, however, Napoleon
+asked again for the provinces&mdash;not as the price of the war, but of
+the annexations in Central Italy&mdash;Cavour instantly came to the
+conclusion that, cost what it might (and he thought that, amongst other
+things, it would cost his own reputation and popularity), the demand must
+be granted. Otherwise Italian unity would never be accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>In considering whether he was mistaken, it must not be forgotten that
+the French troops were still in Italy. Not to speak of those in Rome,
+Marshal Vaillant had five divisions of infantry and two brigades of
+cavalry in Lombardy up to the 20th of March 1860. The engagement had been
+to send this army home as soon as the definite peace was concluded; why,
+then, was it still south of the Alps four months after?</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">
+[Pg.262]</a></span> In spite of this, however, and in spite of the
+difficulty of judging an act, all the reasons for which may not, even now,
+be in possession of the world, it is very hard indeed to pardon Cavour for
+having yielded Nice as well as Savoy to France. The Nizzards were Italians
+as the lower class of the population is Italian still; they had always
+shown warm sympathy with the hopes of Italy, which could not be said of
+the Savoyards; and Nice was the birthplace of Garibaldi!</p>
+
+<p>England would have supported and applauded resistance to the claim for
+Nice on general grounds, though her particular interest was in Savoy, or
+rather in that part of the Savoy Alps which was neutralised by treaty in
+1814. It was the refusal of Napoleon to adopt the compromise of ceding
+this district to Switzerland which caused the breach between him and the
+British ministry. From that moment, also, Prussia began to increase her
+army, and resolved, when she was ready, to check the imperial ambition by
+force of arms. 'The loss of Alsace and Lorraine,' writes an able
+publicist, M.E. Tallichet, 'was the direct consequence of the annexation
+of Nice and Savoy.'</p>
+
+<p>If anything could have rendered more galling to Italy the deprivation
+of these two provinces, it was the tone adopted in France when speaking of
+the transaction. What were Savoy and Nice? A barren rock and an
+insignificant strip of coast! The French of thirty-four years ago
+travelled so little that they may have believed in the description. The
+vast military importance of the ceded districts has been already referred
+to. Some scraps on the Nice frontier were saved in a curious way: They
+were spots which formed part of the favourite playground of the Royal
+Hunter of the Alps, and it was pointed out to <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg.263]</a></span> Napoleon that it would
+be a graceful act to leave these particular 'barren rocks' to his
+Sardinian Majesty. The zig-zags in the line of demarcation which were thus
+introduced are said to be of great strategic advantage to Italy. So far,
+so good; but it remains true that France is <i>inside</i> the Italian
+front-door.</p>
+
+<p>At the elections for the new Chamber in March 1860, the Nizzards chose
+Garibaldi; and this was their real plebiscite&mdash;not that which
+followed at a short interval, and presented the phenomenon of a population
+which appeared to change its mind as to its nationality in the course of a
+few weeks. In voting for Garibaldi, they voted for Italy.</p>
+
+<p>The Nizzard hero made some desperate efforts on behalf of his
+fellow-citizens in the Chamber, not his natural sphere, and was on the
+brink of making other efforts in a sphere in which he might have succeeded
+better. He had the idea of going to Nice with about 200 followers, and
+exciting just enough of a revolution to let the real will of the people be
+known, and to frustrate the wiles of French emissaries and the pressure of
+government in the official plebiscite of the 15th of April. The story of
+the conspiracy, which is unknown in Italy, has been told by one of the
+conspirators, the late Lawrence Oliphant. The English writer, who reached
+Turin full of wrath at the proposed cession, was introduced to Garibaldi,
+from whom he received the news of the proposed enterprise. Oliphant
+offered his services, which were accepted, and he accompanied the general
+to Genoa, where he engaged a diligence which was to carry the vanguard to
+Nice. But, on going to Garibaldi for the last orders, he found him supping
+with twenty or thirty young men; 'All Sicilians!' said the chief. 'We must
+give up the Nice programme; the general opinion is that we shall lose
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg.264]</a></span>
+all if we try for too much.' He added that he had hoped to carry out the
+Nice plan first, but now everything must be sacrificed to freeing Sicily.
+And he asked Oliphant to join the Thousand, an offer which the adventurous
+Englishman never ceased to regret that he did not accept. As it was, he
+elected to go all the same to Nice, where he was the spectator and became
+the historian of the arts which brought about the semblance of an
+unanimous vote in favour of annexation to France.</p>
+
+<p>The ratification of the treaty&mdash;which, by straining the
+constitution, was concluded without consulting Parliament&mdash;was
+reluctantly given by the Piedmontese Chambers, the majority of members
+fearing the responsibility of upsetting an accomplished fact. Cavour, when
+he laid down the pen after signing the deed of cession, turned to Baron de
+Talleyrand with the remark: 'Now we are accomplices!' His face, which had
+been depressed, resumed its cheerful air. In fact, though Napoleon's
+dislike of the central annexations was unabated, he could no longer oppose
+them. Victor Emmanuel accepted the four crowns of Central Italy, the
+people of which, during the long months of waiting, and under
+circumstances that applied the most crucial test to their resolution, had
+never swerved from the desire to form part of the Italian monarchy under
+the sceptre of the <i>Re Galantuomo</i>. The King of Sardinia, as he was
+still called, had eleven million subjects, and on his head rested one
+excommunication the more. The Bull fulminated against all who had,
+directly or indirectly, participated in the events which caused Romagna to
+change hands, was published a day or two before the opening of the new
+Parliament at Turin.</p>
+
+<p>Addressing for the first time the representatives of his widened realm,
+Victor Emmanuel said: 'True to the creed of my fathers, and, <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg.265]</a></span> like them,
+constant in my homage to the Supreme Head of the Church, whenever it
+happens that the ecclesiastical authority employs spiritual arms in
+support of temporal interests, I shall find in my steadfast conscience and
+in the very traditions of my ancestors, the power to maintain civil
+liberty in its integrity, and my own authority, for which I hold myself
+accountable to God alone and to my people.'</p>
+
+<p>The words: 'Della quale debbo ragione a Dio solo ed ai miei popoli,'
+were added by the King to the speech prepared by his ministers; it was
+noticed that he pronounced them with remarkable energy. The speech
+concluded: 'Our country is no more the Italy of the Romans, nor the Italy
+of the Middle Ages; no longer the field for every foreign ambition, it
+becomes, henceforth, the Italy of the Italians.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg.266]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIV</h3>
+
+<h4>THE MARCH OF THE THOUSAND</h4>
+
+<h5>1860</h5>
+
+<h5>Origin of the Expedition&mdash;Garibaldi at
+Marsala&mdash;Calatafimi&mdash;The Taking of
+Palermo&mdash;Milazzo&mdash;The Bourbons evacuate Sicily.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>During the journey from Turin to Genoa, Garibaldi was occupied in
+opening, reading and tearing up into small pieces an enormous mass of
+letters, while his English companion spent the time in vainly speculating
+as to what this vast correspondence was about. When they approached Genoa,
+the floor of the railway carriage resembled a gigantic wastepaper basket.
+It was only afterwards that Lawrence Oliphant guessed the letters to be
+responses to a call for volunteers for Sicily.</p>
+
+<p>The origin of the Sicilian expedition has been related in various ways;
+there is the version which attributes it entirely to Cavour, and the
+version which attributes it to not irresponsible personages in England.
+The former was the French and Clerical official account; the latter has
+always obtained credence in Germany and Russia. For instance, the late
+Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg said that 'the mystery of how 150,000 men were
+vanquished by a thousand Red-shirts was wrapped in English bank-notes!' Of
+this theory, it need only be said that the notion of Lord Palmerston (for
+it comes to that) supporting a foreign revolution out of the British
+exchequer is not one that commends itself to the belief of the average
+Englishman. With regard <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_267" id=
+"Page_267">[Pg.267]</a></span> to the other theory&mdash;namely, that
+Cavour 'got up' the Sicilian expedition, it has been favoured to a certain
+degree, both by his friends and foes; but it will not bear careful
+examination. As far as Sicily goes (Naples is another thing), the most
+that can be brought home to Cavour is a complicity of toleration; and even
+this statement should be qualified by the addition, 'after the act.' It is
+true that, in the early days after Villafranca, he had exclaimed: 'They
+have cut me off from making Italy from the north, by diplomacy; very well,
+I will make her from the south, by revolution!' True, also, that earlier
+still, in 1856, he expressed the opinion, shared by every man of common
+sense, that while the Bourbons ruled over the Two Sicilies there would be
+no real peace for Italy. Nevertheless, in April 1860, he neither thought
+the time ripe for the venture nor the means employed adequate for its
+accomplishment. He was afraid that Garibaldi would meet with the death of
+the Bandieras and Pisacane. No one was more convinced than Cavour of the
+importance of Garibaldi's life to Italy; and it is a sign of his true
+superiority of mind that this conviction was never entertained more
+strongly than at the moment when the general was passionately inveighing
+against him for the cession of Nice. To Cavour such invectives seemed
+natural, and even justified from one point of view; they excited in him no
+bitterness, and he was only too happy that they fell upon himself and not
+upon the King, since it was his fixed idea that, without the maintenance
+of a good understanding between Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi, Italy would
+not be made. Few men under the sting of personal attacks have shown such
+complete self-control.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">
+[Pg.268]</a></span> As has been stated, when Francis II. ascended the
+Neapolitan throne, he was invited to join in the war with Austria, and he
+refused. Since then, the same negative result had attended the reiterated
+counsels of reform which the Piedmontese Government sent to that of
+Naples&mdash;the young King showing, by repeated acts, that not Sardinia
+but Rome was his monitress and chosen ally in Italy. The Pope had lately
+induced the French General Lamorici&egrave;re to take the command of the
+Pontifical troops, and he and the King of Naples were organising their
+armies, with a view to co-operating at an early date against the common
+enemy at Turin. In January 1860, Lord Russell wrote to Mr Elliot, the
+English Minister at Naples: 'You will tell the King and his Ministers that
+the Government of her Majesty the Queen does not intend to accept any part
+in the responsibility nor to guarantee the certain consequences of a
+misgovernment which has scarcely a parallel in Europe.' Mr Elliot replied,
+early in March: 'I have used all imaginable arguments to convince this
+Government of the necessity of stopping short on the fatal path which it
+has entered. I finished by saying that I was persuaded of the inevitable
+fall of his Majesty and the dynasty if wiser counsels did not obtain a
+hearing, and requested an audience with the King; since, when the
+catastrophe occurs, I do not wish my conscience to reproach me with not
+having tried all means of saving an inexperienced Sovereign from the ruin
+which threatens him. The Ministers of France and Spain have spoken to the
+same effect.' Even Russia advised Francis to make common cause with
+Piedmont. In April, Victor Emmanuel wrote to his cousin, 'as a near
+relative and an Italian Prince,' urging him to listen while there was yet
+time to save something, if not everything. 'If you will not hear <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg.269]</a></span> me,'
+he said, 'the day may come when I shall be obliged to be the instrument of
+your ruin!' It has been said that the Sardinian Government, in tendering
+similar advice, hoped for its refusal and contemplated the eventuality
+hinted at with the reverse of apprehension. Of course this is true. Yet
+the responsibility of declining to take the only course which might by any
+possibility have saved him must rest with the King of Naples and not with
+Victor Emmanuel and his Ministers. The attempt to make Francis appear the
+innocent victim of a diabolical conspiracy will never succeed, however
+ingenious are the writers who devote their abilities to so unfruitful a
+task.</p>
+
+<p>To trace the real beginning of the expedition we must go back to the
+summer of 1859. When the war ended in the manner which he alone had
+foreseen, Mazzini projected a revolutionary enterprise in the south which
+should restore to the Italian movement its purely national character and
+defeat in advance Napoleon's plans for gathering the Bourbon succession
+for his cousin, Prince Murat. He sent agents to Sicily, and notably
+Francesco Crispi, who, as a native of the island and a man of resource and
+quick intelligence, was well qualified to execute the work of propaganda
+and to elude the Bourbon police. Crispi travelled in all parts of Sicily
+for several months, and in September he was able to report to Mazzini that
+the insurrection might be expected in a few weeks&mdash;which proved
+incorrect, but only as to date. Mazzini forbade his agents to agitate in
+favour of a republic; unity was the sole object to be aimed at; unity in
+whatever form and at whatever cost.</p>
+
+<p>In March 1860 he had an interview in London with the man who was to
+become the actual initiator of the revolutionary movement in South <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg.270]</a></span>
+Italy. This was Rosalino Pilo, son of the Count di Capaci, and descended
+through his mother from the royal house of Anjou, whose name, Italianised
+into Gioeni, is still borne by several noble families in Sicily. Rosalino
+Pilo, who was now in his fortieth year, had devoted all his life to his
+country's liberties. After 1849, when he was obliged to leave Sicily, he
+sold his ancestral acres to supply the wants of his fellow exiles, and
+help the work of revolutionary propaganda. Handsome in person, cultivated
+in mind, ready to give his life, as he had already given most of what
+makes life tolerable, to the Italian cause, he won the affection of all
+with whom he was brought in contact, and especially of Mazzini, from whom
+he parted after that last interview radiant with hope, and yet with a
+touch of sadness in his smile, as if in prevision that the place allotted
+to him in the ranks of men was among the sowers, not among the
+reapers.</p>
+
+<p>Rosalino Pilo believed, as Mazzini believed, that Sicily was ripe for
+revolution, but he realised the fact that under existing circumstances
+there was an exceeding probability of a Sicilian revolution being rapidly
+crushed. It was the tendency of Mazzini's mind to think the contrary; to
+put more faith in the people themselves than in any leader or leaders; to
+imagine that the blast of the trumpet of an angered population was
+sufficient to bring down the walls of all the citadels of despotism,
+however well furnished with heavy artillery. Pilo saw that there was only
+one man who could give a real chance of success to a rising in his native
+island, and that man was Garibaldi. As early as February he began to write
+to Caprera, urging the general to give his co-operation to the projected
+movement. It is notorious that the scheme, until almost the last moment,
+did not find favour with Garibaldi. In spite of his perilous enterprises,
+the chief had never been a courtier of failure, and he understood more
+clearly than <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">
+[Pg.271]</a></span> his correspondent what failure at that particular
+juncture would have meant. The ventures of the Bandieras and of Pisacane,
+similar in their general plan to the one now in view (though on a smaller
+scale). ended in disasters, but disasters that were useful to Italy. A
+disaster now would have been ruinous to Italy. Garibaldi's hesitations do
+not, as some writers of the extreme party have foolishly assumed, detract
+from his merit as victorious leader of the expedition; they only show him
+to have been more amenable to political prudence than most people have
+supposed.</p>
+
+<p>Rosalino Pilo wrote, finally, that in any case he was determined to go
+to Sicily himself to complete the preparations, and he added: 'The
+insurrection in Sicily, consider it well, will carry with it that of the
+whole south of the peninsula,' by which means not only would the Muratist
+plots be frustrated, but also a new army and fleet would become available
+for the conquest of independence and the liberation of Venetia. The writer
+concluded by wishing the general 'new glories in Sicily in the
+accomplishment of our country's redemption.'</p>
+
+<p>True to his word Rosalino Pilo embarked at Genoa on the 24th of March,
+on a crazy old coasting vessel, manned by five friendly sailors. He had
+with him a single companion, and carried such arms and ammunition as he
+had been able to get together. Terrible weather and the deplorable
+condition of their craft kept them at sea for fifteen days, during which
+time something of great importance happened at Palermo. On the 4th of
+April the authorities became aware that arms and conspirators were
+concealed in the convent of La Gancia, which was to have been the focus of
+the revolution. Troops were sent to besiege the <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg.272]</a></span> convent, which they only
+succeeded in taking after four hours' resistance; its fall was the signal
+for a general slaughter of the inmates, both monks and laymen. The
+insurrection was thus stifled in its birth in the capital, but from this
+time it began to spread in the country, and when, at last, Rosalino Pilo
+landed near Messina on the 10th of April, he found that several armed
+bands were already roving the mountains, as yet almost unperceived by the
+Government, which had gone to sleep again after its exhibition of energy
+on the 4th. Events were, however, to awake it from its slumbers, and to
+cause it to renew its vigilance. It required all Rosalino Pilo's skill and
+courage to sustain the revolution of which he became henceforth the
+responsible head, till the fated deliverer arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Pilo's letters, brought back to Genoa by the pilot who guided him to
+Sicilian waters, were what decided Garibaldi to go to the rescue. Some,
+like Bixio and Bertani, warmly and persistently urged him to accept the
+charge; others, like Sirtori, were convinced that the undertaking was
+foredoomed, and that its only result would be the death of their beloved
+captain: but this conviction did not lessen their eagerness to share his
+perils when once he was resolved to go.</p>
+
+<p>Like all born men of action, Garibaldi did not know what doubt was
+after he came to a decision. From that moment his mental atmosphere
+cleared; he saw the goal and went straight for it. In a surprisingly short
+time the expedition was organised and ready to leave. 'Few and good,' had
+been the rule laid down by Garibaldi for the enrolments; if he had chosen
+he could have taken with him a much more numerous host. When it was the
+day to start few they were (according to the most recent computation the
+exact number was 1072 men), and they were <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg.273]</a></span> certainly good. The force was
+divided into seven companies, the first entrusted to the ardent Nino
+Bixio, who acted in a general way as second-in-command through both the
+Sicilian and Neapolitan campaigns, and the seventh to Benedetto Cairoli,
+whose mother contributed a large sum of money as well as three of her sons
+to the freeing of Southern Italy. Sirtori, about whom there always clung
+something of the priestly vocation for which he had been designed, was the
+head of the staff; T&uuml;rr (the Hungarian) was adjutant-general. The
+organisation was identical with that of the Italian army 'to which we
+belong,' said Garibaldi in his first order of the day.</p>
+
+<p>One name is missing, that of Medici, who was left behind to take the
+command of a projected movement in the Papal States. By whom this plan was
+invented is not clear, but simultaneous operations in different parts of
+the peninsula had been always a favourite design of the more extreme
+members of the Party of Action, and Garibaldi probably yielded to their
+advice. All that came of it was the entry into Umbria of Zambianchi's
+small band of volunteers, which was promptly repulsed over the frontier.
+Medici, therefore, remained inactive till after the fall of Palermo; he
+headed the second expedition of 4,000 volunteers which arrived in time to
+take part in the final Sicilian battles.</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi's political programme was the cry of the Hunters of the Alps
+in 1859: <i>Italy and Victor Emmanuel.</i> Those who were strict
+republicans at heart, while abstaining from preaching the republic till
+the struggle was over, would have stopped short at the first word <i>
+Italy</i>. But Garibaldi told Rosalino Pilo, who was of this way of
+thinking, that either he marched in the King's name or he did not march at
+all. This was the condition of his acceptance, because he <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg.274]</a></span> esteemed it
+the condition on which hung the success of the enterprise, nay more, the
+existence of an united Italy.</p>
+
+<p>The Thousand embarked at Quarto, near Genoa, during the night of the
+5th of May on the two merchant vessels, the <i>Piemonte</i> and <i>
+Lombardo</i>, which, with the complicity of their patriotic owner, R.
+Rubattino, had been sequestered for the use of the expedition. On hearing
+of Garibaldi's departure, Cavour ordered Admiral Persano, whose squadron
+lay in the gulf of Cagliari, to arrest the expedition if the steamers
+entered any Sardinian port, but to let it go free if they were encountered
+on the high seas. Persano asked Cavour what he was to do if by stress of
+storms Garibaldi were forced to come into port? The answer was that 'the
+Ministry' decided for his arrest, which Persano rightly interpreted to
+mean that Cavour had decided the contrary. He resolved, therefore, not to
+stop him under any circumstances, but the case did not occur, for the
+fairest of May weather favoured the voyage, and six days after the start
+the men were quietly landed at Marsala without let or hindrance from the
+two Neapolitan warships which arrived almost at the same time as the <i>
+Piemonte</i> and <i>Lombardo</i>, an inconceivable stroke of good fortune
+which, like the eventful march that was to follow, seems to belong far
+more to romance than to history.</p>
+
+<p>On the day before, the British gunboat <i>Intrepid</i> (Captain
+Marryat), and the steam vessel <i>Argus</i>, had cast anchor in the
+harbour of Marsala. Their presence was again and again spoken of by
+Garibaldi as the key to the mystery of why he was not attacked. No matter
+how it was done&mdash;it may have been a mere accident&mdash;but it can
+hardly be doubted that the English men-of-war did practically cover the
+landing of the Thousand. Lord John Russell denied emphatically to the
+House of Commons that they were sent there for the purpose, as to this day
+is <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">
+[Pg.275]</a></span> believed by some grateful Italians, and by every
+Clerical writer who handles the subject. The British Government had early
+information of Italian revolutionary doings, just then, through Sir James
+Hudson, who was in communication with men of all shades of opinion, and it
+is credible that orders which must necessarily have been secret, were
+given to afford a refuge on board English ships to the flying patriots in
+the anticipated catastrophe. More than this is not credible, but the
+energy shown by Captain Marryat in safeguarding the interests of the
+British residents at Marsala caused the Neapolitan ships to delay opening
+fire till the very last Red-shirt was out of harm's way on dry land. Then
+and then only did they direct their guns on the <i>Piemonte</i> and <i>
+Lombardo</i>, and fire a few shots into the city, which caused no other
+damage than the destruction of two casks of wine.</p>
+
+<p>On the 12th, Garibaldi left Marsala for Salemi, a mountain city
+approached by a steep, winding ascent, where he was sure of a warm
+reception, as it had already taken arms against the Bourbon king. Hence he
+promulgated the decree by which he assumed the dictatorship of Sicily in
+the name of Victor Emmanuel.</p>
+
+<p>The Neapolitan army numbered from 120,000 to 130,000 men; of these
+30,000 were actually in Sicily at the time the Thousand landed at Marsala,
+18,000 being in and about Palermo, and the rest distributed over the
+island. At Salemi, Garibaldi reviewed his united forces: he had been
+joined by 200 fresh volunteers, and by a fluctuating mass of Sicilian
+irregulars, which might be estimated to consist of 2,000 men, but it
+increased or decreased along the road, because it was formed of peasants
+of the districts traversed, who did not go far from their homes. These
+undisciplined bands were not useless, as they gave the <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg.276]</a></span> Bourbon
+generals the idea that Garibaldi had more men than he could ever really
+count upon, and also the peasants knew the country well. When they came
+under fire they behaved better than anyone would have expected. The first
+batch joined the Thousand half-way between Marsala and Salemi. There might
+have been fifty of them, dressed in goat-skins, and armed with the old
+flint muskets and rusty pistols dear to the Sicilian heart, which he would
+not for the world leave behind were he going no farther than to buy a lamb
+at the fair. The feudal lord marched at the head of his uncouth
+retainers&mdash;a company of bandits in an opera&mdash;yet, to Garibaldi,
+they seemed the blessed assurance that this people whom he was come to
+save was ready and willing to be saved. He received the poor little band
+with as much rapture as if it had been a powerful army, and, in their
+turn, the impressionable islanders were enraptured by the affability of
+the man whom the population of Sicily soon came seriously to consider as a
+new Messiah. It is a fact that the people of Southern Italy did believe
+that Garibaldi had in him something superhuman, only the Bourbon troops
+looked rather below than above for the source of it. The picturesque
+incidents of the historic march were many; one other may be mentioned.
+While the chief watered his horse at a spring a Franciscan friar threw
+himself on his knees, and implored to be allowed to follow him. Some of
+the volunteers thought the friar a traitor in disguise, but larger in
+faith, Garibaldi said: 'Come with us, you will be our Ugo Bassi.' Fra
+Pantaleo proved of no small use to the expedition.</p>
+
+<p>A glance at the map makes clear the military situation. Garibaldi's
+objective was Palermo, and if anything shows his genius as a Condottiere
+it is this immediate determination to make straight for the capital where
+the largest number of the enemy's troops was massed, <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg.277]</a></span> instead of
+seeking an illusionary safety for his weak army in the open country. As
+the crow flies the distance from Marsala to Palermo is not more than sixty
+or seventy miles, but the routes being mountainous, the actual ground to
+be covered is much longer. About midway lies Calatafimi, where all the
+roads leading from the eastern coast to Palermo converge, and above it
+towers the immensely strong position called Pianto dei Romani, from a
+battle in which the Romans were defeated. These heights command a vast
+prospect, and here General Landi, with 3,000 men and four pieces of
+artillery, prepared to intercept the Garibaldians with every probability
+of driving them back into the sea.</p>
+
+<p>The royal troops took the offensive towards ten o'clock on the 15th of
+May. They met the Red-shirts half way down the mountain, but were driven
+up it again, inch by inch, till, at about three o'clock, they were back at
+Pianto dei Romani. A final vigorous assault dislodged them from this
+position, and they retreated in disorder to Calatafimi. Not wishing to
+tempt fortune further for that day, Garibaldi bivouacqued on the field of
+battle. In a letter written to Bertani, on the spur of the moment, he bore
+witness with a sort of fatherly pride to the courage displayed by the
+Neapolitans: 'It was the old misfortune,' he said, 'a fight between
+Italians; but it proved to me what can be done with this family when
+united. The Neapolitan soldiers, when their cartridges were exhausted,
+threw stones at us in desperation.' How then, with much superior numbers
+and a seemingly impregnable position, did they end in ignominious flight?
+The answer may be found in the reply given to Bixio, bravest of the brave,
+who <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">
+[Pg.278]</a></span> yet feared, at one hotly-contested point, that retreat
+was inevitable. 'Here,' retorted the chief,'we <i>die</i>.' Men who really
+mean to conquer or die can do miracles.</p>
+
+<p>The moral effect of the victory was tremendous. The world at large had
+made absolutely sure of the destruction of the expedition. 'Garibaldi has
+chosen to go his own way,' said Victor Emmanuel; 'but if you only knew the
+fright I was in about him and the brave lads with him!' In Sicily, where
+the insurrectionary activity of April was almost totally spent, the news
+sent an electric shock of revolution through the whole island. In the
+mountains Rosalino Pilo still resisted, weary of waiting for the help that
+came not, discouraged or hopeless, but unyielding. Food and ammunition
+were almost gone; his ragged band, held together only by the magnetism of
+his personal influence, began to feel the pangs of hunger. A price was set
+on his head, and he was harassed on all sides by the Neapolitan troops,
+whose attacks became more frequent now that the Government realised that
+there was danger. He knew nothing of Garibaldi's movements; but he was
+resolved to keep his promise as long as he could: to hold out till the
+chief came. At the hour when everything looked most desperate, a messenger
+arrived in his camp with a letter in Garibaldi's handwriting, which bore
+the date of the 16th of May. 'Yesterday,' it ran, we fought and
+conquered.' Never was unexpected news more welcome. Filled with a joy such
+as few men have tasted, Rosalino read the glad tidings to his men. 'The
+cause is won,' he said. 'In a few days, if the enemy's balls respect me,
+we shall be in Palermo.'</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Garibaldi had occupied Calatafimi, and was proceeding towards
+Monreale, from which side he contemplated a descent on the capital. On the
+high tableland of Renda he met Rosalino Pilo with his <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg.279]</a></span> reanimated
+band. That day the Garibaldian army, all told, amounted to 5,000 men. On
+the 21st of May, Rosalino was ordered to make a reconnaissance in the
+direction of Monreale; while carrying out this order a Neapolitan bullet
+struck his forehead, causing almost instantaneous death. 'I am happy to be
+able to give my blood to Italy, but may heaven be propitious once for
+all,' he had written when he first landed, words realised to the
+letter.</p>
+
+<p>The Neapolitans were put in high spirits by Rosalino Pilo's death; the
+discomfiture of Calatafimi was forgotten; they represented Garibaldi as a
+mouse that was obligingly walking into a well-laid trap. In fact, his
+position could not have been more critical, but he had recourse to a
+stratagem which saved him. He succeeded in placing the enemy upon a
+completely false scent. Abandoning the idea of reaching Palermo from the
+east (Monreale), he decided to attempt the assault from the south (Piana
+de' Greci and Misilimeri), but, all the while, he continued to throw the
+Sicilian <i>Picciotti</i> on the Monreale route, and gave them orders to
+fire stray shots in every direction and to light innumerable camp-fires.
+These troops frequently came in contact with the Neapolitans in trifling
+skirmishes, and kept their attention so well occupied that General
+Colonna, in command of the force sent in search of the 'Filibuster,' did
+not doubt that the whole Garibaldian army was concentrated over Monreale.
+Garibaldi rapidly moved his own column by night to its new base of
+operations. The ground was steep and difficult, and a storm raged all the
+night; fifteen years later he declared that none of his marches in the
+virgin forests of America was so arduous as this. While the Neapolitans
+remained in ignorance of these changes, three English naval officers,
+guided by a sort of sporting dog's instinct, happened to be driving
+through the village of <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_280" id=
+"Page_280">[Pg.280]</a></span> Misilmeri just after Garibaldi established
+his headquarters in that neighbourhood. Of course it was by chance; still,
+Misilmeri is an odd place to go for an afternoon drive, and the escapade
+ended in the issue of a severe warning to Her Majesty's officers and
+marines to keep in future 'within the bounds of the sentinels of the royal
+troops.' Luckily record exists of the experiences of Lieutenant Wilmot and
+his two companions at Misilmeri. Garibaldi, on hearing that three English
+naval officers were in the village, sent to invite them to the vineyard
+where he was taking his dinner. They found him standing in a large
+enclosure in the midst of a group of followers who all, like himself, wore
+the legendary red flannel shirt and grey trousers. Fra Pantaleo's brown
+habit formed the only exception. Several Hungarian officers were present,
+and by his father stood Menotti, then a stout youth of nineteen, with his
+arm in a sling from the severe wound he received at Calatafimi. Around
+were soldiers who looked like mere boys. They gazed with delight on the
+English uniforms. Garibaldi requested his guests to be seated and to
+partake of some freshly-gathered strawberries. He spoke of his affection
+and respect for England, and said it was his hope soon to make the
+acquaintance of the British admiral. He mentioned how he had seen and
+admired from the heights the beautiful effect of the salutes fired in
+honour of the Queen's birthday, two days before. He then retired into his
+tent, made of an old blanket stretched over pikes; a child, under the name
+of a sentry, paced before it to keep off the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>To complete the deception of the enemy the Garibaldian artillery, under
+Colonel Orsini, was ordered to make a retrograde march on Corleone
+previous to joining the main force at Misilmeri. Orsini narrowly escaped
+getting caught while executing this movement, and for <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg.281]</a></span> the sake of
+celerity was obliged to throw his five cannon (including one taken at
+Calatafimi) down deep water courses. He returned to pull them out again
+when the immediate danger was past. General Colonna, who followed him
+closely, was convinced that the whole of the Garibaldians were in
+disorderly retreat as witnessed by the mules and waggons purposely
+abandoned by Orsini along the route. For four days Colonna believed that
+he had Garibaldi flying before him, and sent intelligence to that effect
+to Naples, whence it was published through the world. On the fifth day he
+was immeasurably surprised by hearing that Garibaldi had entered
+Palermo!</p>
+
+<p>It was at early dawn on Whitsunday, the 27th of May, that Garibaldi
+reached the threshold of the capital, and after overcoming the guard at
+Ponte dell' Ammiraglio, pushed on to Porta Termini, the strategic key to
+the city. The royalists, though taken by surprise in the first instance,
+had time to dispose a strong force behind walls and barricades before
+Garibaldi could reach the gate, and it required two hours of severe
+fighting to take the position. Many Red-shirts were killed, and Benedetto
+Cairoli received the severe wound from which he never wholly recovered.
+Success, however, was complete, and the Palermitans got up to find, to
+their frantic joy, the Liberator within their gates. According to the old
+usage their first impulse was to run to the belfries in order to sound the
+tocsin, but they found that the royalists had removed the clappers of the
+bells. Nothing daunted, they beat the bells all day with hammers and other
+implements, and so produced an indescribable noise which had a material
+influence on the nerves of the terrified Neapolitan troops. Being
+disarmed, the only other help which the inhabitants could render to their
+deliverers was the erection of barricades.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">
+[Pg.282]</a></span> Even after Garibaldi's entry, it is thought that
+General Lanza could have crushed him in the streets by sheer force of
+superiority in numbers and artillery had he made proper use of his means.
+However, at about three p.m., he chose the less heroic plan of ordering
+the castle and the Neapolitan fleet to bombard the city. Most of his staff
+opposed the decision, and one officer broke his sword, but Lanza was
+inexorable. The measure so exasperated the Palermitans that even had it
+achieved its end for the moment, never after would they have proved
+governable from Naples. Thirteen hundred shells were thrown into the city.
+Lord Palmerston denounced the bombardment and its attendant horrors as
+'unworthy of our time and of our civilisation.' The soldiers helped the
+work by setting fire to some quarters of the city. Among the spots where
+the shells fell in most abundance was the convent of the Sette Angeli. The
+Garibaldians escorted the nuns to a place of safety and carried their more
+valuable possessions after them. The good sisters were charmed by the
+courtesy with which the young Italians performed these duties.</p>
+
+<p>Fighting in the streets went on more or less continuously, and the
+liberators kept their ground, but every hour brought fresh perils. A
+Bavarian regiment arrived to reinforce General Lanza, and the return of
+the Neapolitan column from Corleone was momentarily expected. The
+Garibaldians, and this was the gravest fact of all, had used almost their
+last cartridge. The issue of the struggle was awaited with varying
+sentiments on board the English, French, Austrian, Spanish and Sardinian
+warships at anchor in the bay. Admiral Mundy had placed his squadron so
+close to the land that the ships were in danger of suffering from the
+bombardment, a course attributed to the humane <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg.283]</a></span> desire to afford a
+refuge for non-combatants, and in fact, the officers were soon engaged in
+entertaining a frightened crowd of ladies and children. The <i>
+Intrepid</i> in particular, was so near the Marina that a fair swimmer
+could have reached it in a few minutes; nobody guessed, least of all
+Garibaldi, that her mission in the mind of the British admiral was to save
+the chiefs own life in what seemed the likely case of its being placed in
+peril.</p>
+
+<p>Admiral Mundy begged the authorities to stop the bombardment before the
+city was destroyed, but Lanza appeared to have no intention of yielding to
+his counsels, and it is still uncertain what at last induced him on the
+30th of May to sue the Filibuster, hastily transformed into his
+Excellency, for an armistice of twenty-four hours. 'God knows,' writes
+Garibaldi, 'if we had want of it!' The royalists had lost nearly the whole
+city except the palace and its surroundings, and, cut off from the sea,
+they began to feel a scarcity of food, but not to a severe extent. It
+seems most probable that with his men panic-stricken and constantly driven
+back in spite of the bombardment, Lanza looked upon the game as lost, when
+had he known the straits to which the Garibaldians were reduced for
+ammunition, he might have considered it as won.</p>
+
+<p>An unforeseen incident now occurred; the royalist column, recalled from
+Corleone, which was largely composed of Bavarians, reached Porta Termini
+and opened a furious fire on the weak Garibaldian detachment stationed
+there. Was it ignorance or bad faith? Lieutenant Wilmot, who happened to
+be passing by, energetically waved his handkerchief and shouted that a
+truce was concluded; the assailants continued the attack till an officer
+of the Neapolitan staff who was in conference with Garibaldi at the time
+hurried to the spot, at his indignant <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg.284]</a></span> request, and ordered them to
+desist. A few minutes later, Garibaldi himself rode up in a wrathful mood,
+and while he was renewing his protests, a shell fell close by him, thrown
+from a ship which re-opened the bombardment on its own account. Lieutenant
+Wilmot, who witnessed the whole affair, was convinced that there was a
+deliberate plan to surprise and capture the Italian chief after he had
+granted the armistice.</p>
+
+<p>At a quarter past two on this eventful day, the 30th of May 1860,
+Garibaldi and the Neapolitan generals, Letizia and Chretien, stepped on
+board the flag-ship <i>Hannibal</i> which Admiral Mundy offered as neutral
+ground for their meeting. Curiously enough, both parties, reaching the
+mole simultaneously, were rowed out in the same ship's boat, which was
+waiting in readiness. The Neapolitans insisted that Garibaldi should go on
+board first, either from courtesy or, as the admiral suspected, out of
+desire to find out whether he would be received with military honours.
+With instinctive tact he had donned his old and rather shabby uniform of a
+major-general in the Sardinian army; the admiral's course was, therefore,
+marked out, and Garibaldi received the same salute as the two generals who
+followed him. After a foolish attempt on the part of the Neapolitan
+officers to make themselves disagreeable, which was repressed with
+dignified decision by Admiral Mundy, business began, and things went
+smoothly till the fifth article of the proposed convention came under
+discussion: 'That the municipality should direct a humble petition to his
+Majesty the King expressing the real wants of the city.' 'No,' cried
+Garibaldi, starting to his feet, 'the time for humble petitions to the
+King, or to anyone else, is past; I am the municipality, and I refuse.'
+General Letizia grew excited at this declaration, but afterwards he agreed
+to <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">
+[Pg.285]</a></span> submit the question of quashing the fifth article to
+his chief, General Lanza. The armistice was prolonged till nine the next
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he was back on shore, Garibaldi issued a manifesto, in which
+he announced that he had refused a proposal dishonouring the city, and
+that to-morrow, at the close of the armistice, he should renew
+hostilities. There was a splendid audacity in the threat; his powder was
+literally exhausted; nothing was left for him to do but to die with all
+his men, and to do this he and they were unquestionably ready. The conduct
+of the citizens was on a level with the occasion. As soon as the manifesto
+came to be known, the inhabitants rushed to the Palazzo Pretorio, where
+the man who had so proudly answered in their name, addressed them in these
+terms: 'People of Palermo; the enemy has made me propositions which I
+judged humiliating to you, and knowing that you are ready to bury
+yourselves under the ruins of your city, I refused.' Those who were
+present say that never did Garibaldi seem so great as at that moment. The
+answer was one deafening shout, in which the women and children joined, of
+'War! war!' In the evening the city was illuminated as on a feast-day.</p>
+
+<p>Once more in history, the game of greatly daring succeeded. Appalled by
+the reports of the dreadful threats emanating from a population without
+arms, and a handful of volunteers without powder, distrustful henceforth
+of the courage of his soldiers, and, if the truth must be told, of the
+fidelity of his fleet, Lanza sent General Letizia to Garibaldi betimes, on
+the 31st of May, with an unconditional demand for the continuance of the
+armistice. A convention was drawn up, which conceded the fullest liberty
+to the royalists to supply their material wants, succour the wounded, and,
+if they desired, embark <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_286" id=
+"Page_286">[Pg.286]</a></span> them on board ships with their families for
+Naples. Garibaldi, always humane, had a special tenderness for the victims
+of that civil strife which his soul abhorred, and he never forgot that the
+enemy was his fellow-countryman. His influence sufficed to secure to the
+royal troops an immunity from reprisals which was the more creditable
+because some horrid crimes had been done by miscreants in their ranks when
+they found that they were getting the worst of it in the street-fighting.
+Unfortunately the same mercy was not extended to some of the secret agents
+of Maniscalco, head of the Sicilian police, who, discovered in
+hiding-places by the mob, were murdered before any protection could be
+given them. At the time the act of barbarity was judged, even by English
+observers, with more leniency than it deserved (because cruelty can have
+<i>no</i> excuse), so great was the disgust excited by the most odious
+system of espionage ever put in practice.</p>
+
+<p>The convention bore the signatures of 'Ferdinando Lanza,
+General-in-Chief,' and of 'Francesco Crispi, Secretary of State to the
+Provisional Government of Sicily.' One article provided for the
+consignment of the Royal Mint to the victors; a large sum was stored in
+its coffers, and Garibaldi found himself in the novel position of being
+able to pay his men and the Sicilian <i>squadre</i>, and to send large
+orders for arms and ammunition to the Continent.</p>
+
+<p>General Letizia made two journeys to Naples, and on his return from the
+second he came invested with full powers to treat with Garibaldi for the
+evacuation of the city. On the 7th of June, 15,000 royal troops marched
+down to the Marina to the ships that were to take them away. At the
+entrance of the Toledo, the great main street of Palermo, Menotti
+Garibaldi was on guard, on a prancing black charger, with a <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg.287]</a></span> few other
+Red-shirts of his own age around him, and before this group of boys
+defiled the might and pomp of the disciplined army to which King Bomba had
+given the thoughtful care of a life-time.</p>
+
+<p>The closing formalities which wound up these events at Palermo formed a
+fitting ending to the dramatic scenes which have been briefly narrated. On
+the 19th, General Lanza went on board the <i>Hannibal</i> to take leave of
+the British admiral. He was covered with decorations and attended by his
+brilliant personal staff. There, in the beautiful bay, lay the ship on
+board which he was to sail at sunset, and twenty-four steam transports
+were also there, each filled with Neapolitan troops. The defeated general
+was deeply moved as he walked on to the quarter-deck. 'We have been
+unfortunate,' he said&mdash;words never spoken by one officer of
+unquestioned personal courage to another without striking a responsive
+chord. When he quitted the <i>Hannibal</i>, the English admiral ordered
+the White Flag of the King of the Two Sicilies to be hoisted at the
+foretop-gallant masthead for the last time in Sicilian waters; and a
+salute of nineteen guns, the salute due to the direct representative or
+<i>alter ego</i> of a sovereign, speeded the parting guest. Thus, wrapped
+in the dignity of misfortune, vanished the last semblance of the graceless
+and treacherous thraldom of the Spanish Bourbons in the capital of Sicily.
+The flag of Italy was run up on the tower of the Semaphore. Everywhere the
+revolution triumphed except at Messina, Milazzo and Syracuse. Even
+Catania, where a rising had been put down after a sanguinary struggle, was
+now evacuated and left to itself.</p>
+
+<p>So the 20th of June dawned, and the Queen's ships in the harbour put
+forth all their bravery of flags in commemoration of her accession, which
+display was naturally interpreted by the Palermitans as a <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg.288]</a></span> compliment
+to the Dictator, who had fixed that day for calling on the British, French
+and Sardinian admirals and on the captain of the United States frigate <i>
+Iroquois</i>. With what honours the American captain received him is not
+recorded; for certain it was with cordial goodwill; of the others, Admiral
+Mundy treated him as on the previous occasion; the French admiral affected
+to consider him a 'simple monsieur' who had unexpectedly come to call,
+whilst Admiral Persano, on board the <i>Maria Adelaide</i>, gave him a
+salute of nineteen guns, which formed a virtual recognition on the part of
+Piedmont of his assumption of the dictatorship. Cavour had ordered Persano
+to act on his own responsibility as the exigencies of the hour demanded,
+and the admiral knew that these vague instructions assigned him a more
+vigorous policy than the other ministers would have agreed to officially.
+His bold initiative was therefore justified. As some severe words will
+have to be said of Persano in a later chapter, it is well to remark here
+that during his Sicilian command he behaved like a thorough patriot,
+although it was not in his power to render such great moral services to
+freedom as were undoubtedly rendered by Admiral Mundy, who at the same
+time acted with so much tact that his neutrality was not impugned, and he
+even won the equal personal gratitude of both parties. On the other hand,
+the Austrian commodore, Baron von W&uuml;llersdorf, succeeded in pleasing
+no one and no one pleased him. He did not expect that the Garibaldians
+would lose much love to him, but he took it unkindly that the royalists
+fired at his boat with himself in it, and the Austrian flag at the stern.
+In high dudgeon he related this grievance to his British colleague, who
+gently suggested that since Austria had always supported the Bourbon
+system of Government, it was hardly strange if the royalists were hurt at
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg.289]</a></span>
+receiving neither assistance nor even sympathy from the Austrian squadron
+which witnessed their destruction. The remark was acute; even Austria was,
+in fact, tired of the Bourbons of Naples; a portent of their not distant
+doom. But it was not likely that the royalists should appreciate the
+phlegmatic attitude of their erewhile protectors.</p>
+
+<p>The concluding military operations in Sicily presented a more arduous
+task than, in the first flush of success, might have been anticipated. In
+the general panic, one, if one only, royalist officer, Colonel Del Bosco,
+turned round and stood at bay. His spirited course was not far from
+undoing all that had been done. Fortunately Garibaldi had received
+important reinforcements. General Medici touched the Sicilian shores three
+days after the evacuation of Palermo with 3500 volunteers, well-armed and
+equipped out of the so-called 'Million Rifle Fund,' which was formed by
+popular subscription in the north of Italy. The Dictator went as far as
+Alcamo to meet the hero of the last glorious fight of Rome, whom he
+greeted with delight and affection. Later, arrived the third and last
+expedition, consisting of 1500 men under Cosenz, till recently
+commander-in-chief of the Italian army. The Sicilian <i>squadre</i> had
+been brought into something like military organisation; and an Englishman,
+Colonel Dunne, had raised a picked corps of 400 Palermitans which
+contained, besides its commander, between thirty and forty of his
+countrymen, and was hence called the English Regiment. This battalion was
+ready to do anything and go anywhere; it performed excellent work both in
+Sicily and on the mainland.<a name="FNanchor5"></a><a href=
+"#Footnote_5"><sup>[5]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">
+[Pg.290]</a></span> Garibaldi arranged his forces in three divisions; one,
+under T&uuml;rr, was sent to Catania; the second, under Bixio, to
+Girgenti; the third, under Medici, was to follow the northern sea-coast
+towards Messina, the strongest position still in the enemy's hands. All
+three were ultimately to converge with a view to the grand object of
+crossing over to the mainland. Medici had 2500 men; the royalists in and
+about Messina could dispose of 15,000. The Garibaldians did not expect
+much opposition till they got near Messina, but when they reached
+Barcelona they heard that the garrison of Milazzo had been reinforced by
+Del Bosco with 4000 men, with the evident design of cutting off their
+passage to Messina. It is said that this move was made in consequence of
+direct communications between that officer and Francis II., whose
+ministers had already decided to abandon the whole island. But Del Bosco
+secretly assured his King that such a measure was not necessary, and that
+he would undertake not only to bar Medici's advance, but to march over the
+dead bodies of the Garibaldians to Palermo. Milazzo is a small hilly
+peninsula, on which stands a fort and a little walled city. The spot was
+well chosen. On the 17th of <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_291" id=
+"Page_291">[Pg.291]</a></span> July, Del Bosco attacked the Garibaldian
+right, and it was not without difficulty that Medici retained his
+positions. Some further reinforcements were sent to Del Bosco from
+Messina, though not so numerous as they ought to have been, but they would
+have almost ensured him the victory had not Medici also received help;
+Cosenz' column, and, yet more important, Garibaldi himself with the 1000
+men he had kept in Palermo, hastening at full speed to the rescue. The
+belligerents were, for once, about equally balanced in numbers when on the
+20th of July Garibaldi attacked Del Bosco with the purpose of driving him
+on to the tongue of the peninsula, thus cutting him off from Messina and
+leaving the road open. A desperate engagement followed. The Neapolitans
+showed that they could fight if they were properly led, and inflicted a
+loss of 800 in killed and wounded (heavy out of a total of 5000) on their
+gallant opponents. Garibaldi's own life was nearly sacrificed. He was
+standing in a field of prickly pears in conversation with Major Missori
+when a party of the enemy's cavalry rode up, the captain of which dealt a
+violent blow at him with his sword, without knowing who it was. Garibaldi
+coolly parried the blow, and struck down his assailant, while Missori shot
+the three nearest dragoons with his revolver. Hearing the noise, other
+Garibaldians hurried up, and the chief was saved. For a long time the
+issue of the battle remained uncertain, and it was only after hours of
+severe fighting that Del Bosco was compelled to recognise his defeat, and
+to take refuge on the projecting strip of land as Garibaldi had meant that
+he should do.</p>
+
+<p>A few days later, four transports arrived in the bay of Milazzo to
+carry Del Bosco and his men to Naples. The ministry had prevailed, and the
+complete abandonment of the island was decreed. General Clary, <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg.292]</a></span>
+commandant of Messina, informed Garibaldi that he had orders to evacuate
+the town and its outlying forts; the citadel would be also handed over if
+the Dictator would engage not to cross to the mainland, but this
+conditional offer was declined. The citadel of Messina therefore remained
+in the power of the royalists, but on agreement that it should not resume
+hostilities unless attacked. It only capitulated in March 1861. Garibaldi
+reigned over the rest of the island. The convention was signed on the 28th
+of July by Marshal Tommaso de Clary for the King of Naples, and
+Major-General Giacomo Medici for the Dictator.</p>
+
+<p>Before following Garibaldi across the Straits, some allusion is called
+for to the general political situation both in Sicily and in Italy. And
+first as regards Sicily. When a government is pulled down another must be
+set up, and the last task is often not the easiest. Garibaldi appointed a
+ministry in which the ruling spirit was Francesco Crispi. A Sicilian
+patriot from his youth, and one of the Thousand, he has been judged the
+man best fitted to direct the helm of United Italy in days of unexampled
+difficulty. This is enough to prove that he was not the first-come
+ignoramus or madman that some people then liked to think him. But Crispi
+had the art of making enemies, nor has he lost it. Though volumes have
+been written on the civil administration under the dictatorship, the
+writers' judgments are so warped by their political leanings that it is
+not easy to get at the truth. It would have been strange had no confusion
+existed, had no false steps been made; yet some of the old English
+residents in Sicily say that the island made more real progress during the
+few months of Garibaldi's reign than in all the years that have followed.
+Towards the end of <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">
+[Pg.293]</a></span> June, Garibaldi appointed Agostino Depretis as
+Pro-Dictator. Of the many decrees formulated and measures adopted at this
+period, Garibaldi, who had many other things to think of, was personally
+responsible only for those of a philanthropic nature. Busy as he was, he
+found time to inquire minutely into the State of the population of
+Palermo, and he was horrified at the ignorance and misery in which the
+poorer classes were plunged. Forthwith, out came a bushel-basket of edicts
+and appeals on behalf of these poor children of the sun. He visited the
+orphan asylum and found that eighty per cent. of the inmates died of
+starvation. One nurse had to provide for the wants of four infants.
+Garibaldi wrote off an address to the ladies of Palermo, in which he
+implored them to interest themselves in the wretched little beings created
+in the image of God, at the sight of whose wasted and puny bodies he, an
+old soldier, had wept. He had money and food distributed every morning to
+the most destitute, at the gates of the royal palace, where he lived with
+a frugality that scandalised the aged servants of royalty whom he kept,
+out of kindness, at their posts. Theoretically, he disapproved of
+indiscriminate almsgiving, but in the misery caused by the recent
+bombardment, such theories could not be strictly applied, or, at any rate,
+Garibaldi was not the man to so apply them; whence it happened that
+though, as <i>de facto</i> head of the State, he allowed himself a civil
+list of eight francs a day, the morning had never far advanced before his
+pockets were empty, and he had to borrow small sums from his friends,
+which next morning were faithfully repaid.</p>
+
+<p>When he walked about the town, the women pressed forward to touch the
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg.294]</a></span>
+hem of his <i>poncho</i>, and made their children kneel to receive his
+blessing. On one occasion a convent of nuns, from the youngest novice to
+the elderly abbess, insisted on giving him the kiss of peace. An idolatry
+which would have made anyone else ridiculous; but Garibaldi, being
+altogether simple and unselfconscious, was above ridicule. One of the good
+works that he initiated was the transformation of the Foundling Hospital,
+of which the large funds were turned to little account, into a Military
+School under the direction of his best officers. In less than a month the
+school could turn out two smart battalions, and there were few mornings
+that the Dictator did not go to watch the boys at their drill. He
+encouraged them with the promise that before long he would lead them
+himself to the wars.</p>
+
+<p>Such actions smell sweeter from the dust, than the old story of the
+antagonism that sprang up in those days between Garibaldi and Cavour,
+between Crispi and La Farina. This dualism, as it was called, was the
+fruit of a mutual distrust, which, however much to be deplored, was not to
+be avoided. Although Cavour had a far juster idea of Garibaldi than that
+entertained by his <i>entourage</i>, he was nevertheless haunted by the
+fear that the general's revolutionary friends would persuade him to depart
+from his programme of 'Italy and Victor Emmanuel,' and embark upon some
+adventure of a republican complexion. He was also afraid that the
+Government of the Dictator would, by its unconventional methods, discredit
+the Italian cause in the eyes of European statesmen. These reasons caused
+him to desire and to endeavour to bring about the immediate annexation of
+Sicily to the Sardinian kingdom. On the other hand, Garibaldi's faith in
+Cavour had <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">
+[Pg.295]</a></span> ceased with the cession of Nice, and he believed him
+to be even now contemplating the cession of the island of Sardinia as a
+further sop to Cerberus&mdash;a project which, if it existed nowhere else,
+did exist in the mind of Napoleon III. With regard to immediate
+annexation, he had no intention of agreeing to it, and for one sufficing
+reason: had he consented he could not have carried the war of liberation
+across the Straits of Messina. His Sicilian army must have laid down their
+arms at a command from Turin were it given. And it would have been
+given.</p>
+
+<p>La Farina, like Crispi, a Sicilian by birth, arrived suddenly at
+Palermo, representing Cavour, as everyone thought, but in reality he
+represented himself. Strong-willed and prejudiced, he was, in his own way,
+a perfectly good patriot, and he had done all that was in his power
+(though not quite so much as in later years he fancied that he had done)
+to aid and further the expedition of the Thousand. But he tried to force
+the annexation scheme by means so openly hostile to the government of the
+day, that Garibaldi at length sent him on board Persano's flag-ship with a
+request that the admiral would forward him to Turin.</p>
+
+<p>After the evacuation of Messina by the royal troops, Garibaldi received
+persuasions of all sorts to let the kingdom of Naples alone. On the part
+of King Francis an offer was made to him of 50,000,000 francs and the
+Neapolitan navy in aid of a war for the liberation of Venice. Almost
+simultaneously he received a letter from Victor Emmanuel sent by the hand
+of Count Giulio Litta, in which the writer said that in the event of the
+King of Naples giving up Sicily 'I think that our most reasonable course
+would be to renounce all ulterior undertakings against the Neapolitan
+kingdom.' This was the first <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_296" id=
+"Page_296">[Pg.296]</a></span> direct communication between the King and
+Garibaldi since the latter's landing at Marsala; it is to be surmised that
+of indirect communications there had been several, and that they took the
+form of substantial assistance, sent, probably without Cavour being aware
+of it, for Victor Emmanuel carried on his own little conspiracies with a
+remarkable amount of secrecy. What induced him now to address words of
+restraint to Garibaldi in the midway of his work, was the arrival of a
+letter from Napoleon III. in which the Emperor urged him in the strongest
+manner to use his well-known personal influence with the general to hold
+him back. It was not easy for Victor Emmanuel to refuse point blank to
+make the last effort on behalf of his cousin. Francis had appointed a
+constitutional ministry, promised a statute, granted an amnesty and
+engaged to place himself in accord with the King of Sardinia, adopted even
+the tricolor flag with the royal arms of Bourbon in the centre.
+Concessions idle as desperate on the 25th of June 1860, the date which
+they bore. Their only consequence then was to facilitate the fall of the
+dynasty, the usual result of similar inspirations of the eleventh hour.
+Had all this been done on the day of the King's accession it might have
+imperilled Italian unity&mdash;not now. But the fatal words, 'Too late,'
+would have fallen with ill grace from Victor Emmanuel's lips. Garibaldi
+answered his royal correspondent that when he had made him King of Italy
+he would be only too happy to obey him for the rest of his life.</p>
+
+<p>The King's letter, though delivered after the battle of Milazzo, was
+written before it. That event convinced Cavour, and doubtless the King
+with him, that it was utterly impossible to arrest the tide at Cape Faro.
+It convinced him of a great deal more. He saw that if Piedmont <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg.297]</a></span>
+continued much longer a passive spectator of the march of events, she
+would lose the lead forever And he prepared to act.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile counsels reached Garibaldi from quite a different quarter not
+to abandon Naples, but to go there from Rome instead of by Calabria. This
+daring scheme was favoured by Mazzini, Nicotera, Bertani; indeed, by all
+the republicans. A corps of about 8000 volunteers was ready to start for a
+descent on the coast of the Papal States. At present it was in the island
+of Sardinia, awaiting the arrival of Garibaldi to assume the command. And
+now occurred Garibaldi's mysterious disappearance from Cape Faro, which at
+the time excited endless curiosity. The truth was, that he actually went
+to Sardinia, but instead of taking command of the volunteers bound for
+Rome, he induced them to alter their plans and to join his Sicilian army
+in the arduous undertaking before it of overthrowing the Bourbons in the
+Neapolitan kingdom. Thus he gained a reinforcement of which he knew the
+enormous need, for though he was willing to face difficulties, he was not
+blind to them, as were many men of the extreme party. He also prevented
+what would have been a step of exceeding danger to the national cause, as
+it would have obliged the Sardinian Government to break off all relations
+with Garibaldi and to use force against the patriots in suppressing a
+movement which, if successful, would have brought a hostile French army
+into Italy.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg.298]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XV"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XV</h3>
+
+<h4>THE MEETING OF THE WATERS</h4>
+
+<h5>1860</h5>
+
+<h5>Garibaldi's March on Naples&mdash;The Piedmontese in Umbria and the
+Marches&mdash;The Volturno&mdash;Victor Emmanuel enters Naples.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>The Italian kingdom is the fruit of the alliance between the strong
+monarchical principles of Piedmont and the dissolvent forces of
+revolution. Whenever either one side or the other, yielding to the
+influence of its individual sympathies or prejudices, failed to recognise
+that thus only, by the essential logic of events, could the unity of the
+country be achieved, the entire edifice was placed in danger of falling to
+the ground before it was completed.</p>
+
+<p>When Garibaldi stood on Cape Faro, conqueror and liberator, clothed in
+a glory not that of Wellington or Moltke, but that of Arthur or Roland or
+the Cid Campeador; the subject of the gossip of the Arabs in their tents,
+of the wild horsemen of the Pampas, of the fishers in ice-bound seas; a
+solar myth, nevertheless certified to be alive in the nineteenth
+century&mdash;Cavour understood that if he were left much longer single
+occupant of the field, either he would rush to disaster, which would be
+fatal to Italy, or he would become so powerful that, in the event of his
+being plunged, willingly or unwillingly, by the more ardent apostles of
+revolution into opposition with the King of Sardinia, the issue of the
+contest would be by no means sure. To guard <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg.299]</a></span> against both possibilities,
+Cavour decided to act, and to act at once. He said of the conjuncture in
+which he was placed that it was not one of the most difficult, but the
+most difficult of his political life. But he proved equal to the task,
+which does the more honour to his statesmanship because his first plan
+failed completely. This plan was, that the Neapolitan population should
+overthrow Francis II., and proclaim Victor Emmanuel their King before
+Garibaldi crossed the Straits. But the Neapolitans would not move hand or
+foot till Garibaldi was among them. The fact that when Cavour was
+convinced that the Bourbon dynasty at Naples was about to fall, he tried
+to hasten its collapse by a few weeks or days, was made the most of by his
+enemies as an example of base duplicity. At this distance of time, it need
+only be said that whether his conduct of affairs was scrupulous or
+unscrupulous, it deceived no one, for the Neapolitan King and his friends
+were well convinced that the Filibuster of Caprera was their less deadly
+foe than the Prime Minister of Piedmont.</p>
+
+<p>But of all the foes of Franceschiello, to use the diminutive by which,
+half in pity, half in contempt, the people of Naples remember him, the
+most irrevocably fatal was himself. Two courses were open to him when,
+after losing Sicily, he saw the loss of his other kingdom and of his
+throne staring him in the face. One was to go forth like a man at the head
+of his troops to meet the storm. There had been such a thing as loyalty in
+the Kingdom of Naples; not loyalty of the highest sort, but still the
+sentiment had existed. Who knows what might not have been the effect of
+the presence of their young Sovereign on the broken <i>moral</i> of the
+Neapolitan soldiers? 'Sire, place yourself at the head <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg.300]</a></span> of the
+40,000 who remain, and risk a last stake, or, at least, fall gloriously
+after an honourable battle,' was the advice given him by his minister of
+war, Pianell. But his stepmother or somebody (certainly not his wife) said
+that the sacred life of a king ought to be kept in cotton wool, like other
+curiosities. Meanwhile his uncle, the Count of Syracuse, proposed the
+other course which, though not heroic, would have been intelligible and
+even patriotic. This was to absolve his subjects from their obedience, and
+embark on the first available ship for foreign parts. Fitting the action
+to the word, the Count himself started for Turin. Francis awaited the doom
+of those who only know how to take half measures.</p>
+
+<p>The demoralisation, not only of the troops but of every branch of the
+public administration in the kingdom of Naples, was not yet a certified
+fact; and the enterprise which Garibaldi at Cape Faro had before him, of
+invading the dominions of a monarch who still had a large army, and whose
+subjects showed not the slightest visible sign of being disposed to strike
+a blow for their own freedom, looked rather fabulous than difficult. The
+only part of the <i>Regno</i> where the people were taking action was in
+the furthermost region of Calabria; a fortunate circumstance, since it was
+the first point to be attacked. Calabria, which had contributed its quota
+to the Thousand, contained more patriotic energy than the rest of the <i>
+Regno</i> put together. On the 8th of August, Garibaldi sent over a small
+vanguard of 200 men under a Calabrian officer, with the order to join the
+Calabrian band of insurgents which was hiding in the woods and gorges of
+Aspromonte, and to spread the news that his own coming would not be long
+delayed. The Neapolitan generals had acquired the idea that, instead of
+these <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">
+[Pg.301]</a></span> few men, a large force had already disembarked, and so
+turned their attention to the mountains; while Garibaldi, after throwing
+the war-ships in the Straits on an equally false scent by various
+intentionally abortive operations, crossed in the night of the 19th and
+effected a landing not far from Reggio, of which, for both moral and
+strategic reasons, it was of vital importance to gain possession as soon
+as possible. He took with him 4500 men, and had between 14,000 and 15,000
+more in readiness to follow. The royalist army in Calabria numbered about
+27,000, including the garrison of Reggio, 2000 men, under the command of
+General Galotti. On the 20th, Bixio attacked the outposts; and on the
+21st, Garibaldi fought his way into the city&mdash;not, however, without
+meeting a strong resistance on the part of the garrison, which might have
+been continued longer, and even with a different result, had not the
+Calabrian insurgents hurried down from Aspromonte on hearing the sound of
+guns, their sudden appearance making the Royalists think that they were
+being attacked on all sides. Next day the castle surrendered, and thus a
+quantity of valuable war material fell into Garibaldi's hands. His luck
+had not deserted him.</p>
+
+<p>Cosenz and Medici landed their divisions in the night of the 21st of
+August, near Scilla, in the neighbourhood of which General Briganti had
+massed his Neapolitans, 7000 strong. On the 23rd, Briganti found himself
+attacked on the south and north&mdash;from Scilla by Cosenz, and from
+Reggio by Garibaldi. His position was critical but not desperate had he
+been able to depend upon his men, who were more numerous than their
+combined opponents; but he saw at once that fighting was the <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg.302]</a></span> last thing
+they meant to do, and he had no choice but to surrender at discretion,
+almost without firing a shot. Unfortunately, Garibaldi had no power to
+keep prisoners of war, even if he wished to do so. Who was to feed and
+guard them? Now, as subsequently, he bade the disbanded troops go where
+they listed, undertaking to send to Naples by sea as many as desired to go
+there. About a thousand accepted; the rest dispersed, forming the first
+nucleus of the semi-political and wholly dastardly brigandage which was
+later to become the scourge of Southern Italy. Their earliest exploit was
+the savage murder of General Briganti, whom they called a traitor, after
+the fashion of cowards. This happened at Mileto on the 25th of August,
+when Briganti was on his way to join General Ghio, who had concentrated
+12,000 men on the town of Monteleone. Garibaldi, whose sound principle it
+was to dispose of his enemies one by one as they cropped up, prepared to
+attack Ghio with his whole available forces, but he was spared the
+trouble. He came, he saw, and he had no need of conquering, for the
+soldiers of that bad thing that had been Bourbon despotism in the Italian
+south vanished before his path more quickly than the mists of the morning
+before the sun. No grounds that will bear scrutiny have ever been adduced
+for the reactionary explanation of the marvel: to wit, that the Neapolitan
+generals were bribed. By Cavour? The game would have been too risky. By
+'English bank-notes,' that useful factor in European politics that has
+every pleasing quality except reality? It is not apparent how the
+corruptibility of the generals gives a better complexion to the matter,
+but the writers on the subject who are favourable to Francis II. seem to
+think that it does. Panic-stricken these helpless Neapolitan officers may
+deserve to be called, but they <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_303"
+id="Page_303">[Pg.303]</a></span> were not bought. And they had cause for
+panic with troops of whose untrustworthiness they held the clearest
+proofs, and with the country up in arms against them; for a few days after
+the taking of Reggio this was the case, and this was by far the greatest
+miracle operated by Garibaldi. The populations shook off their apathy, and
+not in Calabria only but in the Puglie, the Basilicata, the Abruzzi, there
+was a sudden awakening as from a too long sleep. When Garibaldi got to
+Monteleone he found that Ghio had evacuated the town. He pursued him to
+Soveria, where, on the 30th of August, the 12,000 men laid down their
+arms. A few days later, another officer, General Caldarelli, capitulated
+with 4000 men. Garibaldi's onward march was a perpetual <i>f&ecirc;te</i>;
+everywhere he was received with frantic demonstrations of delight. Still
+there was one point between himself and the capital which might reasonably
+cause him some anxiety. There were 30,000 men massed near Salerno, in
+positions of immense natural strength, where they ought to have been able
+to stop the advance of an army twice the size of Garibaldi's. How this
+obstacle was removed is far more suggestive of a scene in a comic opera
+than of a page in history. Colonel Peard, 'Garibaldi's Englishman,' went
+in advance of the army to Eboli, where he was mistaken, as commonly
+happened, for his chief. He was past middle age; very tall, with a
+magnificent beard and a stern, dictatorial air, which answered admirably
+to the popular idea of what the conqueror of Sicily ought to be like,
+although there was no resemblance to the real person. It happened that
+Eboli was a royalist town and beyond the pale of declared
+revolution&mdash;a placid and antiquated little city with a forgotten air,
+where life had been probably too easy for its inhabitants to wish for a
+change. But the <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">
+[Pg.304]</a></span> supposed arrival of the Terrible Man turned everything
+upside-down. Peard, with Commander Forbes, who was following the campaign
+as a non-combatant, rode up to the house of the old Syndic, who instantly
+became their devoted servant. Like wildfire spread the news&mdash;the
+whole population besieged the house, brass bands resounded, chinese
+lanterns were hung out; the Church, led by the bishop, hurried to the
+spot, the Law, headed by a judge, closely following, while the wives of
+the local officials appeared in perfectly new bonnets. They all craved an
+audience, and the same answer was given to all: that General Garibaldi was
+much fatigued and was asleep&mdash;so he was, but ninety miles away. He
+would be pleased to receive the deputations if they would return
+punctually at half-past three a.m. In the meantime, Peard was in an inner
+room, engaged in cannonading Naples with telegrams. He had sent for the
+telegraph master, who came trembling like an aspen, and from whom it was
+elicited that he had already telegraphed to the Home Office at Naples, and
+to the general commanding at Salerno, that Garibaldi was in the town.
+Peard remarked casually that he supposed he knew his life was in jeopardy,
+and then handed him the following message: 'Eboli, 11.30
+p.m.&mdash;Garibaldi has arrived with 5000 of his own men, and 5000
+Calabrese are momentarily expected. Disembarkations are expected in the
+bay of Naples and the gulf of Salerno to-night. I strongly advise your
+withdrawing the garrison from the latter place without delay, or they will
+be cut off.' This was despatched to General Ulloa, whom rumour reported to
+have been just made minister of war, and was signed in the name of one of
+his personal friends. The rumour was false; but the telegram, of course,
+reached the desired <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_305" id=
+"Page_305">[Pg.305]</a></span> quarter, and the name attached removed all
+doubt of its genuineness. It was hardly sent off when a despatch came from
+the real war minister, asking the telegraph clerk if news had been
+received of the division Caldarelli? To this Peard answered that General
+Caldarelli and his division had gone over to Garibaldi yesterday, and now
+formed part of the national army. Similar information was sent to General
+Scotti at Salerno. Finally, the Syndic of Salerno was asked if he had seen
+anything of the Garibaldian expeditions by sea?</p>
+
+<p>Satisfied with his work, Colonel Peard, who knew that there were
+Neapolitan troops within four miles of Eboli, and who did not think that
+things looked entirely reassuring, decided to beat a somewhat precipitous
+retreat. He told the Syndic that he was going to reconnoitre in the
+direction of Salerno, and that his departure must be kept a dead secret,
+but as soon as he was out of the town he turned the horses' heads
+backwards towards the Garibaldian lines. He was still accompanied by
+Commander Forbes, to whom, during their midnight drive, he related his
+performance on the telegraph wires. 'What on earth is the good of all
+this?' said Forbes; 'you don't imagine they will be fools enough to
+believe it?' 'You will see,' answered the colonel, 'it will frighten them
+to death, and to-morrow they will evacuate Salerno.' And, in fact, at four
+o'clock in the morning the evacuation was begun in obedience to
+telegraphic orders from Naples.</p>
+
+<p>The 30,000 men recalled from Salerno and the adjacent districts marched
+towards Capua. The river Volturno, which runs by that fortified town, was
+now chosen as the line of defence of the Bourbon monarchy.</p>
+
+<p>On the 5th of September the King and Queen with the Austrian, Prussian,
+Bavarian and Spanish ministers, left Naples for Gaeta on <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg.306]</a></span> board a
+Spanish man-of-war. The King issued a proclamation of which the language
+was dignified and even pathetic: it is believed to have been written by
+Liborio Romano, the Prime Minister, who was at the same moment betraying
+his master. Be that as it may, the King's farewell to his subjects and
+fellow-citizens might have touched hearts of stone could they but have
+forgotten the record of the hundred and twenty-six years of rule to which
+he fondly alluded. As it was, in the vast crowds that watched him go,
+there was not found a man who said, 'God bless him;' not a woman who shed
+a tear. Had any one of the bullets aimed at Ferdinand II. taken fatal
+effect, it would have been a less striking punishment for his political
+sins than this leaden weight of indifference which descended on his
+son.</p>
+
+<p>In the Royal Proclamation Francis II. stated that he had adhered to the
+great principles of Italian nationality, and had irrevocably surrounded
+his throne with free institutions; nevertheless it is alleged on what
+seems good authority that in those last days he veered round to the party
+of the Queen Dowager, who was doing all she could to provoke the lazzaroni
+to reaction. It was also believed at Naples that he left orders for Castel
+Sant' Elmo to bombard the town if Garibaldi entered.</p>
+
+<p>The Dictator was so much pleased with Colonel Peard's telegraphic feats
+at Eboli, that he sent him on to Salerno to repeat the farce. Peard's
+despatches determined the departure of the Court, and it was to him (in
+the belief that he was Garibaldi) that Liborio Romano, three hours before
+the King embarked, addressed the celebrated telegram invoking the 'most
+desired presence' of the Dictator in Naples. With this document in his
+hand, Peard went out with the National Guard to meet the real Garibaldi
+who was on his way from Auletta. The Dictator hailed his double with the
+cry of 'Viva <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">
+[Pg.307]</a></span> Garibaldi,' in which Cosenz and the other officers
+cordially joined. The entry of the Liberator into Salerno was greeted with
+the wildest enthusiasm, the wonderful beauty of the surroundings seeming a
+fitting setting for a scene like the vision of some freedom-loving
+poet.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning at half-past nine, Garibaldi, with thirteen of his staff,
+started by special train for the capital.</p>
+
+<p>It must be remembered that though the army of Salerno was recalled to
+the Volturno, no troops had been withdrawn from Naples. The sentries still
+paced before the palaces and public offices, the barracks held their full
+complement, Castel Sant' Elmo had all its guns in position. These troops
+quartered in the capital, where everything contributed to stimulate their
+fidelity, were of different stuff from Ghio's or Caldarelli's frightened
+sheep; a White Terror, a repetition of the 15th of May 1848, would have
+been much to their mind. There had been no actual revolution; nothing
+officially proved that Naples had thrown off the royal allegiance. Such
+were the strange circumstances under which Garibaldi, without a single
+battalion, came to take possession of a city of 300,000 inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p>Courage of this sort either does not exist, or it is supremely
+unconscious. It is likely, therefore, that the Dictator gave no thought to
+the enormous risk he ran, but his passage from the station to the palace
+of the Foresteria, where he descended, was a bad quarter-of-an-hour to the
+friends who followed him, and to whom his life seemed the point on which
+Italian regeneration yet hung. A chance shot fired by some Royalist
+fanatic, and who could measure the result? As he passed under the muzzle
+of the guns at the opening of the Toledo, he gave the order: 'Drive
+slower, slower&mdash;more slowly still.' <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg.308]</a></span> And he rose and stood up for
+a moment in the carriage with his arms crossed. The artillerymen, who had
+begun to make a kind of hostile demonstration, changed their minds and
+saluted. The sullen looks of the royal soldiers was the only jarring note
+in the display of intoxicating joy with which the Neapolitans welcomed the
+bringer of their freedom; freedom all too easily had, for if anything
+could have purified the Neapolitans from the evil influences of servitude,
+it would have been the necessity of paying dearly for their liberties. The
+delirium in the streets lasted for several days and nights; what the
+consequences would have been of such a state of madness under a paler sky,
+it is not pleasant to reflect; here, at least, there were no robberies, no
+drunken person was seen; if there were some murders, a careful inquiry
+made by an Englishman showed that the number was the same as the average
+number of street-murders through the year. At night, when the word passed
+'Il Dittatore dorme,' it was enough to clear the streets as if by magic
+near the palace (a private one) where in a sixth floor room the idol of
+the hour slept. The National Guard, who were the sole guardians of order,
+behaved admirably.</p>
+
+<p>For a few days such of the townsfolk as had not completely lost their
+heads, underwent acute anxiety as they gazed at the frowning pile of Sant'
+Elmo; but finally the officers in command of the garrison decided to
+capitulate, contrary, in this instance, to the wishes of the soldiery. The
+royal troops marched out of the city towards Capua on the 11th of
+September.</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi's first act had been to hand over the Neapolitan fleet in the
+bay to Admiral Persano, a solemn reassertion of his loyalty to Victor
+Emmanuel, whom, in his every utterance, he held up to the people as the
+best of kings and the father of his country. He instructed his Neapolitan
+officer, Cosenz, to form a ministry, and <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg.309]</a></span> wrote to the Marquis
+Pallavicini, the prisoner of Spielberg, inviting him to become
+Pro-Dictator. Had a man of authority like Pallavicini, who also entirely
+possessed the Dictator's confidence, at once assumed that office, much of
+the friction which followed might have been spared. But he did not enter
+into his functions till October, and in the meanwhile the 'dualism' of
+Sicily broke out in an exaggerated form, each side sincerely believing the
+other to be on the verge of ruining the country to which they were both
+sincerely attached. The appointment of Dr Bertani as Secretary of the
+Dictatorship gave rise to controversies which even now, when the grave has
+closed over the actors, are hardly at rest. It is time that they should
+be. Apart from the war about persons, some of them not very wise persons,
+and apart from the fears entertained at Turin, that the freeing of the Two
+Sicilies would drift into a republican movement: fears which were
+invincible, though, as far as they regarded Garibaldi, they were neither
+just nor generous, the question resolved itself, as was the case in
+Sicily, into whether the unification of Italy was to go on or whether it
+was to halt? Garibaldi refused to give up Sicily to the King's government
+because he intended making it the base for the liberation of Naples.
+Events had justified him. He now refused to hand over Naples because he
+intended making it the base for the liberation of Rome. It has been seen
+that he and he alone prevented an attempt at a landing in the Papal states
+from being made in the month of August. In deciding, however, that it was
+expedient to finish one enterprise before beginning another, he did not
+give up Rome: he merely chose what he thought a safer road to go there.
+And he now declared without the least concealment that he intended to
+proclaim Victor Emmanuel King of Italy from the Quirinal.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">
+[Pg.310]</a></span> Would events have justified him again? There was a
+French garrison in Rome; this, to Cavour, seemed a conclusive answer.</p>
+
+<p>Cavour was engaged on a series of measures, unscrupulous manoeuvres as
+some have called them, masterpieces of statesmanship as they have been
+described by others, by which he got back the reins of the Italian team
+into his own hands. The plan of an annexionist revolution in Naples before
+Garibaldi arrived had failed. So much discontent was felt at the apparent
+indifference, or, at least, 'masterly inactivity' of the Sardinian
+government in presence of the great struggle in the south that Cavour
+began to be afraid of a revolution breaking out in quite a different
+quarter, in Victor Emmanuel's own kingdom. It was at this critical
+juncture that he resolved to invade the Papal states, and take possession
+of the Province of Umbria and the Marches of Ancona.</p>
+
+<p>The decision was one of extreme boldness. For three months Cavour had
+been stormed at by all the Foreign Ministers in Turin, excepting Sir James
+Hudson, but, as he wrote to the Marquis E. D'Azeglio: 'I shall not draw
+back save before fleets and armies.'</p>
+
+<p>Austria, France, Spain, Russia and Prussia now broke off diplomatic
+relations with Sardinia. What would be their next act? The danger of
+Austria intervening was smaller than it then appeared; Austria was too
+much embarrassed in her own house, and especially in Hungary, for her to
+covet adventures in Italy. But the French Government did, in the plainest
+terms, threaten to intervene, and this notwithstanding that the Emperor
+himself appeared to be convinced by Cavour's argument, that the proposed
+scheme was the only means of checking the march of revolution, which from
+Rome might spread to Paris. By announcing one <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg.311]</a></span> line of policy in public
+and another in private, Napoleon left the door open to adopt either one or
+the other, according to the development of events. In the sequel, the
+Papal party had a right to say that he lured them to their destruction, as
+their plan of operations, and in particular the defence of Ancona, was
+undertaken in the distinct expectation of being supported by the French
+fleet.</p>
+
+<p>As early as April 1860, the Pope invited the Orleanist General
+Lamorici&egrave;re to organise and command the forces for the defence of
+the Temporal Power, which he had summoned from the four quarters of the
+Catholic world. 5000 men, more or less, answered the call; they came
+chiefly from France, Belgium and Ireland. Of his own subjects the Pope had
+10,000 under arms. In a proclamation, issued on assuming the command,
+Lamorici&egrave;re compared the Italian movement with Islamism, a
+comparison which aroused intense exasperation in Italy, where the rally of
+a foreign crusade against the object which was nearest to Italian hearts,
+and for which so many of the best Italians had suffered and died, could
+not but call up feelings which in their turn were expressed in no moderate
+language. It was a fresh illustration of the old truth&mdash;that the
+Papal throne existed only by force of foreign arms, foreign influence.
+Lamorici&egrave;re's 'mercenaries' did much harm to the Pope's cause by
+bringing home this truth once more to the minds of all. That the corps
+contained some of the bluest blood of France, that there were good young
+men in it, who thought heaven the sure reward for death in defence of
+dominions painfully added in the course of centuries by devices not
+heavenly to the original patrimony of Peter, did not and could not
+reconcile the Italians to the defiance thrown down to them by a band of
+strangers in their own country.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">
+[Pg.312]</a></span> Before the opening of hostilities, Victor Emmanuel
+offered Pius IX. to assume the administration of the Papal states (barring
+Rome) while leaving the nominal sovereignty to the Pope. Nothing came of
+the proposal, which was followed by a formal demand for the dissolution of
+Lamorici&egrave;re's army, and an intimation that the Sardinian troops
+would intervene were force used to put down risings within the Papal
+border. On the 11th of September, symptoms of revolution having meanwhile
+broken out in the Marches, General Fanti in command of 35,000 men crossed
+the frontier. Half these forces under Fanti himself were directed on
+Perugia; the other half under Cialdini marched towards Ancona. The
+garrisons of Perugia and Spoleto were compelled to surrender, and
+Lamorici&egrave;re found his communications cut off, so that he could only
+reach the last fortress in the power of the Papal troops, Ancona, by
+fighting his way through Cialdini's division, which by rapid marches had
+reached the heights of Castelfidardo. His men passed the day of the 17th
+in religious exercises, and in going to confession; the vicinity of the
+Holy House of Loreto, brought hither by angels from Bethlehem, filled the
+young Breton soldiers with transports of religious fervour.
+Lamorici&egrave;re had taken from the Santa Casa some of the flags of the
+victors of Lepanto to wave over his columns. In the battle of the next day
+the French fought with the gallantry of the Vend&eacute;ans whose
+descendants they were, and the Irish behaved as Irishmen generally behave
+under fire, but the Swiss and Romans mostly fought ill or not at all.
+Lamorici&egrave;re excused the conduct of the latter on the ground that
+they were young troops; it is likely that they had but little eagerness to
+fire on their fellow-countrymen. Being Italians, and above all being
+Romans, they <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">
+[Pg.313]</a></span> assuredly were not sustained by one scrap of the
+mystical enthusiasm of the French: such a state of mind would have been
+incomprehensible to them. They knew that so far as dogmas went Victor
+Emmanuel was as good a Catholic as the Pope. It is surprising that with
+part of his force demoralised Lamorici&egrave;re was still able to hold
+his own for three or four hours. General Pimodan and many of the French
+officers were killed; Lamorici&egrave;re could say truly: 'All the best
+names of France are left on the battlefield.'</p>
+
+<p>After the victory of Castelfidardo, the Sardinian attack was
+concentrated on Ancona. Admiral Persano brought the squadron from Naples
+to co-operate with Fanti's land forces, and the fortress capitulated on
+the 29th of September. The campaign had lasted eighteen days. The
+Piedmontese held Umbria and the Marches, and a road was thus opened for
+the army of Victor Emmanuel to march to Naples. During the progress of
+these events Garibaldi was preparing for the final struggle on the
+Volturno. He had not yet given up the hope of carrying his victorious arms
+to the Capitol, and from the Capitol to the Square of St Mark. The whole
+republican party, and Mazzini himself, who had arrived in Naples, ardently
+adhered to this programme. Their argument was not without force, risk or
+no risk, when would there be another opportunity as good as the present?
+It was very well for Cavour to look forward, as he did to the day of his
+death, to a pacific solution of the Roman question; Mazzini saw&mdash;in
+which he was far more clear-sighted than Cavour&mdash;that such a solution
+would never take place. His arrival at Naples caused alarm at Turin, both
+on account of his presumed influence over Garibaldi, the extent of which
+was much exaggerated, and from the terror his name spread among European
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg.314]</a></span>
+diplomatists. The Dictator was asked to proscribe the man whose latest act
+had been to give the last 30,000 francs he possessed in the world to the
+expenses of the Calabrian campaign. He refused to do this. 'How could I
+have insisted upon sending Mazzini into exile when he has done so much for
+Italian unity?' he said afterwards to Victor Emmanuel, who agreed that he
+was right. However, he allowed the Pro-Dictator Pallavicini to write a
+letter to Mazzini, inviting him to show his generosity by spontaneously
+leaving Naples in order to remove the unjust fears occasioned by his
+presence. Mazzini replied, as he had a perfect right to do, that every
+citizen is entitled to remain in a free country as long as he does not
+break the laws. And so the incident closed.</p>
+
+<p>While the Party of Action urged Garibaldi not to give up Rome, other
+influences were brought to bear on him in the opposite sense, and
+especially that of the English Government, which instructed Admiral Mundy
+to arrange a 'chance' meeting between the Dictator and the English
+Minister at Naples, Mr. Elliot, on board the flagship <i>Hannibal</i>. Mr.
+Elliot pointed out the likelihood of a European war arising from an attack
+on Venice, and the certainty of French intervention in case of a
+revolutionary dash on Rome. Garibaldi replied that Rome was an Italian
+city, and that neither the Emperor nor anyone else had a right to keep him
+out of it. 'He was evidently,' writes Admiral Mundy in reporting the
+interview, 'not to be swayed by any dictates of prudence.'</p>
+
+<p>In Sicily, the rival factions were bringing about a state approaching
+anarchy, but a flying visit from Garibaldi in the middle of September
+averted the storm. At this time, Garibaldi's headquarters were at Caserta,
+in the vast palace where Ferdinand II. breathed his last. The <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg.315]</a></span> Garibaldian
+and the Royal armies lay face to face with one another, and each was
+engaged in completing its preparations. It might have been expected, and
+for a moment it seems that Garibaldi did expect, that after the solemn
+collapse of the Neapolitan army south of Naples, the comedy was now only
+awaiting its final act and the fall of the curtain. But it soon became
+apparent that, instead of the last act of a comedy, the next might be the
+first of a tragedy. The troops concentrated on the right bank of the
+Volturno amounted to 35,000, with 6000 garrisoning Capua. About 15,000
+more formed the reserves and the garrison of Gaeta. The position on the
+Volturno was favourable to the Royalists; the fortress of Capua on the
+left bank gave them a free passage to and fro, while the Volturno, which
+is rather wide and very deep, formed a grave impediment to the advance of
+their opponents. But the chief reason why there was a serious possibility
+of the fortunes of war being reversed, lay in the fact that the <i>
+moral</i> of these troops was good. All the picked regiments of the army
+were here, including 2500 cavalry. The men were ashamed of the stampede
+from the south, and were sincerely anxious to take their revenge. Thus the
+Neapolitan plan of a pitched battle and a victorious march on Naples was
+by no means foredoomed, on the face of things, to failure.</p>
+
+<p>In Garibaldi's short absence at Palermo, the Southern Army (as he now
+called his forces) was left under the command of the Hungarian General
+T&uuml;rr, as brave an officer as ever lived, and a fast friend to Italy,
+but his merits do not undo the fact that as soon as the Dictator's back
+was turned, everything got into a muddle. Pontoon bridges had been thrown
+across the river at four points; availing himself of one of these,
+T&uuml;rr crossed the Volturno with a view to taking up a <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg.316]</a></span> position on
+the right bank at a place called Caiazzo, a step which, if attempted at
+all, ought to have been supported by a very strong force. On the 19th of
+September, Caiazzo was actually taken, but on the 21st the Royalists came
+out of Capua with 3000 men and defeated with great loss the thousand or
+fewer Garibaldians charged with its defence, only a small number of whom
+were able to recross the bridges and join their companions. The saddest
+part of this adventure was the slaughter of nearly the whole of the boys'
+company&mdash;lads under fifteen, who had run away from home or school to
+fight with Garibaldi. Fight they did for five mortal hours, with the
+heroism of veterans or of children. Only about twenty were left.</p>
+
+<p>When Garibaldi returned from Sicily, this was the first news he heard,
+and it was not cheering. The Royalists, who thought they had won another
+Waterloo, were in the wildest spirits, and the march on Naples was talked
+of in their camp as being as good as accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi's lines were spread in the shape of a semi-circle, of which
+the two ends started from Santa Maria on the left, and Maddaloni on the
+right, with Castel Morone at the apex. The country is hilly, and this
+fact, together with the great distance covered, divided the 20,000 men
+into a number of practically distinct bodies, each of which, in the
+decisive battle, had to fight its own fight. Here and there improvised
+fortifications were thrown up. Garibaldi was aware that his line of battle
+was perilously extended, but the necessity of blocking all the roads and
+by-ways which led to Naples, dictated tactics which he was the last to
+defend.</p>
+
+<p>The best policy for the Royalists would have been to bring <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg.317]</a></span>
+overwhelming numbers to bear on a single point, and, breaking the line, to
+march straight on the capital. They were doubtless afraid of an advance
+which would have left a portion of the Garibaldian army unbeaten in their
+rear. Nevertheless, of the chances that remained to them, this was the
+best. At Naples there were no Garibaldian troops to speak of, and the
+powers of reaction had been working night and day to procure for the
+rightful King the reception due to a saviour of society. Perhaps they
+would not have completely failed. There were nobles who were sulking,
+shopkeepers who were frightened, professional beggars with whom the
+Dictator had opened a fierce but unequal contest, for no blue-bottle fly
+is more difficult to tackle than a genuine Neapolitan mendicant; there
+were priests who, though not by any means all unpatriotic, were beginning
+to be scared by Garibaldi's gift of a piece of land for the erection of an
+English church, and by the sale of Diodati's Bible in the streets. And
+finally, there was the Carrozzella driver whom a Garibaldian officer had
+struck because he beat his horse. These individuals formed a nucleus
+respectably numerous, if not otherwise respectable, of anxious watchers
+for the Happy Return.</p>
+
+<p>If anyone question the fairness of this catalogue of the partisans of
+the fallen dynasty, the answer is, that had their ranks contained worthier
+elements, they would not have carefully reserved the demonstration of
+their allegiance till the King should prove that he had the right of the
+strongest.</p>
+
+<p>Towards five o'clock in the morning of the 1st of October, the
+royalists, who crossed the river in three columns, fired the first shots,
+and the fight soon became general. King Francis had come from <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg.318]</a></span> Gaeta to
+Capua to witness what was meant to be an auspicious celebration of his
+birthday. General Ritucci held the chief command. Of the Garibaldians,
+Milbitz and Medici commanded the left wing (Santa Maria and Sant' Angelo),
+and Bixio the right (Maddaloni), while Castel Morone, through which a road
+led to Caserta, was entrusted to Colonel Pilade Bronzetti and three
+hundred picked volunteers. Garibaldi's own headquarters was with the
+reserves at Caserta, but he appeared, as if by magic, at all parts of the
+line during the day, sometimes bringing up reinforcements, sometimes
+almost alone, always arriving at the nick of time whenever things looked
+serious, to help, direct and reanimate the men. A dozen times in these
+journeys by the rugged mountain paths he narrowly escaped falling into the
+enemy's hands. No trace of uneasiness was visible on his placid face;
+there was, however, more than enough to make a man uneasy. In the early
+part of the battle, both Medici and Bixio were pushed back from their
+positions. Only Pilade Bronzetti with his handful of Lombard Bersaglieri
+never swerved, and held in check an entire Neapolitan column, whose
+commander (Perrone) has been blamed for wasting so much time in trying to
+take that position instead of joining his 2000 men to the troops attacking
+Bixio, but his object was to march on Caserta, where his appearance might
+have caused very serious embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>Up to midday the Royalists advanced, not fast, indeed, but surely. They
+fired all the buildings on their path, and amongst others one in which
+there were thirty wounded Garibaldians who were burned to death. It was
+said to be an accident, but such accidents had better not happen. Victory
+seemed assured to them. It is not disputed that on this occasion they
+fought well, and they had all the advantages of <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg.319]</a></span> ground, numbers and
+artillery. But the volunteers, also, were at their best; they surpassed
+themselves. If every man of them had not shown the best military
+qualities, skill, resource, the power of recovery, Francis II. would have
+slept that night at Naples.</p>
+
+<p>Medici acted with splendid firmness, but at the most critical moment he
+had Garibaldi by his side. Bixio was left to fight his separate battle
+unaided (so great was the chief's confidence in him), and consummately
+well he fought it. After the middle of the day, the Garibaldians began to
+retake their positions, and at some points to assume the offensive; still
+it was five o'clock before Garibaldi could send his famous despatch to
+Naples: 'Victory along all the line.' The battle had lasted ten hours.</p>
+
+<p>The Sicilians and Calabrese under Dunne, who stemmed the first onset at
+Casa Brucciata, and under Eber, whose desperate charge at Porta Capua
+ushered in the changing fortunes of the day, rivalled the North Italians
+in steadiness and in dash. The French company and the Hungarian Legion
+covered themselves with glory; it was a pity there was not the English
+brigade, 600 strong, which mismanaged to arrive at Naples the day after
+the fair. Had they been in time for the fight, they would doubtless have
+left a brighter record than the only one which they did leave: that of
+being out of place in a country where wine was cheap.</p>
+
+<p>Putting aside Dunne and a few other English officers, England was
+represented on the Volturno by three or four Royal Marines who had slipped
+away from their ship, the <i>Renown</i>, and were come over to see the
+'fun.' It seems that they did ask for rifles, but they did not get them,
+their martial deeds consisting in the help they gave in dragging <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg.320]</a></span> off
+two captured field-pieces. Never did an exploit cause so much discussion
+in proportion with its importance; the Neapolitan Minister in London
+informed Lord John Russell that a body of armed men from the British fleet
+had been sent by Admiral Mundy to serve pieces of Garibaldian
+artillery.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the striking incidents of the day, that which should be
+remembered while Italy endures, was the defence of the hillock of Castel
+Morone by Bronzetti and his Lombards. Their invincible courage contributed
+in no small degree to the final result. One man to eight, they held their
+own for ten hours; when summoned to yield by the Neapolitan officer, who
+could not help admiring his courage, Pilade Bronzetti replied: 'Soldiers
+of liberty never surrender!' It was only in the moment of victory that
+Perrone passed over their dead bodies and uselessly advanced&mdash;which
+cost him dear on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>The Garibaldian losses were 2000 killed and wounded and 150 prisoners;
+the Neapolitans had the same number placed <i>hors de combat</i>, and lost
+3000 prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi had none but his own men; the report that the battle had been
+won by soldiers of the Sardinian army who arrived in the afternoon was
+false, because they did not arrive till next day, when a battalion of
+Piedmontese Bersaglieri took part in defeating Perrone's column, which (it
+is hard to say with what idea) descended nearly to Caserta, as its
+commander wished to do on the first. Did Perrone not know of the defeat of
+yesterday? His column was surrounded and all the men were taken
+prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>After the battle of the Volturno the belligerents re-occupied the
+positions on the right and left banks of that river which they held <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg.321]</a></span>
+before. Military critics speculate as to why Garibaldi did not follow up
+his advantage, and the opinion seems general that he did not feel himself
+strong enough to do so. The fortress of Capua was a serious obstacle, but
+Garibaldi was not accustomed to attach much weight to obstacles whatever
+they were, and it is pretty certain that he would have gone in pursuit had
+he not received a letter from Victor Emmanuel, who bade him wait till he
+came.</p>
+
+<p>By this time he had abandoned all thoughts of marching on Rome. From
+the moment that the King's army started for Naples he understood that
+persistence in the Roman programme would lead to something graver than a
+war of words with the authorities at Turin. Always positive, he gathered
+some consolation from the gain to Italy of two Roman provinces, Umbria and
+the Marches, and trusted the future with the larger hope.</p>
+
+<p>Constitutional government triumphed over the old absolutism and over
+the new dictatorship. And here it may be noted which Constitutional
+government, which never had a more sincere and faithful votary than
+Cavour, found no favour with Garibaldi at any period of his life. Its
+hampering restrictions, its slow processes, irritated his mind, intolerant
+of constraint, and he failed to see that this cumbersome mechanism still
+gives the best, if not the only, guarantee for the maintenance of freedom.
+The sudden transition of Southern Italy from a corrupt despotism to free
+institutions brought with it a train of evils, but there was no
+alternative. If Italy was to be one, all parts of it must be placed under
+the same laws, and that at once.</p>
+
+<p>On the 11th of October the Sardinian parliament sitting at Turin passed
+all but unanimously the motion authorising the King's Government to accept
+the annexation of those Italian provinces which <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg.322]</a></span> manifested, by universal
+suffrage, their desire to form part of the Constitutional Monarchy.
+Cavour's speech on this occasion was memorable: 'Rome,' he said, 'would
+inevitably become the splendid capital of the Italian kingdom, but that
+great result would be reached by means of moral force; it was impossible
+that enlightened Catholics should not end by recognising that the Head of
+Catholicism would exercise his high office with truer freedom and
+independence guarded by the love and respect of 22,000,000 Italians than
+entrenched behind 25,000 bayonets.' Of Venice, the martyr-city, he said
+'that public opinion was rapidly turning against its retention by Austria,
+and that when the great majority of Germans refused to be any longer
+accomplices in its subjection, that subjection would be brought to a close
+either by force of arms or by pacific negotiations.'</p>
+
+<p>The words were strangely prescient at a time when the Prince Regent of
+Prussia was making most melancholy wails over the fall of the Neapolitan
+King. The Prussian Government issued a formal protest, which Cavour met by
+observing that Prussia, of all Powers, had the least reason to object, as
+Piedmont was simply setting her an example which she ought to follow and
+would follow, the mission of the two nations being identical. He already
+thought of Prussia as an ally: 'Never more French alliances,' he was once
+heard to say.</p>
+
+<p>On the same day, the 11th of October, Victor Emmanuel crossed the
+Neapolitan frontier at the head of the army which Cialdini led to victory
+at Castelfidardo. The King published a proclamation, in which he said that
+he closed the era of revolution in Italy. Other bodies of <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg.323]</a></span> Piedmontese
+troops had been despatched by sea to Naples and Manfredonia. The passage
+of the Piedmontese troops over the Abruzzi mountains was opposed both by a
+division of the Bourbon army and by armed peasants, who burnt a man alive
+at a place called Isernia; but their advance was not long delayed.</p>
+
+<p>The Neapolitans now began to retire from the right bank of the
+Volturno, and retreat towards the Garigliano, their last line of defence.
+Garibaldi crossed the river with 5000 men, and moved in the direction by
+which the vanguard of the Piedmontese was expected to arrive. At daybreak
+on the 26th of October, near Teano, the Piedmontese came in sight.
+Garibaldi, who had dismounted, walked up to Victor Emmanuel and said:
+'Hail, King of Italy!'</p>
+
+<p>Once before the title was given to a prince of the House of
+Savoy&mdash;to Charles Albert, in the bitterest irony by the Austrian
+officers who saw him flying from his friends and country by order of his
+implacable uncle. A change had come since then.</p>
+
+<p>Victor Emmanuel answered simply: 'Thanks,' and remained talking for a
+quarter of an hour in the particularly kind and affectionate manner he
+used with Garibaldi, but at the end of the interview, when the leader of
+the volunteers asked that in the imminent battle on the Garigliano they
+might have the honour of occupying the front line, he received the reply:
+'Your troops are tired, mine are fresh, it is my turn now.'</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi said sadly that evening to an English friend: 'They have sent
+us to the rear.' It was the first sign of the ungenerous treatment meted
+out to the Garibaldian array to which the King lent himself more than he
+ought to have done. He promised to be present on the 6th of November, when
+Garibaldi reviewed his volunteers, but after keeping them waiting, sent a
+message to say that he could not come. <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg.324]</a></span> The last meeting of all
+between the chief and his faithful followers was at Naples, on the
+occasion of the distribution of medals to as many as were left of the
+Thousand&mdash;less than half. In all his farewell addresses the same note
+sounded: 'We have done much in a short time.... I thank you in the name of
+our country.... We shall meet again.'</p>
+
+<p>The plebiscites in Umbria and the Marches and in the kingdoms of Naples
+and Sicily took place in October. The formula adopted at Naples was more
+broadly framed than in the previous plebiscites; it ran: 'The people
+desire an united Italy under the sceptre of the House of Savoy.' The vote
+was almost unanimous.</p>
+
+<p>On the 7th of November, Victor Emmanuel made his entry into Naples,
+with Garibaldi at his side. Next day, in the great throne-room of the
+palace, the king-maker delivered to the King the plebiscites of the Two
+Sicilies.</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi had nothing more to do except to pay a last visit to Admiral
+Mundy, whose flagship still lay at anchor in the bay. This duty was
+performed in the grey dawn of the 9th of November. 'There is the ship
+which is to carry me away to my island home,' he said, pointing to an
+American merchant vessel, 'but, Admiral, I could not depart without paying
+you a farewell visit. Your conduct to me since our first meeting at
+Palermo has been so kind, so generous, that it can never be erased from my
+memory; it is engraven there indelibly&mdash;it will last my life.'</p>
+
+<p>On leaving the flagship he rowed straight to the American vessel, which
+soon afterwards steamed out of the bay. The parting salute fired by the
+guns of the <i>Hannibal</i> was all the pomp that attended his departure.
+Several hours later the people of Naples knew that their <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg.325]</a></span> liberator
+had gone to dig up the potatoes which he had planted in the spring.</p>
+
+<p>By Cavour's advice, Victor Emmanuel offered Garibaldi a dukedom and the
+Collar of the Annunziata, which confers the rank of cousin to the King,
+besides riches to support these honours. He refused everything, and
+returned to Caprera poorer than when he left it.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg.326]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVI</h3>
+
+<h4>BEGINNINGS OF THE ITALIAN KINGDOM</h4>
+
+<h5>1860-1861</h5>
+
+<h5>Beginnings of the Italian Kingdom&mdash;The Fall of
+Gaeta&mdash;Political Brigandage&mdash;The Proclamation of the Italian
+Kingdom&mdash;Cavour's Death.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>The Neapolitan army retreated, as has been already stated, beyond the
+Garigliano. Capua, isolated and surrounded, could render no material
+service to the royal cause; it capitulated on the 2nd of November, though
+not until the town had been bombarded for forty-eight hours. The siege was
+witnessed by Victor Emmanuel, who said to General Delia Rocca: 'It breaks
+my heart to think that we are sending death and destruction into an
+Italian town.' Two days after the surrender of Capua, Cialdini threw a
+bridge over the Garigliano near its mouth, an operation covered by the
+guns of Admiral Persano's squadron. His first attempt on the 29th of
+October had met with a decided repulse, another proof that this last
+remnant of the Neapolitan army was not an enemy to be despised. The second
+attempt, however, was successful; part of the Neapolitans fell back upon
+Gaeta, and the other part fled over the Papal frontier.</p>
+
+<p>Gaeta, the refuge of the Pope and the fugitive Princes in 1848, now
+became the ultimate rock of defence of the Bourbon dynasty. The position
+of the fortress is extremely strong and not unlike Gibraltar in its main
+features. A headland running out into the sea and rising <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg.327]</a></span> to a height
+of three or four hundred feet, it is divided by a strip of sand from the
+shore-line. The principal defences were then composed of a triple
+semi-circle of ditches and ramparts one higher than the other. Had the
+country been flat the difficulties of the siege would have been much
+increased; its hilly character allowed Cialdini to fix his batteries on
+heights which commanded the top of the Gaeta hill. But to profit by this,
+the Piedmontese were obliged to make fourteen miles of roads by which to
+bring up their artillery. For a month, 10,000 out of the 20,000 besiegers
+were at work with the spade. The defending force amounted to 11,000 men,
+and was commanded by General Ritucci. From the first, it was certain that
+the obstinate stand made at Gaeta could only result in what Lord John
+Russell called a useless effusion of blood; nevertheless it seems to have
+been prompted by a real belief that Francis would still recover his
+kingdom. The precedent of his father's return from Gaeta may have
+strengthened the King's illusion; every day he received highly-coloured
+reports of a gathering reaction, and as the French fleet in the bay
+prevented Admiral Persano from attacking from the sea, he believed that
+the time which he could hold out was indefinite. This policy of the French
+Government need not have greatly cheered him, as its motive was less to
+help Francis than to prepare the way, by hampering the Piedmontese, for a
+little fishing in troubled waters. Prince Murat, descendant of the <i>Beau
+Sabreur</i>, was busy writing proclamations to remind the world that if
+Francis were impossible and Victor Emmanuel 'wanted finish,' there was an
+eligible young man ready to sacrifice the charms of the Boulevards for the
+cares of kingship.</p>
+
+<p>On the representations of the British Government the Emperor withdrew
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg.328]</a></span>
+his fleet in January, advising Francis II. to renounce a hopeless
+resistance. But at this eleventh hour the King had adopted the principle
+of 'no surrender,' and he meant to stick to it. It is difficult to blame
+him; at anyrate, much more serious is the blame due to the methods of
+warfare which he was to adopt or to approve thereafter. His young Queen,
+who was frequently seen on the ramparts encouraging the artillerymen at
+their guns, had probably much to do with his virile resolution. The
+fortress was now attacked by land and by sea, and the bursting of a
+powder-magazine inside the walls hastened its doom. On the 15th of January
+the Neapolitans laid down their arms, the King having left his dominions
+by sea. The first act of the conquerors in the half-ruined town was to
+attend a mass for the repose of the souls of the brave men, friends and
+foes, who had fallen during the siege. Noisy rejoicings would have been
+unseemly, for the vanquished were fellow-countrymen.</p>
+
+<p>The telegram announcing the fall of Gaeta went to Caprera; Garibaldi
+read it, and a weight was taken off his mind. 'Civil war is at an end,' he
+announced to the little party round the supper-table; 'Cialdini with our
+army is in Gaeta; now the Italians will not cut one another's throats any
+more.' Later in the evening he seemed so depressed that they thought him
+ill; Colonel Vecchj went to his bedside to discover what was the matter.
+He found him reading the <i>Times</i>, and inquired why he had become so
+suddenly sad. After a pause, Garibaldi said: 'Poor boy! Born at the foot
+of a throne and perhaps not by his own fault, hurled from it. He too will
+have to feel the bitterness of exile without preparation.' 'Is that all?'
+asked Vecchj. 'Do you think it nothing?' was the answer. 'Why then,'
+persisted Vecchj, half in jest, 'did you go to Marsala?' 'It was the <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg.329]</a></span> duty
+of us all to go,' Garibaldi said quickly, 'else how could there have been
+one Italy?'</p>
+
+<p>Francis II. would have been happy had he found counsellors to persuade
+him to keep pure such titles to sympathy as he then possessed. Decorum, if
+not humanity, should have urged him to retire, surrounded by the solitary
+flash of glory cast on his fallen cause by the brave defence of Gaeta. But
+the revolution, the new Islam, if it could not be conquered must be made
+to suffer for its triumph. Hence the exiled King was advised to call in
+murder, pillage and rapine as accomplices. The political brigandage which
+followed the downfall of the King of the Two Sicilies began after the
+battle of the Volturno and extended over five years. Its effect on the
+general situation was nil; it harassed and distracted the Italian
+Government and created the odious necessity of using severe repressive
+measures, but it never placed the crown in danger. One effect it did have,
+and that was to raise all over Italy a feeling of reprobation for the late
+dynasty, which not all the crimes and follies of the two Ferdinands and
+the first Francis had succeeded in evoking. How many bright lives, full of
+promise, were lost in that warfare which even the sacred name of duty
+could not save from being ungrateful and inglorious! Italians who have
+lost their children in their country's battles have never been heard to
+complain; nowhere was the seemliness of death for native land better
+understood than it has been in the Italy of this century, but to lose son
+or brother in a brigand ambush by the hand of an escaped
+galley-slave&mdash;this was hard. The thrust was sharpened by the
+knowledge that the fomenter of the mischief was dwelling securely in the
+heart of Italy, the guest of the Head of the Church. From Rome came money
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg.330]</a></span>
+and instructions; from Rome, whether with or without the cognizance of the
+authorities, came recruits. The Roman frontier afforded a means of escape
+for all who could reach it, however red their hands were with blood. What
+further evidence was needed of the impossibility of an indefinite duration
+of this state within a state?</p>
+
+<p>King Francis held back at first, but his uncle, the Count of Trapani,
+who openly abetted the brigand partisans, drew him more and more into
+collusion with them and their works. The Belgian ecclesiastic, Mgr. de
+M&eacute;rode, who had then an influence at the Vatican not possessed even
+by Antonelli, looked, unless he was much belied, with a very kind eye upon
+the new defenders of throne and altar. Efforts have been made to represent
+the war as one carried on by loyal peasants. No one denies that every
+peasants' war must assume, more or less, an aspect of brigandage;
+nevertheless there have been righteous and patriotic peasants' wars, such
+as that of the Klephts in Greece. The question is, Whether the political
+brigandage in South Italy had any real affinity with the wars of the
+Klephts, or even of the Carlists? And the answer must be a negative.</p>
+
+<p>The partisan chiefs in the kingdom of Naples were brigands, pure and
+simple, most of whom had either been long wanted by the police, or had
+already suffered in prison for their crimes. They organised their troops
+on the strict principles of brigand bands, and proposed to them the same
+object: pillage. 'Lieut-General' Chiavone who had a mania for imitating
+Garibaldi, was the least bad among them; unlike his prototype, he did not
+like being under fire, but neither did he care to spill innocent blood.
+What, however, can be said for Pilone, 'commander of His Majesty's forces'
+on Vesuvius; for Ninco Nanco, <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_331" id=
+"Page_331">[Pg.331]</a></span> Bianco dei Bianchi, Tardio, Palma; for
+Carusso, who cut the throats of thirteen out of fourteen labourers and
+told the one left to go and tell the tale; for the brothers La Gala, who
+roasted and ate a priest? It was said that no horror committed during the
+Indian Mutiny was here without a parallel.</p>
+
+<p>Of respectable Neapolitans who held responsible posts under the late
+<i>r&eacute;gime</i> not one joined the bands, but they contained French,
+Austrian and Belgian officers, and one Prussian. A nephew of Mgr. de
+M&eacute;rode, the young Marquis de Traz&eacute;gnies, was with Chiavone;
+the Carlist, Jos&egrave; Borj&egrave;s, was with a scoundrel named Crocco.
+Borj&egrave;s' case is a hard one. He had been made to believe in the
+genuine character of the insurrection and thought that he was giving his
+sword to an honourable cause. The melancholy disillusion can be traced in
+the pages of a note-book which he kept from day to day, and which fell
+into the hands of the Italians when he was captured. The brief entries
+show a poetic mind; he observes the fertile soil, deploring, only, that it
+is not better cultivated; he admires the smiling valleys and the
+magnificent woods whose kings of the forest show no mark of the centuries
+that passed over their fresh verdure. At first Borj&egrave;s was pleased
+with the peasants who came to him, but as they were few, he was obliged to
+join Crocco's large band, and he now began to see, with horror, what kind
+of associates he had fallen amongst. He had no authority; the brigands
+laughed at his rebukes; never in his life, he writes, had he come across
+such thieves. Before the enemy they ran away like a flock of sheep, but
+when it was safe to do so, they murdered both men and women. In
+desperation, Borj&egrave;s resolved to try and get to Rome, that he might
+lay the whole truth before the King, but after suffering many hardships,
+he was taken with a few others close to the Papal frontier <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg.332]</a></span> and was
+immediately shot. He died bravely, chanting a Spanish litany.</p>
+
+<p>Borj&egrave;s' journal notes the opposition of all classes, except the
+very poorest and most ignorant. Was it to be believed, therefore, that
+this mountain warfare, however long drawn out, could alter one iota the
+course of events? If Francis II. supposed the insurrection to be the work
+of a virtuous peasantry, why did he allow them to rush to their
+destruction?</p>
+
+<p>The task of restoring order was assigned to General Cialdini. He found
+the whole country, from the Abruzzi to Calabria, terrorised by the league
+of native assassins and foreign noblemen. The Modenese general was a
+severe officer who had learnt war in Spain, not a gentle school. If he
+exceeded the bounds of dire necessity he merits blame; but no one then
+hoped in the efficacy of half measures.</p>
+
+<p>One element in the epidemic of brigandage, and looking forward, the
+most serious of all, was an unconscious but profoundly real socialism. If
+half-a-dozen socialistic emissaries had assumed the office of guides and
+instructors, it is even odds that the red flag of communism would have
+displaced the white one of Bourbon. This feature became more accentuated
+as the struggle wore on, and after experience had been made of the new
+political state. The economic condition of a great part of the southern
+population was deplorable, but liberty, so many thought, would exercise an
+instantaneous effect, filling the mouths of the hungry, clothing the
+naked, providing firing in winter, sending rain or sunshine as it was
+wanted. But liberty does none of these things. The disappointment of the
+discovery did not count for nothing in the difficulties of that period; it
+counts for everything <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_333" id=
+"Page_333">[Pg.333]</a></span> in the difficulties of this.</p>
+
+<p>The reorganisation of the southern provinces proceeded very slowly. The
+post of Lieutenant-Governor was successively conferred on L.C. Farini,
+Prince Eugene of Carignano, and Count Ponza di San Martino; for a short
+time Cialdini was invested with the supreme civil as well as military
+power. None of these changes met with entire success. The government was
+sometimes too weak, sometimes too arbitrary; of the great number of
+Piedmontese officials distributed through the south, a few won general
+approval, but the majority betrayed want of knowledge and tact, and were
+judged accordingly. It was a misfortune for the new administration that it
+was not assisted by the steam power of moral enthusiasm which appeared and
+disappeared with Garibaldi. There is a great amount of certainty that the
+vast bulk of the population desired union with Italy; but it is equally
+certain that the new Government, though not without good intentions, began
+by failing to please anybody, and the seeds of much future trouble were
+planted.</p>
+
+<p>On the 18th of February 1861, the first Italian legislature assembled
+at Turin in the old Chamber, where, by long years of patient work and
+self-sacrificing fidelity to principle, the possibility of establishing an
+Italian constitutional monarchy had been laboriously tested and
+established. Only the deputies of Rome and Venice were still missing. The
+first act of the new parliament was to pass an unanimous vote to the
+effect that Victor Emmanuel and his heirs should assume the title of King
+of Italy. The Italian kingdom thus constituted was recognised by England
+in a fortnight, by France in three months, by Prussia in a year, by Spain
+in four years, by the Pope never.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">
+[Pg.334]</a></span> After the merging of Naples in the Italian
+body-politic, one of the thorniest questions that arose was the disposal
+of the Garibaldian forces. The chief implored Victor Emmanuel to receive
+his comrades into his own army, a prayer which the King had not the power,
+even if he had the will, to grant, as in the constitutional course of
+things the decision was referred to the ministers, who, again, were
+crippled in their action by the military authorities at Turin. Though it
+is natural to sympathise with Garibaldi in his eagerness to obtain
+generous terms for his old companions-in-arms, it may be true that his
+demand was not one that could be satisfied in its full extent. The
+volunteers were not inferior to the ordinary soldier; about half of them
+were decidedly his superior, but they were a political body improvised for
+a special purpose, and it is easy to see how many were the reasons against
+their forming a division of a conventional army like that of Piedmont.
+Nevertheless, the means ought to have been found of convincing them that
+their King and country were proud of them, that their great, their
+incalculable services were appreciated. That such means were not found was
+supposed to be the fault of Cavour. It was only in 1885, on the
+publication of the fourth volume of the Count's letters, that it became
+known how strenuously he had fought for justice. Military prejudice was
+what was really to blame; General Fanti, the Minister of War, even
+provoked Cavour into telling him 'that they were not in Spain, and that in
+Italy the army obeyed.' 'A cry of reprobation would be raised,' he wrote,
+'if, while the Bourbon officers who ran away disgracefully were confirmed
+in their rank, the Garibaldians who beat them were coolly sent about their
+business. Rather than bear the responsibility of such an act of black
+ingratitude, I would go and bury myself at Leri. I despise the <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg.335]</a></span>
+ungrateful to the point of not feeling angered by them, and I forgive
+their abuse. But, by Heaven, I could not bear the merited blot of having
+failed to recognise services such as the conquest of a kingdom of
+9,000,000 inhabitants.'</p>
+
+<p>Cavour, in fact, did obtain something; much more than the army
+authorities wished to give, but much less than Garibaldi asked or than the
+Count would doubtless have given had not his hands been tied. And,
+doubtless, he would have given it with more grace.</p>
+
+<p>As it was, the volunteers were deeply offended and sent their griefs by
+every post to Caprera. Garibaldi, who refused every favour and honour for
+himself, was worked up into a state of fury by what he deemed the wrongs
+of his faithful followers, and in April he arrived unexpectedly at Turin
+to plead their cause before the Chamber of Deputies. Perhaps by a wise
+presentiment he had refused to stand for any constituency; but when Naples
+elected him her representative, almost without opposition, he submitted to
+the popular will. At Turin he fell ill with rheumatic fever, but on the
+day of the debate on the Southern Army he rose from his bed to take his
+seat in the Chamber. The case for the volunteers was opened, and this is
+worthy of note, by Baron Ricasoli, aristocrat and conservative. Afterwards
+Garibaldi got up&mdash;at first he tried to make out the statistics and
+particulars which he had on paper, but blinded by passion and by fever, he
+threw down his notes and launched into a fierce invective against 'the man
+who had made him a foreigner in his own birthplace and the government
+which was driving the country straight into civil war.' At the words
+'civil war' Cavour sprang to his feet, unwontedly moved, and uttered some
+expressions of protest, which were lost in the general uproar. When this
+was quieted, Garibaldi finished his speech in a moderate <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg.336]</a></span> tone, and
+then General Bixio rose to make that noble appeal to concord which, had he
+done nothing else for Italy, should be a lasting title to her gratitude.
+'I am one of those,' he said, 'who believe in the sacredness of the
+thoughts which have guided General Garibaldi, but I am also one of those
+who have faith in the patriotism of Count Cavour. In God's holy name let
+us make an Italy superior to the strife of parties.' He might not be
+making a parliamentary speech, he added, but he would give his children
+and his life to see peace established&mdash;words flowing so plainly from
+his honest heart that savage indeed would have been the enmity which, for
+the time, at least, was not quelled. Cavour grasped the olive branch at
+once; all his momentary ire vanished. He made excuses for his adversary;
+from the grief which he had felt himself when he advised the King to cede
+Savoy and Nice, he could understand the general's resentment. He had
+always been, he said in general terms, a friend to the volunteers. What he
+did not even remotely suggest was the dissension which existed between
+himself and his military colleague on the subject of the Garibaldians. The
+least hint would have gained for Cavour any amount of applause and
+popularity; but he preferred to bear all the blame rather than bring the
+national army into disfavour. Garibaldi replied 'that he had never doubted
+the Count's patriotism;' but at the end of the three days' debate he
+declared himself dissatisfied with the Ministerial assurances touching the
+volunteers in particular and the country's armaments as a whole. As Cavour
+left the Chamber after the final night's sitting, he remarked to a
+friend&mdash;all his fine equanimity returned: 'And yet, and yet, when the
+time comes for war, I shall take General Garibaldi under my arm and say:
+"Let's go and see what they are about inside Verona!"'</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">
+[Pg.337]</a></span> Cialdini tried to stir up the quarrel anew by a letter
+full of foolish personalities; but to this sort of attack Garibaldi was
+impervious. It mattered nothing to him that a man should make rude remarks
+about his wearing a red shirt. He admired the victor of Castelfidardo as
+one of Italy's best soldiers. He was, therefore, perfectly ready to
+embrace Cialdini at the King's request before he left Turin for Caprera.
+It cost him more to consent to an interview of reconciliation with the
+Prime Minister in the royal presence, because his disagreement with Cavour
+was purely political and impersonal, and was rooted more deeply in his
+heart than any private irritation could be; but he did consent, and the
+interview took place on the 23rd of April. Probably Victor Emmanuel in
+after days was never gladder of anything he had done than of having caused
+his two great subjects&mdash;both his subjects born&mdash;to part for the
+last time in this mortal life in peace.</p>
+
+<p>On one other memorable occasion the man who, at twenty-two, said that
+he meant to be Prime Minister of Italy, and who now, at fifty-one, was
+keeping his word, filled with his presence the Chamber of which he seemed
+to incarnate the life and history&mdash;which may be said to have been his
+only home, for Cavour hardly had a private life. Very soon the familiar
+figure was to vacate the accustomed place for ever.</p>
+
+<p>An obscure deputy put a question on the 25th of May, which gave Cavour
+the opportunity of expounding his views about Rome still more explicitly
+than in the previous autumn. It was impossible, he said, to conceive
+Italian unity without Rome as capital. Were there any other solution to
+the problem he would be willing to give it due consideration, but there
+was not. The position of a capital was not <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg.338]</a></span> decided by climatic or
+topographical reasons: a glance at capitals of Europe was sufficient to
+certify the fact; it was decided by moral reasons. Now Rome, alone out of
+the Italian cities, had an undisputed moral claim to primacy. 'As far as I
+am personally concerned,' he said, 'I shall go to Rome with sorrow; not
+caring for art, I am sure that among the most splendid monuments of
+ancient and modern Rome I shall regret the sedate and unpoetic streets of
+my native town.' It grieved him to think that Turin must resign her most
+cherished privilege, but he knew his fellow-citizens, and he knew them to
+be ready to make this last sacrifice to their country. Might Italy not
+forget the cradle of her liberties when her seat of government was firmly
+established in the Eternal City!</p>
+
+<p>He went on to say that he had not lost the hope that France and the
+Head of the Church would yield to the inexorable logic of the situation,
+and that the same generation which had resuscitated Italy would accomplish
+the still grander task of concluding a peace between the State and the
+Church, liberty and religion. These were no formal words; Cavour's whole
+heart was set on their realisation. He did not doubt that the knot, if not
+untied, would be cut by the sword sooner or later. He felt as sure as
+Mazzini felt that this would happen; but more than any man of any party he
+had reckoned the cost of ranging the Church with its vast potential powers
+for good, for order, for public morality, among the implacable enemies of
+the nascent kingdom. And, therefore, his last public utterance was a cry
+for religious peace.</p>
+
+<p>Always an immense worker, in these latter months Cavour had been
+possessed by a feverish activity. 'I must make haste to finish my work,'
+he said; 'I feel that this miserable body of mine is giving way <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg.339]</a></span>
+beneath the mind and will which still urge it on. Some fine day you will
+see me break down upon the road.' On the 6th of June, after two or three
+days of so-called sudden illness, he broke down upon the road.</p>
+
+<p>Fra Giacomo, faithful to his old promise, administered the sacraments
+to the dying minister, who told Farini 'to tell the good people of Turin
+that he died a Christian.' After this his mind rambled, but always upon
+the themes that had so completely absorbed it: Rome, Venice,
+Naples&mdash;'no state of siege,' was one of his broken sayings that
+referred to Naples. It was his farewell protest against brute force in
+which he had never believed. 'Cleanse them, cleanse them,' he repeated;
+cleanse the people of the South of their moral contagion; that, not force,
+was the remedy. He was able to recognise the King, but unable to collect
+the ideas which he wished to express to him.</p>
+
+<p>Cavour's death caused a profound sensation in Europe, and in Italy and
+in England awakened great sorrow. Hardly any public man has received so
+splendid a tribute as that rendered to his memory in the British Houses of
+Parliament. The same words were on the lips of all: What would Italy do
+without him? Death is commonly the great reminder that no man is
+necessary. Nations fulfil their destinies even though their greatest sons
+be laid under the turf. And Italy has fulfilled her destinies, but there
+are Italians who believe that had Cavour lived to complete his task,
+although his dream of an Eirenicon might never have been realised, their
+country would not have passed through the <i>selva selvaggia</i> of
+mistakes and humiliations into which she now entered.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg.340]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVII</h3>
+
+<h4>ROME OR DEATH</h4>
+
+<h5>1861-1864</h5>
+
+<h5>Cavour's Successors&mdash;Aspromonte&mdash;The September
+Convention&mdash;Garibaldi's Visit to England.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>There were two possible successors to Cavour, the Tuscan, Bettino
+Ricasoli, and Urban Rattazzi, a Piedmontese barrister. The first belonged
+to the right, the second to the left centre in the Parliamentary
+combinations. Cavour had no very close personal relations with either, but
+he knew their characters. Rattazzi formerly held ministerial office under
+him, and the long Tuscan crisis of 1859, looked at, as he looked at it,
+from the inside, gave him opportunities of judging the Iron Baron who
+opposed even his own will on more than one occasion in that great
+emergency. Ricasoli was rigid, frigid, a frequenter of the straightest
+possible roads; Rattazzi, supple, accommodating, with an incorrigible
+partiality for umbrageous by-ways. He was already an 'old parliamentary
+hand,' and in the future, through a series of ministerial lapses, any one
+of which would have condemned most men to seclusion, he preserved his
+talent for manufacturing majorities and holding his party together.
+Choosing between these two candidates, Cavour before he died gave his
+preference to Ricasoli, who was charged by the King with the formation of
+a ministry in which he <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_341" id=
+"Page_341">[Pg.341]</a></span> took the Treasury and the Foreign
+Office.</p>
+
+<p>Ricasoli was without ambition, and he rather under than over-rated his
+abilities, but he went to work with considerable confidence in his power
+of setting everything right. A perfectly open and honest statesman ought
+to be able, he imagined, to solve the most difficult problems. Why not,
+except that the world is not what it ought to be? In home politics he
+offended the Party of Action by telling them plainly that if they broke
+the law they would have to pay the cost, and he offended his own party by
+refusing to interfere with the right of meeting or any other
+constitutional right of citizens, whether they were followers of Mazzini
+or of anybody else, as long as they kept within legal bounds. He wrote an
+elaborate letter to Pius IX., in which he sought to persuade the Pontiff
+of the sweet reasonableness of renouncing claims which, for a very long
+spell, had cast nothing but discredit on religion. Ricasoli's attitude
+towards the Temporal Power was unique in this century. Like Dante's, his
+hatred of it was religious. He was a Catholic, not because he had never
+thought or studied, but because, having thought and studied, he assented,
+and from this standpoint he ascribed most of the wounds of the Church to
+her subordination of her spiritual mission to material interests. He
+encouraged Padre Passaglia to collect the signatures of priests for a
+petition praying the Pope to cease opposing the desires of all Italy; 8943
+names were affixed in a short time. The only result of these transactions
+was that Cardinal Antonelli remarked to the French Government that the
+Holy See would never come to terms with robbers, and that, although at war
+with the Turin Cabinet, 'the Pope's relations with Italy were excellent.'
+More harmful to Ricasoli than the fulminations of the Vatican was the
+veiled but determined hostility of Napoleon III. Cavour succeeded in <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg.342]</a></span> more
+or less keeping the Emperor in ignorance of the degree to which their long
+partnership resembled a duel. He made him think that he was leading while
+he was being led. With Ricasoli there could be no such illusions. Napoleon
+understood him to be a man whom he might break, not bend. He thought it
+desirable to break him, and Imperial desires had many channels, at that
+time, towards fulfilment.</p>
+
+<p>The Ricasoli ministry fell in February 1862, and, as a matter of
+course, Rattazzi was called to power. The new premier soon ingratiated
+himself with the King, who found him easier to get on with than the
+Florentine <i>grand seigneur</i>; with Garibaldi, whom he persuaded that
+some great step in the national redemption was on the eve of
+accomplishment; with Napoleon, who divined in him an instrument.
+Meanwhile, in his own mind, he proposed to eclipse Cavour, out-manoeuvre
+all parties, and make his name immortal. This remains the most probable,
+as it is the most lenient interpretation to which his strange policy is
+open.</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi was encouraged to visit the principal towns of North Italy in
+order to institute the <i>Tiro Nazionale</i> or Rifle Association, which
+was said to be meant to form the basis of a permanent volunteer force on
+the English pattern. For many reasons, such a scheme was not likely to
+succeed in Italy, but most people supposed the object to be
+different&mdash;namely, the preparation of the youth of the nation for an
+immediate war. The idea was strengthened when it was observed that
+Trescorre, in the province of Bergamo, where Garibaldi stopped to take a
+course of sulphur baths, became the centre of a gathering which included
+the greater part of his old Sicilian staff. There was no concealment in
+what was done, and the Government manifested no alarm. <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg.343]</a></span> The air was
+full of rumours, and in particular much was said about a Garibaldian
+expedition to Greece, for which, it was stated and re-stated, Rattazzi had
+promised &pound;40,000. That Garibaldi meant to cast his lot in any
+struggle not bearing directly on Italian affairs, as long as the questions
+of Rome and Venice still hung in the balance, is not to be believed. A
+little earlier than this date, President Lincoln invited him to take the
+supreme command of the Federal army in the war for the Union, and he
+declined the offer, attractive though it must have been to him, both as a
+soldier and an abhorrer of slavery, because he did not think that Italy
+could spare him. But the 'Greek Expedition,' though a misleading name, was
+not altogether a blind. Before Cavour's death, there had been frequent
+discussion of a project for revolutionising the east of Europe on a grand
+scale; Hungary and the southern provinces of the Austrian Empire were to
+co-operate with the Slavs and other populations under Turkey in a movement
+which, even if only partially successful, would go far to facilitate the
+liberation of Venice. It cannot be doubted that Rattazzi's brain was at
+work on something of this sort, but the mobilisation, so to speak, of the
+Garibaldians suggested proceedings nearer home. Trescorre was very far
+from the sea, very near the Austrian frontier.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of contradictions, a plan for invading the Trentino, or South
+Tyrol, almost certainly did exist. Whether Garibaldi was alone answerable
+for it cannot be determined. The Government became suddenly alive to the
+enormous peril such an attack would involve, and arrested several of the
+Garibaldian officers at Sarnico. They were conveyed to Brescia, where a
+popular attempt was made to liberate them; the troops <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg.344]</a></span> fired on
+the crowd, and some blood was shed. Garibaldi wrote an indignant protest
+and retired, first to the villa of Signora Cairoli at Belgirate, and then
+to Caprera. He did not, however, remain there long.</p>
+
+<p>After this point, the thread of events becomes tangled beyond the hope
+of unravelment. What were the causes which led Garibaldi into the
+desperate venture that ended at Aspromonte? Recollecting his hesitation
+before assuming the leadership of the Sicilian expedition, it seemed the
+more unintelligible that he should now undertake an enterprise which,
+unless he could rely on the complicity of Government, had not a single
+possibility of success. His own old comrades were opposed to it, and it
+was notorious that Mazzini, to whom the counsels of despair were generally
+either rightly or wrongly attributed, had nothing to do with inspiring
+this attempt. In justice to Rattazzi, it must be allowed that, after the
+arrests at Sarnico, Garibaldi went into open opposition to the ministry,
+which he denounced as subservient to Napoleon. Nevertheless, with the
+remembrance of past circumstances in his mind, he may have felt convinced
+that the Prime Minister did not mean or that he would not dare to oppose
+him by force. One thing is certain; from beginning to end he never
+contemplated civil war. His disobedience to the King of Italy had only one
+purpose&mdash;to give him Rome. He was no more a rebel to Victor Emmanuel
+than when he marched through Sicily in 1860.</p>
+
+<p>The earlier stages of the affair were not calculated to weaken a belief
+in the effective non-intervention of Government. Garibaldi went to
+Palermo, where he arrived in the evening of the 28th of June. The young
+Princes Umberto and Amedeo were on a visit to the Prefect, the <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg.345]</a></span>
+Marquis Pallavicini, and happened to be that night at the opera. All at
+once they perceived the spectators leave the house in a body, and they
+were left alone; on asking the reason, they heard that Garibaldi had just
+landed&mdash;all were gone to greet him! Before the departure of the
+Princes next day, the chief and his future King had an affectionate
+meeting, while the population renewed the scenes of wild enthusiasm of two
+years ago. Some of Garibaldi's intimate friends assert that when he
+reached Palermo he had still no intention of taking up arms. He soon
+began, however, to speak in a warlike tone, and at a review of the
+National Guard in presence of the Prefect, the Syndic, and all the
+authorities, he told the 'People of the Vespers' that if another Vespers
+were wanted to do it, Napoleon III., head of the brigands, must be ejected
+from Rome. The epithet was not bestowed at random; Lord Palmerston
+confirmed it when he said from his place in the House of Commons: 'In Rome
+there is a French garrison; under its shelter there exists a committee of
+200, whose practice is to organise a band of murderers, the scum and dross
+of every nation, and send them into the Neapolitan territory to commit
+every atrocity!' As a criticism the words are not less strong; but the
+public defiance of Napoleon, and the threat with which it was accompanied,
+dictated one plain duty to the Italian Government if they meant to keep
+the peace&mdash;the arrest of Garibaldi and his embarkation for
+Caprera.</p>
+
+<p>This they did not do; confining themselves to the recall of the Marquis
+Pallavicini. Garibaldi went over the ground made glorious by his former
+exploits&mdash;past Calatafimi to Marsala. It was at Marsala that, while
+he harangued his followers in a church, a voice in the crowd raised a cry
+of '<i>Rome or death!</i>' 'Yes; Rome or death!' <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg.346]</a></span> repeated Garibaldi; and
+thus the watchword originated which will endure written in blood on the
+Bitter Mount and on the Plain of Nomentum. Who raised it first? Perhaps
+some humble Sicilian fisherman. Its haunting music coming he knew not
+whence, sounding in his ear like an omen, was what wedded Garibaldi
+irrevocably to the undertaking. It was the casting interposition of
+chance, or, shall it be said, of Providence? Like all men of his mould,
+Garibaldi was governed by poetry, by romance. Besides the general
+patriotic sentiment, he had a peculiar personal feeling about Rome, 'which
+for me,' he once wrote, 'is Italy.' In 1849, the Assembly in its last
+moments invested him with plenary powers for the defence of the Eternal
+City, and this vote, never revoked, imposed on his imagination a permanent
+mandate. 'Rome or death' suggested an idea to him which he had never
+before entertained, prodigal though he had been of his person in a hundred
+fights: What if his own death were the one thing needful to precipitate
+the solution of the problem?</p>
+
+<p>From Marsala he returned to Palermo, where, in the broad light of day,
+he summoned the Faithful, who came, as usual, at his bidding, without
+asking why or where?&mdash;the happy few who followed him in 1859 and
+1860; who would follow him in 1867, and even in 1870, when they gave their
+lives for a people that did not thank them, because he willed it so. He
+sent out also a call to the Sicilian <i>Picciotti</i>, the <i>Squadre</i>
+of last year; and it is much to their credit that they too who cared
+possibly remarkably little for <i>Roma Capitale</i>, obeyed the man who
+had freed them. And Rattazzi knew of all this, and did nothing.</p>
+
+<p>On the 1st of August, Garibaldi took command of 3000 volunteers in the
+woods of Ficuzza. Then, indeed, the Government wasted much paper on <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg.347]</a></span>
+proclamations, and closed the door of the stable when the horse was gone.
+General Cugia was sent to Palermo to repress the movement. Nevertheless
+Garibaldi, with his constantly increasing band, made a triumphant progress
+across the island, and a more than royal entry into Catania. At Mezzojuso
+he was present at a <i>Te Deum</i> chanted in his honour. On the 22nd,
+when the royal troops were, it seems, really ordered to march on Catania,
+Garibaldi took possession of a couple of merchant vessels that had just
+reached the port, and sailed away by night for the Calabrian coast with
+about 1000 of his men.</p>
+
+<p>By this time the Italian Government, whether by spontaneous conviction
+or by pressure from without, had resolved that the band should never get
+as far as the Papal frontier. If Garibaldi knew or realised their
+resolution, it is a mystery why he did not attempt to effect a landing
+nearer that frontier, if not actually within it. The deserted shore of the
+Pontine marshes would, one would think, have offered attractions to men
+who were as little afraid of fever as of bullets. A sort of superstition
+may have ruled the choice of the path, which was that which led to victory
+in 1860. It was not practicable, however, to follow it exactly. The
+tactics were different. Then the desire was to meet the enemy anywhere and
+everywhere; now the pursuer had to be eluded, because Garibaldi was
+determined not to fight him. Thus, instead of marching straight on Reggio,
+the volunteers sought concealment in the great mountain mass which forms
+the southernmost bulwark of the Apennines. The dense and trackless forests
+could have given cover for a long while to a native brigand troop, with
+intimate knowledge of the country and ways and means of obtaining
+provisions&mdash;not to a band like this of Garibaldi. They wandered about
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg.348]</a></span>
+for three days, suffering from almost total want of food, and from the
+great fatigue of climbing the dried-up watercourses which serve as paths.
+On the 28th of August they reached the heights of Aspromonte&mdash;a
+strong position, from which only a large force could have dislodged them
+had they defended it.</p>
+
+<p>General La Marmora, then Prefect of Naples, and commander-in-chief of
+the army in the south, reinforced the troops in Calabria to prevent
+Garibaldi's advance, but the direction of the decisive operation fell by
+accident to Cialdini, whom the Government despatched to Sicily when they
+tardily made up their minds to take energetic measures. On his voyage to
+Messina, Cialdini heard that the volunteers had already crossed the
+Straits; he therefore changed his course, and hastening to Reggio,
+invested himself with the command on the mainland. At Reggio he met
+Colonel Pallavicini, whom he ordered in terms that might have been more
+suitable had he been engaged in hunting brigands, 'to crush Garibaldi
+completely, and only accept from him unconditional surrender.' Pallavicini
+started with six or seven battalions of Bersaglieri. It was the 29th of
+August. Garibaldi saw them coming when they were still three miles off. He
+could have dispersed his men in the forest and himself escaped, for the
+time, and perhaps altogether, for the sea which had so often befriended
+him was not far off. But although he did not mean to resist, a dogged
+instinct drove away the thought of flight. In the official account it was
+stated that an officer was sent in advance of the royal troops to demand
+surrender. No such officer was seen in the Garibaldian encampment till
+after the attack. The troops rapidly ascended an eminence, facing that on
+which the Garibaldians were posted, and opened a violent fusillade, which,
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg.349]</a></span>
+to Garibaldi's dismay, was returned for a few minutes by his right,
+consisting of young Sicilians who were not sufficiently disciplined to
+stand being made targets of without replying. The contention, however,
+that they were the first to fire, has the testimony of every eye-witness
+on the side of the volunteers against it. All the Garibaldian bugles
+sounded 'Cease firing,' and Garibaldi walked down in front of the ranks
+conjuring the men to obey. While he was thus employed, a spent ball struck
+his thigh, and a bullet entered his right foot. At first he remained
+standing, and repeated, 'Do not fire,' but he was obliged to sit down, and
+some of his officers carried him under a tree. The whole 'feat of arms,'
+as General Cialdini described it, did not last more than a quarter of an
+hour.</p>
+
+<p>Pallavicini approached the wounded hero bareheaded, and said that he
+made his acquaintance on the most unfortunate day of his own life. He was
+received with nothing but kind praise for doing his duty. The first night
+was passed by the prisoner in a shepherd's hut. The few devoted followers
+who were with him were strangely impressed by that midnight watch; the
+moon shining on the forest, the shepherds' dogs howling in the mountain
+silence, and their chief lying wounded, it might be to death, in the name
+of the King to whom he had given this land.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, in a litter sheltered from the sun with branches of wild
+laurel, Garibaldi was carried down the steep rocks to Scilla, whence he
+was conveyed by sea to the fort of Varignano. It was not till after months
+of acute suffering, borne with a gentleness that made the doctors say:
+'This man is not a soldier, but a saint,' that, through the skill of the
+French surgeon, N&eacute;laton, the position of the ball was determined,
+and its extraction rendered possible.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">
+[Pg.350]</a></span> A general amnesty issued on the occasion of the
+marriage of the King's second daughter with the King of Portugal relieved
+the Government of having to decide whether Garibaldi was to be tried, and
+if so, what for; but the unpopularity into which the ministry had fallen
+could not be so easily dissipated. The Minister of Foreign Affairs
+(Durando) published a note in which it was stated that Garibaldi had only
+attempted to realise, in an irregular way, the desire of the whole nation,
+and that, although he had been checked, the tension of the situation was
+such that it could not be indefinitely prolonged. This was true, but it
+hardly improved the case for the Government. In Latin countries, ministers
+do not cling to power; as soon as the wind blows against them, they resign
+to give the public time to forget their faults, and to become dissatisfied
+with their political rivals. Usually a very short time is required.
+Therefore, forestalling a vote of censure in the Chambers, where he had
+never yet had a real majority, Rattazzi resigned office with a parting
+homily in which he claimed to have saved the national institutions.</p>
+
+<p>The administration which followed contained the well-known names of
+Farini, Minghetti, Pasolini, Peruzzi, Delia Rovere, Menabrea. When
+Farini's fatal illness set in, Minghetti replaced him as Prime Minister,
+and Visconti Venosta took the Foreign Office. They found the country in a
+lamentable state, embittered by Aspromonte, still infected with
+brigandage, and suffering from an increasing deficit, coupled with a
+diminishing revenue. The administrative and financial unification of
+Italy, still far from complete, presented the gravest difficulties. The
+political aspect of affairs, and especially the presence of the French in
+Rome, provoked a general sense of instability which was contrary to the
+organisation of the new state <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_351" id=
+"Page_351">[Pg.351]</a></span> and the development of its resources. The
+ministers sought remedies or palliatives for these several evils, and to
+meet the last they opened negotiations with France, which resulted in the
+compromise known as the September Convention. It was long before the
+treaty was concluded, as for more than a year the French Government
+refused to remove the garrison on any terms; but in the autumn of 1864 the
+following arrangement was signed by both parties: that Italy should
+protect the Papal frontier from all attack from the outside; that France
+should gradually withdraw her troops, the complete evacuation to take
+place within two years; that Italy should waive the right of protest
+against the internal organisation of the Papal army unless its proportions
+became such as to be a manifest threat to the Italian kingdom; that the
+Italian capital should be moved to Florence within six months of the
+approval of the Convention by Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>These terms were in part the same as those proposed by Prince Napoleon
+to Cavour shortly before the death of that statesman, who had promised to
+support them as a temporary makeshift, and in order to get the French out
+of Italy. But they were in part different, and they contained two new
+provisions which it is morally certain that Cavour would never have agreed
+to&mdash;the prolongation of the French occupation for two years (Cavour
+had insisted that it should cease in a fortnight), and the transfer of the
+capital, which was now made a <i>sine qu&acirc; non</i> by Napoleon, for
+evident reasons. While it was clear that Turin could not be the permanent
+capital of a kingdom that stretched to &AElig;tna, if once the seat of
+government were removed to Florence a thousand arguments and interests
+would spring up in favour of keeping it there. So, at least, it was sure
+to seem to a foreigner. As a matter of fact, the solution was no solution;
+the Italians could <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">
+[Pg.352]</a></span> not be reconciled to the loss of Rome either by the
+beauty and historic splendour of the city on the Arno, or by its immunity
+from malaria, which was then feared as a serious drawback, though Rome has
+become, under its present rulers, the healthiest capital in Europe. But
+Napoleon thought that he was playing a trump card when he dictated the
+sacrifice of Turin.</p>
+
+<p>The patriotic Turinese were unprepared for the blow. They had been told
+again and again that till the seat of government was established on the
+Tiber, it should abide under the shadow of the Alps&mdash;white guardian
+angels of Italy&mdash;in the custody of the hardy population which had
+shown itself so well worthy of the trust. The ministry foresaw the effect
+which the convention would have on the minds of the Turinese, and they
+resorted to the weak subterfuge of keeping its terms secret as long as
+they could. Rumours, however, leaked out, and these, as usual, exaggerated
+the evil. It was said that Rome was categorically abandoned. On the 20th
+of September crowds began to fill the streets, crying: 'Rome or Turin!'
+and on the two following days there were encounters between the populace
+and the military, in which the latter resorted to unnecessary and almost
+provocative violence. Amidst the chorus of censure aroused by these
+events, the Minghetti cabinet resigned, and General La Marmora, who, as a
+Piedmontese, was fitted to soothe the excited feelings of his
+fellow-citizens, was called upon to form a ministry.</p>
+
+<p>The change of capital received the sanction of Parliament on the 19th
+of November. Outside Piedmont it was not unpopular; people felt that,
+after all, it rested with themselves to make Florence no final
+halting-place, but a step towards Rome. The Papal Government, which had
+been a stranger to the late negotiations, expressed a supreme <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg.353]</a></span>
+indifference to the whole affair, even to the contemplated departure of
+the French troops, 'which concerned the Imperial Government, not the
+Pope,' said Cardinal Antonelli, 'since the occupation had been determined
+by French interests.' It cannot be asserted that the Pope ever assumed a
+gratitude which he did not feel towards the monarch who kept him on his
+throne for twenty years.</p>
+
+<p>This year, 1864, was marked by an incident which, though not a
+political event, should never be forgotten in the history of Italian
+liberation&mdash;Garibaldi's visit to England. He came, the prisoner of
+Aspromonte, not the conqueror of Sicily: a distinction that might have
+made a difference elsewhere, but the English sometimes worship misfortune
+as other peoples worship success. No sovereign from oversea was ever
+received by them as they received the Italian hero; a reception showing
+the sympathies of a century rather than the caprice or curiosity of an
+hour. Half a million throats shouted London's welcome; the soldier of two
+worlds knew the roar of battle, and the roar of the sea was familiar to
+the Nizzard sailor, but it is said that when Garibaldi heard the
+stupendous and almost awful British roar which greeted him as he came out
+of the Nine Elms station, and took his seat in the carriage that was to
+convey him to Stafford House, he looked completely disconcerted. From the
+heir to the throne to the crossing-sweeper, all combined to do him honour;
+where Garibaldi was not, through the breadth of the land the very poor
+bought his portrait and pasted it on their whitewashed cottage walls.
+London made him its citizen. The greatest living English poet invited him
+to plant a tree in his garden: a memory he recalled nearly at the close of
+his own honoured life:&mdash;</p>
+
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg.354]</a></span>
+
+
+<pre>
+    Or watch the waving pine which here
+      The warrior of Caprera set,
+      A name that earth shall not forget
+    Till earth has rolled her latest year.
+</pre>
+
+<p>Garibaldi showed himself mindful of old friends; at the opera he
+recognised Admiral Mundy in a box, and immediately rose and went to offer
+him his respects. At Portsmouth, he not only went to see the mother of
+Signora White-Mario (the providence of his wounded in many a campaign),
+but also paid an unrecorded visit to two maiden sisters in humble
+circumstances, who had shown him kindness when he was an exile in England;
+they related ever afterwards the sensation caused by his appearance in
+their narrow courtyard, where it was difficult to turn the big carriage
+which the authorities had placed at his disposal. He twice met the great
+Italian whom he addressed as Master: transferring, as it were, to
+Mazzini's brows the crown of glory that surrounded his own. Another exile,
+Louis Blanc, used to tell how, when he went to call on Garibaldi, he found
+him seated on a sofa, receiving the homage of the fairest and most
+illustrious members of the English aristocracy; when the Friend of the
+People was announced (a title deserved by Louis Blanc, if not for his
+possibly fallacious theories, still for the rare sincerity of his life),
+the hero started to his feet and most earnestly begged him to sit beside
+him. 'Which I could not do!' the narrator of the scene would add with a
+look of comical alarm for his threatened modesty.</p>
+
+<p>These friendly passages with the proscripts in London, as well as the
+stirring appeal spoken by Garibaldi on behalf of the Poles, did not please
+foreign Powers. The Austrian ambassador shut himself up in his house; it
+was remarked that the only members of the diplomatic body <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg.355]</a></span> who were
+seen at the Garibaldi <i>f&ecirc;tes</i> were the representatives of the
+United States and of the Sublime Porte. The Emperor Napoleon was said to
+be angry. Lord Palmerston assured the House of Commons that no
+remonstrance had been received from France or from any foreign government,
+and that if it had been received, it would not have been heeded. Yet the
+English Government took the course of hinting to the guest of England that
+his visit had lasted long enough. In some quarters it was reported that
+they feared disturbances among the Irish operatives in the manufacturing
+towns, had he gone, as he intended, to the north. Whatever were the
+motives that inspired it, their action in the matter cannot be remembered
+with complacency, but it was powerless to undo the significance of the
+great current of enthusiasm which had passed through the English land.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg.356]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVIII</h3>
+
+<h4>THE WAR FOR VENICE</h4>
+
+<h5>1864-1866</h5>
+
+<h5>The Prussian Alliance&mdash;Custoza&mdash;Lissa&mdash;The
+Volunteers&mdash;Acquisition of Venetia.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>The change of capital was carried out in 1865, and the lull which
+followed gave an appearance of correctness to the surmise that if the
+September Convention had not solved the Roman question, it had, anyhow,
+reduced it to a state of quiescence. But there were other reasons why Rome
+was kept, for the moment, not indeed out of mind, but out of sight. The
+opinion grew that the emancipation of Venice, too long delayed, ought to
+take precedence of every other political object. On this point there was
+no disagreement among the 22,000,000 free Italians, who felt the servitude
+of Venice to be an hourly disgrace and reproach; no one even ventured to
+preach patience. A curious chapter might be written on the schemes woven
+between the Peace of Villafranca and the year 1866, for the realisation of
+the unfulfilled promise of freedom from Alps to sea. Foremost among the
+schemers was Victor Emmanuel, and if some persons may be shocked by the
+idea of a royal conspirator, more will admire the patriotism which made
+the King hold out his hand to Mazzini, whose sentiments about monarchy,
+and especially about the Savoy dynasty, were a secret to no one, least of
+all to him. But as Mazzini placed those sentiments on <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg.357]</a></span> second rank
+to the grand end of Italian unity, so the King, to serve the same end,
+showed himself superior to prejudices which in most men would have proved
+insuperable. The fact that Victor Emmanuel opened negotiations with
+Mazzini, and maintained them, off and on, for years, proves amongst other
+things, that he knew the exiled patriot better than the world yet knew
+him. He may have understood that by turning republican sympathies into the
+groove of unity (not their necessary or even their most natural groove),
+Mazzini made an Italian kingdom possible. There is reason to think that
+the King's ministers were kept entirely ignorant of his correspondence
+with the Agitator. The letters were impersonal drafts carried to and fro
+by means of trusted emissaries; each party freely expounded his views, and
+stated the terms on which his support could be given. Victor Emmanuel's
+favourite idea was a revolution in Galicia. When Garibaldi returned from
+England he was nearly commissioned to start for Constantinople, whence he
+was to lead an expedition through Roumania into Galicia. It seems to have
+been due to Garibaldi's own good sense that so extremely unpromising a
+project was abandoned. General Klapka was another of Victor Emmanuel's
+secret revolutionary correspondents. The very wildness of the plans that
+floated in the air betokened the feverish anxiety to do something which
+had taken hold of all minds.</p>
+
+<p>In 1865 a scheme of a different sort, and of momentous consequences,
+grew into shape. It was a scheme of which Cavour first guessed the
+possibility, as well as the far-reaching results. In August 1865 Count
+Bismarck asked General La Marmora whether Italy would join Prussia in the
+contingency of a war with Austria? Only a year before he was still <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg.358]</a></span>
+thinking of carrying out his policy with the aid of Austria, and he had
+offered to help her to wrench Lombardy from Italy (and from France if she
+intervened), in payment for her consent to his designs. But now, though
+the Austrians did not even remotely suspect it, his thoughts were
+resolutely turned to the Italian alliance. Without this alliance Italy
+might, indeed, have acquired Venice, but would the German Empire have been
+founded?</p>
+
+<p>For a time the proposal was suspended, owing to the temporary
+understanding concluded between Prussia and Austria at Gastein; and in the
+interim, General La Marmora urged the Viennese Government to cede Venetia
+in return for a compensation of five hundred million francs. But those
+whom the gods would destroy they make mad. Austria preserved her
+infatuated sense of security almost till the rude awakening caused by the
+rifle-shots that ushered in the campaign of Sadowa.</p>
+
+<p>One thing which contributed to keeping Europe in the dark as to the
+impending cataclysm was the character and known tendencies of King William
+I. of Prussia, whose conservative, not to say retrograde sentiments made
+it difficult to picture him at the head of what was really a great
+revolutionary movement, in spite of the militarism that surrounded it.
+With consummate art, Count Bismarck little by little concentrated all his
+master's ideas about royal divinity in general into one overwhelming
+belief in his own divine right to be German Emperor, and so transformed an
+obstacle into the corner-stone of the edifice he wished to build. But this
+could hardly be foreseen. At the New Year's Day reception of 1866,
+Napoleon announced an era of universal peace; henceforth all nations were
+to arrange their <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">
+[Pg.359]</a></span> differences amicably, as had been done at Gastein If
+the illusion was complete, it was destined to be of short duration.</p>
+
+<p>In the spring the Prussian proposal to Italy was formally renewed, and
+this time it was accepted. The secret treaty of an offensive and defensive
+alliance for three months was signed on the 8th of April. Less than three
+weeks later, Austria, which was slowly beginning to feel some uneasiness,
+proposed to Napoleon the cession of Venetia, while exacting from Italy
+only a simple promise of neutrality in case of war. General La Marmora
+held the honour of the country and his own to compel fidelity to the prior
+arrangement with Prussia, and he refused the tempting offer. His choice
+has been variously characterised as one of common honesty and of uncommon
+magnanimity; at all events, it was of incalculable advantage to Prussia,
+which already gave signs of not being a particularly delicate-minded ally.
+When La Marmora asked Bismarck whether, in case Austria took the
+initiative of attacking Italy, Prussia would intervene, the answer was
+'No.'</p>
+
+<p>The three countries now pushed on their war preparations: Austria with
+less ardour than the others, as she still failed to more than faintly
+realise her danger. The Italian army, which the opening of the year found
+in a deplorably unserviceable condition, was rapidly placed on a
+war-footing, and, considering the shortness of the time allowed for the
+work, and the secrecy with which, at the outset, it had to be conducted,
+it is generally agreed that La Marmora produced surprising results. As was
+natural in an army which, except for the old Piedmontese nucleus, might
+almost be called improvised, the weakest points were the cavalry and the
+artillery. The infantry was good; not only the picked corps of
+Bersaglieri, but also the line regiments were <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg.360]</a></span> equal to any troops
+likely to be opposed to them. No one can see the fine appearance of a line
+regiment marching down the streets of an Italian town without receiving
+the impression that, however much the other branches of the service may
+have improved since the Sixties, the fondest hopes of Italy in case of war
+still lie in that common soldier who best supported the rigours of the
+Russian snows.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, the attention paid to the army was not extended to the
+fleet, which continued totally unready; nor was the organisation of the
+volunteers carried out in an efficient manner. The excuse afterwards
+advanced was that not more than 15,000 enrolments were expected, while the
+actual figure reached 35,000. Besides being from its very bulk less
+manageable than the 'few and good' of 1859, this mass of men was
+ill-provided with officers who could inspire and keep discipline.
+Garibaldi's own generals, Bixio, Medici, Cosenz and Sirtori, were now all
+in the regular army, and therefore not free to join him. He begged for the
+loan of a few regular officers, indicating amongst other names that of
+Colonel Pallavicini, who commanded against him at Aspromonte: a trait
+characteristic of the man. But this assistance, though promised, was not
+granted, and the same was the case with the guns which were vainly asked
+for. Without charging La Marmora with a deliberate intention of neglecting
+the volunteers, it must be owned that under the influence of the prejudice
+which holds irregular troops in small esteem, he did not do for them what
+ought to have been done if their services were accepted at all.</p>
+
+<p>The Austrian Southern Army, excellent in discipline and equipment
+though weak in numbers, was commanded up to the outbreak of the war by
+Field-Marshal Benedek, but he was called to Vienna to take command of
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg.361]</a></span>
+the unfortunate army of operation against Prussia, and was succeeded in
+Italy by the Archduke Albrecht, with General Von John, an officer of the
+first capacity, as chief of the staff.</p>
+
+<p>The numerical strength of the forces which could be put in the field
+has been stated with startling divergence by different military writers on
+the war, but every calculation gives the Italian side (exclusive of the
+volunteers) a superiority of not less than two to one. The Austrian
+mobilised army has been reckoned at as low a figure as 63,000, certainly
+an understatement, as it appears that the Archduke mustered not less than
+70,000 at the battle of Custoza. That he mustered on that day every man he
+could produce is probably a fact. Had the Italian generals followed the
+same rule, however enormous their other errors might have been, they would
+have won. Of all conceivable faults in a military commander that which is
+the least pardonable is the neglect to crush his antagonist by force of
+superior numbers when he has them at his disposal. How many great military
+reputations have been built up, and justly built up, on the care never to
+meet an enemy without the odds being largely in your favour!</p>
+
+<p>For obvious political reasons the King of Italy assumed the supreme
+command of the army, with General La Marmora as chief of the staff.
+Cialdini had been offered the latter post, but he declined it, objecting,
+it is said, to the arrangement by which the real head of the army has no
+guarantee against the possible interference of its nominal head. When La
+Marmora went to the front, Baron Ricasoli took his place as Prime
+Minister; Visconti-Venosta became Minister of Foreign Affairs; and the
+Ministry of the Marine was offered to Quintino Sella, who refused it on
+the ground that he knew nothing of naval matters. It was then offered to
+and accepted by a man who knew <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_362"
+id="Page_362">[Pg.362]</a></span> still less, because he did not even know
+his own ignorance, Agostino Depretis, a Piedmontese advocate.</p>
+
+<p>Before the commencement of hostilities a secret treaty was concluded
+between Napoleon III. and the Austrian Government, according to which
+Venetia was to be ceded to the Emperor for Italy, even if Austrian arms
+were victorious both on the Mincio and on the Maine. Napoleon's real
+purpose in this singular transaction is not perfectly clear; but he was
+probably acting under a semi-romantic desire to have the appearance of
+completing his programme of freeing Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic
+which had been interrupted at Villafranca. In spite of his enmity towards
+Italian unity, there is no reason to doubt that he was in very few things
+as sincere as in the wish to see the Austrians out of Italy. His
+reckonings at this time were all founded on the assumption that Prussia
+would be defeated; he even seems to have had some hopes of getting the
+Rhine bank in return for his good offices on behalf of that Power with
+triumphant Austria. Be this as it may, he inspired the Italian Government
+(or rather La Marmora, for there were then two Italian Governments, and
+the real one was on the Mincio) with his own expectation of Prussian
+disasters, and it is possible that this expectation had a material and
+unfavourable influence on the manner of conducting the war in Italy.</p>
+
+<p>Through the Prussian Minister at Florence, General La Marmora received
+the draft of a plan of campaign which is known to have been prepared by
+Count Moltke; in it the great feature was a descent on the Dalmatian
+coast. From an independent quarter he received another plan in which a
+descent on the east coast of the Adriatic was contemplated, the main
+difference being that Istria, instead of Dalmatia, was <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg.363]</a></span> proposed
+for the landing-point. This second plan was modestly submitted to him by
+Garibaldi, who was thus in substantial accord with the Prussian
+strategist. The prospect which either of these plans opened was one of
+great fascination. What Italian can look across the sea to where the sun
+rises and forget that along that horizon lies a land colonised by Rome and
+guarded for four hundred years by Venice?</p>
+
+<p>Istria was marked out by Dante as the frontier province of Italy:</p>
+
+<pre>
+     Si come a Pola presso del Quarnero
+     Che Italia chiude e i suoi termini bagna.
+</pre>
+
+<p>It forms, with the Trentino, what is called <i>Italia Irredenta</i>.
+Although the feeling of Italians for unredeemed Italy is not what their
+feeling was for Lombardy or Venetia, it is a mistake to imagine that they
+have renounced all aspirations in that direction. Only fanatics of the
+worst kind would be disposed to attempt, in the present situation, to win
+those provinces by force, but that has nothing to do with the matter. The
+aspiration exists and cannot help existing. It has always been shared by
+patriots of all denominations. An English statesman who called on Pius IX.
+was somewhat surprised by the Pope saying that Italian unity was very
+well, but it was a pity it did not include Trento and Trieste.</p>
+
+<p>The case of Dalmatia is different; there the mass of the population is
+unquestionably of a non-Italian race, though that race is one which,
+whenever left to itself, seems created to amalgamate with the Italian.
+Slav and Teuton are racially antagonistic, but the Slav falls into Italian
+ways, speaks the Italian language and mixes his blood with Italian blood:
+with what results Venice can tell. For more than two thousand years the
+civilisation of Dalmatia has been exclusively Latin; the Roman column
+points to the Venetian Campanile; all the <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg.364]</a></span> proudest memories are
+gathered round the Lion of St Mark, which in every town, almost in every
+village, recalls the splendid though not blameless suzerainty of the
+Serene Republic. The sky, the olive-groves, the wild pomegranates make us
+think of Salerno; by the spoken tongue we are often reminded of Tuscany,
+for few Italian dialects are so pure. The political subjection of the
+country to Italy dates from Augustus; its political subjection to Austria
+dates from Napoleon. Dalmatia, with the glorious little commonwealth of
+Ragusa, and the free city of Cattaro, was bartered away with Venice at
+Campo Formio; and as with Venice, so with Dalmatia, the Holy Alliance
+violated its own principle of restoring the proe-Napoleonic state of
+things and confirmed the sale.</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning of the war, Austria did not ignore that her loss of
+territory might exceed Venetia. The Archduke Albrecht, in his proclamation
+to his soldiers, appealed to them to protect their mothers, wives and
+sisters from being ruled by a foreign race.</p>
+
+<p>Even a successful raid upon Dalmatia or Istria need not have given
+those districts to Italy, but it would have brought such an event within
+the range of a moderately strong political telescope. The Slavs (erected
+since into a party hostile to their Italian fellow-citizens by a fostering
+of Panslavism which may not, in the long run, prove sound policy for
+Austria) were then ready to make friends with anyone opposed to their
+actual rulers. They would not have been easy to govern after an Italian
+invasion; still less easy to govern would the Latin element have been,
+which was and is <i>Italianissimo</i>. Since Prussia became the German
+Empire, she has set her face against Italian extension eastward, but in
+1866, had her advice been intelligently acted upon, it might have
+generated facts the logic of which none <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg.365]</a></span> would have had the power to
+stay.</p>
+
+<p>Moltke's plan more than hinted at a march on Vienna by the Semmering,
+and this is what is supposed to have induced La Marmora to treat it with
+scorn. With the bogey of Prussia vanquished before his eyes, he doubtless
+asked what the Italians would do at Vienna if they got there? He put the
+plan in his pocket, and showed it neither to his staff nor to the King,
+who would certainly have been attracted by it, as he had set his heart on
+the volunteers, at least, crossing the Adriatic. With regard to the
+campaign at home, both Moltke and Garibaldi counselled turning the
+Quadrilateral in preference to a direct attack upon fortresses which had
+been proved impregnable except with the assistance of hunger, and at
+present they were better provisioned than in 1848. The turning of the
+Quadrilateral meant the adoption of a route into Venetia across the Po
+below Mantua. An objection not without gravity to that route was the
+unfavourable nature of the ground which, being marshy, is liable after
+heavy rains to become impassable. But against this disadvantage had to be
+weighed the advantage of keeping out of the mouse-trap, the fatality of
+which needed no new demonstration.</p>
+
+<p>In Italy it is common to hear it said that it was necessary to station
+a large army on the Mincio to bar the Archduke's path to Milan. But apart
+from the rumoured existence of a promise to the French Emperor not to
+invade Lombardy, it was unlikely that so good a general as the Archduke
+would have taken his small army far from the security it enjoyed among the
+four fortresses which, if the worst came to the worst, assured him a safe
+line of retreat.</p>
+
+<p>The plan adopted by La Marmora is vaguely said to have been that which
+was prepared by the French and Sardinian staffs for use in 1859, had <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg.366]</a></span> the
+war been continued. But in what it really consisted is not to this day
+placed beyond dispute. The army, roughly speaking, was divided into
+halves; one (the larger) half under the King and La Marmora was to operate
+on the Mincio; the other, under Cialdini, was to operate on the lower Po.
+It is supposed that one of these portions was intended to act as a blind
+to deceive the enemy as to the movements of the other portion; the
+undecided question is, which was meant to be the principal and which the
+accessory?</p>
+
+<p>The volunteers were thrown against the precipices of the Tridentine
+mountains, where a detachment of the regular army, well-armed and properly
+supplied with artillery, would have been better suited for the work. The
+Garibaldian headquarters was at Sal&ograve; on the Lake of Garda. Less
+than half of the 35,000 volunteers who appear upon paper, were ever ready
+to be sent to the front. It was widely said that only patriotism prevented
+Garibaldi from throwing up his command, so dissatisfied was he with the
+conduct of affairs.</p>
+
+<p>Prussia invaded Hanover and Saxony on the 16th of June, and declared
+war with Austria on the 21st, one day after the Italian declaration of war
+had been delivered to the Archduke Albrecht. On the 23rd La Marmora's army
+began to cross the Mincio. It consisted of three <i>corps
+d'arm&eacute;e</i> under the command of Generals Durando, Cucchiari and
+Delia Rocca, each corps containing four divisions. The force under
+Cialdini was composed of eight divisions forming one <i>corps
+d'arm&eacute;e.</i> An Italian military writer rates the numbers at
+133,000 and 82,000 respectively. La Marmora acquired the belief that the
+Archduke's attention was absorbed by Cialdini's movements on the Po, and
+that his <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">
+[Pg.367]</a></span> own operations on the Mincio would pass
+unobserved.</p>
+
+<p>While the Italian commander had no information of what was going on in
+the enemy's camp, the Archduke's intelligence department was so efficient
+that he knew quite well the disposition of both Italian armies. Cialdini's
+advance, if he meant to advance, was checked by floods. On the night of
+the 23rd most of La Marmora's force bivouacked on the left (Venetian) bank
+of the Mincio. No reconnaissances were made; everyone supposed that the
+Austrians were still beyond the Adige, and that they intended to stay
+there. The King slept at Goito.</p>
+
+<p>Before the early dawn next morning the whole Italian army of the Mincio
+had orders to advance. The soldiers marched with heavy knapsacks and empty
+stomachs, and with no more precautions than in time of peace. The Austrian
+Archduke was in the saddle at four a.m., and watched from an eminence the
+moving clouds of dust which announced the approach of his unsuspecting
+foe.</p>
+
+<p>La Marmora's intention had been to occupy the heights of Santa
+Giustina, Sona and Somma Campagna, but the Archduke anticipated his
+design, and while the Italians were moving from the Mincio, the Austrians
+were ranging themselves in those positions. At half-past five on the
+midsummer Sunday morning, the Austrian advance guard led by Colonel Pulz
+came up with Prince Humbert's division near Villafranca. The battle began
+dramatically, with a charge of the splendid Polish and Hungarian Hussars,
+who dashed their horses against the Italian squares, in one of which,
+opportunely formed for his shelter, was the gallant heir to the throne.
+Bixio's division was also engaged in this prelude, which augured not ill
+for the Italians, since at about eight o'clock Pulz received the
+Archduke's orders to retire.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">
+[Pg.368]</a></span> The first hours of the battle were spent in fortuitous
+encounters along the extensive chain of hillocks which La Marmora had
+intended to occupy. As the Italians approached each position they found it
+in the possession of a strong force of the enemy. On the right, however,
+Custoza and the heights between it and Somma Campagna had not been
+occupied by the Austrians. Here La Marmora placed the flower of his army,
+the Sardinian and Lombard Grenadiers, the latter commanded by Prince
+Amedeo. The fighting continued through the day over very widely
+distributed ground, but from about nine in the morning the supreme
+interest was concentrated at and near Custoza, in which the Archduke
+promptly detected the turning-point of the battle. To wrest Custoza from
+the hold of the Italians was to the Austrians on the 24th of June 1866,
+what the taking of the crest of Solferino had been to the French on the
+24th of June 1859. La Marmora in person led the Grenadiers into action;
+they proved worthy of their reputation, but after losing a great many men,
+Prince Amedeo being among the wounded, they were obliged to retreat. At
+about midday, however, the Italian prospects improved so much that in the
+opinion of Austrian military writers, with moderate reinforcements they
+would have had a strong probability of winning the battle. La Marmora saw
+the importance of getting fresh troops into the field, but, instead of
+sending for the divisions under Bixio and Prince Humbert, which since
+eight a.m. had been fretting in inaction close by, at Villafranca, he rode
+himself to Goito, a great distance away, to look after the reserves
+belonging to the 2nd <i>corps d'arm&eacute;e</i>; a task which any staff
+officer could have performed as well. This inexplicable proceeding left
+the army without a commander-in-chief. The generals of division followed
+their <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">
+[Pg.369]</a></span> individual inspirations, Govone, Pianel and Cugia
+especially distinguishing themselves: it is sad to think that death has
+removed these three officers from the Italian ranks. But the Austrians
+fatally gained ground, and as the afternoon closed in the Archduke began
+to feel sure that the Italian reinforcements whose arrival he had so much
+feared, were never coming. He therefore prepared for the final effort
+which was to give him the well-deserved honours of the day. Towards seven
+o'clock in the evening, his soldiers succeeded in storming the heights of
+Custoza, and Austria could write a second battle of that name among her
+victories.</p>
+
+<p>The Italians lost 720 killed, 3112 wounded and 3608 prisoners. The
+Austrian loss was 960 killed, 3690 wounded and 1000 prisoners. Both sides
+were much tried by the scorching midsummer sun, but the Italians laboured
+under the additional drawback of having to fight fasting. In his report,
+the Archduke Albrecht mentioned that the prisoners said they had not
+tasted food for twenty-four hours. In the same report, he did ample
+justice to the courage of the Italian soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>As has been stated, the Archduke fought Custoza with not less, probably
+with rather more, than 70,000 men. The force which La Marmora placed in
+the field was actually inferior in number. The divisions of Bixio and
+Prince Humbert were kept doing nothing all day at a stone's throw from the
+scene of action. Of the whole 2nd <i>corps d'arm&eacute;e</i> only a
+trifling detachment ever reached the ground. Inexplicably little use was
+made of the Italian cavalry.</p>
+
+<p>This bungling had lost the battle, but the fact that on the morrow, six
+divisions of the army of the Mincio were practically fresh, might have
+suggested to a general of enterprise to try again, since it was known that
+the Archduke had not a single new man to fall back on. And <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg.370]</a></span> there was
+Cialdini on the Po with his eight divisions that had not been engaged at
+all. But, instead of adopting a spirited course, the Italian authorities
+gave way to unreasoning panic. It appears, unfortunately, that the King
+was the first to be overcome by this moral vertigo. The long and fiercely
+discussed question of who telegraphed to Cialdini: 'Irreparable disaster;
+cover the capital,' seems to have been settled since that general's death
+in 1892. It is now alleged that the telegram, the authorship of which was
+disowned by La Marmora, was signed by the King's adjutant, Count Verasio
+di Castiglione. Cialdini obeyed the order and fell back on Modena. Whether
+he was bound to obey an almost anonymous communication signed by an
+irresponsible officer is a moot point; it is reported that he repented
+having done so to the last day of his life.</p>
+
+<p>A great event now happened across the Alps; one of the decisive battles
+of the world was lost and won on the 5th of July at Sadowa near
+K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz in Bohemia. The fate of Europe was shaped on that day
+for decades, if not for centuries. Of the immediate results, the first was
+the scattering to the wind of all calculations based upon a long
+continuance of the war, the issue of which, as far as Prussia was
+concerned, could not be regarded as doubtful. In respect to Italy,
+Austria's first thought was to prevent her from taking a revenge for
+Custoza. She attempted to compass this by ceding Venetia to Napoleon two
+days after Sadowa. It was making a virtue of necessity, as she was bound
+in any case to cede it at the conclusion of the war; but as the secret of
+the treaty had been well kept, the step caused great surprise, and in
+Italy, where the public mind had leapt from profound discouragement to
+buoyant hope, the impression was one of embarrassment and mortification.
+Italy was distinctly precluded by her <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg.371]</a></span> engagement with Prussia from
+accepting Napoleon's invitation to conclude a separate peace. Meanwhile,
+Austria gained by the move, as it set her at liberty to recall the larger
+part of her troops from Venetia for the defence of Vienna. Her honour did
+not require her to contest the ground in a province which she had already
+given away. When Cialdini, at the head of the reorganised Italian army of
+which he now held the chief command, advanced across the Po to Padua, he
+found the path practically open.</p>
+
+<p>It was still possible for Italy to accomplish two things which would
+have in a great measure retrieved her <i>prestige</i>. The first was to
+occupy the Trentino; the second was to destroy the Austrian fleet. With
+the means at her disposal she ought to have been able to do both.</p>
+
+<p>In the earlier phases of Italian liberation, no one disputed that if
+Lombardy and Venetia were lost to the Empire the Tridentine province,
+wedged in as it is between them, would follow suit. When, in 1848, Lord
+Palmerston offered his services as mediator between Austria and revolted
+Italy, it was on a minimum basis of a frontier north of Trento. The
+arguments for the retention of Trieste&mdash;that Austria had made it what
+it was; that Germany needed it as a seaport, etc.&mdash;were inapplicable
+here; and even after the defeat of Custoza, an occupation of the Trentino,
+had it happened in conjunction with a naval victory, would have opened a
+fair prospect to possession. But there was no time to lose, and much time
+was lost by ordering Garibaldi to descend to the southern extremity of the
+lake of Garda to 'cover Brescia' from an imaginary attack. When the fear
+of an Austrian invasion subsided, and Garibaldi returned to the mountains,
+he endeavoured to re-take the position of Monte Suello which he had
+previously held, but the attempt <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_372"
+id="Page_372">[Pg.372]</a></span> failed. The volunteers were forced to
+retire with great loss, and the chief himself was wounded. On the 16th of
+July the volunteers renewed their advance up the mountain ravines, and,
+after taking Fort Ampola, reached the village of Bezzecca, where they were
+attacked by the Austrians early on the 21st. Each side claimed that
+sanguinary day as a victory; the Garibaldians remained masters of the
+ground, but the Austrians, in retiring, took with them a large number of
+prisoners. The losses of the volunteers on this and other occasions when
+they were engaged were disproportionately heavy. They were spendthrift of
+their lives, but in war, and especially in mountain warfare, caution is as
+needful as courage, and in caution they were so deficient that they were
+always being surprised. General Kuhn's numerically inferior force of tried
+marksmen, supported by good artillery and favoured by ground which may be
+described as one great natural fortification, had succeeded up till now in
+holding the Trentino, but his position was becoming critical, because
+while Garibaldi sought to approach Trento from the west, Medici with
+10,000 men detached from the main army at Padua, was ascending the
+Venetian valleys that lead to the same destination from the east. Kuhn was
+therefore on the point of being taken between two fires when the armistice
+saved him.</p>
+
+<p>These operations on the Tridentine frontier, though not without a real
+importance, passed almost unnoticed in the excitement which attended the
+first calamitous appearance of United Italy as a naval power.</p>
+
+<p>When invited to assume the command of the Italian fleet, Admiral
+Persano twice refused; it was only when the King pressed upon him a third
+invitation that he weakly accepted a charge to which he felt himself
+unequal. He had been living in retirement for some years, and <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg.373]</a></span> neither
+knew nor was known by most of the officers and men whom he was now to
+command. The fleet under his orders comprised thirty-three vessels, of
+which twelve were ironclads. The Austrian fleet numbered twenty-seven
+ships, including seven ironclads. When the war broke out, both fleets were
+far from ready for active service; but, while the Austrian Admiral
+Tegethoff said nothing, but worked night and day at Pola to make his ships
+and his men serviceable, Persano despatched hourly lamentable reports to
+the Minister of Marine, without finding the way to bring about a change
+for the better. He wasted time in minuti&aelig;, and took into his head to
+paint all the Italian ships a light grey, which was of the greatest use to
+the Austrians in the battle of Lissa, as it enabled them to distinguish
+between them and their own dark-coloured ships.</p>
+
+<p>After long delaying at Taranto, Persano brought his fleet to Ancona;
+and, two days later, Tegethoff appeared in front of that town&mdash;not
+knowing, it seems, that the Italian squadrons had arrived. Tegethoff was
+bound on a simple reconnaissance, and, after firing a few shots, he sailed
+away. On this occasion, Persano issued orders so hesitating and confused
+that the Austrian admiral must have correctly gauged the capacity of the
+man opposed to him, while the superior officers of the Italian fleet were
+filled with little less than dismay. A strong effort was made to induce
+Depretis to supersede Persano then and there; he promised to do so, but it
+is said that the fear of offending the King prevented him. Instead, he set
+about showering instructions on the admiral, the worth of which may be
+easily imagined. The mistrust felt by the fleet in its commander invaded
+all ranks; and if it did not break out in open insubordination, it
+deprived officers and men of all confidence in the issue of the
+campaign.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">
+[Pg.374]</a></span> Left to himself, Persano would have stayed quietly at
+Ancona, but the imperative orders of a cabinet council, presided over by
+the King, forced him to take some action. Against the advice of Admiral
+Albini, but in agreement with another admiral, Vacca, Persano decided to
+attack the fortified island of Lissa, on the Dalmatian coast. Though Lissa
+is a strong position, the usual comparison of it with Gibraltar is
+exaggerated. It ought to have been possible to land the Italian troops
+which Persano had with him under cover of his guns, and to take the island
+before Tegethoff came up. The surf caused by the rough weather, to which
+he chiefly attributed his failure, would not have proved an insuperable
+obstacle had the ships' crews been exercised in landing troops under
+similar circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>Persano reached Lissa on the morning of the 18th of July, and began a
+tremendous bombardment of the forts, which, though answered with the
+highest spirit by the Austrians, did most deadly damage to their
+batteries. In fact, by the evening, except one or two at a high elevation,
+they were practically silenced. At six o'clock Captain Saint Bon took the
+<i>Formidabile</i> into the narrow harbour to silence the inner works: a
+murderous fire rained on the corvette from Fort Wellington, which was too
+high for the Italian guns to get it into range. Though Saint Bon's attempt
+was not successful, the Italians had effected most of what they aimed at,
+and might have effected the rest had they continued the bombardment
+through the night, and so given the Austrians no time to repair their
+batteries, but at sunset Persano withdrew his fleet to a distance of eight
+miles. The Austrians worked all night at mending the batteries that could
+still be used, and hoped <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_375" id=
+"Page_375">[Pg.375]</a></span> in the coming of Tegethoff.</p>
+
+<p>The telegraph cable connecting the neighbouring island of Lesina with
+the coast, and so with Pola, had been cut by Persano's orders; but either
+(as the writer was told on the spot last year) there was another line that
+was not noticed, or before the cable was destroyed the official in charge
+got off a message to Tegethoff, informing him of the arrival of the
+Italian fleet. An answer, to the effect that Tegethoff would come to the
+rescue as soon as possible, fell into the hands of the Italians, but
+Persano appears not to have believed in it.</p>
+
+<p>The 19th was spent in attempts at landing, which the surf and the
+energetic play of the repaired batteries rendered fruitless. The
+bombardment was renewed, but it was not well conducted. Saint Bon, who
+made another plucky entry into the harbour, was unsupported, and, after an
+hour's fighting, he was obliged to retire, his ship having suffered
+severely.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning there was a blinding summer storm, but at about eight
+o'clock the <i>Esploratore</i> distinguished the forms of ironclads
+through the rain, and signalled to Persano: 'Suspicious vessels in sight.'
+Persano answered: 'No doubt they are fishing-boats.' When obliged to admit
+the truth he gave the order to unite, his ships being scattered in all
+directions with everything on board at sixes and sevens. The troops which
+had again been attempting to land, were in boats, tossed about by the
+heavy sea. The surprise was complete.</p>
+
+<p>Persano fought the battle of Lissa with nine ironclads, most of which
+had received some injuries during the bombardment. He ordered his wooden
+ships to keep out of the action altogether. Tegethoff had seven ironclads
+and fourteen wooden vessels, all of which he turned to the best
+account.</p>
+
+<p>Just before the battle Persano left his flagship, the <i>Re</i> <i>
+d'Italia</i>, <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">
+[Pg.376]</a></span> and went on board the <i>Affondatore</i>. By
+somebody's mistake it was a long time before the <i>Affondatore</i>
+hoisted the admiral's flag, and the fleet continued to look to the <i>Re
+d'Italia</i> for signals when he was no longer on board.</p>
+
+<p>Contrary to a well-known rule in naval science, Persano formed his
+squadron in single file, and quite at the beginning of the battle
+Tegethoff managed to break the line by dashing in between the first and
+second division whilst they were going at full speed, and under a furious
+cannonade from their guns. This daring operation placed him in the middle
+of the Italian ironclads, which, well directed, could have closed round
+him and destroyed him, but they were not directed either well nor
+ill&mdash;they were not directed at all. Persano put up contradictory
+signals, most of which were not seen, and those which were seen meant
+nothing. The plan followed by Admiral Tegethoff may be best described in
+his own words: 'It was hard to make out friend from foe, so I just rammed
+away at anything I saw painted grey.' Two Italian vessels had been already
+damaged, but not vitally injured, by the <i>Ferdinand Max</i>, when in the
+dense smoke a vast wall of grey appeared close to the bows of the Austrian
+flagship, which, to the cry of 'Ram her!' put on full steam and crashed
+into the enemy's flank. The shock was so great that the crew of the <i>
+Max</i> were thrown about in indescribable confusion. The Italian ship was
+the <i>Re d'Italia,</i> the flagship which did not carry the admiral. She
+quivered for one, two, some say for three minutes in her death agony, and
+then went down in two hundred fathoms of water.</p>
+
+<p>After the <i>Re d'Italia</i> was struck, one of her seamen, thinking to
+assert a claim to pity, began to lower her flag, but a young officer <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg.377]</a></span>
+pushed him aside and hoisted it again; so the great ship sank with her
+colours flying. The incident was noticed by the Austrians, who spoke of it
+in feeling terms. Willing enough were they to help, for after the first
+cheer of triumph they felt sick with horror at their own work, the fearful
+work of modern naval warfare. There were 550 men on board the doomed ship.
+Tegethoff shouted for the boats to be lowered, and signalled to the
+despatch boat <i>Elisabeth</i> to pick up all she could, but two Italian
+ironclads were bearing down upon him, and little could be done to save the
+drowning multitude either by the Austrians or by their own people. Persano
+did not know of the disaster till some hours after it happened.</p>
+
+<p>The sea had scarcely closed over the <i>Re d'Italia</i> when another
+misfortune occurred; the gunboat <i>Palestro</i> took fire. Her captain,
+Alfredo Cappellini, disembarked the sick and wounded, but remained himself
+with the rest of the crew, endeavouring to put out the fire. The ship blew
+up at 2.30 p.m., and over two hundred perished with her.</p>
+
+<p>Persano, still on the <i>Affondatore</i>, now led his fleet out of
+action, and it was the first time he had led it during the day. Tegethoff
+gazed after the vanishing squadron with anxiety, as had Persano turned and
+renewed the battle from a distance, he could have revenged his defeat at
+close quarters without receiving a shot, owing to the longer range of his
+guns. But for such an operation skilful manoeuvring was wanted, and also,
+perhaps, more precision in firing than the Italian gunners possessed. At
+any rate, Persano had no mind for new adventures. He took what remained of
+his fleet straight back to Ancona, where the <i>Affondatore</i> sank in
+the harbour from injuries received during the battle. For three days the
+Italian people were <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_378" id=
+"Page_378">[Pg.378]</a></span> told that they had won a victory, then the
+bitter truth was known. The admiral, tried before the Senate, was deprived
+of his rank and command in the Italian navy. The politician who, when
+convinced of his unfitness, yet had not the nerve to remove him from his
+post, died, full of years and honours, Prime Minister of Italy.</p>
+
+<p>Lissa was fought on the 20th of July. On the 25th, Prussia signed the
+preliminaries of peace with Austria without consulting her ally, who, if
+unfortunate, had been eminently loyal to her. Thus the whole forces of the
+Empire, not less than 350,000 men, were let loose to fall upon Italy. Such
+was the wrathful disappointment of the Italians at their defeats by land
+and sea, that if a vote had been taken they would possibly have decided
+for a renewal of the struggle. Ricasoli was inclined to risk war rather
+than bow to the Austrian demand that the evacuation of the Trentino should
+precede the conclusion of an armistice. At this crisis, La Marmora acted
+as a true patriot in forcing the hand of the Ministry by ordering the
+recall of the troops and sending General Petitti to treat directly with
+the Austrian military authorities. 'They will say that we have betrayed
+the country,' said the King in the interview in which these measures were
+concerted; to which La Marmora answered: 'Come what may, I take the whole
+responsibility upon myself.' 'This is too much,' replied Victor Emmanuel
+with tears in his eyes; 'I, also, will have my part in it.' In which brief
+dialogue the character of the two men stands revealed; men who might fall
+short in talent or in judgment, not in honour.</p>
+
+<p>The volunteers, so many of whose comrades lay dead along the mountain
+gorges&mdash;who believed, too, that they were in sight of the reward of
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg.379]</a></span>
+their sacrifices&mdash;were thrown into a ferment, almost into a revolt by
+the order to retreat. They had expected in a day or two to shake hands
+with Medici, who, after some hard fighting, was within a march of Trento.
+The order was explicit: instant evacuation of the enemy's territory.
+Garibaldi, to whom from first to last had fallen an ungrateful part, took
+up his pen and wrote the laconic telegram: 'Obbedisco.' 'I have obeyed,'
+he said to the would-be mutineers, 'do you obey likewise.' Someone
+murmured 'Rome.' 'Yes,' said the chief, 'we will march on Rome.'</p>
+
+<p>The armistice was signed at Cormons on the 12th of August, and the
+treaty of peace on the 3rd of October at Vienna. Italy received Venice
+from the hands of the French Emperor, whose interference since the
+beginning of the campaign had incensed Prussia against her ally without
+benefiting the Power which he affected and, perhaps, really meant to
+serve. Italy would have received Venetia without his interposition, for
+besides the Prussian obligation to claim it for her, Austria had no
+further wish to keep it. Despite the fact that Italian populations still
+remained under the rule of the Empire, the melancholy book of Austrian
+dominion in Italy might be fairly said to be closed forever. A new era was
+dawning for the House of Hapsburg, which was to show that, unlike the
+Bourbons, it could learn and unlearn.</p>
+
+<p>The comedy of the cession of Venice to Napoleon was enacted between
+General Le Boeuf and General Alemann, the Austrian military commandant.
+Among other formalities, the French delegate went the round of the museums
+and galleries to see that everything was in its place. Suddenly he came
+upon a most suspicious blank. 'A picture is <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg.380]</a></span> missing here,' he said. 'It
+is, blandly assented the Austrian officer. 'Well, but it must be sent back
+immediately&mdash;where is it?' 'In the Louvre.'</p>
+
+<p>At last Austrians and French departed, and Italy shook off her
+mourning, for however it had come about, the great object which had cost
+so much blood, so many tears, was attained; the stranger was gone! Out of
+642,000 votes, only 69 were recorded against the union of Venetia with the
+Italian kingdom. When the plebiscite was presented to the King, he said:
+'This is the greatest day of my life: Italy is made, though not complete.'
+On the 7th of November he entered Venice, and of all the pageants that
+greeted him in the hundred cities of Italy, the welcome of the Bride of
+the Adriatic was, if not the most imposing, certainly the fairest to see.
+More touching, however, than the glorious beauty of the Piazza San Marco
+and the Grand Canal in their rich adornment, was the universal decoration
+of the poorest quarters, which were all flagged and festooned so thickly
+that little could be seen of the stones of Venice. One poor cobbler,
+however, living at the end of a blind alley, had no flag, no garland to
+deck his abode: he had therefore pasted three strips of coloured paper,
+red, white and green, over his door, inscribing on the middle strip these
+words, which in their sublime simplicity merit to be rescued from
+oblivion: 'O mia cara Italia, voglio ma non posso fare pi&ugrave; per
+te.'</p>
+
+<p>The Iron Crown of the Lombard Kings of Italy, which the Austrians had
+taken away in 1859, was brought back and restored to the Cathedral of
+Monza. Less presumptuous than Napoleon, Victor Emmanuel never placed the
+mystical fillet upon his head, but it was carried after his coffin to the
+Pantheon.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIX"></a> <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_381" id=
+"Page_381">[Pg.381]</a></span>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIX</h3>
+
+<h4>THE LAST CRUSADE</h4>
+
+<h5>1867</h5>
+
+<h5>The French leave Rome&mdash;Garibaldi's Arrest and Escape&mdash;The
+Second French Intervention&mdash;Monte Rotondo&mdash;Mentana.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>The words of Victor Emmanuel to the Venetian Deputation contained a
+riddle easy to solve: what was meant by the 'completion' of Italy was the
+establishment of her capital on the Tiber. In most minds there was an
+intense belief in the inevitability of the union of Rome with the rest of
+Italy, but no one saw how it was to be brought about. What soothsayer
+foretold S&eacute;dan?</p>
+
+<p>In the first period after the war, domestic difficulties fixed the
+attention of the Italian Government on the present rather than on the
+future. An insurrection at Palermo assumed threatening proportions owing
+to the smallness of the garrison, and might have had still more serious
+consequences but for the courage and presence of mind shown by the Syndic,
+the young Marquis di Rudini. Crime and poverty, republican hankerings, the
+irritation of the priesthood at recent legislation, and most of all, the
+feeling that little had been done since 1860 to realise the millennium
+then promised, contributed to the outbreak which was quelled when troops
+arrived from the mainland, but the ministers were blamed for not having
+taken better precautions against its occurrence. Another stumbling-block
+lay in the path of Ricasoli, <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_382" id=
+"Page_382">[Pg.382]</a></span> namely, the application of the law for the
+suppression of religious houses, and the expropriation of ecclesiastical
+property. After an unsuccessful endeavour to cope with it, he dissolved
+the Chamber, but the new Parliament proved no more willing to support his
+measures, which were of the nature of a compromise, than the old one, and
+he finally resigned office. He was succeeded by Urban Rattazzi, under
+whose administration a measure was passed which, though drastic in
+appearance, has not prevented the re-establishment of a great many
+convents of which the property was bought in under the name of private
+individuals. Every Catholic country has seen the necessity sooner or later
+of putting a check to the increase of monasticism, but it may be a matter
+of regret that in Italy, the toleration granted to the learned community
+of Monte Cassino was not extended to more of the historic monasteries. The
+abstention of the Clerical party from the voting urns deprived them of an
+influence which, on such points as these, they might have exercised
+legitimately and perhaps beneficially. To that abstention, the
+disequilibrium of Italian political life, from first to last, is largely
+due.</p>
+
+<p>The time allowed to the French under the September Convention for the
+evacuation of Rome expired in December 1866, and at the opening of the new
+year, for the first time since 1849, the Eternal City was without a
+garrison in the service of a foreign Power. While executing their
+engagement, the French Government took occasion to say that they kept
+their hands perfectly free as concerned future action. The anomalous
+obligations of the September Convention now came into force, and it was
+not long before their inconvenience was felt. Had Ricasoli remained at the
+head of affairs the <i>status quo</i> might have lasted for <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg.383]</a></span> a time;
+because, although he was an unflinching opponent of the Temporal Power, he
+would have made it clear that since the Convention existed he meant to
+respect it, and to make others respect it. He had shown that he could
+dare, but that was when he bore himself the whole responsibility of his
+daring. He was not the man to tolerate heroic imprudence in others with
+the mental reservation of owning or disowning the results, as might prove
+convenient. Rattazzi, on the other hand, was believed to answer very
+closely to this description; and patriots who were willing to bear all the
+blame in case of failure and yield all the praise in case of success,
+began once more to speculate on the profit to the national cause which
+might be extracted from the peculiarities of his character. Aspromonte,
+that should have placed them on their guard, had the contrary effect, for
+it was supposed that the Prime Minister was very anxious to wipe that
+stain from his reputation.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, the Party of Action considered that, for the present, the
+wisest course was to wait and watch the development of events. This was
+Mazzini's personal view, but Garibaldi, almost alone in his dissent, did
+not share it. Impelled partly, no doubt, by the impatience of a man who
+sees the years going by and his own life ebbing away without the
+realisation of its dearest dream, but partly also by the deliberate belief
+that the political situation offered some favourable features which might
+not soon be repeated, Garibaldi decided to take the field in the autumn of
+1867. His friends, who one and all tried to dissuade him, found him
+immovable. It is too much to say that he expected assistance from the
+Government, but that he hoped to draw Rattazzi after him is scarcely
+doubtful, and he had good <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_384" id=
+"Page_384">[Pg.384]</a></span> reason for the hope.</p>
+
+<p>In Rattazzi's own version and defence of his policy, it is set forth
+that before the die was cast he did all that was humanly possible to
+prevent the expedition, but that having failed, he intended sending the
+Italian army over the frontier in the wake of the broken-loose
+condottiere. Though this gives a colour of consistency to his conduct, it
+is not satisfactory as an explanation, and still less as an apology.</p>
+
+<p>General La Marmora, who had always opposed the Convention, though he
+belonged to the party which made it, once declared that 200,000 men would
+not be sufficient to hold the Papal frontier against a guerilla invasion.
+True as this may be, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that a
+minister who had resolutely made up his mind to prevent any attempt from
+being made would not have acted as Rattazzi acted. The Prime Minister
+thought that he was imitating Cavour, but in reality he simply imitated
+the pendulum of a clock.</p>
+
+<p>Rattazzi's taste was for intrigue rather than for adventure in the
+grand sense. An adventurous minister would have accelerated the enterprise
+to the utmost, in secret or not in secret, and would then have preceded
+Garibaldi to Rome before the Clerical party in France had time to force
+Napoleon to act. The rest could have been left to the Roman people. What
+they did in 1870 they would have done in 1867; they were ready to acclaim
+any conquering liberator; they were not ready to make a revolution on
+their own account, and with all their leaders in prison or in exile, they
+are hardly to be blamed for it. For such a policy Italy might have pleaded
+that necessity which knows no law. Everybody allowed that if Garibaldi
+went to Rome the Italians must go there too: the very security of the Pope
+demanded it&mdash;at least, he said so. As to the first part of the
+programme, complicity <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_385" id=
+"Page_385">[Pg.385]</a></span> in the preparation of the movement, it
+would have been an infringement of the Convention, but had France kept the
+Convention? French bishops recruited soldiers for the Pope in every
+province of France, and the Antibes Legion was drawn, officers and men,
+from the French army. When some of the men deserted, the French War Office
+sent General Dumont to Rome to look to the discipline of the regiment.
+Those who argued that the spirit, if not the letter, of the agreement had
+been already evaded, could make out a good case for their position.</p>
+
+<p>It has been suggested that this is what Rattazzi's policy would have
+been, but for the opposition of the King. Were it so, the minister ought
+to have resigned at the beginning of the proceedings instead of at the
+end. That in the ultimate crisis it was the King who prevented the troops
+from moving is a fact, but the propitious moment was then past and gone.
+'Do as you like, but do it quickly,' Napoleon said to Cavour when Cialdini
+was to be sent to the Cattolica. And it was done quickly.</p>
+
+<p>After letting Garibaldi make what arrangements and issue what
+manifestoes he chose for six weeks, Rattazzi suddenly had him arrested at
+Sinalunga on the 23rd of September. The only consequence was fatal delay;
+not knowing what to do with their prisoner, the Government shipped him to
+Caprera. Personally he was perfectly free; no conditions were imposed; but
+nine men-of-war were despatched to the island to sweep the seas of erratic
+heroes. In spite of which, Garibaldi escaped in a canoe on the 14th of
+October.</p>
+
+<p>That night, between sundown and moonrise, there was only one hour's
+dark, but it sufficed the fugitive to make good his passage from <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg.386]</a></span>
+Caprera to the island of Maddalena. A strong south-east breeze was
+blowing; the waves, however, were rather favourable to the venture, as
+they hid the frail bark from any eyes that might be peering through the
+night. Garibaldi did not fear; he had often put out on this terrible sea
+when lashed to fury to succour sailors in their peril. On reaching
+Maddalena he scrambled over the rocks to the house of an English lady who
+was delighted to give him hospitality. Next evening he proceeded to
+Sardinia, from which, after several adventures, he sailed for the Tuscan
+coast in a boat held in readiness by his son-in-law, Canzio. And so, to
+the amazement of friends and foes, he arrived in Florence, where, before
+many hours were past, he was haranguing the enthusiastic crowd from a
+balcony.</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi had escaped, but the mischief done to the movement by the
+loss of nearly a month could not be remedied. Although large armed bands
+under Acerbi, Nicotera and Menotti Garibaldi were gathered near Viterbo,
+as usually happened in the absence of the chief, nothing effectual was
+done. But it was in Paris that the delay brought the most ruinous
+results.</p>
+
+<p>The history of the second French expedition to Rome will never be
+satisfactorily told, because, while the outward circumstances point one
+way, the inward probabilities point another. Napoleon had said that if the
+Convention were not observed he would intervene, and he did intervene;
+nothing could seem simpler. Yet it is not doubtful that, in his inmost
+heart, he was wishing day and night that something would turn up to
+extricate him from the Roman dilemma once for all. While he hesitated, the
+Clerical party in France did not hesitate. Not a moment was thrown away by
+them. Towards the middle of October, it was reported that 'half royalist
+and half Catholic France will be in <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg.387]</a></span> Rome in the course of the
+week. Men with names belonging to the proudest French nobility&mdash;the
+De Lusignans, De Clissons, De Lumleys, De Bourbon-Chalens, etc., are
+chartering vessels, arriving in Rome by scores and hundreds, and hence
+hurrying to the front to take their places as privates in the Zouaves.'
+That, however, does not describe the most important sphere of their
+activity which was the ante-chamber, nay, the boudoir of St Cloud. In that
+palace, three years later to be rased to the ground by the Germans, the
+net was woven which every day closed tighter and tighter round Napoleon,
+till he was enveloped in its meshes past escape. Ever since De Morny's
+death, the influence nearest the throne had been increasing in strength;
+it is needless to say in which direction it was exercised. Napoleon was
+ill; Maximilian's ghost floated over him; he felt his power slipping from
+his hands in spite of the noise and show of the Exhibition, which was
+supposed to mark its zenith. The words of the old pact with the Royalists
+buzzed in his ears: 'Do you keep the Pope on his throne, and we will keep
+you on yours.' And he yielded.</p>
+
+<p>The 'principle' of French intervention was adopted by the council of
+ministers on the 17th of October. Then, and not till then, Rattazzi
+decided to send the Italian troops over the frontier. On finding that
+neither the King nor several of his colleagues in the ministry would
+support him, he resigned office on the 19th of the month.</p>
+
+<p>It was on the day after that Garibaldi appeared in Florence. As there
+was no ministry, no one thought it his business to interfere with him.
+Cialdini, whom the King had requested to form a cabinet, did go and ask
+him to keep quiet till there was some properly qualified person to arrest
+him; but this, not unnaturally, he declined to do. He left <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg.388]</a></span> Florence by
+special train for Terni, whence he crossed the frontier and joined the
+insurgent bands near Rome.</p>
+
+<p>From the 19th to the 26th, Napoleon again and again ordered and
+countermanded the departure of the transports from Toulon. On the last
+date the final order was given and the ships started. The news must have
+just reached Paris that the King had called upon General Menabrea to
+undertake the task which had been abandoned by Cialdini, whose name
+recalled Castelfidardo too strongly to have a sound welcome either in the
+Vatican or at St Cloud. When Napoleon heard that Menabrea was to be
+Rattazzi's successor, he knew that there was no fear that the new
+Government, carried away by the popular current which was manifestly
+having its effect on the King, should, after all, order the Italian army
+to the front. Menabrea, the Savoyard who in 1860 chose the Italian
+nationality which his son has lately cast away, was the old opponent of
+Cavour in the Turinese chamber, and of all Italian politicians he was the
+most lukewarm on the Roman question. All chance of a collision between the
+French and Italian armies was removed. Menabrea did occupy some positions
+over the Papal frontier, it would be hard to say with what intention,
+unless it were to appear to fulfil a sort of promise given by the King
+during the ministerial interregnum. The troops were ordered on no account
+to attack the French, and as soon as the Garibaldian campaign was at an
+end, they were brought home. It was not worth while to send them with
+their hands tied to almost within earshot of where other Italians were
+fighting and falling. Menabrea's attitude towards the volunteers was
+immediately revealed by the issue of a royal proclamation, in which <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg.389]</a></span> they
+were declared rebels. The French were free to act.</p>
+
+<p>All this time the revolution in Rome, which it was admitted on all
+sides would have gone far towards cutting the knot, did not begin. Besides
+the cause already assigned, the absence of the heads, there was another,
+the almost total lack of arms. To remedy this, Enrico and Giovanni
+Cairoli, with some seventy followers, tried to take a supply of arms up
+the Tiber to Rome. Only the immense importance of the object could have
+justified so desperate an attempt. Obliged to abandon their boats near
+Ponte Molle, they struck off into the Monti Parioli, where they were
+attacked, within sight of the promised land, at a spot called Villa
+Gloria. Their assailants were three times their number, and those who were
+not killed were carried prisoners to Rome. Among the killed was the
+captain of the band, who fell in the arms of his young brother. As Enrico
+Cairoli lay dying, the French Zouaves (was this the chivalry of France?)
+charged the two brothers with their bayonets, piercing Giovanni with ten
+wounds, from injuries arising from one of which he expired a year later,
+after long torments. 'Dastardly French!' cried Enrico with his last
+breath. They were the third and fourth sons of Adelaide Cairoli who died
+for their country. One only of her five children remained to stand by her
+own death-bed&mdash;Benedetto, the future Prime Minister, and saviour of
+King Humbert from the knife of an assassin.</p>
+
+<p>The Papal army was composed of 13,000 men, General de Courten
+commanding the portion of it which could be spared out of Rome. The
+Breton, Colonel Charette, had charge of the Zouaves. Since the French
+garrison left, much trouble had been taken to make this force efficient.
+Under Garibaldi's own orders there were between 7000 and 8000 volunteers.
+Those who have made a higher estimate have included <span class="newpage">
+<a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg.390]</a></span> other bands which,
+either from the difficulty of provisioning a larger number, or from want
+of time for concentration, remained at a distance.</p>
+
+<p>The chief's arrival soon infused new life into the camp. On the 24th he
+moved towards Monte Rotondo, one of the castellated heights near Rome,
+which commands the Nomentane and Tiburtine ways to the south, and the
+railway and Via Salara to the west. It was generally considered the most
+important military position in the Papal states. The garrison was small,
+but, perched as they were on a hill crest which looks inaccessible, the
+defenders might well hope to hold out till help came from Rome. They had
+artillery, of which the volunteers had none, and the old castle of the
+Orsini, where they made their principal stand, was well adapted for
+defence. From the morning of the 25th till midnight, the Garibaldians
+hurled themselves against the walls of the rock town without making much
+way; but at last the resistance grew weak, and when the morning light
+came, the white flag was seen flying. At four in the afternoon of the 26th
+a Papal column tardily arrived upon the scene, but they perceived that all
+was over at Monte Rotondo, and, after firing a few musket shots, they fled
+to Rome in disorder.</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi rode into the cathedral, where he fixed his quarters for the
+night. In Italy churches have ever been applied to such uses. After the
+reduction of Milan, Francesco Sforza rode into the Duomo, and when King
+Ladislaus of Naples conquered Rome, he rode into the basilica of St John
+Lateran. The guerilla chief bivouacked in a confessional, while his
+Red-shirts slept where they could on the cathedral floor. Four hundred of
+them had been killed or wounded in the assault.</p>
+
+<p>The prisoners of war were brought before Garibaldi, who praised their
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg.391]</a></span>
+valour and sent them under an escort to the Italian frontier. Two or three
+were retained for the following reason. Garibaldi had heard of the
+Cairolis' heroic failure, and after his victory his first thought was of
+them and of their sorrowing mother. He asked Signora Mario if there were
+any notabilities among the Papal prisoners. She mentioned Captain
+Quatrebras and others, and he sent her into Rome on a mission to the Papal
+commander with a view to exchanging these prisoners for the wounded
+Giovanni and for his brother's body. The proposal was accepted, and the
+compact kept after Mentana had changed the aspect of affairs.</p>
+
+<p>'Garibaldi at the gates!' was the news that spread like wildfire
+through Rome on the evening of the 26th of October. Terror, real terror,
+and no less real joy filled all hearts; but the sides were soon to be
+reversed. Another piece of news was not long in coming: 'The French at
+Civita Vecchia!'</p>
+
+<p>The French arrived on the 29th, and on the same day Garibaldi advanced
+almost to the walls of Rome, still hoping for a revolutionary movement to
+break out within the city; but the information which he then received
+deprived him finally of this hope, and he gave the order to return to
+Monte Rotondo. Volunteers have the defect of being soldiers who <i>
+think</i>; on this occasion they thought that the backward march was the
+beginning of the end&mdash;that, in short, the game was up. A third of the
+whole number deserted, and took the road towards the Italian frontier.
+Garibaldi himself seems to have had a first idea of crossing into the
+Abruzzi, and there waiting to see what turn events would take; but he did
+not long entertain it, and, when he again left Monte Rotondo, it was with
+the fixed design of fighting a battle. He expected, however, to fight the
+Papal troops alone, and not the French.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">
+[Pg.392]</a></span> This was very nearly being the case. On the 1st of
+November, the Papal General Kanzler called on General De Failly at Civita
+Vecchia, and found him, to his concern, by no means anxious to rush into
+the fray. Even when sending the troops, Napoleon seems to have hoped to
+escape from being seriously compromised. He probably thought that the
+moral effect of their landing would cause Garibaldi to retire, and that
+thus the whole affair would collapse. But the Papal authorities did not
+want it to collapse; they wanted more bloodshed, and if the words which
+express the ungarnished truth as acknowledged by their own writers and
+apologists, sound indecent when describing the government of the Vicar of
+Christ, it only shows once more the irreconcilability of the offices of
+priest and king in the nineteenth century. Kanzler insisted that a
+crushing blow must be inflicted on the volunteers before they had time to
+retreat. He argued so long and so well that De Failly promised him a
+brigade under General Polh&egrave;s to aid in the attack which he proposed
+to make on Monte Rotondo.</p>
+
+<p>The Papal forces left Rome by Porta Pia, and took the Via Nomentana,
+which leads to Monte Rotondo by Mentana. They were on the march at four
+o'clock a.m. Garibaldi had ordered his men to be ready at dawn on the same
+day (it was the 3rd of November); but Menotti suggested that, before they
+started, there should be a distribution of shoes, a consignment of which
+had just reached the camp. Many of the volunteers were barefoot, which
+gives a notion of their general equipment. Garibaldi, who rarely took
+advice, yielded to his son. Had he not done so, before the Papal army
+reached Mentana, he would have been at Tivoli. One delay brings another,
+and it was midday when the march <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_393"
+id="Page_393">[Pg.393]</a></span> began. Garibaldi looked sad, and spoke
+to no one, but hummed some bars of Riego's hymn, the Spanish song of
+freedom, full of a wild, sweet pathos, to which his tanned-faced
+legionaries had marched under the Monte Videan sun. Could he but have had
+with him those strong warriors now! He mounted his horse, put it to a
+gallop, which he rarely did, and, riding down the ranks of the column,
+took his place at its head. When he arrived at the village of Mentana, he
+heard that the Pontificals were close by, and he waited to give them
+battle.</p>
+
+<p>Mentana lies in a depression commanded by the neighbouring mounds, not
+a good configuration for defence. This village in the Roman Campagna
+sprang into history on a November day one thousand and sixty-seven years
+before, as the meeting-place of Charlemagne and Leo III. Here they shook
+hands over their bargain: that the Pope should crown the great Charles
+Emperor, and that the Emperor should assure to the Pope his temporal
+power. And now the ragged band of Italian youths was come to say that of
+bargains between Popes and Emperors there had been enough.</p>
+
+<p>They numbered less than 5000. General De Failly reckoned the Papal
+troops engaged at 3000 and the French at 2000, but Italian authorities
+compute the former at a higher figure. The most experienced of the
+Garibaldian officers thought that the attackers were twice as numerous as
+they were. At the first onslaught great confusion prevailed among the
+volunteers. Mentana seemed lost, but the sound of the guns they had
+captured at Monte Rotondo restored their <i>moral</i>, and making a
+gallant rush forward they retook the principal positions with the bayonet.
+As they saw the Pontificals swerve back they uttered cries of joy. It was
+two o'clock. The enemy's fire slackened; something was going on which the
+volunteers could not make out. All at once there <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg.394]</a></span> was a sharp unfamiliar
+detonation, resembling the whirring sound of a machine. The French had
+come into action.</p>
+
+<p>A hailstorm of bullets mowed down the Garibaldian ranks. Their two guns
+were useless, for the ammunition, seventy rounds in all, was exhausted.
+They fought till four o'clock&mdash;till nearly their last cartridge was
+gone; then they slowly retreated. Very few of them guessed what that
+peculiar sound meant, or imagined that they had been engaged with the
+French, but next morning Europe knew from General De Failly's report that
+'the Chassepots had done wonders.'</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi left the field, haggard and aged, unable to reconcile himself
+to a defeat which he thought that more discipline, more steadiness in his
+rank and file, would have turned into a victory. He had always demanded
+the impossible of his men; till now they had given it to him. In time he
+judged more justly. Those miserably-armed lads who lately had been glad to
+eat the herbs of the field, if haply they found any, stood out for four
+hours against the pick of two regular armies, one of which was supposed to
+be the finest in the world. They had done well.</p>
+
+<p>Mentana remained that night in the hands of 1500 Garibaldians, who
+still occupied the castle and most of the houses when the general retreat
+was ordered. In the morning the Garibaldian officer who held the castle
+capitulated, on condition that the volunteers 'shut up in Mentana' should
+be reconducted across the frontier; terms which the French and Papal
+generals interpreted to embrace only the defenders of the castle. Eight
+hundred of the others were taken in triumph to Rome. It would have been
+wiser to let them go. The Romans had been told that <span class="newpage">
+<a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg.395]</a></span> the Garibaldians were
+cut-throats, incendiaries, human bloodhounds waiting to fly at them. What
+did they behold? 'The beast is gentle,' as Euripides makes his captors say
+of Dionysius. The stalwart Romans saw a host of boys, with pale, wistful,
+very young-looking faces. If anything was wanting to seal the fate of the
+Temporal Power it was the sight of that procession of famished and wounded
+Italians brought to Rome by the foreigner.</p>
+
+<p>The victors, however, were jubilant. Their inharmonious shouts of <i>
+Vive Pie Neuf</i> vexed the delicate Roman ears. It was the battle-cry of
+the day of Mentana. Begun by the masked, finished by the unmasked soldiers
+of France, Mentana was a French victory, and it was the last.</p>
+
+<p>The Garibaldian retreat continued through the night to Passo Corese on
+the Italian frontier. The silence of the Campagna was only broken by
+little gusts of a chilly wind off the Tiber; it seemed as if a spectral
+army moved without sound. Garibaldi rode with his hat pressed down over
+his eyes; only once he spoke: 'It is the first time they make me turn my
+back like this,' he said to an old comrade, 'it would have been better
+...' He stopped, but it was easy to supply the words: 'to die.'</p>
+
+<p>As he was getting into the train at Figline, with the intention of
+going straight to Caprera, he was placed under arrest by order of the
+Italian Government. His officers had their hands on their swords, but he
+forbade their using force. The arrest seemed an unnecessary slight on the
+beaten man, who had loved Italy too well. But General Menabrea, who
+ordered it, believes that he thereby saved Italian unity. According to an
+account given by him many years after to the correspondent of an English
+newspaper, Napoleon wrote at this juncture <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg.396]</a></span> to King Victor Emmanuel, that
+as he was not strong enough to govern his kingdom, he, Napoleon, was about
+to help him by relieving him of all parts of it except Piedmont, Lombardy
+and Venetia. The arrest of Garibaldi, by showing that the King 'could
+govern,' averted the impending danger. In communicating it to Napoleon,
+the King is said to have added 'that Italians would lose their last drop
+of blood before consenting to disruption,' a warning which he was not
+unlikely to give, but the whole story lacks verisimilitude. It appears
+more credible that an old man's memory is at fault than that a letter, so
+colossally insolent, was actually written. Menabrea, and even the King,
+may have feared that something of the kind was in the mind of the
+Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>As after Aspromonte so after Mentana; Garibaldi was confined in the
+fortress of Varignano, on the bay of Spezia. A few weeks later he was
+released and sent to Caprera. As he left the fortress-prison he wrote the
+words: 'Farewell, Rome; farewell, Capitol; who knows who will think of
+thee, and when?'</p>
+
+<p>The last crusade was over; destiny would do the rest.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg.397]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XX"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XX</h3>
+
+<h4>ROME, THE CAPITAL</h4>
+
+<h5>1867-1870</h5>
+
+<h5>M. Rouher's 'Never'&mdash;Papal
+Infallibility&mdash;S&eacute;dan&mdash;The Breach in Porta Pia&mdash;The
+King of Italy in Rome.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>Mentana had its epilogue in the debate in the French Corps
+L&eacute;gislatif, which lasted from the 2nd to the 5th of December. Jules
+Favre proposed a vote of censure on the Ministry for their Roman policy.
+The most distinguished speaker who followed him was Thiers, who said that
+though in opposition, he would support the Government tooth and nail in
+their defence of French interests at Rome. The debate was wound up by the
+memorable declaration of the Prime Minister, Rouher, that 'never' should
+Italy get possession of Rome. 'Is that clear?' he asked. It was quite
+clear. The word escaped him, he afterwards said, in 'the heat of
+improvisation.' The French Chamber confirmed it by throwing out Favre's
+motion by 237 votes against 17.</p>
+
+<p>Now, indeed, the Ultramontanes were jubilant throughout the world.
+Napoleon was compromised, enmeshed beyond extrication.</p>
+
+<p>Of all these events, Prussia, or rather the great man who was the brain
+of Prussia, took attentive note. He was convinced that the wonders
+accomplished by the Chassepot at Mentana would soon lead France to try the
+effect of the new rifle on larger game. Among the <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg.398]</a></span> measures which he took
+with a view to that contingency, his correspondence with Mazzini is not
+the least remarkable. It began in November 1867, and was continued for a
+year. The object of both Bismarck and Mazzini was to prevent Italy from
+taking sides with France. The negotiations were carried on partly through
+Count d'Usedom, Prussian Minister at Florence, and partly through other
+intermediaries. Mazzini began by saying, that although the Chancellor's
+methods of unification had not his sympathy, he admired his energy,
+tenacity and independence; that he believed in German unity and opposed
+the supremacy which France arrogated to herself in Europe. He engaged to
+use his influence in Italy to make it difficult for an Italian Government
+to take up arms for the victors of Mentana. Bismarck was well aware that
+in speaking of his influence the writer used no idle phrase, but possibly
+one of his reasons for continuing the correspondence was to find out what
+Mazzini knew of the hidden plots and counter plots then in manufacture
+both in Paris and at Florence, because the Italian was more conversant
+with diplomatic secrets than any man living, except, perhaps, Cardinal
+Antonelli. In April 1868, Mazzini received through the Prussian Embassy at
+Florence, a document which even now possesses real interest on the
+relative advantages to Italy of a French or German Alliance. The whole
+question turned, observed the Prussian Chancellor, on the mastery of the
+Mediterranean: here France and Italy must find themselves at variance
+whether they willed it or not. 'The configuration of the terrestrial globe
+not being amenable to change, they will be always rivals and often
+enemies.' Nature has thrown between them an apple of discord, the
+possession of which they will not cease to contest. The Mediterranean
+ought to become an Italian lake. 'It is impossible for <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg.399]</a></span> Italy to
+put up with the perpetual threats of France to obtain the mastery over
+Tunis, which would be for her the first stage to arriving in
+Sardinia.'</p>
+
+<p>At the Berlin Congress eight years later, Prince Bismarck pressed the
+same views upon Count Corti, the Italian delegate. He would have been glad
+to see the Italians go to Tunis, but Count Corti ingenuously replied: 'You
+want to make us quarrel with France.' Meanwhile the Englishman who
+represented France and the Englishman who represented England were
+discussing the same subject, and out of their discussion arose the French
+occupation of Tunis. Disquieting rumours got about at once, but they were
+dispelled. 'No French Government would be so rash,' said Gambetta, 'as to
+make Italy the <i>irreconcilable</i> foe of France.' M. Waddington
+declared that he was personally opposed to the acquisition of Tunis, and
+gave his word of honour that nothing would be done without the full
+consent of Italy. What was done and how it was done is known to all. And
+so it happens that a great French naval station is in course of
+construction almost within sight of Sicily <i>and of Malta.</i></p>
+
+<p>In the document communicated by Bismarck to Mazzini, there is a curious
+inclusion of Trieste among Italian seaports which seems to indicate that
+he was still not averse from a rectification of the Italian north-east
+frontier. Whence it may be supposed that he expected to find Austria
+ranged on the part of France in the struggle for the Rhine bank. To
+explain how it was that this did not happen, we must leave the Chancellor
+and the Revolutionist, and see what at the same time was going on between
+Napoleon on the one side and Austria and Italy on the other.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">
+[Pg.400]</a></span> The French Emperor was not so infatuated as to court
+the risk of making war on Prussia single-handed if he could avoid it. He
+hoped for a triple alliance of France, Austria and Italy, or, if that
+could not be compassed, a dual alliance of France with either of these
+Powers. Now, wisely or unwisely, both the Italian and Austrian Governments
+were far from rejecting these proposals off-hand. The secret negotiations
+lasted from 1868 till June 1869. They took the shape of informal letters
+between the King of Italy and Napoleon, and of private communications with
+Count Beust through Prince Metternich, the Austrian Ambassador in Paris,
+who was the intimate friend and confidant of the Emperor and Empress.
+General Menabrea was not let into the secret till later. With regard to
+Victor Emmanuel, there is no doubt that he wished with all his heart to be
+able to do a good turn to his Imperial ally of 1859 if the occasion
+presented itself. Some men see their wives even to old age as they saw
+them when they were young and fair. The first print on the retina of the
+mental vision was so strong that no later impression can change or efface
+it. This hallucination is not confined to the marital relationship, and
+Victor Emmanuel never left off seeing Napoleon in one sole light: as the
+friend of Solferino. It may be that he perceived what the Italians did not
+perceive: that the obligation was owed to Napoleon alone, while all France
+had a part in the subsequent injuries. At any rate the idea of refusing
+the Emperor's appeal was repugnant in the extreme to the Italian King, who
+personally would have strained any point rather than give that
+refusal.</p>
+
+<p>The King, however, and General Menabrea, who was finally admitted into
+the conspiracy, could not be blind to the fact that an unpopular war might
+create so great an agitation in the country that the dynasty itself would
+be in danger. A war for France while the French were in <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg.401]</a></span> Rome would
+have raised one storm of indignation from Palermo to Turin. So their
+ultimatum was this: Rome capital of Italy, or no alliance.</p>
+
+<p>There remained Austria, but if Napoleon ever hoped to conclude a
+separate treaty with her, he was to discover his mistake. From the moment
+that Austria resigned the Iron Crown, the symbol of her Italian power, she
+acted towards Italy with a loyalty that has few parallels in history. And
+she, too, replied to Napoleon: Rome capital of Italy, or no alliance.</p>
+
+<p>The Vatican has never forgiven this to Austria. At the present hour,
+while republican France with her open antagonism to all religion, is the
+favoured daughter of the Church, Austria, the only country in Europe
+except Spain where the Roman Catholic cultus retains all its original pomp
+and almost all its medi&aelig;val privileges, meets from the Vatican a
+studied plan of opposition, the object of which can only be to bring her
+Government to a deadlock. From France the Pope still hopes for aid in the
+recovery of his temporalities; from Austria he knows that he will never
+receive it. So much have politics and so little has religion to do now, as
+in all ages, with the motives that govern the Holy See.</p>
+
+<pre>
+     Ahi, Costantin, di quanto mal fu matre
+       Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote
+     Che da te prese il primo ricco patre!
+</pre>
+
+<p>The years 1868 and 1869 passed uneventfully for Italy. In the former
+year Prince Humbert married his cousin Margherita of Savoy. He was
+previously engaged to the Archduchess Matilda, the only daughter of the
+Victor of Custoza, but the young Princess met with a terrible death just
+when the betrothal was about to be announced. No one <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg.402]</a></span> worthier to
+receive from Adelaide of Burgundy the lovely title of Queen of Italy could
+have been found than the Princess Margaret, who inherited the sunny charm
+which had endeared her father, the Duke of Genoa, to all who knew him.</p>
+
+<p>In the autumn of 1869 another domestic event, the severe illness of
+Victor Emmanuel, gave rise to an incident which made a deep impression in
+Italy, and attached the nation by one link more to the King of its choice.
+The illness which seized Victor Emmanuel at his hunting-box of San
+Rossore, in a malarious part of Tuscany, proved so serious that his life
+was despaired of. A priest was called to hear the King's last confession,
+and to administer the Sacraments for the dying. After hearing the
+confession, the priest said he could not give absolution unless Victor
+Emmanuel signed a solemn retractation of all the acts performed during his
+reign that were contrary to the interests of the Church. The King
+answered, without a moment's hesitation, that he died a Christian and a
+Catholic, and that if he had wronged anyone he sincerely repented and
+asked pardon of God, but the signature demanded was a political act, and
+if the priest wished to talk politics his ministers were in the next room.
+Thither the ecclesiastic retired, but he very soon returned, and
+administered the rite without more ado. What had passed was this: General
+Menabrea, with a decision for which he cannot be too much praised,
+threatened the priest with instant arrest unless he surrendered his
+pretensions. Only those who know the extraordinary terror inspired in an
+Italian Catholic by the prospect of dying unshriven can appreciate the
+merit of the King, whose faith was childlike, in standing as firm in the
+presence of supernatural arms as he stood before the Austrian guns.</p>
+
+<p>Menabrea's administration was then upon the eve of falling. The cause
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg.403]</a></span>
+was one of those financial crises that were symptomatic of a mischief
+which has been growing from then till now, when some critics think they
+see in it the fatal upas tree of Italy. The process of transforming a
+country where everything was wanting&mdash;roads, railways, lines of
+navigation, schools, water, lighting, sanitary provisions, and the other
+hundred thousand requirements of modern life&mdash;into the Italy of
+to-day, where all these things have made leaps almost incredible to those
+who knew her in her former state, has proved costly without example.
+During the whole period it has been necessary to spend in ever-increasing
+ratio on the army and navy, and this expenditure, though emphatically not
+the chief, has yet been a concomitant cause of financial trouble. The
+point cannot be inquired into here of how far greater wisdom and higher
+character in Italian public servants might have limited the evil and
+reconciled progress with economy; but it may be said that if the path
+entered upon by the man who took charge of the exchequer after Menabrea's
+fall, Quintino Sella, had been rigorously followed by his successors, the
+present situation would not be what it is.</p>
+
+<p>Giovanni Lanza assumed the premiership in the government in which Sella
+was Minister of Finance. Both these politicians were Piedmontese, and both
+were known as men of conspicuous integrity, but Lanza's rigid conservatism
+made it seem unlikely that the Roman question would take a fresh turn
+under his administration. In politics, however, the unlikely is what
+generally happens; events are stronger than men.</p>
+
+<p>On the 8th of December the twenty-first Ecumenical Council assembled in
+Rome. From the day of its meeting, in spite of the strenuous opposition of
+its most learned and illustrious members, there was no <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg.404]</a></span> more doubt
+that the dogma under consideration would be voted by the partly astute and
+partly complaisant majority than that it would have been rejected in the
+twenty preceding Councils. On the 18th of July 1870, the Pope was
+proclaimed Infallible.</p>
+
+<p>That was a moment of excitement such as has not often thrilled Europe,
+but the cause was not the Infallibility of Pius IX. On the 16th, Napoleon
+declared war with Prussia. War, like death, comes as a shock, however
+plainly it has been foreseen; besides, it was only the well-informed who
+knew how near the match had been to the powder-magazine for two years and
+more. Whether the explosion, at the last, was timed by Napoleon or by
+Bismarck is not of great importance; it could have been but little
+delayed. Napoleon was beset alike by the revolutionary spectre and by the
+gaunt King of Terrors; he knew the throw was desperate, but with the
+gambler's instinct, which had always been so strong in him, he was
+magnetised by it because it was desperate. Pitiful egotist though he was,
+history may forgive him sooner than it forgives the selfish Chauvinism of
+Thiers, who had been goading his countrymen to war ever since Sadowa, or
+the insane bigotry of the party which, having triumphed over revolution at
+Mentana, now sought to triumph over heresy in what the Empress called 'Ma
+guerre.'</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon had the remaining sagacity to see the extreme danger of
+leaving a few thousand men isolated in Rome at a time when, happen what
+might, it would be impossible to reinforce them. Directly after declaring
+war, notwithstanding the cries of the Ultramontanes, he decided on
+recalling the French troops. He induced the Italian Government to resume
+the obligations of the September Convention, by <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg.405]</a></span> which the inviolability
+of the Papal frontier was guaranteed. Lanza is open to grave criticism for
+entering into a contract which it was morally certain that he would not be
+able to keep. Perhaps he hoped that Napoleon would himself release Italy
+from her bond. But the 'Jamais' of Rouher stood in the way. Could the
+Emperor, after such boasting, coolly throw the Pope overboard the first
+time it suited his convenience? Moreover, his present Prime Minister, M.
+Emile Olivier, when the question was put to him, did not hesitate to renew
+the declaration that the Italians must not be allowed to go to Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon made some last frantic efforts to get Austria and Italy to
+befriend him unconditionally. How far he knew the real state of his army
+before he declared war may be doubtful, but that he possessed overwhelming
+proof of it, even before the first defeats, cannot be doubted at all. His
+heart was not so light as his Prime Minister's. At the end of July he sent
+General T&uuml;rr on a secret mission to try and obtain the help of
+Austria and Italy. The Hungarian general wrote from Florence, that unless
+something could be done to assure Italy that the national question would
+be settled in accordance with the wishes of her people, the Italian
+alliance was not possible. The Convention, he pointed out, was a bane
+instead of a boon to Italy. This letter was answered by a telegram through
+the French Ambassador at Vienna: 'Can't do anything for Rome; if Italy
+will not march, let her stand still.</p>
+
+<p>As in the former negotiations, Austria took her stand on precisely the
+same ground as Italy. And thus it was that France plunged into the
+campaign of 1870 single-handed.</p>
+
+<p>After W&ouml;rth, and once more after Gravelotte, the endeavour to draw
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg.406]</a></span>
+Italy into the struggle was renewed. Napoleon was aware that Victor
+Emmanuel was wildly anxious to come to the rescue, and on this personal
+goodwill his last hope was built. Prince Napoleon was despatched from the
+camp at Ch&acirc;lons to see what he could do. At this eleventh hour (19th
+August) Napoleon was ready to yield about Rome. At the camp, the influence
+which guided him in Paris was less felt, or it is probable that he would
+not have yielded even now. Prince Napoleon carried a sheet of white paper
+with the Emperor's signature at the foot. He showed it to Lanza when he
+reached Florence, and told him to fill it up as he chose. Whatever he
+asked for was already granted. A month before, such terms would have won
+both Italy and Austria&mdash;not now.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince found his father-in-law eager to give the 50,000 men that
+were asked for, but the ministers protested that the Italian army was
+unprepared for war. Still, to satisfy the King, who signified his
+irritation so clearly to Lanza that this good servant was on the point of
+resigning, they agreed to submit the case to Austria; if Austria would
+co-operate, they would re-consider their decision. Austria replied: 'Too
+late.'</p>
+
+<p>When, in 1873, Victor Emmanuel paid a visit to Berlin, he caused some
+sensation at a grand State banquet by saying to his host: 'But for these
+gentlemen' (and he waved his hand towards the ministers who accompanied
+him) 'I should have gone to war with you.' Courtiers did not know which
+way to look, but the aged Emperor was not displeased by the soldierly
+bluntness of the avowal.</p>
+
+<p>Prince Napoleon remained in Florence, throwing away his eloquence, till
+the 2nd of September cut short the argument. When he had left his cousin,
+the Emperor was resolved to fall back on Paris according to <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg.407]</a></span> MacMahon's
+plan, but the ministers and the Empress Regent forced him to his doom. On
+the 2nd of September S&eacute;dan was lost; on the 4th the Empire
+fell.</p>
+
+<p>'And to think,' exclaimed Victor Emmanuel when he heard the news, 'that
+this good man was always wanting to give me advice!'</p>
+
+<p>From the date of the declaration of war, and still more since the
+evacuation of Rome by the French troops (begun on the 29th of July, ended
+on the 19th of August), Italy had been too deeply agitated for any sane
+person to suppose that the prescriptive right of the nation to seize the
+opportunity which offered itself of completing its unity could be resisted
+by the artificial dyke of a compromise which made the Government the
+instrument of France. Lanza was determined to maintain order; he had
+Mazzini arrested at Palermo, and suppressed disorders where they occurred,
+but the rising tide of the will of the people could not be suppressed, and
+had the ministry resisted it, something more than the ministry would have
+fallen.</p>
+
+<p>In justification of Lanza's slowness to move, and of the apparent, if
+not real, unwillingness with which he took every forward step, it is
+contended that more precipitate action would have caused what most people
+will agree would have been a misfortune for Italy, the departure of the
+Pope from Rome. It was only on the 20th of August that the Minister of
+Foreign Affairs, Visconti-Venosta, sent a memorandum to the European
+Powers which announced that the Government had decided on occupying Rome
+at once. A week after, the fall of the Empire came as a godsend to the
+ministry which had possibly hardly deserved such a stroke of luck. They
+were no longer hampered by the September Convention, because the September
+Convention was dead. This <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_408" id=
+"Page_408">[Pg.408]</a></span> was amply admitted by Jules Favre, though
+he declined to denounce the treaty formally; even a French Radical, in the
+hour of setting up the Republic, was afraid to proclaim aloud that France
+renounced all claim to interfere in her neighbour's concerns.</p>
+
+<p>Of the other Powers, Switzerland signified her approval, and the rest
+engaged to abstain from any opposition.</p>
+
+<p>The King addressed a letter to the Pope, in which, with the affection
+of a son and the faith of a Catholic, he appealed to his spirit of
+benevolence and his Italian patriotism to speak the word of peace in the
+midst of the storm of war that was distracting Europe, and to accept the
+love and protection of the people of Italy in lieu of a sovereignty which
+could not stand without the support of foreign arms. Pius IX. merely
+answered by saying that the letter was not worthy of an affectionate son,
+and that he prayed God to bestow upon His Majesty the mercy of which he
+had much need. To the bearer of the royal appeal, Count Ponza di San
+Martino, he said that he might yield to violence, but would never sanction
+injustice.</p>
+
+<p>This was about the time that the Pope, on his side, wrote an appeal
+not, be it observed, to any Catholic monarch, but to King William of
+Prussia, who would certainly not have read unmoved the complaint of one
+who, like himself, was crowned with white hairs, but Count Bismarck took
+the precaution of causing the letter not to reach his master's hands till
+the Italians were in Rome.</p>
+
+<p>The day following the Pope's interview with Count Ponza, the 11th of
+September, the Italian troops received the order to enter the Papal
+states. For several weeks five divisions under General Cadorna had been in
+course of concentration along the frontier; this force now marched on
+Rome. Bixio was sent to Civita Vecchia where resistance was <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg.409]</a></span> expected,
+and had been ordered by Kanzler, but the native element prevailed over the
+foreign in the garrison, and the Spanish commandant, Colonel Serra,
+interpreting the wishes of the Roman troops, surrendered without firing a
+shot.</p>
+
+<p>Great was the indignation of the French and Belgian Zouaves. They were
+resolved that the same thing should not happen in Rome. That there was a
+chance of avoiding bloodshed may be inferred, from Count Arnim's numerous
+journeys between the Vatican and General Cadorna's headquarters outside
+Porta Salara; the Prussian representative hoping till the last moment to
+arrange matters in a pacific sense. Cardinal Antonelli is said to have
+been nearly persuaded, when he received a message from Colonel Charette in
+these terms: 'You had better go and say mass while we look after defending
+you.' The war party so far carried the day that the Pope adhered to his
+plan of 'sufficient resistance to show that he yielded only to force.'</p>
+
+<p>At half-past five on the morning of the 20th of September, all attempts
+at conciliation having failed, the Italian attack was opened upon five
+different points, Porta San Pancrazio, Porta San Giovanni Laterano, Porta
+San Lorenzo, Porta del Popolo and Porta Pia. General Maze de la Roche's
+division attacked the latter gate, and the wall near it, in which a breach
+was rapidly effected by the steady fire of the Italian batteries, though
+it was not till past eight o'clock that it seemed large enough to admit of
+an assault. Then the 41st of the line, and the 12th and 34th Bersaglieri
+were ordered up, and dashed into the breach with the cry of 'Savoia!
+Savoia!' The challenge was returned by the Zouaves with their 'Vive Pie
+Neuf.' They had been already ordered to desist, as the Pope's instructions
+were clear, 'to stop when a breach was made;' but on the plea that the
+order was sent <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">
+[Pg.410]</a></span> to them verbally they continued firing. When the
+written order came, they displayed a white handkerchief fastened to a
+bayonet, and at this point the fight was over. Hundreds of Roman exiles
+poured through the breach after the soldiers; 15,000 of them had arrived
+or were arriving at the gates of the city.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time the white flag was hoisted on Porta Pia, but on the
+advance of the 40th Regiment and a battalion of Bersaglieri, shots were
+fired which killed and wounded several officers and men; when they saw
+their companions falling, the troops could not be restrained from scaling
+the barricade which had been formed to defend the gate, and surrounding
+and capturing the Zouaves who were behind it. The whole Diplomatic Corps
+now came out in full uniform to urge General Cadorna to effect the
+occupation as quickly as possible, that order might be maintained. By
+midday, the Italian troops had penetrated into most parts of the city left
+of the Tiber; as yet there was no formal capitulation on the part of the
+Zouaves, and their attitude was not exactly reassuring. This did not
+prevent the population, both men and women, from filling the streets and
+greeting the Italians with every sign of rejoicing. They cheered, they
+wept, they kissed the national flag, and the cry of <i>Roma Capitale</i>
+drowned all other cries, even as the fact it saluted closed the discords
+and the factions of ages.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon all the Papal troops were persuaded to lay down their
+arms, which, in the case of the foreigners, were given back to them. Next
+day they were reviewed by General Cadorna. As the Italians presented arms
+to the retiring host, some of the Antibes Legion shouted at them: 'We are
+French, we shall meet you again.' The Roman troops were sent to their
+homes; the foreigners conducted to the <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg.411]</a></span> frontier, Charette and other
+of the French officers went to the battlefields of their prostrate
+country, and thus it came to pass that the Pope's defenders were found
+fighting side by side with Garibaldi; they, indeed, only doing their
+simple duty, but he, acting on an impulse of Quixotic generosity which was
+repaid&mdash;the world knows how!</p>
+
+<p>Cadorna received three pressing requests from the Pope to occupy the
+Leonine City, and the third he granted. The idea of leaving the part of
+Rome on which the Vatican stands under the Pope's jurisdiction had been
+long favoured by a certain class of politicians, and Lanza made a last
+effort to give it effect by excluding the Leonine City from the plebiscite
+which was ordered to take place in Rome and in the Roman province on the
+2nd of October. It was in vain. The first voting urn to arrive at the
+Capitol on the appointed day was a glass receptacle borne by a huge
+Trasteverino, and preceded by a banner inscribed: 'Citt&agrave; Leonina
+Si.' As the Government had not supplied the inhabitants with an official
+urn, it occurred to them to provide themselves with an unofficial one in
+which they duly deposited their votes. The Roman plebiscite yielded the
+results of 133,681 affirmative and 1507 negative votes.</p>
+
+<p>In December the Italian Parliament met for the last time in the Hall of
+the Five Hundred. 'Italy,' said the King in the speech from the throne,
+'is free and united; it depends on us to make her great and happy.' Of
+this last session at Florence the principal labour was the Act embodying
+the Papal guarantees which was intended to safeguard the legitimate
+independence and decorum of the Holy See on the lines formerly advocated
+by Cavour. Neither extreme party was satisfied, but it seemed at first not
+unlikely that the Pope would tacitly acquiesce in the arrangement. The
+first monthly payment of the national <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg.412]</a></span> dotation, calculated to
+correspond with his civil list, was accepted. But though the influence of
+Cardinal Antonelli and the Italian prelates had been sufficient to keep
+the Pope in Rome, the influence of those who wished him to leave it was
+strong enough to establish at the Vatican the intransigent policy which
+has been pursued till now.</p>
+
+<p>During the flood of the Tiber which devastated the city that winter,
+the King of Italy paid a first informal visit to his capital, accompanied
+only by a few attendants, and bent on bringing help to the suffering
+population. In July 1872, he made his solemn entry, and at the same time
+the seat of Government was transferred to the Eternal City.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p>Victor Emmanuel could say what few men have been able to say of so
+large a promise: 'I have kept my word.' He gathered up the Italian flag
+from the dust of Novara, and carried it to the Capitol. In spite of the
+grandeur of republican tradition in Italy, and the lofty character of the
+men who represented it during the struggle for unity, a study of these
+events leaves on the mind the conviction that, at least in our time, the
+country could neither have been freed from the stranger nor welded into a
+single body-politic without a symbol which appealed to the imagination,
+and a centre of gravity which kept the diverse elements together by giving
+the whole its proper balance. The Liberating Prince whom Machiavelli
+sought was found in the Savoyard King. 'Quali porte se gli serrerebbono?
+Quali popoli gli negherebbono la obbedienza? Quale invidia se gli
+opporrebbe? Quale Italiano gli negherebbe l'ossequio?' To fill the
+appointed part Victor Emmanuel possessed the supreme qualification, which
+was patriotism. Though he <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_413" id=
+"Page_413">[Pg.413]</a></span> came of an ambitious race, not even his
+enemies could with any seriousness bring to his charge personal ambition,
+since every step which took him further from the Alps, his fathers'
+cradle, involved a sacrifice of tastes and habits, and of most that made
+life congenial. When his work was finished, though he was not old, he had
+the presentiment that he should not long survive its completion. And so it
+proved.</p>
+
+<p>In the first days of January 1878, the King was seized with one of
+those attacks on the lungs which his vigorous constitution had hitherto
+enabled him to throw off. But in Rome this kind of illness is more fatal
+than elsewhere, and the doctors were soon obliged to tell him that there
+was no hope. 'Are we come to that?' he asked; and then directed that the
+chaplain should be summoned. There was no repetition of the scene at San
+Rossore; the highest authority had already sanctioned the administration
+of the Sacraments to the dying King, nay, it is said that the Pope's first
+impulse was to be himself the bearer of them. At that hour the man got the
+better of the priest; Francis drove out Dominic. The heart that had been
+made to pity and the lips that had been formed to bless returned to their
+natural functions. When the aged Pius heard that all was over, exclaimed:
+'He died like a Christian, a Sovereign and an honest man (galantuomo).'
+Very soon the Pope followed the King to the grave, and so, almost
+together, these two historical figures disappear.</p>
+
+<p>Six years before, solitary and unsatisfied, Mazzini died at Pisa, his
+heart gnawed with the desire of the extreme, as the hearts have been of
+all those who aspired less to change what men do, or even what they
+believe, than what they are. More deep than political regrets was the pain
+with which he watched the absorption of human energies, in the <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg.414]</a></span> race
+for wealth, for ease, for material happiness; he discerned that if the
+egotism of capital led to oppression, the egotism of labour would lead to
+anarchy. To the end he preached the moral law of which he had been the
+apostle through life. His last message to his countrymen, written when the
+pen was falling from his hand, was a warning to Italian workingmen to
+beware of the false gods of the new socialism. When others saw darkness he
+saw light; now, Cassandra-like, he saw darkness when others saw light; yet
+he did not doubt the ultimate triumph of the light, but he no longer
+thought that his eyes would see it, and he was glad to close them.</p>
+
+<p>Less sad, notwithstanding his physical martyrdom, were Garibaldi's last
+years. Italy showed him an unforgetting love; when he came to the
+continent, the same multitudes waited for him as of old, but instead of
+cheers there was a not less impressive silence now, lest the invalid
+should be disturbed. Soon after the transfer of the capital he went to
+Rome to speak in favour of the works by which it was proposed to control
+the inundations of the Tiber, and it was curious to hear it said on all
+sides that, of course, the Tiber works must be taken in hand as Garibaldi
+wished it. Pius IX. summed up the situation wittily in the remark: 'Lately
+we were two here; now we are three.' The old hero invoked the day when
+bayonets might be turned into pruning-hooks, but he by no means thought
+that it had arrived, and in the meanwhile he urged the Italians to look to
+their defences, and above all, 'to be strong on the sea, like England.' In
+the matter of government he remained the impenitent advocate of the rule
+of one honest man&mdash;call him Dictator or what you please, so he be
+one! Garibaldi died at Caprera on the 2nd of June 1882. The play was
+ended, the actors <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">
+[Pg.415]</a></span> vanished:</p>
+
+<pre>
+  [Greek: Dote kroton, kai pantes hymeis meta charas ktup&ecirc;sate.]
+</pre>
+
+<p>A new epoch has begun which need not detain the chronicler of Italian
+Liberation. The prose of possession succeeds the poetry of desire.
+Nothing, however, can lessen the greatness of the achievement. With regard
+to the future, it may be allowable to recall the superstition which, like
+so many other seemingly meaningless beliefs, becomes full of meaning when
+read according to the spirit: that a house stands long if its foundations
+be watered with the blood of sacrifice. No work of man was ever watered
+with a purer blood than the restoration of Italy to the ranks of living
+nations. And the last word of this book shall be Hope.</p>
+
+<h3>THE END.</h3>
+
+<hr />
+<h5>COLSTON AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.</h5>
+
+<h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor1">[1]</a></p>
+
+<div class="note">
+<p>See <i>Memoirs of Lord Castlereagh</i>, 1848, Vol. i. p. 34.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor2">[2]</a></p>
+
+<div class="note">
+<p>It is now Carlyle's turn to be aspersed. Let Mazzini speak for him from
+the grave: 'I do not know if I told you,' he wrote to the Marchesa
+Eleonora Curlo Ruffini, in a letter published a few months ago, 'that I
+have met upon my path, deserted enough, I hope, by choice, a Scotchman of
+mind and things, the first person here, up till now, with whom I
+sympathise and who sympathises with me. We differ in nearly all opinions,
+but his are so sincere and disinterested that I respect them. He is good,
+good, good; he has been, and I think he is still, unhappy in spite of the
+fame which surrounds him; he has a wife with talent and feeling; always
+ailing; no children. They live out of town, and I go to see them every now
+and then. They have no insular or other prejudices that jar upon me. I
+have grown more intimate with this man in consequence, I think, of an
+article I wrote here, after knowing him, against an historical work of
+his; perhaps, accustomed as he is to common-place praise, to which he is
+indifferent, my frankness pleased him. For the rest I shall see him
+rarely, and I can only give him esteem and the warmest sympathy&mdash;not
+friendship, which I can henceforth give to no one.' (22nd March 1840.)</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor3">[3]</a></p>
+
+<div class="note">
+<p>On the production of Verdi's opera, <i>I Lombardi alla prima
+Crociata</i>, the Austrian Archbishop of Milan wished the Commissary of
+Police to prohibit the performance because it treated of sacred subjects.
+When it was recognised as one of the accelerating causes of the
+revolution, he drily remarked that they would have done better to take his
+advice. The grand chorus, 'O Signore dal tetto nati&ograve;,' in which the
+censor had only seen a pious chant, became the morning-song of national
+resurrection.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor4">[4]</a></p>
+
+<div class="note">
+<p>Long live who has money and who has none.'</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor5">[5]</a></p>
+
+<div class="note">
+<p>Of Garibaldi's foreign officers, Colonel (afterwards General) Dunne was
+one of the most marked personalities. When quite a young man he sold his
+commission in the English army and took to fighting under many flags. In
+the Crimean War he commanded a company of Bashi Bazouks. He had in him
+more than a dash of Gordon, of Burton, and like them he could do what he
+chose with untamed natures. If he was not obeyed fast enough he adopted
+rather strong measures. A Sicilian company, under fire for the first time,
+failed to show sufficient promptitude in executing an order to escalade a
+wall and jump into a garden, from which the enemy was keeping up a brisk
+fire. Dunne caught up half-a-dozen of the men into his saddle and pitched
+them bodily over the wall. The effect was singular, for seeing the
+Garibaldians falling from the clouds, the Neapolitans took to their heels,
+exclaiming: 'They can fly! they can fly!' Generally, however, he infused
+his own courage into all who served under him with a touch, perhaps, of
+his own fatalistic mysticism. It was a strange experience to hear this
+courteous, mild-mannered gentleman lament that Rome had not been burnt
+down; the disappearance of the scene of so many awful crimes he regarded
+necessary as a moral sanitary measure.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="note">
+<p>Of Garibaldi's foreign officers, Colonel (afterwards General) Dunne was
+one of the most marked personalities. When quite a young man he sold his
+commission in the English army and took to fighting under many flags. In
+the Crimean War he commanded a company of Bashi Bazouks. He had in him
+more than a dash of Gordon, of Burton, and like them he could do what he
+chose with untamed natures. If he was not obeyed fast enough he adopted
+rather strong measures. A Sicilian company, under fire for the first time,
+failed to show sufficient promptitude in executing an order to escalade a
+wall and jump into a garden, from which the enemy was keeping up a brisk
+fire. Dunne caught up half-a-dozen of the men into his saddle and pitched
+them bodily over the wall. The effect was singular, for seeing the
+Garibaldians falling from the clouds, the Neapolitans took to their heels,
+exclaiming: 'They can fly! they can fly!' Generally, however, he infused
+his own courage into all who served under him with a touch, perhaps, of
+his own fatalistic mysticism. It was a strange experience to hear this
+courteous, mild-mannered gentleman lament that Rome had not been burnt
+down; the disappearance of the scene of so many awful crimes he regarded
+necessary as a moral sanitary measure.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<h3>INDEX</h3>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Albrecht, Archduke, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>, <a href="#Page_369">
+369</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Alessandria, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Alfieri, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Alemann, General, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Amedeo, Prince, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_344">
+344</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Amadeus, Victor, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Amadeus with the Tail, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Amp&egrave;re, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Andreoli, Giuseppe, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Antonelli, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_130">
+130</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a
+href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_409">409</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Anzani, Francesco, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Appel, General, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Arnim, Count, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Aspre, d', General, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_139">
+139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Aspromonte, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>,
+<a href="#Page_350">350</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Austerlitz, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Azeglio, Massimo d', <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_74">
+74</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_206">
+206</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Bandiera, <a href="#Page_67">67-68</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bassi, Ugo, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_163">
+163</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bastide, Jules, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>
+
+<li>Bava, General, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_114">
+114</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bazaine, Marshal, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li>
+
+<li>Beauharnais, Eug&egrave;ne, <a href="#Page_6">6-9</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Beauregard, Costa de, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bellegarde, Marshal, <a href="#Page_9">9-11</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Benedek, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a
+href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bentinck, Lord William, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_11">
+11</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bentivegna, Count, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Berlin, Congress of, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bertani, Dr, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>,
+<a href="#Page_309">309</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Beust, Count, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bianchi, B. dei, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bismarck, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397-8</a>,
+<a href="#Page_408">408</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bixio, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a
+href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>, <a href="#Page_408">
+408</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Boccheciampi, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Borj&egrave;s, Jos&egrave;, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Brescia, Revolution at, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Briganti, General, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_302">
+302</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Brofferio, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bronzetta, Pilade, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_320">
+320</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bubna, Count, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Brunetti, Angelo, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Buol, Count, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Buonaparte, Joseph, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Buonaparte, Lucien, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Cadorna, Gen., <a href="#Page_408">408-9</a>, <a href="#Page_410">
+410-11</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Caiazzo, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Cairoli, Benedetto, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_380">
+380</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Calabria helps Garibaldi, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Calandrelli, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Calatafimi, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Calderai del Contrapeso, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Campo Formio, Treaty of, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Canrobert, General, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Capponi, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Caprera, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a
+href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Capua, War around, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_318">
+318</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">capitulation, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Carignano, Prince of, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_32">
+32</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Carignano. Eugene de, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Carlyle, Thomas, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Caroline, Queen, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Casati, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Caserta, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_318">
+318</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Carusso, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Castelfidardo, <a href="#Page_337">
+337</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Castelnuovo, burning of village, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Castel Sant Elmo, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_307">
+307</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Castiglione, Count, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Castlereagh, Lord, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_12">
+12</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Cattaneo, ; party of,<a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Cavour, Count, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">becomes minister, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">resolves Piedmont shall join Allies in Crimean War, <a
+href="#Page_202">202</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">visits England, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">meets Napoleon at Plombi&egrave;res, <a href=
+"#Page_247">247</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">resigns office, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">recalled, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">resolves to invade Papal States, <a href="#Page_310">
+310</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Garibaldi's veterans, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Rome to be capital, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">death, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Centurioni, Society of, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Charette, General, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Charles III, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_236">
+236</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Charles Albert, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>,
+<a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_38">
+38</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">accession <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Re Tentenna, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">promulgates Charter, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">retreat to Milan, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">abdicates, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">burial, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Charles Emmanuel. <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_30">
+30</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Charles Felix, Duke of Genoa, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_56">
+56</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Charles Ludovico, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Chiavone, General, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Chretien, General, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_286">
+286</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Chrzanowski, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">
+140</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Cialdini, General, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_328">
+328</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a
+href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_337">337</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Cipriani, L.<a href="#Page_225">255</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Civita Vecchia, the French at, <a href="#Page_391">391-408</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Clam Gallas, Count, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Clarendon, Lord, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_206">
+206</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Clary, General, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Clotilde, Princess, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_218">
+218</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Colonna, General, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Commacchio, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Confalonieri, Count, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_41">
+41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Conneau, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Corsini, Prince, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_135">
+135</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Corti, Count, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Cosenz, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a
+href="#Page_360">360</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Cowley, Lord, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Crispi, Francesco, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_292">
+292</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Cristina, Princess, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Crocco, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Custozza, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_370">
+370</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Dalmatia, sold with Venice, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Dante, <a href="#Page_1">1-3</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a
+href="#Page_363">363</a>.</li>
+
+<li>De Castillia, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Del Bosco, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_291">
+291</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Depretis, Agostino, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>.</li>
+
+<li>D'Este, Francis. <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_51">
+51</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Dolfi, Giuseppe, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Drouyn de Lhuys, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Dunne, Colonel, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_319">
+319</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Durando, General. <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_107">
+107</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Eboli. <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Elliot, Mr, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_266">266</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Falloux, de, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Fanti, General, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_312">
+312</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Farini, L.C., <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>,
+<a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>, <a href="#Page_339">
+339</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Faro, Cape of, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_298">
+298</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Favre, Jules. <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_397">
+397</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ferdinand II., <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>,
+<a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_102">
+102</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ferdinand III., <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>,
+<a href="#Page_28">28</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ferdinand, Emperor of Austria, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ferrara, Austrians in, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ferretti, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Fleury, General, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Florence, capital of Italy, <a href="#Page_352">352-411</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Forbes, Commander, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_305">
+305</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Foscolo, Ugo, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">
+18</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Fra Giacomo. <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_339">
+339</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Francis I., <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Francis II., <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>,
+<a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_330">
+330</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Francis Joseph, Emperor, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_240">
+240</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Gaeta, Fall of, <a href="#Page_317">317-326</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Gamba, Pietro, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_50">
+50</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Gambetta, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Gaminara, Emmanuele, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Garibaldi, Giuseppe, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_120">
+120</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">declared enemy of the State, <a href="#Page_121">
+121</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">in South America, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">marries Anita, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">in Rome, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">death of Anita, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">leaves Caprera, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_256">256-263</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Sicilian expedition, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">march on Naples, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Battle of Solferino, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">of Garigliano, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">returns to Caprera, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a
+href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">wounded, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">arrested, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">in Rome, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">defeat at Mentana, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">death, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Garibaldi, Menotti, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_280">
+280</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a
+href="#Page_392">392</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Garigliano, Battle of, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Genoa, ceded to Sardinia, <a href="#Page_13">13-15</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Genoa, Charles Felix, Duke of, <a href="#Page_30">30-32</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ghio, General, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_303">
+303</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Giacinta di Collegno, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Gioberti, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Gladstone, W.E., <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Goito, Battle of, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Gravelotte, Battle of, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Gregory XVI., <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a
+href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Guerrazzi, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_136">
+136</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Gyulai, Count, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_230">
+230</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Haynau, General, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_162">
+162</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Hess, General, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_230">
+230</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Hilliers, Baraguay d' , <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Hoche, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Hortense, Queen, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Humbert of the White Hands, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Immaculate Conception, Doctrine of, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Jesuits, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a
+href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Kanzler, General, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Kellersperg, Baron von, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Klapka, General, <a href="#Page_357">357</a></li>
+
+<li>Kohlen-Brenners, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Kossuth, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_253">
+253</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Kuhn, General, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Laderchi, Count, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li>
+
+<li>La Farina, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.</li>
+
+<li>La Gala, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Lamartine, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li>
+
+<li>La Marmora, General, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_171">
+171</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a
+href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_357">348</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_359">348</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361-366</a></li>
+
+<li>Lamorici&egrave;re, General, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_313">313</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Lannes, Marshal, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Lanza, General, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_283">
+283</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>, <a
+href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Le Boeuf, General, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Leo XII., <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Leopardi, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Leopold II., <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>,
+<a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Lesseps, Ferdinand, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_154">
+154</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Letizia, General, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_286">
+286</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Liborio Romano, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Lincoln, President, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Lissa, Battle of, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Lodi, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Lombardy, trials in, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Revolution, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_162">162</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Louis Philippe, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Lucca, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Machiavelli, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a
+href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>.</li>
+
+<li>MacMahon, Marshal, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_233">
+233</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Magenta, Battle of, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_234">
+234</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Malghella, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Malmesbury, Lord, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Mamelli, Goffredo, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_155">
+155</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Manin, Daniel, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>,
+<a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_203">203</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Mantua, Prince Eugene in, <a href="#Page_8">8-10</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">gallant defence, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Manzoni, Alessandro, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Margaret, Queen, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_401">
+401</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Maria Adelaide, Queen, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Maria Teresa, Queen, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Marie Louise, Empress, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_31">
+31</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">death, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Marie Sofia, Princess, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Mamiani, Terenzio, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_131">
+131</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Maroncelli, Pietro, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Marryat, Captain, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Marsala, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a
+href="#Page_345">345</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Martinengo, Count, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Mary, Princess, of Cambridge, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Mastai Ferretti, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Matilda, Archduchess, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Maximilian, Archduke, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Mazzini, Giuseppe, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_57">
+57</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">early life, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">becomes a Carbonaro, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Association of Young Italy, <a href="#Page_63">
+63</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">takes refuge in England, <a href="#Page_66">
+66</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">writes 'Duties of Man,'<a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">meets Garibaldi, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">at Rome, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_157">157</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">letters from Orsini, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">protests against Napoleonic war, <a href="#Page_220">
+220</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">in Naples, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_354">354-357</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">corresponds with the king, <a href="#Page_398">
+398</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">arrested, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">death, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Medici, Giacomo, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">
+125</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a
+href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_318">
+318</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Melegnano, Battle of, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Menabrea, General, <a href="#Page_388">388-395</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_400">400-402</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Menechini, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Menotti, Ciro, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>,
+<a href="#Page_64">64</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Mentana, Battle of, <a href="#Page_392">392-397</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_404">404</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Merode, Marquis de, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Messina, held by Royal troops, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">evacuated, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Metternich, Prince, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_32">
+32</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>,
+<a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Mezzacapo, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Micca, Pietro, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Milan, revolt, <a href="#Page_8">8-10</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">fighting in the city, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Austrians depart, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Milano, Ageslao, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Milazzo, Battle of, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Mincio, Battle of. <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_241">
+241</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a
+href="#Page_369">369</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Minghetti, Marco, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_129">
+129</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Minto, Lord, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_116">
+116</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Misilmeri, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Misley, Dr, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Missori, Major. <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Modena, revolution in, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Monreale, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Montalembert, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Montanelli, Giuseppe, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Monti, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Montebello, Battle of, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Morelli. <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Moro, Domenico, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Moscow, retreat from, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Mundy, Admiral, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_283">
+283</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a
+href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Murat, Joachim, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a
+href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_23">
+23</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Napier, Lord, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_92">
+92</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Naples, <a href="#Page_25">25-29</a>, <a href="#Page_101">
+101</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">massacre, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">misrule in, <a href="#Page_186">186-187</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Garibaldi's march on, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">King enters, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Napoleon Buonaparte, <a href="#Page_2">2-10</a>, <a href="#Page_240">
+240</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Napoleon III., <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">elected President of French Republic, <a href=
+"#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">letter to Ney, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">attempt on his life, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">compact at Plombi&egrave;res, <a href="#Page_217">
+217</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">demands Nice and Savoy, <a href="#Page_260">
+260-262</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">era of peace, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Napoleon, Prince, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_229">
+229</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a
+href="#Page_406">406</a>.</li>
+
+<li>N&eacute;laton, Dr, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ney, Edgar, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Nice, cession of. <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_224">
+224</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Nicotera, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_297">
+297</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Niel, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ninco-Nanco, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Normanby, Lord, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_228">
+228</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Novara, <a href="#Page_37">37-39</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">battle of, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_412">412</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Nugent, General, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_112">
+112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>O'Donnel, Count, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Oliphant, Laurence, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_266">
+266</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Olivier, Emile, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Orsini, Colonel, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Orsini, Felice, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_216">
+216</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Oudinot, General, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_156">
+156</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Palermo, strange discovery, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Sicilian expedition, <a href="#Page_271">
+271-290</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">insurrection, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pallavicini, Giorgio, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_137">
+137</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a
+href="#Page_344"></a>, <a href="#Page_348"></a>, <a href="#Page_360">
+360</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Palma, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li>
+
+<li>Palmerston, Lord, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_111">
+111</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, 1<a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_355">
+355</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Panizzi, Anthony, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Paris, Treaty of, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Congress of, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Parma, <a href="#Page_12">12-16</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Passaglia, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pastrengo, Battle of, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Peard, Colonel, <a href="#Page_303">303-306</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pellico, Silvio, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_43">
+43</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pepe, Guglielmo, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_111">
+111</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li>
+
+<li>P&eacute;rier, Casimir, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Persano, Admiral, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_288">
+288</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>, <a
+href="#Page_377">377</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Peschiera, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>,
+<a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Petitti. General, <a href="#Page_378">378</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Petre, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Piacenza, garrisoned by Austrians, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Piedmont, Revolution in, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">struggle within the Church, <a href="#Page_189">
+189-192</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pietri, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pilone, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pilo, Rosalino, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_278">
+278</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pisacane, Carlo, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pius VII., <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pius VIII., <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pius IX., <a href="#Page_78">78</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">election, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_93">93</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">grants constitution, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">encyclical letter, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">flight to Gaeta, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">calls foreign aid to support temporal power, <a href=
+"#Page_132">132</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">thanksgiving, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_259">259</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">character, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">calls to arms, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_408">408</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">death, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Plombi&egrave;res, meeting between Napoleon and Cavour <a href=
+"#Page_217">217</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Poerio, Carlo, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>,
+<a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pralormo, Count, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Prina, General, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Prince Consort, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_258">
+258</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Radetsky, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a
+href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_195">
+195</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Raimondi, Captain, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Rattazzi, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a
+href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_342">
+342</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>, <a
+href="#Page_384">384</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Reggio, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Renzi, Pietro, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ricasoli, Baron, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_235">
+235</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a
+href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_361">361</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Rienzi, Cola di, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Rimini, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Risorgimento, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Rolandis, de, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Romagna, Carbonarism in the, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_50">50</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Rome, Entry of French, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">French depart from, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">declared capital, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Romeo, Domenico, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Rossaroll, General, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Rossetti, Gabriele, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Rossi, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Rouher, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ruffini, Jacobo, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ruskin, J., <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Russell, Lord John, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_268">
+268</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>. <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Russell, Odo, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Sadowa, Battle of, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Salemi, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Salerno, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li>
+
+<li>San Bon, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Sanfedesti, Secret Society of, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li>
+
+<li>San Marino, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li>
+
+<li>San Martino, Count, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Santa Rosa, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Santorre di Santa Rosa, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Sardinia&mdash;War with Austria, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Savoy, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">cession of, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_259">
+259</a>, <a href="#Page_262"></a>.</li>
+
+<li>Schmidt, Colonel, <a href="#Page_237"></a>.</li>
+
+<li>Schwarzenberg, Prince, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_244">
+244</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Sella, Quintino, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Settembrini, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Sicily&mdash;Insurrection, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Sicilian expedition, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Silvati, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Sirtori, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_360">
+360</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Speri, Tito, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Spielberg, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Solaro della Margherita, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Solferino, Battle of, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_245">245</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Superga, the, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Talleyrand, Prince, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_260">
+260</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Tardio, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Tchernaja, Battle of, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Tegethoff, Admiral, <a href="#Page_373">373-377</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Theobald de Brie, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Theodolinda, Crown of, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Thiers, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>, <a
+href="#Page_404">404</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Thurn, General, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ticino, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a
+href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_233">233</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Tolentino, Battle of, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Torelli, Prince, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Tortona, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Traz&eacute;gnies, Marquis de, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Trentino, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>, <a
+href="#Page_371">371</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Trescorre, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_343">
+343</a>.</li>
+
+<li>T&uuml;rr, General, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_405">
+405</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Ulloa, General, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ultramontanes, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_259">
+259</a>, <a href="#Page_397">379</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Umberto, Prince, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_344">
+344</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>, <a
+href="#Page_401">401</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Urban, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Vacca, Admiral, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Vaillant, General, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_261">
+261</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Vecchj, Colonel, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Venice, <a href="#Page_3">3-5</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">political trials in, <a href="#Page_40">40-44</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Austrians expelled, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">re-occupied by Austria, <a href="#Page_160">
+160-163</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a
+href="#Page_356">356</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">united to Italy, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Venosta, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>, <a
+href="#Page_407">407</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Verona, Congress of, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Victor Amadeus, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Victor Emmanuel I.,</li>
+
+<li class="indent">at Turin, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">King of Sardinia, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">abdicates, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">recommends mercy, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Victor Emmanuel II.;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">accession, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">unpopularity, <a href="#Page_165">165-166</a></li>
+
+<li class="indent">visits English and French courts, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">invites Garibaldi to join his army, <a href=
+"#Page_221">221</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">enters Milan, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">courage at Soferino,<a href="#Page_245">245</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">peace with Austria, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">letter to Napoleon, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">hailed King of Italy, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">entry into Naples, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">in Venice, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">illness, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">visit to Berlin, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">death, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Victoria, Queen, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Vienna, Congress of, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_15">
+15</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Treaty of, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Vimercati, Count, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_169">
+169</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Volturno, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a
+href="#Page_315">315</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Battle of, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Waddington, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Welden, General, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Wellesley, Admiral, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Wellington, Duke of, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</li>
+
+<li>William I., Emperor, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_408">
+408</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Wilmot, Lieutenant, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_284">
+284</a>.</li>
+
+<li>W&ouml;rth, Battle of, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Wratislaw, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Young Italy, Association of, founded by Mazzini, <a href="#Page_63">
+63</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Zamboni, Luigi, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Zedwitz, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_244">
+244</a>,</li>
+
+<li>Zobel, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Zorzi, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Zucchi, General, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Zurich,</li>
+
+<li class="indent">(Conference of), <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li>
+
+<li class="indent">(Treaty of), <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14078 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
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@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #14078 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14078)
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Liberation of Italy, by Countess Evelyn
+Martinengo-Cesaresco
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Liberation of Italy
+
+Author: Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
+
+Release Date: November 17, 2004  [eBook #14078]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIBERATION OF ITALY***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Jayam, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+THE LIBERATION OF ITALY 1815-1870
+
+by the
+
+COUNTESS EVELYN MARTINENGO CESARESCO
+
+Author of 'Italian Characters In The Epoch Of Unification' (_Patriotti
+Italiani_), etc.
+
+With Portraits
+
+London
+
+Seeley And Co, Limited
+Essex Street, Strand
+
+1895
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[FRONTISPIECE: GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The old figure of speech 'in the fulness of time' embodies a truth too
+often forgotten. History knows nothing of spontaneous generation; the
+chain of cause and effect is unbroken, and however modest be the
+scale on which an historical work is cast, the reader has a right to
+ask that it should give him some idea, not only of what happened, but
+of why it happened. A catalogue of dates and names is as meaningless
+as the photograph of a crowd. In the following retrospect, I have
+attempted to trace the principal factors that worked towards Italian
+unity. The Liberation of Italy is a cycle waiting to be turned into an
+epic.
+
+In other words, it presents the appearance of a series of detached
+episodes, but the parts have an intimate connection with the whole,
+which, as time wears on, will constantly emerge into plainer light.
+Every year brings with it the issue of documents, letters, memoirs,
+that help to unravel the tangled threads in which this subject has
+been enveloped, and which have made it less generally understood than
+the two other great struggles of the century, the American fight for
+the Union, and the unification of Germany.
+
+I cannot too strongly state my indebtedness to the voluminous
+literature which has grown up in Italy round the _Risorgimento_ since
+its completion; yet it must not be supposed that the witness of
+contemporaries published from hour to hour, in every European tongue,
+while the events were going on, has become or will ever become
+valueless. I have had access to a collection of these older writings,
+formed with much care between the years 1850-1870, and some
+authorities that were wanting, I found in the library of Sir James
+Hudson, given by him to Count Giuseppe Martinengo Cesaresco after he
+left the British legation at Turin.
+
+There are, of course, many books in which the affairs of Italy figure
+only incidentally, which ought to be consulted by anyone who wishes to
+study the inner working of the Italian movement. Of such are Lord
+Castlereagh's _Despatches and Correspondence_, and the autobiographies
+of Prince Metternich and Count Beust.
+
+Perhaps I have been helped in describing the events clearly, by the
+fact that I am familiar with almost all the places where they
+occurred, from the heights of Calatafimi to the unhappy rock of Lissa.
+Wherever the language of the _Si_ sounds, we tread upon the history of
+the Revolution that achieved what a great English orator once called,
+'the noblest work ever undertaken by man.'
+
+The supreme interest of the re-casting of Italy arises from the new
+spectacle of a nation made one not by conquest but by consent. Above
+and beyond the other causes that contributed to the conclusion must
+always be reckoned the gathering of an emotional wave, only comparable
+to the phenomena displayed by the mediæval religious revivals.
+Sentiment, it is said, is what makes the real historical miracles. A
+writer on Italian Liberation would be indeed misleading who failed to
+take account of the passionate longing which stirred and swayed even
+the most outwardly cold of those who took part in it, and nerved an
+entire people to heroic effort.
+
+Salò, Lago di Garda.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+RESURGAM
+
+Italy from the Battle of Lodi to the Congress of Vienna
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE WORK OF THE CARBONARI
+
+Revolutions in the Kingdom of Naples and in Piedmont--The Conspiracy
+against Charles Albert
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PRISON AND SCAFFOLD
+
+Political Trials in Venetia and Lombardy--Risings in the South and
+Centre--Ciro Menotti
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+YOUNG ITALY
+
+Accession of Charles Albert--Mazzini's Unitarian Propaganda--The
+Brothers Bandiera
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE POPE LIBERATOR
+
+Events leading to the Election of Pius IX.--The Petty Princes--Charles
+Albert, Leopold and Ferdinand
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE YEAR OF REVOLUTION
+
+Insurrection in Sicily--The Austrians expelled from Milan and
+Venice--Charles Albert takes the Field--Withdrawal of the Pope and
+King of Naples--Piedmont defeated--The Retreat
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE DOWNFALL OF THRONES
+
+Garibaldi arrives--Venice under Manin--The Dissolution of the Temporal
+Power--Republics at Rome and Florence
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+AT BAY
+
+Novara--Abdication of Charles Albert--Brescia crushed--French
+Intervention--The Fall of Rome--The Fall of Venice
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+'J'ATTENDS MON ASTRE'
+
+The House of Savoy--A King who Keeps his Word--Sufferings of the
+Lombards--Charles Albert's death
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE REVIVAL OF PIEDMONT
+
+Restoration of the Pope and Grand-Duke of Tuscany--Misrule at Naples--
+The Struggle with the Church in Piedmont--The Crimean War
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+PREMONITIONS OF THE STORM
+
+Pisacane's Landing--Orsini's Attempt--The Compact of
+Plombières--Cavour's Triumph
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE WAR FOR LOMBARDY
+
+Austria declares War--Montebello--Garibaldi's Campaign--Palestro--
+Magenta--The Allies enter Milan--Ricasoli saves Italian Unity--
+Accession of Francis II.--Solferino--The Armistice of Villafranca
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+WHAT UNITY COST
+
+Napoleon III. and Cavour--The Cession of Savoy and Nice--Annexations
+in Central Italy
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE MARCH OF THE THOUSAND
+
+Origin of the Expedition--Garibaldi at Marsala--Calatafimi--The Taking
+of Palermo--Milazzo--The Bourbons evacuate Sicily
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE MEETING OF THE WATERS
+
+Garibaldi's March on Naples--The Piedmontese in Umbria and the
+Marches--The Volturno. Victor Emmanuel enters Naples
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+BEGINNINGS OF THE ITALIAN KINGDOM
+
+The Fall of Gaeta--Political Brigandage--The Proclamation of the
+Italian Kingdom--Cavour's Death
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+'ROME OR DEATH!'
+
+Cavour's Successors--Aspromonte--The September Convention--Garibaldi's
+Visit to England
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE WAR FOR VENICE
+
+The Prussian Alliance--Custoza--Lissa--The Volunteers--Acquisition of
+Venetia
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE LAST CRUSADE
+
+The French leave Rome--Garibaldi's Arrest and Escape--The Second French
+Intervention--Monte Rotondo--Mentana
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+ROME THE CAPITAL
+
+M. Rouher's 'Never!'--Papal Infallibility--Sédan--The Breach in Porta
+Pia--The King of Italy in Rome
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+     GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI (Frontispiece)
+
+     GIUSEPPE MAZZINI
+
+     KING VICTOR EMMANUEL
+
+     COUNT CAVOUR
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+RESURGAM
+
+Italy from the Battle of Lodi to the Congress of Vienna.
+
+
+The unity of Italy, which the statesmen of Europe and all save a small
+number of the Italians themselves still regarded as an utopia when it
+was on the verge of accomplishment, was, nevertheless, desired and
+foreseen by the two greatest intellects produced by the Italian race.
+Dante conceived an Italy united under the Empire, which returning from
+a shameful because self-imposed exile would assume its natural seat in
+Rome. To him it was a point of secondary interest that the Imperial
+Lord happened to be bred beyond the Alps, that he was of Teutonic, not
+of Latin blood. If the Emperor brought the talisman of his authority
+to the banks of the Tiber, Italy would overcome the factions which
+rent her, and would not only rule herself, but lead mankind. Vast as
+the vision was, Dante cannot be called presumptuous for having
+entertained it. The Rome of the Cæsars, the Rome of the Popes, had
+each transformed the world: Italy was transforming it for a third time
+at that moment by the spiritual awakening which, beginning with the
+Renaissance, led by inevitable steps to the Reformation. The great
+Florentine poet had the right to dream that his country was invested
+with a providential mission, that his people was a chosen people,
+which, by its own fault and by the fault of others, had lost its way,
+but would find it again. Such was Dante's so-called Ghibelline
+programme--less Ghibelline than intensely and magnificently Italian.
+His was a mind too mighty to be caged within the limits of partisan
+ambitions. The same may be said of Machiavelli. He also imagined, or
+rather discerned in the future, a regenerate Italy under a single
+head, and this, not the advancement of any particular man, was the
+grand event he endeavoured to hasten. With the impatience of a heart
+consumed by the single passion of patriotism, he conjured his
+fellow-countrymen to seize the first chance that presented itself,
+promising or unpromising, of reaching the goal. The concluding passage
+in the _Principe_ was meant as an exhortation; it reads as a prophecy.
+'We ought not therefore,' writes Machiavelli, 'to let this occasion
+pass whereby, after so long waiting, Italy may behold the coming of a
+saviour. Nor can I express with what love he would be received in all
+those provinces which have suffered from the foreign inundations; with
+what thirst of vengeance, with what obstinate faith, with what
+worship, with what tears! What doors would be closed against him? What
+people would deny him obedience? What jealousy would oppose him? What
+Italian would not do him honour? The barbarous dominion of the
+stranger stinks in the nostrils of all.'
+
+Another man of genius, an Italian whom a fortuitous circumstance made
+the citizen and the master of a country not his own, grasped both the
+vital necessity of unity from an Italian point of view, and the
+certainty of its ultimate achievement. Napoleon's notes on the
+subject, written at St Helena, sum up the whole question without
+rhetoric but with unanswerable logic:--'Italy is surrounded by the
+Alps and the sea. Her natural limits are defined with as much
+exactitude as if she were an island. Italy is only united to the
+Continent by 150 leagues of frontier, and these 150 leagues are
+fortified by the highest barrier that can be opposed to man. Italy,
+isolated between her natural limits, is destined to form a great and
+powerful nation. Italy is one nation; unity of customs, language and
+literature must, within a period more or less distant, unite her
+inhabitants under one sole government. And Rome will, without the
+slightest doubt, be chosen by the Italians as their capital.'
+
+Unlike Dante and Machiavelli, who could only sow the seed, not gather
+the fruit, the man who wrote these lines might have made them a
+reality. Had Napoleon wished to unite Italy--had he had the greatness
+of mind to proclaim Rome the capital of a free and independent
+state instead of turning it into the chief town of a French
+department--there was a time when he could plainly have done it.
+Whether redemption too easily won would have proved a gain or a loss
+in the long run to the populations welded together, not after their
+own long and laborious efforts, but by the sudden exercise of the will
+of a conqueror, is, of course, a different matter. The experiment was
+not tried. Napoleon, whom the simple splendour of such a scheme ought
+to have fascinated, did a very poor thing instead of a very great one:
+he divided Italy among his relations, keeping the lion's share for
+himself.
+
+Napoleon's policy in Italy was permanently compromised by the
+abominable sale of Venice, with her two thousand years of freedom, to
+the empire which, as no one knew better than he did, was the pivot of
+European despotism. After that transaction he could never again come
+before the Italians with clean hands; they might for a season make him
+their idol, carried away by the intoxication of his fame; they could
+never trust him in their inmost conscience. The ruinous consequences
+of the Treaty of Campo Formio only; ceased in 1866. The Venetians have
+been severely blamed, most of all by Italian historians, for making
+Campo Formio possible by opening the door to the French six months
+before. Napoleon could not have bartered away Venice if it had not
+belonged to him. The reason that it belonged to him was that, on the
+12th of May 1797, the Grand Council committed political suicide by
+dissolving the old aristocratic form of government, in compliance with
+a mere rumour, conveyed to them through the ignoble medium of a petty
+shopkeeper, that such was the wish of General Buonaparte. In
+extenuation of their fatal supineness, it may be urged that they felt
+the inherent weakness of an oligarchy out of date; and in the second
+place, that the victor of Lodi, the deliverer of Lombardy, then in the
+first flush of his scarcely tarnished glory, was a dazzling figure,
+calculated indeed to turn men's heads. But, after all, the only really
+valid excuse for them would have been that Venice lacked the means of
+defence, and this was not the case. She had 14,000 regular troops,
+8000 marines, a good stock of guns--how well she might have resisted
+the French, had they, which was probable, attacked her, was to be
+proved in 1849. Her people, moreover, that _basso popolo_ which
+nowhere in the world is more free from crime, more patient in
+suffering, more intelligent and public-spirited than in Venice, was
+anxious and ready to resist; when the nobles offered themselves a
+sacrifice on the Gallic altar by welcoming the proposed democratic
+institutions, the populace, neither hoodwinked nor scared into
+hysterics, rose to the old cry of San Marco, and attempted a righteous
+reaction, which was only smothered when the treacherous introduction
+of French troops by night on board Venetian vessels settled the doom
+of Venice's independence.
+
+'Under all circumstances,' Napoleon wrote to the Venetian Municipality,
+'I shall do what lies in my power to prove to you my desire to see your
+liberty consolidated, and miserable Italy assume, at last, a glorious
+place, free and independent of strangers.' On the 10th of the following
+October he made over Venice to Austria, sending as a parting word the
+cynical message to the Venetians 'that they were little fitted for
+liberty: if they were capable of appreciating it, and had the virtue
+necessary for acquiring it well and good; existing circumstances gave
+them an excellent opportunity of proving it.' At the time, the act of
+betrayal was generally regarded as part of a well-considered plot laid
+by the French Directory, but it seems certain that it was not made known
+to that body before it was carried out, and that with Napoleon himself
+it was a sort of after-thought, sprung from the desire to patch up an
+immediate peace with Austria on account of the appointment of Hoche to
+the chief command of the army in Germany. The god to which he immolated
+Venice was the selfish fear lest another general should reap his German
+laurels.
+
+Venice remained for eight years under the Austrians, who thereby
+obtained what, in flagrant perversion of the principles on which the
+Congress of Vienna professed to act, was accepted in 1815 as their
+title-deeds to its possession. Meanwhile, after the battle of
+Austerlitz, the city of the sea was tossed back to Napoleon, who
+incorporated it in the newly-created kingdom of Italy, which no more
+corresponded to its name than did the Gothic kingdom of which he
+arrogated to himself the heirship, when, placing the Iron Crown of
+Theodolinda upon his brow, he uttered the celebrated phrase: 'Dieu me
+l'a donnée, gare à qui la touche.'
+
+This is not the place to write a history of French supremacy in Italy,
+but several points connected with it must be glanced at, because,
+without bearing them in mind, it is impossible to understand the
+events which followed. The viceroyalty of Eugène Beauharnais in North
+Italy, and the government of Joseph Buonaparte, and afterwards of
+Joachim Murat, in the South, brought much that was an improvement on
+what had gone before: there were better laws, a better administration,
+a quickening of intelligence. 'The French have done much for the
+regeneration of Italy,' wrote an English observer in 1810; 'they have
+destroyed the prejudices of the inhabitants of the small states of
+Upper Italy by uniting them; they have done away with the Pope; they
+have made them soldiers.' But there was the reverse side of the medal:
+the absence everywhere of the national spirit which alone could have
+consolidated the new _régime_ on a firm basis; the danger which the
+language ran of losing its purity by the introduction of Gallicisms;
+the shameless robbery of pictures, statues, and national heirlooms of
+every kind for the replenishment of French museums; the bad impression
+left in the country districts by the abuses committed by the French
+soldiery on their first descent, and kept alive by the blood-tax
+levied in the persons of thousands of Italian conscripts sent to die,
+nobody knew where or why; the fields untilled, and Rachel weeping for
+her children: all these elements combined in rendering it difficult
+for the governments established under French auspices to survive the
+downfall of the man to whose sword they owed their existence. Their
+dissolution was precipitated, however, by the discordant action of
+Murat and Eugène Beauharnais. Had these two pulled together, whatever
+the issue was it would have differed in much from what actually
+happened. Murat was jealous of Eugène, and did not love his
+brother-in-law, who had annoyed and thwarted him through his whole
+reign; he was uneasy about his Neapolitan throne, and, in all
+likelihood, was already dreaming of acquiring the crown of an
+independent Italy. Throwing off his allegiance to Napoleon, he
+imagined the vain thing that he might gain his object by taking sides
+with the Austrians. It must be remembered that there was a time when
+the Allied Powers had distinctly contemplated Italian independence as
+a dyke to France, and there were people foolish enough to think that
+Austria, now she felt herself as strong as she had then felt weak,
+would consent to such a plan. Liberators, self-called, were absolutely
+swarming in Italy; Lord William Bentinck was promising entire
+emancipation from Leghorn; the Austrian and English allies in Romagna
+ransacked the dictionary for expressions in praise of liberty; an
+English officer was made the mouthpiece for the lying assurance of the
+Austrian Emperor Francis, that he had no intention of re-asserting any
+claims to the possession of Lombardy or Venetia.
+
+In 1814, Napoleon empowered Prince Eugène to adopt whatever attitude
+he thought best fitted to make head against Austria; for himself, he
+resigned the Iron Crown, and his Italian soldiers were freed from
+their oaths. It was not, therefore, Eugene's loyal scruples which
+prevented him from throwing down a grand stake when he led his 60,000
+men to the attack. It was want of genius, or of what would have done
+instead, a flash of genuine enthusiasm for the Italian idea. In place
+of appealing to all Italians to unite in winning a country, he
+appealed to one sentiment only, fidelity to Napoleon, which no longer
+woke any echo in the hearts of a population that had grown more and
+more to associate the name of the Emperor with exactions which never
+came to an end, and with wars which had not now even the merit of
+being successful. It is estimated that although the Italian troops
+amply proved the truth of Alfieri's maxim, that 'the plant man is more
+vigorous in Italy than elsewhere,' by bearing the hardships and
+resisting the cold in Russia better than the soldiers of any other
+nationality, nevertheless 26,000 Italians were lost in the retreat
+from Moscow. That happened a year ago. Exhausted patience got the
+better of judgment; in April 1814, the Milanese committed the
+irremediable error of revolting against their Viceroy, who commanded
+the only army which could still save Italy: the pent-up passions of a
+long period broke loose, the peasants from the country, who had always
+hated the French, flooded the streets of Milan, and allying themselves
+unimpeded with the dregs of the townsfolk, they murdered with great
+brutality General Prina, the Minister of Finance, whose remarkable
+abilities had been devoted towards raising funds for the Imperial
+Exchequer. Personally incorruptible, Prina was looked upon as the
+general representative of French voracity; he met his death with the
+utmost calmness, only praying that he might be the last victim. No one
+else was, in fact, killed, and next day quiet was resumed, but the
+affair had another victim--Italy. You cannot change horses when you
+are crossing a stream. Prince Eugène was in Mantua with a fine army,
+practically intact, though it had suffered some slight reverses; the
+fortress was believed to be impregnable; by merely waiting, Eugene
+might, if nothing else, have exacted favourable terms. But the news of
+Prina's murder, and the blow dealt at his own authority in Milan,
+caused him to give over the fortress and the army to the Austrians
+without more ado; an act which looked like revenge, but it was most
+likely prompted by moral cowardice. The capitulation signed with
+Field-Marshal Bellegarde on the 23rd of April, so exasperated the army
+that the officers in command of the garrison decided to arrest Eugene,
+but it was found that he was already on his way to Germany, taking
+with him his treasure, in accordance with a secret agreement entered
+into with the Austrian Field-Marshal. Such was the end to the Italian
+career of Eugène Beauharnais.
+
+For the _Beau Sabreur_ another ending was in store. Back on Napoleon's
+side in 1815, his Austrian allies having given him plenty of reason
+for suspecting their sincerity, he issued from Rimini, on the 30th of
+March, the proclamation of an independent Italy from the Alps to
+Sicily. There was no popular reply to his call. Italy, prostrate and
+impoverished, was unequal to a great resolve. The Napoleonic legend
+was not only dead, but buried; Napoleon had literally no friends left
+in Italy except those of his old soldiers who had managed to get back
+to their homes, many of them deprived of an arm or a leg, but so
+toughened that they lived to great ages. These cherished to their last
+hour the worship of their Captain, which it was his highest gift to be
+able to inspire. 'I have that feeling for him still, that if he were
+to rise from the dead I should go to him, if I could, wherever he
+was,' said the old conscript Emmanuele Gaminara of Genoa, who died at
+nearly a hundred in a Norfolk village in 1892: the last, perhaps, of
+the Italian veterans, and the type of them all.
+
+But a few scattered invalids do not make a nation, and the Italian
+nation in 1815 had not the least wish to support any one who came in
+the name of Napoleon. So Murat failed without even raising a strong
+current of sympathy. Beaten by the Austrians at Tolentino on the 3rd
+of May, he retreated with his shattered army. In the last desperate
+moment, he issued the constitution which he ought to have granted
+years before. Nothing could be of any avail now; his admirable Queen,
+the best of all the House of Buonaparte, surrendered Naples to the
+English admiral; and Murat, harried by a crushing Austrian force,
+renounced his kingdom on the 30th of May. After Waterloo, when a price
+was set on his head in France, he meditated one more forlorn hope;
+but, deserted by the treachery of his few followers, and driven out of
+his course by the violence of the waves, he was thrown on the coast of
+Calabria with only twenty-six men, and was shot by order of Ferdinand
+of Naples, who especially directed that he should be only allowed
+half-an-hour for his religious duties after sentence had been
+delivered by the mock court-martial. His dauntless courage did not
+desert him: he died like a soldier. It was a better end for an Italian
+prince than escaping with money-bags to Germany. Great as were Murat's
+faults, an Italian should remember that it was he who first took up
+arms to the cry which was later to redeem Italy: independence from
+Alps to sea; and if he stand on the ill-omened shore of Pizzo, he
+need not refuse to uncover his head in silence.
+
+When Mantua surrendered, the Milanese sent a deputation to Paris with
+a view of securing for Lombardy the position of an independent kingdom
+under an Austrian prince. They hoped to obtain the first by
+acquiescing in the second. They were aroused from their unheroic
+illusions with startling rapidity. Lord Castlereagh, to whom they went
+first (for they fancied that the English were interested in liberty),
+referred them 'to their master, the Austrian Emperor.' The Emperor
+Francis replied to their memorial that Lombardy was his by right of
+conquest; they would hear soon enough at Milan what orders he had to
+give them. Even after that, the distracted Lombards hoped that the
+English at Genoa would befriend them. All uncertainty ceased on the
+23rd of May 1814, when Field-Marshal Bellegarde formally took
+possession of Lombardy on behalf of his Sovereign, dissolved the
+Electoral Colleges, and proclaimed himself Regent. There was no
+question of reviving the conditions under which Austria ruled Lombardy
+while there was still a German Empire: conditions which, though
+despotic in theory, were comparatively easy-going in practice, and did
+not exclude the native element from the administration. Henceforth the
+despotism was pure and simple; for Italians to even think of politics
+was an act of high treason.
+
+It is not generally known that a British army ultimately sent to Spain
+was intended for Italy,[1] but its destination was changed because the
+Italians showed so little disposition to rise against Napoleon. The
+English Government was continually advised by its agents in Italy to
+make Sicily, which was wholly in its power, the _point d'appùi_ for a
+really great intervention in the destinies of the peninsula. 'The
+grand end of all the operations in the Mediterranean,' wrote one of
+Lord Castlereagh's correspondents, 'is the emancipation of Italy, and
+its union in one great state.' Lord William Bentinck urged that if
+Sicily were reunited to Naples under the Bourbons, liberty,
+established there by his own incredible efforts, would be crushed, and
+the King would wreck vengeance on the Constitution and its supporters.
+Universal terror, he said, was felt at 'the unforgiving temper of
+their Majesties.' He strongly supported a course proposed for her own
+reasons by Queen Caroline: the purchase of Sicily by the English
+Government which could make it 'not only the model but the instrument
+of Italian independence.'
+
+This way of talking was not confined to private despatches, and it was
+no wonder if the Italians were disappointed when they found that
+England declined to plead their cause with the Allies in Paris, and
+afterwards at Vienna. When charged directly with breach of faith
+before the House of Commons, Lord Castlereagh said that Austria, being
+'in truth the great hinge on which the fate of mankind must ultimately
+depend,' had to be paid (this was exactly the sense, though not the
+form, of his defence) by letting her do what she liked with Italy.
+There is a certain brutal straightforwardness in the line of argument.
+Lord Castlereagh did not say that independence was not a good thing.
+He had tried to obtain it for Poland and had failed; he had not tried
+to obtain it for Italy, because he was afraid of offending Austria. At
+least he had the courage to tell the truth, and did not prate about
+the felicity of being subjects of the Austrian Emperor, as many
+English partisans of Austria prated in days to come.
+
+The political map of Italy in the summer of 1814 showed the Pope (Pius
+VII.) reinstated in Rome, Victor Emmanuel I. at Turin, Ferdinand III.
+of Hapsburg-Lorraine in Tuscany, the Genoese Republic for the moment
+restored by the English, Parma and Piacenza assigned to the Empress
+Marie-Louise, and Modena to the Austrian Archduke Francis, who was
+heir through the female line to the last of the Estes. Murat was still
+at Naples, Ferdinand IV. in Sicily, Austria acknowledged supreme in
+Lombardy and Venetia, and the island of Elba ironically handed over to
+Napoleon. These were the chief features, so far as Italy was
+concerned, of the Treaty of Paris, signed on the 30th of May 1814.
+Next year the Congress of Vienna modified the arrangement by providing
+that the Spanish Infanta Maria Louisa, on whom had been bestowed the
+ex-republic of Lucca, should have the reversion of Parma and Piacenza,
+while Lucca was to go in the end to Tuscany. Murat having been
+destroyed, the Neapolitan Bourbons recovered all their old
+possessions. San Marino and Monaco were graciously recognised as
+independent, which brought the number of Italian states up to ten. The
+Sardinian monarchy received back the part of Savoy which by the Treaty
+of Paris had been reserved to France. It was also offered a splendid
+and unexpected gift--Genoa.
+
+Lord William Bentinck entered Genoa by a convention concluded with the
+authorities on the 18th of April 1814. A naval demonstration following
+an ably-conducted operation, by which Bentinck's hybrid force of
+Greeks and Calabrese, with a handful of English, became master of the
+two principal forts, hastened this conclusion, but the Genoese had no
+reluctance to open their gates to the English commander, who inspired
+them with the fullest confidence. He came invested with the halo of a
+constitution-maker-under-difficulties; it was known that he had
+stopped at nothing in carrying out his mission in Sicily; not even at
+getting rid of the Queen, who found in Bentinck the Nemesis for having
+led a greater Englishman to stain his fame in the roads of Naples.
+Driven rather than persuaded to leave Sicily, Marie Antoinette's
+sister encountered so frightful a sea voyage that she died soon after
+joining her relations at Vienna. Lord William had acquired the art of
+writing the finest appeals to the love of freedom; a collection of his
+manifestoes would serve as handy-book to anyone instructed to stir up
+an oppressed nationality. He immediately gave the Genoese some
+specimens of his skill as a writer, and by granting them at once a
+provisional constitution, he dispelled all doubts about the future
+recognition of their republic. What was not, therefore, their dismay,
+when they were suddenly informed of the decision of the Holy Alliance
+to make a present of them to the people whom, of all others, they
+probably disliked the most. Italians had not ceased yet from reserving
+their best aversion for their nearest neighbours.
+
+Bentinck did not mean to deceive; perhaps he thought that by going
+beyond the letter of his instructions he should draw his government
+after him. That he did, in effect, deceive, cannot be denied; even
+Lord Castlereagh, while necessarily refusing to admit that definite
+promises had been made, yet allowed that, 'Of course he would have
+been glad if the proclamation issued to the Genoese had been more
+precisely worded.' The motive of the determination to sacrifice the
+republic was, he said, 'a sincere conviction of the necessity of a
+barrier between France and Italy, which ought to be made effectual on
+the side of Piedmont. The object was to commit the defence of the Alps
+and of the great road leading round them by the Gulf of Genoa, between
+France and Italy, to the same power to which it had formerly been
+entrusted. On that principle, the question relating to Genoa had been
+entertained and decided upon by the allied sovereigns. It was not
+resolved upon because any particular state had unworthy or sordid
+views, or from any interest or feeling in favour of the King of
+Sardinia, but solely to make him, as far as was necessary, the
+instrument of the general policy of Europe.'
+
+A better defence might have been made. Piedmont was destined to serve
+as a bulwark, not so much against France, which for the time was not
+to be feared, as against Austria, absolute except for the subalpine
+kingdom in all Italy. But this belongs to the shaping of rough-hewn
+ends, which is in higher hands than those of English ministers. The
+ends then looked very rough-hewn.
+
+Piedmont was a hotbed of reaction and bigotry. True, she had a history
+differing vastly from that of the other Italian states, but the facts
+of the hour presented her in a most unattractive light. The Genoese
+felt the keenest heart-burnings in submitting to a decision in which
+they had no voice, and which came to them as a mandate of political
+extinction from the same powers that confirmed the sentence of death
+on Genoa's ancient and glorious rival. The seeds were laid of
+disaffection, always smouldering among the Genoese, till Piedmont's
+king became King of Italy. It might almost be said that the
+reconciliation was not consummated till the day when the heir and
+namesake of Humbert of the White Hands received the squadrons of
+Europe in the harbour of Genoa, and the proud republican city showed
+what a welcome she had prepared for her sovereign of the Savoy race.
+
+After the Congress of Vienna finished its labours, there were, as has
+been remarked, ten states in Italy, but out of Sardinia (whose
+subjugation Prince Metternich esteemed a mere matter of time) there
+was one master. The authority of the Emperor Francis was practically
+as undisputed from Venice to the Bay of Naples as it was in the Grand
+Duchy of Austria. The Austrians garrisoned Piacenza, Ferrara and
+Commacchio; Austrian princes reigned in Tuscany, Parma, Modena and
+Lucca; the King of Naples, who paid Austria twenty-six million francs
+for getting back his throne, thankfully agreed to support a German
+army to protect him against his subjects. In the secret treaty
+concluded between himself and the Emperor of Austria, it was
+stipulated that the King of the Two Sicilies should not introduce into
+his government any principles irreconcilable with those adopted by His
+Imperial Majesty in the government of his Italian provinces. As for
+the Roman States, Austria reckoned on her influence in always
+securing the election of a Pope who would give her no trouble. Seeing
+herself without rivals and all-powerful, she deemed her position
+unassailable. She forgot that, by giving Italy an unity of misery, she
+was preparing the way for another unity. Common hatred engendered
+common love; common sufferings led on to a common effort. If some
+prejudices passed away under the Napoleonic rule, many more still
+remained, and possibly, to eradicate so old an evil, no cure less
+drastic than universal servitude would have sufficed. Italians felt
+for the first time what before only the greatest among them had
+felt--that they were brothers in one household, children of one mother
+whom they were bound to redeem. Jealousies and millennial feuds died
+out; the intense municipal spirit which, imperfect as it was, had yet
+in it precious political germs, widened into patriotism. Italy was
+re-born.
+
+Black, however, was the present outlook. Total commercial stagnation
+and famine increased the sentiment of unmitigated hopelessness which
+spread through the land. The poet Monti, who, alas! sang for bread the
+festival songs of the Austrians as he had sung those of Napoleon, said
+in private to an Englishman who asked him why he did not give his
+voice to the liberties of his country which he desired, though he did
+not expect to see them: 'It would be _vox clamantis in deserto_;
+besides, how can the grievances of Italy be made known? No one dares
+to write--scarcely to think--politics; if truth is to be told, it must
+be told by the English; England is the only tribunal yet open to the
+complaints of Europe.' A greater poet and nobler man, Ugo Foscolo, had
+but lately uttered a wail still more despondent: 'Italy will soon be
+nothing but a lifeless carcass, and her generous sons should only
+weep in silence without the impotent complaints and mutual
+recriminations of slaves.' That as patriotic a heart as ever beat
+should have been afflicted to this point by the canker of despair
+tells of the quagmire--not only political but spiritual--into which
+Italy was sunk. The first thing needful was to restore the people to
+consciousness, to animation of some sort, it did not matter what, so
+it were a sign of life. Foscolo himself, who impressed on what he
+wrote his own proud and scornful temperament, almost savage in its
+independence, fired his countrymen to better things than the
+despairing inertia which he preached. Few works have had more effect
+than his _Letters of Jacobo Ortis_. As often happens with books which
+strongly move contemporaries, the reader may wonder now what was the
+secret of its power, but if the form and sentiment of the Italian
+_Werther_ strike us as antiquated, the intense, though melancholy
+patriotism that pervades it explains the excitement it caused when
+patriotism was a statutory offence. Such mutilated copies as were
+allowed to pass by the censor were eagerly sought; the young read it,
+women read it--who so rarely read--the mothers of the fighters of
+to-morrow. Foscolo's life gave force to his words: when all were
+flattering Napoleon, he had reminded him that no man can be rightly
+praised till he is dead, and that his one sure way of winning the
+praise of posterity was to establish the independence of Italy. The
+warning was contained in a 'discourse' which Foscolo afterwards
+printed with the motto from Sophocles: 'My soul groans for my country,
+for myself and for thee.' Sooner than live under the Austrians, he
+went into voluntary exile, and finally took refuge in England, where
+he was the _fêted_ lion of a season, and then forgotten, and left
+almost without the necessaries of life. No one was much to blame;
+Foscolo was born to misunderstand and to be misunderstood; he hid
+himself to hide his poverty, which, had it been known, might have been
+alleviated. His individual tragedy seemed a part of the universal
+tragedy.
+
+With Foscolo, his literary predecessor Alfieri must be mentioned as
+having helped in rekindling the embers, of patriotic feeling, because,
+though dead, he spoke; and his plays, one of which was prophetically
+dedicated _al libero Popolo Italiano_, had never been so much read.
+The _Misogallo_, published for the first time after the fall of
+Napoleon, though aimed at the French, served equally well as an
+onslaught on every foreign dominion or even moral or intellectual
+influence. 'Shall _we_ learn liberty of the Gauls, _we_ who taught
+every lofty thing to others?' was a healthy remonstrance to a race
+that had lost faith in itself; and the Austrians were wise in
+discountenancing the sale of a work that contained the line which gave
+a watchword to the future:--
+
+      _Schiavi or siam si; ma schiavi almen frementi_.
+
+Like Foscolo's, Alfieri's life was a lesson in independence: angry at
+the scant measure of freedom in Piedmont, he could never be induced to
+go near his sovereign till Charles Emmanuel was staying at Florence as
+a proscript. Then the poet went to pay his respects to him, and was
+received with the good-humoured banter: 'Well, Signor Conte, here am
+I, a king, in the condition you would like to see them all.'
+
+Against the classical, not to say pagan, leanings of these two poets,
+a reaction set in with Alessandro Manzoni, the founder of Italian
+Romanticism, to which he gave an aspect differing from that which the
+same movement wore in France, because he was an ardent Catholic at a
+time when Christianity had almost the charm of novelty. His religious
+outpourings combine the fervour of the Middle Ages with modern
+expansion, and he freed the Italian language from pedantic
+restrictions without impairing its dignity. It was once the fashion to
+inveigh against Manzoni for, as it was said, inculcating resignation;
+but he did nothing of the kind. As a young man he had sung of the
+Italians as 'Figli tutti d'un solo Riscatto,' and though he was not of
+those who fight either with the sword or the pen, yet that 'Riscatto'
+was the dream of his youth and manhood, and the joy of his old age.
+His gentleness was never contaminated by servility, and the love for
+his country, profound if placid, which appears in every line of his
+writings, appealed to a class that could not be reached by fiery
+turbulence of thought.
+
+In an age when newspapers have taken the place of books, it may seem
+strange to ascribe any serious effect to the works of poets and
+romancists; but in the Italy of that date there were no newspapers to
+speak of; the ordinary channels of opinion were blocked up. Books were
+still not only read, but discussed and thought over, and every slight
+allusion to the times was instantly applied. In the prevailing
+listlessness, the mere fact of increased mental activity was of
+importance. A spark of genius does much to raise a nation. It is in
+itself the incontrovertible proof that the race lives: a dead people
+does not produce men of genius. Whatever awakes one part of the
+intelligence reacts on all its parts. You cannot lift, any more than
+you can degrade, the heart of man piecemeal. In this sense not
+literature only but also music helped, who can say how effectually, to
+bring Italy back to life. The land was refreshed by a flood of purely
+national song, full of the laughter and the tears of Italian
+character, of the sunshine and the storms of Italian nature. Music,
+the only art uncageable as the human soul, descended as a gift from
+heaven upon the people whose articulate utterance was stifled. And
+
+   ... No speech may evince
+  Feeling like music.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE WORK OF THE CARBONARI
+
+1815-1821
+
+Revolutions in the Kingdom of Naples and in Piedmont--The Conspiracy
+against Charles Albert.
+
+
+Considering what the state of the country was after 1815, and how
+apparently inexhaustible were the resources of the Empire of which the
+petty princes of the peninsula were but puppets, it is remarkable that
+political agitation, with a view to reversing the decisions of Vienna,
+should have begun so soon, and on so large a scale. Not that the
+nation, as a whole, was yet prepared to move; every revolution, till
+1848, was partial in the sense that the mass of the people stood
+aloof, because unconvinced of the possibility of loosening their
+chains. But, during that long succession of years, the number of
+Italians ready to embark on enterprises of the most desperate
+character, accounting as nothing the smallness of the chance of
+success, seems enormous when the risks they ran and the difficulties
+they faced are fully recognised. Among the means which were effective
+in first rousing Italy from her lethargy, and in fostering the will to
+acquire her independence at all costs, the secret society of the
+Carbonari undoubtedly occupies the front rank. The Carbonari acted in
+two ways; by what they did and by what they caused to be done by
+others who were outside their society, and perhaps unfavourable to it,
+but who were none the less sensible of the pressure it exercised. The
+origin of Carbonarism has been sought in vain; as a specimen of the
+childish fables that once passed for its history may be noticed the
+legend that Francis I. of France once stumbled on a charcoal burner's
+hut when hunting 'on the frontiers of his kingdom next to Scotland,'
+and was initiated into the rites similar to those in use among the
+sectaries of the nineteenth century. Those rites referred to vengeance
+which was to be taken on the wolf that slew the lamb; the wolf
+standing for tyrants and oppressors, and the lamb for Jesus Christ,
+the sinless victim, by whom all the oppressed were represented. The
+Carbonari themselves generally believed that they were heirs to an
+organisation started in Germany before the eleventh century, under the
+name of the Faith of the Kohlen-Brenners, of which Theobald de Brie,
+who was afterwards canonised, was a member. Theobald was adopted as
+patron saint of the modern society, and his fancied portrait figured
+in all the lodges. That any weight should have been attached to these
+pretensions to antiquity may appear strange to us, as it certainly did
+not matter whether an association bent on the liberation of Italy had
+or had not existed in German forests eight hundred years before; age
+and mystery, however, have a great popular attraction, the first as an
+object of reverence, the second as food for curiosity with the
+profane, and a bond of union among the initiated. The religious
+symbolism of the Carbonari, their oaths and ceremonies, and the axes,
+blocks and other furniture of the initiatory chamber, were well
+calculated to impress the poorer and more ignorant and excitable of
+the brethren. The Vatican affected to believe that Carbonarism was an
+offshoot of Freemasonry, but, in spite of sundry points of
+resemblance, such as the engagements of mutual help assumed by
+members, there seems to have been no real connection between the two.
+Political Freemasonry remained somewhat of an exotic in Italy, and was
+inclined to regard France as its centre. As far as can be ascertained,
+it gave a general support to Napoleon, while Carbonarism rejected
+every foreign yoke. The practical aims of the Carbonari may be summed
+up in two words: freedom and independence. From the first they had the
+penetration to grasp the fact that independence, even if obtained,
+could not be preserved without freedom; but though their predilections
+were theoretically republican, they did not make a particular form of
+government a matter of principle. Nor were they agreed in a definite
+advocacy of the unity of Italy.
+
+A Genoese of the name of Malghella, who was Murat's Minister of
+Police, was the first person to give a powerful impetus to
+Carbonarism, of which he has even been called the inventor, but the
+inference goes too far. Malghella ended miserably; after the fall of
+Murat he was arrested by the Austrians, who consigned him as a new
+subject to the Sardinian Government, which immediately put him in
+prison. His name is hardly known, but no Italian of his time worked
+more assiduously, or in some respects more intelligently, for the
+emancipation of Italy. Whatever was truly Italian in Murat's policy
+must be mainly attributed to him. As early as 1813 he urged the King
+to declare himself frankly for independence, and to grant a
+constitution to his Neapolitan subjects. But Malghella did not find
+the destined saviour of Italy in Murat; his one lasting work was to
+establish Carbonarism on so strong a basis that, when the Bourbons
+returned, there were thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of
+Carbonari in all parts of the realm. The discovery was not a pleasant
+one to the restored rulers, and the Prince of Canosa, the new Minister
+of Police, thought to counteract the evil done by his predecessor by
+setting up an abominable secret society called the Calderai del
+Contrapeso (Braziers of the Counterpoise), principally recruited from
+the refuse of the people, lazzaroni, bandits and let-out convicts, who
+were provided by Government with 20,000 muskets, and were sworn to
+exterminate all enemies of the Church of Rome, whether Jansenists,
+Freemasons or Carbonari. This association committed some horrible
+excesses, but otherwise it had no results. The Carbonari closed in
+their ranks, and learnt to observe more strictly their rules of
+secrecy. From the kingdom of Naples, Carbonarism spread to the Roman
+states, and found a congenial soil in Romagna, which became the focus
+whence it spread over the rest of Italy. It was natural that it should
+take the colour, more or less, of the places where it grew. In
+Romagna, where political assassination is in the blood of the people,
+a dagger was substituted for the symbolical woodman's axe in the
+initiatory rites. It was probably only in Romagna that the
+conventional threat against informers was often carried out. The
+Romagnols invested Carbonarism with the wild intensity of their own
+temperament, resolute even to crime, but capable of supreme impersonal
+enthusiasm. The ferment of expectancy that prevailed in Romagna is
+reflected in the Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, whom young Count
+Pietro Gamba made a Carbonaro, and who looked forward to seeing the
+Italians send the barbarians of all nations back to their own dens, as
+to the most interesting spectacle and moment in existence. His lower
+apartments, he writes, were full of the bayonets, fusils and
+cartridges of his Carbonari cronies; 'I suppose that they consider me
+as a dépôt, to be sacrificed in case of accidents. It is no great
+matter, supposing that Italy could be liberated, who or what is
+sacrificed. It is a grand object--the very poetry of politics. Only
+think--free Italy!!! Why, there has been nothing like it since the
+days of Augustus.'
+
+The movement on which such great hopes were set was to begin in the
+kingdom of Naples in the spring of 1820. The concession of the
+hard-won Spanish Constitution in the month of March encouraged the
+Neapolitans to believe that they might get a like boon from their own
+King if they directed all the forces at their command to this single
+end. To avoid being compromised, they sought rather to dissociate
+themselves from the patriots of other parts of Italy than to
+co-operate with them in an united effort. The Carbonari of the
+Neapolitan kingdom, who were the entire authors of the revolution,
+which, after many unfortunate delays, broke out on the 1st of July,
+had good cause for thinking that they were in a position to dictate
+terms; the mistake they made was to suppose that a charter conceded by
+a Bourbon of Naples could ever be worth the paper on which it was
+written. Not only among the people, but in the army the Carbonari had
+thousands of followers on whom they could rely, and several whole
+regiments were only waiting their orders to rise in open revolt. The
+scheme was to take possession of the persons of the King and the royal
+family, and retain them as hostages till the Constitution was granted.
+Such extreme measures were not necessary. The standard of rebellion
+was raised at Monteforte by two officers named Morelli and Silvati,
+who had brought over a troop of cavalry from Nola, and by the priest
+Menechini. In all Neapolitan insurrections there was sure to be a
+priest; the Neapolitan Church, much though there is to be laid to its
+account, must be admitted to have frequently shown sympathy with the
+popular side. Menechini enjoyed an immense, if brief, popularity which
+he used to allay the anger of the mob and to procure the safety of
+obnoxious persons. The King sent two generals and a body of troops
+against the Chartists, but when the Carbonari symbols were recognised
+on the insurgent flags, the troops showed such clear signs of wishing
+to go over to the enemy that they were quietly taken back to Naples.
+The cry of 'God, the King, and the Constitution,' was taken up through
+the land; General Pepe, who had long been a Carbonaro in secret, was
+enthusiastically hailed as commander of the Chartist forces, which
+practically comprised the whole army. The King was powerless; besides
+which, when pushed up into any corner people who do not mind breaking
+their word have a facility for hard swearing. On the 13th of July,
+Ferdinand standing at the altar of the royal chapel, with his hand on
+the Bible, swore to defend and maintain the Constitution which he had
+just granted. If he failed to do so, he called upon his subjects to
+disobey him, and God to call him to account. These words he read from
+a written form; as if they were not enough, he added, with his eyes on
+the cross, and his face turned towards heaven: 'Omnipotent God, who
+with Thine infinite power canst read the soul of man and the future,
+do Thou, if I speak falsely, or intend to break my oath, at this
+moment direct the thunder of Thy vengeance on my head.'
+
+The Neapolitans had got their liberties, but they soon found
+themselves face to face with perplexities which would have taxed the
+powers of men both wiser and more experienced in free government than
+they were. In the first place, although a revolution may be made by a
+sect, a government cannot be carried on by one. The Carbonari who had
+won the day were blind to this self-evident truth; and, to make
+matters worse, there was a split in their party, some of them being
+disposed to throw off the Bourbon yoke altogether; a natural desire,
+but as it was only felt by a minority, it added to the general
+confusion. Then came, as it was sure to come, the cry for separation
+from Sicily. The Sicilians wanted back the violated constitution
+obtained for them by the English in 1812, and would have nothing to do
+with that offered them from Naples. In every one of the struggles
+between Sicily and Naples, it is impossible to refuse sympathy to the
+islanders, who, in the pride of their splendid independent history,
+deemed themselves the victims of an inferior race; but it is equally
+impossible to ignore that, politically, they were in the wrong. In
+union, and in union alone, lay the only chance of resisting the
+international plot to keep the South Italian populations in perpetual
+bondage. The Sicilian revolt was put down at first mildly, and
+finally, as mildness had no effect, with the usual violence by the
+Neapolitan Constitutional Government, which could not avoid losing
+credit and popularity in the operation. Meanwhile, the three persons
+who traded under the name of Europe met at Troppau, and came readily
+to the conclusion that 'the sovereigns of the Holy Alliance exercised
+an incontestable right in taking common measures of security against
+states which the overthrow of authority by revolt placed in a hostile
+attitude towards every legitimate government.' The assumption was too
+broadly stated, even for Lord Castlereagh's acceptance; but he was
+contented to make a gentle protest, which he further nullified by
+allowing that, in the present case, intervention was very likely
+justified. France expressed no disapproval. Only the Netherlands,
+Switzerland, Sweden and Spain gave the Constitutional _régime_ tacit
+support by recognising it. The Emperor of Russia was very anxious to
+take part in the business, and would have sent off an army instantly
+had not his royal brother of Prussia hesitated to consent to the
+inconvenience of a Cossack march through his territory. The work was
+left, therefore, to the Emperor of Austria. Before entering upon it,
+it occurred to these three to invite the King of Naples to meet them
+at Laybach. They knew his character.
+
+Ferdinand assured his Parliament that he was going to Laybach solely
+to induce the Holy Alliance to think better of its opposition, and to
+agree, at least, to all the principal features of the new state of
+things. Most foolishly the Parliament, which, according to the
+Constitution, might have vetoed his leaving the country, let him go.
+Before starting he wrote an open letter to his dear son, the Duke of
+Calabria, who was appointed Regent, in which he said: 'I shall defend
+the events of the past July before the Congress. I firmly desire the
+Spanish Constitution for my kingdom; and although I rely on the
+justice of the assembled sovereigns, and on their old friendship,
+still it is well to tell you that, in whatever circumstance it may
+please God to place me, my course will be what I have manifested on
+this sheet, strong and unchangeable either by force or by the flattery
+of others.'
+
+Brave words! News came in due time of the sequel. On the 9th of
+February 1821, the Regent received a letter from the King, in which he
+gave the one piece of advice that the people should submit to their
+fate quietly. He was coming back with 50,000 Austrians, and a Russian
+army was ready to start if wanted. Nevertheless, to prevent a sudden
+outbreak before the foreign troops arrived, the Regent carried on a
+game of duplicity to the last, and pretended to second, whilst he
+really baulked, the preparations for resistance decreed by Parliament.
+Baron Poerio, the father of two patriot martyrs of the future,
+sustained the national dignity by urging Parliament to yield only to
+force, and to defy the barbarous horde which was bearing down on the
+country. The closing scene is soon told. On the 7th of March, in the
+mountains near Rieti, General Guglielmo Pepe, with 8000 regular troops
+and a handful of militia, encountered an overwhelmingly superior force
+of Austrians. The Neapolitans stood out well for six hours, but on the
+Austrian reserves coming up, they were completely routed, and obliged
+to fly in all directions.
+
+'Order reigned' in the kingdom of Naples. In Sicily, a gallant attempt
+at insurrection was begun, but there was not the spirit to go on with
+it, and General Rossaroll, its initiator, had to fly to Spain. The
+afterpiece is what might have been expected; an insensate desire for
+vengeance got hold of Ferdinand, and the last years of his life were
+spent in hunting down his enemies, real or imaginary. Morelli and
+Silvati were hung, the fugitives, Pepe and Rossaroll, were condemned
+to death, but this was only the beginning. The Austrian commander
+counselled mercy, but in this respect the King showed an independent
+mind. A court-martial was instituted to examine the conduct of
+ecclesiastics, public functionaries and soldiers, from the year 1793
+downwards. No one was safe who had expressed a dislike of absolutism
+within the last thirty years. A blameless gentleman who was a
+Carbonaro, was conducted through Naples on the back of an ass, and
+beaten with a whip, to which nails were attached. Eight hundred
+persons are said to have perished at the hands of the state in one
+year. Ferdinand himself expired on the 3rd of January 1825, after
+misgoverning for sixty-five years.
+
+The Neapolitan revolution had just collapsed, when another broke out
+in Piedmont, which, though short in duration, was to have far-reaching
+consequences.
+
+At that time, the King of Sardinia was Victor Emmanuel I., who
+succeeded his brother Charles Emmanuel in 1802, when the latter
+abdicated and retired to Rome, where he joined the Society of Jesus.
+Victor Emmanuel's only son was dead, and the throne would devolve on
+his youngest brother, Charles Felix, Duke of Genoa, whom reasons of
+state led to abandon the wish to become a monk, which he had formed as
+a boy of eleven, on being taken to visit a convent near Turin. But
+Charles Felix, though married, was without children, and the
+legitimate heir-presumptive was Charles Albert, Prince of Carignano,
+who represented the younger branch of the family, which divided from
+the main line in the early part of the seventeenth century. Charles
+Albert's father was the luckless Prince Charles of Carignano, who,
+alone of his house, came to terms with Napoleon, who promised him a
+pension, which was not paid. His mother, a Saxon Princess, paraded the
+streets of Turin, dressed in the last republican fashion, with her
+infant son in her arms. Afterwards, she gave him a miscellaneous
+education, that included a large dose of Rousseau from a Swiss
+professor. The boy was shifted from place to place, happier when his
+mother forgot him, than when, in temporary recollection of his
+existence, she called him to her. Once when he was travelling with the
+Princess and her second husband, M. de Montléart, Charles Albert was
+made to sit on the box of the carriage, in a temperature many degrees
+below zero.
+
+His uncles (as the King and Charles Felix called themselves, though
+they were his cousins) heard with natural horror of the vagaries of
+the Princess of Carignano, and they extended their antipathy from the
+mother to the son, even when he was a child. In Victor Emmanuel, this
+antipathy was moderated by the easy good-nature of his character; in
+Charles Felix, it degenerated into an intense hatred.
+
+It is a singular thing that Prince Metternich, from the very first,
+had an instinctive feeling that the unfortunate boy, who seemed the
+most hopeless and helpless of human creatures, would prove the evil
+genius of the Austrian power. He therefore set to work to deprive him
+of his eventual rights. He was confident of success, as fortune had
+arranged matters in a manner that offered a ready-made plan for
+carrying out the design. Victor Emmanuel had four daughters, precluded
+from reigning by the Salic law, which was in force in Piedmont. His
+wife, the Queen Maria Teresa, a woman of great beauty and insatiable
+ambition, was sister to the Austrian Archduke Francis d'Este, Duke of
+Modena. Francis had never married, having been robbed of his intended
+bride, the Archduchess Marie-Louise, by her betrothal to Napoleon.
+What simpler than to marry the eldest of the Sardinian princesses to
+her uncle, abrogate the Salic law, and calmly await the desired
+consummation of an Austrian prince, by right of his wife, occupying
+the Sardinian throne?
+
+The first step was soon taken; princesses came into the world to be
+sacrificed. The plot ran on for some time, the Queen, who was in the
+habit of calling Charles Albert 'that little vagrant,' giving it her
+indefatigable support. Victor Emmanuel was weak, and stood in
+considerable awe of his wife, who had obtained a great ascendancy over
+him in the miserable days of their residence in the island of
+Sardinia. His nephew, who was almost or wholly unknown to him, partook
+of the nature of a disagreeable myth. Nevertheless he had a sense of
+justice, as well as Savoy blood, in his veins--he resisted; but the
+day came when his surrender seemed probable. Just at that moment,
+however, the Duke of Modena prematurely revealed the project by asking
+through his representative at the Congress of Vienna for the port of
+Spezia, in order that he might conveniently connect his own state with
+his prospective possession, the island of Sardinia. Prince Talleyrand
+was alarmed by the vision of Austria supreme in the Mediterranean, and
+through his opposition the conspiracy, for the time, was upset, and
+the rights of Charles Albert were recognised.
+
+Curiously enough, Prince Metternich had insisted on the young Prince,
+then seventeen, visiting the headquarters of the Allies. Charles Felix
+(who was unconnected with the Modena scheme) wrote a letter to the
+King on this subject, in which he stated it as his belief that the
+Austrian plan was to get Charles Albert accidentally killed, or to
+plunge him in vice, or to make him contract a discreditable marriage.
+This was why they had invited him to their camp. He adds the
+characteristic remark that their nephew would be in no less danger at
+the headquarters of the Duke of Wellington 'à cause de la religion.'
+Have him home and have him married, is his advice. 'We are well
+treated, because there is the expectation of soon devouring our
+remains by extinguishing the House of Savoy. It is the habit of the
+cabinet of Vienna; it was thus they made an end of the House of Este.'
+
+These counsels were the more likely to impress Victor Emmanuel from
+his knowledge that they were inspired by no shadow of personal
+interest in 'the little vagrant,' but by the race-feeling alone. The
+Queen contrived to prevent the immediate recall of the Prince of
+Carignano, but she was obliged to give way, and he was definitely
+established in Piedmont. In 1818 he was married at Florence to the
+Archduchess Maria Teresa of Tuscany, who, on the 14th of March 1820,
+gave birth to the child that was to become the first King of Italy.
+
+Very soon after his return to his country, the hopes of the Liberal
+party began to centre in the young Prince, whom some of their more
+ardent spirits already saluted as the rising sun. Those who made his
+acquaintance were fascinated by the charm of manner which he could
+always exert when he chose, and were confirmed in their hopes by his
+evident susceptibility to the magnetism of new ideas and fatalistic
+ambitions. What they did not perceive was, that in his nature lay
+that ingrained tendency to drift before the wind, which is the most
+dangerous thing in politics. In the mid-sea of events he might
+change his course without conscious insincerity, but with the
+self-abandonment of a mind which, under pressure, loses the sense of
+personal responsibility.
+
+In Piedmont, Carbonarism had made great way among the upper classes
+and among the younger officers; the flower of the country was enrolled
+in its ranks, and the impatience to take some action towards procuring
+free institutions for themselves, and doing something for their
+Lombard brothers, had reached fever heat in the spring of 1821, when
+the affairs of Naples were creating much excitement. The principal
+conspirators, noble young men, full of unselfish ardour, were the
+chosen friends and companions of the Prince of Carignano. It was
+formerly the opinion that they made him the confidant of their plans
+from the first, that he was one of them, in short--a Carbonaro bound
+by all the oaths and obligations of the society. The judgment of his
+conduct afterwards is, of course, much affected by this point; were
+the assumption correct, the invectives launched against him, not by
+any means only by republican writers, would hardly seem excessive. But
+by the light of documents issued in recent times, it appears more just
+as well as more charitable to suppose that Charles Albert's complicity
+was of a much less precise character. A little encouragement from a
+prince goes a long way.
+
+According to his own account, he was taken by surprise when, on the
+and or 3rd of March, his friends Carail, Collegno, Santa Rosa and
+Lisio came to tell him in secret that they belonged to societies
+which had been long working for the independence of Italy, and that
+they reckoned on him, knowing well his affection for his country, to
+aid them in obtaining from the King some few first concessions, which
+would be the prelude of a glorious future. It is clear that he ought
+either to have broken with them altogether from that moment or to have
+cast his lot with them for good or evil. He tried a middle course. He
+induced the conspirators to put off the revolution by which they
+intended to enforce their demands, and he conveyed to the King
+information of what had happened, asking at the same time that no
+measures should be taken against incriminated persons.
+
+In fact, no precautions of any kind seem to have been taken. Victor
+Emmanuel, frightened at first, was soon reassured. The revolution, which
+was to have begun on the 8th, actually broke out on the 10th of March at
+Alessandria, where the counter orders issued at Charles. Albert's
+request, after the interview just described, were not obeyed. The
+garrison 'pronounced' in favour of the Spanish Constitution. It was now
+impossible to draw back. From Alessandria the revolution spread to the
+capital. The bulk of the army sympathised with the movement, and relied
+on the support of the people. The greatest ladies mixed with the crowds
+which gathered under the Carbonaro flag--black, blue and red. On the
+other hand, there were a few devoted servants of the House of Savoy who
+beheld these novelties with the sensations of a quiet person who sees
+from his window the breaking loose of a menagerie. Invincibly ignorant
+of all that was really inspiring in this first breath of freedom, they
+saw nothing in it but an unwarrantable attack on the authority of their
+amiable, if weak, old King, for whom they would gladly have shed every
+drop of their blood--not from the rational esteem which the people of
+Italy, like the people of England, now feel for their sovereign, but
+from the pure passion of loyalty which made the cavalier stand blindly
+by his prince, whether he was good or bad, in the right or in the wrong.
+Men of their type watched the evolution of Piedmont into Italy from
+first to last with the same presentiment of evil, the same moral
+incapacity of appreciation. A handful of these loyal servitors hurried
+to Victor Emmanuel to offer their assistance. They marshalled their
+troop in battle-array in the courtyard of the palace. Their arms were
+antiquated pistols and rapiers, and they themselves were veterans, some
+of them of eighty years, mounted on steeds as ancient. The King thanked
+them, but declined their services; nor would he give _carte blanche_ to
+Captain Raimondi, who assured him that with his one company he could
+suppress the insurrection if invested with full powers. Soon after this
+refusal, a firing of guns announced that the citadel was in the hands
+of the insurgents. The troops within and without fraternised; it was a
+fine moment for those who knew history and who were bent in their hearts
+on driving the foreigner out of Italy. Here at the citadel of Turin,
+during the siege of 1706, occurred the memorable deed of Pietro Micca,
+the peasant-soldier, who, when he heard the enemy thundering at the door
+of the gallery, thought life and the welcome of wife and child and the
+happy return to his village of less account than duty, and fired the
+mine which sent him and three companies of French Grenadiers to their
+final reckoning.
+
+After vacillating for two or three days, Victor Emmanuel abdicated on
+the 13th of March. The Queen desired to be appointed regent, but, to
+her intense vexation, the appointment was given to Charles Albert. A
+more unenviable honour never fell to the lot of man.
+
+Deserted by the ministers of the crown, who resigned in a body, alone
+in the midst of a triumphant revolution, appealed to in the name of
+those sentiments of patriotism which he could never hear invoked
+unmoved, the young Prince uttered the words which were as good as a
+surrender: 'I, too, am an Italian!' That evening he allowed the
+Spanish Constitution to be proclaimed subject to the arrival of the
+orders of the new King.
+
+The new King! No one remembered that there existed such a person. Nor
+had anyone recollected that the Spanish Constitution abrogated the
+Salic law, and that hence, instead of a new King, they had a new
+Queen--the wife of the Duke of Modena! An eminent Turinese
+jurisconsulist, who was probably the only possessor of a copy of the
+charter in the town which was screaming itself hoarse for it, divulged
+this awkward discovery.--Several hours were spent in anxious
+discussion, when the brilliant suggestion was made that the article
+should be cancelled. The article was cancelled.
+
+But Charles Felix could not be disposed of so easily. The news of the
+late events reached him at Modena of all places in the world, the
+rallying-point of the Prince of Carignano's bitterest foes. He was not
+long in sending his orders. He repudiated everything that had been
+done, and commanded Charles Albert, 'if he had a drop of our royal
+blood left in his veins,' to leave the capital instantly for Novara,
+where he was to await his further instructions.
+
+Charles Albert obeyed. He was accompanied on his journey--or, as it
+may be called, his flight--by such of the troops as remained loyal.
+At Novara he found a sentence of exile, in a fresh order, to quit
+Piedmontese territory. Tuscany was indicated as the state where he was
+to reside.
+
+The Austrians crossed the frontier with the consent of the King.
+Charles Felix's opinion of Austria has been already given; another
+time he said: 'Austria is a sort of bird-lime which, if you get it on
+your fingers, you can never rub off.' If anything was needed to
+increase his loathing for the revolution, it was the necessity in
+which it placed him, as he thought, of calling in this unloved ally.
+But Charles Felix was not the man to hesitate. Not caring a straw for
+the privilege of wearing a crown himself, his belief in the divine
+right of kings, and the obligation to defend it, amounted to
+monomania. The Austrian offer was therefore accepted. On her part
+Austria declined the obliging proposal of the Czar of a loan of
+100,000 men. She felt that she could do the work unaided, nor was she
+mistaken.
+
+On the 8th of April the Constitutionalist troops which marched towards
+Novara, sanguine that the loyal regiments there quartered would end by
+joining them, were met by an armed resistance, in which the
+newly-arrived Austrians assisted. Their defeat was complete, and it
+was the signal of the downfall of the revolution. The leaders retired
+from Turin to Alessandria, and thence to Genoa, that had risen last
+and was last to submit. Thus most of them escaped by sea, which was
+fortunate, as Charles Felix had the will to establish a White Terror,
+and was only prevented by the circumstance that nearly all the
+proposed victims were outside his kingdom. Capital sentences were sent
+after them by the folio: there was hardly a noble family which had not
+one of its members condemned to death. When his brother, Victor
+Emmanuel, recommended mercy, he told him that he was entirely ready
+to give him back the crown, but that, while he reigned, he should
+reign after his own ideas. He seems to have had thoughts of hanging
+the Prince of Carignano, and for a long time he seriously meant to
+devise the kingdom to his son, the infant Prince Victor. Thus a new
+set of obstacles arose between Charles Albert and the throne.
+
+Of the personal friends of that ill-starred Prince all escaped. One of
+them, the noble-minded Count Santorre di Santa Rosa, died fighting for
+liberty in Greece. In the miseries of exile and poverty he had never
+lost faith in his country, but fearlessly maintained that 'the
+emancipation of Italy was an event of the nineteenth century.' To
+another, Giacinta di Collegno, it was reserved to receive the dying
+breath of Charles Albert, when as an exiled and crownless king he
+found rest, at last, at Oporto.
+
+There were deeper reasons than any which appear on the surface for the
+failure of the revolutionary movements of this period. North and
+south, though the populations exhibited a childish delight at the
+overthrow of the old, despotic form of government, their effervescence
+ended as rapidly as it began. They did not really understand what was
+going on. 'By-the-bye, what _is_ this same constitution they are
+making such a noise about?' asked a lazzarone who had been shouting
+'Viva la Costituzione' all the day. Within a few weeks of the
+breakdown at Novara, Count Confalonieri wrote wisely to Gino Capponi
+that revolutions are not made by high intelligences, but by the masses
+which are moved by enthusiasm, and for a possibility of success, the
+word Constitution, the least magical of words, should have been
+replaced by the more comprehensible and stirring call: 'War to the
+stranger.' But this, instead of sounding from every housetop, was
+purposely stifled at Naples, and kept a mysterious secret in
+Piedmont.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PRISON AND SCAFFOLD
+
+1821-1831
+
+Political Trials in Venetia and Lombardy--Risings in the South and
+Centre--Ciro Menotti.
+
+
+The Austrians fully expected a rising in Lombardy in the middle of
+March, and that they were not without serious fears as to its
+consequences is proved by the preparations which they quietly made to
+abandon Milan, if necessary. The Court travelling-carriages were got
+ready, and the younger princes were sent away. Carbonarism had been
+introduced into Lombardy the year before by two Romagnols, Count
+Laderchi and Pietro Maroncelli. It was their propaganda that put the
+Austrian Government on the alert, and was the cause of the Imperial
+decree which denounced the society as a subversive conspiracy, aiming
+at the destruction of all constituted authority, and pointed to death
+and confiscation of property as the penalty for joining it. There was
+the additional clause, destined to bear terrible fruit, which declared
+accomplices, punishable with life-imprisonment, all who knew of the
+existence of lodges (_Vendite_, as they were called) or the names of
+associates, without informing the police. In the autumn of 1820,
+Maroncelli and many others, including Silvio Pellico, the young
+Piedmontese poet, were arrested as Carbonari, while the arrest of the
+so-called accomplices began with Count Giovanni Arrivabene of Mantua,
+who had no connection with the society, but was charged with having
+heard from Pellico that he was a member. Pellico and his companions
+were still lying untried in the horrible Venetian prisons, called,
+from their leaden roofs, the 'Piombi,' when the events of 1821 gave
+rise to a wholesale batch of new arrests. As soon as they knew of a
+movement in Piedmont, the Lombard patriots prepared to co-operate in
+it; that they were actually able to do nothing, was because it broke
+out prematurely, and also, to some extent, because their head, Count
+Confalonieri, was incapacitated by severe illness. But though their
+activity profited not at all to the cause, it was fatal to
+themselves. The Austrian Government had, as has been stated, a
+correct general notion of what was going on, but at the beginning it
+almost entirely lacked proofs which could inculpate individuals. In
+the matter of arrests, however, there was one sovereign rule which all
+the despotic Governments in Italy could and did follow in every
+emergency: it was to lay hands on the most intelligent, distinguished
+and upright members of the community. This plan never failed; these
+were the patriots, the conspirators of those days. The second thing
+which the Austrians made a rule of doing, was to extort from the
+prisoners some incautious word, some shadow of an assent or admission
+which would place them on the track of other compromised persons, and
+furnish them with such scraps of evidence as they deemed sufficient,
+in order to proceed against those already in their power. In their
+secret examination of prisoners, they had reduced the system of
+provocative interrogation to a science. They made use of every
+subterfuge, and, above all, of fabricated confessions fathered on
+friends of the prisoner, to extract the exclamation, the nod of the
+head, the confused answer, which served their purpose. The prisoners,
+men of good faith, and inexperienced in the arts of deception, were
+but children in their hands, and scarcely one of them was not doomed
+to be the involuntary cause of some other person's ruin--generally
+that of a dear and intimate friend.
+
+The first to be arrested was Gaetano De-Castillia, who went with the
+Marquis Giorgio Pallavicini on a mission to Piedmont while the
+revolution there was at its height. They even had an interview with
+the Prince of Carignano, 'a pale and tall young man, with a charming
+expression' (so Pallavicini describes him), but had obtained from him
+no assurance, except the characteristic parting word: 'Let us hope in
+the future.' When De-Castillia was arrested, Pallavicini, then a youth
+of twenty, and full of noble sentiments, rushed to the director of the
+police with the avowal: 'It was I who induced De-Castillia to go to
+Piedmont; if the journey was a crime, the fault is mine; punish me!'
+No error could have proved more calamitous; till that moment the
+Austrians were in ignorance of the Piedmontese mission; De-Castillia
+was arrested on some far more trifling charge. Pallavicini's generous
+folly was rewarded by fourteen years' imprisonment, and its first
+consequence was the arrest of Count Confalonieri, at whose instance
+the visit to Turin had been made. For months the Austrians had desired
+to have a clue against him; the opportunity was come at last.
+
+Federico Confalonieri, brilliant, handsome, persuasive, of great
+wealth and ancient lineage, innately aristocratic, but in the best
+sense, was morally at the head of Lombardy, by the selection of the
+fittest, which at certain junctures makes one man pre-appointed leader
+while he is still untried. When in England, the Duke of Sussex
+prevailed upon him to become a Freemason, but he was not a Carbonaro
+in the technical sense, though both friends and foes believed him to
+be one. He knew, however, more about this and the other secret
+societies then existing in Italy--even those of the reactionary
+party--than did most of the initiated. In an amusing passage in his
+memoirs he relates how, when once forcibly detained in a miserable
+hostelry in the Calabrian Mountains, a den of brigands, of whom the
+chief was the landlord, he guessed that this man was a Calderaio, and
+it occurred to him to make the sign of that bloodthirsty sect. Things
+changed in a second; the brigand innkeeper was at his feet, the
+complete household was set in motion to serve him. In 1821, he
+founded at Milan, not a secret society, but an association in which
+all the best patriots were enrolled, and of which the sole engagement
+was the formula, repeated on entering its ranks: 'I swear to God, and
+on my honour, to exert myself to the utmost of my power, and even at
+the sacrifice of my life, to redeem Italy from foreign dominion.'
+
+Knowing to what extent he was a marked man, Confalonieri would have
+only exercised common prudence in leaving the country, but he could
+not reconcile himself to the idea of flight. Anonymous warnings rained
+upon him: most likely they all came from the same quarter, from Count
+Bubna, the Austrian Field-Marshal, with whom Confalonieri was
+personally on friendly terms. On the 12th of December the Countess
+Bubna made a last effort to save him; her carriage was ready, she
+implored him to take it and escape across the frontier. He refused,
+and next day he was arrested.
+
+Austrian legal procedure was slow; the trial of the first Carbonari,
+Silvio Pellico and his companions, did not take place till 1822. On
+the 22nd of February the sentence of death was read to Silvio Pellico
+in his Venetian prison, to be commuted to one of fifteen years'
+imprisonment at Spielberg, a fortress converted into a convict prison
+in a bleak position in Moravia. To that rock of sorrow, consecrated
+for ever by the sufferings of some of the purest of men, Silvio
+Pellico and Pietro Maroncelli, with nine or ten companions, condemned
+at the same time, were the first Italians to take the road. Here they
+remained for the eight years described by the author of _Francesca da
+Rimini_, in _Le Mie Prigioni_, a book that served the Italian cause
+throughout the world. Even now some Italians are indignant at the
+spirit of saintly resignation which breathes upon Silvio Pellico's
+pages, at the veil which is drawn over many shocking features in the
+treatment of the prisoners; they do not know the tremendous force
+which such reticence gave his narrative. _Le Mie Prigioni_ has the
+reserve strength of a Greek tragedy.
+
+Maroncelli contracted a disease of the leg through the hardships
+endured; amputation became necessary, but could not be performed till
+permission was received from Vienna--a detail showing the red-tapism
+which governed all branches of the Austrian administration. This
+patriot went, after his release, to America, where he died, poor,
+blind and mad. Pellico, crushed in soul, devoted his latter years
+entirely to religion. Only men of iron fibre could come out as they
+went in. The Spielberg prisoners wore chains, and their food was so
+bad and scanty that they suffered from continual hunger, with its
+attendant diseases. Unlike the thieves and assassins confined in the
+same fortress, the State prisoners were given no news of their
+families. Such was Spielberg, 'a sepulchre without the peace of the
+dead.'
+
+The State trials of the Lombard patriots in 1823 resulted in seven
+capital sentences on the Milanese, thirteen on the Brescians, and four
+on the Mantuans. The fate of the other prisoners depended on that of
+Count Confalonieri. If the sentence on him were not carried out, the
+lives at least of the others might be regarded as safe, since he was
+looked upon as the head. It is certain that the authorities, and the
+Emperor himself, had the most firm intention of having him executed;
+the more merciful decision was solely due to the Countess
+Confalonieri's journey to Vienna. Accompanied by the prisoner's aged
+father, this beautiful and heroic woman, a daughter of the noble
+Milanese house of Casati, went to Vienna before the conclusion of the
+trial, to be ready for any eventuality. When the sentence of death was
+passed, it was announced by the Emperor to old Count Confalonieri,
+whom he advised to return with the Countess Teresa as fast as possible
+if they wished to see the condemned man alive. Undaunted by the news,
+the brave wife sought an interview with the Empress, in whom she found
+a warm advocate, but who was obliged to own, after several attempts to
+obtain a reprieve, that she despaired of success. Teresa Confalonieri
+hurried back to Milan through the bitter winter weather, in doubt
+whether she should arrive before the execution had taken place. But
+the unceasing efforts of the Empress won the day. The respite was
+granted on the 13th of January; life-imprisonment was substituted for
+death. The countess sent her husband the pillow which she had bathed
+with her tears during her terrible journey; needless to say that it
+was not given to him. She died broken-hearted with waiting before he
+was set at liberty in the year 1836.
+
+When Count Confalonieri reached Vienna on his way to Spielberg, he was
+surprised to find himself installed in a luxurious apartment, with
+three servants to wait upon him. Though too ill to touch solid food, a
+sumptuous breakfast and dinner were daily set before him; and but for
+the constant jingle of his chains, he would have thought himself in a
+first-class hotel on a journey of pleasure. The object of these
+attentions was clear when one evening Prince Metternich came to see
+him, and stayed for three hours, endeavouring by every exquisite
+flattery, by every promise and persuasion, to worm out of him the
+secrets of which he alone was believed to be the depositary. The
+Austrian Government had spent £60,000 on the Milan Commission, and,
+practically, they were no wiser than when it began. Would Confalonieri
+enlighten them? Whatever scruples he might have felt during the trial
+could be now laid aside; there was no question of new arrests. It was
+from pure, abstract love of knowledge that the Government, or, rather,
+the Emperor, desired to get at the truth. If he preferred to open his
+mind to the Emperor in person, His Majesty would grant him a secret
+audience. Above all, what was the real truth about the Prince of
+Carignano?
+
+All the rest was a blind; it was the wish to have some damnatory
+evidence against Charles Albert, such as would for ever exclude him
+from the throne, that had induced the Emperor and his astute minister
+to make this final attempt.
+
+'Confalonieri need never go to Spielberg,' said the Prince; 'let him
+think of his family, of his adored wife, of his own talents, of his
+future career, which was on the brink of being blotted out as
+completely as if he were dead!' Confalonieri was worthy of his race,
+of his class, of himself; he stood firm, and next morning, almost with
+a sense of relief, he started for the living grave.
+
+'The struggle was decided,' Prince Metternich had said in the course
+of the interview, 'and decided not only for our own, but for many
+generations. Those who still hoped to the contrary were madmen.'
+
+Some years of outward quiet doubtless confirmed him in the first
+opinion, while the second was not likely to be shaken by the next
+attempt that was made to take up arms for freedom. On the 28th of June
+1828, several villages in the province of Salerno rose in obedience to
+the harangues of two patriotic ecclesiastics, Canon de Luca and Carlo
+da Celle, superior of a capuchin convent. This was meant to develop
+into a general insurrection, but it was nowhere followed up, and the
+sword of vengeance fell speedily on the wretched villagers. Surrounded
+by the royal troops, they were forced into submission, many were shot
+on the spot, others were dragged in chains to Salerno, not even a drop
+of water being allowed them during the journey under the scorching
+sun. The village of Bosco was rased to the ground. The priest, the
+monk, and twenty-two insurgents were shot after the repression. The
+heads of the victims were cut off and placed in iron cages where their
+wives or mothers were likely to see them. A woman went to Naples to
+beg for the pardon of her two grandsons, by name Diego and Emilio. The
+King, with barbarous clemency, told her to choose one. In vain she
+entreated that if both could not be saved the choice should be left to
+chance, or decided by someone else. But no; unless she chose they
+would both be shot. At last she chose Diego. Afterwards she went mad,
+and was constantly heard wailing: 'I have killed my grandson Emilio.'
+This anecdote gives a fair notion of Francis I., whose short reign
+was, however, less signalised by acts of cruelty, though there were
+enough of these, than by a venality never surpassed. The
+grooms-in-waiting and ladies-of-the-bedchamber sold the public offices
+in the daylight; and the King, who was aware of it, thought it a
+subject for vulgar jokes with his intimates. Francis died in 1830 of
+bad humour at the Paris revolution, and was succeeded by Ferdinand
+II., to be known hereafter as Bomba--then a clownish youth, one of
+whose first kingly cares was to create St Ignatius Loyola a
+Field-Marshal.
+
+The revolution which upset the throne of Charles X., and ushered in
+the eighteen years' reign of the Citizen King, seemed likely to have
+momentous consequences for Italy. The principle of non-intervention
+proclaimed by French politicians would, if logically enforced, sound
+the death-knell of the Austrian power in Italy. Dupin, the Minister of
+War, enlarged on the theme in a speech which appeared to remove all
+doubt as to the real intentions of the Government. 'One phrase,' he
+remarked, 'has made a general impression; it expresses the true
+position of a loyal and generous Government. Not only has the
+President of the Council laid down the principle that France should
+abstain from intervention; he has declared that she would not tolerate
+intervention on the part of others. France might have shut herself up
+in a cold egotism, and simply said that she would not intervene; this
+would have been contemptible, but the proclamation of not suffering
+the interventions of others is the noblest attitude a strong and
+magnanimous people can assume; it amounts to saying: Not only will I
+not attack or disturb other nations, but I, France, whose voice is
+respected by Europe and by the whole world, will never permit others
+to do so. This is the language held by the ministry and by the
+ambassadors of Louis Philippe; and it is this which the army, the
+National Guard, France entire, is ready to maintain.'
+
+Truly language was invented to travesty the truth, and when French
+politicians say they are going to the right it is an almost sure sign
+that they are going to the left; nevertheless, is it possible to blame
+the Italians who read in these assurances a positive promise affecting
+their own case?
+
+The same assurances were repeated again and again through the winter
+of 1830-31; they were repeated authoritatively as late as March in the
+latter year. Well may a French writer inquire: 'Was it insanity or
+treachery?'
+
+The good tidings were published by the Italian exiles, who, living
+close to the great centres of European politics, were the first to
+intoxicate themselves with the great delusion. From London, Gabriele
+Rossetti sent the exultant summons:
+
+  Cingi l'elmo, la mitra deponi,
+    O vetusta Signora del mondo:
+    Sorgi, sorgi dal sonno profondo,
+    Io son l'alba del nuovo tuo dì.
+
+  Saran rotte le vostre catene,
+    O Fratelli che in ceppi languite;
+    O Fratelli che il giogo soffrite
+    Calcherete quel giogo col piè.
+
+The child beside whose cradle the ode was written, was to grow to
+manhood while Italy still remained 'the weeping, desolate mother.' The
+cry of the poet was not, however, without an echo. In 1831, Romagna,
+Parma and Modena rose in rebellion.
+
+Things had been going, without much variation, from bad to worse in
+the Roman states, ever since 1815. Pius VII. (Chiaramonti), who died
+in 1823, was succeeded by Leo XII. (Genga), an old man who was in such
+enfeebled health that his death was expected at the time of his
+election, but, like a more famous pontiff, he made a sudden recovery,
+which was attributed to the act of a prelate, who, in prayer, offered
+his own life for the Pope's, and who died a few days after resolving
+on the sacrifice. During this Pope's reign, the smallpox was rife in
+Rome, in consequence of the suppression of public vaccination. The
+next conclave, held in 1829, resulted in the election of Pius VIII.
+(Castiglioni da Cingoli), who died on the 30th of November 1830, and
+was followed by Gregory XVI. (Cappellari). In each conclave, Austria
+had secured the choice of a 'Zealot,' as the party afterwards called
+Ultramontane was then designated. The last traces of reforms
+introduced by the French disappeared; criminal justice was again
+administered in secret; the police were arbitrary and irresponsible.
+All over the Roman states, but especially in Romagna, the secret
+society of the Sanfedesti flourished exceedingly; whether, as is
+probable, an offshoot of the Calderai or of indigenous growth, its
+aims were the same. The affiliated swore to spill the last drop of the
+blood of the Liberals, without regard to sex or rank, and to spare
+neither children nor old men. Many Romagnols had left their country
+after the abortive agitation of 1821, and amongst these were the
+Gambas. Count Pietro died in Greece, where he had gone on the service
+of freedom. Had he lived, this young man would have been sure to win a
+fair name in the annals of Italian patriotism; he should not, as it
+is, be quite forgotten, as it was chiefly due to him that Byron's life
+took the redeeming direction which led to Missolonghi.
+
+In February 1831, Romagna and the Marches of Ancona threw off the
+Papal Government with an ease which must have surprised the most
+sanguine. The white, red and green tricolor was hoisted at Bologna,
+where, as far as is known, this combination of colours first became a
+political badge. Thirty-six years before Luigi Zamboni and Gian
+Battista De Rolandis of Bologna had distributed rosettes of white, red
+and green ribbon; Zamboni was arrested, and strangled himself, afraid
+of betraying his friends; De Rolandis was hung on the 23rd of April
+1796. Such was the origin of the flag, but, until 1831, the Carbonaro
+red, blue and black was the common standard of the revolution. From
+that year forth, the destinies of Italy were accomplished under the
+colours of better augury, so fit to recall her fiery volcanoes, her
+wooded Apennines, her snow-crowned Alps; colours which in one sense
+she receives from Dante, who clothes in them the vision of the
+glorified Beatrice.
+
+The rising at Parma requires but little comment. The Empress
+Marie-Louise neither hated her subjects, nor was hated by them, but
+her engagements with Austria prevented her from granting the demanded
+concessions, and she abandoned her state, to return to it, indeed,
+under Austrian protection, but without the odious corollary of
+vindictive measures which was generally meant by a restoration.
+
+Much more important is the history of the Modenese revolution.
+Apologists have been found for the Bourbons of Naples, but, if anyone
+ever said a good word for Francesco d'Este, it has escaped the notice
+of the present writer. Under a despotism without laws (for the edicts
+of the Prince daily overrode the Este statute book which was supposed
+to be in force), Modena was far more in the power of the priests, or
+rather of the Jesuits, than any portion of the states of the Church.
+Squint-eyed, crooked in mind and bloodthirsty, Francis was as ideal a
+bogey-tyrant as can be discovered outside fiction. In 1822, he hung
+the priest Giuseppe Andreoli on the charge of Carbonarism; and his
+theory of justice is amusingly illustrated by the story of his sending
+in a bill to Sir Anthony Panizzi--who had escaped to England--for the
+expenses of hanging him in effigy.
+
+Francis felt deeply annoyed by the narrow limits of his dominions, and
+his annoyance did not decrease with the decreasing chances of his
+ousting the Prince of Carignano from the Sardinian throne. He was
+intensely ambitious, and one of his subjects, a man, in other
+respects, of high intelligence, thought that his ambition could be
+turned to account for Italy. It was the mistake over again that
+Machiavelli had made with Cesare Borgia.
+
+Ciro Menotti, who conceived the plan of uniting Italy under the Duke
+of Modena, was a Modenese landed proprietor who had exerted himself to
+promote the industry of straw-plaiting, and the other branches of
+commerce likely to be of advantage to an agricultural population. He
+was known as a sound philanthropist, an excellent husband and father,
+a model member of society. Francis professed to take an interest in
+industrial matters; Menotti, therefore, easily gained access to his
+person. In all the negotiations that followed, the Modenese patriot
+was supported and encouraged by a certain Dr Misley, who was of
+English extraction, with whom the Duke seems to have been on familiar
+terms. It appears not doubtful that Menotti was led to believe that
+his political views were regarded with favour, and that he also
+received the royal promise that, whatever happened, his life would be
+safe. This promise was given because he had the opportunity of saving
+the Duke from some great peril--probably from assassination, though
+the particulars were never divulged.
+
+Misley went to Paris to concert with the Italian committee which had
+its seat there; the movement in Modena was fixed for the first days of
+February. But spies got information of the preparations, and on the
+evening of the 3rd, before anything had been done, Menotti's house was
+surrounded by troops, and after defending it, with the help of his
+friends, for two hours, he was wounded and captured. Next day the Duke
+despatched the following note to the Governor of Reggio-Emilia: 'A
+terrible conspiracy against me has broken out. The conspirators are in
+my hands. Send me the hangman.--Francis.'
+
+Not all, however, of the conspirators were in his hands; the movement
+matured, in spite of the seizure of Menotti, and Francis, 'the first
+captain in the world,' as he made his troops call him, was so overcome
+with fright that on the 5th of February he left Modena with his
+family, under a strong military escort, dragging after him Giro
+Menotti, who, when Mantua was reached, was consigned to an Austrian
+fortress.
+
+Meanwhile, the revolution triumphed. Modena chose one of her citizens
+as dictator, Biagio Nardi, who issued a proclamation in which the
+words 'Italy is one; the Italian nation is one sole nation,' testified
+that the great lesson which Menotti had sought to teach had not fallen
+on unfruitful ground. Wild as were the methods by which, for a moment,
+he sought to gain his end, his insistance on unity nevertheless gives
+Menotti the right to be considered the true precursor of Mazzini in
+the Italian Revolution.
+
+Now that the testing-time was come, France threw to the winds the
+principle announced in her name with such solemn emphasis. 'Precious
+French blood should never be shed except on behalf of French
+interests,' said Casimir Périer, the new President of the Council. A
+month after the flight of the Duke of Modena, the inevitable Austrians
+marched into his state to win it back for him. The hastily-organised
+little army of the new government was commanded by General Zucchi, an
+old general of Napoleon, who, when Lombardy passed to Austria, had
+entered the Austrian service. He now offered his sword to the Dictator
+of Modena, who accepted it, but there was little to be done save to
+retire with honour before the 6000 Austrians. Zucchi capitulated at
+Ancona to Cardinal Benvenuti, the Papal delegate. Those of the
+volunteers who desired it were furnished with regular passports, and
+authorised to take ship for any foreign port. The most compromised
+availed themselves of this arrangement, but the vessel which was to
+bear Zucchi and 103 others to Marseilles, was captured by the Austrian
+Admiral Bandiera, by whom its passengers were kidnapped and thrown
+into Venetian prisons, where they were kept till the end of May 1832.
+This act of piracy was chiefly performed with a view to getting
+possession of General Zucchi, who was tried as a deserter, and
+condemned to twenty years' imprisonment. Among the prisoners was the
+young wife of Captain Silvestro Castiglioni of Modena. 'Go, do your
+duty as a citizen,' she had said, when her husband left her to join
+the insurrection. 'Do not betray it for me, as perhaps it would make
+me love you less.' She shared his imprisonment, but just at the moment
+of the release, she died from the hardships endured.
+
+By the end of the month of March, the Austrians had restored Romagna
+to the Pope, and Modena to Francis IV. In Romagna the amnesty
+published by Cardinal Benvenuti was revoked, but there were no
+executions; this was not the case in Modena. The Duke brought back
+Ciro Menotti attached to his triumphal car, and when he felt that all
+danger was past, and that the presence of the Austrians was a
+guarantee against a popular expression of anger, he had him hung.
+
+'When my children are grown up, let them know how well I loved my
+country,' Menotti wrote to his wife on the morning of his execution.
+The letter was intercepted, and only delivered to his family in 1848.
+The revolutionists found it in the archives of Modena. On the
+scaffold he recalled how he was once the means of saving the Duke's
+life, and added that he pardoned his murderer, and prayed that his
+blood might not fall upon his head.
+
+During the insurrection in Romagna, an event occurred which was not
+without importance to Europe, though it passed almost unnoticed at the
+time. The eldest son of Queen Hortense died in her arms at Forlì, of a
+neglected attack of measles; some said of poison, but the report was
+unfounded. He and his brother Louis, who had been closely mixed up
+with Italian conspiracies for more than a year, went to Romagna to
+offer their services as volunteers in the national army. By the death
+of the elder of the two, Louis Napoleon became heir to what seemed
+then the shadowy sovereignty of the Buonapartes.
+
+No sooner had the Austrians retired from the Legations in July 1831,
+than the revolution broke out again. Many things had been promised,
+nothing performed; disaffection was universal, anarchy became chronic,
+and was increased by the indiscipline of the Papal troops that were
+sent to put it down. The Austrians returned and the French occupied
+Ancona, much to the Pope's displeasure, and not one whit to the
+advantage of the Liberals. This dual foreign occupation of the Papal
+states lasted till the winter of 1838.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+'YOUNG ITALY' 1831-1844
+
+Accession of Charles Albert--Mazzini's Unitarian Propaganda--The
+Brothers Bandiera.
+
+
+On 27 April 1831, Charles Albert came to the throne he had so nearly
+lost. His reconciliation with his uncle, Charles Felix, had been
+effected after long and melancholy preliminaries. To wash off the
+Liberal sins of his youth, or possibly with a vague hope of finding an
+escape from his false position in a soldier's death, he joined the Duc
+d'Angoulême's expedition against the Spanish Constitutionalists. His
+extraordinary daring in the assault of the Trocadero caused him to be
+the hero of the hour when he returned with the army to Paris; but the
+King of Sardinia still refused to receive him with favour--a
+sufficiently icy favour when it was granted--until he signed an
+engagement, which remained secret, to preserve intact during his reign
+the laws and principles of government which he found in force at his
+accession. If there had been an Order of the Millstone, Charles Felix
+would doubtless have conferred it upon his dutiful nephew; failing
+that, he presented to him for signature this wonderful document, the
+invention of which he owed to Prince Metternich. At the Congress of
+Verona in 1822, Charles Albert's claims to the succession were
+recognised, thanks chiefly to the Duke of Wellington, who represented
+England in place of Lord Londonderry (Castlereagh), that statesman
+having committed suicide just as he was starting for Verona. Prince
+Metternich then proposed that the Prince of Carignano should be called
+upon to enter into an agreement identical with the compact he was
+brought to sign a couple of years later. In communicating the proposal
+to Canning, the Duke of Wellington wrote that he had demonstrated to
+Prince Metternich 'the fatality of such an arrangement,' but that he
+did not think that he had made the slightest impression on him. So the
+event proved; baffled for the moment, the Prince managed to put his
+plan in execution through a surer channel.
+
+With the accession of Charles Albert appears upon the political scene
+a great actor in the Liberation of Italy, Giuseppe Mazzini. Young and
+unknown, except for a vague reputation for restlessness and for talent
+which caused the government of Charles Felix to imprison him for six
+or seven months at Savona, Mazzini proposed to the new King the terms
+on which he might keep his throne, as calmly as Metternich had
+proposed to him the terms on which he might ascend it. The contrast is
+striking; on the one side the statesman, who still commanded the armed
+force of three-fourths of Europe, doing battle for the holy alliance
+of autocrats, for the international law of repression, for all the
+traditions of the old diplomacy; on the other, the young student with
+little money and few friends, already an exile, having no allies but
+his brain and his pen, who set himself, certain of success, to
+dissolve that mighty array of power and pomp. All his life Charles
+Albert was a Faust for the possession of whose soul two irreconcilable
+forces contended; the struggle was never more dramatically represented
+than at this moment in the person of these two champions.
+
+Mazzini's letter to Charles Albert, which was read by the King, and
+widely, though secretly, circulated in Piedmont, began by telling him
+that his fellow-countrymen were ready to believe his line of conduct
+in 1821 to have been forced on him by circumstances, and that there
+was not a heart in Italy that did not quicken at his accession, nor an
+eye in Europe that was not turned to watch his first steps in the
+career that now unfolded before him. Then he went on to show, with the
+logical strength in developing an argument which, joined to a novel
+and eloquent style, caused his writings to attract notice from the
+first, that the King could take no middle course. He would be one of
+the first of men, or the last of Italian tyrants; let him choose. Had
+he never looked upon Italy, radiant with the smile of nature, crowned
+with twenty centuries of sublime memories, the mother of genius,
+possessing infinite means, to which only union was lacking, girt round
+with such defences that a strong will and a few courageous breasts
+would suffice to defend her? Had it never struck him that she was
+created for a glorious destiny? Did he not contemplate her people,
+splendid still, in spite of the shadow of servitude, the vigour of
+whose intellect, the energy of whose passions, even when turned to
+evil, showed that the making of a nation was there? Did not the
+thought come to him: 'Draw a world out of these dispersed elements
+like a god from chaos; unite into one whole the scattered members, and
+pronounce the words, "It is mine, and it is happy"?'
+
+Mazzini in 1831 was twenty-six years of age. His father was a Genoese
+physician, his mother a native of Chiavari. She was a superior woman,
+and devoted more than a mother's care to the excitable and delicate
+child, who seemed to her (mothers have sometimes the gift of prophecy)
+to be meant for an uncommon lot. One of the few personal reminiscences
+that Mazzini left recorded, relates to the time and manner in which
+the idea first came to him of the possibility of Italians doing
+something for their country. He was walking with his mother in the
+Strada Nuova at Genoa one Sunday in April 1821, when a tall,
+black-bearded man with a fiery glance held towards them a white
+handkerchief, saying: 'For the refugees of Italy.' Mazzini's mother,
+gave him some money, and he passed on. In the streets were many
+unfamiliar faces; the fugitives from Turin and Alessandria were
+gathered at Genoa before they departed by sea into exile. The
+impression which that scene made on the mind of the boy of sixteen was
+never effaced.
+
+Owing to his delicate health, Mazzini's early education was carried on
+at home, where the social atmosphere was that of one of those little
+centres in a provincial capital which are composed of a few people,
+mostly kindred, of similar tastes, who lead useful and refined lives,
+content with moderate ease. The real exclusiveness of such centres
+exceeds any that exists in the most aristocratic sphere in the world.
+The Mazzinis were, moreover, Genoese to the core; and this was another
+reason for exclusiveness, and for holding aloof from the governing
+class. Mazzini was born a few days after Napoleon entered Genoa as its
+lord. He had not, therefore, breathed the air of the ancient Republic;
+but there was the unadulterated republicanism of a thousand years in
+his veins.
+
+When he grew to manhood his appearance was striking. The black,
+flowing hair, the pale, olive complexion, the finely-cut features and
+lofty brow, the deep-set eyes, which could smile as only Italian eyes
+can smile, but which could also flash astral infinitudes of scorn, the
+fragile figure, even the long, delicate, tapering fingers, marked him
+for a man apart--though whether a poet or an apostle, a seer or a
+saint, it was not easy to decide. Yet this could be said at once: if
+this man concentrated all his being on a single point, he would wield
+the power, call it what we will, which in every age has worked
+miracles and moved mountains.
+
+Mazzini became a Carbonaro, though the want of clear, guiding
+principles in Carbonarism made him misdoubt its efficacy, and its
+hierarchical mysteries and initiatory ordeals repelled him by their
+childishness. Then followed his arrest, and his detention in the
+fortress of Savona, which was the turning-point in his mental life.
+Before that date he learnt, after it he taught. From his high-perched
+cell he saw the sea and the sky--with the Alps, the sublimest things
+in Nature. The voices of the fishermen reached his ears, though he
+could not see them. A tame goldfinch was his companion. Here, in a
+solitude and peace which he remembered with regret in the stormy and
+sorrowful years that were to come, he conceived his message and the
+mission, in which he believed to the last day of his life.
+
+He resolved to found a new association on broader and simpler lines than
+the secret societies of the past, which should aim not only at the
+material freeing of Italy from her present bondage, but at her moral and
+religious regeneration. To aim at material progress of any kind, without
+at the same time aiming at a higher moral progress, seemed to Mazzini
+absurd; to attempt to pull down without attempting to build up seemed to
+him criminal. Thus he accused the Socialists of substituting the
+progress of humanity's kitchen for the progress of humanity. He believed
+that Italy, united and redeemed, was destined to shed through the world
+the light of a new moral unity, which should end the reign of
+Scepticism, triumphant among discordant creeds. Mazzini's religious
+belief was the motor of his whole being. The Catholicism in which he was
+outwardly brought up never seems to have touched his inner nature; he
+went through no spiritual wrench in leaving a faith that was never a
+reality to him. The same is true of innumerable young Italians, who,
+when they begin to read and study, drift out of their childhood's
+religion without a struggle or a regret. But thought and study brought
+Mazzini what it rarely brings to these young men--the necessity to find
+something in which he could believe. He had not long to seek for a basis
+to his creed, because he was one of the men from the prophets of old to
+Spinoza, from Spinoza to Gordon, to whom the existence of God is a
+matter of experience rather than an object of faith. Starting from this
+point, he formed his religion out of what he regarded as its inevitable
+deductions. If God existed, his creatures must be intended for
+perfection; if this were the Divine scheme, man's one business was to
+carry it out. He considered the idea of duty separated from the idea of
+God to be illogical. Either the development of human things depended on
+a providential law, or it was left to chance and passing circumstance,
+and to the dexterity of the man who turned these to most account. God
+was the sole source of duty; duty the sole law of life. Mazzini did not
+denounce Catholicism or any other religion as false. He saw in it a
+stepping-stone to purer comprehension, which would be reached when man's
+intellect was sufficiently developed for him to be able to do without
+symbols.
+
+[Illustration: GIUSEPPE MAZZINI]
+
+The conscience of humanity is the last tribunal. Ideas, as well as
+institutions, change and expand, but certain fundamental principles
+are fixed. The family would always exist; property would always exist.
+The first, 'the heart's fatherland,' was the source of the only true
+happiness, the only joys untainted by grief, which were given to man.
+Those who wished to abolish the second were like the savage who cut
+down the tree in order to gather the fruit. In the future, free
+association would be the great agent of moral and material progress.
+The authority which once rested in popes and emperors now devolved on
+the people. Instead of 'God and the King,' Mazzini proposed the new
+formula 'God and the People.' By the people he understood no caste or
+class, whether high or low, but the universality of men composing the
+nation. The nation is the sole sovereign; its will, expressed by
+delegates, must be law to all its citizens.
+
+By degrees certain words acquired more and more a mystical
+significance in Mazzini's mind; the very name of Rome, for instance,
+had for him a sort of talismanic fascination, not unlike that
+possessed by Jerusalem for the mediæval Christian. When he spoke of
+the people or the republic he frequently used those terms in an ideal
+and visionary sense (as theologians use the Church) rather than in one
+strictly corresponding with the case of any existing nation, or any
+hitherto tried form of government. This does not alter the fact that
+his theories, which have been briefly summarised, are not hard to
+comprehend, as has been said by those who did not know in what they
+consisted, nor, taken one by one, are they novel. What was new in the
+nineteenth century was the appearance of a revolutionary leader, who
+was before all things a religious and ethical teacher. And though
+Mazzini never founded the Church of Precursors, of which he dreamt,
+his influence was as surely due to his belief in his religious
+mission, as was the influence of Savonarola. The Italians are not a
+mystical people, but they have always followed mystical leaders. The
+less men are prone to ideal enthusiasm the more attracted are they by
+it; Don Quixote, as Heine remarked, always draws Sancho Panza after
+him.
+
+Mazzini had a natural capacity for organisation, and the Association
+of Young Italy which he founded at Marseilles, the first nucleus being
+a group of young, penniless refugees, soon obtained an astonishing
+development. Up to the time of his 'Letter to Charles Albert,' his
+exile had been so far voluntary that he might have remained in
+Piedmont had he agreed to live in one of the smaller towns under the
+watchful care of the police, but he declined the terms, and the first
+effect of the 'Letter' was a stringent order to arrest him if he
+recrossed the frontier. He was not surprised at that result. Mazzini's
+attitude towards the Sardinian monarchy was perfectly well defined.
+Republican himself, even to fanaticism, he placed the question of
+unity, which for him meant national existence, above the question of
+the republic. He did not believe that the House of Savoy would unite
+Italy, but if unity could only be had under what he looked upon as the
+inauspicious form of monarchy, he would not reject it. He was like the
+real mother in the judgment of Solomon, who, because she loved her
+child, was ready to give it up sooner than see it cut in two.
+
+Apart from personal hereditary instincts and predilections, Mazzini
+thought that he saw in the glorious memories of the Italian republics
+a clear indication that the commonwealth was the form of government
+which ought and would be adopted by the Italy of the future. But,
+unlike most politicians, he laid down the principle that, after all,
+when free, the nation must decide for itself. 'To what purpose,' he
+asks, 'do we constantly speak of the sovereignty of the people, and of
+our reverence for the national will, if we are to disregard it as soon
+as it pronounces in contradiction to our wishes?'
+
+He did not succeed in making the majority of his countrymen
+republicans, but he contributed more than any other man towards
+inspiring the whole country with the desire for unity. Herein lies his
+great work. Without Mazzini, when would the Italians have got beyond
+the fallacies of federal republics, leagues of princes, provincial
+autonomy, insular home-rule, and all the other dreams of independence
+reft of its only safeguard which possessed the minds of patriots of
+every party in Italy and of nearly every well-wisher to Italian
+freedom abroad?
+
+In 1831, most educated Italians did not even wish for unity, and this
+is still truer of the republicans than of the monarchists. Some, like
+Manzoni, did wish for it, but, like him, said nothing about it, for
+fear of being thought madmen. A flash of the true light illuminated
+the mind of Giro Menotti, but that was extinguished on the scaffold.
+Then it was that Mazzini came forward with the news that Italy could
+_only_ be made free and independent by being united; unity was the
+ruling tendency of the century, and, as far as Italy went, no Utopia,
+but a certain conclusion. This was repeated over and over again,
+wherever there were Italians, over the inhabited globe. By means of
+sailors, 'Young Italy' spread like lightning. Giuseppe Garibaldi was
+made a member by a sailor on the shores of the Black Sea.
+
+With the masses, unity proved the wonder-working word which
+Confalonieri had said was the one thing needful--a word yet fitter to
+work wonders than 'War to the Stranger.' Among the cultivated classes,
+it was much slower in gaining ground, and particularly among statesmen
+and diplomatists. But in the end it was to convert them all.
+
+'"Young Italy,"' writes Mazzini, 'closed the period of political
+sects, and initiated that of educational associations.' 'Great
+revolutions,' he says again, 'are the work of principles rather than
+of bayonets.' It was by the diffusion of ideas that 'Young Italy'
+became a commanding factor in the events of the next thirty years.
+The insurrectional attempts planned under its guidance did not
+succeed, nor was it likely that they should succeed. Devised by
+exiles, at a distance, they lacked the first elements of success. The
+earliest of these attempts aimed at an invasion of Savoy; it was hoped
+that the Sardinian army and people would join the little band of
+exiles in a movement for the liberation of Lombardy. The revolution of
+1821 had evidently suggested this plan to Mazzini, but it was
+foredoomed to misfortune. The Piedmontese authorities got wind of it,
+and a hunt followed for the members of 'Young Italy'; most severe
+measures were taken; there were eleven executions, and numberless
+sentences to long terms of imprisonment. Jacobo Ruffini, the younger
+brother of the author of _Dr Antonio_, and Mazzini's most beloved
+friend, committed suicide in prison, fearing to reveal the names of
+his associates. The apologists for Charles Albert say that if he had
+not shown the will and ability to deal severely with the conspirators,
+Austria would have insisted on a military occupation. Whatever were
+his motives, this is the saddest page of his unhappy reign.
+
+Checked in 1833, the descent on Savoy was actually attempted in 1834,
+with Mazzini's consent, though not by his wish. An officer who had won
+some celebrity in the Polish revolution, General Ramorino, a Savoyard
+by origin, was given the command. Ramorino was a gambler, who could
+not be trusted with money, but Mazzini's suspicion that on this
+occasion he played the part of traitor is not proved. However that may
+be, the expedition ended almost as soon as it began. Ramorino crossed
+the frontier of Savoy at the head of the column, but when he heard
+that a Polish reinforcement had been stopped on the Lake of Geneva, he
+retreated into Switzerland, and advised the band to follow him.
+
+After these events, Mazzini could no longer carry on his propaganda in
+France. He took refuge in England, where a great part of his life was
+to be passed, and of which he spoke, to the last, as his second
+country. The first period of his residence in England was darkened by
+the deep distress and discouragement into which the recent events had
+plunged him; but his faith in the future prevailed, and he went on
+with his work. His endeavours to help his fellow-exiles reduced him to
+the last stage of poverty; the day came when he was obliged to pawn a
+coat and an old pair of boots. These money difficulties did not
+afflict him, and by degrees his writings in English periodicals
+brought some addition to the small quarterly allowance which he
+received from his mother. It seems strange, though it is easily
+explained, that it was in London that he first got to know the Italian
+working classes. He was surprised and gladdened by the abundance of
+good elements which he found in them. No country, indeed, has more
+reason to hope in her working men than the land whose sons have
+tunnelled the Alps, cut the most arduous railway lines in America and
+India, brought up English ships from the deep, laid the caissons (a
+task of extreme danger) which support the great structure of the
+Bridge of the Firth of Forth, and left their bones to whiten at
+Panama. 'It is the universal testimony,' writes a high American
+authority, 'that no more faithful men have come among us.' What was
+the cause of the slaughter of the Aigues Mortes? That the Italians
+worked too well.
+
+Mazzini wrote for his humble friends the treatise on _The Duties of
+Man_, in which he told them that he loved them too well to flatter
+them. Another work that occupied him and consoled him was the rescue
+and moral improvement of the children employed by organ-grinders, and
+he was the first to call attention to the white slavery to which many
+of them were subjected. He opened a school in Hatton Garden, in which
+he taught, and which he mainly supported for the seven years from 1841
+to 1848.
+
+The enterprise of the Brothers Bandiera belongs to the history of
+'Young Italy,' though Mazzini himself had tried to prevent it,
+believing that it could only end in the sacrifice of all concerned.
+Nor, at the last, did the actors in it expect anything else. They had
+hoped for better things; for a general movement in the South of Italy,
+or at least for an undertaking on a larger and less irrational basis.
+But promises failed, money was not forthcoming, and it was a choice
+between doing nothing or a piece of heroic folly. Contrary to
+Mazzini's entreaties, they chose the second alternative.
+
+Attilio and Emilio Bandiera were sons of the Austrian admiral who, in
+1831, arrested Italian fugitives at sea. Placed by their father in the
+Austrian navy, they renounced every prospect of a brilliant career to
+enter the service of their down-trodden country. When they deserted,
+strong efforts were made by the Archduke Rainieri, through their
+mother, to win them back, but neither the offers of pardon nor the
+poor woman's tears and reproaches turned them from their purpose.
+Another deserter was with them, Lieutenant Domenico Moro, a youth of
+great charm of person and disposition, who had been employed with a
+mixed force of Englishmen and Austrians in the Lebanon, where he
+formed a warm friendship with Lieutenant, now Admiral, Sir George
+Wellesley, who still preserves an affectionate remembrance of him.
+Nicola Ricciotti, a Roman subject who had devoted all his life to
+Italy, and Anacarsi Nardi, son of the dictator of Modena, were also
+of the band, which counted about twenty.
+
+The Bandieras and their companions sailed from Corfu for the coast of
+Calabria on the 11th of June 1844. 'If we fall,' they wrote to
+Mazzini, 'tell our countrymen to imitate our example, for life was
+given to us to be nobly and usefully employed, and the cause for which
+we shall have fought and died is the purest and holiest that ever
+warmed the heart of man.' It was their last letter. After they landed
+in Calabria one of their number disappeared; there is every reason to
+suppose that he went to betray them. They wandered for a few days in
+the mountains, looking for the insurgent band which they had been
+falsely told was waiting for them, and then fell into an ambush
+prepared by the Neapolitan troops. Some died fighting; nine were shot
+at Cosenza, including the Bandieras, Mori, Ricciotti and Nardi.
+Boccheciampi the Corsican, whom they suspected of treason, was brought
+up to be confronted with them during the trial; when asked if he knew
+who he was, Nardi replied: 'I know no word in my divine Italian
+language that can fitly describe that man.' Boccheciampi was condemned
+to a nominal imprisonment; when he came out of prison he wrote to a
+Greek girl of Corfu, to whom he was engaged, to join him at Naples,
+that they might be married. The girl had been deeply in love with him,
+and had already given him part of her dowry, but she answered: 'A
+traitor cannot wed a Greek maiden; I bear with me the blessing of my
+parents; upon you rests the curse of God.'
+
+The martyrdom of the Bandieras made a great impression, especially in
+England, where the circumstance came to light that their
+correspondence with Mazzini had been tampered with in the English
+Post Office, and that information as to their plans had reached the
+Austrian and Neapolitan Governments through the British Foreign
+Office. The affair was brought before the House of Commons by Thomas
+Duncombe. The Home Secretary repeated a calumny which had appeared
+many years before in a French newspaper, to the effect that the murder
+of an Italian in Rodez by two of his fellow-countrymen was the result
+of an order from the Association of Young Italy. Sir James Graham had
+to apologise afterwards for 'the injury inflicted on Mr Mazzini' by
+this statement, which he was obliged to admit was supported by no
+evidence, and was contrary to the opinion of the Judge who tried the
+case.
+
+The _Times_ having observed in a leading article that the gravity of
+the fact in question, the violation of private correspondence in the
+Post Office, was not affected by the merits or demerits of Mr Mazzini,
+of whom it professed to 'know nothing,' Thomas Carlyle wrote next day
+a letter containing words which may be quoted as some of the best and
+truest ever written about the great Italian: 'I have had the honour to
+know Mr Mazzini for a series of years, and, whatever I may think of
+his practical insight and skill in worldly affairs, I can with great
+freedom testify that he, if I have ever seen one such, is a man of
+genius and virtue, one of those rare men, numerable unfortunately but
+as units in this world, who are worthy to be called martyr souls; who
+in silence, piously in their daily life, understand and practise what
+is meant by that.' [2]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE POPE LIBERATOR
+
+1844-1847
+
+Events leading to the Election of Pius IX.--The Petty Princes--Charles
+Albert, Leopold and Ferdinand.
+
+
+The day is drawing near when the century which witnessed the
+liberation of Italy will have passed away. Already a generation has
+grown up which can but faintly realise the passionate hopes and fears
+with which the steps that led through defeat to the ultimate victory
+were watched, not only by Italians, but by thousands who had never set
+foot in Italy. Never did a series of political events evoke a sympathy
+so wide and so disinterested, and it may be foretold with confidence
+that it never will again. Italy rising from the grave was the living
+romance of myriads of young hearts that were lifted from the common
+level of trivial interests and selfish ends, from the routine of work
+or pleasure, both deadening without some diviner spark, by a sustained
+enthusiasm that can hardly be imagined now. There were, indeed, some
+who asked what was all this to them? What were the 'extraneous
+Austrian Emperor,' or the 'old chimera of a Pope' (Carlyle's
+designations) to the British taxpayer? Some there were in England who
+were deeply attached still to the 'Great Hinge on which Europe
+depended,' and even to the most clement Spanish Bourbons of Naples,
+about whom strangely beautiful things are to be read in old numbers of
+the _Quarterly Review_. But on the whole, English men and women--in
+mind half Italian, whether they will it or not, from the day they
+begin to read their own literature from Chaucer to Shakespeare, from
+Shakespeare to Shelley, from Shelley to Rossetti and Swinburne--were
+united at that time in warmth of feeling towards struggling Italy as
+they have been united in no political sentiment relating to another
+nation, and in few concerning their own country.
+
+It would be vain to expect that the record of Italian vicissitudes
+during the years when the fate of Italy hung in the balance can awake
+or renew the spellbound interest caused by the events themselves. The
+reader of recent history is like the novel reader who begins at the
+last chapter--he is too familiar with how it all ended to be keenly
+affected by the development of the plot. Yet it is plain that we are
+in a better position to appreciate the process of development than was
+the case when the issue remained uncertain. We can estimate more
+accurately the difficulties which stood in the way, and judge more
+impartially the means that were taken to remove them. One outcome of
+this fuller knowledge is the conviction that patriotism was the
+monopoly of no single Italian party. The leaders, and still more their
+henchmen, were in the habit of saying very hard things about each
+other. It was natural and unavoidable; but there is no excuse now for
+failing to recognise that there were pure and devoted patriots on the
+one side as well as on the other--men whose only desire was the
+salvation of Italy, to effect which no sacrifice seemed too great. Nor
+were their labours unfruitful, for there was work for all of them to
+do; and the very diversity of opinion, though unfortunate under some
+aspects, was not so under all. If no one had raised the question of
+unity before all things, Italy might be still a geographical
+expression. If no one had tried to wring concessions from the old
+governments, their inherent and irremediable vices would never have
+been proved; and though they might have been overturned, they would
+have left behind a lasting possibility of ignorant reaction.
+
+The Great Powers had presented to the Court of Rome in 1831 a
+memorandum, in which various moderate reforms and improvements were
+proposed as urgently necessary to put an end to the intolerable abuses
+which were rife in the states of the Church, and, most of all, in
+Romagna. The abolition of the tribunal of the Holy Office, the
+institution of a Council of State, lay education, and the
+secularisation of the administration were among the measures
+recommended. In 1845 a certain Pietro Renzi collected a body of
+spirited young men at San Marino, and made a dash on Rimini, where he
+disarmed the small garrison. The other towns were not prepared, and
+Renzi and his companions were obliged to retire into Tuscany; but the
+revolution, partial as it had been, raised discussion in consequence
+of the manifesto issued by its promoters, in which a demand was made
+for the identical reforms vainly advocated by European diplomacy
+fourteen years before. If these were granted, the insurgents engaged
+to lay down their arms. The manifesto was written by Luigi Carlo
+Farini, who was destined to play a large part in future affairs. It
+proved to Europe that even the most conservative elements in the
+nation were driven to revolution by the sheer hopelessness of the
+dead-lock which the Italian rulers sought by every means to prolong.
+Massimo d'Azeglio, who was then known only as a painter of talent and
+a writer of historical novels, first made his mark as a politician by
+the pamphlet entitled _Gli ultimi casi di Romagna_, in which his
+arguments derived force from the fact that, when travelling in the
+district, he had done all in his power to induce the Liberals to keep
+within the bounds of legality. But he confessed that, when someone
+says: 'I suffer too much,' it is an unsatisfactory answer to retort:
+'You have not suffered enough.' Massimo d'Azeglio had lived for many
+years an artist's life in Rome and the country round, where his
+aristocratic birth and handsome face made him popular with all
+classes. The transparent integrity of his nature overcame the
+diffidence usually inspired by strangers among a somewhat suspicious
+people, and he got to know more thoroughly than any other North
+Italian the real aspirations of the Pope's subjects. He listened to
+their complaints and their plans, and if they asked his advice, he
+invariably replied: 'Let us speak clearly. What is it that you wish
+and I with you? You wish to have done with priestly rule, and to send
+the Teutons out of Italy? If you invite them to decamp, they will
+probably say, "No, thank you!" Therefore you must use force; and where
+is it to be had? If you have not got it, you must find somebody who
+has. In Italy who has it, or, to speak more precisely, who has a
+little of it? Piedmont, because it, at least, enjoys an independent
+life, and possesses an army and a surplus in the treasury.' His
+friends answered: 'What of Charles Albert, of 1821, of 1832?' Now,
+there was no one who felt less trust in Charles Albert than Massimo
+d'Azeglio; he admitted it with something like remorse in later years.
+But he believed in his ambition, and he thought it madness to throw
+away what he regarded as the sole chance of freeing Italy on account
+of private doubts of the King of Sardinia's sincerity.
+
+Charles Albert had reigned for fourteen years, and still the mystery
+which surrounded his character formed as impenetrable a veil as ever.
+The popular nickname of _Re Tentenna_ (King Waverer) seemed, in a
+sense, accepted by him when he said to the Duke d'Aumale in 1843: 'I
+am between the dagger of the Carbonari and the chocolate of the
+Jesuits.' He chose, as bride for his eldest son, an Austrian princess,
+who, however, had known no country but Italy. His internal policy was
+not simply stationary, it was retrograde. If his consent was obtained
+to some progressive measure, he withdrew it at the last moment, or
+insisted on the introduction of modifications which nullified the
+whole. His want of stability drove one of his ministers to jump out of
+a window. In spite of the candid reference to the Jesuit's cup of
+chocolate, he allowed the Society of Jesus to dictate its will in
+Piedmont. Victor Amadeus, the first King of Sardinia, took public
+education out of the hands of the Jesuits, after receiving the
+following deathbed communication from one of the Order who was his own
+confessor: 'Deeply sensible of your many favours, I can only show my
+gratitude by a final piece of advice, but of such importance that
+perhaps it may suffice to discharge my debt. Never have a Jesuit for
+confessor. Do not ask me the grounds of this advice, I should not be
+at liberty to tell them to you.' The lesson was forgotten now. Charles
+Albert was not content to wear a hair-shirt himself; he would have
+liked to see all his subjects furnished with the same garment. The
+result was, that Piedmont was not a comfortable place for Liberals to
+live in, nor a lively place for anyone. Yet there is hardly anything
+more certain than that all this time the King was constantly dreaming
+of turning the Austrians out of Italy. His government kept its
+attention fixed on two points: the improvement of the army, and the
+accumulation of a reserve fund to be available in case of war. Drill
+and thrift, which made the German Empire out of Prussia, if they did
+not lead straight to equally splendid results south of the Alps, were
+still what rendered it possible for Piedmont to defy Austria when the
+time came. In 1840, Charles Albert wrote to his Minister of War: 'It
+is a fine thing to win twenty battles; as for me, I should be content
+to win ten on behalf of a cause I know of, and to fall in the
+tenth--then, indeed, I would die blessing the Lord.' A year or two
+later, he unearthed and reassumed the ancient motto of the House of
+Savoy: 'J'attends mon astre.' Nevertheless, to the outward world his
+intentions remained enigmatical, and it was therefore with extreme
+surprise that Massimo d'Azeglio (who, on his return from the Roman
+states, asked permission to inform the King of the impressions made on
+him by his travels) received the injunction to tell his Liberal
+friends 'that when the occasion presented itself, his life, the life
+of his sons, his treasure, and his army would all be spent for the
+Italian cause.'
+
+The fifteen years' pontificate of Gregory XVI. ended on the 1st June
+of 1846. In spite of the care taken by those around him to keep the
+aged pontiff in a fool's paradise with regard to the real state of his
+dominions, a copy of _The Late Events in Romagna_ fell into his hands,
+and considerably disturbed his peace of mind. He sent two prelates to
+look into the condition of the congested provinces, and their tour,
+though it resulted in nothing else, called forth new protests and
+supplications from the inhabitants, of which the most noteworthy was
+an address written by Count Aurelio Saffi, who was destined to pass
+many honourable years of exile in England. This address attacked the
+root of the evil in a passage which exposed the unbearable vexations
+of a government based on espionage. The acknowledged power of an
+irresponsible police was backed by the secret force of an army of
+private spies and informers. The sentiment of legality was being
+stamped out of the public conscience, and with it religion and
+morality. 'Bishops have been heard to preach civil war--a crusade
+against the Liberals; priests seem to mix themselves in wretched party
+strife, egging on the mob to vent its worst passions. There is not a
+Catholic country in which the really Christian priest is so rarely
+found as in the States of the Church.'
+
+If Gregory XVI. was not without reasons for disquietude in his last
+hours, he could take comfort in the fact that he had succeeded in
+keeping railways out of all parts of his dominions. Gas and suspension
+bridges were also classed as works of the Evil One, and vigorously
+tabooed. Among the Pope's subjects there was a young prelate who had
+never been able to make out what there was subversive to theology in a
+steam-engine, or why the safety of the Papal government should depend
+on its opposing every form of material improvement, although in
+discussing these subjects he generally ended by saying: 'After all I
+am no politician, and I may be mistaken.' This prelate was Cardinal
+Mastai-Ferretti, Bishop of Imola. Born in 1792 at Sinigaglia, of a
+good though rather needy family, Count Giovanni Maria Mastai was
+piously brought up by his mother, who dedicated him at an early age to
+the Virgin, to whom she believed that she owed his recovery from an
+illness which had been pronounced fatal. Roman Catholic writers
+connect the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception
+with this incident of childhood. After entering the priesthood, young
+Mastai devoted most of his energies to active charity, and remained,
+as he said, 'no politician,' being singularly ignorant of the world
+and of public affairs, though full of amiable wishes that everyone
+should be happy. Some years spent in missionary work in South America
+failed to enlarge his practical knowledge, the limits of which he was
+the first to recognise--a fact that tended to make him all his life
+the instrument, not of his own will, but of the wills of men whom he
+honestly thought cleverer and more experienced than himself. His chief
+friends in his Romagnol diocese, friends on the intimate basis of
+social equality and common provincial interests, were sound patriots,
+though not revolutionists, and the future Pio Nono involuntarily
+adopted their ideas and sympathies. He saw with his eyes certain
+abuses so glaring that they admitted of no two opinions, and these
+helped to convince him of the truth of his friends' arguments in
+favour of a completely new order of things. One such abuse was the
+encouragement given by government to the Society of the Centurioni,
+the latest evolution of the Calderai; the Centurions, recruited among
+roughs and peasants, were set upon the respectable middle classes,
+over which they tyrannised by secret accusations or open violence: it
+was well understood that anyone called a Liberal, or Freemason, or
+Carbonaro could be beaten or killed without inquiries being made.
+
+The Bishop of Imola was frequently in the house of the Count and
+Countess Pasolini, who kept their friend well supplied with the new
+books on Italian affairs; thus he read not only D'Azeglio's _Cast di
+Romagna_, but also Cesare Balbo's _Le Speranze d'Italia,_ which
+propounded a plan for an Italian federation, and Gioberti's _Primato
+morale e civile degli Italiani_, in which this plan was elaborately
+developed. Gioberti indicated the Supreme Pontiff as the natural head
+of the Italian Union, and the King of Sardinia as Italy's natural
+deliverer from foreign domination. The eternal fitness of things, and
+the history of many centuries, proved the Pope to be the proper
+paramount civil authority in Italy, 'which is the capital of Europe,
+because Rome is the religious metropolis of the world.' An ex-member
+of 'Young Italy,' a Piedmontese by birth, a priest by ordination,
+Gioberti's profession of faith was derived from these three sources,
+and it attracted thousands of Italians by its apparent reconciliation
+of the interests of the papacy, and of the Sardinian monarchy, with
+the most advanced views of the newest school. History, to which
+Gioberti appealed, might have told him that a reversal of the law of
+gravity was as likely to happen as the performance by the papacy of
+the mission he proposed to it; but men believe what they wish to
+believe, and his work found, as has been said, thousands of admirers,
+among whom none was more sincere than Cardinal Mastai. The day on
+which Count Pasolini gave him a copy of _Il Primato_ he created that
+great, and under some aspects pathetic illusion, the reforming Pope.
+
+The Conclave opened on the 14th of June 1846. During the Bishop of
+Imola's journey to Rome a white pigeon had perched several times on
+his carriage. The story became known; people said the same thing had
+occurred to a coming Pope on former occasions, and the augury was
+accepted with joy and satisfaction. He was, in fact, elected after the
+Conclave had lasted only two days, while the Conclave which elected
+his predecessor lasted sixty-four. The brevity of that to which Pius
+IX. owed the tiara was looked upon by the populace as something
+miraculous, but it was the result of the well-considered determination
+of the Italian Cardinals not to allow time for Austrian intrigues to
+obtain the election of a Pope who would be ruled from Vienna. When the
+new Pope appeared on the balcony of the Quirinal to give his first
+benediction, the people, carried away by his youthful yet majestic
+bearing, and by the hopes which already centred in him, broke into
+frantic cries of: 'We have a Pope! He loves us! He is our Father!' If
+they had cried: 'We have a new heaven and a new earth,' they would but
+have expressed the delirium which, starting from Rome, spread
+throughout Italy.
+
+On the night of the 6th of December 1846, the whole line of the
+Apennines from Liguria to Calabria was illuminated. A hundred years
+before, a stone thrown by the child Balilla had given the signal for
+the expulsion of the Austrians from Genoa: this was the memory
+flashed from height to height by countless beacons, but while
+celebrating the past, they were the fiery heralds of a greater
+revolution.
+
+The upheaval of Europe did not become a fact, however, for another
+year. Meantime, the Roman States attracted more attention than any
+other part of the peninsula, from the curiosity awakened by the
+progress of the experiment of which they were the scene. It is not
+doubtful that at the first moment Pius IX. was under the impression
+that the problem he had taken in hand was eminently simple. A little
+goodwill on the part of everybody, an amnesty to heal old sores, and a
+few administrative reforms, ought, he thought, to set everything
+right. Such was not the opinion of intelligent onlookers who were
+students of politics--especially if they were foreigners, and could
+therefore keep their heads moderately cool in the prevailing
+excitement. The wave of a wand may seem to effect marvels, but long
+and silent causes prepare the way for each event. Now what had been
+going on for years in the Roman States was not the process of gradual
+growth, but the process of rapid disintegration. The Temporal Power of
+the Popes had died without anyone noticing it, and there was nothing
+left but a body in the course of dissolution. Every foreigner in Rome
+during the reign of Gregory XVI. bore witness that his government
+depended for its existence absolutely on the Swiss Guards. In 1845,
+Count Rossi told Guizot that without the Swiss regiments the
+government in the Legations and the Marches 'would be overthrown in
+the twinkling of an eye.' The British agent in Rome, writing during
+the Conclave, bore this out by the statement, which applied not to one
+portion of the Roman states, but to all, that 'the government could
+not stand without the protection of Austria and the immediate
+presence of the Swiss.' On the accession of Pius IX., the props, such
+as they were, which had prevented an earlier collapse of the Temporal
+Power, were either removed or rendered useless. The Swiss might as
+well have been disbanded at once as retained merely to be a bone of
+contention between the new government and the people, since it was
+understood that a vigorous use of their services would never be
+resorted to; while Austrian protection was transferred from the Pope
+to the disaffected party in the Church, which consisted in a large
+proportion of the cardinals and of the inferior clergy who were afraid
+that, with the reform of abuses, they would lose their influence over
+the lower class of their flocks. The English diplomatic agents in
+Italy also firmly believed that Austria coupled with her support of
+the ultramontane malcontents the direct encouragement of the
+disorderly elements of the population. To resist all these contrary
+forces, Pius IX. had only a popularity which, though for the time
+immense, was founded almost completely on imagination. 'It was,' said
+Mr Petre, 'the name and known views of Pius, rather than his acts,
+which aroused so much interest.' If for 'known views' be substituted
+'supposed views,' the remark exactly describes the situation.
+
+Popularity is very well, but a government cannot long subsist on the
+single fact of the popularity of the sovereign. When the Roman mob
+began to cry: 'Viva Pio Nono _solo_,' the fate of the experiment was
+sealed. Real control slipped from the hands that nominally wielded it.
+'The influence,' Mr Petre wrote to Sir George Hamilton, 'of one
+individual of the lower class, Angelo Brunetti, hardly known but by
+his nickname of Ciceruacchio, has for the last month kept the peace of
+the city more than any power possessed by the authorities, from the
+command which he exerts over the populace.' It was Ciceruacchio who
+preserved order when in July 1847 the air was full of rumours of a
+vast reactionary plot, which aimed at carrying off the Pope, and
+putting things back as they were under Gregory. That such a plot was
+ever conceived, or, at anyrate, that it received the sanction of the
+high personages whose names were mentioned in connection with it, is
+generally doubted now; but it was believed in by many of the
+representatives of foreign Powers then in Italy. The public mind in
+Rome was violently disturbed. Austria made the excitement the excuse
+for occupying the town of Ferrara, where, by the accepted
+interpretation of the Treaty of Vienna, she had only the right to
+garrison the fortress. This aggression called forth a strong
+remonstrance from the Pope's Secretary of State, Cardinal Ferretti;
+and though a compromise was arrived at through the mediation of Lord
+Palmerston, the feeling against Austria grew more and more exasperated
+in the Roman states, and the Pope consented, not, it seemed, much
+against the grain, to preparations being taken in hand with a view to
+the possible eventuality of war.
+
+At this date the Italian question was better apprehended at Vienna
+than in any other part of Europe. A man of Prince Metternich's talents
+does not devote a long life to statecraft without learning to
+distinguish the real drift of political currents. While Lord
+Palmerston still felt sure that reforms, and nothing but reforms, were
+what Italy wanted, Prince Metternich saw that two real forces were at
+work from the Alps to the Straits of Messina, and two only: desire for
+union, hatred of Austria. Nor was it his fault if the English Cabinet
+or the rest of the world remained unenlightened. Besides enlarging on
+this truth in frequent diplomatic communications, he caused it to be
+continually dwelt upon in the Vienna _Observer_, the organ of the
+Austrian Government, which printed illustrative quotations from the
+writings of Mazzini, of whom it said that 'he has the one merit of
+despising hypocrisy, and proceeding firmly and directly to his true
+end. Persons who are versed in history will know that this is exactly
+the same end as that at which Arnold of Brescia and Cola di Rienzi
+formerly aimed. The only difference is, that the revolutionary dream
+has in the course of centuries gained in self-reliance and
+confidence.' It may truly be affirmed after this that Metternich 'had
+the one merit of despising hypocrisy.' Exactly the same end as Arnold
+of Brescia and Cola di Rienzi--who better could have described the
+scheme of Italian redemption?
+
+In the course of the summer of 1847, the Prince said more than once to
+the British Ambassador: 'The Emperor is determined not to lose his
+Italian dominions.' It was no idle boast, the speaker felt confident,
+that the troops in Lombardy and Venetia could keep those provinces
+from taking an active part in the 'revolution' which he declared to be
+already complete over all central Italy, though the word revolution
+had never yet been mentioned. Nor was it only in the Austrian army
+that he trusted; Metternich was persuaded that neither in Lombardy nor
+in Venetia was there any fear of a really popular and, therefore,
+formidable movement. He believed that Austria's only enemy was the
+aristocracy. He even threw out hints that if the Austrian Government
+condescended to do so, it could raise a social or peasants' war of the
+country people against their masters. This is the policy which has
+been elaborately followed by the Russians in Poland. The Austrians
+pointed to their virtue in not resorting to it; but some tentative
+experiments in such a direction had not given results of a kind to
+encourage them to go on. The Italian peasant, though ignorant, had a
+far quicker innate intelligence than his unfortunate Polish brother.
+He did not dislike his masters, who treated him at least with easy
+familiarity, and he detested foreigners--those foreigners, no matter
+of what nation, who for two thousand years had brought the everlasting
+curse of war upon his fields. The conscription, which carried off his
+sons for eight years into distant lands, of which he could not
+pronounce the name, was alone enough to alienate him from the Austrian
+Government. In hoping to find a friend in the Italian peasant,
+Metternich reckoned without his host. On the other hand, he was
+strictly correct in his estimate of the patriotism of the aristocracy.
+The fact always seemed to the Prince a violation of eternal laws.
+According to him, the fore-ordained disaffected in every country were
+drawn from the middle classes. What business had noblemen with ancient
+names and fine estates to prefer Spielberg to their beautiful palaces
+and fairy-like villas on the Lombard lakes? Was it on purpose to spite
+the best of governments, and the one most favourable to the
+aristocratic principle, which had always held out paternal hands to
+them? Could anything be imagined more aggravating?
+
+This feature in Italian liberation has been kept mostly in the
+background. Democratic chroniclers were satisfied to ignore it, and to
+the men themselves their enormous sacrifices seemed so natural that
+they were very willing to let them pass out of mind. It is in the
+works of those who, while sympathising with Italy, are not Italians,
+that the best record of it is to be found; nowhere better than in a
+recent book by a French writer, M. Paul Bourget, in which occurs the
+following just and eloquent tribute: 'We must say in praise of the
+aristocracy on this side of the Alps that the best soldiers of
+independence were nobles. If Italy owes the final success to the
+superior capabilities of Victor Emmanuel and Cavour, and to the
+agitating power of the General of the Thousand, it is well not to
+forget the struggles sustained for years by gentlemen whose example
+did so much to raise partisans among the humble. These aristocrats,
+passionate for liberty, have (like our own of the eighteenth century)
+done more for the people than the people itself. The veritable history
+of this _Risorgimento_ would be in great part that of the Italian
+nobility in which the heroic blood of feudal chiefs revolted against
+the oppressions and, above all, the perpetual humiliation, born of the
+presence of the stranger.'
+
+When Prince Metternich looked beyond the borders of those provinces
+which he said that his Sovereign did not intend to lose, he saw sooner
+than most people that a ball was set rolling which would not stop half
+way down the hill. The one element in the situation which came as a
+surprise to him, was that introduced by Pius IX. 'A liberal Pope is an
+impossible being!' he exclaimed. Nevertheless this impossible being was
+a reality which had to be dealt with. He hoped all along, however, that
+Pius would fall a victim to the Frankenstein he had called into
+existence, and his only real anxiety lay where it had always lain--on
+the side of Piedmont. 'Charles Albert ought to let us know,' he wrote to
+the Austrian Minister at Turin, 'whether his reign has been only a mask
+under which was hidden the Prince of Carignano, who ascended the throne
+through the order of succession re-established in his favour by the
+Emperor Francis.' Considering all things, the endeavour to make it
+appear that the King was indebted for his crown to Austria was somewhat
+venturesome. Charles Albert, Metternich went on to say, had to choose
+between two systems, the system now in force, or 'the crassest
+revolution.' He wrote again: 'The King is sliding back upon the path
+which he enters for the second time in his life, _and which he will
+never really quit_.' Words of a bitter enemy, but juster than the
+'Esecrato o Carignano,' hurled for a quarter of a century at Charles
+Albert by those who only saw in him a traitor.
+
+The constant invocation of the revolutionary spectre by the Austrian
+statesman convinced the King that the wish was father to the thought,
+and, afraid of introducing the thin end of the wedge, he showed
+himself more than ever averse to reforming the antiquated machinery of
+the Sardinian Government. Instead of being the first of Italian
+princes to yield to popular demands, he was almost the last. He
+believed that the question of nationality, of independence, could be
+separated from the question of free institutions. Of all the
+chimerical ideas then afloat, this was the most chimerical. Even the
+example of the Pope, for whom Charles Albert felt a romantic devotion,
+was not enough to induce him to open the road to reforms. The person
+who seems first to have impressed him with their absolute necessity
+was Lord Minto, whose visit to Turin, in October 1847, coincided with
+the dismissal of Count della Margherita, the minister most closely
+associated with the absolutist and Jesuitical _régime_. Lord Minto was
+sent to Italy to encourage in the ways of political virtue those
+Italian princes who were not entirely incorrigible. His mission
+excited exaggerated hopes on the part of the Liberals, and exaggerated
+wrath in the retrograde party--both failing to understand its
+limitations. The hopes died a natural death, but long afterwards,
+reactionary writers attributed all the 'troubles' in Italy to this
+estimable British diplomatist. What is not doubtful is, that,
+accustomed as they were to being lectured and bullied by foreign
+courts, the Italians derived the greatest encouragement from the
+openly expressed sympathy of well-known English visitors, whether they
+came in an official capacity like Lord Minto, or unofficially like Mr
+Cobden, who travelled as a missionary of Free Trade, and was received
+with rapture--with which, it is to be feared, Free Trade had little to
+do--by the leading Liberals in Italy: Massimo d'Azeglio at Genoa,
+Mancini at Naples Cavour and Scialoja at Turin, Minghetti at Bologna,
+Ridolfi at Florence, and Manin and Tommaseo at Venice.
+
+Towards the end of 1847, there was a curious shuffling of the cards in
+the small states of Lucca and Parma, resulting in much irritation,
+which, in an atmosphere so charged with revolutionary electricity, was
+not without importance. The dissolute Bourbon prince who reigned in
+Lucca, Charles Ludovico, had but one desire, which was to increase his
+civil list. He hit upon an English jockey named Ward, who came to
+Italy in the service of a German count, and this person he made his
+Chancellor of the Exchequer. By various luminous strokes, Ward
+furthered his Sovereign's object without much increasing the taxation,
+and when matters began to grow complicated, and here, too, a cry was
+raised for a Constitution (which had been solemnly guaranteed to the
+people of Lucca at the Congress of Vienna, but had never been heard of
+since), he proposed the sale of the Duchy off-hand to Tuscany, with
+which it would, in any case, be united, when, on the death of the
+ex-Empress Marie-Louise, the Duchy of Parma devolved on the Duke of
+Lucca. At the same time, by a prior agreement, a district of Tuscany
+called the Lunigiana was consigned, one-half to the Duchess of Parma,
+and the other to the Duke of Modena. The indignation of the
+population, which was made, by force, subject to the Duke of Modena,
+was intense, and the whole transaction of handing about Italians to
+suit the pleasure of princes, or to obey the articles of forgotten
+treaties, reminded the least sensitive of the everyday opprobrium of
+their lot.
+
+The bargain with Tuscany had been struck only eight days when
+Marie-Louise died--unlamented, since the latter years of her reign
+formed a sad contrast to the earlier. Marie-Louise had not a bad
+disposition, but she always let her husband of the hour govern as he
+chose; of the four or five of these husbands, the last two, and
+particularly the hated Count de Bombelles, undid all the good done by
+their more humane predecessors. The Parmese petitioned their new Duke
+to send the man away, and to grant them some measure of freedom. The
+answer he gave was the confirmation of Bombelles in all his honours,
+and the conclusion of a treaty with Austria, securing the assistance
+of her arms. A military force had been sent to Parma to escort the
+body of the late Duchess to Vienna; but on the principle that the
+living are of more consequence than the dead, it remained there to
+protect the new Duke from his subjects. Marie-Louise and her lovers,
+Charles Ludovico and his jockey-minister, are instructive
+illustrations of the scandalous point things had reached in the small
+states of Italy.
+
+There was, indeed, one state in which, though the dynasty was
+Austrian, the government was conducted without ferocity and without
+scandal. This was Tuscany. The branch of the Hapsburg-Lorraine family
+established in Tuscany produced a series of rulers who, if they
+exhibited no magnificent qualities, were respectable as individuals,
+and mild as rulers. Giusti dubbed Leopold II. 'the Tuscan Morpheus,
+crowned with poppies and lettuce leaves,' and the clear intelligence
+of Ricasoli was angered by the languid, let-be policy of the
+Grand-Ducal government, but, compared with the other populations of
+Italy, the Tuscans might well deem themselves fortunate. Only on one
+occasion had the Grand Duke given up a fugitive from the more favoured
+provinces, and the presence of distinguished exiles lent brilliancy to
+his capital. Leopold II. hesitated between the desire to please his
+subjects and the fear of his Viennese relations, who sent him through
+Metternich the ominous reminder, 'that the Italian Governments had
+only subsisted for the last ten years by the support they received
+from Austria'--an assertion at which Charles Albert took umbrage, but
+he was curtly told that he was not intended. In spite of his fears,
+however, the Grand Duke instituted a National Guard on the 4th of
+September, which was correctly judged the augury of further
+concessions. In August, the Austrian Minister had distinctly
+threatened to occupy Tuscany, or any other of the Italian duchies
+where a National Guard was granted; its institution was therefore
+interpreted as a decisive act of rebellion against the Imperial
+dictatorship. The red, white and green tricolor, not yet permitted in
+Piedmont, floated already from all the towers of the city on the Arno.
+
+Where there were no signs of improvement was in the government of the
+Two Sicilies. King Ferdinand undertook a journey through several parts
+of the country, but as Lord Napier, the British Minister, expressed
+it: 'Exactly where the grace of the royal countenance was principally
+conferred, the rebels sprung up most thickly.' A revolution was
+planned to break out in all the cities of the kingdom, but the project
+only took effect at Messina and at Reggio, and in both places the
+movement was stifled with prompt and barbarous severity. When the
+leader of the Calabrian attempt, Domenico Romeo, a landed proprietor,
+was caught on the heights of Aspromonte, his captors, after cutting
+off his head, carried it to his young nephew, whom they ordered to
+take it to Reggio with the cry of 'Long live the King.' The youth
+refused, and was immediately killed. In the capital, Carlo Poerio and
+many patriots were thrown into prison on suspicion. Settembrini had
+just time to escape to Malta.
+
+The year 1847 closed amid outward appearances of quiet.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE YEAR OF REVOLUTION
+
+1848
+
+Insurrection in Sicily--The Austrians expelled from Milan and
+Venice--Charles Albert takes the Field--Withdrawal of the Pope and King
+of Naples--Piedmont defeated--The Retreat.
+
+
+On the 12th of January, the birthday of the King of the Two Sicilies,
+another insurrection broke out in Sicily; this time it was serious
+indeed. The City of the Vespers lit the torch which set Europe on
+fire.
+
+So began the year of revolution which was to see the kings of the
+earth flying, with or without umbrellas, and the principle of monarchy
+more shaken by the royal see-saw of submission and vengeance than ever
+it was by the block of Whitehall or the guillotine of the Place Louis
+XV.
+
+In Italy, the errors and follies of that year were not confined to
+princes and governments, but it will remain memorable as the time when
+the Italian nation, not a dreamer here or there, or a handful of
+heroic madmen, or an isolated city, but the nation as a whole, with an
+unanimity new in history, asserted its right and its resolve to exist.
+
+King Ferdinand sent 5000 soldiers to 'make a garden,' as he described
+it, of Palermo, if the offers sent at the same time failed to pacify
+the inhabitants. These offers were refused with the comment: 'Too
+late,' and the Palermitans prepared to resist to the death under the
+guidance of the veteran patriot Ruggiero Settimo, Prince of Fitalia.
+'Separation,' they said, 'or our English Constitution of 1812.'
+Increased irritation was awakened by the discovery in the head office
+of the police at Palermo of a secret room full of skeletons, which
+were supposed to belong to persons privately murdered. The Neapolitans
+were compelled to withdraw with a loss of 3000 men, but before they
+went, the general in command let out 4000 convicts, who had been kept
+without food for forty-eight hours. The convicts, however, did not
+fulfil the intentions of their liberator, and did but little mischief.
+Not so the Neapolitan troops, who committed horrors on the peasantry
+as they retreated, which provoked acts of retaliation almost as
+barbarous. In a short time all Sicily was in its own hands except the
+citadel of Messina.
+
+It is not possible to follow the Sicilians in their long struggle for
+their autonomy. They stood out for some fourteen months. An English
+Blue-book is full of the interminable negotiations conducted by Lord
+Napier and the Earl of Minto in the hope of bringing the strife to an
+end. When the parliament summoned by the revolutionary government
+declared the downfall of the House of Bourbon, all the stray princes
+in Europe, including Louis Napoleon, were reviewed as candidates for
+the throne. The choice fell on the Duke of Genoa; it was well received
+in England, and the British men-of-war were immediately ordered to
+salute the Sicilian flag. But the Duke's reign never became a reality.
+After an heroic struggle, the islanders were subjugated in the spring
+of 1849.
+
+So stout a fight for independence must win admiration, if not
+approval. The political reasons against the course taken by the
+Sicilians have been suggested in a former chapter. In separating their
+lot from that of Naples, in rejecting even freedom unless it was
+accompanied by disruption, they hastened the ruin of the Neapolitans
+and of themselves, and surely played into the hands of the crafty
+tyrant who desired nothing better than to fish in the troubled waters
+of his subjects' dissensions.
+
+In the gathering storm of January 1848, the first idea that occurred
+to Ferdinand II. was the good old plan of calling in Austrian
+assistance. But the Austrians were told by Pius IX. that he would not
+allow their troops to pass through his territory. Had they attempted
+to pass in spite of his warning, events would have taken a different
+turn, as the Pope would have been driven into a war with Austria then
+and there; perhaps he would have been glad, as weak people commonly
+are, of the compulsion to do what he dared not do without compulsion.
+The Austrian Government was too wise to force a quarrel; it was easy
+to lock up Austrian subjects for crying 'Viva Pio Nono,' but the
+enormous importance of keeping the Head of the Church, if possible, in
+a neutral attitude could not be overlooked. All thoughts of going to
+Ferdinand's help were politely abandoned, and he, seeing himself in a
+defenceless position, and pondering deeply on the upsetting of Louis
+Philippe's throne, which was just then the latest news, decided on
+that device, dear to all political conjurors, which is known as taking
+the wind out of your enemy's sails. The Pope, the Grand Duke of
+Tuscany and the King of Sardinia, had worried him for six months with
+admonitions. 'Very well,' he now said; 'they urge me forward, I will
+precipitate them.' Constitution, representative government, unbridled
+liberty of the press, a civic guard, the expulsion of the Jesuits;
+what mattered a trifle more or less when everything could be revoked
+at the small expense of perjury? Ferdinand posed to perfection in the
+character of Citizen King. He reassured those who ventured to show the
+least signs of apprehension by saying: 'If I had not intended to carry
+out the Statute, I should not have granted it.'
+
+Not many days later, the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the King of
+Sardinia each promulgated a Charter. In the case of Charles Albert, it
+had been formally promised on the 8th of February, after sleepless
+nights, severe fasts, much searching of the heart--contrasting
+strangely with the gay transformation scene at Naples; but promises
+have a more serious meaning to some persons than to others. Nor did
+Charles Albert take any pleasure in the shouts of a grateful people.
+'Born in revolution,' he once wrote, 'I have traversed all its phases,
+and I know well enough what popularity is worth--_viva_ to-day,
+_morte_ to-morrow.'
+
+In the Lombardo-Venetian provinces all seemed still quiet, but the
+brooding discontent of the masses increased with the increasing
+aggressiveness of the Austrian soldiers, while the refusal to grant
+the studiously moderate demands of men like Nazari of Bergamo and
+Manin and Tommasco of Venice, who were engaged in a campaign of legal
+agitation, brought conviction to the most cautious that no measure of
+political liberty was obtainable under Austrian rule.
+
+At the Scala Theatre some of the audience had raised cries of 'Viva
+Pio Nono' during a performance of _I Lombardi._[3] This was the excuse
+for prohibiting every direct or indirect public reference to the
+reigning Pontiff. Nevertheless, a few young men were caught singing
+the Pope's hymn, upon which the military charged the crowd. On the 3rd
+of January the soldiers fell on the people in the Piazza San Carlo,
+killing six and wounding fifty-three. The parish priest of the Duomo
+said that he had seen Russians, French and Austrians enter Milan as
+invaders; but a scene like that of the 3rd of January he had never
+witnessed; 'they simply murdered in the streets.'
+
+The _Judicium Statuarium_, equivalent to martial law, was proclaimed
+in February; but the Viennese revolution of the 8th of March, and
+Prince Metternich's flight to England, were followed by promises to
+abolish the censure, and to convoke the central congregations of the
+Lombardo-Venetian kingdom. The utmost privilege of these assemblies
+was consultative. In 1815 they were invested with the right to 'make
+known grievances,' but they had only once managed to perform this
+modest function. It was hardly worth while to talk about them on the
+18th of March 1848.
+
+On the morning of that day, Count O'Donnel, the Vice-Governor of
+Milan, announced the Emperor's concessions. Before night he was the
+hostage of the revolution, signing whatever decrees were demanded of
+him till in a few hours even his signature was dispensed with. The
+Milanese had begun their historic struggle.
+
+Taking refuge in the Citadel, Radetsky wrote to the Podestà, Count
+Gabrio Casati (brother of Teresa Confalonieri), that he acknowledged
+no authority at Milan except his own and that of his soldiers. Those
+who resisted would be guilty of high treason. If arguments did not
+avail, he would make use of all the means placed in his hands by an
+army of 100,000 men to bring the rebel city to obedience. Unhappily
+for Radetsky, there were not any such 100,000 men in Italy, though
+long before this he had told Metternich that he could not guarantee
+the safety of Lombardy with less than 150,000. In spite of partial
+reinforcements, the number did not amount to more than from 72,000 to
+75,000, while at Milan it stood at between 15,000 and 20,000. But if
+we take the lower estimate, 15,000 regular troops under such a
+commander, who, most rare in similar emergencies, knew his own mind,
+and had no thought except the recovery of the town for his Sovereign,
+constituted a formidable force against a civilian population, which
+began the fight with only a few hundred fowling-pieces. The odds on
+the side of Austria were tremendous.
+
+If the Milan revolt had been one of the customary revolutions,
+arranged with the help of pen and paper, its first day would have been
+certainly its last. But even more than the Sicilian Vespers, it was
+the unpremeditated, irresistible act of a people sick of being slaves.
+At the beginning Casati tried to restrain it; so, with equal or still
+stronger endeavours, did the republican Carlo Cattaneo, whose
+influence was great. 'You have no arms,' he said again and again. Not
+a single man of weight took upon himself the awful responsibility of
+urging the unarmed masses upon so desperate an enterprise; but when
+the die was cast none held back. Initiated by the populace, the revolt
+was led to its victorious close by the nerve and ability of the
+influential men who directed its course.
+
+Towards nightfall on the 18th, during which day there had been only
+scuffles between the soldiers and the people, Radetsky took the
+Broletto, where the Municipality sat, after a two hours' siege, and
+sent forthwith a special messenger to the Emperor with the news that
+the revolution was on a fair way to being completely crushed.
+Meanwhile, he massed his troops at all the entrances to the city, so
+that at dawn he might strangle the insurrection by a concentric
+movement, as in a noose. The plan was good; but to-morrow does not
+belong even to the most experienced of Field-Marshals.
+
+In all quarters of the city barricades sprang up like mushrooms.
+Everything went, freely given, to their construction; the benches of
+the Scala, the beds of the young seminarists, the court carriages,
+found hidden in a disused church, building materials of the
+half-finished Palazzo d'Adda, grand pianofortes, valuable pieces of
+artistic furniture, and the old kitchen table of the artisan. Before
+the end of the fight the barricades numbered 1523. Young nobles,
+dressed in the velvet suits then in vogue, cooks in their white
+aprons, even women and children, rushed to the defence of the
+improvised fortifications. Luciano Manara and other heroes, who
+afterwards fell at Rome, were there to lead. In the first straits for
+want of arms the museums of the Uboldi and Poldi-Pozzoli families were
+emptied of their rare treasures by permission of the owners; the crowd
+brandished priceless old swords and specimens of early firearms. More
+serviceable weapons were obtained by degrees from the Austrian killed
+and wounded, and from the public offices which fell into their hands.
+Bolza, long the hated agent of the Austrian police, was discovered by
+the people, but they did not harm him. Throughout the five days, the
+Milanese showed a forbearance which was the more admirable, because
+there can be no doubt that when the Austrians found they were getting
+the worst of it, they vented their rage in deplorable outrages on
+non-combatants. That Radetsky was personally to blame for these
+excesses has never been alleged, and it was perhaps beyond the power
+of the officers to keep discipline among soldiers who, towards the
+end, were wild with panic.
+
+'The very foundations of the city were torn up,' wrote the
+Field-Marshal in his official report; 'not hundreds, but thousands of
+barricades crossed the streets. Such circumspection and audacity were
+displayed that it was evident military leaders were at the head of the
+people. The character of the Milanese had become quite changed.
+Fanaticism had seized every rank and age and both sexes.'
+
+As always happens with street-fighting, the number of the slain has
+never been really known; the loss of the citizens was small compared
+with that of the Austrians, who, according to some authorities, lost
+5000, between killed and wounded.
+
+Radetsky ordered the evacuation of the town and citadel on the night
+of Wednesday, the 22nd of March. The Milanese had won much more than
+freedom--they had won the right to it. And what they had done they had
+done alone. When the news that the capital was up in arms spread
+through Lombardy, there was but one gallant impulse, to fly to its
+aid. But the earliest to arrive, Giuseppe Martinengo Cesaresco, with
+his troop of Brescian peasants, found when he reached Milan that they
+were a few hours too late to share in the last shots fired upon the
+retreating Austrians.
+
+Nowhere, except in Milan, did the revolution meet with a Radetsky. The
+Austrian authorities became convinced that their position was
+untenable, and they desired to avoid a useless sacrifice of life.
+This, rather than cowardly fears, was the motive which induced Count
+Palffy and Count Zichy, the civil and military governors of Venice, to
+yield the city without deluging it in blood. The latter had been
+guilty of negligence in leaving the Venetian arsenal in charge of
+troops so untrustworthy that Manin could take it on the 22nd of March
+by a simple display of his own courage, and without striking a blow,
+but after this first success on the side of the revolution, which
+supplied the people with an unlimited stock of arms and ammunition,
+the Austrians did well to give way even from their own point of view.
+At seven o'clock on the evening of the 22nd of March, the famous
+capitulation was signed. Manin's prediction of the previous day,
+'To-morrow the city will be in my power, or I shall be dead,' had been
+realised in the first alternative.
+
+Daniel Manin, who was now forty-four years of age, was by profession a
+lawyer, by race a Jew. His father became a Christian, and, according
+to custom, took the surname of his godfather, who belonged to the
+family of the last Doge of Venice. Manin and the Dalmatian scholar,
+Niccolò Tommaseo, had been engaged in patiently adducing proof after
+proof that Austria did not even abide by her own laws when the
+expression of political opinion was concerned. At the beginning of the
+revolution they were in prison, and Palffy's first act of surrender
+was to set them free. Henceforth Manin was undisputed lord of the
+city. It is strange how, all at once, a man who was only slightly
+known to the world should have been chosen as spokesman and ruler. It
+did not, however, happen by chance. The people in Italy are observant;
+the Venetians had observed Manin, and they trusted him. The power of
+inspiring trust was what gave this Jewish lawyer his ascendancy, not
+the talents which usually appeal to the masses. He had not the
+advantage of an imposing presence, for he was short, slight, with blue
+eyes and bushy hair; in all things he was the opposite to a demagogue;
+he never beguiled, or flattered, or told others what he did not
+believe himself. But, on his side, he _knew_ the people, whom most
+revolutionary leaders know not at all. 'That is my sole merit,' he
+used to say. It was that which enabled him to cleanse Venice from the
+stain of having bartered her freedom for the smile of a conqueror, and
+give her back the name and inheritance of 'eldest child of liberty.'
+
+It was a matter of course that emancipated Venice should assume a
+republican form of government. Here the republic was a restoration. At
+Milan the case was different; there were two parties, that of
+Cattaneo, which was strongly republican, that of Casati, which was
+strongly monarchical. There was a third party, which thought of
+nothing except of never again seeing a soldier with a white coat. By
+mutual agreement, the Provisional Government declared that the
+decision as to the form of government should be left to calmer days.
+For a time this compromise produced satisfactory results.
+
+The revolution gained ground. Francis of Modena executed a rapid flight,
+and the Duke of Parma presently followed him. By the end of March,
+Lombardy and Venetia were free, saving the fortresses of the
+Quadrilateral. The exception was of far greater moment than, in the
+enchantment of the hour, anyone dreamt of confessing. Mantua, Legnano,
+Peschiera and Verona were so many cities of refuge to the flying
+Austrian troops, where they could rest in safety and nurse their
+strength. Still, the results achieved were great, almost incredible;
+with the expectation that Rome, Naples, Tuscany and Piedmont would send
+their armies to consolidate the work already done, it was natural to
+think that, whatever else might happen, Austrian dominion was a thing of
+the past. Alessandro Bixio (brother of the General), who was a
+naturalised Frenchman, wrote to the French Government on the 7th of
+April from Turin: 'In the ministries, in meetings, in the streets, you
+only see and hear people to whom the question of Italian independence
+seems to be one of those historical questions about which the time is
+past for talking. According to the general opinion, Austria is nothing
+but a phantom, and the army of Radetsky a shadow.' Such were the hopes
+that prevailed. They were vain, but they did not appear so then.
+
+Pius IX. seemed to throw in his lot definitely with the revolution
+when, on the 19th of March, he too granted a Constitution, having
+previously formed a lay ministry, which included Marco Minghetti and
+Count Pasolini, under the presidency of Cardinal Antonelli, who thus
+makes his first appearance as Liberal Premier. That the Roman
+Constitution was an unworkable attempt to reconcile lay and
+ecclesiastical pretensions, that the proposed Chamber of Deputies,
+which was not to make laws affecting education, religious
+corporations, the registration of births and marriages; or to confer
+civil rights on non-catholics, or to touch the privileges and
+immunities of the clergy, might have suited Cloud-cuckoo-town, but
+would not suit the solid earth, were facts easy to recognise, but no
+one had time to pause and consider. It was sufficient to hear Pius
+proclaim that in the wind which was uprooting oaks and cedars might be
+clearly distinguished the Voice of the Lord. Such utterances, mingled
+with blessings on Italy, brought balm to patriotic souls. The Liberals
+had no fear that the Pope would veto the participation of his troops
+in the national war, for they were blind to the complications with
+which a fighting Pope would find himself embarrassed in the middle of
+the nineteenth century. But the other party discerned these
+complications from the first, and knew what use to make of them.
+
+The powers of reaction had only to catch hold of a perfectly modern
+sentiment, the doctrine that ecclesiastics should be men of peace, in
+order to dissipate the myth of a Pope liberator. It was beside the
+question that, from the moment he accepted such a doctrine, the Pope
+condemned the institution of prince-bishoprics, of which he
+represented the last survival. Nor was it material that, if he adopted
+it, consistency should have made him carry it to its logical
+consequence of non-resistance. By aid of this theory of a peaceful
+Pontiff, with the threat, in reserve, of a schism, Austria felt
+confident that she could avoid the enormous moral inconvenience of a
+Pope in arms against her.
+
+Either, however, the full force of the influence which caused Pius IX.
+to draw back was not brought to bear till somewhat late in the day, or
+the part acted by him during the months of March and April can be
+hardly acquitted of dissimulation. War preparations were continued,
+with the warm co-operation of the Cardinal President of the Council,
+and when General Durando started for the frontier with 17,000 men, he
+would have been a bold man who had said openly in Rome that they were
+intended not to fight.
+
+While the Pope was still supposed to favour the war, Ferdinand of
+Naples did not dare to oppose the enthusiasm of his subjects, and the
+demand that a Neapolitan contingent should be sent to Lombardy. The
+first relay of troops actually started, but the generals had secret
+orders to take the longest route, and to lose as much time as
+possible.
+
+Tuscany had a very small army, but such assistance as she could give
+was both promised and given. The fate of the Tuscan corps of 6000 men
+will be related hereafter. The Grand Duke Leopold identified himself
+with the Italian cause with more sincerity than was to be found at
+Rome or Naples; still, the material aid that he could offer counted as
+next to nothing.
+
+There remained Piedmont and Charles Albert. Now was the time for the
+army which he had created (for Charles Felix left no army worthy of
+the name) to assert upon the Lombard fields the reason of its
+existence. War with Austria was declared on the 23rd of March. It was
+midnight; a vast crowd waited in silence in Piazza Castello. At last
+the windows of the palace were opened, a sudden flood of light from
+within illuminating the scene. Charles Albert stepped upon the balcony
+between his two sons. He was even paler than usual, but a smile such
+as no one had seen before was on his lips. He waved the long
+proscribed tricolor slowly over the heads of the people.
+
+The King said in his proclamation that 'God had placed Italy in a
+position to provide for herself ('in grado di fare da sè'). Hence the
+often repeated phrase: 'L'Italia farà da sè.' He told the Lombard
+delegates, who met him at Pavia that he would not enter their capital,
+which had shown such signal valour, till after he had won a victory.
+He declared to all that his only aim was to complete the splendid work
+of liberation so happily begun; questions of government would be
+reserved for the conclusion of the war. Joy was the order of the day,
+but the fatal mistakes of the campaign had already commenced; there
+had been inexcusable delay in declaring war; if it was pardonable to
+wait for the Milanese initiative, it was as inexpedient as it seemed
+ungenerous to wait till the issue of the struggle at Milan was
+decided. Then, after the declaration of war, considering that the
+Sardinian Government must have seen its imminence for weeks, and
+indeed for months, there was more time lost than ought to have been
+the case in getting the troops under weigh. Still, at the opening of
+the campaign, two grand possibilities were left. The first was
+obviously to cut Radetsky off in his painful retreat, largely
+performed along country by-roads, as he had to avoid the principal
+cities which were already free. Had Charles Albert caught him up while
+he was far from the Quadrilateral, the decisive blow would have been
+struck, and the only man who could save Austria in Italy would have
+been taken prisoner. Radetsky chose the route of Lodi and the lower
+Brescian plains to Montechiaro, where the encampments were ready for
+the Austrian spring manoeuvres: from this point an easy march carried
+him under the walls of Verona. Here he met General d'Aspre, who had
+just arrived with the garrison of Padua. D'Aspre, by skill and
+resolution, had brought his men from Padua without losing one, having
+refused the Paduans arms for a national guard, though ordered from
+Milan to grant them. 'You come to tell me all is lost,' said the
+Field-Marshal when they met 'No,' rejoined the younger general, 'I
+come to tell you all is saved.'
+
+This great chance missed, there was another which could have been
+seized. Mantua, extraordinary to relate, was defended by only three
+hundred artillerymen and a handful of hussars. It would have fallen
+into the hands of its own citizens but for the presence of mind of its
+commandant, the Polish General Gorzhowsky, who told them that to no
+one on earth would he deliver the keys of the fortress except to his
+Emperor, and that the moment he could no longer defend it he would
+blow it into the air, with himself and half Mantua. He showed them the
+flint and the steel with which he intended to do the deed. Enemy
+though he was, that incident ought to be recorded in letters of gold
+on the gates of Mantua, as a perpetual lesson of that most difficult
+thing for a country founded in revolution to learn: the meaning of a
+soldier's duty.
+
+It is easy to see that, if Charles Albert had made an immediate dash
+on Mantua, the fortress, or its ruins, would have been his, to the
+enormous detriment of the Austrian position. But this chance too was
+missed. On the 31st of March, the 9000 men sent with all speed by
+Radetsky to the defenceless fortress arrived, and henceforth Mantua
+was safe. Charles Albert only got within fifteen or sixteen miles of
+it five days later, to find that all hope of its capture was gone.
+
+The campaign began with political as well as with military mistakes.
+At the same time that the King of Sardinia was declaring in the
+Proclamation addressed to the Lombards that, full of admiration of the
+glorious feats performed in their capital, he came to their aid as
+brother to brother, friend to friend, his ambassadors were trying to
+persuade the foreign Powers, and especially Austria, Prussia and
+Russia, that the only object of the war was to avoid a revolution in
+Piedmont, and to prevent the establishment of a republic in Lombardy.
+No one was convinced or placated by these assurances; far better as
+policy than so ignominious an attempt at hedging would have been the
+acknowledgment to all the world of the noble crime of patriotism. But,
+as Massimo d'Azeglio once observed, Charles Albert had the incurable
+defect of thinking himself cunning. It was, moreover, only too true
+that, although in these diplomatic communications the King allowed the
+case against him to be stated with glaring exaggeration, yet they
+contained an element of fact. He _was_ afraid of revolution at home;
+he _was_ afraid of a Lombard republic; these were not the only, nor
+were they the strongest, motives which drove him into the war, but
+they were motives which, associated with deeper causes, contributed
+to the disasters of the future.
+
+The Piedmontese force was composed of two _corps d'armée,_ the first
+under General Bava and the second under General Sonnaz: each amounted
+to 24,000 men. The reserves, under the Duke of Savoy, numbered 12,000.
+Radetsky, at first (after strengthening the garrisons in the
+fortresses), could not put into the field more than 40,000 men. As has
+been stated, the King assumed the supreme command, which led to a
+constant wavering between the original plan of General Bava, a capable
+officer, and the criticisms and suggestions of the staff. The greatest
+mistake of all, that of never bringing into the field at once more
+than about half the army, was not without connection with the supposed
+necessity, based on political reasons, of garrisoning places in the
+rear which might have been safely left to the care of their national
+guards.
+
+Besides the royal army, there were in the field 17,000 Romans, 3000
+Modenese and Parmese, and 6000 Tuscans. There were also several
+companies of Lombard volunteers, Free Corps, as they were called,
+which might have been increased to almost any extent had they not been
+discouraged by the King, who was believed to look coldly on all these
+extraneous allies, either from doubt of their efficiency, or from the
+wish to keep the whole glory of the campaign for his Piedmontese army.
+
+The first engagements were on the line of the Mincio. On the 8th of
+April the Sardinians carried the bridge of Goito after a fight of four
+hours. The burning of the village of Castelnuovo on the 12th, as a
+punishment for its having received Manara's band of volunteers,
+excited great exasperation; many of the unfortunate villagers perished
+in the flames, and this and other incidents of the same kind did much
+towards awakening a more vivid hatred of the Austrians among the
+peasants.
+
+After easily gaining possession of the left (Venetian) bank of the
+Mincio, Charles Albert employed himself in losing time over chimerical
+operations with a view to taking the fortresses of Peschiera and
+Mantua, now strongly garrisoned, and impregnable while their
+provisions lasted. This object governed the conduct of the campaign,
+and caused the waste of precious months during every day of which
+General Nugent, with his 30,000 men, was approaching one step nearer
+from the mountains of Friuli, and General Welden, with his 10,000,
+down the passes of Tyrol. If, instead of playing at sieges, Charles
+Albert had cut off these reinforcements, Radetsky would have been
+rendered powerless, and the campaign would have had another
+termination. Never was there a war in which the adoption of Napoleon's
+system of crushing his opponents one by one, when he could not
+outnumber them if united, was more clearly indicated.
+
+General Durando crossed the Po on the 21st of April with 17,000 men,
+partly Pontifical troops and partly volunteers, to which weak corps
+fell the task of opposing Nugent's advance in Venetia. The colours of
+the Pontifical troops were solemnly blessed before they left Rome, but
+as the order was only given to go to the frontier, and nothing was
+said, though everything was understood, about crossing it, the Pope
+was technically able to assert that the war was none of his making.
+His ministry ventured to suggest to him that the situation was
+peculiar. Now it was that Catholic Austria and Russia, herself
+schismatic, flourished in the face of the Pope the portentous scare of
+a new schism. It is said that the Pope's confessor, a firm Liberal,
+died just at this time, not without suspicion of poison. Thoroughly
+alarmed in his spiritual capacity, the Pope issued his Encyclical
+Letter of the 29th of April--when his ministers and the whole country
+still hoped from day to day that he would formally declare war--in
+which he protested that his sacred office obliged him to embrace all
+nations in an equal paternal love. If his subjects, he added, followed
+the example of the other Italians, he could not help it: a
+half-hearted admission which could not mitigate the indignation which
+the document called forth. With regard to Durando's corps, the Pope
+did what was the best thing under the altered circumstances; he sent
+L.C. Farini as envoy to the King of Sardinia, with the request that he
+would take the Roman troops under his supreme command, the Papal
+Government agreeing to continue the pay of such of them as belonged to
+the regular army. Pius IX. made one last effort to help his
+fellow-countrymen which people hardly noticed, so futile did it
+appear, but which was probably made in profound seriousness. He wrote
+a letter to the Emperor of Austria begging him to make all things
+right and pleasant by voluntarily withdrawing from his Italian
+dominions. Popes had dictated to sovereigns before now; was there not
+Canossa? Besides, if a miracle was sought, why should not a miracle
+happen? Pope and Emperor shaking hands over a free Italy and a world
+reconciled--how delightful the prospect! Who can doubt that when the
+Pope wrote that letter all the beautiful dreams of Cardinal Mastai
+carried him once more away (it was the last time) in an ecstasy of
+blissful hopes? 'Let not your Majesty take offence,' ran the appeal,
+'if we turn to your pity and religion, exhorting you with fatherly
+affection to desist from a war which, powerless to re-conquer the
+hearts of the Lombards and Venetians, can only lead to a dark series
+of calamities. Nor let the generous Germanic nation take offence if
+we invite it to abandon old hatreds, and convert into useful relations
+of friendly neighbourhood a dominion which can be neither noble nor
+happy if it depend only on the sword. Thus we trust in the nation
+itself, honestly proud of its own nationality, to no longer make a
+point of honour of sanguinary attempts against the Italian nation, but
+rather to perceive that its true honour lies in recognising Italy as a
+sister.'
+
+The Emperor received the bearer of the letter with coldness, and
+referred him to his ministers, who simply called his attention to the
+fact that the Pope owed the Temporal Power to the same treaties as
+those which gave Austria the possession of Lombardy and Venetia.
+
+The day after the publication of the Encyclical, that is to say, the
+30th of April, the Piedmontese obtained their first important success
+in the battle of Pastrengo, near Peschiera. Fighting from daybreak to
+sundown, they drove the enemy back into Verona, with a loss of 1200
+killed and wounded. The Austrians were in rather inferior numbers; but
+the victory was highly creditable to the hitherto untried army of
+Piedmont, and showed that it contained excellent fighting material. It
+was not followed up, and might nearly as well have never been fought.
+
+The Neapolitan troops, of whom 41,000 were promised, 17,000 being on
+the way already, were intended to reinforce Durando's corps in
+Venetia. With the two or three battalions which Manin could spare from
+the little army of Venice, the Italian forces opposed to Nugent's
+advance would have been brought up to 60,000 men; in which case not
+even Charles Albert's 'masterly inactivity' could have given Austria
+the victory.
+
+The Neapolitan Parliament convoked under the new Constitution was to
+meet on the 15th of May. A dispute had been going on for several days
+between the Sovereign and the deputies about the form of the
+parliamentary oath, the deputies wishing that the Chambers should be
+left free to amend or alter the Statute, while the King desired that
+they should be bound by oath to maintain it as it was presented to
+them. It was unwise to provoke a disagreement which was sure to
+irritate the King. However, late on the 14th, he appeared to yield,
+and consented that the wording of the oath should be referred to the
+discussion of Parliament itself. It seems that, at the same time, he
+ordered the troops of the garrison to take up certain positions in the
+city. A colonel of the National Guard raised the cry of royal treason,
+calling upon the people to rise, which a portion of them did, and
+barricades were constructed in the Toledo and other of the principal
+streets. A more insane and culpable thing than this attempt at
+revolution was never put in practice. It was worse even than that 20th
+of May at Milan, which threw Eugene into the arms of Austria. Its
+consequences were those which everyone could have foreseen--a two
+days' massacre in the streets of Naples, begun by the troops and
+continued by the lazzaroni, who were allowed to pillage to their
+hearts' content; the deputies dispersed with threats of violence,
+Parliament dissolved before it had sat, the original Statute torn up,
+and (by far the most important) the Neapolitan troops, now at Bologna,
+recalled to Naples. This was the pretty work of the few hundred
+reckless rioters on the 15th of May.
+
+Had not Pius IX. by this time repudiated all part in the war, the King
+of the Two Sicilies would have thought twice before he recalled his
+contingent, though the counsels of neutrality which he received from
+another quarter--from Lord Palmerston in the name of the English
+Government--strengthened his hand not a little in carrying out a
+defection which was the direct ruin of the Italian cause. When the
+order to return reached Bologna, the veteran patriot, General Pepe,
+who had been summoned from exile to take the chief command, resolved
+to disobey, and invited the rest to follow him. Nearly the whole of
+the troops were, however, faithful to their military oath. The
+situation was horrible. The choice lay between the country in danger
+and the King, who, false and perjured though he might be, was still
+the head of the State, to whom each soldier had sworn obedience. One
+gallant officer escaped from the dilemma by shooting himself. Pepe,
+with a single battalion of the line, a company of engineers, and two
+battalions of volunteers, went to Venice, where they fought like
+heroes to the end.
+
+On the 27th of May, Radetsky, taking the offensive with about 40,000
+men, marched towards Mantua, near which was stationed the small Tuscan
+corps, whose commander only received when too late General Bava's
+order to retire from an untenable position. On the 29th the Austrians,
+in overwhelming numbers, bore down upon the 6000 Tuscans at Montanara
+and Curtatone, and defeated them after a resistance of six hours. The
+Tuscan professor, Giuseppe Montanelli, fell severely wounded while
+holding the dead body of his favourite pupil, but he recovered to show
+less discretion in politics than he had shown valour in the field.
+
+Peschiera, where the supplies were exhausted, capitulated on the 30th,
+and the day after found 22,000 Piedmontese ready to give Radetsky
+battle at Goito, whence, after a severe contest, they drove him back
+to Mantua. The Austrians lost 3000 out of 25,000 men. The honours of
+the day fell to the Savoy brigade, which was worthy of its own fame
+and of the future King of Italy, who was slightly wounded while
+leading it. Outwardly this seemed the most fortunate period of the war
+for Charles Albert, but that had already happened which was to cause
+the turning of the tide. Nugent, with his 30,000 men, had joined
+Radetsky. His march across Venetia was harassed by the inhabitants,
+who left him no peace, especially in the mountain districts, but the
+poor little force of Romans and volunteers under Durando and Ferrari
+was unable to seriously check his progress in the open country, though
+he failed in the attempt to take the towns of Treviso and Vicenza in
+his passage. The repulse of the Austrians, 18,000 strong, from Vicenza
+on the 23rd of May, did great credit to Durando, who only had 10,000
+men, most of them _Crociati_, as the volunteers were called, whose
+ideas about fighting were original. It is hard to see how this General
+could have done more than he did with the materials at his disposal,
+or in what way he merited the abuse which was heaped upon him. The
+case would have been very different if his hybrid force had been
+supported by the Neapolitan army.
+
+Nugent was ordered by Radetsky to let the intermediate places alone,
+and to come on to him as fast as circumstances would admit. The
+junction of their troops was, the Field-Marshal saw, of vital
+necessity, but when this was achieved, and when Welden had also
+brought his 15,000 fresh men from Tyrol, he turned his attention to
+Vicenza, since, as long as that town remained in Durando's hands,
+Venetia would still be free. He conceived the bold plan of making an
+excursion to Vicenza with his complete army, while Charles Albert
+enjoyed the pleasant illusion that the Austrians were in full retreat
+owing to his success at Goito. The result of Radetsky's attack was not
+doubtful, but the defence of the town on the 10th of June could not
+have been more gallant; the 3500 Swiss, the Pontifical Carabineers,
+and the few other troops belonging to the regular army of the Pope did
+wonders. Cialdini, the future general, and Massimo d'Azeglio, the
+future prime minister, fought in this action, and the latter was
+severely wounded. After several hours' resistance there was nothing to
+be done but to hoist the white flag; Radetsky's object was
+accomplished, the Venetian _terra firma_ was practically once more in
+the power of Austria. On the 14th he was back again at Verona without
+the least harm having happened in his absence.
+
+Only military genius of the first order could now have saved the
+Piedmontese, and what prevailed was the usual infatuation. Charles
+Albert's lines were extended across forty miles of country, from
+Peschiera to Goito. On the 23rd of July the Austrians fell upon their
+weakest point, and obliged Sonnaz' division to cross over to the right
+bank of the Mincio. On the 24th, the King succeeded in dislodging the
+Austrians from Custozza after four hours' struggle; but next day,
+which was spent entirely in fighting, Radetsky retook Custozza, and
+obliged the King to fall back on Villafranca. Now began the terrible
+retreat on Milan, performed under the ceaseless fire of the pursuers,
+who attacked and defeated the retreating army for the last time, close
+to Milan, on the 4th of August. Radetsky had with him 45,000 men;
+Charles Albert's forces were reduced to 25,000. He had lost 5000 since
+he recrossed the Mincio. He begged for a truce, and, defeated and
+undone, he entered the city which he had vowed should only receive him
+victorious.
+
+To suppose that anything could have been gained by subjecting Milan to
+the horrors of a siege seems at this date the veriest madness;
+whatever Charles Albert's sins were, the capitulation of Milan was not
+among them. The members of a wild faction, however, demanded
+resistance to the death, or the death of the King if he refused. It is
+their severest censure to say that their pitiless fury is not excused
+even by the tragic fate of a population which, having gained freedom
+unaided less than six months before, saw itself given back to its
+ancestral foe by the man in whom it had hoped as a saviour. They saw
+crimes where there were only blunders, which had brought the King to a
+pass only one degree less wretched than their own. Crushed,
+humiliated, his army half destroyed, his personal ambition--to rate no
+higher the motive of his actions--trodden in the dust; and now the
+name of traitor was hissed in his ears by those for whom he had made
+these sacrifices.
+
+Stung to the heart, the King instructed General Bava to tell the
+Milanese that if they were ready to bury themselves under the ruins of
+the city, he and his sons were ready to do the same. But the
+Municipality, convinced of the desperateness of the situation, had
+already entered into negotiations with Radetsky, by which the
+capitulation was ratified. On this becoming known, the Palazzo Greppi,
+where Charles Albert lodged, was the object of a new display of rage;
+an attempt was even made to set it on fire. During the night, the King
+succeeded in leaving the palace on foot, guarded by a company of
+Bersaglieri and accompanied by his son, the Duke of Genoa, who, on
+hearing of his father's critical position, disobeyed the order to stay
+with his regiment, and came into the city to share his danger.
+
+The next day, the 6th of August, the Austrians reentered Milan. They
+themselves said that the Milanese seemed distraught. The Municipality
+was to blame for having concealed from the people the real state of
+things, by publishing reports of imaginary victories. Had the
+unthinking fury of the mob ended, as it so nearly ended, in an
+irreparable crime, the authors of these falsehoods would have been,
+more than anyone else, responsible for the catastrophe.
+
+The campaign of 1848 was finished. From the frontier, Charles Albert
+issued a proclamation to his people, calling upon the Piedmontese to
+render the common misfortunes less difficult to bear by giving his
+army a brotherly reception. 'In its ranks,' he concluded, 'are my sons
+and I, ready, as we all are, for new sacrifices, new hardships, or for
+death itself for our beloved fatherland.'
+
+The political and diplomatic transactions connected with the war in
+Lombardy were the subject after it closed of much discussion, and of
+some violent recriminations. Even from the short account given in
+these pages, it ought to be apparent that the supreme cause of
+disaster was simply bad generalship. Contemporaries, however, judged
+otherwise; if they were monarchists, they attributed the failure to
+the want of whole-hearted co-operation of the Provisional Governments
+of Lombardy with the liberating King; if they were republicans, they
+attributed it to the King's want of trust in the popular element, and
+anxiety lest, instead of receiving an increase of territory, he should
+find himself confronted with a new republic at his door. Both parties
+were so far correct that the strain of double purposes, or, at least,
+of incompatible aspirations which ran through the conduct of affairs,
+militated against a fortunate ending. The Piedmontese Government,
+even had it wished, would have found it difficult to adhere strictly
+to the programme of leaving all political matters for discussion after
+the war. What actually happened was that the union, under the not
+altogether attractive form of Fusion with Piedmont (instead of in the
+shape of the formation of an Italian kingdom), was effected at the end
+of June and beginning of July over the whole of Lombardy and Venetia,
+including Venice, where, perhaps alone, the feeling against it was not
+that of a party, but of the bulk of the population. Manin shared that
+feeling, but his true patriotism induced him to push on the Fusion in
+order to avoid the risk of civil war. He retired into private life the
+day it was accomplished, only to become again by acclamation Head of
+the State when the reverses of Sardinia obliged the King's Government
+to renounce the whole of his scarcely--acquired possessions, not
+excepting Modena, which had been the first, by a spontaneous
+plebiscite, to elect him Sovereign.
+
+The diplomatic history of the war is chiefly the history of the
+efforts of the English Cabinet to pull up a runaway horse. Lord Minto
+had been sent to urge the Italian princes to grant those concessions
+which Austria always said (and she was perfectly right) would lead to
+a general attack upon her power, but when the attack began, the
+British Government strained every nerve to limit its extension and
+diminish its force. That Lord Palmerston in his own mind disliked
+Austria, and would have been glad to see North Italy free, does not
+alter the fact that he played the Austrian game, and played it with
+success. He strongly advised every Italian prince to abstain from the
+conflict, and it is further as certain as anything can well be, that
+his influence, exercised through Lord Normanby, alone averted French
+intervention in August 1848, when the desperate state of things made
+the Italians willing to accept foreign aid. What would have happened
+if the French had intervened it is interesting to speculate, but
+impossible to decide. Their help was not desired, except as a last
+resource, by any party in Italy, nor by any man of note except Manin.
+The republicans wished Italy to owe her liberation to herself; Charles
+Albert wished her to owe it to him. The King also feared a republican
+propaganda, and was uneasy, not without reason, about Savoy and Nice.
+Lamartine would probably have been satisfied with the former, but it
+is doubtful if Charles Albert, though capable of giving up his crown
+for Italy, would have been capable of renouncing the cradle of his
+race. When Lamartine was succeeded by Cavaignac, perhaps Nice would
+have been demanded as well as Savoy. That both the King and Mazzini
+were right in mistrusting the sentiments of the French Government, is
+amply testified by a letter written by Jules Bastide to the French
+representative at Turin, in which the Minister of Foreign Affairs
+speaks of the danger to France of the formation of a strong monarchy
+at the foot of the Alps, that would tend to assimilate the rest of
+Italy, adding the significant words: 'We could admit the unity of
+Italy on the principle and in the form of a federation of independent
+states, each balancing the other, but never a unity which placed the
+whole of Italy under the dominion of one of these states.'
+
+Whether, in spite of all this, a political mistake was not made in not
+accepting French aid when it was first offered (in the spring of 1848)
+must remain an open question. When the French came eleven years later,
+they were actuated by no purer motives, but who would say that Cavour,
+instead of seeking, should have refused the French alliance?
+
+One other point has still to be noticed: the proposal made by Austria
+in the month of May to give up Lombardy unconditionally if she might
+keep Venetia, which was promised a separate administration and a
+national army. Nothing shows the state of mind then prevailing in a
+more distinct light than the scorn with which this offer was
+everywhere treated. Lord Palmerston declined to mediate on such a
+basis 'because there was no chance of the proposal being entertained,'
+which proved correct, as when it was submitted to the Provisional
+Government of Milan, it was not even thought worth taking into
+consideration. No one would contemplate the sacrifice of Venice by a
+new Campo Formio.
+
+Far, indeed, was Austria the victorious in August from Austria the
+humiliated in May. On the 9th of August, Hess and Salasco signed the
+armistice between the lately contending Powers. The next day the
+Emperor Ferdinand returned to his capital, from which he had been
+chased in the spring. He might well congratulate himself upon the
+marvellous recovery of his empire; but the revolution in Hungary was
+yet to be quelled, and another rising at Vienna in October tried his
+nerves, which were never of the strongest. On the 2nd of December he
+abdicated in favour of his young nephew, the Archduke Francis Joseph,
+who had been brought face to face more than once on the Mincio with
+the Duke of Savoy, whom he rivalled in personal courage.
+
+On the 10th of December, another event occurred which placed a new
+piece on the European chess-board: Louis Napoleon was elected to the
+Presidency of the French Republic.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE DOWNFALL OF THRONES
+
+1848-1849
+
+Garibaldi Arrives--Venice under Manin--The Dissolution of the Temporal
+Power--Republics at Rome and Florence.
+
+
+While the remnant of the Piedmontese army recrossed the bridge over
+the Ticino at Pavia, crushed, though not though want of valour,
+outraged in the person of its King, surely the saddest vanquished host
+that ever retraced in sorrow the path it had traced in the wildest
+joy, a few thousand volunteers in Lombardy still refused to lay down
+their arms or to recognise that, after the capitulation of Milan, all
+was lost. Valueless as a fact, their defiance of Austria had value as
+a prophecy, and its prophetic aspect comes more clearly into view when
+it is seen that the leader of the little band was Garibaldi, while its
+standard-bearer was Mazzini. These two had lately met for the first
+time since 1833, when Garibaldi, or 'Borel,' as he was called in the
+ranks of 'Young Italy,' went to Marseilles to make the acquaintance of
+the head and brain of the society which he had joined, as has been
+mentioned, on the banks of the Black Sea.
+
+'When I was young and had only aspirations,' said Garibaldi in London
+in April 1864, 'I sought out a man who could give me counsel and guide
+my youthful years; I sought him as the thirsty man seeks water. This
+man I found; he alone kept alive the sacred fire, he alone watched
+while all the world slept; he has always remained my friend, full of
+love for his country, full of devotion for the cause of freedom: this
+man is Joseph Mazzini.'
+
+The words spoken then--when the younger patriot was the chosen hero of
+the greatest of free nations, while the elder, still misunderstood by
+almost all, was shunned and calumniated, and even called 'the worst
+enemy of Italy'--gave one fresh proof, had one been wanting, that,
+though there have been more flawless characters than Garibaldi, never
+in a human breast beat a more generous heart. Politically, there was
+nearly as much divergence between Mazzini and Garibaldi as between
+Mazzini and Cavour; the master thought the pupil lacked ideality, the
+pupil thought the master lacked practicalness; but they were at one in
+the love of their land and in the desire to serve her.
+
+On parting with Mazzini in 1833, Garibaldi, then captain of a sailing
+vessel, went to Genoa and enrolled himself as a common sailor in the
+Royal Piedmontese Navy. The step, strange in appearance, was certainly
+taken on Mazzini's advice, and the immediate purpose was doubtless to
+make converts for 'Young Italy' among the marines. Had Garibaldi been
+caught when the ruthless persecution of all connected with 'Young
+Italy' set in, he would have been shot offhand, as were all those who
+were found dabbling with politics in the army and navy. He escaped
+just in time, and sailed for South America.
+
+The _Gazzetta Piemontese_ of the 17th of June 1834 published the
+sentence of death passed upon him, with the rider which declared him
+exposed to public vengeance 'as an enemy of the State, and liable to
+all the penalties of a brigand of the first category.' He saw the
+paper; and it was the first time that he or anyone else had seen the
+name of Giuseppe Garibaldi in print; a name of which Victor Emmanuel
+would one day say that 'it filled the furthest ends of the earth.'
+
+Profitable to Italy, over nearly every page of whose recent history
+might be written 'out of evil cometh forth good,' was the banishment
+which threw Garibaldi into his romantic career of the next twelve
+years between the Amazon and the Plata. Soldier of fortune who did not
+seek to enrich himself; soldier of freedom who never aimed at power,
+he always meant to turn to account for his own country the experience
+gained in the art of war in that distant land, where he rapidly became
+the centre of a legend, almost the origin of a myth. Antique in
+simplicity, singleness, superabundance of life, and in a sort of
+naturalism which is not of to-day; unselfconscious, trustful in
+others, forgiving, incapable of fear, abounding in compassion,
+Garibaldi's true place is not in the aggregation of facts which we
+call history, but in the apotheosis of character which we call the
+_Iliad_, the _Mahabharata_, the _Edda_, the cycles of Arthur and of
+Roland, and the _Romancero del Cid_.
+
+In childhood he rescued a drowning washerwoman; in youth he nursed men
+dying of cholera; as a veteran soldier he passed the night among the
+rocks of Caprera hunting for a lamb that was lost. No amount of habit
+could remove the repugnance he felt at uttering the word 'fire.' Yet
+this gentle warrior, when his career was closed and he lay chained to
+his bed of pain, endorsed his memoirs with the Spanish motto: 'La
+guerra es la verdadera vida del hombre.' War was the veritable life of
+Garibaldi; war, not conspiracy; war, not politics; war, not, alas!
+model farming, for which the old chief fancied in his later years that
+he had discovered in himself a vocation.
+
+Riding the wild horses and chasing the wild cattle of the Pampas, his
+eyes covering the immense spaces untrodden by man, this corsair of
+five-and-twenty drank deep of the innocent pleasures of untamed
+nature, when not occupied in fighting by land or sea, with equal
+fortune; or rather, perhaps, with greater fortune and greater proof of
+inborn genius as commander of the naval campaign of the Paran[=a] than
+as defender of Monte Video. No adventures were wanting to him; he was
+even imprisoned and tortured. In South America he found the one woman
+worthy to bear his name, the lion-hearted Anita, whom he carried off,
+she consenting, from her father and the man to whom her father had
+betrothed her. Garibaldi in after years expressed such deep contrition
+for the act which bore Anita away from the quiet life in store for
+her, and plunged her into hardships which only ended when she died,
+that, misinterpreting his remorse, many supposed the man from whom he
+took her to have been already her husband. It was not so. Shortly
+before the Church of San Francisco at Monte Video was burnt down (some
+twenty years ago), the marriage register of Garibaldi and Anita was
+found in its archives, and a legal copy was made. In it she is
+described as 'Doña Ana Maria de Jesus, unmarried daughter of Don
+Benito Rivevio de Silva, of Laguna, in Brazil.' The bridegroom, who
+during all his American career had scarcely clothes to cover him,
+parted with his only possession, an old silver watch, to pay the
+priest's fees. Head of the Italian Legion, he only took the rations of
+a common soldier, and as candles were not included in the rations, he
+sat in the dark. Someone reported this to the Government, who sent him
+a present of £20, half of which he gave to a poor widow.
+
+When the first rumours that something was preparing in Italy reached
+Monte Video, Garibaldi wrote a letter offering his services to the
+Pope, still hailed as Champion of Freedom, and soon embarked himself
+for the Old World, with eighty-five of his best soldiers, among whom
+was his beloved friend, Francesco Anzani. Giacomo Medici had been
+despatched a little in advance to confer with Mazzini. At starting,
+the Legion knew nothing of the revolution in Milan and Venice, or of
+Charles Albert having taken the field. Great was their wonder,
+therefore, on reaching Gibraltar, to see hoisted on a Sardinian ship a
+perfectly new flag, never beheld by them out of dreams--the Italian
+tricolor.
+
+So Garibaldi returned at forty-one years of age to the country where
+the sentence of death passed upon him had never been revoked. Before
+the law he was still 'a brigand of the first category.' Nor was he
+quite sure that he would not be arrested, and, as a precaution, when
+he cast anchor in the harbour of his native Nice, he ran up the Monte
+Videan colours. It was needless. Throngs of people crowded the quays
+to welcome home the Ligurian captain, who had done great things over
+sea. Anita was there; she had preceded him to Europe with their three
+children, Teresita, Menotti and Ricciotti. There, also, was his old
+mother, who never ceased to be beautiful, the 'Signora Rosa,' as the
+Nizzards called her. She was almost a woman of the people, but the
+simple dignity of her life made all treat her as a superior being. To
+her prayers, while she lived, Garibaldi believed that he owed his
+safety in so many perils, and after her death the soldiers used to say
+that on the eve of battles he walked apart communing with her spirit.
+
+From Nice, Garibaldi went to Genoa, where he took a last leave of his
+friend Anzani, who returned from exile not to fight, as he had hoped,
+but to die. The day before he expired, Medici arrived at Genoa; he was
+very angry with the Chief, in consequence of some disagreement as to
+the place of landing. Anzani said to him entreatingly: 'Do not be
+hard, Medici, on Garibaldi; he is a predestined man: a great part of
+the future of Italy is in his hands.' The counsel from dying lips sank
+deep into Medici's heart; he often disagreed with Garibaldi, but to
+his last day he never quarrelled with him again. Long years after, if
+friction arose between Garibaldi and his King, it was Medici's part to
+throw oil on the waters.
+
+Garibaldi sought an interview with Charles Albert, and offered him his
+arms and the arms of his Legion, 'not unused to war.' Pope or prince,
+little it mattered to him who the saviour of Italy should be. But
+Charles Albert, though he was polite, merely referred his visitor to
+his ministers, and the inestimable sword of the hero went begging for
+a month or more, till the Provisional Government of Milan gave him the
+command of the few thousand volunteers with whom we saw him at the
+conclusion of the campaign. The war was over before he had a chance of
+striking a blow. His indignant cry of defiance could not be long
+sustained, for Garibaldi never drove men to certain and useless
+slaughter; when the real position of things became known to him, he
+led his band over the Swiss confines, and bid them wait for a better
+and not distant day.
+
+Under Manin's wise rule, which was directed solely to the preservation
+of peace within the city, and resistance to the enemy at its gates,
+Venice remained undaunted by the catastrophes in Lombardy, after all
+the Venetian _terra firma_ had been restored to Austria. (Even the
+heroic little mountain fort of Osopo in the Friuli was compelled to
+capitulate on the 12th of October.) The blockade of the city on the
+lagunes did not prevent Venice from acting not only on the defensive
+but on the offensive; in the sortie of the 27th of October, 2500
+Venetians drove the Austrians from Mestre with severe losses, carrying
+back six captured guns, which the people dragged in triumph to the
+Doge's palace. A cabin-boy named Zorzi was borne on the shoulders of
+the soldiers enveloped in the Italian flag; his story was this: the
+national colours, floating from the mast of the pinnace on which he
+served, were detached by a ball and dropped into the water; the child
+sprang in after them, and with a shout of _Viva l'Italia,_ fixed them
+again at the masthead under a sharp fire. Zorzi was, of course, the
+small hero of the hour, especially among the women. General Pepe
+commanded the sortie, with Ulloa, Fontana and Cosenz as his
+lieutenants; Ugo Bassi, the patriot monk of Bologna, marched at the
+head of a battalion with the crucifix, the only arms he ever carried,
+in his hand. The success cost Italy dear, as Alessandro Poerio, poet
+and patriot, the brother of Baron Carlo Poerio of Naples, lost his
+life by a wound received at Mestre. But the confidence of Venice in
+her little army was increased a hundredfold.
+
+The most important event of the autumn of 1848 was the gradual but
+continuous break-up of the Papal authority in Rome. The meeting of the
+new Parliament only served to accentuate the want of harmony between
+the Pope and his ministers; assassinations were frequent; what law
+there was was administered by the political clubs. In Count Terenzio
+Mamiani, Pius IX. found a Prime Minister who, for eloquence and
+patriotism, could hardly be rivalled, but hampered as he was by the
+opposition he encountered from the Sovereign, and by the absence of
+any real or solid moderate constitutional party in the Chamber of
+Deputies, Mamiani could carry out very few of the improvements he
+desired to effect, and in August he retired from an impracticable
+task, to be replaced by men of less note and talent than himself.
+
+Wishing to create fresh complications for the Pope, the Austrians
+invaded the Legations, regardless of his protests, and after the fall
+of Milan, General Welden advanced on Bologna, where, however, his
+forces were so furiously attacked by the inhabitants and the few
+carabineers who were all the troops in the town, that they were
+dislodged from the strong position they had taken up on the
+Montagnola, the hill which forms the public park, and obliged to fly
+beyond the city walls. Radetsky disapproved of Welden's movements on
+Bologna, and ordered him not to return to the assault.
+
+Had the Austrians returned and massacred half the population of
+Bologna, the Pope might have been saved. When Rome heard that the
+stormy capital of Romagna was up in arms, once more, for a moment,
+there were united counsels. 'His Holiness,' ran the official
+proclamation, 'was firmly resolved to repel the Austrian invasion with
+all the means which his State and the well-regulated enthusiasm of his
+people could supply.' The Chamber confirmed the ministerial proposal
+to demand French help against Austria. But all this brave show of
+energy vanished with the pressing danger, and Bologna, which, by its
+manly courage, had galvanised the whole bloodless body-politic, now
+hastened the hour of dissolution by lapsing into a state of deplorable
+anarchy, the populace using the arms with which they had driven out
+the Austrians, to establish a reign of murder and pillage. L.C. Farini
+restored something like order, but the general weakness of the power
+of government became every day more apparent.
+
+The Pope made a last endeavour to avert the catastrophe by calling to
+his counsels Count Pellegrino Rossi, a man of unyielding will, who was
+as much opposed to demagogic as to theocratic government. Rossi,
+having been compromised when very young in Murat's enterprises, lived
+long abroad, and attained the highest offices under Louis Philippe,
+who sent him to Rome to arrange with the Pope the delicate question of
+the expulsion of the Jesuits from France, which he conducted to an
+amicable settlement, though one not pleasing to the great Society.
+Not being one of those who change masters as they change their boots
+according to the state of the roads, the ambassador retired from the
+French service when Louis Philippe was dethroned. As minister to the
+Pope, he made his influence instantly felt; measures were taken to
+restore order in the finances, discipline in the army, public security
+in the streets, and method and activity in the Government offices. The
+tax on ecclesiastical property was enforced; fomenters of anarchy,
+even though they wore the garb of patriots, and perhaps honestly
+believed themselves to be such, were vigorously dealt with. If anyone
+could have given the Temporal Power a new lease of life, it would have
+been a man so gifted and so devoted as Pellegrino Rossi, but the
+entire forces, both of subversion and of reaction, were against him,
+and most of all was against him the fatality of dates. Not at human
+bidding do the dead arise and walk. The most deeply to be regretted
+event that happened in the course of the Italian revolution gave his
+inevitable failure the appearance of a fortuitous accident.
+
+Parliament, which had been prorogued on the 26th of August, was to
+open on the 15th of November. Anarchy, black and red, was in the air.
+Though disorders were expected, Rossi made no provision for keeping
+the space clear round the palace where Parliament met; knots of men,
+with sinister faces, gathered in all parts of the square. Rossi was
+warned in the morning that an attempt would be made to assassinate
+him; he was entreated not to go to the Chamber, to which he replied
+that it was his duty to be present, and that if people wanted his
+blood they would have it sooner or later, whether he took precautions
+or not. Two policemen to keep the passage free when he reached the
+Chamber would, nevertheless, have saved his life. As he walked from
+his carriage to the stairs, an unknown individual pushed against him
+on the right side, and when he turned to see who it was, the assassin
+plunged a dagger in his throat. He fell, bathed in blood, to expire
+without uttering a word.
+
+In the Chamber, the deputies proceeded to business; not one raised an
+indignant protest against a crime which violated the independence of
+the representatives of the nation. The mere understanding of what
+liberty means is absolutely wanting in most populations when they
+first emerge from servitude.
+
+After the craven conduct of the deputies, it is no wonder if the dregs
+of the people went further, and paraded the streets singing songs in
+praise of the assassin. The Pope summoned the Presidents of the two
+Chambers and Marco Minghetti, whom he requested to form a new
+ministry. But the time for regular proceeding was past; the city was
+in the hands of the mob, which imposed on the Pope the acceptance of a
+ministry of nonentities nominated by it. The Swiss Guard fired on the
+crowd which attempted to gain access to the Quirinal; the crowd,
+reinforced by the Civic Guard, returned to the attack and fired
+against the walls, a stray shot killing Monsignor Palma, who was in
+one of the rooms. The Pope decided on flight. He left Rome in disguise
+during the evening of the 25th of November. After gaining the
+Neapolitan frontier, he took the road to Gaeta. The illusion of the
+Pope Liberator ended with the Encyclical; the illusion of the
+Constitutional Pope ended with the flight to Gaeta. Pius IX. was only
+in a limited degree responsible for his want of success, because the
+task he had set before him was the quadrature of the circle in
+politics.
+
+The weight of a less qualified responsibility rests upon him for his
+subsequent actions. On the 3rd of December Parliament voted a proposal
+to send a deputation to the Pope, praying him to return to his States.
+To give the deputation greater authority, the Municipality of Rome
+proposed that the Syndic, the octogenarian Prince Corsini, should
+accompany it. It also comprised two ecclesiastics, and thus
+constituted, it left Rome for Gaeta on the 5th of December. On the
+borders of the Neapolitan kingdom its passage was barred by the
+police, and it was obliged to retrace its steps to Terracina. Here the
+deputation drew up a letter to Cardinal Antonelli (no longer the
+patriotic minister of the spring), in which an audience with the
+Sovereign Pontiff was respectfully requested. The answer came that the
+Pope would not receive the deputation. It was an answer that he was at
+liberty to make, but it should have meant abdication. If, called back
+by the will of the Parliament of his own making, the Sovereign deigned
+not even to receive the bearers of the invitation, in what way did he
+contemplate resuming the throne? It was only too easy to guess. The
+Head of Christendom had become a convert of King Ferdinand of Naples,
+otherwise Bomba. By a path strewn with the sinister flowers of war did
+Pius IX. meditate returning to his subjects--by that path and no
+other.
+
+The Galetti-Sterbini ministry, appointed by the Pope under popular
+pressure a few days before his departure, remained in charge of
+affairs, somewhat strengthened by the adhesion of Terenzio Mamiani as
+Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mamiani at first declined to form part of
+the ministry, but joined it afterwards with self-sacrificing
+patriotism, in the hope of saving things from going to complete rack
+and ruin during the interregnum caused by the withdrawal of the Head
+of the State. He only retired from the ungrateful office when he saw
+the imminence of a radical change in the form of government, which was
+not desired by him any more than it had been by Rossi.
+
+The mass of the population of the Roman States had desired such a
+change ever since the days of Gregory; the temporary enthusiasm for
+Pius, if it arrested the flow of the stream, did not prevent the
+waters from accumulating beyond the dyke. One day the dyke would
+burst, and the waters sweep all before them.
+
+A Constituent Assembly was convoked for the 5th of February 1849. The
+elections, which took place on the 21st of January, were on this
+basis: every citizen of more than twenty-one years was allowed to
+vote; every citizen over twenty-five could become a deputy; the number
+of deputies was fixed at two hundred; a candidate who received less
+than 500 votes would not be elected. On the 9th of February, the
+Constituent Assembly voted the downfall of the Temporal Power (free
+exercise of his spiritual functions being, at the same time, assured
+to the Supreme Pontiff), and the establishment of a republican form of
+government. The Roman Republic was proclaimed from the Capitol.
+
+Ten votes were given against the republic. No government ever came
+into existence in a more strictly legal manner. Had it not represented
+the true will of the people, the last Roman Commonwealth could not
+have left behind so glorious, albeit brief, a record.
+
+A youthful poet, descendant of the Doges of Genoa, Goffredo Mameli,
+whose 'Fratelli d'Italia' was the battle-hymn to which Italy marched,
+wrote these three words to Mazzini: 'Roma, Repubblica, Venite.' So
+Mazzini came to Rome, which confided her destinies to him, as she had
+once confided them to the Brescian Arnold and to Cola di Rienzi. Not
+Arnold--not Rienzi in his nobler days--dreamed a more sublime dream of
+Roman liberty than did Giuseppe Mazzini, or more nearly wrote down
+that dream in facts.
+
+Originally the executive power was delegated to a committee, but this
+was changed to a Triumvirate, the Triumvirs being Armellini, Saffi and
+Mazzini. Mazzini's mind and will directed the whole.
+
+On the 18th of February, Cardinal Antonelli demanded in the Pope's
+name the armed intervention of France, Austria, Spain and Naples, 'as
+in this way alone can order be restored in the States of the Church,
+and the Holy Father re-established in the exercise of his supreme
+authority, in compliance with the imperious exigencies of his august
+and sacred character, the interests of the universal Church, and the
+peace of nations. In this way he will be enabled to retain the
+patrimony which he received at his accession, and transmit it in its
+integrity to his successors.'
+
+The Pope, who could not bring himself to stain his white robes with
+the blood of the enemies of Italy, called in four armies to shoot down
+his subjects, because in no other way could he recover his lost
+throne.
+
+Pius IX. was the twenty-sixth Pontiff who called the foreigner into
+Italy.
+
+The final conquest of the Pope by the party of universal reaction
+could only be effected by his isolation from all but one set of
+influences; this is precisely what happened at Gaeta. There are
+reasons for thinking that his choice of the hospitality of the King of
+the Two Sicilies, rather than that of France or Spain or Sardinia, was
+the result of an intrigue in which Count Spaur, the Bavarian minister
+who represented the interests of Austria in Rome after that power
+withdrew her ambassador, played a principal part. Even after Pius
+arrived at Gaeta, it is said that he talked of it as the first stage
+of a longer journey. He had never shown any liking for the Neapolitan
+Bourbons, and the willingness which he expressed to Gioberti to crown
+Charles Albert King of Italy if his arms were successful, was probably
+duly appreciated by Ferdinand II. To save the Pope from absorption by
+the retrograde party, and to avoid the certainty of a foreign
+invasion, Gioberti, who became Prime Minister of Piedmont in November
+1848, was anxious to occupy the Roman states with Sardinian troops
+immediately after the Pope's flight, when his subjects still
+recognised his sovereignty. Gioberti resigned because this policy was
+opposed by Rattazzi and other of his colleagues in the ministry. It
+would have been a difficult _rôle_ to play; Sardinia, while
+endeavouring to checkmate the reaction, might have become its
+instrument. The failure of Gioberti's plan cannot be regretted, but
+his forecast of what would happen if it were not attempted proved to
+be correct.
+
+Soon after the arrival of his exalted guest, King Ferdinand with his
+family, a great number of priests, and a strong escort, moved his
+residence from the capital to Gaeta. The modified Constitution,
+substituted for the first charter after the events of the 15th of May,
+was still nominally in force; Parliament had met during the summer,
+but the King solved the riddle of governing through his ministers, on
+purely retrograde principles, without paying more heed to the
+representatives of the nations than to the benches on which they sat.
+Prorogued on the 5th of September, Parliament was to have met on the
+30th of November, but when that date approached, it was prorogued
+again to the 1st of February. 'Our misery has reached such a climax,'
+wrote Baron Carlo Poerio, 'that it is enough to drive us mad. Every
+faculty of the soul revolts against the ferocious reactionary
+movement, the more disgraceful from its execrable hypocrisy. We are
+governed by an oligarchy; the only article maintained is that
+respecting the taxes. The laws have ceased to exist; the Statute is
+buried; a licentious soldiery rules over everything, and the press is
+constantly employed to asperse honest men. The lives of the deputies
+are menaced. Another night of St Bartholomew is threatened to all who
+will not sell body and soul.' Ferdinand only waited till he had
+recovered substantial hold over Sicily to do away with even the
+fiction of parliamentary government. Messina had fallen in September,
+though not till half the city was in flames, the barbarous cruelties
+practised on the inhabitants after the surrender exciting the
+indignation of the English and French admirals who witnessed the
+bombardment. This was the first step to the subjection of Sicily, but
+not till after Syracuse and Catania fell did the King feel that there
+was no further cause for anxiety--the taking of the capital becoming a
+mere question of time. He was so much pleased at the fall of Catania
+that he had a mock representation of the siege performed at Gaeta in
+presence of the Pope and of half the sacred college.
+
+On the 13th of March Prince Torelli handed the President of the
+Neapolitan Chamber of Deputies a sealed packet which contained a royal
+decree dissolving Parliament. Naples was once more under an
+irresponsible despotism. The lazzaroni of both the lower and higher
+classes, if by lazzaroni may be understood the born allies of
+ignorance, idleness and bigotry, rejoiced and were glad. Nor were they
+few. Unlike the Austrians in the north, Ferdinand had his party; the
+'fidelity of his subjects' of which he boasted, was not purely
+mythical. Whether, considering its basis, it was much to boast of,
+need not be discussed.
+
+In March, the happy family at Gaeta was increased by a new arrival.
+Had he been better advised, Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, would have
+never gone to breathe that malarious atmosphere. He had played no
+conjuror's tricks with his promises to his people; Austrian though he
+was, he had really acted the part of an Italian prince, and there was
+nothing to show that he had not acted it sincerely. But a persistent
+bad luck attended his efforts. Though the ministers appointed by him
+included men as distinguished as the Marquis Gino Capponi, Baron
+Ricasoli and Prince Corsini, they failed in winning a strong popular
+support. Leghorn, where the population, unlike that of the rest of
+Tuscany, is by nature turbulent, broke into open revolution. In the
+last crisis, the Grand Duke entrusted the government to the extreme
+Liberals, Montanelli the professor, and Guerrazzi the novelist; both
+were honourable men, and Guerrazzi was thought by many to be a man of
+genius. The vigorous rhetoric of his _Assedio di Firenze_ had warmed
+the patriotism of many young hearts. But, as statesmen, the only
+talent they showed was for upsetting any _régime_ with which they were
+connected.
+
+The Grand Duke was asked to convoke a Constituent Assembly, following
+the example of Rome. If every part of Italy were to do the same, the
+constitution and form of government of the whole country could be
+settled by a convention of the various assemblies. The idea was worthy
+of respect because it pointed to unity; but in view of the existing
+situation, Tuscany's solitary adhesion would hardly have helped the
+nation, while it was accompanied by serious risks to the state. The
+Grand Duke seemed about to yield to the proposal, but, on receiving a
+strong protest from the Pope, he refused to do so on the ground that
+it would expose himself and his subjects to the terrors of
+ecclesiastical censure. He still remained in Tuscany, near Viareggio,
+till he was informed that a band of Leghornese had set out with the
+intention of capturing his person. Then he left for Gaeta on board the
+English ship _Bull Dog._ The republic had been already proclaimed at
+Florence, with Montanelli and Guerrazzi as its chief administrators.
+It succeeded in pleasing no one. Civil war was more than once at the
+threshhold of Florence, for the peasants rose in armed resistance to
+the new government. In less than two months the restoration of the
+Grand. Ducal authority was accomplished almost of itself.
+Unfortunately, the Grand Duke who was to come back was not the same
+man as he who went away. The air of Gaeta did its work.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+AT BAY
+
+1849
+
+Novara--Abdication of Charles Albert--Brescia crushed--French
+Intervention--The Fall of Rome--The Fall of Venice.
+
+
+In the spring of 1848, a date might be found when every Italian ruler
+except the Duke of Modena wore the appearance of a friend to freedom
+and independence. In the spring of 1849 no Italian prince preserved
+that appearance except the King of Sardinia. Many causes contributed
+to the elimination, but most of all the logic of events. It was a case
+of the survival of the fittest. What seemed a calamity was a step in
+advance.
+
+Early in March, the Marquis Pallavicini, prisoner of Spielberg, had a
+long interview with Charles Albert. They sat face to face talking over
+Italian matters, and the King said confidently that the army was now
+flourishing; if the die were cast anew, they would win. At parting he
+embraced the Lombard patriot with the words: 'Dear Pallavicini, how
+glad I am to have seen you again! You and I had always the same
+thought; the independence of Italy was the first dream of my youth; it
+is my dream still, it will be till I die.'
+
+Some characters grow small in misfortune, others grow great. The
+terrible scene at the Palazzo Greppi, the charge of treason, the
+shouts of 'death,' had left only one trace on Charles Albert's mind:
+the burning desire to deliver his accusers.
+
+The armistice was denounced on the 12th of March, a truce of eight
+days being allowed before the recommencement of hostilities. There is
+such a thing in politics as necessary madness, and it may be doubted
+if the Sardinian war of 1849 was not this thing. The programme of
+_fare da sè_ had now to be carried out in stern earnest. Sardinia
+stood alone, neither from south of the Apennines nor from north of the
+Alps could help be hoped for. France, which was meditating quite
+another sort of intervention, refused the loan even of a general.
+'They were not going to offend Austria to please Piedmont,' said the
+French Cabinet. Worse than this, the army was not in the flourishing
+state of which the King had spoken. The miseries of the retreat, but
+infinitely more, the incidents of Milan, though wiped out by the King
+from his own memory, were vividly recollected by all ranks. Affection
+was not the feeling with which the Piedmontese soldiers regarded the
+'fratelli Lombardi.' Did anyone beside the King believe that this
+army, which had lost faith in its cause, in its leaders and in itself,
+was going to beat Radetsky? The old Field-Marshal might well show the
+wildest joy when the denunciation of the armistice was communicated to
+him. And yet the higher expediency demanded that the sacrifice of
+Piedmont and of her King for Italy should be consummated.
+
+Rattazzi announced the coming campaign to the Chambers on the 14th of
+March; the news was well received; there was a general feeling that,
+whatever happened, the present situation could not be prolonged. With
+regard to the numbers they could put in the field, Austria and
+Sardinia were evenly balanced, each having about 80,000 disposable
+men. The request for a French marshal having been refused, the chief
+command was given to Chrzanowski, a Pole, who did not know Italian,
+had not studied the theatre of the war, and was so little favoured by
+nature that, to the impressionable Italians, his appearance seemed
+ludicrous. This deplorable appointment was made to satisfy the outcry
+against Piedmontese generalship; as if it was not enough, the other
+Polish general, Ramorino, accused of treachery by the revolutionists
+in 1832, but now praised to the skies by the democratic party, was
+placed in command of the fifth or Lombard division.
+
+Though Radetsky openly gave the word 'To Turin!' Chrzanowski seems to
+have failed to realise that the Austrians intended to invade Piedmont.
+He ordered Ramorino, however, with his 8000 Lombards, to occupy the
+fork formed by the Po and the Ticino, so as to defend the bridge at
+Pavia, if, by chance, any fraction of the enemy tried to cross it.
+What Ramorino did was to place his division on the right bank of the
+Po, and to destroy the bridge of boats at Mezzana Corte _between_
+himself and the enemy. The Austrians crossed the Ticino in the night
+of the 20th of April, not with a fraction, but with a complete army.
+Ramorino was deprived of his command, and was afterwards tried by
+court-martial and shot. Whether his treason was intentional or
+involuntary, it is certain that, had he stemmed the Austrian advance
+even for half a day, the future disasters, if not averted, would not
+have come so rapidly, because the Piedmontese would have been
+forewarned. On the evening of the 21st, General D'Aspre, with 15,000
+men, took a portion of the Sardinian army unawares near Mortara, and,
+owing to the scattered distribution of the Piedmontese, who would have
+outnumbered him had they been concentrated, he succeeded in forcing his
+way into Mortara by nightfall. The moral effect of this first reverse
+was bad, but Chrzanowski rashly decided staking the whole fate of the
+campaign in a field-day, for which purpose he gathered what troops he
+could collect at La Biccocca, a hill capped with a village about a
+mile and a half from Novara. Not more than 50,000 men were collected;
+some had already deserted, and 20,000 were doing nothing on the other
+side of the Po.
+
+Towards eleven o'clock D'Aspre arrived, and lost no time in beginning
+the attack. He sent post-haste to Radetsky, Appel and Thurn to bring
+all the reinforcements in their power as fast as possible. D'Aspre's
+daring was rewarded by his carrying La Biccocca at about mid-day, but
+the Duke of Genoa retook the position with the aid of the valorous
+'Piemonte' brigade, and by two p.m. D'Aspre's brave soldiers were so
+thoroughly beaten, that nothing could have saved his division from
+destruction, as he afterwards admitted, had Chrzanowski joined in the
+pursuit instead of staying behind with more than half the army, in
+accordance with a preconceived plan of remaining on the defensive.
+
+At two o'clock on the 23rd of March, the news started on the wings of
+the wind, and, as great news will do, swiftly reached every part of
+the waiting country, that the Sardinians were getting the best of it,
+that the cause was saved. Men who are not very old remember this as
+the first strong sensation of their lives--this, and its sequel.
+
+Appel and Thurn, and Wratislaw and the old Field-Marshal were on the
+march, and by four o'clock they were pouring their fresh troops upon
+the Piedmontese, who had not known how to profit by their success.
+Heroism such as few battlefields have seen, disorder such as has
+rarely disgraced a beaten army, were displayed side by side in Charles
+Albert's ranks. At eight in the evening, the whole Sardinian army
+retired into Novara; the Austrians bivouacked on La Biccocca. The
+Sardinians had lost 4000 in dead and wounded; the losses of the
+victors were a thousand less.
+
+All the day long the King courted death, pressing forward where the
+balls fell like hail and the confusion was at its height, with the
+answer of despair to the devoted officers who sought to hold him
+back: 'Let me die, this is my last day.' But death shuns the seeker.
+Men fell close beside him, but no charitable ball struck his breast.
+In the evening he said to his generals: 'We have still 40,000 men,
+cannot we fall back on Alessandria and still make an honourable
+stand?' They told him that it could not be done. Radetsky was asked on
+what terms he would grant an armistice; he replied: 'The occupation of
+a large district in Piedmont, and the heir to the throne as a
+hostage.' Then Charles Albert knew what he must do. 'For eighteen
+years,' he said, 'I have made every effort for the good of the people;
+I grieve to see that my hopes have failed, not so much for myself as
+for the country. I have not found death on the field of battle as I
+ardently desired; perhaps my person is the only obstacle to obtaining
+juster terms. I abdicate the crown in favour of my son, Victor
+Emmanuel.' And turning to the Duke of Savoy he said: 'There is your
+King.'
+
+In the night he left Novara alone for Nice. As he passed through the
+Austrian lines, the sentinels were nearly firing upon his carriage;
+General Thurn, before whom he was brought, asked for some proof that
+he was in fact the 'Count de Barge' in whose name his passport was
+made out. A Bersagliere prisoner who recognised the King, at a sign
+from him gave the required testimony, and he was allowed to pass. At
+Nice he was received by the governor, a son of Santorre di Santa Rosa,
+and to him he addressed the last words spoken by him on Italian
+ground: 'In whatever time, in whatever place, a regular government
+raises the flag of war with Austria, the Austrians will find me among
+their enemies as a simple soldier.' Then he continued his journey to
+Oporto.
+
+The principal side-issue of the campaign of 1849 was the revolution at
+Brescia. Had the original plan been carried out, which was to throw
+the Sardinian army into Lombardy (and it is doubtful whether, even
+after Radetsky's invasion of Piedmont, it would not have been better
+to adhere to it), a corresponding movement on the part of the
+inhabitants would have become of the greatest importance. To Brescia,
+which was the one Lombard town where the Piedmontese had been received
+in 1848 with real effusion, the Sardinian Minister of War despatched
+Count Giuseppe Martinengo Cesaresco with arms and ammunition, and
+orders to reassume the colonelcy of the National Guard which he held
+in the previous year, and to take the general control of the movement
+as far as Brescia was concerned. Martinengo succeeded in transporting
+the arms through the enemy's country from the Piedmontese frontier to
+Iseo, and thence to his native city. When he reached Brescia, he found
+that the Austrians had evacuated the town, though they still occupied
+the castle which frowns down upon it. This was the 23rd of March:
+Novara was fought and lost, Piedmont was powerless to come to the
+assistance of the people she had commanded to rise. What was to be
+done? Plainly common sense suggested an honourable compromise with the
+Austrian commandant, by which he should be allowed to reoccupy the
+city on condition that no hair of the citizens' heads was touched.
+This is what Bergamo and the other towns did, nor are they to be
+blamed.
+
+Not so Brescia. Here, where love of liberty was an hereditary instinct
+from the long connection of Brescia with free Venice, where hatred of
+the stranger, planted by the ruthless soldiery of Gaston de Foix, had
+but gone on maturing through three centuries, where the historical
+title of 'Valiant,' coming down from a remote antiquity, was still no
+fable; here, with a single mind, the inhabitants resolved upon as
+desperate a resistance as was ever offered by one little town to a
+great army.
+
+The Austrian bombardment was begun by the Irish General,
+Nugent-Lavall, who, dying in the midst of it, left all his fortune to
+the heroic city which he was attacking. The Austrians, flushed with
+their victory over Charles Albert's army of 80,000, were seized with
+rage at the sight of their power defied by a town of less than half
+that number of souls. But with that rage was mingled, even in the mind
+of Haynau, an admiration not to be repressed.
+
+Haynau who was sent to replace Nugent, was already known at Brescia,
+where he had been appointed military governor after the resumption of
+Austrian authority in 1848. In order to punish the 'persistent
+opposition manifested to the legitimate Imperial and Royal
+Government,' and as an example to the other towns, he had imposed on
+the Brescian householders and the landed proprietors of the province a
+fine of half a million francs.
+
+He now returned, and what he did may be best read in his own report on
+the operations. 'It was then,' he wrote, 'that began the most murderous
+fight; a fight prolonged by the insurgents from barricade to barricade,
+from house to house, with extraordinary obstinacy. I should never have
+believed that so bad a cause could have been sustained with such
+perseverance. In spite of this desperate defence, and although the
+assault could only be effected in part, and with the help of cannons of
+heavy calibre, our brave troops with heroic courage, but at the cost of
+great losses, occupied a first line of houses; but as all my columns
+could not penetrate into the town at the same time, I ordered the
+suspension of the attack at nightfall, limiting myself to holding the
+ground conquered. In spite of that, the combat continued late into the
+night. On the 1st of April, in the earliest morning light, the tocsin
+was heard ringing with more fury than ever, and the insurgents reopened
+fire with an entirely new desperation. Considering the gravity of our
+losses, as well as the obstinacy and fury of the enemy, it was
+necessary to adopt a most rigorous measure. I ordered that no prisoners
+should be taken, but that every person seized with arms in his hand
+should be immediately put to death, and that the houses from which shots
+came should be burnt. It is thus that conflagrations, partly caused by
+the troops, partly by the bombardment, broke out in various parts of the
+town.'
+
+During the ten days' struggle, the citizens did not flinch for a
+moment. Count Martinengo was the guiding spirit of the defence, and
+scarcely left the most exposed of the barricades night or day. From
+the nobles to the poorest of the people, all did their duty. A youth
+named Tito Speri led and animated the populace. The horrors of the
+repression make one think of the fall of Khartoum. Not even in
+Hungary, where he went from Brescia to continue his 'system,' did
+Haynau so blacken his own and his country's name as here. In a boys'
+school kept by a certain Guidi, the master's wife, his mother and ten
+of his pupils were slaughtered. A little hunchback tailor was carried
+to the barracks to be slowly burnt alive. But stray details do not
+give the faintest idea of the whole. And for all this, Haynau was in a
+far higher degree responsible than the actual executants of the
+vengeance to which he hounded on his ignorant soldiers, maddened with
+the lust of blood.
+
+Such was General Haynau, 'whose brave devotion to his master's service
+was the veteran's sole crime,' said the _Quarterly Review_ (June
+1853), but who was judged otherwise by some in England. Wherefore was
+he soundly beaten by the brewers in the employment of Messrs Barclay &
+Perkins; and the nice words of the _Quarterly_ could not undo that
+beating, redress for which Lord Palmerston blandly advised the
+complainant to seek 'before the common tribunals.' He thought it best
+to neglect the advice, and to leave the country.
+
+Among the curious taxes levied at Brescia during the six months after
+its fall was one of £500 for 'the expenses of the hangman.' Count
+Martinengo escaped after the Austrians were in possession of the town
+through the courageous assistance given to him by a few young men of
+the working class. Camozzi's band of Bergamasques, which started for
+the relief of the sister city, was driven back with loss.
+
+The end was come, but woe to the victors.
+
+Following the Italian flag to where it still floated, we pass from
+Brescia in the dust to Rome still inviolate, though soon to be
+assailed by the bearers of another tricolor. A few days after Novara,
+the Triumvirate issued a proclamation, in which they said: 'The
+Republic in Rome has to prove to Italy and to Europe that our work is
+eminently religious, a work of education and of morality; that the
+accusations of intolerance, anarchy and violent upturning of things
+are false; that, thanks to the republican principle, united as one
+family of good men under the eye of God, and following the impulse of
+those who are first among us in genius and virtue, we march to the
+attainment of true order, law and power united.' Englishmen who were
+in Rome at the time attest how well the pledge was kept. Peace and
+true freedom prevailed under the republican banner as no man
+remembered them to have prevailed before in Rome. The bitter
+provocation of the quadruple attack was not followed by revengeful
+acts on the parts of the government against those who were politically
+and religiously associated with him at whose bidding that attack was
+made. Nothing like a national party was terrorised or kept under by
+fear of violence. 'That at such a time,' writes Henry Lushington, who
+was not favourable to Mazzini, 'not one lawless or evil deed was done
+would have been rather a miracle than a merit, but on much concurrent
+testimony it is clear that the efforts of the government to preserve
+order were incessant, and to a remarkable degree successful.' He adds
+that the streets were far safer for ordinary passengers under the
+Triumvirs than under the Papacy.
+
+Of great help in quieting the passions of the lower orders was the
+people's tribune, Ciceruacchio, who had not put on black cloth
+clothes, or asked for the ministry of war, or of fine arts, according
+to the usual wont of successful tribunes. Ciceruacchio had the sense
+of humour of the genuine Roman _popolano_, and it never came into his
+head to make himself ridiculous. His influence had been first acquired
+by works of charity in the Tiber floods. Being a strong swimmer, he
+ventured where no one else would go, and had saved many lives. At
+first a wine-carrier, he made money by letting out conveyances and
+dealing in forage, but he gave away most of what he made. He opposed
+the whole force of his popularity to a war of classes. 'Viva chi c'ia
+e chi non c'ia quattrini!'[4] was his favourite cry. Once when a young
+poet read him a sonnet in his honour he stopped him at the line 'Thou
+art greater than all patricians,' saying that he would not have that
+published: 'I respect the nobility, and never dream of being higher
+than they. I am a poor man of the people, and such I will always
+remain.'
+
+When the siege came, Ciceruacchio was invaluable in providing the
+troops with forage, horses, and even victuals, which he procured by
+making private sorties on his own account during the night; his
+intimate knowledge of every path enabling him to go unobserved. He
+planned the earthworks, at which he laboured with his hands, and when
+fighting was going on, he shouldered a musket and ran with his two
+sons, one of them a mere child, to wherever the noise of guns directed
+him. No picture of Rome in 1849 would be complete without the burly
+figure and jocund face of Angelo Brunetti.
+
+The republican government found Rome with a mere shadow of an army;
+the efforts to create one had been too spasmodic to do anything but
+make confusion worse confounded by changes and experiments soon
+abandoned. Perseverance and intelligence now had a different result,
+and the little army, called into existence by the republic, proved
+admirable in discipline, various and fantastic as were its components.
+
+Towards the end of April, Garibaldi, who had been stationed at Rieti,
+was ordered to bring his legion to Rome. Those who witnessed the
+arrival saw one of the strangest scenes ever beheld in the Eternal
+City. The men wore pointed hats with black, waving plumes; thin and
+gaunt, their faces dark as copper, with naked legs, long beards and
+wild dark hair hanging down their backs, they looked like a company of
+Salvator Rosa's brigands. Beautiful as a statue amidst his
+extraordinary host rode the Chief, mounted on a white horse, which he
+sat like a centaur. 'He was quite a show, everyone stopping to look at
+him,' adds the sculptor Gibson, to whom these details are owed.
+'Probably,' writes another Englishman, 'a human face so like a lion,
+and still retaining the humanity nearest the image of its Maker, was
+never seen.' Garibaldi wore the historic red shirt, and a small cap
+ornamented with gold.
+
+The origin of the red shirt might have remained in poetic uncertainty
+had it not been mentioned a few years ago in a volume of reminiscences
+published by an English naval officer. The men employed in the
+Saladéros or great slaughtering and salting establishments for cattle
+in the Argentine provinces wore scarlet woollen shirts; owing to the
+blockade of Buenos Ayres, a merchant at Monte Video had a quantity of
+these on his hands, and as economy was a great object to the
+government, they bought the lot cheap for their Italian legion, little
+thinking that they were making the 'Camicia Rossa' immortal in song
+and story.
+
+The coming to Rome of the 1200 legionaries aroused private fears in
+the hearts of the more timid inhabitants, but Garibaldi knew how to
+keep his wild followers in hand, and gallant was the service they
+rendered to Roman liberty.
+
+That liberty was now on the eve of its peril. The preliminaries of the
+French intervention in Rome are tolerably well known; here it suffices
+to say that every new contribution to a more precise knowledge of the
+facts only serves to confirm the charge of dissimulation, or, to use a
+plainer and far better adapted word, of dishonesty, brought against
+the French government for their part in the matter. White, indeed, do
+Austria, Spain and Naples appear--the avowed upholders of priestly
+despotism--beside the ruler of republican France and his ministers,
+whose plan it was not to fight the Roman republic: fighting was far
+from their counsels, but to betray it. It is proved that the
+restoration of the Temporal Power was the aim of the expedition from
+the first; it is equally proved that the French sought to get inside
+Rome by distinct disclaimers of any such intention. 'We do not go to
+Italy,' they said, 'to impose with our arms a system of government,
+but to assure the rights of liberty, and to preserve a legitimate
+interference in the affairs of the peninsula.' They adopted a curious
+method of assuring the rights of liberty.
+
+The Pope would not have anything to do with the affair. 'If you say
+openly that you are going to give me back my Temporal Power, well and
+good; if not, I prefer the aid of Austria.' So he replied to the
+flattering tales whispered in his ear, while tales no less flattering
+were being whispered in the ear of Mazzini. He declined to give the
+French any guarantees as to his future mode of governing; it cannot be
+said, therefore, that they were under the delusion that they were
+restoring a constitutional sovereign.
+
+Efforts have been made to cast the responsibility of the Roman
+intervention entirely on Louis Napoleon. Even Mazzini favoured that
+view, but it is impossible to separate the President of the Republic
+from the 325 deputies who voted the supplies for the expedition on the
+2nd of April. Does anyone pretend that they were hoodwinked any more
+than Ledru Rollin was hoodwinked, or the minority, which, roused by
+his vigorous speech, voted against the grant? Louis Napoleon was far
+less Papal in his sentiments than were most of the assenting deputies;
+his own opinion was more truly represented by the letter which, as a
+private citizen, he wrote to the 'Constitutionnel' in December 1848
+than by his subsequent course as President. In this letter he declared
+that a military demonstration would be perilous even to the interests
+which it was intended to safeguard. He had but one fixed purpose: to
+please France, so as to get himself made Emperor. France must be held
+answerable for the means taken to please her.
+
+General Oudinot landed at Civitavecchia on the 25th of April, his
+friendly assurances having persuaded the local authorities to oppose
+no resistance, an unfortunate error, but the last. The correct
+judgment formed by the Roman Government of the designs of the invaders
+was considerably assisted by a French officer, Colonel Leblanc, who
+was sent to Rome by Oudinot to come to an agreement with Mazzini for
+the amicable reception of the French, and who, losing his temper,
+revealed more than he was meant to reveal. His last words, 'Les
+Italiens ne se battent pas,' unquestionably expressed the belief of
+the whole French force, from the general-in-chief to the youngest
+drummer. They were soon going to have a chance of testing its
+accuracy.
+
+The Roman Assembly passed a vote that 'force should be repelled by
+force.' Well-warned, therefore, but with the proverbial _coeur léger_,
+Oudinot advanced on Rome with 8000 men early on the 30th of April. At
+eleven o'clock the two columns came in sight of St Peter's, and soon
+after, the first which moved towards Porta Angelica was attacked by
+Colonel Masi. Garibaldi attacked the second column a mile out of Porta
+San Pancrazio. At the first moment the superior numbers of the French
+told, and the Italians fell back on Villa Pamphilli, but Colonel
+Galetti arrived with reinforcements, and before long Garibaldi drove
+the French from the Pamphilli Gardens and had them in full retreat
+along the Civitavecchia road. Oudinot was beaten, Rome was victorious.
+'This does not surprise us Romans; but it will astonish Paris!' ran a
+manifesto of the hour; the words are a little childish, but men are
+apt to be childish when they are deeply moved. And as to the
+astonishment of Paris, all the words in the world would fail to paint
+its proportions. Paris was indeed astonished.
+
+Garibaldi had not the chief command of the Roman army, or he would
+have done more; there was nothing to prevent the Italians from driving
+Oudinot into the sea. The Triumvirate, when appealed to directly by
+Garibaldi, refused their sanction, either fearing to leave the capital
+exposed to the Neapolitans who were advancing, or (and this seems to
+have been the real reason) still hoping that France would repudiate
+Oudinot and come to terms. Garibaldi was right on this occasion, and
+Mazzini was wrong. When you are at war, nothing is so ruinous as to be
+afraid of damaging the enemy.
+
+The French ministers, bombarded with reproaches by friends and foes,
+and most uneasy lest their troops in Italy should be destroyed before
+they could send reinforcements, did disown Oudinot's march on Rome,
+and Ferdinand de Lesseps was despatched nominally 'to arrange matters
+in a pacific sense,' but actually to gain time.
+
+In a sitting in the French Assembly, a member of the opposition said
+to the President of the Council: 'You are going to reinstate the
+Pope!' 'No, no,' ejaculated Odilon Barrot. 'You are going to do the
+same as Austria,' cried Lamoricière. 'We should be culpable if we
+did,' was the answer. Lesseps' instructions, very vague, for the rest,
+were given to him in this spirit. That Lesseps acted in good faith has
+been generally admitted, and was always believed by Mazzini. It was to
+the interest of the French Government to choose a tool who did not
+see how far he was a tool. But if Lesseps had no suspicions, if he had
+not strong suspicions of the real object of his employers, then he was
+already at this date a man singularly easy to deceive.
+
+The French envoy was commissioned to treat, not with the Triumvirate,
+but with the Roman Assembly: a piece of insolence which the former
+would have done well to reply to by sending him about his business.
+Lesseps, however, thought that he would gain by speaking in person to
+Mazzini, and in order that the interview should remain a secret, he
+decided to go to him alone in the dead of the night and unannounced.
+Having made the needful inquiries, he proceeded to the palace of the
+Consulta, the doors of which seem to have been left open all night;
+there were guards, but they were asleep, and the French diplomatist
+traversed the long suite of splendid apartments, opening one into the
+other without corridors. At last he reached the simply-furnished room
+where, upon an iron bedstead, Mazzini slept. Lesseps watched him
+sleeping, fascinated by the beauty of his magnificent head as it lay
+in repose. He still looked very young, though there was hardly a state
+in Europe where he was not proscribed. When Lesseps had gazed his
+full, he called 'Mazzini, Mazzini!' The Triumvir awoke, sat up and
+asked if he had come to assassinate him? Lesseps told him his name,
+and a long conversation followed. One thing, at least, that Lesseps
+said in this interview was strictly true, namely, that Mazzini must
+not count on the French republican soldiers objecting to fire on
+republicans: 'The French soldier would burn down the cottage of his
+mother if ordered by his superiors to do so.' The discipline of a
+great army is proof against politics.
+
+Lesseps was himself in much fear of being assassinated. He believed
+that his footsteps were dogged by three individuals, one of whom was
+an ex-French convict. He complained to Mazzini, who said that he could
+do nothing, which probably shows that he gave no credence to the
+story. Then Lesseps had recourse to Ciceruacchio, 'a man of the people
+who had great influence on the population, and who had organised the
+revolution.' The tribune seems to have quieted his fears and
+guaranteed his safety.
+
+The French envoy could not help being struck by the tender care taken
+of his wounded fellow-countrymen by the Princess Belgiojoso and other
+noble ladies who attended the hospitals. Of prisoners who were not
+wounded there were none, as they had been sent back scot-free to their
+general a few days after the 30th of April. He was struck also by the
+firm resolve of all classes not to restore the Pope. Some liked the
+existing government, some did not, but all prayed heaven to be
+henceforth delivered from the rule of an infallible sovereign.
+
+Whatever was the measure of confidence which Mazzini felt in Lesseps,
+he was firm as iron on the main point--the non-admittance of the
+'friendly' French troops into Rome. Lesseps dragged on the
+negotiations till his government had finished the preparations for
+sending to Rome a force which should not be much less than twice in
+number the whole military resources of the republic. Then they
+recalled him, and, in order not to be bound by anything that he might
+have said, they set about the rumour that he was mad. Indignant at
+such treatment, Lesseps left the diplomatic service, and turned his
+attention to engineering. This was the origin of the Suez Canal.
+
+While all these things were going on, the Austrians moved from Ferrara
+and Modena towards Bologna, the Spaniards landed at Fiumicino, and
+16,000 Neapolitans, commanded by Ferdinand II., encamped near Albano.
+Garibaldi was attacked on the 9th of May by the Neapolitan vanguard,
+which he obliged to fall back. On the 18th, he completely defeated
+King Ferdinand's army near Velletri, and the King ordered a general
+retreat into his own dominions, which was accomplished in haste and
+confusion.
+
+By the end of May, Oudinot's forces were increased to over 35,000 men.
+The defenders of Rome, under the chief command of General Rosselli,
+were about 20,000, of whom half were volunteers. Colonel Marnara's
+Lombard Legion of Bersaglieri was, in smartness of appearance and
+perfect discipline, equal to any regular troops; in its ranks were the
+sons of the best and richest Lombard families, such as Dandolo,
+Morosini and many others. Medici's legion was also composed of
+educated and well-to-do young men. The Bolognese, under the Marquis
+Melara, had the impetuous daring of their race, and Count Angelo
+Masina did wonders with his forty lancers. Wherever Garibaldi was--it
+was always in the hottest places--there were to be seen, at no great
+distance, the patriot monk, Ugo Bassi, riding upon a fiery horse, and
+the young poet of Free Italy, Goffredo Mameli, with his slight, boyish
+figure, and his fair hair floating in the breeze. Nor must we omit
+from the list of Garibaldi's bodyguard Forbes, the Englishman, and
+Anghiar, the devoted negro, who followed his master like a dog.
+
+Oudinot formally disavowed all Lesseps' proceedings from first to
+last, and announced, on the 1st of June, that he had orders to take
+Rome as soon as possible. Out of regard, however, for the French
+residents, he would not begin the attack 'till the morning of Monday
+the 4th.' Now, though no one knew it but the French general, that
+Monday morning began with Sunday's dawn, when the French attacked
+Melara's sleeping battalion at the Roman outposts. It was easy for the
+French to drive back these 300 men, and to occupy the Villa Corsini
+('Villa,' in the Roman sense, means a garden) and the position
+dominating Porta San Pancrazio; but Galetti came up and retook them
+all, to lose them again by nine o'clock. Then Garibaldi, who was ill,
+hurried to the scene from his sick-bed, and thrice that day he retook
+and thrice he lost the contested positions--a brief statement, which
+represents prodigies of valour, and the oblation of as noble blood as
+ever watered the earth of Rome. Melara, Masina, Daverio, Dandolo,
+Mameli: every schoolboy would know these names if they belonged to
+ancient, not to modern, history. Bright careers, full of promise, cut
+short; lives renounced, not only voluntarily, but with joy, and to
+what end? Not for interest or fame--not even in the hope of winning;
+but that, erect and crowned with the roses of martyrdom, Rome might
+send her dying salutation to the world.
+
+At sunset the French had established their possession of all the
+points outside the Gate of San Pancrazio, except the Vascello, a villa
+which had been seized from their very teeth by Medici, who held it
+against all comers. Monte Mario was also in their hands.
+
+Mazzini, whose judgment was obscured by his attribution of the Italian
+policy of France to Louis Napoleon alone, hoped for a revolution in
+Paris, but Ledru Rollin's attempt at agitation completely failed, and
+the country applauded its government now that the mask was thrown
+away. The reasons for revolutions in Paris have always been the same;
+they have to do with something else than the garrotting of
+sister-republics.
+
+Oudinot tightened his cordon; on the 12th of June he invited the city
+to capitulate. The answer was a refusal; so, with the aid of his
+excellent artillery, he crept on, his passage contested at each step,
+but not arrested, till, on the 27th, the Villa Savorelli, Garibaldi's
+headquarters, fell into the hands of the enemy, and, on the night of
+the 29th, the French were within the city walls. St Peter's day is the
+great feast of Rome, and this time, as usual, the cupola of St Peter's
+was illuminated, the Italian flag flying from the highest point. The
+thunderstorm, which proverbially accompanies the feast, raged during
+the night; the French shells flew in all directions; the fight raged
+fiercer than the storm; Medici held out among the crumbling walls of
+the Vascello, which had been bombarded for a week; the heroic Manara
+fell fighting at Villa Spada; Garibaldi, descending into the _mêlée_,
+dealt blows right and left: he seemed possessed by some supernatural
+power. Those around him say that it is impossible that he would have
+much longer escaped death, but suddenly a message came summoning him
+to the Assembly--it saved his life. When he appeared at the door of
+the Chamber, the deputies rose and burst into wild applause. He seemed
+puzzled, but, looking down upon himself, he read the explanation; he
+was covered with blood, his clothes were honeycombed by balls and
+bayonet thrusts, his sabre was so bent with striking that it would not
+go more than half into its sheath.
+
+What the Assembly wanted to know was whether the defence could be
+prolonged; Garibaldi had only to say that it could not. They voted,
+therefore, the following decree: 'In the name of God and of the
+People: the Roman Constituent Assembly discontinues a defence which
+has become impossible, and remains at its post.' At its post it
+remained till the French soldiers invaded the Capitol, where it sat,
+when, yielding to brute force, the deputies dispersed.
+
+Mazzini, who would have resisted still, when all resistance was
+impossible, wandered openly about the city like a man in a dream. He
+felt as though he were looking on at the funeral of his best-beloved.
+How it was that he was not killed or arrested is a mystery. At the end
+of a week his friends induced him to leave Rome with an English
+passport.
+
+On the 2nd of July, before the French made their official entry,
+Garibaldi called his soldiers together in the square of the Vatican,
+and told them that he was going to seek some field where the foreigner
+could still be fought. Who would might follow him; 'I cannot offer you
+honours or pay; I offer you hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles,
+death.'
+
+Three thousand followed him. Beside her husband rode Anita; not even
+for the sake of the child soon to come would she stay behind in
+safety. Ugo Bassi was there; Anghiar was dead, Mameli was dying in a
+hospital, but there was 'the partisan or brigand Forbes,' as he was
+described in a letter of the Austrian general D'Aspre to the French
+general Oudinot, with a good handful of Garibaldi's best surviving
+officers. Ciceruacchio came with his two sons, and offered himself as
+guide. No one knew what the plan was, or if there was one. Like
+knights of old in search of adventures, they set out in search of
+their country's foes. It was the last desperate venture of men who did
+not know how to yield.
+
+After wandering hither and thither, and suffering severe hardships,
+the column reached the republic of San Marino. The brave hospitality
+of that Rock of freedom prevented Garibaldi from falling into the
+clutches of the Austrians, who surrounded the republic. He treated
+with the Regent for the immunity of his followers, who had laid down
+their arms; and, in the night, he himself escaped with Anita, Ugo
+Bassi, Forbes, Ciceruacchio and a few others. They hoped to take their
+swords to Venice, but a storm arose, and the boats on which they
+embarked were driven out of their course. Some of them were stranded
+on the shore which bounds the pine-forest of Ravenna, and here, hope
+being indeed gone, the Chief separated from his companions. Of these,
+Ugo Bassi, and an officer named Livraghi, were soon captured by the
+Austrians, who conveyed them to Bologna, where they were shot.
+Ciceruacchio and his sons were taken in another place, and shot as
+soon as taken. The boat which contained Colonel Forbes was caught at
+sea by an Austrian cruiser: he was kept in Austrian prisons for two
+months, and was constantly reminded that he would be either shot or
+hung; but the English Government succeeded in getting him liberated,
+and he lived to take part in more fortunate fights under Garibaldi's
+standard.
+
+Meanwhile, Anita was dying in a peasant's cottage, to which Garibaldi
+carried her when the strong will and dauntless heart could no longer
+stand in place of the strength that was finished. This was the 4th of
+August. Scarcely had she breathed her last breath when Garibaldi,
+broken down with grief as he was, had to fly from the spot. The
+Austrians were hunting for him in all directions. All the Roman
+fugitives were proclaimed outlaws, and the population was forbidden to
+give them even bread or water. Nevertheless--aided in secret by
+peasants, priests and all whose help he was obliged to seek--Garibaldi
+made good his flight from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean, the whole
+route being overrun by Austrians. When once the western coast was
+reached, he was able, partly by sea and partly by land, to reach the
+Piedmontese territory, where his life was safe. Not even there,
+however, could he rest; he was told, politely but firmly, that his
+presence was embarrassing, and for the second time he left
+Europe--first for Tunis and then for the United States.
+
+While the French besieged Rome, the Austrians had not been idle. They
+took Bologna in May, after eight days' resistance; and in June, after
+twenty days' attack by sea and land, Ancona fell into their hands. In
+these towns they pursued means of 'pacification' resembling those
+employed at Brescia. All who possessed what by a fiction could be
+called arms were summarily slaughtered. At Ancona, a woman of bad
+character hid a rusty nail in the bed of her husband, whom she wished
+to get rid of; she then denounced him to the military tribunal, and
+two hours later an English family, whose house was near the barracks,
+heard the ring of the volley of musketry which despatched him. Austria
+had also occupied the Grand Duchy of Tuscany; and when, in July,
+Leopold II. returned to his state, which had restored him by general
+consent and without any foreign intervention, he entered Florence
+between two files of Austrian soldiery, in violation of the article of
+the Statute to which he had sworn, which stipulated that no foreign
+occupation should be invited or tolerated. The Grand Duke wrote to the
+Emperor of Austria, from Gaeta, humbly begging the loan of his arms.
+Francis Joseph replied with supreme contempt, that it would have been
+a better thing if Leopold had never forgotten to whose family he
+belonged, but he granted the prayer. Such was the way in which the
+House of Hapsburg-Lorraine, that had done much in Tuscany to win
+respect if not love, destroyed all its rights to the goodwill of the
+Tuscan people, and removed what might have been a serious obstacle to
+Italian unity.
+
+Austria, unable alone to cope with Hungary, committed the immeasurable
+blunder of calling in the 200,000 Russians who made conquest certain,
+but the price of whose aid she may still have to pay. Venice, and
+Venice only, continued to defy her power. Since Novara, the first
+result of which was the withdrawal of the Sardinian Commissioners, who
+had taken over the government after the Fusion, Venice had been ruled
+by Manin on the terms which he himself proposed: 'Are you ready,' he
+asked the Venetian Assembly, 'to invest the Government with unlimited
+powers in order to direct the defence and maintain order?' He warned
+them that he should be obliged to impose upon them enormous
+sacrifices, but they replied by voting the order of the day: 'Venice
+resists the Austrians at all costs; to this end the President Manin is
+invested with plenary powers.' All the deputies then raised their
+right hand, and swore to defend the city to the last extremity. They
+kept their word.
+
+It is hard to say which was the most admirable: Manin's fidelity to
+his trust, or the people's fidelity to him. To keep up the spirits, to
+maintain the decorum of a besieged city even for a few weeks or a few
+months, is a task not without difficulty; but when the months run into
+a second year, when the real pinch of privations has been felt by
+everyone, not as a sudden twinge, but as a long-drawn-out pain, when
+the bare necessities of life fail, and a horrible disease, cholera,
+enters as auxiliary under the enemy's black-and-yellow,
+death-and-pestilence flag; then, indeed, the task becomes one which
+only a born leader of men could perform.
+
+The financial administration of the republic was a model of order and
+economy. Generous voluntary assistance was afforded by all classes,
+from the wealthy patrician and the Jewish merchant to the poorest
+gondolier. Mazzini once said bitterly that it was easier to get his
+countrymen to give their blood than their money; here they gave both.
+The capable manner in which Manin conducted the foreign policy of the
+republic is also a point that deserves mention, as it won the esteem
+even of statesmen of the old school, though it was powerless to obtain
+their help.
+
+The time was gone when France was disposed to do anything for Venice;
+no one except the Archbishop of Paris, who was afterwards to die by
+the hand of an assassin, said a word for her.
+
+In the past year, Lord Palmerston, though he tried to localise the
+war, and to prevent the co-operation of the south, abounded in good
+advice to Austria. He repeated till he was tired of repeating, that
+she would do well to retire from her Italian possessions of her own
+accord. If the French did not come now, he said, they would come some
+day, and then her friends and allies would give her scanty support. As
+for Lombardy, it was notorious that a considerable Austrian party was
+in favour of giving it up, including the Archduke Ranieri, who was
+strongly attached to Italy, which was the land of his birth. As for
+Venice, Austria had against her both the principle of nationality, now
+the rallying cry of Germany, and the principle of ancient prescription
+which could be energetically invoked against her by a state to which
+her title went back no farther than the transfer effected by
+Buonaparte in the treaty of Campo Formio. These were his arguments;
+but he was convinced, by this time, that arguments unsupported by big
+battalions might as well be bestowed on the winds as on the Cabinet of
+Vienna. From the moment that Radetsky recovered Lombardy for his
+master, the Italian policy of the Austrian Government was entirely
+inspired by him, and he was determined that while he lived, what
+Austria had got she should keep. It was thus that, in reply to Manin's
+appeal to Lord Palmerston, he only received the cold comfort of the
+recommendation that Venice should come to terms with her enemy.
+
+The Venetian army of 20,000 men was reduced by casualties and sickness
+to 18,000 or less. It always did its duty. The defence of Fort
+Malghera, the great fort which commanded the road to Padua and the
+bridge of the Venice railway, would have done credit to the most
+experienced troops in the world. The garrison numbered 2500; the
+besiegers, under Haynau, 30,000. Radetsky, with three archdukes, came
+to see the siege, but, tired with waiting, they went away before it
+was ended. The bombardment began on the 4th of May; in the three days
+and nights ending with the 25th over 60,000 projectiles fell on the
+fort. During the night of the 25th the Commandant, Ulloa, by order of
+Government, quietly evacuated the place, and withdrew his troops; only
+the next morning the Austrians found out that Malghera was abandoned,
+and proceeded to take possession of the heap of ruins, which was all
+that remained.
+
+After the beginning of July, an incessant bombardment was directed
+against the city itself. Women and children lived in the cellars; fever
+stalked through the place, but the war feeling was as strong as
+ever--nay, stronger. Moreover, the provisions became daily scarcer, the
+day came when hunger was already acutely felt, when the time might be
+reckoned by hours before the famished defenders must let drop their
+weapons, and Venice, her works of art and her population, must fall a
+prey to the savage vengeance of the Austrians, who would enter by force
+and without conditions.
+
+And this is what Manin prevented. The cry was still for resistance;
+for the first time bitter words were spoken against the man who had
+served his country so well. But he, who had never sacrificed one iota
+to popularity, did not swerve. His great influence prevailed. The
+capitulation was arranged on the 22nd, and signed on the 24th of July.
+Manin had calculated correctly; on that day there was literally
+nothing left to eat in Venice.
+
+In the last sad hours that Manin spent in Venice all the love of his
+people, clouded for an instant, burst forth anew. Not, indeed, in
+shouts and acclamations, but in tears and sobs; 'Our poor father, how
+much he has suffered!' they were heard saying. He embarked on a French
+vessel bound for Marseilles, poor, worn out and exiled for ever from
+the city which he had guided for eighteen months; if, indeed, no spark
+of his spirit animated the dust which it was the first care of
+liberated Venice to welcome home. The Austrians broke up his doorstep
+on which, according to a Venetian custom, his name was engraved.
+Another martyr, Ugo Bassi, had kissed the stone, exclaiming:
+
+'Next to God and Italy--before the Pope--Manin!' The people gathered
+up the broken fragments and kept them as relics, even as in their
+hearts they kept his memory, till the arrival of that day of
+redemption which, in the darkest hour, he foretold.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+'J'ATTENDS MON ASTRE'
+
+1849-1850
+
+The House of Savoy--A King who keeps his Word--Sufferings of the
+Lombards--Charles Albert's Death.
+
+
+Circumstances more gloomy than those under which Victor Emmanuel II.
+ascended the throne of his ancestors it would be hard to imagine.
+
+An army twice beaten, a bankrupt exchequer, a triumphant invader
+waiting to dictate terms; this was but the beginning of the inventory
+of the royal inheritance. The internal condition of the kingdom, even
+apart from the financial ruin which had succeeded to the handsome
+surplus of two years before, was full of embarrassments of the gravest
+kind. There was a party representing the darkest-dyed clericalism and
+reaction whose machinations had not been absent in the disaster of
+Novara. Who was it that disseminated among the troops engaged in the
+battle broadsides printed with the words: 'Soldiers, for whom do you
+think you are fighting? The King is betrayed; at Turin they have
+proclaimed the republic'? There were other broadsides in which Austria
+was called the supporter of thrones and altars. The dreadful
+indiscipline witnessed towards the end of, and after the conflict was
+due more to the demoralising doctrines that had been introduced into
+the army than to the insubordination of panic. There was another party
+strengthened by the recent misfortunes and recruited by exiles from
+all parts of Italy, which was democratic to the verge of republicanism
+in Piedmont and over that verge at Genoa, where a revolution broke out
+before the new King's reign was a week old. Constitutional government
+stood between the fires of these two parties, both fanned by Austrian
+bellows, the first openly, the second in secret.
+
+Victor Emmanuel was not popular. The indifference to danger which he
+had shown conspicuously during the war would have awakened enthusiasm
+in most countries, but in Piedmont it was so thoroughly taken for
+granted that the Princes of the House of Savoy did not know fear, that
+it was looked on as an ordinary fact. The Austrian origin of the
+Duchess of Savoy formed a peg on which to hang unfriendly theories. It
+is impossible not to compassionate the poor young wife who now found
+herself Queen of a people which hated her race, after having lived
+since her marriage the most dreary of lives at the dismallest court in
+Europe. At first, as a bride, she seemed to have a desire to break
+through the frozen etiquette which surrounded her; it is told how she
+once begged and prayed her husband to take her for a walk under the
+Porticoes of Turin, which she had looked at only from the outside. The
+young couple enjoyed their airing, but when it reached Charles
+Albert's ears, he ordered his son to be immediately placed under
+military arrest. The chilling formalism which invaded even the private
+life of these royal personages, shutting the door to 'good
+comradeship' even between husband and wife, may have had much to do
+with driving Victor Emmanuel from the side of the Princess, whom,
+nevertheless, he loved and venerated, to unworthy pleasures, the habit
+of indulgence in which is far easier to contract than to cure.
+
+[Illustration: VICTOR IMMANUEL]
+
+The King's address at this time was not conciliatory, and, indeed, it
+never lost a bluntness which later harmonised well enough with the
+reputation he gained for soldierly integrity, but which then passed
+for aristocratic haughtiness. His personal friends were said to belong
+to the aristocratic or even the reactionary party. In the perplexities
+which encompassed him, he could not reckon on the encouragement of any
+consensus of good opinion or confidence. He was simply an unknown man,
+against whom there was a good deal of prejudice.
+
+Radetsky did not refuse to treat with Charles Albert, as has been
+sometimes said, but the intolerably onerous terms first proposed by
+him showed that he wished to force the abdication which Charles Albert
+had always contemplated in the event of new reverses of fortune.
+Radetsky was favourably disposed to the young Duke of Savoy, as far as
+his personal feeling was concerned, a fact which was made out in
+certain quarters to be almost a crime to be marked to the account of
+Victor Emmanuel. The Field-Marshal did not forget that he was the
+son-in-law of the Austrian Archduke Ranieri; it is probable, if not
+proved, that he expected to find him pliable; but Radetsky, besides
+being a politician of the purest blood-and-iron type, was an old
+soldier with not a bad heart, and some of his sympathy is to be
+ascribed to a veteran's natural admiration for a daring young officer.
+
+On the 24th of March, Victor Emmanuel, with the manliness that was
+born with him, decided to go and treat himself for the conditions of
+the armistice. It was the first act of his reign, and it was an act of
+abnegation; but of how much less humiliation than that performed by
+his father twenty-eight years before, when almost on the same day, by
+order of King Charles Felix, the Prince of Carignano betook himself to
+the Austrian camp at Novara, to be greeted with the derisive shout of:
+'Behold the King of Italy!' Little did Radetsky think that the words,
+addressed then in scorn to the father, might to-day have been
+addressed in truthful anticipation to the son.
+
+The Field-Marshal took good care, however, that nothing but respect
+should be paid to his visitor, whom he received half-way, surrounded
+by his superb staff, all mounted on fine horses and clad in splendid
+accoutrements. As soon as the King saw him coming, he sprang from his
+saddle, and Radetsky would have done the same had not he required,
+owing to his great age, the aid of two officers to help him to the
+ground. After he had laboriously dismounted, he made a military
+salute, and then embraced Victor Emmanuel with the greatest
+cordiality. The King was accompanied by very few officers, but the
+presence of one of these was significant, namely, of the Lombard Count
+Vimercati, whom he particularly pointed out to Radetsky.
+
+While observing the most courteous forms, the Field-Marshal was not
+long in coming to the point. The negotiations would be greatly
+facilitated, nay, more, instead of beginning his reign with a large
+slice of territory occupied by a foreign enemy for an indefinite
+period, the King might open it with an actual enlargement of his
+frontier, if he would only give the easy assurance of ruling on the
+good old system, and of re-hoisting the blue banner of Piedmont
+instead of the revolutionary tricolor. The moment was opportune;
+Victor Emmanuel had not yet sworn to maintain the Constitution. But he
+replied, without hesitation, that though he was ready, if needs be, to
+accept the full penalties of defeat, he was determined to observe the
+engagements entered into by his father towards the people over whom he
+was called to reign.
+
+One person had already received from his lips the same declaration,
+with another of wider meaning. During the previous night, speaking to
+the Lombard officer above mentioned, the King said: 'I shall preserve
+intact the institutions given by my father; I shall uphold the
+tricolor flag, symbol of Italian nationality, which is vanquished
+to-day, but which one day will triumph. This triumph will be,
+henceforth, the aim of all my efforts.' In 1874, on the twenty-fifth
+anniversary of Novara, Count Vimercati wrote to the King of Italy from
+Paris to remind him of the words he had then spoken.
+
+When the King started for his capital, Radetsky offered to draw up his
+troops as a guard of honour over the whole extent of occupied
+territory between Novara and Turin. The offer was declined, and Victor
+Emmanuel took a circuitous route to avoid observation. His journey was
+marked throughout by a complete absence of state. Before he arrived, a
+trusty hand consigned to him a note written in haste and in much
+anguish by the Queen, in which she warned him to enter by night, as he
+was likely to have a very bad reception. On the 27th of March he
+reviewed the National Guard in the Piazza Castello on the occasion of
+its taking the oath of allegiance. The ceremony was attended by Queen
+Maria Adelaide in a carriage with her two little boys, the Princes
+Umberto and Amedeo. There was no hostile demonstration, but there was
+a most general and icy coldness.
+
+That evening, the terms of the armistice were communicated to the
+Chamber. As was natural, they evoked the wildest indignation, a part
+of which fell undeservedly on the King. Twenty thousand Austrians were
+to occupy the district between the Po, Sesia and Ticino and half the
+citadel of Alessandria. The excitement rose to its height when it was
+announced that the Sardinian Fleet must be recalled from Venetian
+waters, depriving that struggling city of the last visible sign of
+support from without. The Chamber sent a deputation to the King, who
+succeeded in persuading its members that, hard though the terms were,
+there was no avoiding their acceptance, and that the original
+stipulations were harder still.
+
+On the 29th, Victor Emmanuel took the oath to observe the Statute, to
+exercise the royal authority only in virtue of the laws, to cause
+justice to be fairly and fearlessly administered, and to conduct
+himself in all things with the sole view to the interest, honour and
+prosperity of the nation.
+
+A trifling accident occurred which might have been far from trifling;
+one of the ornaments of the ceiling of the Palazzo Madama, where the
+Parliament assembled, fell close to the King. As it was of great
+weight, it would have killed anyone on whom it had fallen. 'Never mind
+that,' said the King in Piedmontese dialect to Colonel Menabrea, who
+was near him, 'it will not be the last!'
+
+The ministry which held office under the late King resigned; a new
+one was formed, in which General Delaunay was President of the
+Council, and Gioberti minister without a portfolio. The King was
+advised to dissolve the Chamber, which had been elected as a war
+parliament, and was ill-constituted to perform the work now required.
+General La Marmora had orders to quell the insurrection at Genoa, the
+motive of which was not nominally a change of government, but the
+continuance of the war at all costs. Its deeper cause lay in the old
+irreconcilability of republican Genoa with her Piedmontese masters,
+breaking out now afresh under the strain of patriotic disappointment.
+Like the 15th of May at Naples, the Genoese revolution was a folly
+which can hardly be otherwise described than as a crime; it happened,
+however, that in Piedmont there was a King who had not the slightest
+intention of turning it into an excuse for a royal hark-back. Austria
+and France offered Victor Emmanuel their arms to put down the
+revolution, but, declining the not exactly disinterested attention, he
+made a wise choice in La Marmora, who accomplished the ungrateful
+task with expedition and humanity. An amnesty was granted to all but a
+very few participators in the revolt. On the brief black list when it
+was submitted to the King was the name of the Marquis Lorenzo Pareto,
+who at one time had held the Foreign Office under Charles Albert. As
+Colonel of the Genoese National Guard, his responsibility in joining
+the insurrection was judged to be particularly heavy; but the King
+refused to confirm his exclusion from the amnesty. 'I would not have
+it said,' he objected, 'that I was harsh to one of my father's old
+ministers.'
+
+The conception of Victor Emmanuel as a bluff, easy-going monarch is
+mistaken. Very few princes have had a keener sense of the royal
+dignity, or a more deeply-rooted family pride, or, when he thought fit
+to resort to it, a more decisive method of preventing people from
+taking liberties with him. But he knew that, in nearly all cases,
+pardon is the best of a king's prerogatives.
+
+An instance to the point happened when he came to the throne. Two
+officers of the royal household had caused him annoyance while he was
+Duke of Savoy by telling tales of his unconventionality to his
+easily-scandalised father. To them, perhaps, he owed the condign
+punishment he had undergone for the famous promenade under the
+Porticoes. At anyrate, they had procured for the Duke many bad
+quarters-of-an-hour, but the King, when he became King, chose to be
+completely oblivious of their conduct, and they remained undisturbed
+at their posts. To those who pointed to King Leopold of the Belgians,
+or to any other foreign example of a loyal sovereign who understood
+the needs of his people as a model for Victor Emmanuel to imitate, he
+was in the habit of replying: 'I remember the history of my fathers,
+and it is enough.'
+
+'The Persians,' says the Greek historian, 'taught their children to
+ride and to speak the truth.' In a land that had seen as much of
+enthroned effeminacy and mendacity as Italy had seen, a prince fond of
+manly exercise and observant of his word was more valuable than a
+heaven-sent genius, and more welcome than a calendar saint. Piedmont
+only could give such a prince to Italy. Its kings were not Spaniards
+who, by way of improvement, became lazzaroni, nor were they Austrians
+condemned by a fatal law to revert to their original type; they were
+children of the ice and snow, the fellow-countrymen of their subjects.
+All their traditions told of obstinacy and hardihood. They brought
+their useful if scarcely amiable moral qualities from Maurienne in the
+eleventh century. The second Count of Savoy, known as Amadeus with the
+Tail, son of Humbert of the White Hands, founder of the House, went to
+the Holy Roman Emperor with such a body of retainers that the guards
+refused them entrance to the Council Chamber. 'Either I shall go in
+with my Tail or not at all,' said Humbert, and with his Tail he went
+in. This was the metal of the race. Even at the time when they were
+vassals of the Empire, they expected to dictate rather than to obey.
+They studiously married into all the great royal houses of Europe.
+Though they persecuted their Vaudois subjects, who were only in 1848
+rewarded by emancipation for centuries of unmerited sufferings and
+splendid fidelity, yet the Princes of Savoy had from the first, from
+the White-Handed Humbert himself, held their heads high in all
+transactions with the Holy See, between which and them there was an
+ever-returning antagonism. Not to the early part of the nineteenth
+century, when the rebound from revolutionary chaos did not suffice to
+denationalise the Kings of Sardinia, but sufficed to ally them with
+reaction, ought we to turn if we would seize the true bearings of the
+development of the Counts of Maurienne into Kings of Italy. At that
+moment the mission of Piedmont, though not lost, was obscured. What
+has rather to be contemplated is the historic tendency, viewed as a
+whole, of both reigning house and people. No one has pointed out that
+tendency more clearly than the anonymous author of a pamphlet entitled
+_Le Testament politique du Chevalier Walpole_ (published at Amsterdam
+in 1769), who was able to draw the horoscope of the House of Savoy
+with a correctness which seems almost startling. He was not helped by
+either sympathy or poetic imagination, but simply by political logic.
+Sardinia, he said, was the best governed state in Europe. Instead of
+yielding to the indolent apathy in which other reigning families were
+sunk, its princes sought to improve its laws and develop its resources
+according to the wants of the population and the exigences of the
+climate. Finance, police, the administration of justice, military
+discipline, presented the picture of order. From the nature of the
+situation, a King of Sardinia must be ambitious, and to satisfy his
+ambition he had only to bide his time. Placed between two great Powers
+he could choose for his ally whichever would give him the most, and by
+playing this mute _rôle_, it was impossible that he would not
+hereafter be called upon to play one of the most important parts in
+Europe. Italy was the oyster disputed by Austria and France; might it
+not happen that the King of Sardinia, becoming judge and party, would
+devour the oyster and leave the shells to the rival aspirants? It was
+unlikely, added this far-seeing observer, that the Italian populations
+should have got so innured to their chains as to prefer the harsh,
+vexatious government of Austria to the happy lot which Sardinian
+domination would secure to them, but even if they had become
+demoralised to this extent, they could not resist the providential
+advance of a temperate, robust and warlike nation like Piedmont, led
+by a prince as enlightened as the King (Charles Emmanuel) who then
+reigned over it.
+
+The metaphor of the oyster recalls another, that of Italy being an
+artichoke which the House of Savoy was to devour, a leaf at a time.
+Whether or not a Duke of Savoy really invented this often-quoted
+comparison, it is certain that power was what the rulers of Piedmont
+cared for. They were no more a race of scholars and art patrons than
+their people was a people of artists and poets. There is a story to
+the effect that one Duke of Savoy could never make out what poetry
+was, except that it was written in half lines, which caused a great
+waste of paper. The only poet born in Piedmont found the country
+unlivable. Recent research among the archives at Turin revealed facts
+which were thought to be not creditable to certain princely persons,
+and a gleaning was therefore made of documents to which the historical
+student will no longer have access. The step was ill advised; what can
+documents tell us on the subject that we do not know? Did anyone
+suppose that the Savoy princes were commonly saints? Sainthood has
+been the privilege of the women of the family, and they have kept it
+mostly to themselves. But peccable and rough though the members of
+this royal house may have been, very few of them were without the
+governing faculty. 'C'est bien le souverain le plus fin que j'ai connu
+en Europe,' said Thiers of Victor Emmanuel, whose acquaintance he made
+in 1870, and in whom he found an able politician instead of the common
+soldier he had expected. The remark might be extended back to all the
+race. They understood the business of kings. A word not unlike the 'Tu
+regere imperio populos, Romane, memento' of Virgil was breathed over
+the cradle at Maurienne. If it did not send forth sons to rule the
+world, its children were, at least, to be enthroned in the capital of
+the Cæsars, and to make Italy one for the first time since Augustus.
+
+From April to August 1849, the peace negotiations dragged on. The
+pretensions of Austria were still exorbitant, and she resisted the
+demand which Piedmont, weak and reduced though she was, did not fear
+to make, that she should amnesty her Italian subjects who had taken
+part in the revolution. Unequal to cope with the difficulties of the
+situation, the Delaunay ministry fell, and Massimo d'Azeglio was
+appointed President of the Council. This was a good augury for
+Piedmont; D'Azeglio's patriotism had received a seal in the wound
+which he carried away from the defence of Vicenza. Honour was safe in
+his hands, whatever were the sacrifices to which he might be obliged
+to consent.
+
+Some pressure having been put on Austria by France and England, she
+agreed in July to evacuate Alessandria, and to reduce the war
+indemnity from 230,000,000 francs to 75,000,000, which Piedmont
+undertook to pay, onerous though the charge was in her deplorable
+financial condition. But the amnesty question was the last to be
+settled, and in this Piedmont stood alone. France and her. The
+Piedmontese special envoy at Milan, Count Pralormo, wrote to Prince
+Schwarzenberg on the 2nd of July that his Government could not give up
+this point. It was a conscientious duty so universally and strongly
+felt, that they were readier to submit to the consequences, whatever
+they might be, than to dishonour themselves by renouncing it. In other
+words, they were ready to face a new war, abandoned to their fate by
+all Europe, to undergo a new invasion, which meant the utter
+destruction of their country, rather than leave their Lombard and
+Venetian fellow-countrymen to the revenge of Austria. Count Pralormo
+added that he was speaking not only in the name of the ministry, but
+of the King and the whole nation. The risk was no imaginary one; there
+were many in Austria who desired an excuse for crushing the life out
+of the small state which was the eternal thorn in the side of that
+great Empire. Few remember now the sufferings of Piedmont for Italy,
+or the perils, only too real, which she braved again and again, not
+from selfish motives--for the Piedmontese of the old, narrow school,
+who said that their orderly little country had nothing to gain from
+being merged in a state of 25,000,000 were by no means in error--but
+from genuine Italian fellow-feeling for their less happy compatriots
+beyond their confines.
+
+At last, when the armistice concluded on the morrow of Novara had been
+prolonged for five months, the treaty of peace was signed. Prince
+Schwarzenberg offered to further reduce the indemnity, 75,000,000 to
+71,000,000, but D'Azeglio having agreed to the former figure,
+preferred to abide by his agreement. He thought, probably, that he
+would thus gain some concession as to the amnesty, and, in fact,
+Austria finally consented to pardon all but a small number of the
+persons compromised in the late events. D'Azeglio still stood out, but
+finding that there was no shadow of a chance of obtaining more than
+this, he reluctantly accepted it. The great mass, the hundred thousand
+and more fugitives who had left their homes in Lombardy and Venetia,
+were, at any rate, promised a safe return. The city of Venice, as yet
+undominated, though on the brink of her fall, was totally excluded.
+The list of those whose banishment from Lombardy was confirmed,
+comprises the noblest names in the province; with the exception of a
+few who were excluded from the amnesty on the score that, before the
+revolution, they were Austrian functionaries, nearly every unpardoned
+Lombard was noble: Casati, Arese, Borromeo, Litta, Greppi,
+Pallavicini, and the Princess Cristina Belgiojoso of Milan, the two
+Camozzis of Bergamo, and G. Martinengo Cesaresco of Brescia.
+
+It must not be imagined that this amnesty ushered in a reign of
+oblivion and mildness. It seemed, rather, that Austria, afraid of the
+moral consequences of the return of so many unloving subjects,
+redoubled her severity. The day following the promulgation of the
+amnesty was the 18th of August, the Emperor of Austria's birthday. In
+the morning, placards dissuading the citizens from taking part in the
+official rejoicings were to be seen on the walls of Milan. The persons
+who put these up were not caught, but in the course of the day a
+crowd, consisting of all classes, made what the official report called
+'a scandalous and anti-politic demonstration,' raising revolutionary
+cries, and even saying uncomplimentary things of His Majesty, and
+worse still, of the Austrian soldiers. During this 'shameful scene,'
+of which the above is the Austrian and hence the most highly-coloured
+description, the military arrested at hazard some of the crowd, who,
+by a 'superior order,' were condemned to the following pains and
+penalties:--
+
+     1. Angelo Negroni, of Padua, aged thirty, proprietor, forty
+      strokes;
+
+     2. Carlo Bossi, watchmaker, aged twenty-two, forty strokes;
+
+     3. Paolo Lodi, of Monza, student, aged twenty-one, thirty strokes;
+
+     4. Giovanni Mazzuchetti, Milanese, barrister, aged twenty-four,
+     thirty strokes;
+
+     5. Bonnetti, Milanese, lithographer, aged thirty-one, fifty
+     strokes;
+
+     6. Moretti, Milanese, domestic servant, aged twenty-six, fifty
+     strokes;
+
+     7. Cesana, artist, aged thirty-two, forty strokes;
+
+     8. Scotti, shopkeeper, of Monza, fifty strokes;
+
+     9. Vigorelli, Milanese, proprietor, fifty strokes;
+
+     10. Garavaglia, of Novara, aged thirty-nine, thirty strokes;
+
+     11. Giuseppe Tandea, Milanese, aged forty, twenty-five strokes;
+
+     12. Rossi, Milanese, student, thirty strokes;
+
+     13. Carabelli, workman, forty strokes;
+
+     14. Giuseppe Berlusconi, fifty strokes;
+
+     15. Ferrandi, bookseller, thirty strokes;
+
+     16. Ernestina Galli, of Cremona, operatic singer, aged twenty,
+     forty strokes;
+
+     17. Maria Conti, of Florence, operatic singer, aged eighteen,
+     thirty strokes.
+
+There were other sentences of imprisonment in irons and on bread and
+water, but the roll of the bastinado, extracted from the official
+_Gazzetta di Milano_ may be left to speak for all the rest, and to
+tell, with a laconicism more eloquent than the finest rhetoric, what
+the Austrian yoke in Italy really meant.
+
+A few days after, the military commandant sent the Milanese
+Municipality a bill for thirty-nine florins, the cost of rods broken
+or worn-out, and of ice used to prevent gangrene, in the punishment
+administered to the persons arrested on the 18th of August. Sixty
+strokes with the Austrian stick were generally enough to prove fatal.
+Women were flogged half-naked, together with the men, and in the
+presence of the Austrian officers, who came to see the spectacle.
+
+When the treaty of peace with Austria was signed, there arose a new
+difficulty; the Sardinian Chamber of Deputies refused to approve it.
+Some of the deputies asked why they should be called upon either to
+accept or reject it, on which they were reminded of the 75,000,000
+francs indemnity, funds for the discharge of which could not be
+legally raised without a parliamentary vote. The reluctance to share
+in an odious though necessary responsibility made these novices in
+representative government anxious to throw away the greatest, if not
+the sole guarantee of constitutional freedom. Brofferio, by far the
+ablest man of the extreme radical party, who had opposed all peace
+proposals as long as Rome and Venice still resisted, now advised his
+friends to bow before the inevitable. But they did not comply, and the
+ministers had no other alternative than to resort to a fresh appeal to
+the country.
+
+The crisis was serious, because no amount of loyalty on the part of
+the head of the state can save liberty when the representatives of a
+nation, taking the bit between their teeth, set themselves
+deliberately to work to make government impossible. People are too
+fond of talking of liberty as if it were something locked up in a box
+which remains safe as long as the guardian of the box does not steal
+it or sell it. Liberty is in the charge of all and at the mercy of
+all. There were not wanting persons who blamed the new dissolution as
+unconstitutional, and who called the proclamation of Moncalieri which
+announced it an act of despotism and of improper interference with the
+independence of the electors. It is hardly too much to say that it was
+this royal proclamation that saved Piedmont. The King appealed to
+Italy and to Europe for judgment on the conduct of the late Chamber.
+Having signed, he said, a 'not ruinous' treaty with Austria, which the
+honour of the country and the sanctity of his word required to be
+faithfully executed, the majority sought to make that execution
+legally impracticable. He continued: 'I have promised to save the
+nation from the tyranny of parties, whatever be the name, scope and
+position of the men who constitute them. These promises I fulfil by
+dissolving a Chamber which had become impossible, and by convoking the
+immediate assemblage of another parliament; but if the electors of the
+country deny me their help, not on me will fall henceforth the
+responsibility of the future; and if disorders follow, let them
+complain, not of me, but of themselves. Never, up till now, has the
+House of Savoy had recourse in vain to the faithfulness, wisdom and
+honour of its peoples. I have therefore the right to trust in them on
+the present occasion, and to hold for certain that, united together,
+we shall save the constitution and the country from the dangers by
+which they are menaced.'
+
+The Proclamation produced a great effect, and the parliament which met
+on the 20th of December contained a working majority of men who were
+not only patriotic, but who were also endowed with common sense. When
+the ratification of the peace came on for discussion, there was,
+indeed, one deputy who spoke in favour of immediate war, which, in a
+fortnight, was to effect the liberation, not only of Lombardy and
+Venetia, but also of Hungary, a speech worth recalling, as it shows
+how far madness will go. The debate concluded with a vote authorising
+the King's government to fully carry out the treaty of peace which was
+concluded at Milan on the 6th of August 1849, the ayes being 137
+against 17 noes. Piedmont had learnt the bitter but useful lesson,
+that if you play and lose, you must pay the cost.
+
+He who had played and lost his crown had already paid the last fee to
+fortune. Charles Albert was now a denizen of the Superga--of all
+kings' burial places, the most inspiring in its history, the most
+sublime in its situation. Here Victor Amadeus, as he looked down on
+the great French army which, for three months, had besieged his
+capital, vowed to erect a temple if it should please the Lord of Hosts
+to grant him and his people deliverance from the hands of the enemy.
+Five days later the French were in flight. All the Alps, from Mon Viso
+to the Simplon, all Piedmont, and beyond Piedmont, Italy to the
+Apennines, can be scanned from the church which fulfilled the royal
+vow.
+
+To the Superga the body of Charles Albert was brought from the place
+of exile. Before the coffin, his sword was carried; after it, they led
+the war-horse he had ridden in all the battles. After the war-horse
+followed a great multitude. He had said truly that it was an opportune
+time for him to die. The pathos of his end rekindled the affections of
+the people for the dynasty.
+
+As in the Mosque of dead Sultans in Stamboul, so in the Mausoleum of
+the Superga, each sovereign occupied the post of honour only till the
+next one came to join him. But the post of honour remains, and will
+remain, to Charles Albert. His son lies elsewhere.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE REVIVAL OF PIEDMONT
+
+1850-1856
+
+Restoration of the Pope and Grand Duke of Tuscany--Misrule at
+Naples--The Struggle with the Church in Piedmont--The Crimean War.
+
+
+The decade from 1849 to 1859 may seem, at first sight, to resemble an
+interregnum, but it was an evolution. There is no pause in the life of
+nations any more than in the life of individuals: they go forward or
+they go backward. In these ten years Piedmont went forward; the other
+Italian governments did not stand still, they went backward. The
+diseases from which they suffered gained daily upon the whole
+body-politic, and even those clever foreign doctors who had been the
+most convinced that this or that remedy would set them on their feet,
+were in the end persuaded that there was only one place for them--the
+Hospital for Incurables. After the fall of Rome, Pius IX. issued a
+sort of canticle from Gaeta, in which he thanked the Lord at whose
+bidding the stormy ocean had been arrested, but he did not even so
+much as say thank you to the French, without whom, nevertheless, the
+stormy ocean would have proceeded on its way. To all suggestions from
+Paris that now that victory had been won by force the time was come
+for the Sovereign to give some guarantee that it would not be abused,
+the Pope turned a completely deaf ear. 'The Pope,' said M. Drouyn
+de Lhuys, 'prefers to return to Rome upon the dead bodies of his
+subjects rather than amidst the applause which would have greeted him
+had he taken our advice.' That advice referred in particular to the
+secularisation of the public administration, and this was exactly what
+the Pope and the ex-Liberal Cardinal Antonelli, now and henceforth his
+most influential counsellor, were determined not to concede. They had
+grown wise in their generation, for a priest whose ministers are
+laymen is as much an anomaly as a layman whose ministers are priests.
+The French government desired that the Statute should be maintained,
+and demanded judicial reforms and an amnesty for political offenders.
+None of these points was accepted except the last, and that only
+nominally, as the amnesty of the 18th of September did not put a stop
+to proscriptions and vindictive measures. Count Mamiani, whose
+stainless character was venerated in all Italy, and who had devoted
+all his energies to the attempt to save the Papal government after the
+Pope's flight, was ruthlessly excluded, and so were many other persons
+who, though liberal-minded, had shown signal devotion to the Holy See.
+All sorts of means were used to serve the ends of vengeance; for
+instance, Alessandro Calandrelli, a Roman of high reputation, who held
+office under the republic, was condemned to death for high treason,
+and to twenty years at the galleys, on a trumped-up charge of theft,
+which was palpably absurd; but the Pope, while quashing the first
+sentence, confirmed the second, and Calandrelli would have remained in
+prison till the year of grace 1870, as many others did, but for the
+chance circumstance that his father had been a friend of the King of
+Prussia, who took up his cause so warmly that after two years he was
+let out and sent to Berlin, where the King and A. von Humboldt
+received him with open arms.
+
+These were the auspices under which Pius IX. returned to Rome after
+seventeen months' absence. A four-fold invasion restored the Temporal
+Power, which Fénelon said was the root of all evil to the Church, but
+which, according to Pius IX., was necessary to the preservation of the
+Catholic religion. The re-established _régime_ was characterised by
+Lord Clarendon at the Congress of Paris as 'the opprobrium of Europe.'
+The Pope tried to compensate for his real want of independence (for a
+prince who could not stand a day without foreign bayonets, whatever
+else he was, was not independent) by laughing at the entreaties of
+France to relieve that advanced nation from the annoyance of having
+set up a government fit for the Middle Ages. He rated at its correct
+value the support of Napoleon, and believing it to be purely
+interested, he believed in its permanence. The President had thought
+of nothing in the world but votes, and he thought of them still. The
+Roman Expedition secured him the services of M. de Falloux as
+minister, and won over to him the entire Clerical Party, including
+Montalembert and the so-called Liberal Catholics. Thus, and thus only,
+was the leap from the Presidential chair to the Imperial throne made
+possible. The result was flattering, but still there are reasons to
+think (apart from Prince Jérôme Napoleon's express statement to that
+effect) that Napoleon III. hated the whole business from the bottom of
+his soul, and that of his not few questionable acts, this was the only
+one of which he felt lastingly ashamed. Seeing that the communications
+of his ministers failed in their object, he tried the expedient of
+writing a private letter to his friend Edgar Ney, couched in the
+strongest terms of disapproval of the recalcitrant attitude of the
+Papal Government. This letter was published as it was intended to be,
+but in the Roman States, except that its circulation was forbidden, no
+notice was taken of it. Though the incident may be regarded as a
+stroke of facing-both-ways policy, the anger expressed was probably as
+sincere as any of Napoleon's sentiments could be, and the letter had
+the effect of awakening the idea in many minds that something of the
+former Italian conspirator still existed in the ruler of France. The
+question arose, What sort of pressure would be needed to turn that
+germ to account for Italy?
+
+In the kingdom of Naples, where the laws, to look at them on paper,
+were incomparably better than those in force in the Roman States, the
+administration was such as would have disgraced a remote province of
+the Turkish Empire. The King's naturally suspicious temperament was
+worked upon by his courtiers and priests till he came to detect in
+every Liberal a personal antagonist, whose immunity from harm was
+incompatible with his own, and in Liberalism a plague dangerous to
+society, which must be stamped out at all costs. Over 800 Liberals
+were sent to the galleys. The convictions were obtained, in a great
+proportion of cases, by false testimony. Bribes and secret protection
+in high quarters were the only means by which an innocent man could
+hope to escape; 50,000 persons were under police supervision, to be
+imprisoned at will. The police often refused to set at liberty those
+whom the judges had acquitted. The government had a Turkish or Russian
+fear of printed matter. A wretched barber was fined 1000 ducats for
+having in his possession a volume of Leopardi's poems, which was
+described as 'contrary to religion and morals.'
+
+What was meant by being an inmate of a Neapolitan prison was told by
+Mr Gladstone in his two 'Letters to the Earl of Aberdeen,' which the
+latter sent to Prince Schwarzenberg, the Austrian Prime Minister, with
+a strong appeal to him to make known their contents to the King of the
+Two Sicilies, and to use his influence in procuring a mitigation of
+the abuses complained of. Prince Schwarzenberg did nothing, and it was
+then that the 'Letters' were published. The impression created on
+public opinion was almost without a parallel. The celebrated phrase,
+'The negation of God erected into a system of government,' passing
+into currency as a short history of Bourbon rule at Naples, kept
+alive the wrathful feelings which the 'Letters' aroused, even when
+these ceased to be read. Some small errors of fact (such as that of
+stating that all the prisoners were chained, whereas an exception was
+made of those undergoing life sentences) were magnified by the
+partisans of Ferdinand II.; but the truth of the picture as a whole
+was amply confirmed from independent sources. Baron Carlo Poerio
+(condemned to nineteen years' imprisonment) _was_ chained to a common
+malefactor, the chain never being undone, and producing in the end a
+disease of the bone from which he never recovered. His case was that
+of all the political prisoners in the same category with himself.
+Luigi Settembrini and the others on whom sentence of death had been
+passed, but commuted into one of life imprisonment, were not chained,
+but they were put to associate with the worst thieves and assassins,
+while their material surroundings accorded with the moral atmosphere
+they were forced to breathe.
+
+The Neapolitan prisoners did more than suffer for freedom; they
+delivered the name of their country from being a reproach among the
+nations. They showed what men the South of Italy can produce. Those
+who wish to know what types of probity, honour and ideal patriotism
+may grow out of that soil, which is sometimes charged with yielding
+only the rank weeds planted by despotism, may read the letters and
+memoirs of the noble Poerios, of Settembrini, gentlest but most
+fearless of human souls, of the Calabrian Morellis, all patriots and
+martyrs; of the Duke of Castromediano, who lately, in his old age, has
+set down a few recollections of the years he spent at the Neapolitan
+galleys. He records in these notes what he calls the most perilous
+moment in his life. It was when he was summoned, with six
+fellow-prisoners who had asked for and obtained freedom, to hear, as
+he feared, his own pardon pronounced. For pardon was equivalent to
+dishonour; it was granted either in consequence of real submission and
+retraction, or in order to be able to blacken the character of the
+pardoned man by falsely asserting that such submission had been made.
+His fear was groundless. He had been led out, perhaps, in the hope
+that the example of the others would prove contagious. He was not
+pardoned. As he returned to his prison, he thanked Divine Providence
+for the chains which left him pure.
+
+Strange to tell, Ferdinand II. rendered one considerable service to
+the national cause; not that he saw it in that light, but the service
+was none the less real because its motive was a narrow one. Austria
+proposed a defensive league between the Italian Sovereigns: defensive
+not only with the view to outward attack, but also and chiefly against
+'internal disorder.' Piedmont was to be invited to join as soon as she
+had renounced her constitutional sins, which it was sanguinely
+expected she would do before very long. Meanwhile Parma, Modena,
+Tuscany and Rome embraced the idea with enthusiasm, but the King of
+the Two Sicilies, who dimly saw in it an opening for interference in
+his own peculiar governmental ways, boldly declined to have anything
+to do with it. And so, to Prince Schwarzenberg's serious
+disappointment, the scheme by which he had hoped to create an
+absolutist Italian federation, came to an untimely end.
+
+The Grand Duke of Tuscany timidly inquired of the Austrian premier if
+he might renew the constitutional _régime_ in his state. Schwarzenberg
+replied with the artful suggestion that he should hear what the Dukes
+of Modena and Parma, the Pope, and King Ferdinand had to say on the
+subject. Their advice was unanimously negative: Cardinal Antonelli
+going so far as to declare that Constitutionalism in Tuscany would be
+regarded as a constant menace and danger to the States of the Church.
+The different counsels of Piedmont, conveyed by Count Balbo, weighed
+little against so imposing an array of opinion, backed as it was by
+the Power which still stabled its horses in the Convent of San Marco.
+The Tuscan Statute was formally suspended in September 1850.
+
+From that day forth, Tuscany sank lower and lower in the slough. To
+please the Pope, havoc was made of the Leopoldine laws--named after
+the son of Maria Theresa, the wise Grand Duke Leopold I.--laws by
+which a bridle was put on the power and extension of the Church. The
+prosecution and imprisonment of a Protestant couple who were accused
+of wishing to make proselytes, proclaimed the depth of intolerance
+into which what was once the freest and best-ordered government in
+Italy had descended.
+
+The ecclesiastical question became the true test question in Piedmont
+as well as in Tuscany, but there it had another issue.
+
+It had also a different basis. In Piedmont there were no Leopoldine
+laws to destroy; what was necessary was to create them. To privileges
+dating from the Middle Ages which in the kingdom of Sardinia almost
+alone had been restored without curtailment after the storm of the
+French Revolution, were added the favours, the vast wealth, the
+preponderating influence acquired during Charles Felix' reign, and the
+first seventeen years of that of Charles Albert. Theoretically, the
+Statute swept away all privileges of classes and sects, and made
+citizens equal before the law, but to put this theory into practice
+further legislation was needed, because, as a matter of fact, the
+clergy preserved their immunities untouched and showed not the
+slightest disposition to yield one jot of them. The Piedmontese
+clergy, more numerous in proportion to the population than in any
+state except Rome, were more intransigent than any ecclesiastical body
+in the world. The Italian priest of old days, whatever else might be
+said about him, was rarely a fanatic. The very nickname 'Ultramontane'
+given by Italians to the religious extremists north of the Alps, shows
+how foreign such excesses were to their own temperaments. But the
+Ultramontane spirit had already invaded Piedmont, and was embraced by
+its clergy with all the zeal of converts. There was still a _Foro
+Ecclesiastico_ for the arraignment of religious offenders, and this
+was one of the first privileges against which Massimo d'Azeglio lifted
+his 'sacrilegious' hand. To go through all the list would be tedious,
+and would demand more explanation regarding the local modes of
+acquisition and tenure of religious property than would be interesting
+now. The object of the Siccardi laws, as they were named after the
+Minister of Grace and Justice who introduced them, and of the stronger
+measures to which they led up, was to make the priest amenable to the
+common law of the land in all except that which referred to his
+spiritual functions; to put a limit on the amassment of wealth by
+religious corporations; to check the multiplication of convents and
+the multiplication of feast days, both of which encouraged the people
+in sloth and idleness; to withdraw education from the sole control of
+ecclesiastics; and finally, to authorise civil marriage, but without
+making it compulsory. The programme was large, and it took years to
+carry it out. The Vatican contended that it was contrary to the
+Concordat which existed between the Holy See and the Court of
+Sardinia. Massimo d'Azeglio replied that the maintenance of the
+Concordat, in all its parts, meant the ruin of the state; that he had
+tried every means of conciliation, made every effort towards arriving
+at a compromise, and that since his endeavours had failed in
+consequence of the refusal of the Vatican to abate pretensions which
+it neither could nor did enforce in Austria, Naples or Spain, heaven
+and the world must judge between Rome and Piedmont, between Cardinal
+Antonelli and himself.
+
+The struggle throughout was bitter in the extreme, but its most
+striking incident was the denial of the last Sacraments to a member of
+the Government, the Minister of Agriculture, Santa Rosa, who happened
+to die soon after the passing of the Act abolishing the _Foro
+Ecclesiastico_. Santa Rosa was a sincerely religious man, but he
+resisted all the attempts of the priest to extort a retractation, and
+died unabsolved rather than leave a dishonoured name to his children.
+
+The popular indignation excited by this incident was in proportion
+with the importance attached to outward observances of religion in
+Catholic countries; the government had to protect the Archbishop of
+Turin from violence, while, at the same time, they sent him for a
+month to the Citadel for having forbidden his clergy to obey the law
+on the _Foro Ecclesiastico_. He and one or two of the other bishops
+were afterwards expelled from the kingdom. An unwelcome necessity, but
+whose was the fault? In other countries, where the privileges claimed
+by the Piedmontese clergy had been abolished for centuries, did the
+bishops dictate revolt against the law? If not, why should they do so
+in Piedmont?
+
+The successor of Santa Rosa in the ministry was Count Cavour, who
+thus in 1850 for the first time became an official servant of the
+state. When D'Azeglio submitted the appointment to the King, Victor
+Emmanuel remarked that, though he did not object to it in the least,
+they had better take care, as this man would turn them all out before
+long. This man was, in fact, to stand at the helm of Piedmont, with
+short intervals, till he died, and was to carve out from the block of
+formless marble, not the Italy of sublime dreams, which, owing her
+deliverance to her sons alone, should arise immaculate from the grave
+a Messiah among the nations, but the actual Italy which has been
+accomplished; imperfect and peccable as human things mostly are,
+belonging rather to prose than to poetry, to matter than to spirit,
+but, for all that, an Italy which is one and is free.
+
+Fifty years ago a great English writer pointed out what the real Italy
+would be, if it were to be; 'The prosperity of nations as of
+individuals,' wrote Mr Ruskin in one of his earliest papers, 'is cold
+and hard-hearted and forgetful. The dead lie, indeed, trampled down by
+the living; the place thereof shall know them no more, for that place is
+not in the hearts of the survivors, for whose interest they have made
+way. But adversity and ruin point to the sepulchre, and it is not
+trodden on; to the chronicle, and it does not decay. Who would
+substitute the rush of a new nation, the struggle of an awakening power,
+for the dreamy sleep of Italy's desolation, for the sweet silence of
+melancholy thought, her twilight time of everlasting memories?'
+
+[Illustration: COUNT CAVOUR]
+
+There is the case, stated with beautiful lucidity, of the somewhat
+ghoulish dilettantism which, enjoying tombs, would condemn all
+mankind to breathe their atmosphere. It is not, however, in order to
+discuss that view that the passage is quoted, but because of its
+relevancy to what Cavour attempted and what he did. Never was there a
+mind which cherished fewer illusions. He believed that the pursuit of
+the unattainable was still more a political crime than a political
+blunder. He was, in this, what is now called an opportunist, and he
+was also an opportunist in believing that though in politics you can
+choose your aim, you can very rarely choose your means. He held (and
+this was the reason that he was so profoundly hated by men of very
+different parties) that to accomplish great changes you have to make
+sacrifices, not only of the higher sort, but, in a certain sense, also
+of the lower. As he thought that the Austrians could not be expelled
+from Italy for good and all without foreign help, he contemplated from
+the first securing that foreign help, though no one would have been
+more glad than he to do without it. He thought that Italian freedom
+could not be won without a closer alliance with the democratic party
+than politicians like D'Azeglio, who had the fear of the ermine, of
+tarnishing its whiteness, would have ever brought themselves to
+acquiesce in, and he therefore immediately took steps to establish
+that alliance. Cavour had no faith in the creation of ideally perfect
+states, such as the Monarchy of Dante or the Republic of Mazzini, but
+he did think that a living land was better than a dead one, that the
+struggle of an awakening power, the rush of a new nation, was
+infinitely to be preferred to the desolation of dreamy sleeps, sweet
+silences, and everlasting memories that spelt regrets.
+
+It may be possible now to see clearly that if no one had tried for the
+unattainable, Cavour would not have found the ground prepared for his
+work. The appreciation of his rank among Italian liberators rests on a
+different point, and it is this: without a man of his positive mould,
+of his practical genius, of his force of will and force of patience,
+would the era of splendid endeavours have passed into the era of
+accomplished facts? If the answer to this is 'No,' then nothing can
+take from Cavour the glory of having conferred an incalculable boon on
+the country which he loved with a love that was not the less strong
+because it lacked the divinising qualities of imagination.
+
+An aristocrat by birth and the inheritor of considerable wealth,
+Cavour was singularly free from prejudices; his favourite study was
+political economy, and in quiet times he would probably have given all
+his energies to the interests of commerce and agriculture. He was an
+advocate of free trade, and was, perhaps, the only one of the many
+Italians who _fêted_ Mr Cobden on his visit to Italy who cared in the
+least for the motive of his campaign. Cavour understood English
+politics better than they have ever been understood by a foreign
+statesman; his article on Ireland, written in 1843, may still be read
+with profit. Before parliamentary life existed in Piedmont, he took
+the only way open of influencing public opinion by founding a
+newspaper, the _Risorgimento,_ in which he continued to write for
+several years. In the Chamber of Deputies he soon made his power
+felt--power is the word, for he was no orator in the ordinary sense;
+his speeches read well, as hard hitting and logical expositions, but
+they were not well delivered. Cavour never spoke Italian with true
+grace and ease though he selected it for his speeches, and not French,
+which was also allowed and which he spoke admirably. His presence,
+too, did not lend itself to oratory; short and thickset, and careless
+in his dress, he formed a contrast to the romantic figure of
+D'Azeglio. Yet his prosaic face, when animated, gave an impressive
+sense of that attribute which seemed to emanate from the whole man:
+power.
+
+It needed a more wary hand than D'Azeglio's to steer out of the
+troubled waters caused by the ecclesiastical bills, and to put the
+final touches to the legislation which he, to his lasting honour be it
+said, had courageously and successfully initiated. In the autumn of
+1852 D'Azeglio resigned, and Cavour was requested by the King to form
+a ministry. He was to remain, with short breaks, at the head of public
+affairs for the nine following years.
+
+At this time the government of Lombardy and Venetia was vested in
+Field-Marshal Radetsky, with two lieutenant-governors under him, who
+only executed his orders. Radetsky resided at Verona. Politically and
+economically the two provinces were then undergoing an extremity of
+misery; the diseases of the vines and the silkworms had reached the
+point of causing absolute ruin to the great mass of proprietors who,
+reckoning on having always enough to live on, had not laid by. Many
+noble families sank to the condition of peasants. The taxation was
+heavier than in any other part of the Austrian Empire; in proof of
+which it may be mentioned that Lombardy paid 80,000,000 francs into
+the Austrian treasury, which, had the Empire been taxed equally, would
+have given an annual total of 1,100,000,000, whereas the revenue
+amounted to only 736,000,000. The landtax was almost double what it
+was in the German provinces. Italians, however, have a great capacity
+for supporting such burdens with patience, and it is doubtful whether
+the material aspect of the case did much to increase their hatred of
+foreign dominion. Its moral aspect grew daily worse; the terror became
+chronic. The possession of a sheet of printed paper issued by the
+revolutionary press at Capolago, on the lake of Lugano, was enough to
+send a man to the gallows. These old, badly printed leaflets, with no
+name of author or publisher attached, but chiefly written in the
+unmistakable style of Mazzini, can still be picked up in the little
+booksellers' shops in Canton Ticino, and it is difficult to look at
+them without emotion. What hopes were carried by them. What risks were
+run in passing them from hand to hand. Of what tragedies were they not
+the cause! In August 1851, Antonio Sciesa, of Milan, was shot for
+having one such leaflet on his person. The gendarmes led him past his
+own house, hoping that the sight of it would weaken his nerve, and
+make him accept the clemency which was eagerly proffered if he would
+reveal the names of others engaged in the patriotic propaganda.
+'Tiremm innanz!' ('come along') he said, in his rough Milanese
+dialect, and marched incorruptible to death. On a similar charge,
+Dottesio and Grioli, the latter a priest, suffered in the same year,
+and early in 1852 the long trial was begun at Mantua of about fifty
+patriots whose names had been obtained by the aid of the bastinado
+from one or two unhappy wretches who had not the fortitude to endure.
+Of these fifty, nine were executed, among whom were the priests
+Grazioli and Tazzoli, Count Montanari of Verona, and Tito Speri, the
+young hero of the defence of Brescia. Speri had a trifling part in the
+propaganda, but the remembrance of his conduct in 1849 ensured his
+condemnation. He was deeply attached to the religion in which he was
+born, and his last letters show the fervour of a Christian joined to
+the calmness of a stoic. If he had a regret, it was that he had been
+unable to do more for his country; but here too his simple faith
+sustained him. Surely the Giver of all good would not refuse to listen
+to the prayers of the soul which passed to Him through martyrdom.
+'To-morrow they lead me forth,' he wrote. 'I have done with this
+world, but, in the bosom of God, I promise you I will do what I can.'
+So did this clear and childlike spirit carry its cause from the
+Austrian Assizes to a higher tribunal.
+
+In the spring of 1853 there was an attempt at a rising in Milan from
+which the mass of the citizens stood aloof, if they even knew of it
+till it was over; an attempt ill-considered and not easily justified
+from any point of view, the blame for which has been generally cast on
+Mazzini; but though he knew of it, he was unwilling that its authors
+should choose the time and mode of action which they chose. He was,
+moreover, misinformed as to the extent of the preparations, since no
+Milanese of any standing gave his support to the plan.
+
+On the plea that the Lombard emigration was concerned in the abortive
+movement, which was by no means consistent with facts, the Austrian
+Government sequestered the landed property of the exiles and voluntary
+emigrants, reducing them and their families (which in most instances
+remained behind) to complete beggary. Nine hundred and seventy-eight
+estates were placed under sequestration. The Court of Sardinia held
+the measure to be a violation of the amnesty, which was one of the
+conditions of the peace of 1850. The Sardinian Minister was recalled
+from Vienna, and the relations between the two governments were once
+more on a footing of open rupture.
+
+Not less important was the moral effect of the sequestrations in
+France and England, but particularly in England. They acted as the
+last straw, coming as they did on the top of the flogging system which
+had already enraged the English public mind to the highest degree. The
+Prince Consort wrote in March to his brother: 'To give you a
+conception of the maxims of justice and policy which Austria has been
+lately developing, I enclose an extract of a report from Turin which
+treats of the decrees of confiscation in Italy. People here will be
+very indignant.' He goes on to say (somewhat too broadly) that the
+English upper classes were till then thoroughly Austrian, but that she
+had succeeded in turning the whole of England against her, and there
+was now no one left to defend her.
+
+Austria, through Count Buol, complained that she was 'dying of
+legality,' but England took the Sardinian view that the sequestrations
+directly violated the treaty between the two Powers. In the Austrian
+Note of the 9th of March, it was distinctly declared that Piedmont
+would be crushed if she did not perform the part of police-agent to
+Austria. Cavour's uncowed attitude at this crisis was what first fixed
+upon him the eyes of European diplomacy.
+
+In the course of the summer, the Duke of Genoa, Victor Emmanuel's
+brother, paid a visit to the English Court, where the Duke of
+Saxe-Coburg was also staying, by whom he was described as 'one of the
+cleverest and most amiable men of our time.' Sunny Italy, adds Duke
+Ernest, seemed to have sent him to England so that by his mere
+presence alone, in the prime of his age, he might make propaganda for
+the cause of his country. The Queen presented her guest with a
+handsome riding-horse, and when he thanked her in warm and feeling
+terms, she spoke the memorable words, the effect of which spoken at
+that date by the Queen of England can hardly be imagined: 'I hope you
+will ride this horse when the battles are fought for the liberation of
+Italy.'
+
+The battle-day was indeed to come, but when it came the sword which
+the young Duke wielded with such gallantry in the siege of Peschiera
+would be sheathed for ever. The Prince Charming of Casa Savoia died in
+February 1855, leaving a daughter to Italy, the beloved Queen
+Margaret.
+
+In the space of a few weeks, Victor Emmanuel lost his brother, his
+mother, and his wife. The King, who felt keenly when he did feel, was
+driven distraught with grief; no circumstance was wanting which could
+sharpen the edge of his sorrow. The two Queens, both Austrian
+princesses, had never interfered in foreign politics; what they
+suffered they suffered in silence. But they were greatly influenced by
+the ministers of the religion which had been a comfort of their not
+too happy lives, and they had frequently told Victor Emmanuel that
+they would die of grief if the anti-papal policy of his government
+were persisted in. Now that they were dead, every partisan of the
+Church declared, without a shadow of reticence, that the mourning in
+which the House of Savoy was plunged was a clear manifestation of
+Divine wrath. Victor Emmanuel had been brought up in superstitious
+surroundings; it was hardly possible that he should listen to these
+things altogether unmoved. But on this as on the other occasions in
+his life when he was to be threatened with ghostly terrors, he did not
+belie the name of 'Re Galantuomo,' which he had written down as his
+profession when filling up the papers of the first census taken after
+his accession--a jest that gave him the title he will ever be known
+by. Harassed and tormented as the King was, when the law on religious
+corporations had been voted by the Senate and the Chamber, and was
+presented to him by Cavour for signature, he did his duty and signed
+it. The commentary which came from the Vatican was the decree of
+major excommunication promulgated in the Consistory of the 27th of
+July against all who had approved or sanctioned the measure, or who
+were concerned in putting it into execution.
+
+The law was known as the 'Rattazziana,' from Urbano Rattazzi, whom
+Cavour appointed Minister of Grace and Justice, thereby effecting a
+coalition between the Right Centre, which he led himself, and the Left
+Centre, which was led by Rattazzi; an alliance not pleasing to the
+Pure Right or to the Advanced Left, but necessary to give the Prime
+Minister sufficient strength to command the respect, both at home and
+abroad, which can only be won by a statesman who is not afraid of
+being overturned by every whiff of the parliamentary wind. The 'Legge
+Rattazziana' certainly aimed at asserting the supremacy of the state,
+but in substance it was an arrangement for raising the stipend of the
+poorer clergy at the expense of the richer benefices and corporations,
+and save for the bitter animosity of Rome, it would not have excited
+the degree of anger that descended upon its promoters. In a country
+where the Church had a rental of 15,000,000 francs, there were many
+parish priests who had not an income of £20; a state of things seen to
+be anomalous by the best ecclesiastics themselves, but their efforts
+at conciliation failed because the Holy See would not recognise the
+right of the civil authority to interfere in any question affecting
+the status or property of the clergy, and this right was the real
+point at issue.
+
+In these days, Cavour came to an understanding with a friendly monk in
+order that when his last hour arrived, he should not, like Santa Rosa,
+go unshriven to his account. In 1861, Fra Giacomo performed his part
+in the agreement, and was duly punished for having saved his Church
+from a scandal which, from the position of the great minister, would
+have reached European dimensions.
+
+Cavour's work of bringing into order the Sardinian finances, which,
+from the flourishing state they had attained prior to 1848, had fallen
+into what appeared the hopeless confusion of a large and steadily
+increasing deficit, is not to the ordinary observer his most brilliant
+achievement, but it is possibly the one for which he deserves most
+praise. It could not have been carried through except by a statesman
+who was completely indifferent to the applause of the hour. During all
+the earlier years that he held office, Cavour was extraordinarily
+unpopular. The nickname of 'la bestia neira' conferred on him by
+Victor Emmanuel referred to the opinion entertained of him by the
+Clerical party, but he was almost as much a 'bestia neira' to a large
+portion of the Liberals as to the Clericals or to the old Piedmontese
+party. His house was attacked by the mob in 1853, and had not his
+servants barred the entrance, something serious might have occurred.
+Happily the King and the majority in the Chamber and in the country
+had, if not much love for Cavour, a profound conviction that he could
+not be done without, and that, consequently, he must be allowed to do
+what he liked. Thus the large sacrifices he demanded of the taxpayers
+were regularly voted, and Cavour could afford to despise the abuse
+heaped upon himself since he saw his policy advancing to maturity
+along a steady line of success.
+
+When, in 1854, Cavour resolved that Piedmont should join France and
+England in the coming war with Russia, it seemed to a large number of
+his countrymen that he had taken leave of his senses, but the firm
+support which in this instance he found in the King enabled him next
+year to equip and despatch the contingent, 15,000 strong, commanded
+by General La Marmora, which not only won the respect of friends and
+foes in the field, but offered an example of efficiency in all
+departments that compared favourably with the faulty organisation of
+the great armies beside which it fought. Its gallant conduct at the
+battle of the Tchernaja flattered the native pride, and when, in due
+time, 12,000 returned of the 15,000 that had gone forth, the increased
+credit of Piedmont in Europe was already felt to compensate for the
+heavy cost of the expedition.
+
+Among the Italians living abroad, Cavour's motives in taking part in
+the Crimean War were, from the first, better understood than they were
+at home. Piedmont, by qualifying for the part of Italian advocate in
+the Councils of Europe, gave a guarantee of good faith which patriots
+like Daniel Manin and Giorgio Pallavicini accepted as a happy promise
+for the future. It was then that a large section of the republican
+party frankly embraced the programme of Italian unity under Victor
+Emmanuel. They foresaw that a repetition of the discordant action of
+1848 would end in the same way. Manin wrote to Lorenzo Valerio in
+September 1855: 'I, who am a republican, plant the banner of
+unification; let all who desire that Italy should exist, rally round
+it, and Italy will exist.' The ex-dictator of Venice was eking out a
+scanty livelihood by giving lessons in Paris; he had only three years
+left to live, and was not destined to see his words verified. But,
+poor and sick and obscure though he was, his support was worth
+legions.
+
+It was not the first time that Italian republicans had said to the
+House of Savoy: If you will free Italy we are with you; but the
+circumstances of the case were completely changed since Mazzini wrote
+in somewhat the same language to Charles Albert a quarter of a
+century before. Both times the proposal contained an ultimatum as well
+as an offer, but Manin made it without second thoughts in the
+strongest hope that the pact would be accepted and full of
+anticipatory joy at the prospect of its success; while by the Genoese
+republican it was made in mistrust and in the knowledge that were it
+accepted (which he did not believe), its acceptance, though bringing
+with it for Italy a state of things which he recognised as preferable
+to that which prevailed, would bring to him personally nothing but
+disappointment and the forfeiture of his dearest wishes.
+
+It is difficult to say what were at this date Cavour's own private
+sentiments about Italian unity. Though he once confessed that as a
+young man he had fancied himself Prime Minister of Italy, whenever the
+subject was now discussed he disclaimed any belief in the feasibility
+of uniting all parts of the peninsula in one whole. He even called
+Manin 'a very good man, but mad about Italian unification.' It wanted,
+in truth, the prescience of the seer rather than the acumen of the
+politician to discern the unity of Italy in 1855. All outward facts
+seemed more adverse to its accomplishment than at any period since
+1815. Yet it was for Italy that Cavour always pleaded; Italy, and not
+Piedmont or even Lombardy and Venetia. He invariably asserted the
+right of his King to uphold the cause of all the populations from the
+Alps to the Straits of Messina. If he adopted the proverb 'Chi va
+piano va sano,' he kept in view the end of it, 'Chi va sano va
+lontano.' In short, if he did not believe in Italian unity, he acted
+in the same way as he would have acted had he believed in it.
+
+It is evident that one thing he could not do. Whatever was in his
+thoughts, unless he was prepared to retire into private life then and
+there, he could not proclaim from the house-tops that he espoused the
+artichoke theory attributed to Victor Amadeus. There were only too
+many old diplomatists as it was, who sought to cripple Cavour's
+resources by reviving that story. The time was not come when, without
+manifest damage to the cause, he could plead guilty to the charge of
+preparing an Italian crown for his Sovereign. 'The rule in politics,'
+Cavour once observed, 'is to be as moderate in language as you are
+resolute in act.'
+
+At the end of 1855, Victor Emmanuel, with Cavour and Massimo
+d'Azeglio, paid a visit to the French and English Courts. He was
+received with more marked cordiality at the English Court than at the
+French. No Prince Charming, indeed, but the ideal of a bluff and burly
+Longobard chief, he managed to win the good graces of his
+entertainers, even if they thought him a trifle barbaric. The Duchess
+of Sutherland declared that of all the knights of St George whom she
+had ever seen, he was the only one who would have had the best of it
+in the fight with the dragon. The Queen rose at four o'clock in the
+morning to take leave of him. Cavour was so much struck by the
+interest which Her Majesty evinced in the efforts of Piedmont for
+constitutional freedom, that he did not hesitate to call her the best
+friend his country possessed in England.
+
+It is not generally known, but it is quite true, that Victor Emmanuel
+wished to contract a matrimonial alliance with the English royal
+family. He did not take Cavour into his confidence, but a high English
+personage was sounded on the matter, a hint being given to him to say
+nothing about it to the Count. The lady who might have become Queen of
+Italy was the Princess Mary of Cambridge. The negotiations were
+broken off because the young Princess would not hear of any marriage
+which would have required her living out of England.
+
+The Congress which met in Paris in February 1856 for the conclusion of
+the peace between the Allies and Russia was to have far more momentous
+results for Italy than for the countries more immediately concerned in
+its discussions, but, contrary to the general impression, it does not
+appear that these results were anticipated by Cavour. He even said
+that it was idle for Sardinia to send delegates to a congress in which
+they would be treated like children. Cavour feared, perhaps, to lose
+the ground he had gained in the previous year with Napoleon III., when
+the Emperor's rather surprising question: 'Que peut-on faire pour
+l'Italie?' had suggested to the Piedmontese statesman that definite
+scheme of a French alliance, which henceforth he never let go. In any
+case, when D'Azeglio, who was appointed Sardinian representative,
+refused at the last moment to undertake a charge for which he knew he
+was not fitted, it was only at the urgent request of the King that
+Cavour consented to take his place. When once in Paris, however, he
+warmed to the work, finding an unexpectedly strong ally in Lord
+Clarendon. He won what was considered in all Europe a great diplomatic
+triumph, by getting a special sitting assigned to the examination of
+Italian affairs, which had as little to do with the natural work of
+the Congress as the affairs of China. The chief points discussed at
+the secret sitting of the 8th of April were the foreign occupations in
+Central Italy, and the state of the Roman and Neapolitian governments,
+which was stigmatised by Lord Clarendon in terms much more severe than
+Cavour himself thought it prudent to use. Count Buol, the chief
+Austrian representative, grew very angry, and his opposition was
+successful in reducing the sitting to a mere conversation; but what
+had been said had been said, and Cavour prepared the way for his
+future policy by remarking to everyone: 'You see that diplomacy can do
+nothing for us; the question needs another solution.' Lord Clarendon's
+vigorous support made him think for a moment that England might take
+an active part in that other solution, and with this idea in his mind
+he hurried over the Channel to see Lord Palmerston, but he left
+England convinced that nothing more than moral assistance was ever to
+be expected from that quarter. The Marquis Emmanuel d'Azeglio, who for
+many years represented Sardinia, and afterwards Italy, at the Court of
+St James, has placed it on record that the English Premier repeatedly
+assured him that an armed intervention on behalf of Italian freedom
+would have been much to his taste, but that the country would not have
+been with him. It is certain that Cavour would have preferred an
+English to a French alliance; as it was not to be had, he reposed his
+sole hopes in the Emperor Napoleon, who had not the French people
+really more with him in this matter than Lord Palmerston had the
+English--nay, he had them less with him, for in England there would
+have been a party of Italian sympathisers favourable to the war, and
+in France, there was no one except Prince Napoleon and the workmen of
+Paris. But the French Emperor was a despotic sovereign, and not the
+Prime Minister of a self-governing country. After all, some good may
+come out of despotism.
+
+Upon Cavour's return to Turin, he received not only the approval of
+the King and Parliament, but also congratulations from all parts of
+Italy. His position had gained immensely in strength, both at home and
+abroad. Yet the power of the Clerical party in Piedmont was still such
+that, in the elections of 1857--the first that had taken place since
+the legislation affecting the Church--they obtained seventy seats out
+of a total of two hundred. Cavour did not conceal his alarm. What if
+eight years' labour were thrown away, and the movement of the State
+turned backward? 'Never,' he said, 'would he advise a _coup d'état,_
+nor would his master resort to one; but if the King abdicated, what
+then?' Victor Emmanuel said to his Prime Minister: 'Let us do our
+duty; stand firm, and we shall see!' He often declared that, sooner
+than beat a retreat from the path he had entered on, he would go to
+America and become plain _Monsù Savoia_; but he never lost faith in
+the predominating patriotism and good sense of his subjects; and at
+this time, as at others, he proved to be right. The crisis was
+surmounted. On the one hand, some elections were invalidated where the
+priests had exercised undue influence; and, on the other, Rattazzi,
+who was especially obnoxious to the Clerical party, retired from
+office. Cavour thus found himself still able to command the Chamber.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+PREMONITIONS OF THE STORM
+
+1857-1858
+
+Pisacane's Landing--Orsini's Attempt--The Compact of
+Plombières--Cavour's Triumph.
+
+
+In spite of the accusation of favouring political assassination which
+was frequently launched against the Italian secret societies, only one
+of the faithless Italian princes came to a violent death, and his
+murder had no connection with politics. Charles III., Duke of Parma,
+was mortally stabbed in March 1854; some said that the assassin was a
+groom whom he had struck with a riding-whip; others, that he was the
+father or brother of one of the victims of the Duke's dissolute
+habits. The Duchess, a daughter of the Duke de Berry, assumed the
+Regency on behalf of her son, who was a child. She began by initiating
+many reforms; but a street disturbance in July gave Austria the
+desired excuse for meddling in the government, when all progress was,
+of course, arrested.
+
+In December 1856, a soldier named Ageslao Milano attempted to
+assassinate the King of the Two Sicilies at a review. He belonged to
+no sect, but he had long premeditated the act. A few days later an
+earthquake occurred in the kingdom of Naples, by which over ten
+thousand persons lost their lives. Ferdinand II. grew morose, and shut
+himself up in the royal palace of Caserta. The constant lectures of
+France and England annoyed him without persuading him to take the
+means to put a stop to them. Not till 1859 did he open the doors of
+the prisons in which Poerio, Settembrini and their companions were
+confined. Many plans were made, meanwhile, for their liberation, and
+English friends even provided a ship by which they were to escape; but
+the ship foundered: perhaps fortunately, as Garibaldi, with
+characteristic disinterestedness, had agreed to direct the enterprise,
+which could not have been otherwise than perilous, and was not
+unlikely to end in the loss of all concerned.
+
+Disaster attended Baron Bentivegna's attempt at a rising at Taormina
+in 1856, and Carlo Pisacane's landing at Sapri in the summer of the
+following year had no better result. Pisacane, a son of the Duke
+Gennaro di San Giovanni of Naples, had fought in the defence of Rome
+and was a firm adherent of Mazzini, in conjunction with whom he
+planned his unlucky venture. Pisacane watched the growing ascendency
+of Piedmont with sorrow; he was one of the few, if not the only one of
+his party to say that he would as soon have the dominion of Austria as
+that of the House of Savoy. But if he was an extremist in politics,
+none the less he was a patriot, who took his life in his hands and
+offered it up to his country in the spirit of the noblest devotion. He
+had the slenderest hope of success, but he believed that only by such
+failures could the people be roused from their apathy. 'For me,' he
+wrote, 'it will be victory even if I die on the scaffold. This is all
+I can do, and this I do; the rest depends on the country, not on me. I
+have only my affections and my life to give, and I give them without
+hesitation.'
+
+With the young Baron Nicotera and twenty-three others, Pisacane
+embarked on the _Cagliari_, a steamer belonging to a Sardinian
+mercantile line, which was bound for Tunis. When at sea, the captain
+was frightened into obedience, and the ship's course was directed to
+the isle of Ponza, where several hundred prisoners, mostly political,
+were undergoing their sentences. The guards made little resistance,
+and Pisacane opened the prisons, inviting who would to follow him. The
+first plan had been to make a descent on San Stefano, the island where
+Settembrini was imprisoned, but that good citizen had refused to admit
+the liberation of the non-political prisoners, which was an
+unavoidable feature in the scheme. With the addition of about three
+hundred men, Pisacane left Ponza for the mainland and disembarked near
+the village of Sapri, in the province of Salerno. From information
+received, he imagined that a revolutionary movement was on the point
+of breaking out in that district. Nothing could be further from the
+fact. The country people did all the harm they could to the band,
+which, after making a brave stand against the local militia, was cut
+to pieces by the royal troops. Pisacane fell fighting; those who were
+not killed were taken, and amongst these was Nicotera, who was kept in
+prison till set free by Garibaldi.
+
+The _Cagliari_ was captured and detained with its crew. As two of the
+seamen were British subjects, the English Government joined Sardinia
+in demanding its restitution, which, after long delays, was conceded.
+
+In 1857, the Emperor of Austria relieved Field-Marshal Radetsky, then
+in his ninety-third year, of the burden of office. He was given the
+right of living in any of the royal palaces, even in the Emperor's own
+residence at Vienna, but he preferred to spend the one remaining year
+of his life in Italy. At the same time, the Archduke Maximilian was
+appointed Viceroy of Lombardy and Venetia. A more naturally amiable
+and cultivated Prince never had the evil fate forced upon him of
+attempting impossible tasks. Just married to the lovely Princess
+Charlotte of Belgium, he came to Italy radiant with happiness, and
+wishing to make everyone as happy as he was himself. Not even the
+chilling welcome he received damped his enthusiasm, for he thought the
+aversion of the population depended on undoubted wrongs, which it was
+his full intention to redress. He was to learn two things; firstly,
+that the day of reconciliation was past: there were too many ghosts
+between the Lombards and Venetians, and the House of Hapsburg.
+Secondly, that an unseen hand beyond the Brenner would diligently
+thwart each one of his benevolent designs. The system was, and was to
+remain, unchanged. It was not carried out quite as it was carried out
+in the first years after 1849. The exiles were allowed to return and
+the sequestrations were revoked. It should be said, because it shows
+the one white spot in Austrian despotism, its civil administration,
+that on resuming their rights of ownership the proprietors found that
+their estates had not been badly managed. But the depressing and
+deadening influence of an anti-national rule continued unabated.
+Lombardy and Venetia were governed not from Milan, but from Vienna.
+Very small were the crumbs which the Viceroy obtained, though he went
+on a journey to Austria expressly to plead for concessions. It is sad
+to think what an enlightened heir to the great Austrian empire was
+lost, when Napoleon III. and his own family sent Maximilian of
+Hapsburg to Queretaro.
+
+While Cavour had come to the conclusion that the aid which he believed
+essential for the expulsion of the Austrians could only come from the
+French Emperor, this sovereign was regarded by a not inconsiderable
+party of Italians as the greatest, if not the sole, obstacle to their
+liberation. All those, in particular, who came in contact with the
+French exiles, were impressed by them with the notion that France, the
+real France, was only waiting for the disappearance of the Man of
+December to throw herself into their arms. Among the Italians who held
+these opinions, there were a few with whom it became a fixed idea that
+the greatest service they could render their country was the removal
+of Napoleon from the political scene. They conceived and nourished
+the thought independently of one another; they belonged to no league,
+but for that reason they were the more dangerous; somewhere or other
+there was always someone planning to put an end to the Emperor's life.
+It is not worth while to pause to discuss the ethics of political
+assassination; civilisation has decided against it, and history proves
+its usual failure to promote the desired object. What benefit did the
+Confederate cause derive from the assassination of the good President
+Lincoln, or the cause of Russian liberty from that of Alexander II.?
+What will Anarchy gain by the murder of Carnot? It is certain,
+however, that never were men more convinced that they were executing a
+wild kind of justice than were the men who plotted against Napoleon
+III. They looked upon him as one of themselves who had turned traitor.
+There is a great probability that, in his early days when he was
+playing at conspiracy in Italy, he was actually enrolled as a
+Carbonaro. At all events, he had conspired for Italian freedom, and
+afterwards, to serve his own selfish interests, he extinguished it in
+Rome. The temporal power of the Pope was kept alive through him.
+
+A true account of the attempts on Napoleon's life will never be written,
+because the only persons who were able and willing to throw light on the
+subject, ex-police agents and their kind, are authorities whose word is
+worth a very limited acceptance. It is pretty sure that there were more
+plots than the public ever knew of, and that in some cases the plotters
+were disposed of summarily. Most of them were poor, ignorant creatures,
+but in January 1858 an attempt was made by a man of an entirely
+different stamp, Felice Orsini.
+
+Born at Meldola in Romagna in 1819, he was of the true Romagnol type
+in mind and body; daring, resourceful, intolerant of control. From his
+earliest youth all his actions had but one object, the liberation of
+his country. His youthful brain was enflamed by Alfieri and Foscolo,
+who remained his favourite authors. He hated Austria well, and he
+hated the Papal government as no one but one of its own subjects could
+hate it. 'When the French landed in Italy' (he told his judges) 'it
+was hoped that they were come as friends, but they proved the worst of
+enemies. For a time they were repulsed, then they resumed the cloak of
+friendship, but only to wait for reinforcements. When these arrived
+they returned to the assault, a thousand against ten, and we were
+judicially assassinated.' A succinct and true narrative.
+
+During the republic Orsini was sent to Ancona, where anarchy had
+broken out; by vigorous measures he restored perfect order. In 1854 he
+was arrested in Hungary and condemned to death, but he escaped from
+Mantua under romantic circumstances and reached England, where the
+story of his audacious flight won for him many sympathisers. He was
+often seen in society. On one occasion he was asked to meet Prince
+Lucien Buonaparte. Orsini knew Mazzini, but he was impatient of his
+mystical leanings, and he disapproved of such enterprises as
+Pisacane's, by which, as he thought, twenty or thirty men were
+sacrificed here or there without anything coming of it. He finally
+repudiated Mazzini's leadership, and in March 1857 he wrote to Cavour,
+asking him for a passport to return to Italy, and placing at the
+disposal of the Sardinian government 'the courage and energy which it
+had pleased God to give him,' provided that government left wavering
+behind, and showed its unmistakable will to achieve the independence
+of Italy. Cavour sent no reply, 'because,' he said later, 'the letter
+was noble and energetic, and I should have had to pay Orsini
+compliments which I did not deem fitting. 'Unlike Victor Emmanuel, who
+in after years carried on regular negotiations with Mazzini, Cavour,
+while ready to make an alliance with the Radicals in the Chamber, was
+extremely loth to have anything to do with actual revolutionists. His
+not answering Orsini's letter certainly led up to the attempt of the
+14th of January 1858.
+
+Having quarrelled with Mazzini, and receiving no encouragement from
+Cavour, Orsini evolved the plan which on that day he endeavoured to
+put into execution. He would have preferred to act alone, but since
+that was impossible, he sought and found without much difficulty two
+or three accomplices. One of these, Pieri, a teacher of languages, was
+arrested by the police, who recognised him as an old conspirator,
+before he threw the bomb which he was carrying. The other bombs were
+thrown just as the carriage containing the Imperial party drove up to
+the opera house. A number of people in the street were killed or
+injured, but the Emperor and Empress escaped unhurt. When they entered
+the theatre the Rutli scene of the conspirators in _Guillaume Tell_
+was being performed. Not a breath of applause greeted them, though
+everyone knew what had happened. Napoleon III. had a striking proof of
+how little hold he possessed on the affections of his subjects.
+
+When at his trial Orsini was asked what he expected would happen if he
+had succeeded in killing the Emperor he answered: 'We were convinced
+that the surest way of making a revolution in Italy was to excite one
+in France, and that the surest way of making a revolution in France
+was to kill the Emperor.' There is a good deal of curious evidence to
+show that very elaborate preparations had been made for a revolution
+in Paris. The French police had orders, however, to keep all this
+aspect of the affair out of sight. It was to be made to appear the
+isolated act of a misguided Italian patriot. 'The world possesses an
+Orsini legend,' writes the late Duke of Saxe-Coburg, who was present
+at the event, having been invited to join the Emperor at the opera,
+'which is quite at variance with facts.' The duke clearly thinks that
+the conviction of the instability of his throne which was brought home
+to the Emperor on this occasion, was one of the causes which decided
+him to try the diversion of public opinion into other channels by
+means of a foreign war.
+
+Everything was done to make Orsini a hero in the eyes of the French
+public, and to excite sympathy in his cause. Jules Favre by his
+eloquent defence in which he pleaded not for the life, but for the
+honour of his client, and still more Orsini's own letter to the
+Emperor, produced a powerful impression; there was a dramatic interest
+in the man who, disdaining to crave clemency for himself, tried a last
+supreme effort in the service of the country he had loved too well.
+'Deliver my fatherland, and the blessings of twenty-five million
+citizens will be with you.' So concluded the letter in which Orsini
+told Napoleon, that till Italy was free there would be no peace for
+Europe--nor for him. It was whispered that the Emperor had a secret
+interview with the condemned man at the Mazas prison; at any rate,
+when Orsini mounted the scaffold, he was borne up, not only by his
+invincible courage, but by the strongest hope, if not the certainty
+that his last prayer would have only a short time to wait for
+fulfilment.
+
+Though persons who were able to read the signs of the times no longer
+doubted that Napoleon had resolved to solve the Italian question by
+force of arms, it suited his purpose to occupy the public mind for the
+moment with the furious agitation against England and Piedmont as
+'dens of assassins,' which led to the fall of the Palmerston
+administration on the Conspiracy Bill, and seemed to almost place in
+jeopardy the throne of Victor Emmanuel. Napoleon sent the King of
+Sardinia demands so sweeping in language so threatening, that the old
+Savoy blood was fired, and Victor Emmanuel returned the answer: 'Tell
+the Emperor in whatever terms you think best that this is not the way
+to treat a faithful ally; that I have never tolerated violence from
+anyone; that I follow the path of unstained honour, and for that
+honour I am only answerable to God and to my people. That we have
+carried our head high for 850 years, and no one will make me lower it;
+and that, nevertheless, I desire nothing better than to remain his
+friend.' This reply was benevolently received; Cavour passed through
+the Chambers a bill which, though not corresponding to the extravagant
+pretensions of the French Government, gave reasonable security against
+the concoction of plots of a criminal nature; Napoleon expressed
+himself satisfied, and three months after, despatched Dr Conneau to
+Turin, to mention, quite by the way, to the Piedmontese minister, that
+he would be glad to have a conversation with him on Italian affairs.
+This was the preliminary of the interview of Plombières.
+
+Plombières is a watering-place in the Vosges, which became famous on
+the 20th of July 1858, the day on which Napoleon III. and Cavour
+entered into the compact that laid down the conditions of the Italian
+war. The Emperor was to bring 200,000 men into Italy, and the King of
+Sardinia undertook to furnish 100,000. The Austrians were to be
+expelled from Italy. The kingdom of Upper Italy would embrace the
+Legations and the Marches then under the Pope. Savoy would be ceded
+to France. The marriage of the Emperor's cousin with the Princess
+Clotilde was not made a condition of the war, and only in case it had
+been made a condition, was Cavour empowered to agree to it. He,
+therefore, left it uncertain; but he came away from Plombières
+convinced that nearly everything depended upon its happening. Napoleon
+was beyond measure anxious for a marriage which would ally him with
+one of the oldest reigning families in Europe. It would be a fatal
+mistake, Cavour thought, to join the Emperor, and at the same time, to
+offend him in a way which he would never forget. Directly after the
+interview, he wrote a long letter to the King to persuade him to yield
+the point. After all, where would the Princess find a more promising
+match? Was it easy to provide husbands for princesses? Were not they
+generally extremely unhappy in marriage? What had happened to the
+King's four aunts, all charming princesses, who had married the Duke
+of Modena, the Duke of Lucca, the Emperor Ferdinand of Austria, and
+the King of Naples? Had they been happy? Prince Napoleon could not be
+so very bad, as he was known to have hurried to Cannes to pay a last
+visit to a woman whom he had loved, a great actress, then upon her
+deathbed. This reminiscence was a singular one to evoke under the
+circumstances, but Cavour was not an Englishman, and he was not
+impressed by the propriety of drawing a veil over facts which everyone
+knew.
+
+The King's instinct told him that his young daughter, pious and simple
+and destitute even of that seasoning of vanity which is so good and
+necessary a thing in a woman, but proud at heart like all her race,
+would derive no compensation from the outward brilliancy of the
+Imperial Court for the absence of domestic joy which would be her
+wedded lot unless a surprising change came over the bridegroom. When,
+however, he was persuaded of the importance, or rather, of the
+essential character of the concession, he said to Cavour: 'I am making
+a great sacrifice, but I yield to your arguments. Still my consent is
+subordinate to the freely given consent of my daughter.' The matter
+was referred to the Princess, who answered: 'It is the wish of my
+father; therefore this marriage will be useful to my family and my
+country, and I accept.' An answer worthy of one who, twelve years
+later, when the members of the Imperial House were flying, remained
+quietly in Paris, saying: 'Savoy and fear are not acquainted.'
+
+The marriage was celebrated at Turin in January. The King made a
+present to Cavour, as a souvenir of the event, of a ring representing
+two heartseases. In thanking him, the minister said: 'Your Majesty
+knows that I shall never marry.' 'I know,' replied the King; 'your
+bride is the country.'
+
+Though warlike rumours circulated off and on, the secret of the
+understanding arrived at in the Plombières interview was well
+preserved, and the words spoken by Napoleon to the Austrian Ambassador
+at the New Year's Day reception fell on Europe with the effect of a
+bombshell. Turning to Baron Hubner, he said: 'Je regrette que les
+relations entre nous soient si mauvaises; dîtes cependant à votre
+souverain que mes sentiments pour lui ne sont pas changés.'
+
+Even Cavour was startled. Probably till that moment he had never felt
+sure that Napoleon would not after all throw the Italian cause to the
+winds. The Emperor's invariable method in dealing with men was to
+mystify them. He was pleased to pose as a faithful ally, but human
+intellect was insufficient to fathom what he meant. On this system,
+skilfully pursued, was reared the whole fabric of Louis Napoleon's
+reputation for being a profound politician. Bearing the fact in mind,
+we can easily see why that reputation crumbled away almost entirely
+when the present became the past. There are few cases in which there
+is more disagreement between the judgment of contemporaries and that
+of immediate posterity than the case of the French Emperor.
+
+The least surprised, and, among Italians, the most dissatisfied at the
+New Year's Day pronouncement was Mazzini, who when he read it in the
+_Times_ next morning felt that the Napoleonic war closed the heroic
+period of Italian Liberation. To men like Mazzini failure is apt to
+seem more heroic than success, and the war of 1859 did close the
+period of failure. The justification for calling in foreign arms could
+only be in necessity, and Mazzini denied the necessity. Charles Albert
+denied it in 1848 with no less confident a voice. Then, indeed, there
+did appear a chance of Italy making herself, but was there the
+slightest prospect, eleven years later, of that chance being repeated?
+Each student of history may answer for himself. What is plain is, that
+France and Sardinia _together_ were to find it an exceedingly hard
+task even to drive the Austrians out of Lombardy.
+
+The unconquerable dislike of men of principle, like Mazzini, to
+joining hands with the author of the _coup d'état_ was perfectly
+explicable. There were doubtless some sincere Bulgarian patriots who
+disliked joining hands with the Autocrat of all the Russias. The gift
+of freedom from a despot means a long list of evils. Mazzini grasped
+the maleficent influence which Napoleon III. would be in a position to
+exercise over the young state; he knew, moreover, when only two or
+three other persons in Europe knew it, that the bargain of Plombières
+was on the principle of give-and-take. How Mazzini was for many years
+better informed than any cabinet in Europe, remains a secret. 'I know
+positively,' he wrote on the 4th of January 1859, 'that the idea of
+the war is only to hand over a zone of Lombardy to Piedmont, and the
+cession of Savoy and Nice to France: the peace, upon the offer of
+which they count, would abandon the whole of Venetia to Austria.' A
+month before this he had disclosed what was certainly true, namely,
+that Napoleon wanted to place a Murat on the throne of Naples, and to
+substitute Prince Napoleon for the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The point
+that is doubtful in the above revelation is the statement that the
+Emperor never meant to emancipate Venetia. The probabilities are
+against this. He may, however, have questioned all along whether his
+troops, with those of the King of Sardinia, would display a
+superiority over the Austrian forces sufficiently incontestable for
+him to risk taking them into the mouse-trap of the Quadrilateral. In
+this one thing Napoleon was amply justified--in having no sort of
+desire to take a beaten army back to Paris.
+
+Mazzini, with the more extreme members of the Party of Action
+(including Crispi), issued a protest against the Napoleonic war, with
+the advice to have nothing to do with it or its authors. But Italy
+thought otherwise, and Garibaldi, the man who of all others most
+nearly represented the heart of Italy, rejoiced and was glad. He did
+not believe a word about the proposed cession of Savoy and Nice; no
+one did, except Mazzini and his few disciples. What he saw was, that a
+great step towards independence was about to be taken. In 1856, he not
+only adhered to Manin's call to all Italians to rally round the house
+of Savoy, but went further than Manin in accepting unconditionally
+what he called the 'Savoy Dictatorship,' to which he left full liberty
+of choice in the matter of ways and means. He did justice then to
+Cavour's patriotism: it was only after the sacrifice of Nice that a
+feeling of bitter antagonism grew up in him for the man who he thought
+had deceived Italy and himself. In December 1858, on a summons from
+Cavour, he left Caprera (the island which he had bought with a little
+inheritance falling to him on the death of his brother) and proceeded
+to Turin, where he was informed of a plan for a rising in Massa and
+Carrara, which was originally intended to be the signal of the war.
+The plan was given up, but in March 1859, Garibaldi was told by Victor
+Emmanuel in person of the imminence of war, and was invited to take
+part in it as commander of an auxiliary corps of volunteers which took
+the name of 'Cacciatori delle Alpi.' In this way, all his own
+followers, not only those in arms, but the great mass of the people
+which was obedient to his lead, became enrolled in the service of the
+Sardinian monarchy; a fact of capital importance in the future
+development of affairs. Without it, the Italian kingdom could not have
+been formed. And this fact was due to Cavour, who had to fight the
+arrayed strength of the old, narrow, military caste at Turin, which
+had succeeded in getting Garibaldi's sword refused in 1848, and wished
+for nothing in the world more than to get it refused in 1859. Near the
+end of his life, Cavour said in the Chamber that the difficulties he
+encountered in inducing the Sardinian War Office to sanction the
+appointment were all but insurmountable. Unfortunately, the jealousy
+of the heads of the regular army for the revolutionary captain never
+ceased. As for Cavour, even when he opposed Garibaldi politically, he
+always strove to have the highest personal honour paid to the man of
+whom he once wrote 'that he had rendered Italy the greatest service
+it was possible to render her.'
+
+True to his _rôle_ of mystification, one week after the shot fired on
+the 1st of January, Napoleon inserted an official statement in the
+_Moniteur_ to the effect that, although public opinion had been
+agitated by alarming rumours, there was nothing in the foreign
+relations of France to justify the fears these rumours tended to
+create. He continued on this tack, with more or less consistency, to
+the very verge of the outbreak of hostilities. 'The Empire was peace,'
+as it was always announced to be in the intervals when it was not war;
+there was no more harmless dove in Europe than the person enthroned in
+the Tuileries. These assurances were given more credence than they
+deserved by the Conservative Cabinet then in power in England, and the
+British ministers believed to the last that war would be averted, to
+which end they strained every nerve. Besides the wish felt by every
+English government to preserve European peace, there was at this
+juncture, not only in the Cabinet, but in the country, so much fear of
+Napoleon's ambition and restlessness, that for the time being,
+sympathy with Italy was relegated to a second place.
+
+Meanwhile there was no want of plainness in the language employed in
+Piedmont. In opening the second session of the sixth Sardinian
+Parliament, Victor Emmanuel pronounced, on 10th January, the historic
+phrase declaring that he could not remain insensible to the cry of
+grief, _il grido di dolore_, that reached him from all parts of Italy.
+Every corner of the fair country where the _Si_ sounds was electrified.
+The words, as has since become known, were introduced into the speech by
+the King himself. As Cavour had foreseen, Austria played into his hands.
+To Lord Malmesbury's appeal to evacuate the Roman Legations, and to use
+Austrian influence with the Italian princes in procuring the concession
+of necessary reforms, Count Buol replied in terms that were the reverse
+of obliging: 'We do not mean to abdicate our right of intervention, and
+if we are called upon to help the Italian sovereigns with our arms, we
+shall do so. We shall not recommend their governments to undertake any
+reforms. France plays the part of protectress of nationalities; we are,
+and shall be, protectors of dynastic rights.' Finally, England proposed
+a congress with a view to general disarmament. Piedmont, counting on the
+madness of her adversary, risked agreement with this plan. Austria gave
+a peremptory refusal to have anything to do with it.
+
+Cavour now asked Parliament to vote a war loan of £2,000,000, which
+was passed by a majority of 81 out of 151 votes. No foreign banker
+would undertake to negotiate the loan, but it was twice covered by
+Italian buyers, nearly all small capitalists, who put their money into
+it as a patriotic duty. Amongst the few deputies who opposed the loan
+was the old apostle of retrogression, Count Solaro della Margherita,
+who raised his solitary voice against the tide of revolution; and the
+Savoyard the Marquis Costa de Beauregard whose speech was pathetic
+from the melancholy foreboding which pervaded it that the making
+of Italy meant the unmaking of Savoy. Speaking in the name of his
+fellow-countrymen, the Marquis reconfirmed the profound love of
+Savoy for her Royal House and her total lack of solidarity with the
+aspirations of Italy. With time the Savoyards might have learnt to be
+Italians as their king had learnt to be an Italian king. Or they might
+not. Possibly the best solution would have been to join Savoy to the
+Swiss Confederation, though the martial instincts of the race were not
+favourable to their Conversion into peaceful Helvetic citizens. From
+one point of view, that of military defence, the retention of the
+province was of infinitely more moment to the future Italy than to
+little Piedmont. Sardinia could keep the peace with France for an
+indefinite period; Italy cannot. What is true of Savoy is far more
+true of Nice. To have it in foreign keeping is to have a very
+partially reformed burglar inside your house.
+
+'Notre roi,' said an old ragged fisherman of the Lac de Bourget to the
+writer of this book,--'Notre roi nous a vendus.' Not willingly did
+Victor Emmanuel incur that charge, in which the rebound from love to
+hate was so clearly heard; not willingly did he give up Maurienne,
+cradle of his race, Hautecombe, grave of his fathers. It was the
+greatest sacrifice, he said, that Italy could have asked of him. Nor
+is there any reason to doubt his word. But it is incorrect to suppose,
+as many have supposed, that Cavour promised at Plombières to give up
+Savoy (Nice he did not promise) without the King's knowledge. Before
+he went there, he had brought Victor Emmanuel over to his own belief,
+justified or not, that without a bait Napoleon could not be got to
+move. Directly after the interview, he wrote a full account of it to
+the King, in which he said: 'When the future fate of Italy was
+arranged, the Emperor asked me what France would have, and if your
+Majesty would cede Savoy and the county of Nice?' To which Cavour
+answered 'Yes' as to Savoy, but objected that Nice was essentially
+Italian. The Emperor twirled his moustache several times, and only
+said that these were secondary questions, about which there would be
+time to think later.
+
+Austria was always appealing to the right of treaties and the right
+of nations; not, as it happened, with much reason, for she had ridden
+or tried to ride rough-shod through as many treaties and through quite
+as many rights as most European Powers. In 1816 she was so determined
+to possess herself of Alessandria and the Upper Novarese that Lord
+Castlereagh advised Piedmont to join the Austrian Confederation, as
+then and only then the Emperor might withdraw his pretensions to this
+large slice of territory of a Prince with whom he was at peace. If he
+did withdraw them, it was not from respect for the treaties which, a
+year before, had confirmed the King of Sardinia's rights as an
+independent sovereign, but from respect for the untoward results to
+himself which he was afraid, on reflection, might arise from enforcing
+his claims with the bayonet. But people forget; and it was of vital
+consequence that virtuous Austria should figure in the coming conflict
+not as the victim of aggression but as the aggressor. On all sides it
+was said that the Austrian Government would never commit an error of
+such magnitude; only Cavour thought the contrary. 'I shall _force_ her
+to declare war against us,' he told Mr Odo Russell in December 1858.
+When asked by the incredulous diplomatist at what date he expected to
+perform so great a feat, Cavour quietly answered: 'In the first week
+of May.' War was actually declared a few days sooner.
+
+For months Austria had been pouring troops into Italy, a large portion
+of which were massed on the frontier line of the Ticino. Who shall
+count the number of the men brought to fight and die in the Italian
+plains between 1848 and 1866 to sustain for that short time the weight
+of a condemned despotism? The supply was inexhaustible; they came from
+the Hungarian steppes, from the green valleys of Styria, from the
+mountains of Tyrol, from the woodlands of the Banat and of Bohemia; a
+blind million battling for a chimera. They came, and how many did not
+return?
+
+Austria's final refusal to adhere to the Congress scheme meant, of
+course, war, and Cavour called the Chamber and demanded a vote
+conferring upon Government the power to take such prompt measures as
+the situation required. 'We trust,' he said, 'that the Chamber will
+not hesitate to sanction the proposal to invest the King with plenary
+powers. Who could be a better guardian of our liberty? Who more worthy
+of the faith of the nation? He it is whose name a ten years' reign had
+made synonymous with honour and loyalty; who has always held high the
+tricolor standard of Italy, who now prepares to unsheath his sword for
+freedom and independence.'
+
+When Cavour walked out of the Chamber after the vote had been taken,
+he said: 'I am leaving the last sitting of the Piedmontese Parliament,
+the next will be that of the Kingdom of Italy.' At that moment, if
+ever in his career, the great minister who had fought so long a fight
+against incalculable obstacles learnt what it is to taste the
+sweetness of triumph.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE WAR FOR LOMBARDY
+
+1859
+
+Austria declares War--Montebello--Garibaldi's
+Campaign--Palestro--Magenta--The Allies enter Milan--Ricasoli saves
+Italian Unity--Accession of Francis II.--Solferino--The Armistice of
+Villafranca.
+
+
+Baron von Kellersperg reached Turin on the 23rd of April, bringing
+with him the Austrian ultimatum: 'Disarmament within three days, or
+war.' Cavour read the document, and then drew his watch out of his
+pocket. It was half-past five in the afternoon. At the same hour on
+the 26th, he gave Baron von Kellersperg the answer: 'Sardinia having
+accepted the principle of a general disarmament, as formulated by
+England, with the adhesion of France, Prussia and Russia, the
+Sardinian Government has no other explanation to make.' The retort was
+justified. Austria, which now required Sardinia to disarm, had refused
+to disarm herself. She must take the consequences.
+
+The British Government made a last desperate effort to maintain peace,
+and the Austrians always said that this was their ruin, as it delayed
+the invasion of Piedmont for a week. On the 29th appeared the Emperor
+Francis Joseph's Declaration of War, and on the same day the first
+Austrian columns crossed the Ticino. The Austrian commander-in-chief
+was Count Gyulai, who was in high favour with the aristocratic party,
+by which his appointment was suggested to, if not forced upon, the
+Emperor. The latter, not altogether easy in his mind about Gyulai's
+capabilities, commissioned General Hess, in whom he placed full
+confidence, to keep his eye on him. Hess could not, however, do much
+more than take notes of one of the most remarkable and providential
+series of blunders ever committed by the commander of an army.
+
+In spite of the delay which the Austrians ascribed to the English
+peace negotiations, there was time for them to destroy the Sardinian
+army before the French came up. Gyulai had 100,000 men in the theatre
+of war, a number increased up to 200,000 during the campaign. Both
+Sardinia and her ally mustered much fewer men than were spoken of at
+Plombières. The Piedmontese could dispose of 56,000 infantry, formed
+in five divisions, one division of cavalry numbering 4,000, and one
+brigade of volunteers, to which the name was given of 'Cacciatori
+delle Alpi.' The enrolment of these was stopped when it had reached
+the small figure of 4,500 men, a figure that looks out of all
+proportion with the brilliant part they played. The same influences
+which cut short the enrolment prevented Cavour from keeping his
+distinct promise to give Garibaldi, now invested with the official
+rank of major-general, 10,000 regulars, with a battery and a troop of
+horse.
+
+The French army consisted of 128,000 men, including about 10,000
+cavalry. The Emperor's Government had notified beforehand to Vienna
+that the passage of the Ticino by the Austrian troops would be
+considered equivalent to a declaration of war, and accordingly, on the
+29th of April, diplomatic relations between the two Powers were broken
+off. The French forces had been really on the move for more than a
+week--ever since, in fact, by what the Marquis of Normanby called 'an
+unpardonable breach of confidence,' the intention of Austria to invade
+Sardinia was communicated to Paris. The mobilisation was conducted
+with rapidity; in spite of the snow, which lay deep on the Mont Cenis,
+the first corps, under Marshal Baraguay d'Hilliers, made a swift march
+over the Alps, and the foremost division entered Turin on the 30th of
+April. The troops of Canrobert and Niel, who commanded the third and
+fourth corps, were sent by Toulon and Marseilles, while the generals
+themselves went on to Turin in advance. MacMahon's corps, which was
+the second, was on its way from Algiers. The fifth corps, under the
+command of Prince Napoleon, was despatched at a later date to Tuscany,
+where it was kept in a state of inactivity, which suggested rather a
+political than a military mission. General Regnault de Saint-Jean
+d'Angély commanded the Imperial Guard. Napoleon III assumed the
+supreme command of the allied armies, with General Vaillant as head of
+the staff.
+
+The condition of neither French nor Austrian army was satisfactory.
+The former had more modern arms and a greater proportion of old
+soldiers, but it was generally thought that the French cavalry, so far
+superior to the Prussian in the war of 1870, was inferior to the
+Austrian in 1859. The commissariat and ambulance arrangements of the
+French were disgraceful, though they had this advantage, that when
+there was food to be had the soldiers were allowed to eat it, while
+the Austrians were limited to half-a-pound of beef a day, and were
+only allowed to cook once in the twenty-four hours, which led to their
+having constantly to fight fasting. In point of discipline, they were
+probably superior to the French, who fought, however, and this should
+always be remembered of them in Italy, with the best will in the
+world. They carried about their pet monkeys and dogs, and were always
+good-humoured and in good spirits, even when wounded. What would have
+been the effect on them of even a single defeat is a question which it
+is useless to discuss.
+
+In Napoleon's proclamation to the French people it was stated that the
+scope of the war was to give Italy to herself, not to make her change
+masters; the recompense of France would be to have upon her frontiers
+a friendly people which owed its independence to her. As things stood
+there were but two alternatives: Austria supreme as far as the Alps,
+or Italy free to the Adriatic. On the 12th of May, the Imperial yacht,
+the _Reine Hortense_, steamed into the harbour of Genoa with the
+Emperor on board. A splendid reception awaited him, and amongst the
+first to greet him was Cavour. 'You may well rejoice,' said Napoleon,
+as he embraced the Sardinian statesman, 'for your plans are being
+realised.'
+
+Gyulai, who had insisted on invading Piedmont, contrary to the opinion
+of Hess (who counselled waiting for reinforcements on the left bank of
+the Mincio), wasted his time after crossing the Ticino in making plans
+and changing them while he could unquestionably have thrown himself on
+Turin had he possessed more resolution, and this was the only
+operation that could have justified the initial folly of the invasion.
+The taking of the capital might not have altered the fortunes of the
+war, but it would have had all the appearance of a triumph, and would
+have raised the _moral_ of the Austrian soldiers. The allies had time
+to concentrate their forces near Tortona, and it was left to them to
+assume the offensive. The Austrians retired towards the Apennines, but
+made a forward movement on the 20th of May with the object of seizing
+the heights of Casteggio which command the road to Piacenza; they were
+met by the allies at the village of Montebello where Marshal Lannes
+obtained a victory in 1800. The allies were completely successful in
+this first battle, the honours of the day falling to the Sardinian
+cavalry, which showed great gallantry. The Austrian forces were
+considerably superior in strength.
+
+Almost at the same time as the engagement of Montebello, Garibaldi
+with his diminutive army (which through the weeding-out of men unfit
+for service was reduced to about 3,500 before it took the field),
+crossed the Lago Maggiore, and advanced boldly into the heart of the
+enemy's country. The volunteers had no artillery, and by way of
+cavalry only some forty or fifty were mounted on their own horses and
+dignified with the name of 'guides.' They were badly armed and worse
+equipped; the only good thing they had was an excellent ambulance
+organised by Dr Bertani, Garibaldi's surgeon-general from Roman days
+downwards. But they formed a picturesque sight as they marched along
+gaily to the everlasting song, 'Addio, mia bella, addio'; and a
+physiognomist would have been struck by their intelligent and often
+distinguished faces: nobles and poets, budding doctors and lawyers,
+bristled in the ranks, while the officers were the still young
+veterans of 1848-1849: Cosenz, hero of Venice; Medici, the defender of
+the Vascello; Bixio, Sirtori, Cairoli--all the Knights of the Legend.
+
+Moving swiftly from place to place, and appearing where and when he
+was least expected, Garibaldi took the entire country of the Lombard
+lakes. Gyulai, who at first looked upon the Garibaldian march as a
+simple diversion intended to draw off his attention, now became
+concerned, and dispatched Urban with 10,000 men to destroy the
+volunteers, and stem the insurrection which everywhere followed in
+their wake. On the 27th of May Garibaldi drove Urban from his position
+near San Fermo, and that commander had his mission still unfulfilled
+when he received the order to retreat after the battle of Magenta. The
+volunteers were free to pursue their way to Brescia and the
+Valtellina, where they performed many feats in the latter period of
+the war, winning the admiration of Hayn, the Austrian general opposed
+to them, which he was generous enough to express in no measured terms.
+
+The great war was meanwhile approaching its climax. After Montebello
+the whole French army executed a secret flank movement, changing its
+position from Voghera, where Gyulai believed it to be, and whence he
+expected it to move on to Piacenza, to the line of the Sesia, between
+Cameriano and Casale. To mask the main operations, the Sardinian
+forces were sent to Palestro, on the other side of the Sesia. On the
+30th of May, they drove in the outposts of the enemy, and on the 31st
+fought the important engagement by which the Austrian attempt to
+retake Palestro was repelled, and great damage caused to Zobel's
+corps, which was obliged to leave eight guns sticking in the mud. The
+French Zouaves of the 3rd regiment fought with the Piedmontese, and
+made the battle famous by the reckless valour of their bayonet
+charges. Victor Emmanuel, deaf to all remonstrances, placed himself at
+their head, in consequence of which they elected him their corporal,
+an honour once paid to the first Napoleon.
+
+There is reason to think that after Palestro, Gyulai, having at last
+realised what Napoleon was about, wished to evacuate Lombardy, but was
+prevented from doing so by strong protests sent by the Emperor Francis
+Joseph, who was at Verona. The Austrian army was in full retreat when
+it was pulled up near Magenta, with the object of checking the advance
+of the French, who had already begun to cross the Ticino by the
+bridges of San Martino and Buffalora, which the Austrians had tried to
+blow up, but had not succeeded from want of proper powder. In the
+great battle of the 4th of June, Austrians and French numbered
+respectively about 60,000 men; no Piedmontese were engaged till the
+evening, when a battalion of Bersaglieri arrived. The Imperial Guard,
+with which was Napoleon, had to bear the brunt of the fight for four
+hours, and ran a good chance of being annihilated; not a brilliant
+proof of French generalship, but happily the Austrians also committed
+grave mistakes. MacMahon's arrival at five in the afternoon prevented
+a catastrophe, and the fighting, which continued far into the night,
+was from this moment attended by results on the whole advantageous to
+the French. Not much more can be said. Magenta was very like a drawn
+battle. The Austrians are calculated to have lost 10,000 men, the
+French between 4,000 and 5,000. It was expected that the Austrians
+would renew the attack, but on the 5th, Gyulai ordered the retreat,
+which was the last order he had the opportunity of giving, as he was
+deprived of his command immediately after.
+
+At mid-day on the 5th, Milan, which was trembling on the verge of
+revolution, made the pleasurable discovery that there were no
+Austrians left in the town. The municipality sent out delegates with
+the keys of the city to Victor Emmanuel. At ten a.m. on the 7th,
+MacMahon's corps began to file down the streets. Words cannot describe
+the welcome given to them. How MacMahon lifted to his saddle-bow a
+child that was in danger of being crushed by the crowd will be
+remembered from the pretty incident having passed into English poetry.
+On the 8th, the King and the Emperor made their entry amidst a new
+paroxysm of enthusiasm. Napoleon is reported to have exclaimed: 'How
+this people must have suffered!' In his proclamation 'to the Italian
+people,' which bears the same date as his entry into Milan, he renewed
+the assurance of the disinterested motives which had brought him to
+Italy: 'Your enemies, who are also mine, have endeavoured to diminish
+the universal sympathy felt in Europe for your cause, by causing it to
+be believed that I am making war for personal ambition, or to
+increase French territory. If there are men who fail to comprehend
+their epoch, I am not one of them. In the enlightened state of public
+opinion now prevailing, true greatness lies in the moral influence
+which we exercise rather than in sterile conquests.' The proclamation
+ended with the words: 'To-morrow you will be the citizens of a great
+country.' Not the least effusive demonstrations were reserved for
+Cavour, who joined his Sovereign a few days after the battle of
+Magenta.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Leaving the Milanese to put their faith in princes while yet there was
+time, a glance must be taken at what had been going on in the rest of
+Italy, which was becoming a great nation far more rapidly, and in a
+much fuller sense than Napoleon III. expected or wished. When Austria
+sent her ultimatum to Turin, the Sardinian minister at the Court of
+Tuscany invited the Grand Duke's Government to take part in the war of
+liberation. This they refused to do. On perceiving, however, that he
+could not depend on his troops, the Grand Duke promised to co-operate
+with Piedmont, but his advisers did not now think it possible to save
+the grand ducal throne, unless Leopold II. abdicated in favour of his
+son, who was not burdened with the fatal associations of the reaction
+of ten years before. Leopold probably thought that even his abdication
+would not keep out the deluge, and he took the more dignified course
+of declining to yield to force. On the 27th of April, accompanied by
+the Corps Diplomatique as far as the frontier, he left Tuscany. A
+Provisional Government was formed with Peruzzi at its head, which
+hastily raised 8000 men for immediate service under the command of
+General Ulloa. Before long Prince Napoleon, with the fifth corps of
+the French army, landed, for no reason that could be avowed, at
+Leghorn. The real motive was to prepare the way for the fabrication
+of a new kingdom of Etruria, which existed already in Napoleon's
+brain. This masterpiece of folly had but a lukewarm supporter in
+Prince Napoleon, who was the only Napoleon and about the only
+Frenchman (if he could be called one) who grasped the idea of the
+unity of Italy and sincerely applauded it. Had Jérôme Napoleon been
+born with the least comprehension of self-respect and personal
+dignity, his strong political intelligence and clear logical
+discernment must have produced something better than the most
+ineffectual career of the century.
+
+On the 8th of May, Baron Ricasoli took office under the Provisional
+Government as Minister of the Interior, and for nearly twelve months
+he was the real ruler of Tuscany. He had an ally of great strength,
+though of humble origin, in Giuseppe Dolfi, the baker, of whom it was
+currently said that any day he could summon 10,000 men to the Piazza
+della Signoria, who would obey him to the death. To Dolfi it was due
+that there were no disorders after the Grand Duke left. What Italy
+owes to the Lord of Brolio, history will never adequately state,
+because it is well-nigh impossible fully to realise how critical was
+her position during all that year, from causes external and internal,
+and how disastrous would have been the slightest mistake or wavering
+in the direction of Tuscan affairs, which formed the central hinge of
+the whole complicated situation. Fortunate, indeed, was it that there
+was a man like the Iron Baron, who, by simple force of will, outwitted
+the enemies of Italy more thoroughly than even Cavour could do with
+all his astuteness. Austere, aristocratic, immovable from his purpose,
+indifferent to praise or blame, Ricasoli aimed at one point--the
+unity of the whole country; and neither Cavour's impatience for
+annexation to Piedmont, nor the scheme of Farini and Minghetti for
+averting the wrath of the French Emperor by a temporary and
+preparatory union of the central states, drew him one inch from the
+straight road, which was the only one he had ever learnt to walk in.
+
+In June, the Duke of Modena and the Duchess-Regent of Parma found it
+impossible to remain in their states, now that Austrian protection was
+withdrawn. The latter had done what she could to preserve the duchy
+for her young son, but the tide was too strong. These revolutions were
+accomplished quietly; but, some months after, on the incautious return
+to Parma of a man deeply implicated in the abuses of Charles III.'s
+government--Colonel Anviti--he was cruelly murdered; an act of
+vengeance which happily remained alone.
+
+After the battle of Magenta, when the Austrian troops were recalled
+from the Marches and Romagna, those districts rose and demanded the
+dictatorship of Piedmont. Napoleon foresaw that this would happen as
+far back as the Plombières interview, and at that date it did not
+appear that he meant to oppose it. But now, in Paris, the Clerical
+party were seized with panic, and the Empress-Regent, then, as always,
+completely under their control, did all in her power to arouse the
+Emperor's opposition. The Pope, on his part, knowing that he was
+secure in Rome--thanks to the French garrison, which, though it hated
+its office, as the French writer Ampère and others bore witness, was
+sure to perform it faithfully--had the idea of sending his Swiss
+troops to put down the growing revolution. With these, and a few Roman
+troops of the line, Colonel Schmidt marched against Perugia, where, in
+restoring the Papal authority, he used a ferocity which, though denied
+by clerical writers, was attested by all contemporary accounts, and
+was called 'atrocious' by Sir James Hudson in a despatch to Lord John
+Russell. The significance of such facts, wrote the English minister at
+Turin, could only be the coming fall of the Pope's Temporal Power.
+
+L.C. Farini was sent by Victor Emmanuel to administer the provinces of
+Modena and Parma, and Massimo d'Azeglio was charged with the same
+mission in Romagna. The Marches of Ancona had been recovered by the
+Papal troops, which were concentrated in the district called La
+Cattolica, near Rimini. A volunteer corps, under the Piedmontese
+General Mezzacapo, was entrusted with the task of preventing them from
+crossing into the Legations.
+
+In the month of May, when the allies were reaping their first
+successes, an event occurred at Caserta which precipitated crisis in
+the South Italy. Ferdinand II. died at forty-eight years of age of a
+terrible complaint which had attacked him a few months earlier, when
+he went to meet his son's bride, the Princess Maria Sofia of Bavaria,
+sister of the Empress of Austria. The news from Upper Italy hastened
+his end; he is said to have exclaimed not long before he died: 'They
+have won the cause!'
+
+The accession of a youth, of whom nothing bad was known, to a throne
+that had been occupied by a sovereign so out of place in modern
+civilisation as Ferdinand, would appear at first sight a fortunate
+circumstance for the chances of the dynasty; but it was not so. In an
+eastern country it matters little whether the best of the inhabitants
+loathe and detest their ruler; but it matters much whether he knows
+how to cajole and frighten the masses, and especially the army, into
+obedience. Naples, more Oriental than western, possessed in Ferdinand
+a monarch consummately expert in this side of the art of government.
+Though without the higher military virtues, his army was his favourite
+plaything; he always wore uniform, never forgot a face he had once
+seen, and treated the officers with a rather vulgar familiarity,
+guessing at their weaknesses and making use of them on occasion. The
+rank and file regarded him as a sort of supernatural being. Francis
+II., who succeeded him, could scarcely appear in this light even to
+the most ignorant. Popular opinion considered him not quite sound in
+his mind. Probably his timorous, awkward ways and his seeming
+stupidity were simply the result of an education conducted by bigoted
+priests in a home that was no home: populated as it was by the
+offspring of a stepmother who hated him. His own mother, the charming
+Princess Cristina of Savoy, died while the city was rejoicing at his
+birth. The story is well known of how, shortly after the marriage,
+Ferdinand thought it diverting to draw a music-stool from under his
+wife, causing her to fall heavily. It gives a sample of the sufferings
+of her brief married life. An inheritance of sorrow descended from her
+to her child.
+
+If Francis II. was not popular, neither was the new queen. Far more
+virile in character and in tastes than her husband, her high spirit
+was not what the Neapolitans admire in women, and those who were
+devoted to the late King accused her of having shown impatience during
+his illness for the moment when the crown would fall to Francis.
+Malicious gossip of this kind, however false, serves its end. Thus,
+from one cause or another, the young King exercised a power sensibly
+weaker than that of his father, while, besides other enemies, he had
+an inveterate one in his stepmother, who began weaving a conspiracy to
+oust him from the throne and place on it the eldest of his
+half-brothers. This plot received, however, very little popular
+support.
+
+The Sardinian Government sought to persuade Francis to join in the
+war against Austria; disinterested counsel, as in taking it lay his
+only hope, but it was opposed by England, Russia and France. In July
+two of the Swiss regiments at Naples mutinied. The Swiss Government,
+becoming alive to the discredit cast on the country by mercenary
+service, had decided that Swiss subjects serving abroad should lose
+their rights as citizens of the Confederation whilst so employed, and
+that they should no longer introduce the arms of their respective
+cantons into their regimental colours. This was the immediate cause of
+their insubordination. The mutineers, most of whom were unarmed, were
+ruthlessly shot down in the Campo di Marte to the terror of the
+population, and the two Swiss regiments which remained quiet were
+dissolved; by which the monarchy lost the troops that were chiefly to
+be depended on in emergencies. The Austrians and Bavarians imported in
+their stead did not form separate regiments, but were incorporated
+among the native troops, though the regiments that contained them were
+commonly called 'Bavarian.' They only partially filled the place of
+the Swiss.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Between the 4th and the 24th of June, no engagement of any magnitude
+was fought in Lombardy except the attack on Benedek at Melegnano, a
+battle in which the French lost most men, and gained no strategical
+advantage. It was supposed to have been fought because Napoleon I. had
+gained a victory in the same neighbourhood. The Austrians retreated to
+the Mincio, destroying the bridges over the Adda, Serio, Oglio and
+Mella as they went; these rivers the allies had to make repassable,
+which is the excuse given for the dilatory nature of their pursuit of
+the enemy. The Emperor Francis Joseph had now assumed the command,
+with Hess as his principle adviser, and Wimpffen and Schlick, famous
+as the 'One-eyed,' as heads of the two great corps into which the army
+was divided.
+
+On the 22nd of June, the Austrians were ranged along the left bank of
+the Mincio from Peschiera to Mantua, and the French were massed near
+Montechiaro, on the Brescia road, which Napoleon had made his
+headquarters. In withdrawing all their men from the right bank of the
+river, the Austrians desired to create the impression that they had
+finally abandoned it. It was their plan, which did not lack boldness,
+to throw the whole army back upon the right bank, and to perform a
+concentric movement on Montechiaro, where they hoped to fall unawares
+on the French and destroy them. They were confident of success, for
+they knew what a good stand they had made at Magenta, and now that
+Gyulai was got rid of, and the young Emperor had taken the field, they
+did not doubt that fortune would turn her wheel. To these men of many
+nations, the presence of their Emperor was the one inspiration that
+could rouse them, for if they were fighting for anything, it was for
+him in the most personal sense; it was to secure his mastery of the
+splendid land over which he looked from the castle of Valleggio, on
+the 23rd of June, whilst his brilliant staff stood round, waiting for
+the signal to mount and clatter down the steep road to the Mincio
+bridge. The army now advanced along all its line.
+
+Even the soberest writers have not resisted making some reference to
+the magnificent scene of to-morrow's battle. On one side, the mountain
+bulwarks rising tier on tier, gorgeous with the trancendent beauty of
+colour and light of the Italian summer; on the other, the vine-clad
+hillocks which fall gently away from the blue lake of Garda till they
+are lost in the
+
+  ............harvest shining plain
+  Where the peasant heaps his grain
+  In the garner of his foe.
+
+The 24th of June was to decide how much longer the Lombard peasant
+should labour to fill a stranger's treasury.
+
+The calculations of the Austrians were founded on the slowness which
+had hitherto characterised Napoleon's movements. Hess thought that two
+days might be safely allowed for the Austrian advance, and that the
+enemy would remain passive on the west bank of the river Chiese,
+waiting to be attacked on the 25th. If the operation could have been
+performed in one day, and it is thought that it could, there would
+have been more prospect of success. But even then, the original plan
+of attacking the allies west of the Chiese could not have been carried
+out, as on the 23rd the whole allied army moved forward, the French
+occupying Castiglione and Lonato, and the Sardinians Rezzato and
+Desenzano, on the lake of Garda. It is not clear how far the allies
+believed in the Austrian advance; that they had warning of it from
+several quarters is certain. For instance, a gentleman living at
+Desenzano heard from the country people, who, for marketing or other
+purposes, constantly go to and fro between that place and Peschiera,
+that the Austrians had ordered a quantity of country carts and
+transport waggons to be in readiness on the 23rd, and he hastened with
+the intelligence to the Piedmontese General Delia Rocca, who, in a
+fine spirit of red-tapism, pooh-poohed the information. The French
+encountered several Austrian patrols in the course of the day, but
+they were inclined to think that the Austrians were only executing a
+reconnaissance. On the whole, it seems that the conflict came as a
+surprise to both sides.
+
+The Emperor of Austria, after accompanying the advance for a short
+distance, returned with Hess to Valleggio for the night. Napoleon
+slept at Montechiaro. The Austrian forces bivouacked on the little
+hills between Solferino and Cavriana. They rested well, still
+confident that no fighting would be done next day. At two in the
+morning, the French began to move in the direction of Solferino, and
+the Sardinians in that of Peschiera. There is a legend, that in the
+grey mists of dawn an advance party of French cavalry espied a huge
+and gaunt hussar standing by the roadside. For a moment the figure was
+lost sight of, but it reappeared, and after running across the road in
+front of the French, it turned and dealt the officer who led the party
+so tremendous a blow that he fell off his horse. Then the adventurous
+Austrian fled, followed by a volley from the French troopers; the
+sound vibrating through the dawn stillness gave the call to arms to
+the contrasted hosts. The battle of Solferino had begun.
+
+The news flew to Montechiaro and to Valleggio. Napoleon started for
+the scene of action with the Imperial Guard; Francis Joseph's staff
+was sent forward at six a.m., but the Emperor and Hess did not start
+till later. At near nine, the staff was looking for the Emperor, and
+the Emperor was looking for the staff in the open country about Volta;
+the sixty or seventy staff-officers dashed across ploughed fields and
+over hedges and ditches, in a style which would have done credit to an
+English fox-hunt. This remarkable incident was in keeping with the
+general management of the battle on the part of the Austrians, who had
+been fighting for many hours before the commander-in-chief arrived.
+After his arrival, they continued fighting without any visible plan,
+according to the expedients of the divisional generals. The particular
+expedient adopted by General Zedwitz was to withdraw 15,000 men,
+including six regiments of cavalry, from the field. At a critical
+moment, Count Clam Gallas had the misfortune to lose his artillery
+reserve, and sent everywhere to ask if anyone had seen it. The Prince
+of Hesse, acting without orders, or against orders, separated his
+division from Schwarzenberg's and brought it up at the nick of time to
+save the Austrians, when they were threatened with actual destruction,
+at two o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+At that hour the French were in possession of the Spia d'Italia, and
+of all the heights of Solferino. They had been engaged in attacking
+them since eight in the morning, Napoleon having seen at once that
+they were the key to the position, and must be taken, cost what it
+might. The cost was great; if there is any episode in French military
+history in which soldiers and officers earned all the praise that can
+be given to brave men, it is the taking of these Solferino hills.
+Again and again Forey's division and Bazaine's brigade returned to the
+charge; the cemetery and streets of Solferino were piled up with their
+dead, mingled with the dead of the defenders, who contested every inch
+of ground. The individual valour of the French soldiers in that six
+hours' struggle made it possible to win the battle.
+
+The Austrians, however, after their desperate straits at two o'clock
+recovered to so great an extent that, had Zedwitz returned with his
+cavalry, as the Emperor was hoping that he would, the day might still
+have been theirs. Even as it was, MacMahon's corps swerved under
+Zobel's repulse of his attack on San Cassiano, and Niel, in the plain,
+was dangerously hard pressed by Schwarzenberg. But, by degrees, the
+French recommenced gaining and the Austrians losing ground, and at six
+p.m., the latter were retreating in good order, defending each step
+before they yielded it.
+
+In the last stage of the battle the French limbered up their guns in
+the belief that a vast reserve of Austrian cavalry was galloping into
+action. What made them think so was a dense yellowish wall advancing
+through the air. Had they been natives, they would have recognised the
+approach of one of those frightful storms which bring devastation in
+their train, and which, as they move forward in what appears a solid
+mass, look to the inexperienced eye exactly like the clouds of dust
+raised by innumerable horsemen. The bursting of the storm hastened the
+end of the fight.
+
+All the day another fight, separate from this, had been going on
+between Benedek and the Sardinian army near the knoll of San Martino,
+overlooking the lake of Garda. The battle, which began in the early
+morning among the cypresses that crown the hillock, raged till seven
+p.m. with a fury which cost the Piedmontese over 4,000 in dead and
+wounded. It consisted largely in hand-to-hand fighting, which now gave
+an advantage to the Austrians, now to the Italians; many of the
+positions were lost and re-taken more than half-a-dozen times; the
+issue seemed long doubtful, and when Benedek, who commanded his side
+with unquestionable ability, received orders from the field of
+Solferino to begin a retreat, each combatant was firmly convinced that
+he was getting the best of it. Austrian writers allege that this order
+saved the Sardinians from defeat, while in both Italian and French
+narratives, the Piedmontese are represented as having been already
+sure of success. The courage shown alike by Piedmontese and Austrians
+could not be surpassed. Victor Emmanuel, as usual, set an example to
+his men.
+
+An incident in the battle brings into striking relief what it was this
+bloody strife was meant to end. An Austrian corporal fell, mortally
+wounded by a Bersagliere whom he conjured, in Italian, to listen to
+what he had got to say. It was this: Forced into the Austrian army, he
+had been obliged to serve through the war, but had never fired his
+rifle on his fellow-countrymen; now he preferred to die rather than
+defend himself. So he yielded up his breath with his hand clasped in
+the hand which had slain him.
+
+The Austrians lost, on the 24th of June, 13,000 men in killed and
+wounded; the French, 10,000. It was said that the frightful scene of
+carnage on the battlefield after Solferino influenced Napoleon III. in
+his desire to stop the war. Had that scene vanished from his
+recollection in June 1870?
+
+Even a field of battle, with its unburied dead, speaks only of a small
+part of the miseries of a great war. Those who were at that time at
+Brescia, to which town the greater portion of the French wounded and
+all the worst cases were brought, still shudder as they recall the
+dreadful human suffering which no skill or devotion could do more than
+a very little to assuage. The noble Brescian ladies who had once
+nursed Bayard, turned, with one accord, into sisters of charity; every
+house, every church, became a hospital, all that gratitude and pity
+could do was done; but many were to leave their bones in Italy, and
+how many more to go home maimed for life, or bearing with them the
+seeds of death.
+
+Other reasons than those of sentiment in reality decided Napoleon's
+course. Though these can only be guessed at, the guess, at the present
+date, amounts to certainty. In the first place, the skin-deep
+rejoicings in Paris at the news of the victories did not hide the fact
+that French public opinion, never genuinely favourable to the war, was
+becoming more and more hostile to it. Then there was the military
+question. It is true that the Fifth Corps, estimated at 30,000 men,
+had, at last, emerged from its crepuscular doings in Tuscany, and was
+available for future operations. Moreover, Kossuth paid a visit to the
+Imperial headquarters, and held out hopes of a revolution in Hungary
+which would oblige the Austrian Emperor to remove part of his troops
+from the scene of the war. Nevertheless, Napoleon was by no means
+convinced that his army was sufficient to take the Quadrilateral. He
+realised the bad organisation and numerous shortcomings of the forces
+under him so vividly that it seems incredible that, in the eleven
+following years, he should have done nothing to remedy them. He
+attributed his success mainly to chance, though in a less degree to a
+certain lack of energy in the Austrians, joined with the exaggerated
+fear of responsibility felt by their leaders. He never could
+thoroughly understand why the Austrians had not won Solferino.
+Naturally, he did not express these opinions to his marshals, but
+there is ample proof that he held them; and if the fact stood alone,
+it ought not to be difficult to explain why he was not anxious for a
+continuance of the war.
+
+But it does not stand alone. Napoleon feared being defeated on the
+Rhine as well as in the Quadrilateral. Prussia had six army corps
+ready, and she was about to move them. That, after her long
+hesitations, she resolved to intervene was long doubted, but it
+cannot be so after the evidence which recent years have produced.
+
+At the time things wore a different complexion. Europe was never more
+amazed than when, on the 6th of July, Napoleon the victor sent General
+Fleury to Francis Joseph the vanquished with a request for an
+armistice. One point only was plain; an armistice meant peace without
+Venetia, and never did profound sorrow so quickly succeed national joy
+than when this, to contemporaries astonishing intelligence, went
+forth. But the blow fell on no Italian with such tremendous force as
+on Cavour.
+
+There are natives of Italy who appear to be more cool, more
+calculating, more completely masters of themselves, than the men of
+any other nationality. Cavour was one of these. But there comes,
+sooner or later, the assertion of southern blood, the explosion of
+feeling the more violent because long contained, and the cool, quiet
+Italian of yesterday is not to be recognised except by those who know
+the race intimately well, and who know the volcano that underlies its
+ice and snow as well as its luxuriant vegetation.
+
+On Wednesday, the 6th of June, the French army was spread out in
+battle array along the left bank of the Mincio, and everything led to
+the supposition that a new and immediate battle was in contemplation.
+The Piedmontese were engaged in making preparations to invest
+Peschiera. Napoleon's headquarters were at Valleggio, those of the
+King at Monzambano. By the evening a very few persons had picked up
+the information that Napoleon had sent a messenger to Verona. Victor
+Emmanuel knew nothing of it, nor did any of the French generals except
+Marshal Vaillant, but such things leak out, and two or three
+individuals were aware of the journey to Verona, and spent that night
+in racking their brains as to what it might mean. Next day at eleven
+o'clock General Fleury returned; the Austrian Emperor had accepted the
+armistice. Further secrecy was impossible, and like lightning the news
+flashed through the world.
+
+Cavour rushed from Turin to Desenzano, where he arrived the day before
+the final meeting between Napoleon and Francis Joseph. He waited for a
+carnage in the little _café_ in the piazza; no one guessed who it was,
+and conversation went on undisturbed: it was full of curses on the
+French Emperor. Mazzini, someone said, was right; this is the way the
+war was sure to end. When a shabby conveyance had at length been
+found, the great statesman drove to Monzambano. There, of course, his
+arrival did not escape notice, and all who saw him were horrified by
+the change that had come over his face. Instead of the jovial, witty
+smile, there was a look of frantic rage and desperation. What passed
+between him and his Sovereign is partly a matter of conjecture; the
+exact sense of the violent words into which his grief betrayed him is
+lost, in spite of the categorical versions of the interview which have
+been printed. Even in a fit of madness he can hardly have spoken some
+of the words attributed to him. That he advised the King to withdraw
+his army or to abdicate rather than agree to the peace which was being
+plotted behind his back, seems past doubting. It is said that after
+attempting in vain to calm him, Victor Emmanuel brought the interview
+to a sudden close. Cavour came out of the house flushed and exhausted,
+and drove back to Desenzano. He had resigned office.
+
+The King showed extraordinary self-control. Bitter as the draught was,
+he saw that it must be drunk, and he was determined to drink it with
+dignity. Probably no other Italian grasped as clearly as he did the
+real reason which actuated Napoleon; at any rate his chivalrous
+appreciation of the benefits already received, closed his lips to
+reproaches. 'Whatever may be the decision of your Majesty,' he said to
+the Emperor on the eve of Villafranca, 'I shall feel an eternal
+gratitude for what you have done for the independence of Italy, and I
+beg you to believe that under all circumstances you may reckon on my
+complete fidelity.'
+
+If there was sadness in the Sardinian camp, so there was in that of
+Austria. The Austrians by no means thought that the game was up for
+them. It would be interesting to know by what arguments Napoleon
+persuaded the young Emperor to renounce the hope of retrieving his
+disasters, whilst he slowly pulled to pieces some flowers which were
+on the table before which he and Francis Joseph sat. When they left
+the house, the heir to all the Hapsburgs looked pale and sad. Did he
+remember the dying counsels of 'Father' Radetsky--not to yield if he
+was beaten on the Mincio, on the Tagliamento, on the Isonzo, before
+the gates of Vienna.
+
+When, on the evening of the same day, the Emperor of Austria signed
+the preliminaries of peace, he said to Prince Napoleon, who took the
+document to Verona for his signature: 'I pray God that if you are ever
+a sovereign He may spare you the hour of grief I have just passed.'
+Yet the defeat of Solferino and the loss of Lombardy were the first
+steps in the transformation of Radetsky's pupil from a despot, who
+hourly feared revolution in every land under his sceptre, to a wise
+and constitutional monarch ruling over a contented Empire. To some
+individuals and to some states, misfortune is fortune.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+WHAT UNITY COST
+
+1859-1860
+
+Napoleon III. and Cavour--The Cession of Savoy and Nice--Annexations
+in Central Italy.
+
+
+Napoleon's hurried journey to Turin on his way back to France was
+almost a flight. Everywhere his reception was cold in the extreme. He
+was surprised, he said, at the ingratitude of the Italians. It was
+still possible to ask for gratitude, as the services rendered had not
+been paid for; no one spoke yet of the barter of Savoy and Nice. But
+Napoleon, when he said these words to the Governor of Milan, forgot
+how the Lombards, in June 1848, absolutely refused to take their
+freedom at the cost of resigning Venice to Austria. And if Venice was
+dear to them and to Italy then, how much dearer had she not become
+since the heroic struggle in which she was the last to yield. The
+bones of Manin cried aloud for Venetian liberty from his grave of
+exile.
+
+Venice was the one absorbing thought of the moment; yet there were
+clauses in the brief preliminaries of peace more fraught with
+insidious danger than the abandonment of Venice. If the rest of Italy
+became one and free, it needed no prophet to tell that not the might
+of twenty Austrias could keep Venetia permanently outside the fold.
+But if Italy was to remain divided and enslaved, then, indeed, the
+indignant question went up to heaven, To what end had so much blood
+been shed?
+
+When he resolved to cut short the war, Napoleon still had it in his
+power to go down to history as the supreme benefactor of Italy. He
+chose instead to become her worst and by far her most dangerous enemy.
+The preliminaries of peace opened with the words: 'The Emperor of
+Austria and the Emperor of the French will favour the creation of an
+Italian Confederation under the honorary presidency of the Holy
+Father.' Further, it was stated that the Grand Duke of Tuscany and
+the Duke of Modena would return to their states. Though Napoleon
+proposed at first to add, 'without foreign armed intervention,' he
+waived the point (Rome was in his mind) and no such guarantee was
+inserted. Here, then, was the federative programme which all the
+personal influence and ingenuity of the French Emperor, all the arts
+of French diplomacy, were concentrated on maintaining, and which was
+only defeated by the true patriotism and strong good sense of the
+Italian populations, and of the men who led them through this, the
+most critical period in their history.
+
+In England Lord Derby's administration had fallen and the Liberals
+were again in power. Napoleon was so strangely deluded as to expect to
+find support in that quarter for his anti-unionist conspiracy. His
+earliest scheme was that the federative plan should be presented to
+Europe by Great Britain. Lord John Russell answered: 'We are asked to
+propose a partition (_morcellement_) of the peoples of Italy, as if we
+had the right to dispose of them.' It was a happy circumstance for
+Italy that her unity had no better friends than in the English
+Government during those difficult years. Cavour's words soon after
+Villafranca, 'It is England's turn now,' were not belied.
+
+One thing should have made Napoleon uneasy; a man like Cavour, when
+his blood is roused, when his nature is fired by the strongest
+passions that move the human heart, is an awkward adversary. If there
+was an instant in which the great statesman thought that all was lost,
+it was but an instant. With the quick rebound of virile characters he
+recovered his balance and understood his part. It was to fight and
+conquer.
+
+'Your Emperor has dishonoured me,' he said to M. Pietri in the
+presence of Kossuth (the interview taking place at Turin on the 15th
+of July). 'Yes, sir, he has dishonoured me,' and he set forth how,
+after promising to hunt the last Austrian out of Italy, after secretly
+exacting the price of his assistance to which Cavour had induced his
+good and honest King to consent, he now left them solemnly in the
+lurch; Lombardy might suffice! And, for nothing to be wanting, the
+King was to be forced into a confederation with Austria and the
+Italian princes under the presidency of the Pope. After painting the
+situation with all the irony and scorn of which he was master, he gave
+his note of warning: 'If needs be, I will become a conspirator, I will
+become a revolutionist, but this treaty shall never be executed; a
+thousand times no--never!'
+
+The routine business of the Prime Minister still fell to Cavour, as
+Rattazzi, who succeeded him, had not yet formed his cabinet. He was
+obliged, therefore, to write officially to the Royal Commissioners at
+Modena, Bologna and Florence to abandon their posts. But in the
+character of Cavour, the private citizen, he telegraphed to them at
+the same time to remain and do their duty. And they remained.
+
+On one point there was a temporary lull of anxiety. Almost the last
+words spoken by Napoleon to Victor Emmanuel before he left Turin were:
+'We shall think no more about Nice and Savoy.' The mention of Nice
+shows that though it had not been promised, Napoleon was all along set
+upon its acquisition. It is impossible to say how far, at the moment,
+he was sincere in the renunciation. That, very soon after his return
+to Paris, he was diligently weaving plans for getting both provinces
+into his net, is evident from the tenor of the articles and notes
+published in the 'inspired' French newspapers.
+
+Two chief motives can be divined for Napoleon's determined opposition
+to Italian unity which never ceased till Sedan. The first was his
+wish, shared by all French politicians, that Italy should be weak. The
+second was his regard for the Temporal Power which proceeded from his
+still being convinced that he could not reign without the Clerical
+vote. The French prelates were perpetually giving him reminders that
+this vote depended on his keeping the Pope on his throne. For
+instance, Cardinal Donnet told him at Bordeaux in October 1859, that
+he could not choose a better way of showing his appreciation of the
+Blessed Virgin than 'en ménageant un triomphe à son Fils dans la
+personne de son Vicaire.' It would be a triumph which the Catholic
+world would salute with transport. Hints of this sort, the sense of
+which was not hard to read, in spite of their recondite phraseology,
+reached him from every quarter. He feared to set them aside. The
+origins of his power were too much tainted for him to advance boldly
+on an independent policy. Thus it was that bit by bit he deliberately
+forfeited all title to the help of Italy when the same whirlwind that
+dashed him to earth, cleared the way for the final accomplishment of
+her national destinies.
+
+Whilst Victor Emmanuel was more alive than Cavour to the military
+arguments in favour of stopping hostilities when the tide of success
+was at its height, he was not one whit more disposed to stultify his
+past by becoming the vassal at once of Paris and Vienna. In a letter
+written to the Emperor of the French in October, in answer to a very
+long one in which Napoleon sought to convert him to the plan of an
+Austro-Italian Confederation, he wound up by saying: 'For the
+considerations above stated, and for many others, I cannot, Sire,
+second your Majesty's policy in Italy. If your Majesty is bound by
+treaties and cannot revoke your engagements in the (proposed)
+congress, I, Sire, am bound on my side, by honour in the face of
+Europe, by right and duty, by the interests of my house, of my people
+and of Italy. My fate is joined to that of the Italian people. We can
+succumb, but never betray. Solferino and San Martino may sometimes
+redeem Novara and Waterloo, but the apostasies of princes are always
+irreparable. I am moved to the bottom of my soul by the faith and love
+which this noble and unfortunate people has reposed in me, and rather
+than be unworthy of it, I will break my sword and throw the crown away
+as did my august father. Personal interest does not guide me in
+defending the annexations; the Sword and Time have borne my house from
+the summit of the Alps to the banks of the Mincio, and those two
+guardian angels of the Savoy race will bear it further still, when it
+pleases God.'
+
+The events in Central Italy to which the King alludes were of the
+highest importance. L.C. Farini, the Sardinian Royal Commissioner at
+Modena, when relieved of his office, assumed the dictatorship by the
+will of the people. L. Cipriani became Governor of Romagna, and at
+Florence Ricasoli continued at the head of affairs, undismayed and
+unshaken in his resolve to defeat the combined machinations of France
+and Austria. In August the populations of Modena, Reggio, Parma and
+Piacenza declared their union with Piedmont by an all but unanimous
+popular vote, the two last provinces placing themselves for temporary
+convenience under the Dictator Farini. A few days later, Tuscany and
+Romagna voted a like act of union through their Constituent
+Assemblies. The representatives of the four States, Modena, Parma,
+Romagna and Tuscany, formally announced to the great Powers their
+choice of Victor Emmanuel, in whose rule they recognised the sole hope
+of preserving their liberties and avoiding disorder. Delegates were
+sent to Turin with the offer of the crown.
+
+Peace, of which the preliminaries only were signed at Villafranca, was
+not yet definitely concluded, and a large French army was still in
+Italy. The King's government feared therefore to adopt the bold course
+of accepting the annexations outright, and facing the responsibilities
+which might arise. Victor Emmanuel thanked the delegates, expressing
+his confidence that Europe would not undo the great work that had been
+done in Central Italy. The state of things, however, in these
+provinces, whose elected King could not yet govern them, was
+anomalous, most of all in what related to defence; they being menaced
+on the Austrian side by the Duke of Modena, and on the South by the
+Papal troops in the Cattolica. An armed force of 25,000 men was
+organised, of which the Tuscan contingent was under the command of
+Garibaldi, and the rest under that of the Sardinian General Fanti,
+'lent' for the purpose. Garibaldi hoped not merely to defend the
+provinces already emancipated, but to carry war into the enemy's camp
+and make revolution possible throughout the States of the Church. To
+the Party of Action the chance seemed an unique one of hastening the
+progress of events. Unaccustomed as they were to weigh diplomatic
+difficulties, they saw the advantages but not the perils of a daring
+course. Meanwhile Napoleon threatened to occupy Piacenza with 30,000
+men on the first forward step of Garibaldi, who, on his side, seemed
+by no means inclined to yield either to the orders of the Dictator
+Farini, or to the somewhat violent measures taken to stop him by
+General Fanti, who instructed the officers under his command to
+disobey him. It was then that Victor Emmanuel tried his personal
+influence, rarely tried without success, over the revolutionary chief,
+who reposed absolute faith in the King's patriotism, and who was
+therefore amenable to his arguments when all others failed. The
+general was summoned to Turin, and in an audience given on the 16th of
+November, Victor Emmanuel persuaded him that the proposed enterprise
+would retard rather than advance the cause of Italian freedom.
+Garibaldi left for Caprera, only insisting that his 'weak services'
+should be called into requisition whenever there was an opportunity to
+act.
+
+Before quitting the Adriatic coast the hero of Rome went one evening
+with his two children, Menotti and Teresita, to the Chapel in the Pine
+Forest, where their mother was buried. Within a mile was the farmhouse
+where he had embraced her lifeless form before undertaking his
+perilous flight from sea to sea. In 1850, at Staten Island, when he
+was earning his bread as a factory hand, he wrote the prophetic words:
+'Anita, a land of slavery holds your precious dust; Italy will make
+your grave free, but what can restore to your children their
+incomparable mother?' Garibaldi's visit to Anita's grave closes the
+story of the brave and tender woman who sacrificed all to the love she
+bore him.
+
+After sitting for three months, the Conference which met at Zurich to
+establish the definite treaty of peace finished its labours on the
+10th of November. The compact was substantially the same as that
+arranged at Villafranca. Victor Emmanuel, who had signed the
+Preliminaries with the reservation implied in the note: 'In so far as
+I am concerned,' preserved the same liberty of action in the Treaty of
+Zurich. He still hesitated, however, in assuming the government of the
+central provinces, and even the plan of sending the Prince of
+Carignano as governor fell through in consequence of Napoleon's
+opposition. His hesitations sprang from the general apprehension that
+a hint from Paris might any day be followed by a new eruption of
+Austrians in Modena and Tuscany for the purpose of replacing the
+former rulers of those states on their thrones. Such a fear existed at
+the time, and Rattazzi's timid policy was the result; it is impossible
+not to ask now whether it was not exaggerated? 'What statesman,' wrote
+the Prince Consort in June 1859, 'could adopt measures to force
+Austrian rule again upon delighted, free Italy?' If this was true
+in June was it less true in November? For the rest, would not the
+supreme ridicule that would have fallen on the French Emperor if he
+encouraged the Austrians to return to Central Italy after driving
+them out of Lombardy, have obliged him to support the principle of
+non-intervention, whether he wished it or not? England was prepared to
+back up the government of Piedmont, in which lay a great moral force.
+It is plain that the long wavering about what ought to be done with
+the central provinces is what cost the country Savoy and Nice, or at
+any rate, Nice. Napoleon did all in his power to prevent and to retard
+the annexations, especially that of Tuscany, which, as he said, 'would
+make Italian unity a mere question of time,' but when he found that
+neither threats nor blandishments could move the population from their
+resolve to have Victor Emmanuel for their king, he decided to sell his
+adhesion for a good price. Compelled for the sake of appearances to
+withdraw his claim after the abrupt termination of the war, he now saw
+an excellent excuse for reviving it, and he was not likely to let the
+opportunity slip.
+
+At this period there was continual talk, which may or may not have
+been intended to end in talk, of a Congress to which the affairs of
+Italy were to be referred. It gave an opening to Napoleon for
+publishing one of the anonymous pamphlets by means of which he was in
+the habit of throwing out tentative ideas, and watching their effect.
+The chief idea broached in _Le Pape et le Congrès_ was the voluntary
+renunciation by the Pope of all but a small zone of territory round
+Rome; it being pointed out that his position as an independent
+sovereign would remain unaffected by such an act, which would smooth
+the way to his assuming the hegemony of the Italian Confederation. The
+Pope, however, let it be clearly known that he had no intention of
+ceding a rood of his possessions, or of recognising the separation of
+the part which had already escaped from him. Anyone acquainted with
+the long strife and millennial manoeuvres by which the Church had
+acquired the States called by her name, will understand the
+unwillingness there was to yield them. To do Pius IX. justice, an
+objection which merits more respect weighed then and always upon his
+mind. He thought that he was personally debarred by the oath taken on
+assuming the tiara from giving up the smallest part of the territory
+he received from his predecessor. The Ultramontane party knew that
+they had only to remind him of this oath to provoke a fresh assertion
+of _Non possumus._ The attitude of the Pope was one reason why the
+Congress was abandoned; but there was a deeper reason. A European
+Congress would certainly not have approved the cession of Nice and
+Savoy, and to that object the French Emperor was now turning all his
+attention.
+
+At Turin there was an ignoble cabal, supported not so much, perhaps,
+by Rattazzi himself as by followers, the design of which was to
+prevent Cavour from returning to power. Abroad, the Empress Eugénie,
+who looked on Cavour as the Pope's worst foe, did what she could to
+further the scheme, and its promoters counted much on the soreness
+left in Victor Emmanuel's mind by the scene after Villafranca. That
+soreness did, in fact, still exist; but when in January the Rattazzi
+ministry fell, the King saw that it was his duty to recall Cavour to
+his counsels, and he at once charged him to form a cabinet.
+
+That Cavour accepted the task is the highest proof of his abnegation
+as a statesman. He was on the point of getting into his carriage to
+catch the train for Leri when the messenger reached the Palazzo Cavour
+with the royal command to go to the castle. If he had refused office
+and returned to the congenial activity of his life as a country
+gentleman, his name would not be attached to the melancholy sacrifice
+which Napoleon was now determined to exact from Italy. The French
+envoy, Baron de Talleyrand, whose business it was to communicate the
+unwelcome intelligence, arrived at Turin before the collapse of
+Rattazzi; but, on finding that a ministerial crisis was imminent, he
+deferred carrying out his mission till a more opportune moment.
+
+On the 18th of January 1860, the Emperor admitted to Lord Cowley
+that, though there was as yet no arrangement between himself and
+Victor Emmanuel on the subject, he intended to have Savoy. After the
+long series of denials of any such design, the admission caused the
+most indignant feeling in the English ministers and in the Queen, who
+wrote to Lord John Russell: 'We have been made regular dupes.' She
+went on to say that the revival of the English Alliance, and the hymns
+of universal peace chanted in Paris on the occasion of the Commercial
+Treaty, had been simply so many blinds, 'to hide from Europe a policy
+of spoliation.' Cavour came in for a part of the blame, as, during the
+war, he denied cognisance of the proposal to give up Savoy. The best
+that can be said of that denial is, that it was diplomatically
+impracticable for one party in the understanding of Plombières to make
+a clean breast of the truth, whilst the other party was assuring the
+whole universe that he was fighting for an idea.
+
+When the war was broken off, Cavour fully expected that Napoleon, of
+whom he had the worst opinion, would then and there demand whole pay
+for his half service; and this had much to do with his furious anger
+at Villafranca; but later, in common with the best-informed persons,
+he believed that the claim was finally withdrawn. When, however,
+Napoleon asked again for the provinces--not as the price of the war,
+but of the annexations in Central Italy--Cavour instantly came to the
+conclusion that, cost what it might (and he thought that, amongst
+other things, it would cost his own reputation and popularity), the
+demand must be granted. Otherwise Italian unity would never be
+accomplished.
+
+In considering whether he was mistaken, it must not be forgotten that
+the French troops were still in Italy. Not to speak of those in Rome,
+Marshal Vaillant had five divisions of infantry and two brigades of
+cavalry in Lombardy up to the 20th of March 1860. The engagement had
+been to send this army home as soon as the definite peace was
+concluded; why, then, was it still south of the Alps four months
+after?
+
+In spite of this, however, and in spite of the difficulty of judging
+an act, all the reasons for which may not, even now, be in possession
+of the world, it is very hard indeed to pardon Cavour for having
+yielded Nice as well as Savoy to France. The Nizzards were Italians as
+the lower class of the population is Italian still; they had always
+shown warm sympathy with the hopes of Italy, which could not be said
+of the Savoyards; and Nice was the birthplace of Garibaldi!
+
+England would have supported and applauded resistance to the claim for
+Nice on general grounds, though her particular interest was in Savoy,
+or rather in that part of the Savoy Alps which was neutralised by
+treaty in 1814. It was the refusal of Napoleon to adopt the compromise
+of ceding this district to Switzerland which caused the breach between
+him and the British ministry. From that moment, also, Prussia began to
+increase her army, and resolved, when she was ready, to check the
+imperial ambition by force of arms. 'The loss of Alsace and Lorraine,'
+writes an able publicist, M.E. Tallichet, 'was the direct consequence
+of the annexation of Nice and Savoy.'
+
+If anything could have rendered more galling to Italy the deprivation
+of these two provinces, it was the tone adopted in France when
+speaking of the transaction. What were Savoy and Nice? A barren rock
+and an insignificant strip of coast! The French of thirty-four years
+ago travelled so little that they may have believed in the
+description. The vast military importance of the ceded districts has
+been already referred to. Some scraps on the Nice frontier were saved
+in a curious way: They were spots which formed part of the favourite
+playground of the Royal Hunter of the Alps, and it was pointed out to
+Napoleon that it would be a graceful act to leave these particular
+'barren rocks' to his Sardinian Majesty. The zig-zags in the line of
+demarcation which were thus introduced are said to be of great
+strategic advantage to Italy. So far, so good; but it remains true
+that France is _inside_ the Italian front-door.
+
+At the elections for the new Chamber in March 1860, the Nizzards chose
+Garibaldi; and this was their real plebiscite--not that which followed
+at a short interval, and presented the phenomenon of a population
+which appeared to change its mind as to its nationality in the course
+of a few weeks. In voting for Garibaldi, they voted for Italy.
+
+The Nizzard hero made some desperate efforts on behalf of his
+fellow-citizens in the Chamber, not his natural sphere, and was on the
+brink of making other efforts in a sphere in which he might have
+succeeded better. He had the idea of going to Nice with about 200
+followers, and exciting just enough of a revolution to let the real
+will of the people be known, and to frustrate the wiles of French
+emissaries and the pressure of government in the official plebiscite
+of the 15th of April. The story of the conspiracy, which is unknown in
+Italy, has been told by one of the conspirators, the late Lawrence
+Oliphant. The English writer, who reached Turin full of wrath at the
+proposed cession, was introduced to Garibaldi, from whom he received
+the news of the proposed enterprise. Oliphant offered his services,
+which were accepted, and he accompanied the general to Genoa, where he
+engaged a diligence which was to carry the vanguard to Nice. But, on
+going to Garibaldi for the last orders, he found him supping with
+twenty or thirty young men; 'All Sicilians!' said the chief. 'We must
+give up the Nice programme; the general opinion is that we shall lose
+all if we try for too much.' He added that he had hoped to carry out
+the Nice plan first, but now everything must be sacrificed to freeing
+Sicily. And he asked Oliphant to join the Thousand, an offer which the
+adventurous Englishman never ceased to regret that he did not accept.
+As it was, he elected to go all the same to Nice, where he was the
+spectator and became the historian of the arts which brought about the
+semblance of an unanimous vote in favour of annexation to France.
+
+The ratification of the treaty--which, by straining the constitution,
+was concluded without consulting Parliament--was reluctantly given by
+the Piedmontese Chambers, the majority of members fearing the
+responsibility of upsetting an accomplished fact. Cavour, when he laid
+down the pen after signing the deed of cession, turned to Baron de
+Talleyrand with the remark: 'Now we are accomplices!' His face, which
+had been depressed, resumed its cheerful air. In fact, though
+Napoleon's dislike of the central annexations was unabated, he could
+no longer oppose them. Victor Emmanuel accepted the four crowns of
+Central Italy, the people of which, during the long months of waiting,
+and under circumstances that applied the most crucial test to their
+resolution, had never swerved from the desire to form part of the
+Italian monarchy under the sceptre of the _Re Galantuomo_. The King of
+Sardinia, as he was still called, had eleven million subjects, and on
+his head rested one excommunication the more. The Bull fulminated
+against all who had, directly or indirectly, participated in the
+events which caused Romagna to change hands, was published a day or
+two before the opening of the new Parliament at Turin.
+
+Addressing for the first time the representatives of his widened
+realm, Victor Emmanuel said: 'True to the creed of my fathers, and,
+like them, constant in my homage to the Supreme Head of the Church,
+whenever it happens that the ecclesiastical authority employs
+spiritual arms in support of temporal interests, I shall find in my
+steadfast conscience and in the very traditions of my ancestors, the
+power to maintain civil liberty in its integrity, and my own
+authority, for which I hold myself accountable to God alone and to my
+people.'
+
+The words: 'Della quale debbo ragione a Dio solo ed ai miei popoli,'
+were added by the King to the speech prepared by his ministers; it was
+noticed that he pronounced them with remarkable energy. The speech
+concluded: 'Our country is no more the Italy of the Romans, nor the
+Italy of the Middle Ages; no longer the field for every foreign
+ambition, it becomes, henceforth, the Italy of the Italians.'
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE MARCH OF THE THOUSAND
+
+1860
+
+Origin of the Expedition--Garibaldi at Marsala--Calatafimi--The
+Taking of Palermo--Milazzo--The Bourbons evacuate Sicily.
+
+
+During the journey from Turin to Genoa, Garibaldi was occupied in
+opening, reading and tearing up into small pieces an enormous mass of
+letters, while his English companion spent the time in vainly
+speculating as to what this vast correspondence was about. When they
+approached Genoa, the floor of the railway carriage resembled a
+gigantic wastepaper basket. It was only afterwards that Lawrence
+Oliphant guessed the letters to be responses to a call for volunteers
+for Sicily.
+
+The origin of the Sicilian expedition has been related in various
+ways; there is the version which attributes it entirely to Cavour, and
+the version which attributes it to not irresponsible personages in
+England. The former was the French and Clerical official account; the
+latter has always obtained credence in Germany and Russia. For
+instance, the late Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg said that 'the mystery
+of how 150,000 men were vanquished by a thousand Red-shirts was
+wrapped in English bank-notes!' Of this theory, it need only be said
+that the notion of Lord Palmerston (for it comes to that) supporting a
+foreign revolution out of the British exchequer is not one that
+commends itself to the belief of the average Englishman. With regard
+to the other theory--namely, that Cavour 'got up' the Sicilian
+expedition, it has been favoured to a certain degree, both by his
+friends and foes; but it will not bear careful examination. As far as
+Sicily goes (Naples is another thing), the most that can be brought
+home to Cavour is a complicity of toleration; and even this statement
+should be qualified by the addition, 'after the act.' It is true that,
+in the early days after Villafranca, he had exclaimed: 'They have cut
+me off from making Italy from the north, by diplomacy; very well, I
+will make her from the south, by revolution!' True, also, that
+earlier still, in 1856, he expressed the opinion, shared by every man
+of common sense, that while the Bourbons ruled over the Two Sicilies
+there would be no real peace for Italy. Nevertheless, in April 1860,
+he neither thought the time ripe for the venture nor the means
+employed adequate for its accomplishment. He was afraid that Garibaldi
+would meet with the death of the Bandieras and Pisacane. No one was
+more convinced than Cavour of the importance of Garibaldi's life to
+Italy; and it is a sign of his true superiority of mind that this
+conviction was never entertained more strongly than at the moment when
+the general was passionately inveighing against him for the cession of
+Nice. To Cavour such invectives seemed natural, and even justified
+from one point of view; they excited in him no bitterness, and he was
+only too happy that they fell upon himself and not upon the King,
+since it was his fixed idea that, without the maintenance of a good
+understanding between Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi, Italy would not
+be made. Few men under the sting of personal attacks have shown such
+complete self-control.
+
+As has been stated, when Francis II. ascended the Neapolitan throne,
+he was invited to join in the war with Austria, and he refused. Since
+then, the same negative result had attended the reiterated counsels of
+reform which the Piedmontese Government sent to that of Naples--the
+young King showing, by repeated acts, that not Sardinia but Rome was
+his monitress and chosen ally in Italy. The Pope had lately induced
+the French General Lamoricière to take the command of the Pontifical
+troops, and he and the King of Naples were organising their armies,
+with a view to co-operating at an early date against the common enemy
+at Turin. In January 1860, Lord Russell wrote to Mr Elliot, the
+English Minister at Naples: 'You will tell the King and his Ministers
+that the Government of her Majesty the Queen does not intend to accept
+any part in the responsibility nor to guarantee the certain
+consequences of a misgovernment which has scarcely a parallel in
+Europe.' Mr Elliot replied, early in March: 'I have used all
+imaginable arguments to convince this Government of the necessity of
+stopping short on the fatal path which it has entered. I finished by
+saying that I was persuaded of the inevitable fall of his Majesty and
+the dynasty if wiser counsels did not obtain a hearing, and requested
+an audience with the King; since, when the catastrophe occurs, I do
+not wish my conscience to reproach me with not having tried all means
+of saving an inexperienced Sovereign from the ruin which threatens
+him. The Ministers of France and Spain have spoken to the same
+effect.' Even Russia advised Francis to make common cause with
+Piedmont. In April, Victor Emmanuel wrote to his cousin, 'as a near
+relative and an Italian Prince,' urging him to listen while there was
+yet time to save something, if not everything. 'If you will not hear
+me,' he said, 'the day may come when I shall be obliged to be the
+instrument of your ruin!'
+
+It has been said that the Sardinian Government, in tendering similar
+advice, hoped for its refusal and contemplated the eventuality hinted
+at with the reverse of apprehension. Of course this is true. Yet the
+responsibility of declining to take the only course which might by any
+possibility have saved him must rest with the King of Naples and not
+with Victor Emmanuel and his Ministers. The attempt to make Francis
+appear the innocent victim of a diabolical conspiracy will never
+succeed, however ingenious are the writers who devote their abilities
+to so unfruitful a task.
+
+To trace the real beginning of the expedition we must go back to the
+summer of 1859. When the war ended in the manner which he alone had
+foreseen, Mazzini projected a revolutionary enterprise in the south
+which should restore to the Italian movement its purely national
+character and defeat in advance Napoleon's plans for gathering the
+Bourbon succession for his cousin, Prince Murat. He sent agents to
+Sicily, and notably Francesco Crispi, who, as a native of the island
+and a man of resource and quick intelligence, was well qualified to
+execute the work of propaganda and to elude the Bourbon police. Crispi
+travelled in all parts of Sicily for several months, and in September
+he was able to report to Mazzini that the insurrection might be
+expected in a few weeks--which proved incorrect, but only as to date.
+Mazzini forbade his agents to agitate in favour of a republic; unity
+was the sole object to be aimed at; unity in whatever form and at
+whatever cost.
+
+In March 1860 he had an interview in London with the man who was to
+become the actual initiator of the revolutionary movement in South
+Italy. This was Rosalino Pilo, son of the Count di Capaci, and
+descended through his mother from the royal house of Anjou, whose
+name, Italianised into Gioeni, is still borne by several noble
+families in Sicily. Rosalino Pilo, who was now in his fortieth year,
+had devoted all his life to his country's liberties. After 1849, when
+he was obliged to leave Sicily, he sold his ancestral acres to supply
+the wants of his fellow exiles, and help the work of revolutionary
+propaganda. Handsome in person, cultivated in mind, ready to give his
+life, as he had already given most of what makes life tolerable, to
+the Italian cause, he won the affection of all with whom he was
+brought in contact, and especially of Mazzini, from whom he parted
+after that last interview radiant with hope, and yet with a touch of
+sadness in his smile, as if in prevision that the place allotted to
+him in the ranks of men was among the sowers, not among the reapers.
+
+Rosalino Pilo believed, as Mazzini believed, that Sicily was ripe for
+revolution, but he realised the fact that under existing circumstances
+there was an exceeding probability of a Sicilian revolution being
+rapidly crushed. It was the tendency of Mazzini's mind to think the
+contrary; to put more faith in the people themselves than in any
+leader or leaders; to imagine that the blast of the trumpet of an
+angered population was sufficient to bring down the walls of all the
+citadels of despotism, however well furnished with heavy artillery.
+Pilo saw that there was only one man who could give a real chance of
+success to a rising in his native island, and that man was Garibaldi.
+As early as February he began to write to Caprera, urging the general
+to give his co-operation to the projected movement. It is notorious
+that the scheme, until almost the last moment, did not find favour
+with Garibaldi. In spite of his perilous enterprises, the chief had
+never been a courtier of failure, and he understood more clearly than
+his correspondent what failure at that particular juncture would have
+meant. The ventures of the Bandieras and of Pisacane, similar in their
+general plan to the one now in view (though on a smaller scale). ended
+in disasters, but disasters that were useful to Italy. A disaster now
+would have been ruinous to Italy. Garibaldi's hesitations do not, as
+some writers of the extreme party have foolishly assumed, detract from
+his merit as victorious leader of the expedition; they only show him
+to have been more amenable to political prudence than most people
+have supposed.
+
+Rosalino Pilo wrote, finally, that in any case he was determined to go
+to Sicily himself to complete the preparations, and he added: 'The
+insurrection in Sicily, consider it well, will carry with it that of
+the whole south of the peninsula,' by which means not only would the
+Muratist plots be frustrated, but also a new army and fleet would
+become available for the conquest of independence and the liberation
+of Venetia. The writer concluded by wishing the general 'new glories
+in Sicily in the accomplishment of our country's redemption.'
+
+True to his word Rosalino Pilo embarked at Genoa on the 24th of March,
+on a crazy old coasting vessel, manned by five friendly sailors. He
+had with him a single companion, and carried such arms and ammunition
+as he had been able to get together. Terrible weather and the
+deplorable condition of their craft kept them at sea for fifteen days,
+during which time something of great importance happened at Palermo.
+On the 4th of April the authorities became aware that arms and
+conspirators were concealed in the convent of La Gancia, which was to
+have been the focus of the revolution. Troops were sent to besiege the
+convent, which they only succeeded in taking after four hours'
+resistance; its fall was the signal for a general slaughter of the
+inmates, both monks and laymen. The insurrection was thus stifled in
+its birth in the capital, but from this time it began to spread in the
+country, and when, at last, Rosalino Pilo landed near Messina on the
+10th of April, he found that several armed bands were already roving
+the mountains, as yet almost unperceived by the Government, which had
+gone to sleep again after its exhibition of energy on the 4th. Events
+were, however, to awake it from its slumbers, and to cause it to renew
+its vigilance. It required all Rosalino Pilo's skill and courage to
+sustain the revolution of which he became henceforth the responsible
+head, till the fated deliverer arrived.
+
+Pilo's letters, brought back to Genoa by the pilot who guided him to
+Sicilian waters, were what decided Garibaldi to go to the rescue.
+Some, like Bixio and Bertani, warmly and persistently urged him to
+accept the charge; others, like Sirtori, were convinced that the
+undertaking was foredoomed, and that its only result would be the
+death of their beloved captain: but this conviction did not lessen
+their eagerness to share his perils when once he was resolved to go.
+
+Like all born men of action, Garibaldi did not know what doubt was
+after he came to a decision. From that moment his mental atmosphere
+cleared; he saw the goal and went straight for it. In a surprisingly
+short time the expedition was organised and ready to leave. 'Few and
+good,' had been the rule laid down by Garibaldi for the enrolments; if
+he had chosen he could have taken with him a much more numerous host.
+When it was the day to start few they were (according to the most
+recent computation the exact number was 1072 men), and they were
+certainly good. The force was divided into seven companies, the first
+entrusted to the ardent Nino Bixio, who acted in a general way as
+second-in-command through both the Sicilian and Neapolitan campaigns,
+and the seventh to Benedetto Cairoli, whose mother contributed a large
+sum of money as well as three of her sons to the freeing of Southern
+Italy. Sirtori, about whom there always clung something of the
+priestly vocation for which he had been designed, was the head of the
+staff; Türr (the Hungarian) was adjutant-general. The organisation was
+identical with that of the Italian army 'to which we belong,' said
+Garibaldi in his first order of the day.
+
+One name is missing, that of Medici, who was left behind to take the
+command of a projected movement in the Papal States. By whom this plan
+was invented is not clear, but simultaneous operations in different
+parts of the peninsula had been always a favourite design of the more
+extreme members of the Party of Action, and Garibaldi probably yielded
+to their advice. All that came of it was the entry into Umbria of
+Zambianchi's small band of volunteers, which was promptly repulsed
+over the frontier. Medici, therefore, remained inactive till after the
+fall of Palermo; he headed the second expedition of 4,000 volunteers
+which arrived in time to take part in the final Sicilian battles.
+
+Garibaldi's political programme was the cry of the Hunters of the Alps
+in 1859: _Italy and Victor Emmanuel._ Those who were strict
+republicans at heart, while abstaining from preaching the republic
+till the struggle was over, would have stopped short at the first word
+_Italy_. But Garibaldi told Rosalino Pilo, who was of this way of
+thinking, that either he marched in the King's name or he did not
+march at all. This was the condition of his acceptance, because he
+esteemed it the condition on which hung the success of the enterprise,
+nay more, the existence of an united Italy.
+
+The Thousand embarked at Quarto, near Genoa, during the night of the
+5th of May on the two merchant vessels, the _Piemonte_ and _Lombardo_,
+which, with the complicity of their patriotic owner, R. Rubattino, had
+been sequestered for the use of the expedition. On hearing of
+Garibaldi's departure, Cavour ordered Admiral Persano, whose squadron
+lay in the gulf of Cagliari, to arrest the expedition if the steamers
+entered any Sardinian port, but to let it go free if they were
+encountered on the high seas. Persano asked Cavour what he was to do
+if by stress of storms Garibaldi were forced to come into port? The
+answer was that 'the Ministry' decided for his arrest, which Persano
+rightly interpreted to mean that Cavour had decided the contrary. He
+resolved, therefore, not to stop him under any circumstances, but the
+case did not occur, for the fairest of May weather favoured the
+voyage, and six days after the start the men were quietly landed at
+Marsala without let or hindrance from the two Neapolitan warships
+which arrived almost at the same time as the _Piemonte_ and
+_Lombardo_, an inconceivable stroke of good fortune which, like the
+eventful march that was to follow, seems to belong far more to romance
+than to history.
+
+On the day before, the British gunboat _Intrepid_ (Captain Marryat),
+and the steam vessel _Argus_, had cast anchor in the harbour of
+Marsala. Their presence was again and again spoken of by Garibaldi as
+the key to the mystery of why he was not attacked. No matter how it
+was done--it may have been a mere accident--but it can hardly be
+doubted that the English men-of-war did practically cover the landing
+of the Thousand. Lord John Russell denied emphatically to the House of
+Commons that they were sent there for the purpose, as to this day is
+believed by some grateful Italians, and by every Clerical writer who
+handles the subject. The British Government had early information of
+Italian revolutionary doings, just then, through Sir James Hudson, who
+was in communication with men of all shades of opinion, and it is
+credible that orders which must necessarily have been secret, were
+given to afford a refuge on board English ships to the flying patriots
+in the anticipated catastrophe. More than this is not credible, but
+the energy shown by Captain Marryat in safeguarding the interests of
+the British residents at Marsala caused the Neapolitan ships to delay
+opening fire till the very last Red-shirt was out of harm's way on dry
+land. Then and then only did they direct their guns on the _Piemonte_
+and _Lombardo_, and fire a few shots into the city, which caused no
+other damage than the destruction of two casks of wine.
+
+On the 12th, Garibaldi left Marsala for Salemi, a mountain city
+approached by a steep, winding ascent, where he was sure of a warm
+reception, as it had already taken arms against the Bourbon king.
+Hence he promulgated the decree by which he assumed the dictatorship
+of Sicily in the name of Victor Emmanuel.
+
+The Neapolitan army numbered from 120,000 to 130,000 men; of these
+30,000 were actually in Sicily at the time the Thousand landed at
+Marsala, 18,000 being in and about Palermo, and the rest distributed
+over the island. At Salemi, Garibaldi reviewed his united forces: he
+had been joined by 200 fresh volunteers, and by a fluctuating mass of
+Sicilian irregulars, which might be estimated to consist of 2,000 men,
+but it increased or decreased along the road, because it was formed of
+peasants of the districts traversed, who did not go far from their
+homes. These undisciplined bands were not useless, as they gave the
+Bourbon generals the idea that Garibaldi had more men than he could
+ever really count upon, and also the peasants knew the country well.
+When they came under fire they behaved better than anyone would have
+expected. The first batch joined the Thousand half-way between Marsala
+and Salemi. There might have been fifty of them, dressed in
+goat-skins, and armed with the old flint muskets and rusty pistols
+dear to the Sicilian heart, which he would not for the world leave
+behind were he going no farther than to buy a lamb at the fair. The
+feudal lord marched at the head of his uncouth retainers--a company
+of bandits in an opera--yet, to Garibaldi, they seemed the blessed
+assurance that this people whom he was come to save was ready and
+willing to be saved. He received the poor little band with as much
+rapture as if it had been a powerful army, and, in their turn, the
+impressionable islanders were enraptured by the affability of the man
+whom the population of Sicily soon came seriously to consider as a new
+Messiah. It is a fact that the people of Southern Italy did believe
+that Garibaldi had in him something superhuman, only the Bourbon
+troops looked rather below than above for the source of it. The
+picturesque incidents of the historic march were many; one other may
+be mentioned. While the chief watered his horse at a spring a
+Franciscan friar threw himself on his knees, and implored to be
+allowed to follow him. Some of the volunteers thought the friar a
+traitor in disguise, but larger in faith, Garibaldi said: 'Come with
+us, you will be our Ugo Bassi.' Fra Pantaleo proved of no small use to
+the expedition.
+
+A glance at the map makes clear the military situation. Garibaldi's
+objective was Palermo, and if anything shows his genius as a
+Condottiere it is this immediate determination to make straight for
+the capital where the largest number of the enemy's troops was massed,
+instead of seeking an illusionary safety for his weak army in the open
+country. As the crow flies the distance from Marsala to Palermo is not
+more than sixty or seventy miles, but the routes being mountainous,
+the actual ground to be covered is much longer. About midway lies
+Calatafimi, where all the roads leading from the eastern coast to
+Palermo converge, and above it towers the immensely strong position
+called Pianto dei Romani, from a battle in which the Romans were
+defeated. These heights command a vast prospect, and here General
+Landi, with 3,000 men and four pieces of artillery, prepared to
+intercept the Garibaldians with every probability of driving them back
+into the sea.
+
+The royal troops took the offensive towards ten o'clock on the 15th of
+May. They met the Red-shirts half way down the mountain, but were
+driven up it again, inch by inch, till, at about three o'clock, they
+were back at Pianto dei Romani. A final vigorous assault dislodged
+them from this position, and they retreated in disorder to Calatafimi.
+Not wishing to tempt fortune further for that day, Garibaldi
+bivouacqued on the field of battle. In a letter written to Bertani, on
+the spur of the moment, he bore witness with a sort of fatherly pride
+to the courage displayed by the Neapolitans: 'It was the old
+misfortune,' he said, 'a fight between Italians; but it proved to me
+what can be done with this family when united. The Neapolitan
+soldiers, when their cartridges were exhausted, threw stones at us in
+desperation.' How then, with much superior numbers and a seemingly
+impregnable position, did they end in ignominious flight? The answer
+may be found in the reply given to Bixio, bravest of the brave, who
+yet feared, at one hotly-contested point, that retreat was inevitable.
+'Here,' retorted the chief,'we _die_.' Men who really mean to conquer
+or die can do miracles.
+
+The moral effect of the victory was tremendous. The world at large had
+made absolutely sure of the destruction of the expedition. 'Garibaldi
+has chosen to go his own way,' said Victor Emmanuel; 'but if you only
+knew the fright I was in about him and the brave lads with him!' In
+Sicily, where the insurrectionary activity of April was almost totally
+spent, the news sent an electric shock of revolution through the
+whole island. In the mountains Rosalino Pilo still resisted, weary of
+waiting for the help that came not, discouraged or hopeless, but
+unyielding. Food and ammunition were almost gone; his ragged band,
+held together only by the magnetism of his personal influence, began
+to feel the pangs of hunger. A price was set on his head, and he was
+harassed on all sides by the Neapolitan troops, whose attacks became
+more frequent now that the Government realised that there was danger.
+He knew nothing of Garibaldi's movements; but he was resolved to keep
+his promise as long as he could: to hold out till the chief came. At
+the hour when everything looked most desperate, a messenger arrived in
+his camp with a letter in Garibaldi's handwriting, which bore the date
+of the 16th of May. 'Yesterday,' it ran, we fought and conquered.'
+Never was unexpected news more welcome. Filled with a joy such as few
+men have tasted, Rosalino read the glad tidings to his men. 'The cause
+is won,' he said. 'In a few days, if the enemy's balls respect me, we
+shall be in Palermo.'
+
+Meanwhile Garibaldi had occupied Calatafimi, and was proceeding
+towards Monreale, from which side he contemplated a descent on the
+capital. On the high tableland of Renda he met Rosalino Pilo with his
+reanimated band. That day the Garibaldian army, all told, amounted to
+5,000 men. On the 21st of May, Rosalino was ordered to make a
+reconnaissance in the direction of Monreale; while carrying out this
+order a Neapolitan bullet struck his forehead, causing almost
+instantaneous death. 'I am happy to be able to give my blood to Italy,
+but may heaven be propitious once for all,' he had written when he
+first landed, words realised to the letter.
+
+The Neapolitans were put in high spirits by Rosalino Pilo's death; the
+discomfiture of Calatafimi was forgotten; they represented Garibaldi
+as a mouse that was obligingly walking into a well-laid trap. In fact,
+his position could not have been more critical, but he had recourse to
+a stratagem which saved him. He succeeded in placing the enemy upon a
+completely false scent. Abandoning the idea of reaching Palermo from
+the east (Monreale), he decided to attempt the assault from the south
+(Piana de' Greci and Misilmeri), but, all the while, he continued to
+throw the Sicilian _Picciotti_ on the Monreale route, and gave them
+orders to fire stray shots in every direction and to light innumerable
+camp-fires. These troops frequently came in contact with the
+Neapolitans in trifling skirmishes, and kept their attention so well
+occupied that General Colonna, in command of the force sent in search
+of the 'Filibuster,' did not doubt that the whole Garibaldian army was
+concentrated over Monreale. Garibaldi rapidly moved his own column by
+night to its new base of operations. The ground was steep and
+difficult, and a storm raged all the night; fifteen years later he
+declared that none of his marches in the virgin forests of America was
+so arduous as this. While the Neapolitans remained in ignorance of
+these changes, three English naval officers, guided by a sort of
+sporting dog's instinct, happened to be driving through the village of
+Misilmeri just after Garibaldi established his headquarters in that
+neighbourhood. Of course it was by chance; still, Misilmeri is an odd
+place to go for an afternoon drive, and the escapade ended in the
+issue of a severe warning to Her Majesty's officers and marines to
+keep in future 'within the bounds of the sentinels of the royal
+troops.' Luckily record exists of the experiences of Lieutenant Wilmot
+and his two companions at Misilmeri. Garibaldi, on hearing that three
+English naval officers were in the village, sent to invite them to the
+vineyard where he was taking his dinner. They found him standing in a
+large enclosure in the midst of a group of followers who all, like
+himself, wore the legendary red flannel shirt and grey trousers. Fra
+Pantaleo's brown habit formed the only exception. Several Hungarian
+officers were present, and by his father stood Menotti, then a stout
+youth of nineteen, with his arm in a sling from the severe wound he
+received at Calatafimi. Around were soldiers who looked like mere
+boys. They gazed with delight on the English uniforms. Garibaldi
+requested his guests to be seated and to partake of some
+freshly-gathered strawberries. He spoke of his affection and respect
+for England, and said it was his hope soon to make the acquaintance of
+the British admiral. He mentioned how he had seen and admired from the
+heights the beautiful effect of the salutes fired in honour of the
+Queen's birthday, two days before. He then retired into his tent, made
+of an old blanket stretched over pikes; a child, under the name of a
+sentry, paced before it to keep off the crowd.
+
+To complete the deception of the enemy the Garibaldian artillery,
+under Colonel Orsini, was ordered to make a retrograde march on
+Corleone previous to joining the main force at Misilmeri. Orsini
+narrowly escaped getting caught while executing this movement, and for
+the sake of celerity was obliged to throw his five cannon (including
+one taken at Calatafimi) down deep water courses. He returned to pull
+them out again when the immediate danger was past. General Colonna,
+who followed him closely, was convinced that the whole of the
+Garibaldians were in disorderly retreat as witnessed by the mules and
+waggons purposely abandoned by Orsini along the route. For four days
+Colonna believed that he had Garibaldi flying before him, and sent
+intelligence to that effect to Naples, whence it was published through
+the world. On the fifth day he was immeasurably surprised by hearing
+that Garibaldi had entered Palermo!
+
+It was at early dawn on Whitsunday, the 27th of May, that Garibaldi
+reached the threshold of the capital, and after overcoming the guard
+at Ponte dell' Ammiraglio, pushed on to Porta Termini, the strategic
+key to the city. The royalists, though taken by surprise in the first
+instance, had time to dispose a strong force behind walls and
+barricades before Garibaldi could reach the gate, and it required two
+hours of severe fighting to take the position. Many Red-shirts were
+killed, and Benedetto Cairoli received the severe wound from which he
+never wholly recovered. Success, however, was complete, and the
+Palermitans got up to find, to their frantic joy, the Liberator within
+their gates. According to the old usage their first impulse was to run
+to the belfries in order to sound the tocsin, but they found that the
+royalists had removed the clappers of the bells. Nothing daunted, they
+beat the bells all day with hammers and other implements, and so
+produced an indescribable noise which had a material influence on the
+nerves of the terrified Neapolitan troops. Being disarmed, the only
+other help which the inhabitants could render to their deliverers was
+the erection of barricades.
+
+Even after Garibaldi's entry, it is thought that General Lanza could
+have crushed him in the streets by sheer force of superiority in
+numbers and artillery had he made proper use of his means. However, at
+about three p.m., he chose the less heroic plan of ordering the castle
+and the Neapolitan fleet to bombard the city. Most of his staff
+opposed the decision, and one officer broke his sword, but Lanza was
+inexorable. The measure so exasperated the Palermitans that even had
+it achieved its end for the moment, never after would they have proved
+governable from Naples. Thirteen hundred shells were thrown into the
+city. Lord Palmerston denounced the bombardment and its attendant
+horrors as 'unworthy of our time and of our civilisation.' The
+soldiers helped the work by setting fire to some quarters of the city.
+Among the spots where the shells fell in most abundance was the
+convent of the Sette Angeli. The Garibaldians escorted the nuns to a
+place of safety and carried their more valuable possessions after
+them. The good sisters were charmed by the courtesy with which the
+young Italians performed these duties.
+
+Fighting in the streets went on more or less continuously, and the
+liberators kept their ground, but every hour brought fresh perils. A
+Bavarian regiment arrived to reinforce General Lanza, and the return
+of the Neapolitan column from Corleone was momentarily expected. The
+Garibaldians, and this was the gravest fact of all, had used almost
+their last cartridge. The issue of the struggle was awaited with
+varying sentiments on board the English, French, Austrian, Spanish and
+Sardinian warships at anchor in the bay. Admiral Mundy had placed his
+squadron so close to the land that the ships were in danger of
+suffering from the bombardment, a course attributed to the humane
+desire to afford a refuge for non-combatants, and in fact, the
+officers were soon engaged in entertaining a frightened crowd of
+ladies and children. The _Intrepid_ in particular, was so near the
+Marina that a fair swimmer could have reached it in a few minutes;
+nobody guessed, least of all Garibaldi, that her mission in the mind
+of the British admiral was to save the chiefs own life in what seemed
+the likely case of its being placed in peril.
+
+Admiral Mundy begged the authorities to stop the bombardment before
+the city was destroyed, but Lanza appeared to have no intention of
+yielding to his counsels, and it is still uncertain what at last
+induced him on the 30th of May to sue the Filibuster, hastily
+transformed into his Excellency, for an armistice of twenty-four
+hours. 'God knows,' writes Garibaldi, 'if we had want of it!' The
+royalists had lost nearly the whole city except the palace and its
+surroundings, and, cut off from the sea, they began to feel a scarcity
+of food, but not to a severe extent. It seems most probable that with
+his men panic-stricken and constantly driven back in spite of the
+bombardment, Lanza looked upon the game as lost, when had he known the
+straits to which the Garibaldians were reduced for ammunition, he
+might have considered it as won.
+
+An unforeseen incident now occurred; the royalist column, recalled
+from Corleone, which was largely composed of Bavarians, reached Porta
+Termini and opened a furious fire on the weak Garibaldian detachment
+stationed there. Was it ignorance or bad faith? Lieutenant Wilmot, who
+happened to be passing by, energetically waved his handkerchief and
+shouted that a truce was concluded; the assailants continued the
+attack till an officer of the Neapolitan staff who was in conference
+with Garibaldi at the time hurried to the spot, at his indignant
+request, and ordered them to desist. A few minutes later, Garibaldi
+himself rode up in a wrathful mood, and while he was renewing his
+protests, a shell fell close by him, thrown from a ship which
+re-opened the bombardment on its own account. Lieutenant Wilmot, who
+witnessed the whole affair, was convinced that there was a deliberate
+plan to surprise and capture the Italian chief after he had granted
+the armistice.
+
+At a quarter past two on this eventful day, the 30th of May 1860,
+Garibaldi and the Neapolitan generals, Letizia and Chretien, stepped
+on board the flag-ship _Hannibal_ which Admiral Mundy offered as
+neutral ground for their meeting. Curiously enough, both parties,
+reaching the mole simultaneously, were rowed out in the same ship's
+boat, which was waiting in readiness. The Neapolitans insisted that
+Garibaldi should go on board first, either from courtesy or, as the
+admiral suspected, out of desire to find out whether he would be
+received with military honours. With instinctive tact he had donned
+his old and rather shabby uniform of a major-general in the Sardinian
+army; the admiral's course was, therefore, marked out, and Garibaldi
+received the same salute as the two generals who followed him. After a
+foolish attempt on the part of the Neapolitan officers to make
+themselves disagreeable, which was repressed with dignified decision
+by Admiral Mundy, business began, and things went smoothly till the
+fifth article of the proposed convention came under discussion: 'That
+the municipality should direct a humble petition to his Majesty the
+King expressing the real wants of the city.' 'No,' cried Garibaldi,
+starting to his feet, 'the time for humble petitions to the King, or
+to anyone else, is past; I am the municipality, and I refuse.' General
+Letizia grew excited at this declaration, but afterwards he agreed to
+submit the question of quashing the fifth article to his chief,
+General Lanza. The armistice was prolonged till nine the next morning.
+
+As soon as he was back on shore, Garibaldi issued a manifesto, in
+which he announced that he had refused a proposal dishonouring the
+city, and that to-morrow, at the close of the armistice, he should
+renew hostilities. There was a splendid audacity in the threat; his
+powder was literally exhausted; nothing was left for him to do but to
+die with all his men, and to do this he and they were unquestionably
+ready. The conduct of the citizens was on a level with the occasion.
+As soon as the manifesto came to be known, the inhabitants rushed to
+the Palazzo Pretorio, where the man who had so proudly answered in
+their name, addressed them in these terms: 'People of Palermo; the
+enemy has made me propositions which I judged humiliating to you, and
+knowing that you are ready to bury yourselves under the ruins of your
+city, I refused.' Those who were present say that never did Garibaldi
+seem so great as at that moment. The answer was one deafening shout,
+in which the women and children joined, of 'War! war!' In the evening
+the city was illuminated as on a feast-day.
+
+Once more in history, the game of greatly daring succeeded. Appalled
+by the reports of the dreadful threats emanating from a population
+without arms, and a handful of volunteers without powder, distrustful
+henceforth of the courage of his soldiers, and, if the truth must
+be told, of the fidelity of his fleet, Lanza sent General Letizia
+to Garibaldi betimes, on the 31st of May, with an unconditional
+demand for the continuance of the armistice. A convention was drawn up,
+which conceded the fullest liberty to the royalists to supply their
+material wants, succour the wounded, and, if they desired, embark
+them on board ships with their families for Naples. Garibaldi, always
+humane, had a special tenderness for the victims of that civil strife
+which his soul abhorred, and he never forgot that the enemy was his
+fellow-countryman. His influence sufficed to secure to the royal
+troops an immunity from reprisals which was the more creditable
+because some horrid crimes had been done by miscreants in their ranks
+when they found that they were getting the worst of it in the
+street-fighting. Unfortunately the same mercy was not extended to some
+of the secret agents of Maniscalco, head of the Sicilian police, who,
+discovered in hiding-places by the mob, were murdered before any
+protection could be given them. At the time the act of barbarity was
+judged, even by English observers, with more leniency than it deserved
+(because cruelty can have _no_ excuse), so great was the disgust
+excited by the most odious system of espionage ever put in practice.
+
+The convention bore the signatures of 'Ferdinando Lanza,
+General-in-Chief,' and of 'Francesco Crispi, Secretary of State to the
+Provisional Government of Sicily.' One article provided for the
+consignment of the Royal Mint to the victors; a large sum was stored
+in its coffers, and Garibaldi found himself in the novel position of
+being able to pay his men and the Sicilian _squadre_, and to send
+large orders for arms and ammunition to the Continent.
+
+General Letizia made two journeys to Naples, and on his return from
+the second he came invested with full powers to treat with Garibaldi
+for the evacuation of the city. On the 7th of June, 15,000 royal
+troops marched down to the Marina to the ships that were to take them
+away. At the entrance of the Toledo, the great main street of Palermo,
+Menotti Garibaldi was on guard, on a prancing black charger, with a
+few other Red-shirts of his own age around him, and before this group
+of boys defiled the might and pomp of the disciplined army to which
+King Bomba had given the thoughtful care of a life-time.
+
+The closing formalities which wound up these events at Palermo formed a
+fitting ending to the dramatic scenes which have been briefly narrated.
+On the 19th, General Lanza went on board the _Hannibal_ to take leave of
+the British admiral. He was covered with decorations and attended by his
+brilliant personal staff. There, in the beautiful bay, lay the ship on
+board which he was to sail at sunset, and twenty-four steam transports
+were also there, each filled with Neapolitan troops. The defeated
+general was deeply moved as he walked on to the quarter-deck. 'We have
+been unfortunate,' he said--words never spoken by one officer of
+unquestioned personal courage to another without striking a responsive
+chord. When he quitted the _Hannibal_, the English admiral ordered the
+White Flag of the King of the Two Sicilies to be hoisted at the
+foretop-gallant masthead for the last time in Sicilian waters; and a
+salute of nineteen guns, the salute due to the direct representative or
+_alter ego_ of a sovereign, speeded the parting guest. Thus, wrapped in
+the dignity of misfortune, vanished the last semblance of the graceless
+and treacherous thraldom of the Spanish Bourbons in the capital of
+Sicily. The flag of Italy was run up on the tower of the Semaphore.
+Everywhere the revolution triumphed except at Messina, Milazzo and
+Syracuse. Even Catania, where a rising had been put down after a
+sanguinary struggle, was now evacuated and left to itself.
+
+So the 20th of June dawned, and the Queen's ships in the harbour put
+forth all their bravery of flags in commemoration of her accession,
+which display was naturally interpreted by the Palermitans as a
+compliment to the Dictator, who had fixed that day for calling on the
+British, French and Sardinian admirals and on the captain of the
+United States frigate _Iroquois_. With what honours the American
+captain received him is not recorded; for certain it was with cordial
+goodwill; of the others, Admiral Mundy treated him as on the previous
+occasion; the French admiral affected to consider him a 'simple
+monsieur' who had unexpectedly come to call, whilst Admiral Persano,
+on board the _Maria Adelaide_, gave him a salute of nineteen guns,
+which formed a virtual recognition on the part of Piedmont of his
+assumption of the dictatorship. Cavour had ordered Persano to act on
+his own responsibility as the exigencies of the hour demanded, and the
+admiral knew that these vague instructions assigned him a more
+vigorous policy than the other ministers would have agreed to
+officially. His bold initiative was therefore justified. As some
+severe words will have to be said of Persano in a later chapter, it is
+well to remark here that during his Sicilian command he behaved like a
+thorough patriot, although it was not in his power to render such
+great moral services to freedom as were undoubtedly rendered by
+Admiral Mundy, who at the same time acted with so much tact that his
+neutrality was not impugned, and he even won the equal personal
+gratitude of both parties. On the other hand, the Austrian commodore,
+Baron von Wüllersdorf, succeeded in pleasing no one and no one pleased
+him. He did not expect that the Garibaldians would lose much love to
+him, but he took it unkindly that the royalists fired at his boat with
+himself in it, and the Austrian flag at the stern. In high dudgeon he
+related this grievance to his British colleague, who gently suggested
+that since Austria had always supported the Bourbon system of
+Government, it was hardly strange if the royalists were hurt at
+receiving neither assistance nor even sympathy from the Austrian
+squadron which witnessed their destruction. The remark was acute; even
+Austria was, in fact, tired of the Bourbons of Naples; a portent of
+their not distant doom. But it was not likely that the royalists
+should appreciate the phlegmatic attitude of their erewhile
+protectors.
+
+The concluding military operations in Sicily presented a more arduous
+task than, in the first flush of success, might have been anticipated.
+In the general panic, one, if one only, royalist officer, Colonel Del
+Bosco, turned round and stood at bay. His spirited course was not far
+from undoing all that had been done. Fortunately Garibaldi had
+received important reinforcements. General Medici touched the Sicilian
+shores three days after the evacuation of Palermo with 3500
+volunteers, well-armed and equipped out of the so-called 'Million
+Rifle Fund,' which was formed by popular subscription in the north of
+Italy. The Dictator went as far as Alcamo to meet the hero of the last
+glorious fight of Rome, whom he greeted with delight and affection.
+Later, arrived the third and last expedition, consisting of 1500 men
+under Cosenz, till recently commander-in-chief of the Italian army.
+The Sicilian _squadre_ had been brought into something like military
+organisation; and an Englishman, Colonel Dunne, had raised a picked
+corps of 400 Palermitans which contained, besides its commander,
+between thirty and forty of his countrymen, and was hence called the
+English Regiment. This battalion was ready to do anything and go
+anywhere; it performed excellent work both in Sicily and on the
+mainland.[5]
+
+Garibaldi arranged his forces in three divisions; one, under Türr, was
+sent to Catania; the second, under Bixio, to Girgenti; the third,
+under Medici, was to follow the northern sea-coast towards Messina,
+the strongest position still in the enemy's hands. All three were
+ultimately to converge with a view to the grand object of crossing
+over to the mainland. Medici had 2500 men; the royalists in and about
+Messina could dispose of 15,000. The Garibaldians did not expect much
+opposition till they got near Messina, but when they reached
+Barcelona they heard that the garrison of Milazzo had been reinforced
+by Del Bosco with 4000 men, with the evident design of cutting off
+their passage to Messina. It is said that this move was made in
+consequence of direct communications between that officer and Francis
+II., whose ministers had already decided to abandon the whole island.
+But Del Bosco secretly assured his King that such a measure was not
+necessary, and that he would undertake not only to bar Medici's
+advance, but to march over the dead bodies of the Garibaldians to
+Palermo. Milazzo is a small hilly peninsula, on which stands a fort
+and a little walled city. The spot was well chosen. On the 17th of
+July, Del Bosco attacked the Garibaldian right, and it was not without
+difficulty that Medici retained his positions. Some further
+reinforcements were sent to Del Bosco from Messina, though not so
+numerous as they ought to have been, but they would have almost
+ensured him the victory had not Medici also received help; Cosenz'
+column, and, yet more important, Garibaldi himself with the 1000 men
+he had kept in Palermo, hastening at full speed to the rescue. The
+belligerents were, for once, about equally balanced in numbers when on
+the 20th of July Garibaldi attacked Del Bosco with the purpose of
+driving him on to the tongue of the peninsula, thus cutting him off
+from Messina and leaving the road open. A desperate engagement
+followed. The Neapolitans showed that they could fight if they were
+properly led, and inflicted a loss of 800 in killed and wounded (heavy
+out of a total of 5000) on their gallant opponents. Garibaldi's own
+life was nearly sacrificed. He was standing in a field of prickly
+pears in conversation with Major Missori when a party of the enemy's
+cavalry rode up, the captain of which dealt a violent blow at him with
+his sword, without knowing who it was. Garibaldi coolly parried the
+blow, and struck down his assailant, while Missori shot the three
+nearest dragoons with his revolver. Hearing the noise, other
+Garibaldians hurried up, and the chief was saved. For a long time the
+issue of the battle remained uncertain, and it was only after hours of
+severe fighting that Del Bosco was compelled to recognise his defeat,
+and to take refuge on the projecting strip of land as Garibaldi had
+meant that he should do.
+
+A few days later, four transports arrived in the bay of Milazzo to
+carry Del Bosco and his men to Naples. The ministry had prevailed, and
+the complete abandonment of the island was decreed. General Clary,
+commandant of Messina, informed Garibaldi that he had orders to
+evacuate the town and its outlying forts; the citadel would be also
+handed over if the Dictator would engage not to cross to the mainland,
+but this conditional offer was declined. The citadel of Messina
+therefore remained in the power of the royalists, but on agreement
+that it should not resume hostilities unless attacked. It only
+capitulated in March 1861. Garibaldi reigned over the rest of the
+island. The convention was signed on the 28th of July by Marshal
+Tommaso de Clary for the King of Naples, and Major-General Giacomo
+Medici for the Dictator.
+
+Before following Garibaldi across the Straits, some allusion is called
+for to the general political situation both in Sicily and in Italy.
+And first as regards Sicily. When a government is pulled down another
+must be set up, and the last task is often not the easiest. Garibaldi
+appointed a ministry in which the ruling spirit was Francesco Crispi.
+A Sicilian patriot from his youth, and one of the Thousand, he has
+been judged the man best fitted to direct the helm of United Italy in
+days of unexampled difficulty. This is enough to prove that he was not
+the first-come ignoramus or madman that some people then liked to
+think him. But Crispi had the art of making enemies, nor has he lost
+it. Though volumes have been written on the civil administration under
+the dictatorship, the writers' judgments are so warped by their
+political leanings that it is not easy to get at the truth. It would
+have been strange had no confusion existed, had no false steps been
+made; yet some of the old English residents in Sicily say that the
+island made more real progress during the few months of Garibaldi's
+reign than in all the years that have followed. Towards the end of
+June, Garibaldi appointed Agostino Depretis as Pro-Dictator. Of the
+many decrees formulated and measures adopted at this period,
+Garibaldi, who had many other things to think of, was personally
+responsible only for those of a philanthropic nature. Busy as he was,
+he found time to inquire minutely into the State of the population of
+Palermo, and he was horrified at the ignorance and misery in which the
+poorer classes were plunged. Forthwith, out came a bushel-basket of
+edicts and appeals on behalf of these poor children of the sun. He
+visited the orphan asylum and found that eighty per cent. of the
+inmates died of starvation. One nurse had to provide for the wants of
+four infants. Garibaldi wrote off an address to the ladies of Palermo,
+in which he implored them to interest themselves in the wretched
+little beings created in the image of God, at the sight of whose
+wasted and puny bodies he, an old soldier, had wept. He had money and
+food distributed every morning to the most destitute, at the gates of
+the royal palace, where he lived with a frugality that scandalised the
+aged servants of royalty whom he kept, out of kindness, at their
+posts. Theoretically, he disapproved of indiscriminate almsgiving, but
+in the misery caused by the recent bombardment, such theories could
+not be strictly applied, or, at any rate, Garibaldi was not the man to
+so apply them; whence it happened that though, as _de facto_ head of
+the State, he allowed himself a civil list of eight francs a day, the
+morning had never far advanced before his pockets were empty, and he
+had to borrow small sums from his friends, which next morning were
+faithfully repaid.
+
+When he walked about the town, the women pressed forward to touch the
+hem of his _poncho_, and made their children kneel to receive his
+blessing. On one occasion a convent of nuns, from the youngest novice
+to the elderly abbess, insisted on giving him the kiss of peace. An
+idolatry which would have made anyone else ridiculous; but Garibaldi,
+being altogether simple and unselfconscious, was above ridicule. One
+of the good works that he initiated was the transformation of the
+Foundling Hospital, of which the large funds were turned to little
+account, into a Military School under the direction of his best
+officers. In less than a month the school could turn out two smart
+battalions, and there were few mornings that the Dictator did not go
+to watch the boys at their drill. He encouraged them with the promise
+that before long he would lead them himself to the wars.
+
+Such actions smell sweeter from the dust, than the old story of the
+antagonism that sprang up in those days between Garibaldi and Cavour,
+between Crispi and La Farina. This dualism, as it was called, was the
+fruit of a mutual distrust, which, however much to be deplored, was
+not to be avoided. Although Cavour had a far juster idea of Garibaldi
+than that entertained by his _entourage_, he was nevertheless haunted
+by the fear that the general's revolutionary friends would persuade
+him to depart from his programme of 'Italy and Victor Emmanuel,' and
+embark upon some adventure of a republican complexion. He was also
+afraid that the Government of the Dictator would, by its
+unconventional methods, discredit the Italian cause in the eyes of
+European statesmen. These reasons caused him to desire and to
+endeavour to bring about the immediate annexation of Sicily to the
+Sardinian kingdom. On the other hand, Garibaldi's faith in Cavour had
+ceased with the cession of Nice, and he believed him to be even now
+contemplating the cession of the island of Sardinia as a further sop
+to Cerberus--a project which, if it existed nowhere else, did exist in
+the mind of Napoleon III. With regard to immediate annexation, he had
+no intention of agreeing to it, and for one sufficing reason: had he
+consented he could not have carried the war of liberation across the
+Straits of Messina. His Sicilian army must have laid down their arms
+at a command from Turin were it given. And it would have been given.
+
+La Farina, like Crispi, a Sicilian by birth, arrived suddenly at
+Palermo, representing Cavour, as everyone thought, but in reality he
+represented himself. Strong-willed and prejudiced, he was, in his own
+way, a perfectly good patriot, and he had done all that was in his
+power (though not quite so much as in later years he fancied that he
+had done) to aid and further the expedition of the Thousand. But he
+tried to force the annexation scheme by means so openly hostile to the
+government of the day, that Garibaldi at length sent him on board
+Persano's flag-ship with a request that the admiral would forward him
+to Turin.
+
+After the evacuation of Messina by the royal troops, Garibaldi
+received persuasions of all sorts to let the kingdom of Naples alone.
+On the part of King Francis an offer was made to him of 50,000,000
+francs and the Neapolitan navy in aid of a war for the liberation of
+Venice. Almost simultaneously he received a letter from Victor
+Emmanuel sent by the hand of Count Giulio Litta, in which the writer
+said that in the event of the King of Naples giving up Sicily 'I think
+that our most reasonable course would be to renounce all ulterior
+undertakings against the Neapolitan kingdom.' This was the first
+direct communication between the King and Garibaldi since the latter's
+landing at Marsala; it is to be surmised that of indirect
+communications there had been several, and that they took the form of
+substantial assistance, sent, probably without Cavour being aware of
+it, for Victor Emmanuel carried on his own little conspiracies with a
+remarkable amount of secrecy. What induced him now to address words of
+restraint to Garibaldi in the midway of his work, was the arrival of a
+letter from Napoleon III. in which the Emperor urged him in the
+strongest manner to use his well-known personal influence with the
+general to hold him back. It was not easy for Victor Emmanuel to
+refuse point blank to make the last effort on behalf of his cousin.
+Francis had appointed a constitutional ministry, promised a statute,
+granted an amnesty and engaged to place himself in accord with the
+King of Sardinia, adopted even the tricolor flag with the royal arms
+of Bourbon in the centre. Concessions idle as desperate on the 25th of
+June 1860, the date which they bore. Their only consequence then was
+to facilitate the fall of the dynasty, the usual result of similar
+inspirations of the eleventh hour. Had all this been done on the day
+of the King's accession it might have imperilled Italian unity--not
+now. But the fatal words, 'Too late,' would have fallen with ill grace
+from Victor Emmanuel's lips. Garibaldi answered his royal
+correspondent that when he had made him King of Italy he would be only
+too happy to obey him for the rest of his life.
+
+The King's letter, though delivered after the battle of Milazzo, was
+written before it. That event convinced Cavour, and doubtless the King
+with him, that it was utterly impossible to arrest the tide at Cape
+Faro. It convinced him of a great deal more. He saw that if Piedmont
+continued much longer a passive spectator of the march of events, she
+would lose the lead forever And he prepared to act.
+
+Meanwhile counsels reached Garibaldi from quite a different quarter
+not to abandon Naples, but to go there from Rome instead of by
+Calabria. This daring scheme was favoured by Mazzini, Nicotera,
+Bertani; indeed, by all the republicans. A corps of about 8000
+volunteers was ready to start for a descent on the coast of the Papal
+States. At present it was in the island of Sardinia, awaiting the
+arrival of Garibaldi to assume the command. And now occurred
+Garibaldi's mysterious disappearance from Cape Faro, which at the time
+excited endless curiosity. The truth was, that he actually went to
+Sardinia, but instead of taking command of the volunteers bound for
+Rome, he induced them to alter their plans and to join his Sicilian
+army in the arduous undertaking before it of overthrowing the Bourbons
+in the Neapolitan kingdom. Thus he gained a reinforcement of which he
+knew the enormous need, for though he was willing to face
+difficulties, he was not blind to them, as were many men of the
+extreme party. He also prevented what would have been a step of
+exceeding danger to the national cause, as it would have obliged the
+Sardinian Government to break off all relations with Garibaldi and to
+use force against the patriots in suppressing a movement which, if
+successful, would have brought a hostile French army into Italy.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE MEETING OF THE WATERS
+
+1860
+
+Garibaldi's March on Naples--The Piedmontese in Umbria and the
+Marches--The Volturno--Victor Emmanuel enters Naples.
+
+
+The Italian kingdom is the fruit of the alliance between the strong
+monarchical principles of Piedmont and the dissolvent forces of
+revolution. Whenever either one side or the other, yielding to the
+influence of its individual sympathies or prejudices, failed to
+recognise that thus only, by the essential logic of events, could the
+unity of the country be achieved, the entire edifice was placed in
+danger of falling to the ground before it was completed.
+
+When Garibaldi stood on Cape Faro, conqueror and liberator, clothed in
+a glory not that of Wellington or Moltke, but that of Arthur or Roland
+or the Cid Campeador; the subject of the gossip of the Arabs in their
+tents, of the wild horsemen of the Pampas, of the fishers in ice-bound
+seas; a solar myth, nevertheless certified to be alive in the
+nineteenth century--Cavour understood that if he were left much longer
+single occupant of the field, either he would rush to disaster, which
+would be fatal to Italy, or he would become so powerful that, in the
+event of his being plunged, willingly or unwillingly, by the more
+ardent apostles of revolution into opposition with the King of
+Sardinia, the issue of the contest would be by no means sure. To guard
+against both possibilities, Cavour decided to act, and to act at once.
+He said of the conjuncture in which he was placed that it was not one
+of the most difficult, but the most difficult of his political life.
+But he proved equal to the task, which does the more honour to his
+statesmanship because his first plan failed completely. This plan was,
+that the Neapolitan population should overthrow Francis II., and
+proclaim Victor Emmanuel their King before Garibaldi crossed the
+Straits. But the Neapolitans would not move hand or foot till
+Garibaldi was among them. The fact that when Cavour was convinced
+that the Bourbon dynasty at Naples was about to fall, he tried to
+hasten its collapse by a few weeks or days, was made the most of by
+his enemies as an example of base duplicity. At this distance of time,
+it need only be said that whether his conduct of affairs was
+scrupulous or unscrupulous, it deceived no one, for the Neapolitan
+King and his friends were well convinced that the Filibuster of
+Caprera was their less deadly foe than the Prime Minister of Piedmont.
+
+But of all the foes of Franceschiello, to use the diminutive by which,
+half in pity, half in contempt, the people of Naples remember him, the
+most irrevocably fatal was himself. Two courses were open to him when,
+after losing Sicily, he saw the loss of his other kingdom and of his
+throne staring him in the face. One was to go forth like a man at the
+head of his troops to meet the storm. There had been such a thing as
+loyalty in the Kingdom of Naples; not loyalty of the highest sort, but
+still the sentiment had existed. Who knows what might not have been
+the effect of the presence of their young Sovereign on the broken
+_moral_ of the Neapolitan soldiers? 'Sire, place yourself at the head
+of the 40,000 who remain, and risk a last stake, or, at least, fall
+gloriously after an honourable battle,' was the advice given him by
+his minister of war, Pianell. But his stepmother or somebody
+(certainly not his wife) said that the sacred life of a king ought to
+be kept in cotton wool, like other curiosities. Meanwhile his uncle,
+the Count of Syracuse, proposed the other course which, though not
+heroic, would have been intelligible and even patriotic. This was to
+absolve his subjects from their obedience, and embark on the first
+available ship for foreign parts. Fitting the action to the word, the
+Count himself started for Turin. Francis awaited the doom of those
+who only know how to take half measures.
+
+The demoralisation, not only of the troops but of every branch of the
+public administration in the kingdom of Naples, was not yet a
+certified fact; and the enterprise which Garibaldi at Cape Faro had
+before him, of invading the dominions of a monarch who still had a
+large army, and whose subjects showed not the slightest visible sign
+of being disposed to strike a blow for their own freedom, looked
+rather fabulous than difficult. The only part of the _Regno_ where the
+people were taking action was in the furthermost region of Calabria; a
+fortunate circumstance, since it was the first point to be attacked.
+Calabria, which had contributed its quota to the Thousand, contained
+more patriotic energy than the rest of the _Regno_ put together. On
+the 8th of August, Garibaldi sent over a small vanguard of 200 men
+under a Calabrian officer, with the order to join the Calabrian band
+of insurgents which was hiding in the woods and gorges of Aspromonte,
+and to spread the news that his own coming would not be long delayed.
+The Neapolitan generals had acquired the idea that, instead of these
+few men, a large force had already disembarked, and so turned their
+attention to the mountains; while Garibaldi, after throwing the
+war-ships in the Straits on an equally false scent by various
+intentionally abortive operations, crossed in the night of the 19th
+and effected a landing not far from Reggio, of which, for both moral
+and strategic reasons, it was of vital importance to gain possession
+as soon as possible. He took with him 4500 men, and had between 14,000
+and 15,000 more in readiness to follow. The royalist army in Calabria
+numbered about 27,000, including the garrison of Reggio, 2000 men,
+under the command of General Galotti. On the 20th, Bixio attacked the
+outposts; and on the 21st, Garibaldi fought his way into the
+city--not, however, without meeting a strong resistance on the part of
+the garrison, which might have been continued longer, and even with a
+different result, had not the Calabrian insurgents hurried down from
+Aspromonte on hearing the sound of guns, their sudden appearance
+making the Royalists think that they were being attacked on all sides.
+Next day the castle surrendered, and thus a quantity of valuable war
+material fell into Garibaldi's hands. His luck had not deserted him.
+
+Cosenz and Medici landed their divisions in the night of the 21st of
+August, near Scilla, in the neighbourhood of which General Briganti
+had massed his Neapolitans, 7000 strong. On the 23rd, Briganti found
+himself attacked on the south and north--from Scilla by Cosenz, and
+from Reggio by Garibaldi. His position was critical but not desperate
+had he been able to depend upon his men, who were more numerous than
+their combined opponents; but he saw at once that fighting was the
+last thing they meant to do, and he had no choice but to surrender at
+discretion, almost without firing a shot. Unfortunately, Garibaldi had
+no power to keep prisoners of war, even if he wished to do so. Who was
+to feed and guard them? Now, as subsequently, he bade the disbanded
+troops go where they listed, undertaking to send to Naples by sea as
+many as desired to go there. About a thousand accepted; the rest
+dispersed, forming the first nucleus of the semi-political and wholly
+dastardly brigandage which was later to become the scourge of Southern
+Italy. Their earliest exploit was the savage murder of General
+Briganti, whom they called a traitor, after the fashion of cowards.
+This happened at Mileto on the 25th of August, when Briganti was on
+his way to join General Ghio, who had concentrated 12,000 men on the
+town of Monteleone. Garibaldi, whose sound principle it was to dispose
+of his enemies one by one as they cropped up, prepared to attack Ghio
+with his whole available forces, but he was spared the trouble. He
+came, he saw, and he had no need of conquering, for the soldiers of
+that bad thing that had been Bourbon despotism in the Italian south
+vanished before his path more quickly than the mists of the morning
+before the sun. No grounds that will bear scrutiny have ever been
+adduced for the reactionary explanation of the marvel: to wit, that
+the Neapolitan generals were bribed. By Cavour? The game would have
+been too risky. By 'English bank-notes,' that useful factor in
+European politics that has every pleasing quality except reality? It
+is not apparent how the corruptibility of the generals gives a better
+complexion to the matter, but the writers on the subject who are
+favourable to Francis II. seem to think that it does. Panic-stricken
+these helpless Neapolitan officers may deserve to be called, but they
+were not bought. And they had cause for panic with troops of whose
+untrustworthiness they held the clearest proofs, and with the country
+up in arms against them; for a few days after the taking of Reggio
+this was the case, and this was by far the greatest miracle operated
+by Garibaldi. The populations shook off their apathy, and not in
+Calabria only but in the Puglie, the Basilicata, the Abruzzi, there
+was a sudden awakening as from a too long sleep. When Garibaldi got to
+Monteleone he found that Ghio had evacuated the town. He pursued him
+to Soveria, where, on the 30th of August, the 12,000 men laid down
+their arms. A few days later, another officer, General Caldarelli,
+capitulated with 4000 men. Garibaldi's onward march was a perpetual
+_fête_; everywhere he was received with frantic demonstrations of
+delight. Still there was one point between himself and the capital
+which might reasonably cause him some anxiety. There were 30,000 men
+massed near Salerno, in positions of immense natural strength, where
+they ought to have been able to stop the advance of an army twice the
+size of Garibaldi's. How this obstacle was removed is far more
+suggestive of a scene in a comic opera than of a page in history.
+Colonel Peard, 'Garibaldi's Englishman,' went in advance of the army
+to Eboli, where he was mistaken, as commonly happened, for his chief.
+He was past middle age; very tall, with a magnificent beard and a
+stern, dictatorial air, which answered admirably to the popular idea
+of what the conqueror of Sicily ought to be like, although there was
+no resemblance to the real person. It happened that Eboli was a
+royalist town and beyond the pale of declared revolution--a placid and
+antiquated little city with a forgotten air, where life had been
+probably too easy for its inhabitants to wish for a change. But the
+supposed arrival of the Terrible Man turned everything upside-down.
+Peard, with Commander Forbes, who was following the campaign as a
+non-combatant, rode up to the house of the old Syndic, who instantly
+became their devoted servant. Like wildfire spread the news--the whole
+population besieged the house, brass bands resounded, chinese lanterns
+were hung out; the Church, led by the bishop, hurried to the spot, the
+Law, headed by a judge, closely following, while the wives of the
+local officials appeared in perfectly new bonnets. They all craved an
+audience, and the same answer was given to all: that General
+Garibaldi was much fatigued and was asleep--so he was, but ninety
+miles away. He would be pleased to receive the deputations if they
+would return punctually at half-past three a.m. In the meantime, Peard
+was in an inner room, engaged in cannonading Naples with telegrams. He
+had sent for the telegraph master, who came trembling like an aspen,
+and from whom it was elicited that he had already telegraphed to the
+Home Office at Naples, and to the general commanding at Salerno, that
+Garibaldi was in the town. Peard remarked casually that he supposed he
+knew his life was in jeopardy, and then handed him the following
+message: 'Eboli, 11.30 p.m.--Garibaldi has arrived with 5000 of his
+own men, and 5000 Calabrese are momentarily expected. Disembarkations
+are expected in the bay of Naples and the gulf of Salerno to-night. I
+strongly advise your withdrawing the garrison from the latter place
+without delay, or they will be cut off.' This was despatched to
+General Ulloa, whom rumour reported to have been just made minister of
+war, and was signed in the name of one of his personal friends. The
+rumour was false; but the telegram, of course, reached the desired
+quarter, and the name attached removed all doubt of its genuineness.
+It was hardly sent off when a despatch came from the real war
+minister, asking the telegraph clerk if news had been received of the
+division Caldarelli? To this Peard answered that General Caldarelli
+and his division had gone over to Garibaldi yesterday, and now formed
+part of the national army. Similar information was sent to General
+Scotti at Salerno. Finally, the Syndic of Salerno was asked if he had
+seen anything of the Garibaldian expeditions by sea?
+
+Satisfied with his work, Colonel Peard, who knew that there were
+Neapolitan troops within four miles of Eboli, and who did not think
+that things looked entirely reassuring, decided to beat a somewhat
+precipitous retreat. He told the Syndic that he was going to
+reconnoitre in the direction of Salerno, and that his departure must
+be kept a dead secret, but as soon as he was out of the town he turned
+the horses' heads backwards towards the Garibaldian lines. He was
+still accompanied by Commander Forbes, to whom, during their midnight
+drive, he related his performance on the telegraph wires. 'What on
+earth is the good of all this?' said Forbes; 'you don't imagine they
+will be fools enough to believe it?' 'You will see,' answered the
+colonel, 'it will frighten them to death, and to-morrow they will
+evacuate Salerno.' And, in fact, at four o'clock in the morning the
+evacuation was begun in obedience to telegraphic orders from Naples.
+
+The 30,000 men recalled from Salerno and the adjacent districts
+marched towards Capua. The river Volturno, which runs by that
+fortified town, was now chosen as the line of defence of the Bourbon
+monarchy.
+
+On the 5th of September the King and Queen with the Austrian,
+Prussian, Bavarian and Spanish ministers, left Naples for Gaeta on
+board a Spanish man-of-war. The King issued a proclamation of which
+the language was dignified and even pathetic: it is believed to have
+been written by Liborio Romano, the Prime Minister, who was at the
+same moment betraying his master. Be that as it may, the King's
+farewell to his subjects and fellow-citizens might have touched hearts
+of stone could they but have forgotten the record of the hundred and
+twenty-six years of rule to which he fondly alluded. As it was, in the
+vast crowds that watched him go, there was not found a man who said,
+'God bless him;' not a woman who shed a tear. Had any one of the
+bullets aimed at Ferdinand II. taken fatal effect, it would have been
+a less striking punishment for his political sins than this leaden
+weight of indifference which descended on his son.
+
+In the Royal Proclamation Francis II. stated that he had adhered to
+the great principles of Italian nationality, and had irrevocably
+surrounded his throne with free institutions; nevertheless it is
+alleged on what seems good authority that in those last days he veered
+round to the party of the Queen Dowager, who was doing all she could
+to provoke the lazzaroni to reaction. It was also believed at Naples
+that he left orders for Castel Sant' Elmo to bombard the town if
+Garibaldi entered.
+
+The Dictator was so much pleased with Colonel Peard's telegraphic
+feats at Eboli, that he sent him on to Salerno to repeat the farce.
+Peard's despatches determined the departure of the Court, and it was
+to him (in the belief that he was Garibaldi) that Liborio Romano,
+three hours before the King embarked, addressed the celebrated
+telegram invoking the 'most desired presence' of the Dictator in
+Naples. With this document in his hand, Peard went out with the
+National Guard to meet the real Garibaldi who was on his way from
+Auletta. The Dictator hailed his double with the cry of 'Viva
+Garibaldi,' in which Cosenz and the other officers cordially joined.
+The entry of the Liberator into Salerno was greeted with the wildest
+enthusiasm, the wonderful beauty of the surroundings seeming a fitting
+setting for a scene like the vision of some freedom-loving poet.
+
+Next morning at half-past nine, Garibaldi, with thirteen of his staff,
+started by special train for the capital.
+
+It must be remembered that though the army of Salerno was recalled to
+the Volturno, no troops had been withdrawn from Naples. The sentries
+still paced before the palaces and public offices, the barracks held
+their full complement, Castel Sant' Elmo had all its guns in position.
+These troops quartered in the capital, where everything contributed to
+stimulate their fidelity, were of different stuff from Ghio's or
+Caldarelli's frightened sheep; a White Terror, a repetition of the
+15th of May 1848, would have been much to their mind. There had been
+no actual revolution; nothing officially proved that Naples had thrown
+off the royal allegiance. Such were the strange circumstances under
+which Garibaldi, without a single battalion, came to take possession
+of a city of 300,000 inhabitants.
+
+Courage of this sort either does not exist, or it is supremely
+unconscious. It is likely, therefore, that the Dictator gave no
+thought to the enormous risk he ran, but his passage from the station
+to the palace of the Foresteria, where he descended, was a bad
+quarter-of-an-hour to the friends who followed him, and to whom his
+life seemed the point on which Italian regeneration yet hung. A chance
+shot fired by some Royalist fanatic, and who could measure the result?
+As he passed under the muzzle of the guns at the opening of the
+Toledo, he gave the order: 'Drive slower, slower--more slowly still.'
+And he rose and stood up for a moment in the carriage with his arms
+crossed. The artillerymen, who had begun to make a kind of hostile
+demonstration, changed their minds and saluted. The sullen looks of
+the royal soldiers was the only jarring note in the display of
+intoxicating joy with which the Neapolitans welcomed the bringer of
+their freedom; freedom all too easily had, for if anything could have
+purified the Neapolitans from the evil influences of servitude, it
+would have been the necessity of paying dearly for their liberties.
+The delirium in the streets lasted for several days and nights; what
+the consequences would have been of such a state of madness under a
+paler sky, it is not pleasant to reflect; here, at least, there were
+no robberies, no drunken person was seen; if there were some murders,
+a careful inquiry made by an Englishman showed that the number was the
+same as the average number of street-murders through the year. At
+night, when the word passed 'Il Dittatore dorme,' it was enough to
+clear the streets as if by magic near the palace (a private one) where
+in a sixth floor room the idol of the hour slept. The National Guard,
+who were the sole guardians of order, behaved admirably.
+
+For a few days such of the townsfolk as had not completely lost their
+heads, underwent acute anxiety as they gazed at the frowning pile of
+Sant' Elmo; but finally the officers in command of the garrison
+decided to capitulate, contrary, in this instance, to the wishes of
+the soldiery. The royal troops marched out of the city towards Capua
+on the 11th of September.
+
+Garibaldi's first act had been to hand over the Neapolitan fleet in
+the bay to Admiral Persano, a solemn reassertion of his loyalty to
+Victor Emmanuel, whom, in his every utterance, he held up to the
+people as the best of kings and the father of his country. He
+instructed his Neapolitan officer, Cosenz, to form a ministry, and
+wrote to the Marquis Pallavicini, the prisoner of Spielberg, inviting
+him to become Pro-Dictator. Had a man of authority like Pallavicini,
+who also entirely possessed the Dictator's confidence, at once assumed
+that office, much of the friction which followed might have been
+spared. But he did not enter into his functions till October, and in
+the meanwhile the 'dualism' of Sicily broke out in an exaggerated
+form, each side sincerely believing the other to be on the verge of
+ruining the country to which they were both sincerely attached. The
+appointment of Dr Bertani as Secretary of the Dictatorship gave rise
+to controversies which even now, when the grave has closed over the
+actors, are hardly at rest. It is time that they should be. Apart from
+the war about persons, some of them not very wise persons, and apart
+from the fears entertained at Turin, that the freeing of the Two
+Sicilies would drift into a republican movement: fears which were
+invincible, though, as far as they regarded Garibaldi, they were
+neither just nor generous, the question resolved itself, as was the
+case in Sicily, into whether the unification of Italy was to go on or
+whether it was to halt? Garibaldi refused to give up Sicily to the
+King's government because he intended making it the base for the
+liberation of Naples. Events had justified him. He now refused to hand
+over Naples because he intended making it the base for the liberation
+of Rome. It has been seen that he and he alone prevented an attempt at
+a landing in the Papal states from being made in the month of August.
+In deciding, however, that it was expedient to finish one enterprise
+before beginning another, he did not give up Rome: he merely chose
+what he thought a safer road to go there. And he now declared without
+the least concealment that he intended to proclaim Victor Emmanuel
+King of Italy from the Quirinal.
+
+Would events have justified him again? There was a French garrison in
+Rome; this, to Cavour, seemed a conclusive answer.
+
+Cavour was engaged on a series of measures, unscrupulous manoeuvres as
+some have called them, masterpieces of statesmanship as they have been
+described by others, by which he got back the reins of the Italian
+team into his own hands. The plan of an annexionist revolution in
+Naples before Garibaldi arrived had failed. So much discontent was
+felt at the apparent indifference, or, at least, 'masterly inactivity'
+of the Sardinian government in presence of the great struggle in the
+south that Cavour began to be afraid of a revolution breaking out in
+quite a different quarter, in Victor Emmanuel's own kingdom. It was at
+this critical juncture that he resolved to invade the Papal states,
+and take possession of the Province of Umbria and the Marches of
+Ancona.
+
+The decision was one of extreme boldness. For three months Cavour had
+been stormed at by all the Foreign Ministers in Turin, excepting Sir
+James Hudson, but, as he wrote to the Marquis E. D'Azeglio: 'I shall
+not draw back save before fleets and armies.'
+
+Austria, France, Spain, Russia and Prussia now broke off diplomatic
+relations with Sardinia. What would be their next act? The danger of
+Austria intervening was smaller than it then appeared; Austria was too
+much embarrassed in her own house, and especially in Hungary, for her
+to covet adventures in Italy. But the French Government did, in the
+plainest terms, threaten to intervene, and this notwithstanding that
+the Emperor himself appeared to be convinced by Cavour's argument,
+that the proposed scheme was the only means of checking the march of
+revolution, which from Rome might spread to Paris. By announcing one
+line of policy in public and another in private, Napoleon left the
+door open to adopt either one or the other, according to the
+development of events. In the sequel, the Papal party had a right to
+say that he lured them to their destruction, as their plan of
+operations, and in particular the defence of Ancona, was undertaken in
+the distinct expectation of being supported by the French fleet.
+
+As early as April 1860, the Pope invited the Orleanist General
+Lamoricière to organise and command the forces for the defence of the
+Temporal Power, which he had summoned from the four quarters of the
+Catholic world. 5000 men, more or less, answered the call; they came
+chiefly from France, Belgium and Ireland. Of his own subjects the Pope
+had 10,000 under arms. In a proclamation, issued on assuming the
+command, Lamoricière compared the Italian movement with Islamism, a
+comparison which aroused intense exasperation in Italy, where the
+rally of a foreign crusade against the object which was nearest to
+Italian hearts, and for which so many of the best Italians had
+suffered and died, could not but call up feelings which in their turn
+were expressed in no moderate language. It was a fresh illustration of
+the old truth--that the Papal throne existed only by force of foreign
+arms, foreign influence. Lamoricière's 'mercenaries' did much harm to
+the Pope's cause by bringing home this truth once more to the minds of
+all. That the corps contained some of the bluest blood of France, that
+there were good young men in it, who thought heaven the sure reward
+for death in defence of dominions painfully added in the course of
+centuries by devices not heavenly to the original patrimony of Peter,
+did not and could not reconcile the Italians to the defiance thrown
+down to them by a band of strangers in their own country.
+
+Before the opening of hostilities, Victor Emmanuel offered Pius IX. to
+assume the administration of the Papal states (barring Rome) while
+leaving the nominal sovereignty to the Pope. Nothing came of the
+proposal, which was followed by a formal demand for the dissolution of
+Lamoricière's army, and an intimation that the Sardinian troops would
+intervene were force used to put down risings within the Papal border.
+On the 11th of September, symptoms of revolution having meanwhile
+broken out in the Marches, General Fanti in command of 35,000 men
+crossed the frontier. Half these forces under Fanti himself were
+directed on Perugia; the other half under Cialdini marched towards
+Ancona. The garrisons of Perugia and Spoleto were compelled to
+surrender, and Lamoricière found his communications cut off, so that
+he could only reach the last fortress in the power of the Papal
+troops, Ancona, by fighting his way through Cialdini's division, which
+by rapid marches had reached the heights of Castelfidardo. His men
+passed the day of the 17th in religious exercises, and in going to
+confession; the vicinity of the Holy House of Loreto, brought hither
+by angels from Bethlehem, filled the young Breton soldiers with
+transports of religious fervour. Lamoricière had taken from the Santa
+Casa some of the flags of the victors of Lepanto to wave over his
+columns. In the battle of the next day the French fought with the
+gallantry of the Vendéans whose descendants they were, and the Irish
+behaved as Irishmen generally behave under fire, but the Swiss and
+Romans mostly fought ill or not at all. Lamoricière excused the
+conduct of the latter on the ground that they were young troops; it is
+likely that they had but little eagerness to fire on their
+fellow-countrymen. Being Italians, and above all being Romans, they
+assuredly were not sustained by one scrap of the mystical enthusiasm
+of the French: such a state of mind would have been incomprehensible
+to them. They knew that so far as dogmas went Victor Emmanuel was as
+good a Catholic as the Pope. It is surprising that with part of his
+force demoralised Lamoricière was still able to hold his own for three
+or four hours. General Pimodan and many of the French officers were
+killed; Lamoricière could say truly: 'All the best names of France are
+left on the battlefield.'
+
+After the victory of Castelfidardo, the Sardinian attack was
+concentrated on Ancona. Admiral Persano brought the squadron from
+Naples to co-operate with Fanti's land forces, and the fortress
+capitulated on the 29th of September. The campaign had lasted eighteen
+days. The Piedmontese held Umbria and the Marches, and a road was thus
+opened for the army of Victor Emmanuel to march to Naples. During the
+progress of these events Garibaldi was preparing for the final
+struggle on the Volturno. He had not yet given up the hope of carrying
+his victorious arms to the Capitol, and from the Capitol to the Square
+of St Mark. The whole republican party, and Mazzini himself, who had
+arrived in Naples, ardently adhered to this programme. Their argument
+was not without force, risk or no risk, when would there be another
+opportunity as good as the present? It was very well for Cavour to
+look forward, as he did to the day of his death, to a pacific solution
+of the Roman question; Mazzini saw--in which he was far more
+clear-sighted than Cavour--that such a solution would never take
+place. His arrival at Naples caused alarm at Turin, both on account of
+his presumed influence over Garibaldi, the extent of which was much
+exaggerated, and from the terror his name spread among European
+diplomatists. The Dictator was asked to proscribe the man whose latest
+act had been to give the last 30,000 francs he possessed in the world
+to the expenses of the Calabrian campaign. He refused to do this. 'How
+could I have insisted upon sending Mazzini into exile when he has done
+so much for Italian unity?' he said afterwards to Victor Emmanuel, who
+agreed that he was right. However, he allowed the Pro-Dictator
+Pallavicini to write a letter to Mazzini, inviting him to show his
+generosity by spontaneously leaving Naples in order to remove the
+unjust fears occasioned by his presence. Mazzini replied, as he had a
+perfect right to do, that every citizen is entitled to remain in a
+free country as long as he does not break the laws. And so the
+incident closed.
+
+While the Party of Action urged Garibaldi not to give up Rome, other
+influences were brought to bear on him in the opposite sense, and
+especially that of the English Government, which instructed Admiral
+Mundy to arrange a 'chance' meeting between the Dictator and the
+English Minister at Naples, Mr. Elliot, on board the flagship
+_Hannibal_. Mr. Elliot pointed out the likelihood of a European war
+arising from an attack on Venice, and the certainty of French
+intervention in case of a revolutionary dash on Rome. Garibaldi
+replied that Rome was an Italian city, and that neither the Emperor
+nor anyone else had a right to keep him out of it. 'He was evidently,'
+writes Admiral Mundy in reporting the interview, 'not to be swayed by
+any dictates of prudence.'
+
+In Sicily, the rival factions were bringing about a state approaching
+anarchy, but a flying visit from Garibaldi in the middle of September
+averted the storm. At this time, Garibaldi's headquarters were at
+Caserta, in the vast palace where Ferdinand II. breathed his last. The
+Garibaldian and the Royal armies lay face to face with one another,
+and each was engaged in completing its preparations. It might have
+been expected, and for a moment it seems that Garibaldi did expect,
+that after the solemn collapse of the Neapolitan army south of Naples,
+the comedy was now only awaiting its final act and the fall of the
+curtain. But it soon became apparent that, instead of the last act of
+a comedy, the next might be the first of a tragedy. The troops
+concentrated on the right bank of the Volturno amounted to 35,000,
+with 6000 garrisoning Capua. About 15,000 more formed the reserves and
+the garrison of Gaeta. The position on the Volturno was favourable to
+the Royalists; the fortress of Capua on the left bank gave them a free
+passage to and fro, while the Volturno, which is rather wide and very
+deep, formed a grave impediment to the advance of their opponents. But
+the chief reason why there was a serious possibility of the fortunes
+of war being reversed, lay in the fact that the _moral_ of these
+troops was good. All the picked regiments of the army were here,
+including 2500 cavalry. The men were ashamed of the stampede from the
+south, and were sincerely anxious to take their revenge. Thus the
+Neapolitan plan of a pitched battle and a victorious march on Naples
+was by no means foredoomed, on the face of things, to failure.
+
+In Garibaldi's short absence at Palermo, the Southern Army (as he now
+called his forces) was left under the command of the Hungarian General
+Türr, as brave an officer as ever lived, and a fast friend to Italy,
+but his merits do not undo the fact that as soon as the Dictator's
+back was turned, everything got into a muddle. Pontoon bridges had
+been thrown across the river at four points; availing himself of one
+of these, Türr crossed the Volturno with a view to taking up a
+position on the right bank at a place called Caiazzo, a step which, if
+attempted at all, ought to have been supported by a very strong force.
+On the 19th of September, Caiazzo was actually taken, but on the 21st
+the Royalists came out of Capua with 3000 men and defeated with great
+loss the thousand or fewer Garibaldians charged with its defence, only
+a small number of whom were able to recross the bridges and join their
+companions. The saddest part of this adventure was the slaughter of
+nearly the whole of the boys' company--lads under fifteen, who had run
+away from home or school to fight with Garibaldi. Fight they did for
+five mortal hours, with the heroism of veterans or of children. Only
+about twenty were left.
+
+When Garibaldi returned from Sicily, this was the first news he heard,
+and it was not cheering. The Royalists, who thought they had won
+another Waterloo, were in the wildest spirits, and the march on Naples
+was talked of in their camp as being as good as accomplished.
+
+Garibaldi's lines were spread in the shape of a semi-circle, of which
+the two ends started from Santa Maria on the left, and Maddaloni on
+the right, with Castel Morone at the apex. The country is hilly, and
+this fact, together with the great distance covered, divided the
+20,000 men into a number of practically distinct bodies, each of
+which, in the decisive battle, had to fight its own fight. Here and
+there improvised fortifications were thrown up. Garibaldi was aware
+that his line of battle was perilously extended, but the necessity of
+blocking all the roads and by-ways which led to Naples, dictated
+tactics which he was the last to defend.
+
+The best policy for the Royalists would have been to bring
+overwhelming numbers to bear on a single point, and, breaking the
+line, to march straight on the capital. They were doubtless afraid of
+an advance which would have left a portion of the Garibaldian army
+unbeaten in their rear. Nevertheless, of the chances that remained to
+them, this was the best. At Naples there were no Garibaldian troops to
+speak of, and the powers of reaction had been working night and day to
+procure for the rightful King the reception due to a saviour of
+society. Perhaps they would not have completely failed. There were
+nobles who were sulking, shopkeepers who were frightened,
+professional beggars with whom the Dictator had opened a fierce but
+unequal contest, for no blue-bottle fly is more difficult to tackle
+than a genuine Neapolitan mendicant; there were priests who, though
+not by any means all unpatriotic, were beginning to be scared by
+Garibaldi's gift of a piece of land for the erection of an English
+church, and by the sale of Diodati's Bible in the streets. And
+finally, there was the Carrozzella driver whom a Garibaldian officer
+had struck because he beat his horse. These individuals formed a
+nucleus respectably numerous, if not otherwise respectable, of anxious
+watchers for the Happy Return.
+
+If anyone question the fairness of this catalogue of the partisans of
+the fallen dynasty, the answer is, that had their ranks contained
+worthier elements, they would not have carefully reserved the
+demonstration of their allegiance till the King should prove that he
+had the right of the strongest.
+
+Towards five o'clock in the morning of the 1st of October, the
+royalists, who crossed the river in three columns, fired the first
+shots, and the fight soon became general. King Francis had come from
+Gaeta to Capua to witness what was meant to be an auspicious
+celebration of his birthday. General Ritucci held the chief command.
+Of the Garibaldians, Milbitz and Medici commanded the left wing (Santa
+Maria and Sant' Angelo), and Bixio the right (Maddaloni), while Castel
+Morone, through which a road led to Caserta, was entrusted to Colonel
+Pilade Bronzetti and three hundred picked volunteers. Garibaldi's own
+headquarters was with the reserves at Caserta, but he appeared, as if
+by magic, at all parts of the line during the day, sometimes bringing
+up reinforcements, sometimes almost alone, always arriving at the
+nick of time whenever things looked serious, to help, direct and
+reanimate the men. A dozen times in these journeys by the rugged
+mountain paths he narrowly escaped falling into the enemy's hands. No
+trace of uneasiness was visible on his placid face; there was,
+however, more than enough to make a man uneasy. In the early part of
+the battle, both Medici and Bixio were pushed back from their
+positions. Only Pilade Bronzetti with his handful of Lombard
+Bersaglieri never swerved, and held in check an entire Neapolitan
+column, whose commander (Perrone) has been blamed for wasting so much
+time in trying to take that position instead of joining his 2000 men
+to the troops attacking Bixio, but his object was to march on Caserta,
+where his appearance might have caused very serious embarrassment.
+
+Up to midday the Royalists advanced, not fast, indeed, but surely.
+They fired all the buildings on their path, and amongst others one in
+which there were thirty wounded Garibaldians who were burned to death.
+It was said to be an accident, but such accidents had better not
+happen. Victory seemed assured to them. It is not disputed that on
+this occasion they fought well, and they had all the advantages of
+ground, numbers and artillery. But the volunteers, also, were at their
+best; they surpassed themselves. If every man of them had not shown
+the best military qualities, skill, resource, the power of recovery,
+Francis II. would have slept that night at Naples.
+
+Medici acted with splendid firmness, but at the most critical moment
+he had Garibaldi by his side. Bixio was left to fight his separate
+battle unaided (so great was the chief's confidence in him), and
+consummately well he fought it. After the middle of the day, the
+Garibaldians began to retake their positions, and at some points to
+assume the offensive; still it was five o'clock before Garibaldi could
+send his famous despatch to Naples: 'Victory along all the line.' The
+battle had lasted ten hours.
+
+The Sicilians and Calabrese under Dunne, who stemmed the first onset
+at Casa Brucciata, and under Eber, whose desperate charge at Porta
+Capua ushered in the changing fortunes of the day, rivalled the North
+Italians in steadiness and in dash. The French company and the
+Hungarian Legion covered themselves with glory; it was a pity there
+was not the English brigade, 600 strong, which mismanaged to arrive at
+Naples the day after the fair. Had they been in time for the fight,
+they would doubtless have left a brighter record than the only one
+which they did leave: that of being out of place in a country where
+wine was cheap.
+
+Putting aside Dunne and a few other English officers, England was
+represented on the Volturno by three or four Royal Marines who had
+slipped away from their ship, the _Renown_, and were come over to see
+the 'fun.' It seems that they did ask for rifles, but they did not get
+them, their martial deeds consisting in the help they gave in dragging
+off two captured field-pieces. Never did an exploit cause so much
+discussion in proportion with its importance; the Neapolitan Minister
+in London informed Lord John Russell that a body of armed men from the
+British fleet had been sent by Admiral Mundy to serve pieces of
+Garibaldian artillery.
+
+Of all the striking incidents of the day, that which should be
+remembered while Italy endures, was the defence of the hillock of
+Castel Morone by Bronzetti and his Lombards. Their invincible courage
+contributed in no small degree to the final result. One man to eight,
+they held their own for ten hours; when summoned to yield by the
+Neapolitan officer, who could not help admiring his courage, Pilade
+Bronzetti replied: 'Soldiers of liberty never surrender!' It was only
+in the moment of victory that Perrone passed over their dead bodies
+and uselessly advanced--which cost him dear on the morrow.
+
+The Garibaldian losses were 2000 killed and wounded and 150 prisoners;
+the Neapolitans had the same number placed _hors de combat_, and lost
+3000 prisoners.
+
+Garibaldi had none but his own men; the report that the battle had
+been won by soldiers of the Sardinian army who arrived in the
+afternoon was false, because they did not arrive till next day, when a
+battalion of Piedmontese Bersaglieri took part in defeating Perrone's
+column, which (it is hard to say with what idea) descended nearly to
+Caserta, as its commander wished to do on the first. Did Perrone not
+know of the defeat of yesterday? His column was surrounded and all the
+men were taken prisoners.
+
+After the battle of the Volturno the belligerents re-occupied the
+positions on the right and left banks of that river which they held
+before. Military critics speculate as to why Garibaldi did not follow
+up his advantage, and the opinion seems general that he did not feel
+himself strong enough to do so. The fortress of Capua was a serious
+obstacle, but Garibaldi was not accustomed to attach much weight to
+obstacles whatever they were, and it is pretty certain that he would
+have gone in pursuit had he not received a letter from Victor
+Emmanuel, who bade him wait till he came.
+
+By this time he had abandoned all thoughts of marching on Rome. From
+the moment that the King's army started for Naples he understood that
+persistence in the Roman programme would lead to something graver than
+a war of words with the authorities at Turin. Always positive, he
+gathered some consolation from the gain to Italy of two Roman
+provinces, Umbria and the Marches, and trusted the future with the
+larger hope.
+
+Constitutional government triumphed over the old absolutism and over
+the new dictatorship. And here it may be noted which Constitutional
+government, which never had a more sincere and faithful votary than
+Cavour, found no favour with Garibaldi at any period of his life. Its
+hampering restrictions, its slow processes, irritated his mind,
+intolerant of constraint, and he failed to see that this cumbersome
+mechanism still gives the best, if not the only, guarantee for the
+maintenance of freedom. The sudden transition of Southern Italy from a
+corrupt despotism to free institutions brought with it a train of
+evils, but there was no alternative. If Italy was to be one, all parts
+of it must be placed under the same laws, and that at once.
+
+On the 11th of October the Sardinian parliament sitting at Turin
+passed all but unanimously the motion authorising the King's
+Government to accept the annexation of those Italian provinces which
+manifested, by universal suffrage, their desire to form part of the
+Constitutional Monarchy. Cavour's speech on this occasion was
+memorable: 'Rome,' he said, 'would inevitably become the splendid
+capital of the Italian kingdom, but that great result would be reached
+by means of moral force; it was impossible that enlightened Catholics
+should not end by recognising that the Head of Catholicism would
+exercise his high office with truer freedom and independence guarded
+by the love and respect of 22,000,000 Italians than entrenched behind
+25,000 bayonets.' Of Venice, the martyr-city, he said 'that public
+opinion was rapidly turning against its retention by Austria, and that
+when the great majority of Germans refused to be any longer
+accomplices in its subjection, that subjection would be brought to a
+close either by force of arms or by pacific negotiations.'
+
+The words were strangely prescient at a time when the Prince Regent of
+Prussia was making most melancholy wails over the fall of the
+Neapolitan King. The Prussian Government issued a formal protest,
+which Cavour met by observing that Prussia, of all Powers, had the
+least reason to object, as Piedmont was simply setting her an example
+which she ought to follow and would follow, the mission of the two
+nations being identical. He already thought of Prussia as an ally:
+'Never more French alliances,' he was once heard to say.
+
+On the same day, the 11th of October, Victor Emmanuel crossed the
+Neapolitan frontier at the head of the army which Cialdini led to
+victory at Castelfidardo. The King published a proclamation, in which
+he said that he closed the era of revolution in Italy. Other bodies of
+Piedmontese troops had been despatched by sea to Naples and
+Manfredonia. The passage of the Piedmontese troops over the Abruzzi
+mountains was opposed both by a division of the Bourbon army and by
+armed peasants, who burnt a man alive at a place called Isernia; but
+their advance was not long delayed.
+
+The Neapolitans now began to retire from the right bank of the
+Volturno, and retreat towards the Garigliano, their last line of
+defence. Garibaldi crossed the river with 5000 men, and moved in the
+direction by which the vanguard of the Piedmontese was expected to
+arrive. At daybreak on the 26th of October, near Teano, the
+Piedmontese came in sight. Garibaldi, who had dismounted, walked up
+to Victor Emmanuel and said: 'Hail, King of Italy!'
+
+Once before the title was given to a prince of the House of Savoy--to
+Charles Albert, in the bitterest irony by the Austrian officers who
+saw him flying from his friends and country by order of his implacable
+uncle. A change had come since then.
+
+Victor Emmanuel answered simply: 'Thanks,' and remained talking for a
+quarter of an hour in the particularly kind and affectionate manner he
+used with Garibaldi, but at the end of the interview, when the leader
+of the volunteers asked that in the imminent battle on the Garigliano
+they might have the honour of occupying the front line, he received
+the reply: 'Your troops are tired, mine are fresh, it is my turn now.'
+
+Garibaldi said sadly that evening to an English friend: 'They have
+sent us to the rear.' It was the first sign of the ungenerous
+treatment meted out to the Garibaldian array to which the King lent
+himself more than he ought to have done. He promised to be present on
+the 6th of November, when Garibaldi reviewed his volunteers, but after
+keeping them waiting, sent a message to say that he could not come.
+The last meeting of all between the chief and his faithful followers
+was at Naples, on the occasion of the distribution of medals to as
+many as were left of the Thousand--less than half. In all his farewell
+addresses the same note sounded: 'We have done much in a short
+time.... I thank you in the name of our country.... We shall meet
+again.'
+
+The plebiscites in Umbria and the Marches and in the kingdoms of
+Naples and Sicily took place in October. The formula adopted at Naples
+was more broadly framed than in the previous plebiscites; it ran:
+'The people desire an united Italy under the sceptre of the House of
+Savoy.' The vote was almost unanimous.
+
+On the 7th of November, Victor Emmanuel made his entry into Naples,
+with Garibaldi at his side. Next day, in the great throne-room of the
+palace, the king-maker delivered to the King the plebiscites of the
+Two Sicilies.
+
+Garibaldi had nothing more to do except to pay a last visit to Admiral
+Mundy, whose flagship still lay at anchor in the bay. This duty was
+performed in the grey dawn of the 9th of November. 'There is the ship
+which is to carry me away to my island home,' he said, pointing to an
+American merchant vessel, 'but, Admiral, I could not depart without
+paying you a farewell visit. Your conduct to me since our first
+meeting at Palermo has been so kind, so generous, that it can never be
+erased from my memory; it is engraven there indelibly--it will last my
+life.'
+
+On leaving the flagship he rowed straight to the American vessel,
+which soon afterwards steamed out of the bay. The parting salute fired
+by the guns of the _Hannibal_ was all the pomp that attended his
+departure. Several hours later the people of Naples knew that their
+liberator had gone to dig up the potatoes which he had planted in the
+spring.
+
+By Cavour's advice, Victor Emmanuel offered Garibaldi a dukedom and
+the Collar of the Annunziata, which confers the rank of cousin to the
+King, besides riches to support these honours. He refused everything,
+and returned to Caprera poorer than when he left it.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+BEGINNINGS OF THE ITALIAN KINGDOM
+
+1860-1861
+
+Beginnings of the Italian Kingdom--The Fall of Gaeta--Political
+Brigandage--The Proclamation of the Italian Kingdom--Cavour's Death.
+
+
+The Neapolitan army retreated, as has been already stated, beyond the
+Garigliano. Capua, isolated and surrounded, could render no material
+service to the royal cause; it capitulated on the 2nd of November,
+though not until the town had been bombarded for forty-eight hours.
+The siege was witnessed by Victor Emmanuel, who said to General Delia
+Rocca: 'It breaks my heart to think that we are sending death and
+destruction into an Italian town.' Two days after the surrender of
+Capua, Cialdini threw a bridge over the Garigliano near its mouth, an
+operation covered by the guns of Admiral Persano's squadron. His first
+attempt on the 29th of October had met with a decided repulse, another
+proof that this last remnant of the Neapolitan army was not an enemy
+to be despised. The second attempt, however, was successful; part of
+the Neapolitans fell back upon Gaeta, and the other part fled over the
+Papal frontier.
+
+Gaeta, the refuge of the Pope and the fugitive Princes in 1848, now
+became the ultimate rock of defence of the Bourbon dynasty. The
+position of the fortress is extremely strong and not unlike Gibraltar
+in its main features. A headland running out into the sea and rising
+to a height of three or four hundred feet, it is divided by a strip of
+sand from the shore-line. The principal defences were then composed of
+a triple semi-circle of ditches and ramparts one higher than the
+other. Had the country been flat the difficulties of the siege would
+have been much increased; its hilly character allowed Cialdini to fix
+his batteries on heights which commanded the top of the Gaeta hill.
+But to profit by this, the Piedmontese were obliged to make fourteen
+miles of roads by which to bring up their artillery. For a month,
+10,000 out of the 20,000 besiegers were at work with the spade. The
+defending force amounted to 11,000 men, and was commanded by General
+Ritucci. From the first, it was certain that the obstinate stand made
+at Gaeta could only result in what Lord John Russell called a useless
+effusion of blood; nevertheless it seems to have been prompted by a
+real belief that Francis would still recover his kingdom. The
+precedent of his father's return from Gaeta may have strengthened the
+King's illusion; every day he received highly-coloured reports of a
+gathering reaction, and as the French fleet in the bay prevented
+Admiral Persano from attacking from the sea, he believed that the time
+which he could hold out was indefinite. This policy of the French
+Government need not have greatly cheered him, as its motive was less
+to help Francis than to prepare the way, by hampering the Piedmontese,
+for a little fishing in troubled waters. Prince Murat, descendant of
+the _Beau Sabreur_, was busy writing proclamations to remind the world
+that if Francis were impossible and Victor Emmanuel 'wanted finish,'
+there was an eligible young man ready to sacrifice the charms of the
+Boulevards for the cares of kingship.
+
+On the representations of the British Government the Emperor withdrew
+his fleet in January, advising Francis II. to renounce a hopeless
+resistance. But at this eleventh hour the King had adopted the
+principle of 'no surrender,' and he meant to stick to it. It is
+difficult to blame him; at anyrate, much more serious is the blame due
+to the methods of warfare which he was to adopt or to approve
+thereafter. His young Queen, who was frequently seen on the ramparts
+encouraging the artillerymen at their guns, had probably much to do
+with his virile resolution. The fortress was now attacked by land and
+by sea, and the bursting of a powder-magazine inside the walls
+hastened its doom. On the 15th of January the Neapolitans laid down
+their arms, the King having left his dominions by sea. The first act
+of the conquerors in the half-ruined town was to attend a mass for the
+repose of the souls of the brave men, friends and foes, who had fallen
+during the siege. Noisy rejoicings would have been unseemly, for the
+vanquished were fellow-countrymen.
+
+The telegram announcing the fall of Gaeta went to Caprera; Garibaldi
+read it, and a weight was taken off his mind. 'Civil war is at an
+end,' he announced to the little party round the supper-table;
+'Cialdini with our army is in Gaeta; now the Italians will not cut one
+another's throats any more.' Later in the evening he seemed so
+depressed that they thought him ill; Colonel Vecchj went to his
+bedside to discover what was the matter. He found him reading the
+_Times_, and inquired why he had become so suddenly sad. After a
+pause, Garibaldi said: 'Poor boy! Born at the foot of a throne and
+perhaps not by his own fault, hurled from it. He too will have to feel
+the bitterness of exile without preparation.' 'Is that all?' asked
+Vecchj. 'Do you think it nothing?' was the answer. 'Why then,'
+persisted Vecchj, half in jest, 'did you go to Marsala?' 'It was the
+duty of us all to go,' Garibaldi said quickly, 'else how could there
+have been one Italy?'
+
+Francis II. would have been happy had he found counsellors to persuade
+him to keep pure such titles to sympathy as he then possessed.
+Decorum, if not humanity, should have urged him to retire, surrounded
+by the solitary flash of glory cast on his fallen cause by the brave
+defence of Gaeta. But the revolution, the new Islam, if it could not
+be conquered must be made to suffer for its triumph. Hence the exiled
+King was advised to call in murder, pillage and rapine as
+accomplices. The political brigandage which followed the downfall of
+the King of the Two Sicilies began after the battle of the Volturno
+and extended over five years. Its effect on the general situation was
+nil; it harassed and distracted the Italian Government and created the
+odious necessity of using severe repressive measures, but it never
+placed the crown in danger. One effect it did have, and that was to
+raise all over Italy a feeling of reprobation for the late dynasty,
+which not all the crimes and follies of the two Ferdinands and the
+first Francis had succeeded in evoking. How many bright lives, full of
+promise, were lost in that warfare which even the sacred name of duty
+could not save from being ungrateful and inglorious! Italians who have
+lost their children in their country's battles have never been heard
+to complain; nowhere was the seemliness of death for native land
+better understood than it has been in the Italy of this century, but
+to lose son or brother in a brigand ambush by the hand of an escaped
+galley-slave--this was hard. The thrust was sharpened by the knowledge
+that the fomenter of the mischief was dwelling securely in the heart
+of Italy, the guest of the Head of the Church. From Rome came money
+and instructions; from Rome, whether with or without the cognizance of
+the authorities, came recruits. The Roman frontier afforded a means of
+escape for all who could reach it, however red their hands were with
+blood. What further evidence was needed of the impossibility of an
+indefinite duration of this state within a state?
+
+King Francis held back at first, but his uncle, the Count of Trapani,
+who openly abetted the brigand partisans, drew him more and more into
+collusion with them and their works. The Belgian ecclesiastic, Mgr. de
+Mérode, who had then an influence at the Vatican not possessed even
+by Antonelli, looked, unless he was much belied, with a very kind eye
+upon the new defenders of throne and altar. Efforts have been made to
+represent the war as one carried on by loyal peasants. No one denies
+that every peasants' war must assume, more or less, an aspect of
+brigandage; nevertheless there have been righteous and patriotic
+peasants' wars, such as that of the Klephts in Greece. The question
+is, Whether the political brigandage in South Italy had any real
+affinity with the wars of the Klephts, or even of the Carlists? And
+the answer must be a negative.
+
+The partisan chiefs in the kingdom of Naples were brigands, pure and
+simple, most of whom had either been long wanted by the police, or had
+already suffered in prison for their crimes. They organised their
+troops on the strict principles of brigand bands, and proposed to them
+the same object: pillage. 'Lieut-General' Chiavone who had a mania for
+imitating Garibaldi, was the least bad among them; unlike his
+prototype, he did not like being under fire, but neither did he care
+to spill innocent blood. What, however, can be said for Pilone,
+'commander of His Majesty's forces' on Vesuvius; for Ninco Nanco,
+Bianco dei Bianchi, Tardio, Palma; for Carusso, who cut the throats of
+thirteen out of fourteen labourers and told the one left to go and
+tell the tale; for the brothers La Gala, who roasted and ate a priest?
+It was said that no horror committed during the Indian Mutiny was here
+without a parallel.
+
+Of respectable Neapolitans who held responsible posts under the late
+_régime_ not one joined the bands, but they contained French, Austrian
+and Belgian officers, and one Prussian. A nephew of Mgr. de Mérode,
+the young Marquis de Trazégnies, was with Chiavone; the Carlist, Josè
+Borjès, was with a scoundrel named Crocco. Borjès' case is a hard one.
+He had been made to believe in the genuine character of the
+insurrection and thought that he was giving his sword to an honourable
+cause. The melancholy disillusion can be traced in the pages of a
+note-book which he kept from day to day, and which fell into the hands
+of the Italians when he was captured. The brief entries show a poetic
+mind; he observes the fertile soil, deploring, only, that it is not
+better cultivated; he admires the smiling valleys and the magnificent
+woods whose kings of the forest show no mark of the centuries that
+passed over their fresh verdure. At first Borjès was pleased with the
+peasants who came to him, but as they were few, he was obliged to join
+Crocco's large band, and he now began to see, with horror, what kind
+of associates he had fallen amongst. He had no authority; the brigands
+laughed at his rebukes; never in his life, he writes, had he come
+across such thieves. Before the enemy they ran away like a flock of
+sheep, but when it was safe to do so, they murdered both men and
+women. In desperation, Borjès resolved to try and get to Rome, that he
+might lay the whole truth before the King, but after suffering many
+hardships, he was taken with a few others close to the Papal frontier
+and was immediately shot. He died bravely, chanting a Spanish litany.
+
+Borjès' journal notes the opposition of all classes, except the very
+poorest and most ignorant. Was it to be believed, therefore, that this
+mountain warfare, however long drawn out, could alter one iota the
+course of events? If Francis II. supposed the insurrection to be the
+work of a virtuous peasantry, why did he allow them to rush to their
+destruction?
+
+The task of restoring order was assigned to General Cialdini. He
+found the whole country, from the Abruzzi to Calabria, terrorised by
+the league of native assassins and foreign noblemen. The Modenese
+general was a severe officer who had learnt war in Spain, not a gentle
+school. If he exceeded the bounds of dire necessity he merits blame;
+but no one then hoped in the efficacy of half measures.
+
+One element in the epidemic of brigandage, and looking forward, the
+most serious of all, was an unconscious but profoundly real socialism.
+If half-a-dozen socialistic emissaries had assumed the office of
+guides and instructors, it is even odds that the red flag of communism
+would have displaced the white one of Bourbon. This feature became
+more accentuated as the struggle wore on, and after experience had
+been made of the new political state. The economic condition of a
+great part of the southern population was deplorable, but liberty, so
+many thought, would exercise an instantaneous effect, filling the
+mouths of the hungry, clothing the naked, providing firing in winter,
+sending rain or sunshine as it was wanted. But liberty does none of
+these things. The disappointment of the discovery did not count for
+nothing in the difficulties of that period; it counts for everything
+in the difficulties of this.
+
+The reorganisation of the southern provinces proceeded very slowly. The
+post of Lieutenant-Governor was successively conferred on L.C. Farini,
+Prince Eugene of Carignano, and Count Ponza di San Martino; for a short
+time Cialdini was invested with the supreme civil as well as military
+power. None of these changes met with entire success. The government was
+sometimes too weak, sometimes too arbitrary; of the great number of
+Piedmontese officials distributed through the south, a few won general
+approval, but the majority betrayed want of knowledge and tact, and were
+judged accordingly. It was a misfortune for the new administration that
+it was not assisted by the steam power of moral enthusiasm which
+appeared and disappeared with Garibaldi. There is a great amount of
+certainty that the vast bulk of the population desired union with Italy;
+but it is equally certain that the new Government, though not without
+good intentions, began by failing to please anybody, and the seeds of
+much future trouble were planted.
+
+On the 18th of February 1861, the first Italian legislature assembled
+at Turin in the old Chamber, where, by long years of patient work and
+self-sacrificing fidelity to principle, the possibility of
+establishing an Italian constitutional monarchy had been laboriously
+tested and established. Only the deputies of Rome and Venice were
+still missing. The first act of the new parliament was to pass an
+unanimous vote to the effect that Victor Emmanuel and his heirs should
+assume the title of King of Italy. The Italian kingdom thus
+constituted was recognised by England in a fortnight, by France in
+three months, by Prussia in a year, by Spain in four years, by the
+Pope never.
+
+After the merging of Naples in the Italian body-politic, one of the
+thorniest questions that arose was the disposal of the Garibaldian
+forces. The chief implored Victor Emmanuel to receive his comrades
+into his own army, a prayer which the King had not the power, even if
+he had the will, to grant, as in the constitutional course of things
+the decision was referred to the ministers, who, again, were crippled
+in their action by the military authorities at Turin. Though it is
+natural to sympathise with Garibaldi in his eagerness to obtain
+generous terms for his old companions-in-arms, it may be true that his
+demand was not one that could be satisfied in its full extent. The
+volunteers were not inferior to the ordinary soldier; about half of
+them were decidedly his superior, but they were a political body
+improvised for a special purpose, and it is easy to see how many were
+the reasons against their forming a division of a conventional army
+like that of Piedmont. Nevertheless, the means ought to have been
+found of convincing them that their King and country were proud of
+them, that their great, their incalculable services were appreciated.
+That such means were not found was supposed to be the fault of Cavour.
+It was only in 1885, on the publication of the fourth volume of the
+Count's letters, that it became known how strenuously he had fought
+for justice. Military prejudice was what was really to blame; General
+Fanti, the Minister of War, even provoked Cavour into telling him
+'that they were not in Spain, and that in Italy the army obeyed.' 'A
+cry of reprobation would be raised,' he wrote, 'if, while the Bourbon
+officers who ran away disgracefully were confirmed in their rank, the
+Garibaldians who beat them were coolly sent about their business.
+Rather than bear the responsibility of such an act of black
+ingratitude, I would go and bury myself at Leri. I despise the
+ungrateful to the point of not feeling angered by them, and I forgive
+their abuse. But, by Heaven, I could not bear the merited blot of
+having failed to recognise services such as the conquest of a kingdom
+of 9,000,000 inhabitants.'
+
+Cavour, in fact, did obtain something; much more than the army
+authorities wished to give, but much less than Garibaldi asked or than
+the Count would doubtless have given had not his hands been tied. And,
+doubtless, he would have given it with more grace.
+
+As it was, the volunteers were deeply offended and sent their griefs
+by every post to Caprera. Garibaldi, who refused every favour and
+honour for himself, was worked up into a state of fury by what he
+deemed the wrongs of his faithful followers, and in April he arrived
+unexpectedly at Turin to plead their cause before the Chamber of
+Deputies. Perhaps by a wise presentiment he had refused to stand for
+any constituency; but when Naples elected him her representative,
+almost without opposition, he submitted to the popular will. At Turin
+he fell ill with rheumatic fever, but on the day of the debate on the
+Southern Army he rose from his bed to take his seat in the Chamber.
+The case for the volunteers was opened, and this is worthy of note, by
+Baron Ricasoli, aristocrat and conservative. Afterwards Garibaldi got
+up--at first he tried to make out the statistics and particulars which
+he had on paper, but blinded by passion and by fever, he threw down
+his notes and launched into a fierce invective against 'the man who
+had made him a foreigner in his own birthplace and the government
+which was driving the country straight into civil war.' At the words
+'civil war' Cavour sprang to his feet, unwontedly moved, and uttered
+some expressions of protest, which were lost in the general uproar.
+When this was quieted, Garibaldi finished his speech in a moderate
+tone, and then General Bixio rose to make that noble appeal to concord
+which, had he done nothing else for Italy, should be a lasting title
+to her gratitude. 'I am one of those,' he said, 'who believe in the
+sacredness of the thoughts which have guided General Garibaldi, but
+I am also one of those who have faith in the patriotism of Count
+Cavour. In God's holy name let us make an Italy superior to the
+strife of parties.' He might not be making a parliamentary speech,
+he added, but he would give his children and his life to see peace
+established--words flowing so plainly from his honest heart that
+savage indeed would have been the enmity which, for the time, at
+least, was not quelled. Cavour grasped the olive branch at once; all
+his momentary ire vanished. He made excuses for his adversary; from
+the grief which he had felt himself when he advised the King to cede
+Savoy and Nice, he could understand the general's resentment. He had
+always been, he said in general terms, a friend to the volunteers.
+What he did not even remotely suggest was the dissension which existed
+between himself and his military colleague on the subject of the
+Garibaldians. The least hint would have gained for Cavour any amount
+of applause and popularity; but he preferred to bear all the blame
+rather than bring the national army into disfavour. Garibaldi replied
+'that he had never doubted the Count's patriotism;' but at the end of
+the three days' debate he declared himself dissatisfied with the
+Ministerial assurances touching the volunteers in particular and the
+country's armaments as a whole. As Cavour left the Chamber after the
+final night's sitting, he remarked to a friend--all his fine
+equanimity returned: 'And yet, and yet, when the time comes for war, I
+shall take General Garibaldi under my arm and say: "Let's go and see
+what they are about inside Verona!"'
+
+Cialdini tried to stir up the quarrel anew by a letter full of foolish
+personalities; but to this sort of attack Garibaldi was impervious. It
+mattered nothing to him that a man should make rude remarks about his
+wearing a red shirt. He admired the victor of Castelfidardo as one of
+Italy's best soldiers. He was, therefore, perfectly ready to embrace
+Cialdini at the King's request before he left Turin for Caprera. It
+cost him more to consent to an interview of reconciliation with the
+Prime Minister in the royal presence, because his disagreement with
+Cavour was purely political and impersonal, and was rooted more deeply
+in his heart than any private irritation could be; but he did consent,
+and the interview took place on the 23rd of April. Probably Victor
+Emmanuel in after days was never gladder of anything he had done than
+of having caused his two great subjects--both his subjects born--to
+part for the last time in this mortal life in peace.
+
+On one other memorable occasion the man who, at twenty-two, said that
+he meant to be Prime Minister of Italy, and who now, at fifty-one, was
+keeping his word, filled with his presence the Chamber of which he
+seemed to incarnate the life and history--which may be said to have
+been his only home, for Cavour hardly had a private life. Very soon
+the familiar figure was to vacate the accustomed place for ever.
+
+An obscure deputy put a question on the 25th of May, which gave Cavour
+the opportunity of expounding his views about Rome still more
+explicitly than in the previous autumn. It was impossible, he said, to
+conceive Italian unity without Rome as capital. Were there any other
+solution to the problem he would be willing to give it due
+consideration, but there was not. The position of a capital was not
+decided by climatic or topographical reasons: a glance at capitals of
+Europe was sufficient to certify the fact; it was decided by moral
+reasons. Now Rome, alone out of the Italian cities, had an undisputed
+moral claim to primacy. 'As far as I am personally concerned,' he
+said, 'I shall go to Rome with sorrow; not caring for art, I am sure
+that among the most splendid monuments of ancient and modern Rome I
+shall regret the sedate and unpoetic streets of my native town.' It
+grieved him to think that Turin must resign her most cherished
+privilege, but he knew his fellow-citizens, and he knew them to be
+ready to make this last sacrifice to their country. Might Italy not
+forget the cradle of her liberties when her seat of government was
+firmly established in the Eternal City!
+
+He went on to say that he had not lost the hope that France and the
+Head of the Church would yield to the inexorable logic of the
+situation, and that the same generation which had resuscitated Italy
+would accomplish the still grander task of concluding a peace between
+the State and the Church, liberty and religion. These were no formal
+words; Cavour's whole heart was set on their realisation. He did not
+doubt that the knot, if not untied, would be cut by the sword sooner
+or later. He felt as sure as Mazzini felt that this would happen; but
+more than any man of any party he had reckoned the cost of ranging the
+Church with its vast potential powers for good, for order, for public
+morality, among the implacable enemies of the nascent kingdom. And,
+therefore, his last public utterance was a cry for religious peace.
+
+Always an immense worker, in these latter months Cavour had been
+possessed by a feverish activity. 'I must make haste to finish my
+work,' he said; 'I feel that this miserable body of mine is giving way
+beneath the mind and will which still urge it on. Some fine day you
+will see me break down upon the road.' On the 6th of June, after two
+or three days of so-called sudden illness, he broke down upon the
+road.
+
+Fra Giacomo, faithful to his old promise, administered the sacraments
+to the dying minister, who told Farini 'to tell the good people of
+Turin that he died a Christian.' After this his mind rambled, but
+always upon the themes that had so completely absorbed it: Rome,
+Venice, Naples--'no state of siege,' was one of his broken sayings
+that referred to Naples. It was his farewell protest against brute
+force in which he had never believed. 'Cleanse them, cleanse them,' he
+repeated; cleanse the people of the South of their moral contagion;
+that, not force, was the remedy. He was able to recognise the King,
+but unable to collect the ideas which he wished to express to him.
+
+Cavour's death caused a profound sensation in Europe, and in Italy and
+in England awakened great sorrow. Hardly any public man has received
+so splendid a tribute as that rendered to his memory in the British
+Houses of Parliament. The same words were on the lips of all: What
+would Italy do without him? Death is commonly the great reminder that
+no man is necessary. Nations fulfil their destinies even though their
+greatest sons be laid under the turf. And Italy has fulfilled her
+destinies, but there are Italians who believe that had Cavour lived to
+complete his task, although his dream of an Eirenicon might never have
+been realised, their country would not have passed through the _selva
+selvaggia_ of mistakes and humiliations into which she now entered.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+ROME OR DEATH
+
+1861-1864
+
+Cavour's Successors--Aspromonte--The September Convention--Garibaldi's
+Visit to England.
+
+
+There were two possible successors to Cavour, the Tuscan, Bettino
+Ricasoli, and Urban Rattazzi, a Piedmontese barrister. The first
+belonged to the right, the second to the left centre in the
+Parliamentary combinations. Cavour had no very close personal
+relations with either, but he knew their characters. Rattazzi formerly
+held ministerial office under him, and the long Tuscan crisis of 1859,
+looked at, as he looked at it, from the inside, gave him opportunities
+of judging the Iron Baron who opposed even his own will on more than
+one occasion in that great emergency. Ricasoli was rigid, frigid, a
+frequenter of the straightest possible roads; Rattazzi, supple,
+accommodating, with an incorrigible partiality for umbrageous by-ways.
+He was already an 'old parliamentary hand,' and in the future, through
+a series of ministerial lapses, any one of which would have condemned
+most men to seclusion, he preserved his talent for manufacturing
+majorities and holding his party together. Choosing between these two
+candidates, Cavour before he died gave his preference to Ricasoli, who
+was charged by the King with the formation of a ministry in which he
+took the Treasury and the Foreign Office.
+
+Ricasoli was without ambition, and he rather under than over-rated his
+abilities, but he went to work with considerable confidence in his power
+of setting everything right. A perfectly open and honest statesman
+ought to be able, he imagined, to solve the most difficult problems. Why
+not, except that the world is not what it ought to be? In home politics
+he offended the Party of Action by telling them plainly that if they
+broke the law they would have to pay the cost, and he offended his own
+party by refusing to interfere with the right of meeting or any other
+constitutional right of citizens, whether they were followers of Mazzini
+or of anybody else, as long as they kept within legal bounds. He wrote
+an elaborate letter to Pius IX., in which he sought to persuade the
+Pontiff of the sweet reasonableness of renouncing claims which, for a
+very long spell, had cast nothing but discredit on religion. Ricasoli's
+attitude towards the Temporal Power was unique in this century. Like
+Dante's, his hatred of it was religious. He was a Catholic, not because
+he had never thought or studied, but because, having thought and
+studied, he assented, and from this standpoint he ascribed most of the
+wounds of the Church to her subordination of her spiritual mission to
+material interests. He encouraged Padre Passaglia to collect the
+signatures of priests for a petition praying the Pope to cease opposing
+the desires of all Italy; 8943 names were affixed in a short time. The
+only result of these transactions was that Cardinal Antonelli remarked
+to the French Government that the Holy See would never come to terms
+with robbers, and that, although at war with the Turin Cabinet, 'the
+Pope's relations with Italy were excellent.' More harmful to Ricasoli
+than the fulminations of the Vatican was the veiled but determined
+hostility of Napoleon III. Cavour succeeded in more or less keeping the
+Emperor in ignorance of the degree to which their long partnership
+resembled a duel. He made him think that he was leading while he was
+being led. With Ricasoli there could be no such illusions. Napoleon
+understood him to be a man whom he might break, not bend. He thought it
+desirable to break him, and Imperial desires had many channels, at that
+time, towards fulfilment.
+
+The Ricasoli ministry fell in February 1862, and, as a matter of
+course, Rattazzi was called to power. The new premier soon
+ingratiated himself with the King, who found him easier to get on with
+than the Florentine _grand seigneur_; with Garibaldi, whom he
+persuaded that some great step in the national redemption was on the
+eve of accomplishment; with Napoleon, who divined in him an
+instrument. Meanwhile, in his own mind, he proposed to eclipse Cavour,
+out-manoeuvre all parties, and make his name immortal. This remains
+the most probable, as it is the most lenient interpretation to which
+his strange policy is open.
+
+Garibaldi was encouraged to visit the principal towns of North Italy
+in order to institute the _Tiro Nazionale_ or Rifle Association, which
+was said to be meant to form the basis of a permanent volunteer force
+on the English pattern. For many reasons, such a scheme was not likely
+to succeed in Italy, but most people supposed the object to be
+different--namely, the preparation of the youth of the nation for an
+immediate war. The idea was strengthened when it was observed that
+Trescorre, in the province of Bergamo, where Garibaldi stopped to take
+a course of sulphur baths, became the centre of a gathering which
+included the greater part of his old Sicilian staff. There was no
+concealment in what was done, and the Government manifested no alarm.
+The air was full of rumours, and in particular much was said about a
+Garibaldian expedition to Greece, for which, it was stated and
+re-stated, Rattazzi had promised £40,000. That Garibaldi meant to cast
+his lot in any struggle not bearing directly on Italian affairs, as
+long as the questions of Rome and Venice still hung in the balance, is
+not to be believed. A little earlier than this date, President Lincoln
+invited him to take the supreme command of the Federal army in the war
+for the Union, and he declined the offer, attractive though it must
+have been to him, both as a soldier and an abhorrer of slavery,
+because he did not think that Italy could spare him. But the 'Greek
+Expedition,' though a misleading name, was not altogether a blind.
+Before Cavour's death, there had been frequent discussion of a project
+for revolutionising the east of Europe on a grand scale; Hungary and
+the southern provinces of the Austrian Empire were to co-operate with
+the Slavs and other populations under Turkey in a movement which, even
+if only partially successful, would go far to facilitate the
+liberation of Venice. It cannot be doubted that Rattazzi's brain was
+at work on something of this sort, but the mobilisation, so to speak,
+of the Garibaldians suggested proceedings nearer home. Trescorre was
+very far from the sea, very near the Austrian frontier.
+
+In spite of contradictions, a plan for invading the Trentino, or South
+Tyrol, almost certainly did exist. Whether Garibaldi was alone
+answerable for it cannot be determined. The Government became suddenly
+alive to the enormous peril such an attack would involve, and arrested
+several of the Garibaldian officers at Sarnico. They were conveyed to
+Brescia, where a popular attempt was made to liberate them; the troops
+fired on the crowd, and some blood was shed. Garibaldi wrote an
+indignant protest and retired, first to the villa of Signora Cairoli
+at Belgirate, and then to Caprera. He did not, however, remain there
+long.
+
+After this point, the thread of events becomes tangled beyond the hope
+of unravelment. What were the causes which led Garibaldi into the
+desperate venture that ended at Aspromonte? Recollecting his
+hesitation before assuming the leadership of the Sicilian expedition,
+it seemed the more unintelligible that he should now undertake an
+enterprise which, unless he could rely on the complicity of
+Government, had not a single possibility of success. His own old
+comrades were opposed to it, and it was notorious that Mazzini, to
+whom the counsels of despair were generally either rightly or wrongly
+attributed, had nothing to do with inspiring this attempt. In justice
+to Rattazzi, it must be allowed that, after the arrests at Sarnico,
+Garibaldi went into open opposition to the ministry, which he
+denounced as subservient to Napoleon. Nevertheless, with the
+remembrance of past circumstances in his mind, he may have felt
+convinced that the Prime Minister did not mean or that he would not
+dare to oppose him by force. One thing is certain; from beginning to
+end he never contemplated civil war. His disobedience to the King of
+Italy had only one purpose--to give him Rome. He was no more a rebel
+to Victor Emmanuel than when he marched through Sicily in 1860.
+
+The earlier stages of the affair were not calculated to weaken a
+belief in the effective non-intervention of Government. Garibaldi went
+to Palermo, where he arrived in the evening of the 28th of June. The
+young Princes Umberto and Amedeo were on a visit to the Prefect, the
+Marquis Pallavicini, and happened to be that night at the opera. All
+at once they perceived the spectators leave the house in a body, and
+they were left alone; on asking the reason, they heard that Garibaldi
+had just landed--all were gone to greet him! Before the departure of
+the Princes next day, the chief and his future King had an
+affectionate meeting, while the population renewed the scenes of wild
+enthusiasm of two years ago. Some of Garibaldi's intimate friends
+assert that when he reached Palermo he had still no intention of
+taking up arms. He soon began, however, to speak in a warlike tone,
+and at a review of the National Guard in presence of the Prefect, the
+Syndic, and all the authorities, he told the 'People of the Vespers'
+that if another Vespers were wanted to do it, Napoleon III., head of
+the brigands, must be ejected from Rome. The epithet was not bestowed
+at random; Lord Palmerston confirmed it when he said from his place in
+the House of Commons: 'In Rome there is a French garrison; under its
+shelter there exists a committee of 200, whose practice is to organise
+a band of murderers, the scum and dross of every nation, and send them
+into the Neapolitan territory to commit every atrocity!' As a
+criticism the words are not less strong; but the public defiance of
+Napoleon, and the threat with which it was accompanied, dictated one
+plain duty to the Italian Government if they meant to keep the
+peace--the arrest of Garibaldi and his embarkation for Caprera.
+
+This they did not do; confining themselves to the recall of the
+Marquis Pallavicini. Garibaldi went over the ground made glorious by
+his former exploits--past Calatafimi to Marsala. It was at Marsala
+that, while he harangued his followers in a church, a voice in the
+crowd raised a cry of '_Rome or death!_' 'Yes; Rome or death!'
+repeated Garibaldi; and thus the watchword originated which will
+endure written in blood on the Bitter Mount and on the Plain of
+Nomentum. Who raised it first? Perhaps some humble Sicilian fisherman.
+Its haunting music coming he knew not whence, sounding in his ear like
+an omen, was what wedded Garibaldi irrevocably to the undertaking. It
+was the casting interposition of chance, or, shall it be said, of
+Providence? Like all men of his mould, Garibaldi was governed by
+poetry, by romance. Besides the general patriotic sentiment, he had a
+peculiar personal feeling about Rome, 'which for me,' he once wrote,
+'is Italy.' In 1849, the Assembly in its last moments invested him
+with plenary powers for the defence of the Eternal City, and this
+vote, never revoked, imposed on his imagination a permanent mandate.
+'Rome or death' suggested an idea to him which he had never before
+entertained, prodigal though he had been of his person in a hundred
+fights: What if his own death were the one thing needful to
+precipitate the solution of the problem?
+
+From Marsala he returned to Palermo, where, in the broad light of day,
+he summoned the Faithful, who came, as usual, at his bidding, without
+asking why or where?--the happy few who followed him in 1859 and 1860;
+who would follow him in 1867, and even in 1870, when they gave their
+lives for a people that did not thank them, because he willed it so.
+He sent out also a call to the Sicilian _Picciotti_, the _Squadre_ of
+last year; and it is much to their credit that they too who cared
+possibly remarkably little for _Roma Capitale_, obeyed the man who had
+freed them. And Rattazzi knew of all this, and did nothing.
+
+On the 1st of August, Garibaldi took command of 3000 volunteers in the
+woods of Ficuzza. Then, indeed, the Government wasted much paper on
+proclamations, and closed the door of the stable when the horse was
+gone. General Cugia was sent to Palermo to repress the movement.
+Nevertheless Garibaldi, with his constantly increasing band, made a
+triumphant progress across the island, and a more than royal entry
+into Catania. At Mezzojuso he was present at a _Te Deum_ chanted in
+his honour. On the 22nd, when the royal troops were, it seems, really
+ordered to march on Catania, Garibaldi took possession of a couple of
+merchant vessels that had just reached the port, and sailed away by
+night for the Calabrian coast with about 1000 of his men.
+
+By this time the Italian Government, whether by spontaneous conviction
+or by pressure from without, had resolved that the band should never
+get as far as the Papal frontier. If Garibaldi knew or realised their
+resolution, it is a mystery why he did not attempt to effect a landing
+nearer that frontier, if not actually within it. The deserted shore of
+the Pontine marshes would, one would think, have offered attractions
+to men who were as little afraid of fever as of bullets. A sort of
+superstition may have ruled the choice of the path, which was that
+which led to victory in 1860. It was not practicable, however, to
+follow it exactly. The tactics were different. Then the desire was to
+meet the enemy anywhere and everywhere; now the pursuer had to be
+eluded, because Garibaldi was determined not to fight him. Thus,
+instead of marching straight on Reggio, the volunteers sought
+concealment in the great mountain mass which forms the southernmost
+bulwark of the Apennines. The dense and trackless forests could have
+given cover for a long while to a native brigand troop, with intimate
+knowledge of the country and ways and means of obtaining
+provisions--not to a band like this of Garibaldi. They wandered about
+for three days, suffering from almost total want of food, and from the
+great fatigue of climbing the dried-up watercourses which serve as
+paths. On the 28th of August they reached the heights of Aspromonte--a
+strong position, from which only a large force could have dislodged
+them had they defended it.
+
+General La Marmora, then Prefect of Naples, and commander-in-chief of
+the army in the south, reinforced the troops in Calabria to prevent
+Garibaldi's advance, but the direction of the decisive operation fell
+by accident to Cialdini, whom the Government despatched to Sicily
+when they tardily made up their minds to take energetic measures. On
+his voyage to Messina, Cialdini heard that the volunteers had already
+crossed the Straits; he therefore changed his course, and hastening to
+Reggio, invested himself with the command on the mainland. At Reggio
+he met Colonel Pallavicini, whom he ordered in terms that might have
+been more suitable had he been engaged in hunting brigands, 'to crush
+Garibaldi completely, and only accept from him unconditional
+surrender.' Pallavicini started with six or seven battalions of
+Bersaglieri. It was the 29th of August. Garibaldi saw them coming when
+they were still three miles off. He could have dispersed his men in
+the forest and himself escaped, for the time, and perhaps altogether,
+for the sea which had so often befriended him was not far off. But
+although he did not mean to resist, a dogged instinct drove away the
+thought of flight. In the official account it was stated that an
+officer was sent in advance of the royal troops to demand surrender.
+No such officer was seen in the Garibaldian encampment till after the
+attack. The troops rapidly ascended an eminence, facing that on which
+the Garibaldians were posted, and opened a violent fusillade, which,
+to Garibaldi's dismay, was returned for a few minutes by his right,
+consisting of young Sicilians who were not sufficiently disciplined to
+stand being made targets of without replying. The contention, however,
+that they were the first to fire, has the testimony of every
+eye-witness on the side of the volunteers against it. All the
+Garibaldian bugles sounded 'Cease firing,' and Garibaldi walked down
+in front of the ranks conjuring the men to obey. While he was thus
+employed, a spent ball struck his thigh, and a bullet entered his
+right foot. At first he remained standing, and repeated, 'Do not
+fire,' but he was obliged to sit down, and some of his officers
+carried him under a tree. The whole 'feat of arms,' as General
+Cialdini described it, did not last more than a quarter of an hour.
+
+Pallavicini approached the wounded hero bareheaded, and said that he
+made his acquaintance on the most unfortunate day of his own life. He
+was received with nothing but kind praise for doing his duty. The
+first night was passed by the prisoner in a shepherd's hut. The few
+devoted followers who were with him were strangely impressed by that
+midnight watch; the moon shining on the forest, the shepherds' dogs
+howling in the mountain silence, and their chief lying wounded, it
+might be to death, in the name of the King to whom he had given this
+land.
+
+Next day, in a litter sheltered from the sun with branches of wild
+laurel, Garibaldi was carried down the steep rocks to Scilla, whence
+he was conveyed by sea to the fort of Varignano. It was not till after
+months of acute suffering, borne with a gentleness that made the
+doctors say: 'This man is not a soldier, but a saint,' that, through
+the skill of the French surgeon, Nélaton, the position of the ball was
+determined, and its extraction rendered possible.
+
+A general amnesty issued on the occasion of the marriage of the King's
+second daughter with the King of Portugal relieved the Government of
+having to decide whether Garibaldi was to be tried, and if so, what
+for; but the unpopularity into which the ministry had fallen could not
+be so easily dissipated. The Minister of Foreign Affairs (Durando)
+published a note in which it was stated that Garibaldi had only
+attempted to realise, in an irregular way, the desire of the whole
+nation, and that, although he had been checked, the tension of the
+situation was such that it could not be indefinitely prolonged. This
+was true, but it hardly improved the case for the Government. In Latin
+countries, ministers do not cling to power; as soon as the wind blows
+against them, they resign to give the public time to forget their
+faults, and to become dissatisfied with their political rivals.
+Usually a very short time is required. Therefore, forestalling a vote
+of censure in the Chambers, where he had never yet had a real
+majority, Rattazzi resigned office with a parting homily in which he
+claimed to have saved the national institutions.
+
+The administration which followed contained the well-known names of
+Farini, Minghetti, Pasolini, Peruzzi, Delia Rovere, Menabrea. When
+Farini's fatal illness set in, Minghetti replaced him as Prime
+Minister, and Visconti Venosta took the Foreign Office. They found the
+country in a lamentable state, embittered by Aspromonte, still
+infected with brigandage, and suffering from an increasing deficit,
+coupled with a diminishing revenue. The administrative and financial
+unification of Italy, still far from complete, presented the gravest
+difficulties. The political aspect of affairs, and especially the
+presence of the French in Rome, provoked a general sense of
+instability which was contrary to the organisation of the new state
+and the development of its resources. The ministers sought remedies or
+palliatives for these several evils, and to meet the last they opened
+negotiations with France, which resulted in the compromise known as
+the September Convention. It was long before the treaty was concluded,
+as for more than a year the French Government refused to remove the
+garrison on any terms; but in the autumn of 1864 the following
+arrangement was signed by both parties: that Italy should protect the
+Papal frontier from all attack from the outside; that France should
+gradually withdraw her troops, the complete evacuation to take place
+within two years; that Italy should waive the right of protest against
+the internal organisation of the Papal army unless its proportions
+became such as to be a manifest threat to the Italian kingdom; that
+the Italian capital should be moved to Florence within six months of
+the approval of the Convention by Parliament.
+
+These terms were in part the same as those proposed by Prince Napoleon
+to Cavour shortly before the death of that statesman, who had promised
+to support them as a temporary makeshift, and in order to get the
+French out of Italy. But they were in part different, and they
+contained two new provisions which it is morally certain that Cavour
+would never have agreed to--the prolongation of the French occupation
+for two years (Cavour had insisted that it should cease in a
+fortnight), and the transfer of the capital, which was now made a
+_sine quâ non_ by Napoleon, for evident reasons. While it was clear
+that Turin could not be the permanent capital of a kingdom that
+stretched to Ætna, if once the seat of government were removed to
+Florence a thousand arguments and interests would spring up in favour
+of keeping it there. So, at least, it was sure to seem to a foreigner.
+As a matter of fact, the solution was no solution; the Italians could
+not be reconciled to the loss of Rome either by the beauty and
+historic splendour of the city on the Arno, or by its immunity from
+malaria, which was then feared as a serious drawback, though Rome has
+become, under its present rulers, the healthiest capital in Europe.
+But Napoleon thought that he was playing a trump card when he dictated
+the sacrifice of Turin.
+
+The patriotic Turinese were unprepared for the blow. They had been
+told again and again that till the seat of government was established
+on the Tiber, it should abide under the shadow of the Alps--white
+guardian angels of Italy--in the custody of the hardy population which
+had shown itself so well worthy of the trust. The ministry foresaw the
+effect which the convention would have on the minds of the Turinese,
+and they resorted to the weak subterfuge of keeping its terms secret
+as long as they could. Rumours, however, leaked out, and these, as
+usual, exaggerated the evil. It was said that Rome was categorically
+abandoned. On the 20th of September crowds began to fill the streets,
+crying: 'Rome or Turin!' and on the two following days there were
+encounters between the populace and the military, in which the latter
+resorted to unnecessary and almost provocative violence. Amidst the
+chorus of censure aroused by these events, the Minghetti cabinet
+resigned, and General La Marmora, who, as a Piedmontese, was fitted to
+soothe the excited feelings of his fellow-citizens, was called upon to
+form a ministry.
+
+The change of capital received the sanction of Parliament on the 19th
+of November. Outside Piedmont it was not unpopular; people felt that,
+after all, it rested with themselves to make Florence no final
+halting-place, but a step towards Rome. The Papal Government, which
+had been a stranger to the late negotiations, expressed a supreme
+indifference to the whole affair, even to the contemplated departure
+of the French troops, 'which concerned the Imperial Government, not
+the Pope,' said Cardinal Antonelli, 'since the occupation had been
+determined by French interests.' It cannot be asserted that the Pope
+ever assumed a gratitude which he did not feel towards the monarch who
+kept him on his throne for twenty years.
+
+This year, 1864, was marked by an incident which, though not a
+political event, should never be forgotten in the history of Italian
+liberation--Garibaldi's visit to England. He came, the prisoner of
+Aspromonte, not the conqueror of Sicily: a distinction that might have
+made a difference elsewhere, but the English sometimes worship
+misfortune as other peoples worship success. No sovereign from oversea
+was ever received by them as they received the Italian hero; a
+reception showing the sympathies of a century rather than the caprice
+or curiosity of an hour. Half a million throats shouted London's
+welcome; the soldier of two worlds knew the roar of battle, and the
+roar of the sea was familiar to the Nizzard sailor, but it is said
+that when Garibaldi heard the stupendous and almost awful British roar
+which greeted him as he came out of the Nine Elms station, and took
+his seat in the carriage that was to convey him to Stafford House, he
+looked completely disconcerted. From the heir to the throne to the
+crossing-sweeper, all combined to do him honour; where Garibaldi was
+not, through the breadth of the land the very poor bought his portrait
+and pasted it on their whitewashed cottage walls. London made him its
+citizen. The greatest living English poet invited him to plant a tree
+in his garden: a memory he recalled nearly at the close of his own
+honoured life:--
+
+  Or watch the waving pine which here
+    The warrior of Caprera set,
+    A name that earth shall not forget
+  Till earth has rolled her latest year.
+
+Garibaldi showed himself mindful of old friends; at the opera he
+recognised Admiral Mundy in a box, and immediately rose and went to
+offer him his respects. At Portsmouth, he not only went to see the
+mother of Signora White-Mario (the providence of his wounded in many a
+campaign), but also paid an unrecorded visit to two maiden sisters in
+humble circumstances, who had shown him kindness when he was an exile
+in England; they related ever afterwards the sensation caused by his
+appearance in their narrow courtyard, where it was difficult to turn
+the big carriage which the authorities had placed at his disposal. He
+twice met the great Italian whom he addressed as Master: transferring,
+as it were, to Mazzini's brows the crown of glory that surrounded his
+own. Another exile, Louis Blanc, used to tell how, when he went to
+call on Garibaldi, he found him seated on a sofa, receiving the homage
+of the fairest and most illustrious members of the English
+aristocracy; when the Friend of the People was announced (a title
+deserved by Louis Blanc, if not for his possibly fallacious theories,
+still for the rare sincerity of his life), the hero started to his
+feet and most earnestly begged him to sit beside him. 'Which I could
+not do!' the narrator of the scene would add with a look of comical
+alarm for his threatened modesty.
+
+These friendly passages with the proscripts in London, as well as the
+stirring appeal spoken by Garibaldi on behalf of the Poles, did not
+please foreign Powers. The Austrian ambassador shut himself up in his
+house; it was remarked that the only members of the diplomatic body
+who were seen at the Garibaldi _fêtes_ were the representatives of the
+United States and of the Sublime Porte. The Emperor Napoleon was said
+to be angry. Lord Palmerston assured the House of Commons that no
+remonstrance had been received from France or from any foreign
+government, and that if it had been received, it would not have been
+heeded. Yet the English Government took the course of hinting to the
+guest of England that his visit had lasted long enough. In some
+quarters it was reported that they feared disturbances among the Irish
+operatives in the manufacturing towns, had he gone, as he intended,
+to the north. Whatever were the motives that inspired it, their action
+in the matter cannot be remembered with complacency, but it was
+powerless to undo the significance of the great current of enthusiasm
+which had passed through the English land.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE WAR FOR VENICE
+
+1864-1866
+
+The Prussian Alliance--Custoza--Lissa--The Volunteers--Acquisition of
+Venetia.
+
+
+The change of capital was carried out in 1865, and the lull which
+followed gave an appearance of correctness to the surmise that if the
+September Convention had not solved the Roman question, it had,
+anyhow, reduced it to a state of quiescence. But there were other
+reasons why Rome was kept, for the moment, not indeed out of mind, but
+out of sight. The opinion grew that the emancipation of Venice, too
+long delayed, ought to take precedence of every other political
+object. On this point there was no disagreement among the 22,000,000
+free Italians, who felt the servitude of Venice to be an hourly
+disgrace and reproach; no one even ventured to preach patience. A
+curious chapter might be written on the schemes woven between the
+Peace of Villafranca and the year 1866, for the realisation of the
+unfulfilled promise of freedom from Alps to sea. Foremost among the
+schemers was Victor Emmanuel, and if some persons may be shocked by
+the idea of a royal conspirator, more will admire the patriotism which
+made the King hold out his hand to Mazzini, whose sentiments about
+monarchy, and especially about the Savoy dynasty, were a secret to no
+one, least of all to him. But as Mazzini placed those sentiments on
+second rank to the grand end of Italian unity, so the King, to serve
+the same end, showed himself superior to prejudices which in most men
+would have proved insuperable. The fact that Victor Emmanuel opened
+negotiations with Mazzini, and maintained them, off and on, for years,
+proves amongst other things, that he knew the exiled patriot better
+than the world yet knew him. He may have understood that by turning
+republican sympathies into the groove of unity (not their necessary or
+even their most natural groove), Mazzini made an Italian kingdom
+possible. There is reason to think that the King's ministers were
+kept entirely ignorant of his correspondence with the Agitator. The
+letters were impersonal drafts carried to and fro by means of trusted
+emissaries; each party freely expounded his views, and stated the
+terms on which his support could be given. Victor Emmanuel's favourite
+idea was a revolution in Galicia. When Garibaldi returned from England
+he was nearly commissioned to start for Constantinople, whence he was
+to lead an expedition through Roumania into Galicia. It seems to have
+been due to Garibaldi's own good sense that so extremely unpromising a
+project was abandoned. General Klapka was another of Victor Emmanuel's
+secret revolutionary correspondents. The very wildness of the plans
+that floated in the air betokened the feverish anxiety to do something
+which had taken hold of all minds.
+
+In 1865 a scheme of a different sort, and of momentous consequences,
+grew into shape. It was a scheme of which Cavour first guessed the
+possibility, as well as the far-reaching results. In August 1865 Count
+Bismarck asked General La Marmora whether Italy would join Prussia in
+the contingency of a war with Austria? Only a year before he was still
+thinking of carrying out his policy with the aid of Austria, and he
+had offered to help her to wrench Lombardy from Italy (and from France
+if she intervened), in payment for her consent to his designs. But
+now, though the Austrians did not even remotely suspect it, his
+thoughts were resolutely turned to the Italian alliance. Without this
+alliance Italy might, indeed, have acquired Venice, but would the
+German Empire have been founded?
+
+For a time the proposal was suspended, owing to the temporary
+understanding concluded between Prussia and Austria at Gastein; and
+in the interim, General La Marmora urged the Viennese Government to
+cede Venetia in return for a compensation of five hundred million
+francs. But those whom the gods would destroy they make mad. Austria
+preserved her infatuated sense of security almost till the rude
+awakening caused by the rifle-shots that ushered in the campaign of
+Sadowa.
+
+One thing which contributed to keeping Europe in the dark as to the
+impending cataclysm was the character and known tendencies of King
+William I. of Prussia, whose conservative, not to say retrograde
+sentiments made it difficult to picture him at the head of what was
+really a great revolutionary movement, in spite of the militarism that
+surrounded it. With consummate art, Count Bismarck little by little
+concentrated all his master's ideas about royal divinity in general
+into one overwhelming belief in his own divine right to be German
+Emperor, and so transformed an obstacle into the corner-stone of the
+edifice he wished to build. But this could hardly be foreseen. At the
+New Year's Day reception of 1866, Napoleon announced an era of
+universal peace; henceforth all nations were to arrange their
+differences amicably, as had been done at Gastein If the illusion was
+complete, it was destined to be of short duration.
+
+In the spring the Prussian proposal to Italy was formally renewed, and
+this time it was accepted. The secret treaty of an offensive and
+defensive alliance for three months was signed on the 8th of April.
+Less than three weeks later, Austria, which was slowly beginning to
+feel some uneasiness, proposed to Napoleon the cession of Venetia,
+while exacting from Italy only a simple promise of neutrality in case
+of war. General La Marmora held the honour of the country and his own
+to compel fidelity to the prior arrangement with Prussia, and he
+refused the tempting offer. His choice has been variously
+characterised as one of common honesty and of uncommon magnanimity; at
+all events, it was of incalculable advantage to Prussia, which already
+gave signs of not being a particularly delicate-minded ally. When La
+Marmora asked Bismarck whether, in case Austria took the initiative of
+attacking Italy, Prussia would intervene, the answer was 'No.'
+
+The three countries now pushed on their war preparations: Austria with
+less ardour than the others, as she still failed to more than faintly
+realise her danger. The Italian army, which the opening of the year
+found in a deplorably unserviceable condition, was rapidly placed on a
+war-footing, and, considering the shortness of the time allowed for
+the work, and the secrecy with which, at the outset, it had to be
+conducted, it is generally agreed that La Marmora produced surprising
+results. As was natural in an army which, except for the old
+Piedmontese nucleus, might almost be called improvised, the weakest
+points were the cavalry and the artillery. The infantry was good; not
+only the picked corps of Bersaglieri, but also the line regiments were
+equal to any troops likely to be opposed to them. No one can see the
+fine appearance of a line regiment marching down the streets of an
+Italian town without receiving the impression that, however much the
+other branches of the service may have improved since the Sixties, the
+fondest hopes of Italy in case of war still lie in that common soldier
+who best supported the rigours of the Russian snows.
+
+Unfortunately, the attention paid to the army was not extended to the
+fleet, which continued totally unready; nor was the organisation of
+the volunteers carried out in an efficient manner. The excuse
+afterwards advanced was that not more than 15,000 enrolments were
+expected, while the actual figure reached 35,000. Besides being from
+its very bulk less manageable than the 'few and good' of 1859, this
+mass of men was ill-provided with officers who could inspire and keep
+discipline. Garibaldi's own generals, Bixio, Medici, Cosenz and
+Sirtori, were now all in the regular army, and therefore not free to
+join him. He begged for the loan of a few regular officers, indicating
+amongst other names that of Colonel Pallavicini, who commanded against
+him at Aspromonte: a trait characteristic of the man. But this
+assistance, though promised, was not granted, and the same was the
+case with the guns which were vainly asked for. Without charging La
+Marmora with a deliberate intention of neglecting the volunteers, it
+must be owned that under the influence of the prejudice which holds
+irregular troops in small esteem, he did not do for them what ought to
+have been done if their services were accepted at all.
+
+The Austrian Southern Army, excellent in discipline and equipment
+though weak in numbers, was commanded up to the outbreak of the war by
+Field-Marshal Benedek, but he was called to Vienna to take command of
+the unfortunate army of operation against Prussia, and was succeeded
+in Italy by the Archduke Albrecht, with General Von John, an officer
+of the first capacity, as chief of the staff.
+
+The numerical strength of the forces which could be put in the field
+has been stated with startling divergence by different military
+writers on the war, but every calculation gives the Italian side
+(exclusive of the volunteers) a superiority of not less than two to
+one. The Austrian mobilised army has been reckoned at as low a figure
+as 63,000, certainly an understatement, as it appears that the
+Archduke mustered not less than 70,000 at the battle of Custoza. That
+he mustered on that day every man he could produce is probably a fact.
+Had the Italian generals followed the same rule, however enormous
+their other errors might have been, they would have won. Of all
+conceivable faults in a military commander that which is the least
+pardonable is the neglect to crush his antagonist by force of superior
+numbers when he has them at his disposal. How many great military
+reputations have been built up, and justly built up, on the care never
+to meet an enemy without the odds being largely in your favour!
+
+For obvious political reasons the King of Italy assumed the supreme
+command of the army, with General La Marmora as chief of the staff.
+Cialdini had been offered the latter post, but he declined it,
+objecting, it is said, to the arrangement by which the real head of
+the army has no guarantee against the possible interference of its
+nominal head. When La Marmora went to the front, Baron Ricasoli took
+his place as Prime Minister; Visconti-Venosta became Minister of
+Foreign Affairs; and the Ministry of the Marine was offered to
+Quintino Sella, who refused it on the ground that he knew nothing of
+naval matters. It was then offered to and accepted by a man who knew
+still less, because he did not even know his own ignorance, Agostino
+Depretis, a Piedmontese advocate.
+
+Before the commencement of hostilities a secret treaty was concluded
+between Napoleon III. and the Austrian Government, according to which
+Venetia was to be ceded to the Emperor for Italy, even if Austrian
+arms were victorious both on the Mincio and on the Maine. Napoleon's
+real purpose in this singular transaction is not perfectly clear; but
+he was probably acting under a semi-romantic desire to have the
+appearance of completing his programme of freeing Italy from the Alps
+to the Adriatic which had been interrupted at Villafranca. In spite of
+his enmity towards Italian unity, there is no reason to doubt that he
+was in very few things as sincere as in the wish to see the Austrians
+out of Italy. His reckonings at this time were all founded on the
+assumption that Prussia would be defeated; he even seems to have had
+some hopes of getting the Rhine bank in return for his good offices on
+behalf of that Power with triumphant Austria. Be this as it may, he
+inspired the Italian Government (or rather La Marmora, for there were
+then two Italian Governments, and the real one was on the Mincio) with
+his own expectation of Prussian disasters, and it is possible that
+this expectation had a material and unfavourable influence on the
+manner of conducting the war in Italy.
+
+Through the Prussian Minister at Florence, General La Marmora received
+the draft of a plan of campaign which is known to have been prepared
+by Count Moltke; in it the great feature was a descent on the
+Dalmatian coast. From an independent quarter he received another plan
+in which a descent on the east coast of the Adriatic was contemplated,
+the main difference being that Istria, instead of Dalmatia, was
+proposed for the landing-point. This second plan was modestly
+submitted to him by Garibaldi, who was thus in substantial accord with
+the Prussian strategist. The prospect which either of these plans
+opened was one of great fascination. What Italian can look across the
+sea to where the sun rises and forget that along that horizon lies a
+land colonised by Rome and guarded for four hundred years by Venice?
+
+Istria was marked out by Dante as the frontier province of Italy:
+
+  Si come a Pola presso del Quarnero
+  Che Italia chiude e i suoi termini bagna.
+
+It forms, with the Trentino, what is called _Italia Irredenta_.
+Although the feeling of Italians for unredeemed Italy is not what
+their feeling was for Lombardy or Venetia, it is a mistake to imagine
+that they have renounced all aspirations in that direction. Only
+fanatics of the worst kind would be disposed to attempt, in the
+present situation, to win those provinces by force, but that has
+nothing to do with the matter. The aspiration exists and cannot help
+existing. It has always been shared by patriots of all denominations.
+An English statesman who called on Pius IX. was somewhat surprised by
+the Pope saying that Italian unity was very well, but it was a pity it
+did not include Trento and Trieste.
+
+The case of Dalmatia is different; there the mass of the population is
+unquestionably of a non-Italian race, though that race is one which,
+whenever left to itself, seems created to amalgamate with the Italian.
+Slav and Teuton are racially antagonistic, but the Slav falls into
+Italian ways, speaks the Italian language and mixes his blood with
+Italian blood: with what results Venice can tell. For more than two
+thousand years the civilisation of Dalmatia has been exclusively
+Latin; the Roman column points to the Venetian Campanile; all the
+proudest memories are gathered round the Lion of St Mark, which in
+every town, almost in every village, recalls the splendid though not
+blameless suzerainty of the Serene Republic. The sky, the
+olive-groves, the wild pomegranates make us think of Salerno; by the
+spoken tongue we are often reminded of Tuscany, for few Italian
+dialects are so pure. The political subjection of the country to Italy
+dates from Augustus; its political subjection to Austria dates from
+Napoleon. Dalmatia, with the glorious little commonwealth of Ragusa,
+and the free city of Cattaro, was bartered away with Venice at Campo
+Formio; and as with Venice, so with Dalmatia, the Holy Alliance
+violated its own principle of restoring the proe-Napoleonic state of
+things and confirmed the sale.
+
+At the beginning of the war, Austria did not ignore that her loss of
+territory might exceed Venetia. The Archduke Albrecht, in his
+proclamation to his soldiers, appealed to them to protect their
+mothers, wives and sisters from being ruled by a foreign race.
+
+Even a successful raid upon Dalmatia or Istria need not have given
+those districts to Italy, but it would have brought such an event
+within the range of a moderately strong political telescope. The Slavs
+(erected since into a party hostile to their Italian fellow-citizens
+by a fostering of Panslavism which may not, in the long run, prove
+sound policy for Austria) were then ready to make friends with anyone
+opposed to their actual rulers. They would not have been easy to
+govern after an Italian invasion; still less easy to govern would the
+Latin element have been, which was and is _Italianissimo_. Since
+Prussia became the German Empire, she has set her face against Italian
+extension eastward, but in 1866, had her advice been intelligently
+acted upon, it might have generated facts the logic of which none
+would have had the power to stay.
+
+Moltke's plan more than hinted at a march on Vienna by the Semmering,
+and this is what is supposed to have induced La Marmora to treat it with
+scorn. With the bogey of Prussia vanquished before his eyes, he
+doubtless asked what the Italians would do at Vienna if they got there?
+He put the plan in his pocket, and showed it neither to his staff nor to
+the King, who would certainly have been attracted by it, as he had set
+his heart on the volunteers, at least, crossing the Adriatic. With
+regard to the campaign at home, both Moltke and Garibaldi counselled
+turning the Quadrilateral in preference to a direct attack upon
+fortresses which had been proved impregnable except with the assistance
+of hunger, and at present they were better provisioned than in 1848. The
+turning of the Quadrilateral meant the adoption of a route into Venetia
+across the Po below Mantua. An objection not without gravity to that
+route was the unfavourable nature of the ground which, being marshy, is
+liable after heavy rains to become impassable. But against this
+disadvantage had to be weighed the advantage of keeping out of the
+mouse-trap, the fatality of which needed no new demonstration.
+
+In Italy it is common to hear it said that it was necessary to station
+a large army on the Mincio to bar the Archduke's path to Milan. But
+apart from the rumoured existence of a promise to the French Emperor
+not to invade Lombardy, it was unlikely that so good a general as the
+Archduke would have taken his small army far from the security it
+enjoyed among the four fortresses which, if the worst came to the
+worst, assured him a safe line of retreat.
+
+The plan adopted by La Marmora is vaguely said to have been that which
+was prepared by the French and Sardinian staffs for use in 1859, had
+the war been continued. But in what it really consisted is not to this
+day placed beyond dispute. The army, roughly speaking, was divided
+into halves; one (the larger) half under the King and La Marmora was
+to operate on the Mincio; the other, under Cialdini, was to operate on
+the lower Po. It is supposed that one of these portions was intended
+to act as a blind to deceive the enemy as to the movements of the
+other portion; the undecided question is, which was meant to be the
+principal and which the accessory?
+
+The volunteers were thrown against the precipices of the Tridentine
+mountains, where a detachment of the regular army, well-armed and
+properly supplied with artillery, would have been better suited for
+the work. The Garibaldian headquarters was at Salò on the Lake of
+Garda. Less than half of the 35,000 volunteers who appear upon paper,
+were ever ready to be sent to the front. It was widely said that only
+patriotism prevented Garibaldi from throwing up his command, so
+dissatisfied was he with the conduct of affairs.
+
+Prussia invaded Hanover and Saxony on the 16th of June, and declared
+war with Austria on the 21st, one day after the Italian declaration of
+war had been delivered to the Archduke Albrecht. On the 23rd La
+Marmora's army began to cross the Mincio. It consisted of three _corps
+d'armée_ under the command of Generals Durando, Cucchiari and Delia
+Rocca, each corps containing four divisions. The force under Cialdini
+was composed of eight divisions forming one _corps d'armée._ An
+Italian military writer rates the numbers at 133,000 and 82,000
+respectively. La Marmora acquired the belief that the Archduke's
+attention was absorbed by Cialdini's movements on the Po, and that his
+own operations on the Mincio would pass unobserved.
+
+While the Italian commander had no information of what was going on in
+the enemy's camp, the Archduke's intelligence department was so
+efficient that he knew quite well the disposition of both Italian
+armies. Cialdini's advance, if he meant to advance, was checked by
+floods. On the night of the 23rd most of La Marmora's force bivouacked
+on the left (Venetian) bank of the Mincio. No reconnaissances were made;
+everyone supposed that the Austrians were still beyond the Adige, and
+that they intended to stay there. The King slept at Goito.
+
+Before the early dawn next morning the whole Italian army of the
+Mincio had orders to advance. The soldiers marched with heavy
+knapsacks and empty stomachs, and with no more precautions than in
+time of peace. The Austrian Archduke was in the saddle at four a.m.,
+and watched from an eminence the moving clouds of dust which announced
+the approach of his unsuspecting foe.
+
+La Marmora's intention had been to occupy the heights of Santa
+Giustina, Sona and Somma Campagna, but the Archduke anticipated his
+design, and while the Italians were moving from the Mincio, the
+Austrians were ranging themselves in those positions. At half-past
+five on the midsummer Sunday morning, the Austrian advance guard led
+by Colonel Pulz came up with Prince Humbert's division near
+Villafranca. The battle began dramatically, with a charge of the
+splendid Polish and Hungarian Hussars, who dashed their horses against
+the Italian squares, in one of which, opportunely formed for his
+shelter, was the gallant heir to the throne. Bixio's division was also
+engaged in this prelude, which augured not ill for the Italians, since
+at about eight o'clock Pulz received the Archduke's orders to retire.
+
+The first hours of the battle were spent in fortuitous encounters
+along the extensive chain of hillocks which La Marmora had intended to
+occupy. As the Italians approached each position they found it in the
+possession of a strong force of the enemy. On the right, however,
+Custoza and the heights between it and Somma Campagna had not been
+occupied by the Austrians. Here La Marmora placed the flower of his
+army, the Sardinian and Lombard Grenadiers, the latter commanded by
+Prince Amedeo. The fighting continued through the day over very
+widely distributed ground, but from about nine in the morning the
+supreme interest was concentrated at and near Custoza, in which the
+Archduke promptly detected the turning-point of the battle. To wrest
+Custoza from the hold of the Italians was to the Austrians on the 24th
+of June 1866, what the taking of the crest of Solferino had been to
+the French on the 24th of June 1859. La Marmora in person led the
+Grenadiers into action; they proved worthy of their reputation, but
+after losing a great many men, Prince Amedeo being among the wounded,
+they were obliged to retreat. At about midday, however, the Italian
+prospects improved so much that in the opinion of Austrian military
+writers, with moderate reinforcements they would have had a strong
+probability of winning the battle. La Marmora saw the importance of
+getting fresh troops into the field, but, instead of sending for the
+divisions under Bixio and Prince Humbert, which since eight a.m. had
+been fretting in inaction close by, at Villafranca, he rode himself to
+Goito, a great distance away, to look after the reserves belonging to
+the 2nd _corps d'armée_; a task which any staff officer could have
+performed as well. This inexplicable proceeding left the army without
+a commander-in-chief. The generals of division followed their
+individual inspirations, Govone, Pianel and Cugia especially
+distinguishing themselves: it is sad to think that death has removed
+these three officers from the Italian ranks. But the Austrians fatally
+gained ground, and as the afternoon closed in the Archduke began to
+feel sure that the Italian reinforcements whose arrival he had so much
+feared, were never coming. He therefore prepared for the final effort
+which was to give him the well-deserved honours of the day. Towards
+seven o'clock in the evening, his soldiers succeeded in storming the
+heights of Custoza, and Austria could write a second battle of that
+name among her victories.
+
+The Italians lost 720 killed, 3112 wounded and 3608 prisoners. The
+Austrian loss was 960 killed, 3690 wounded and 1000 prisoners. Both
+sides were much tried by the scorching midsummer sun, but the Italians
+laboured under the additional drawback of having to fight fasting. In
+his report, the Archduke Albrecht mentioned that the prisoners said
+they had not tasted food for twenty-four hours. In the same report, he
+did ample justice to the courage of the Italian soldiers.
+
+As has been stated, the Archduke fought Custoza with not less,
+probably with rather more, than 70,000 men. The force which La Marmora
+placed in the field was actually inferior in number. The divisions of
+Bixio and Prince Humbert were kept doing nothing all day at a stone's
+throw from the scene of action. Of the whole 2nd _corps d'armée_ only
+a trifling detachment ever reached the ground. Inexplicably little use
+was made of the Italian cavalry.
+
+This bungling had lost the battle, but the fact that on the morrow,
+six divisions of the army of the Mincio were practically fresh, might
+have suggested to a general of enterprise to try again, since it was
+known that the Archduke had not a single new man to fall back on. And
+there was Cialdini on the Po with his eight divisions that had not
+been engaged at all. But, instead of adopting a spirited course, the
+Italian authorities gave way to unreasoning panic. It appears,
+unfortunately, that the King was the first to be overcome by this
+moral vertigo. The long and fiercely discussed question of who
+telegraphed to Cialdini: 'Irreparable disaster; cover the capital,'
+seems to have been settled since that general's death in 1892. It is
+now alleged that the telegram, the authorship of which was disowned by
+La Marmora, was signed by the King's adjutant, Count Verasio di
+Castiglione. Cialdini obeyed the order and fell back on Modena.
+Whether he was bound to obey an almost anonymous communication signed
+by an irresponsible officer is a moot point; it is reported that he
+repented having done so to the last day of his life.
+
+A great event now happened across the Alps; one of the decisive
+battles of the world was lost and won on the 5th of July at Sadowa
+near Königgrätz in Bohemia. The fate of Europe was shaped on that day
+for decades, if not for centuries. Of the immediate results, the first
+was the scattering to the wind of all calculations based upon a long
+continuance of the war, the issue of which, as far as Prussia was
+concerned, could not be regarded as doubtful. In respect to Italy,
+Austria's first thought was to prevent her from taking a revenge for
+Custoza. She attempted to compass this by ceding Venetia to Napoleon
+two days after Sadowa. It was making a virtue of necessity, as she was
+bound in any case to cede it at the conclusion of the war; but as the
+secret of the treaty had been well kept, the step caused great
+surprise, and in Italy, where the public mind had leapt from profound
+discouragement to buoyant hope, the impression was one of
+embarrassment and mortification. Italy was distinctly precluded by her
+engagement with Prussia from accepting Napoleon's invitation to
+conclude a separate peace. Meanwhile, Austria gained by the move, as
+it set her at liberty to recall the larger part of her troops from
+Venetia for the defence of Vienna. Her honour did not require her to
+contest the ground in a province which she had already given away.
+When Cialdini, at the head of the reorganised Italian army of which he
+now held the chief command, advanced across the Po to Padua, he found
+the path practically open.
+
+It was still possible for Italy to accomplish two things which would
+have in a great measure retrieved her _prestige_. The first was to
+occupy the Trentino; the second was to destroy the Austrian fleet.
+With the means at her disposal she ought to have been able to do both.
+
+In the earlier phases of Italian liberation, no one disputed that if
+Lombardy and Venetia were lost to the Empire the Tridentine province,
+wedged in as it is between them, would follow suit. When, in 1848,
+Lord Palmerston offered his services as mediator between Austria and
+revolted Italy, it was on a minimum basis of a frontier north of
+Trento. The arguments for the retention of Trieste--that Austria had
+made it what it was; that Germany needed it as a seaport, etc.--were
+inapplicable here; and even after the defeat of Custoza, an occupation
+of the Trentino, had it happened in conjunction with a naval victory,
+would have opened a fair prospect to possession. But there was no time
+to lose, and much time was lost by ordering Garibaldi to descend to
+the southern extremity of the lake of Garda to 'cover Brescia' from an
+imaginary attack. When the fear of an Austrian invasion subsided, and
+Garibaldi returned to the mountains, he endeavoured to re-take the
+position of Monte Suello which he had previously held, but the attempt
+failed. The volunteers were forced to retire with great loss, and the
+chief himself was wounded. On the 16th of July the volunteers renewed
+their advance up the mountain ravines, and, after taking Fort Ampola,
+reached the village of Bezzecca, where they were attacked by the
+Austrians early on the 21st. Each side claimed that sanguinary day as
+a victory; the Garibaldians remained masters of the ground, but the
+Austrians, in retiring, took with them a large number of prisoners.
+The losses of the volunteers on this and other occasions when they
+were engaged were disproportionately heavy. They were spendthrift of
+their lives, but in war, and especially in mountain warfare, caution
+is as needful as courage, and in caution they were so deficient that
+they were always being surprised. General Kuhn's numerically inferior
+force of tried marksmen, supported by good artillery and favoured by
+ground which may be described as one great natural fortification, had
+succeeded up till now in holding the Trentino, but his position was
+becoming critical, because while Garibaldi sought to approach Trento
+from the west, Medici with 10,000 men detached from the main army at
+Padua, was ascending the Venetian valleys that lead to the same
+destination from the east. Kuhn was therefore on the point of being
+taken between two fires when the armistice saved him.
+
+These operations on the Tridentine frontier, though not without a real
+importance, passed almost unnoticed in the excitement which attended
+the first calamitous appearance of United Italy as a naval power.
+
+When invited to assume the command of the Italian fleet, Admiral
+Persano twice refused; it was only when the King pressed upon him a
+third invitation that he weakly accepted a charge to which he felt
+himself unequal. He had been living in retirement for some years, and
+neither knew nor was known by most of the officers and men whom he was
+now to command. The fleet under his orders comprised thirty-three
+vessels, of which twelve were ironclads. The Austrian fleet numbered
+twenty-seven ships, including seven ironclads. When the war broke out,
+both fleets were far from ready for active service; but, while the
+Austrian Admiral Tegethoff said nothing, but worked night and day at
+Pola to make his ships and his men serviceable, Persano despatched
+hourly lamentable reports to the Minister of Marine, without finding
+the way to bring about a change for the better. He wasted time in
+minutiæ, and took into his head to paint all the Italian ships a
+light grey, which was of the greatest use to the Austrians in the
+battle of Lissa, as it enabled them to distinguish between them and
+their own dark-coloured ships.
+
+After long delaying at Taranto, Persano brought his fleet to Ancona;
+and, two days later, Tegethoff appeared in front of that town--not
+knowing, it seems, that the Italian squadrons had arrived. Tegethoff
+was bound on a simple reconnaissance, and, after firing a few shots,
+he sailed away. On this occasion, Persano issued orders so hesitating
+and confused that the Austrian admiral must have correctly gauged the
+capacity of the man opposed to him, while the superior officers of the
+Italian fleet were filled with little less than dismay. A strong
+effort was made to induce Depretis to supersede Persano then and
+there; he promised to do so, but it is said that the fear of offending
+the King prevented him. Instead, he set about showering instructions
+on the admiral, the worth of which may be easily imagined. The
+mistrust felt by the fleet in its commander invaded all ranks; and if
+it did not break out in open insubordination, it deprived officers and
+men of all confidence in the issue of the campaign.
+
+Left to himself, Persano would have stayed quietly at Ancona, but the
+imperative orders of a cabinet council, presided over by the King,
+forced him to take some action. Against the advice of Admiral Albini,
+but in agreement with another admiral, Vacca, Persano decided to
+attack the fortified island of Lissa, on the Dalmatian coast. Though
+Lissa is a strong position, the usual comparison of it with Gibraltar
+is exaggerated. It ought to have been possible to land the Italian
+troops which Persano had with him under cover of his guns, and to take
+the island before Tegethoff came up. The surf caused by the rough
+weather, to which he chiefly attributed his failure, would not have
+proved an insuperable obstacle had the ships' crews been exercised in
+landing troops under similar circumstances.
+
+Persano reached Lissa on the morning of the 18th of July, and began a
+tremendous bombardment of the forts, which, though answered with the
+highest spirit by the Austrians, did most deadly damage to their
+batteries. In fact, by the evening, except one or two at a high
+elevation, they were practically silenced. At six o'clock Captain
+Saint Bon took the _Formidabile_ into the narrow harbour to silence
+the inner works: a murderous fire rained on the corvette from Fort
+Wellington, which was too high for the Italian guns to get it into
+range. Though Saint Bon's attempt was not successful, the Italians had
+effected most of what they aimed at, and might have effected the rest
+had they continued the bombardment through the night, and so given the
+Austrians no time to repair their batteries, but at sunset Persano
+withdrew his fleet to a distance of eight miles. The Austrians worked
+all night at mending the batteries that could still be used, and hoped
+in the coming of Tegethoff.
+
+The telegraph cable connecting the neighbouring island of Lesina with
+the coast, and so with Pola, had been cut by Persano's orders; but
+either (as the writer was told on the spot last year) there was another
+line that was not noticed, or before the cable was destroyed the
+official in charge got off a message to Tegethoff, informing him of the
+arrival of the Italian fleet. An answer, to the effect that Tegethoff
+would come to the rescue as soon as possible, fell into the hands of the
+Italians, but Persano appears not to have believed in it.
+
+The 19th was spent in attempts at landing, which the surf and the
+energetic play of the repaired batteries rendered fruitless. The
+bombardment was renewed, but it was not well conducted. Saint Bon, who
+made another plucky entry into the harbour, was unsupported, and,
+after an hour's fighting, he was obliged to retire, his ship having
+suffered severely.
+
+Next morning there was a blinding summer storm, but at about eight
+o'clock the _Esploratore_ distinguished the forms of ironclads through
+the rain, and signalled to Persano: 'Suspicious vessels in sight.'
+Persano answered: 'No doubt they are fishing-boats.' When obliged to
+admit the truth he gave the order to unite, his ships being scattered
+in all directions with everything on board at sixes and sevens. The
+troops which had again been attempting to land, were in boats, tossed
+about by the heavy sea. The surprise was complete.
+
+Persano fought the battle of Lissa with nine ironclads, most of which
+had received some injuries during the bombardment. He ordered his
+wooden ships to keep out of the action altogether. Tegethoff had seven
+ironclads and fourteen wooden vessels, all of which he turned to the
+best account.
+
+Just before the battle Persano left his flagship, the _Re_ _d'Italia_,
+and went on board the _Affondatore_. By somebody's mistake it was a
+long time before the _Affondatore_ hoisted the admiral's flag, and
+the fleet continued to look to the _Re d'Italia_ for signals when he
+was no longer on board.
+
+Contrary to a well-known rule in naval science, Persano formed his
+squadron in single file, and quite at the beginning of the battle
+Tegethoff managed to break the line by dashing in between the first
+and second division whilst they were going at full speed, and under a
+furious cannonade from their guns. This daring operation placed him
+in the middle of the Italian ironclads, which, well directed, could
+have closed round him and destroyed him, but they were not directed
+either well nor ill--they were not directed at all. Persano put up
+contradictory signals, most of which were not seen, and those which
+were seen meant nothing. The plan followed by Admiral Tegethoff may be
+best described in his own words: 'It was hard to make out friend from
+foe, so I just rammed away at anything I saw painted grey.' Two
+Italian vessels had been already damaged, but not vitally injured, by
+the _Ferdinand Max_, when in the dense smoke a vast wall of grey
+appeared close to the bows of the Austrian flagship, which, to the cry
+of 'Ram her!' put on full steam and crashed into the enemy's flank.
+The shock was so great that the crew of the _Max_ were thrown about in
+indescribable confusion. The Italian ship was the _Re d'Italia,_ the
+flagship which did not carry the admiral. She quivered for one, two,
+some say for three minutes in her death agony, and then went down in
+two hundred fathoms of water.
+
+After the _Re d'Italia_ was struck, one of her seamen, thinking to
+assert a claim to pity, began to lower her flag, but a young officer
+pushed him aside and hoisted it again; so the great ship sank with her
+colours flying. The incident was noticed by the Austrians, who spoke
+of it in feeling terms. Willing enough were they to help, for after
+the first cheer of triumph they felt sick with horror at their own
+work, the fearful work of modern naval warfare. There were 550 men on
+board the doomed ship. Tegethoff shouted for the boats to be lowered,
+and signalled to the despatch boat _Elisabeth_ to pick up all she
+could, but two Italian ironclads were bearing down upon him, and
+little could be done to save the drowning multitude either by the
+Austrians or by their own people. Persano did not know of the
+disaster till some hours after it happened.
+
+The sea had scarcely closed over the _Re d'Italia_ when another
+misfortune occurred; the gunboat _Palestro_ took fire. Her captain,
+Alfredo Cappellini, disembarked the sick and wounded, but remained
+himself with the rest of the crew, endeavouring to put out the fire.
+The ship blew up at 2.30 p.m., and over two hundred perished with her.
+
+Persano, still on the _Affondatore_, now led his fleet out of action,
+and it was the first time he had led it during the day. Tegethoff
+gazed after the vanishing squadron with anxiety, as had Persano turned
+and renewed the battle from a distance, he could have revenged his
+defeat at close quarters without receiving a shot, owing to the longer
+range of his guns. But for such an operation skilful manoeuvring was
+wanted, and also, perhaps, more precision in firing than the Italian
+gunners possessed. At any rate, Persano had no mind for new
+adventures. He took what remained of his fleet straight back to
+Ancona, where the _Affondatore_ sank in the harbour from injuries
+received during the battle. For three days the Italian people were
+told that they had won a victory, then the bitter truth was known. The
+admiral, tried before the Senate, was deprived of his rank and command
+in the Italian navy. The politician who, when convinced of his
+unfitness, yet had not the nerve to remove him from his post, died,
+full of years and honours, Prime Minister of Italy.
+
+Lissa was fought on the 20th of July. On the 25th, Prussia signed the
+preliminaries of peace with Austria without consulting her ally, who,
+if unfortunate, had been eminently loyal to her. Thus the whole forces
+of the Empire, not less than 350,000 men, were let loose to fall upon
+Italy. Such was the wrathful disappointment of the Italians at their
+defeats by land and sea, that if a vote had been taken they would
+possibly have decided for a renewal of the struggle. Ricasoli was
+inclined to risk war rather than bow to the Austrian demand that the
+evacuation of the Trentino should precede the conclusion of an
+armistice. At this crisis, La Marmora acted as a true patriot in
+forcing the hand of the Ministry by ordering the recall of the troops
+and sending General Petitti to treat directly with the Austrian
+military authorities. 'They will say that we have betrayed the
+country,' said the King in the interview in which these measures were
+concerted; to which La Marmora answered: 'Come what may, I take the
+whole responsibility upon myself.' 'This is too much,' replied Victor
+Emmanuel with tears in his eyes; 'I, also, will have my part in it.'
+In which brief dialogue the character of the two men stands revealed;
+men who might fall short in talent or in judgment, not in honour.
+
+The volunteers, so many of whose comrades lay dead along the mountain
+gorges--who believed, too, that they were in sight of the reward of
+their sacrifices--were thrown into a ferment, almost into a revolt by
+the order to retreat. They had expected in a day or two to shake hands
+with Medici, who, after some hard fighting, was within a march of
+Trento. The order was explicit: instant evacuation of the enemy's
+territory. Garibaldi, to whom from first to last had fallen an
+ungrateful part, took up his pen and wrote the laconic telegram:
+'Obbedisco.' 'I have obeyed,' he said to the would-be mutineers, 'do
+you obey likewise.' Someone murmured 'Rome.' 'Yes,' said the chief,
+'we will march on Rome.'
+
+The armistice was signed at Cormons on the 12th of August, and the
+treaty of peace on the 3rd of October at Vienna. Italy received Venice
+from the hands of the French Emperor, whose interference since the
+beginning of the campaign had incensed Prussia against her ally
+without benefiting the Power which he affected and, perhaps, really
+meant to serve. Italy would have received Venetia without his
+interposition, for besides the Prussian obligation to claim it for
+her, Austria had no further wish to keep it. Despite the fact that
+Italian populations still remained under the rule of the Empire, the
+melancholy book of Austrian dominion in Italy might be fairly said to
+be closed forever. A new era was dawning for the House of Hapsburg,
+which was to show that, unlike the Bourbons, it could learn and
+unlearn.
+
+The comedy of the cession of Venice to Napoleon was enacted between
+General Le Boeuf and General Alemann, the Austrian military
+commandant. Among other formalities, the French delegate went the
+round of the museums and galleries to see that everything was in its
+place. Suddenly he came upon a most suspicious blank. 'A picture is
+missing here,' he said. 'It is, blandly assented the Austrian officer.
+'Well, but it must be sent back immediately--where is it?' 'In the
+Louvre.'
+
+At last Austrians and French departed, and Italy shook off her
+mourning, for however it had come about, the great object which had
+cost so much blood, so many tears, was attained; the stranger was
+gone!
+
+Out of 642,000 votes, only 69 were recorded against the union of
+Venetia with the Italian kingdom. When the plebiscite was presented
+to the King, he said: 'This is the greatest day of my life: Italy is
+made, though not complete.' On the 7th of November he entered Venice,
+and of all the pageants that greeted him in the hundred cities of
+Italy, the welcome of the Bride of the Adriatic was, if not the most
+imposing, certainly the fairest to see. More touching, however, than
+the glorious beauty of the Piazza San Marco and the Grand Canal in
+their rich adornment, was the universal decoration of the poorest
+quarters, which were all flagged and festooned so thickly that little
+could be seen of the stones of Venice. One poor cobbler, however,
+living at the end of a blind alley, had no flag, no garland to deck
+his abode: he had therefore pasted three strips of coloured paper,
+red, white and green, over his door, inscribing on the middle strip
+these words, which in their sublime simplicity merit to be rescued
+from oblivion: 'O mia cara Italia, voglio ma non posso fare più per
+te.'
+
+The Iron Crown of the Lombard Kings of Italy, which the Austrians had
+taken away in 1859, was brought back and restored to the Cathedral of
+Monza. Less presumptuous than Napoleon, Victor Emmanuel never placed
+the mystical fillet upon his head, but it was carried after his coffin
+to the Pantheon.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE LAST CRUSADE
+
+1867
+
+The French leave Rome--Garibaldi's Arrest and Escape--The Second
+French Intervention--Monte Rotondo--Mentana.
+
+
+The words of Victor Emmanuel to the Venetian Deputation contained a
+riddle easy to solve: what was meant by the 'completion' of Italy was
+the establishment of her capital on the Tiber. In most minds there was
+an intense belief in the inevitability of the union of Rome with the
+rest of Italy, but no one saw how it was to be brought about. What
+soothsayer foretold Sédan?
+
+In the first period after the war, domestic difficulties fixed the
+attention of the Italian Government on the present rather than on the
+future. An insurrection at Palermo assumed threatening proportions
+owing to the smallness of the garrison, and might have had still more
+serious consequences but for the courage and presence of mind shown by
+the Syndic, the young Marquis di Rudini. Crime and poverty, republican
+hankerings, the irritation of the priesthood at recent legislation,
+and most of all, the feeling that little had been done since 1860 to
+realise the millennium then promised, contributed to the outbreak
+which was quelled when troops arrived from the mainland, but the
+ministers were blamed for not having taken better precautions against
+its occurrence. Another stumbling-block lay in the path of Ricasoli,
+namely, the application of the law for the suppression of religious
+houses, and the expropriation of ecclesiastical property. After an
+unsuccessful endeavour to cope with it, he dissolved the Chamber, but
+the new Parliament proved no more willing to support his measures,
+which were of the nature of a compromise, than the old one, and he
+finally resigned office. He was succeeded by Urban Rattazzi, under
+whose administration a measure was passed which, though drastic in
+appearance, has not prevented the re-establishment of a great many
+convents of which the property was bought in under the name of
+private individuals. Every Catholic country has seen the necessity
+sooner or later of putting a check to the increase of monasticism, but
+it may be a matter of regret that in Italy, the toleration granted to
+the learned community of Monte Cassino was not extended to more of the
+historic monasteries. The abstention of the Clerical party from the
+voting urns deprived them of an influence which, on such points as
+these, they might have exercised legitimately and perhaps
+beneficially. To that abstention, the disequilibrium of Italian
+political life, from first to last, is largely due.
+
+The time allowed to the French under the September Convention for the
+evacuation of Rome expired in December 1866, and at the opening of the
+new year, for the first time since 1849, the Eternal City was without
+a garrison in the service of a foreign Power. While executing their
+engagement, the French Government took occasion to say that they kept
+their hands perfectly free as concerned future action. The anomalous
+obligations of the September Convention now came into force, and it
+was not long before their inconvenience was felt. Had Ricasoli
+remained at the head of affairs the _status quo_ might have lasted for
+a time; because, although he was an unflinching opponent of the
+Temporal Power, he would have made it clear that since the Convention
+existed he meant to respect it, and to make others respect it. He had
+shown that he could dare, but that was when he bore himself the whole
+responsibility of his daring. He was not the man to tolerate heroic
+imprudence in others with the mental reservation of owning or
+disowning the results, as might prove convenient. Rattazzi, on the
+other hand, was believed to answer very closely to this description;
+and patriots who were willing to bear all the blame in case of
+failure and yield all the praise in case of success, began once more
+to speculate on the profit to the national cause which might be
+extracted from the peculiarities of his character. Aspromonte, that
+should have placed them on their guard, had the contrary effect, for
+it was supposed that the Prime Minister was very anxious to wipe that
+stain from his reputation.
+
+Nevertheless, the Party of Action considered that, for the present,
+the wisest course was to wait and watch the development of events.
+This was Mazzini's personal view, but Garibaldi, almost alone in his
+dissent, did not share it. Impelled partly, no doubt, by the
+impatience of a man who sees the years going by and his own life
+ebbing away without the realisation of its dearest dream, but partly
+also by the deliberate belief that the political situation offered
+some favourable features which might not soon be repeated, Garibaldi
+decided to take the field in the autumn of 1867. His friends, who one
+and all tried to dissuade him, found him immovable. It is too much to
+say that he expected assistance from the Government, but that he hoped
+to draw Rattazzi after him is scarcely doubtful, and he had good
+reason for the hope.
+
+In Rattazzi's own version and defence of his policy, it is set forth
+that before the die was cast he did all that was humanly possible to
+prevent the expedition, but that having failed, he intended sending the
+Italian army over the frontier in the wake of the broken-loose
+condottiere. Though this gives a colour of consistency to his conduct,
+it is not satisfactory as an explanation, and still less as an apology.
+
+General La Marmora, who had always opposed the Convention, though he
+belonged to the party which made it, once declared that 200,000 men
+would not be sufficient to hold the Papal frontier against a guerilla
+invasion. True as this may be, it is impossible to resist the
+conclusion that a minister who had resolutely made up his mind to
+prevent any attempt from being made would not have acted as Rattazzi
+acted. The Prime Minister thought that he was imitating Cavour, but in
+reality he simply imitated the pendulum of a clock.
+
+Rattazzi's taste was for intrigue rather than for adventure in the
+grand sense. An adventurous minister would have accelerated the
+enterprise to the utmost, in secret or not in secret, and would then
+have preceded Garibaldi to Rome before the Clerical party in France
+had time to force Napoleon to act. The rest could have been left to
+the Roman people. What they did in 1870 they would have done in 1867;
+they were ready to acclaim any conquering liberator; they were not
+ready to make a revolution on their own account, and with all their
+leaders in prison or in exile, they are hardly to be blamed for it.
+For such a policy Italy might have pleaded that necessity which knows
+no law. Everybody allowed that if Garibaldi went to Rome the Italians
+must go there too: the very security of the Pope demanded it--at
+least, he said so. As to the first part of the programme, complicity
+in the preparation of the movement, it would have been an infringement
+of the Convention, but had France kept the Convention? French bishops
+recruited soldiers for the Pope in every province of France, and the
+Antibes Legion was drawn, officers and men, from the French army. When
+some of the men deserted, the French War Office sent General Dumont to
+Rome to look to the discipline of the regiment. Those who argued that
+the spirit, if not the letter, of the agreement had been already
+evaded, could make out a good case for their position.
+
+It has been suggested that this is what Rattazzi's policy would have
+been, but for the opposition of the King. Were it so, the minister
+ought to have resigned at the beginning of the proceedings instead of
+at the end. That in the ultimate crisis it was the King who prevented
+the troops from moving is a fact, but the propitious moment was then
+past and gone. 'Do as you like, but do it quickly,' Napoleon said to
+Cavour when Cialdini was to be sent to the Cattolica. And it was done
+quickly.
+
+After letting Garibaldi make what arrangements and issue what
+manifestoes he chose for six weeks, Rattazzi suddenly had him arrested
+at Sinalunga on the 23rd of September. The only consequence was fatal
+delay; not knowing what to do with their prisoner, the Government
+shipped him to Caprera. Personally he was perfectly free; no
+conditions were imposed; but nine men-of-war were despatched to the
+island to sweep the seas of erratic heroes. In spite of which,
+Garibaldi escaped in a canoe on the 14th of October.
+
+That night, between sundown and moonrise, there was only one hour's
+dark, but it sufficed the fugitive to make good his passage from
+Caprera to the island of Maddalena. A strong south-east breeze was
+blowing; the waves, however, were rather favourable to the venture, as
+they hid the frail bark from any eyes that might be peering through
+the night. Garibaldi did not fear; he had often put out on this
+terrible sea when lashed to fury to succour sailors in their peril. On
+reaching Maddalena he scrambled over the rocks to the house of an
+English lady who was delighted to give him hospitality. Next evening
+he proceeded to Sardinia, from which, after several adventures, he
+sailed for the Tuscan coast in a boat held in readiness by his
+son-in-law, Canzio. And so, to the amazement of friends and foes, he
+arrived in Florence, where, before many hours were past, he was
+haranguing the enthusiastic crowd from a balcony.
+
+Garibaldi had escaped, but the mischief done to the movement by the
+loss of nearly a month could not be remedied. Although large armed
+bands under Acerbi, Nicotera and Menotti Garibaldi were gathered near
+Viterbo, as usually happened in the absence of the chief, nothing
+effectual was done. But it was in Paris that the delay brought the
+most ruinous results.
+
+The history of the second French expedition to Rome will never be
+satisfactorily told, because, while the outward circumstances point
+one way, the inward probabilities point another. Napoleon had said
+that if the Convention were not observed he would intervene, and he
+did intervene; nothing could seem simpler. Yet it is not doubtful
+that, in his inmost heart, he was wishing day and night that something
+would turn up to extricate him from the Roman dilemma once for all.
+While he hesitated, the Clerical party in France did not hesitate. Not
+a moment was thrown away by them. Towards the middle of October, it
+was reported that 'half royalist and half Catholic France will be in
+Rome in the course of the week. Men with names belonging to the
+proudest French nobility--the De Lusignans, De Clissons, De Lumleys,
+De Bourbon-Chalens, etc., are chartering vessels, arriving in Rome by
+scores and hundreds, and hence hurrying to the front to take their
+places as privates in the Zouaves.' That, however, does not describe
+the most important sphere of their activity which was the
+ante-chamber, nay, the boudoir of St Cloud. In that palace, three
+years later to be rased to the ground by the Germans, the net was
+woven which every day closed tighter and tighter round Napoleon, till
+he was enveloped in its meshes past escape. Ever since De Morny's
+death, the influence nearest the throne had been increasing in
+strength; it is needless to say in which direction it was exercised.
+Napoleon was ill; Maximilian's ghost floated over him; he felt his
+power slipping from his hands in spite of the noise and show of the
+Exhibition, which was supposed to mark its zenith. The words of the
+old pact with the Royalists buzzed in his ears: 'Do you keep the Pope
+on his throne, and we will keep you on yours.' And he yielded.
+
+The 'principle' of French intervention was adopted by the council of
+ministers on the 17th of October. Then, and not till then, Rattazzi
+decided to send the Italian troops over the frontier. On finding that
+neither the King nor several of his colleagues in the ministry would
+support him, he resigned office on the 19th of the month.
+
+It was on the day after that Garibaldi appeared in Florence. As there
+was no ministry, no one thought it his business to interfere with him.
+Cialdini, whom the King had requested to form a cabinet, did go and
+ask him to keep quiet till there was some properly qualified person to
+arrest him; but this, not unnaturally, he declined to do. He left
+Florence by special train for Terni, whence he crossed the frontier
+and joined the insurgent bands near Rome.
+
+From the 19th to the 26th, Napoleon again and again ordered and
+countermanded the departure of the transports from Toulon. On the last
+date the final order was given and the ships started. The news must
+have just reached Paris that the King had called upon General Menabrea
+to undertake the task which had been abandoned by Cialdini, whose name
+recalled Castelfidardo too strongly to have a sound welcome either in
+the Vatican or at St Cloud. When Napoleon heard that Menabrea was to
+be Rattazzi's successor, he knew that there was no fear that the new
+Government, carried away by the popular current which was manifestly
+having its effect on the King, should, after all, order the Italian
+army to the front. Menabrea, the Savoyard who in 1860 chose the
+Italian nationality which his son has lately cast away, was the old
+opponent of Cavour in the Turinese chamber, and of all Italian
+politicians he was the most lukewarm on the Roman question. All chance
+of a collision between the French and Italian armies was removed.
+Menabrea did occupy some positions over the Papal frontier, it would
+be hard to say with what intention, unless it were to appear to fulfil
+a sort of promise given by the King during the ministerial
+interregnum. The troops were ordered on no account to attack the
+French, and as soon as the Garibaldian campaign was at an end, they
+were brought home. It was not worth while to send them with their
+hands tied to almost within earshot of where other Italians were
+fighting and falling. Menabrea's attitude towards the volunteers was
+immediately revealed by the issue of a royal proclamation, in which
+they were declared rebels. The French were free to act.
+
+All this time the revolution in Rome, which it was admitted on all
+sides would have gone far towards cutting the knot, did not begin.
+Besides the cause already assigned, the absence of the heads, there was
+another, the almost total lack of arms. To remedy this, Enrico and
+Giovanni Cairoli, with some seventy followers, tried to take a supply of
+arms up the Tiber to Rome. Only the immense importance of the object
+could have justified so desperate an attempt. Obliged to abandon their
+boats near Ponte Molle, they struck off into the Monti Parioli, where
+they were attacked, within sight of the promised land, at a spot called
+Villa Gloria. Their assailants were three times their number, and those
+who were not killed were carried prisoners to Rome. Among the killed was
+the captain of the band, who fell in the arms of his young brother. As
+Enrico Cairoli lay dying, the French Zouaves (was this the chivalry of
+France?) charged the two brothers with their bayonets, piercing Giovanni
+with ten wounds, from injuries arising from one of which he expired a
+year later, after long torments. 'Dastardly French!' cried Enrico with
+his last breath. They were the third and fourth sons of Adelaide Cairoli
+who died for their country. One only of her five children remained to
+stand by her own death-bed--Benedetto, the future Prime Minister, and
+saviour of King Humbert from the knife of an assassin.
+
+The Papal army was composed of 13,000 men, General de Courten
+commanding the portion of it which could be spared out of Rome. The
+Breton, Colonel Charette, had charge of the Zouaves. Since the French
+garrison left, much trouble had been taken to make this force
+efficient. Under Garibaldi's own orders there were between 7000 and
+8000 volunteers. Those who have made a higher estimate have included
+other bands which, either from the difficulty of provisioning a larger
+number, or from want of time for concentration, remained at a
+distance.
+
+The chief's arrival soon infused new life into the camp. On the 24th
+he moved towards Monte Rotondo, one of the castellated heights near
+Rome, which commands the Nomentane and Tiburtine ways to the south,
+and the railway and Via Salara to the west. It was generally
+considered the most important military position in the Papal states.
+The garrison was small, but, perched as they were on a hill crest
+which looks inaccessible, the defenders might well hope to hold out
+till help came from Rome. They had artillery, of which the volunteers
+had none, and the old castle of the Orsini, where they made their
+principal stand, was well adapted for defence. From the morning of the
+25th till midnight, the Garibaldians hurled themselves against the
+walls of the rock town without making much way; but at last the
+resistance grew weak, and when the morning light came, the white flag
+was seen flying. At four in the afternoon of the 26th a Papal column
+tardily arrived upon the scene, but they perceived that all was over
+at Monte Rotondo, and, after firing a few musket shots, they fled to
+Rome in disorder.
+
+Garibaldi rode into the cathedral, where he fixed his quarters for the
+night. In Italy churches have ever been applied to such uses. After
+the reduction of Milan, Francesco Sforza rode into the Duomo, and when
+King Ladislaus of Naples conquered Rome, he rode into the basilica of
+St John Lateran. The guerilla chief bivouacked in a confessional,
+while his Red-shirts slept where they could on the cathedral floor.
+Four hundred of them had been killed or wounded in the assault.
+
+The prisoners of war were brought before Garibaldi, who praised their
+valour and sent them under an escort to the Italian frontier. Two or
+three were retained for the following reason. Garibaldi had heard of
+the Cairolis' heroic failure, and after his victory his first thought
+was of them and of their sorrowing mother. He asked Signora Mario if
+there were any notabilities among the Papal prisoners. She mentioned
+Captain Quatrebras and others, and he sent her into Rome on a mission
+to the Papal commander with a view to exchanging these prisoners for
+the wounded Giovanni and for his brother's body. The proposal was
+accepted, and the compact kept after Mentana had changed the aspect of
+affairs.
+
+'Garibaldi at the gates!' was the news that spread like wildfire
+through Rome on the evening of the 26th of October. Terror, real
+terror, and no less real joy filled all hearts; but the sides were
+soon to be reversed. Another piece of news was not long in coming:
+'The French at Civita Vecchia!'
+
+The French arrived on the 29th, and on the same day Garibaldi advanced
+almost to the walls of Rome, still hoping for a revolutionary movement
+to break out within the city; but the information which he then
+received deprived him finally of this hope, and he gave the order to
+return to Monte Rotondo. Volunteers have the defect of being soldiers
+who _think_; on this occasion they thought that the backward march was
+the beginning of the end--that, in short, the game was up. A third of
+the whole number deserted, and took the road towards the Italian
+frontier. Garibaldi himself seems to have had a first idea of crossing
+into the Abruzzi, and there waiting to see what turn events would
+take; but he did not long entertain it, and, when he again left Monte
+Rotondo, it was with the fixed design of fighting a battle. He
+expected, however, to fight the Papal troops alone, and not the
+French.
+
+This was very nearly being the case. On the 1st of November, the Papal
+General Kanzler called on General De Failly at Civita Vecchia, and
+found him, to his concern, by no means anxious to rush into the fray.
+Even when sending the troops, Napoleon seems to have hoped to escape
+from being seriously compromised. He probably thought that the moral
+effect of their landing would cause Garibaldi to retire, and that thus
+the whole affair would collapse. But the Papal authorities did not
+want it to collapse; they wanted more bloodshed, and if the words
+which express the ungarnished truth as acknowledged by their own
+writers and apologists, sound indecent when describing the government
+of the Vicar of Christ, it only shows once more the irreconcilability
+of the offices of priest and king in the nineteenth century. Kanzler
+insisted that a crushing blow must be inflicted on the volunteers
+before they had time to retreat. He argued so long and so well that De
+Failly promised him a brigade under General Polhès to aid in the
+attack which he proposed to make on Monte Rotondo.
+
+The Papal forces left Rome by Porta Pia, and took the Via Nomentana,
+which leads to Monte Rotondo by Mentana. They were on the march at
+four o'clock a.m. Garibaldi had ordered his men to be ready at dawn on
+the same day (it was the 3rd of November); but Menotti suggested that,
+before they started, there should be a distribution of shoes, a
+consignment of which had just reached the camp. Many of the volunteers
+were barefoot, which gives a notion of their general equipment.
+Garibaldi, who rarely took advice, yielded to his son. Had he not done
+so, before the Papal army reached Mentana, he would have been at
+Tivoli. One delay brings another, and it was midday when the march
+began. Garibaldi looked sad, and spoke to no one, but hummed some bars
+of Riego's hymn, the Spanish song of freedom, full of a wild, sweet
+pathos, to which his tanned-faced legionaries had marched under the
+Monte Videan sun. Could he but have had with him those strong warriors
+now! He mounted his horse, put it to a gallop, which he rarely did,
+and, riding down the ranks of the column, took his place at its head.
+When he arrived at the village of Mentana, he heard that the
+Pontificals were close by, and he waited to give them battle.
+
+Mentana lies in a depression commanded by the neighbouring mounds,
+not a good configuration for defence. This village in the Roman
+Campagna sprang into history on a November day one thousand and
+sixty-seven years before, as the meeting-place of Charlemagne and Leo
+III. Here they shook hands over their bargain: that the Pope should
+crown the great Charles Emperor, and that the Emperor should assure to
+the Pope his temporal power. And now the ragged band of Italian youths
+was come to say that of bargains between Popes and Emperors there had
+been enough.
+
+They numbered less than 5000. General De Failly reckoned the Papal
+troops engaged at 3000 and the French at 2000, but Italian authorities
+compute the former at a higher figure. The most experienced of the
+Garibaldian officers thought that the attackers were twice as numerous
+as they were. At the first onslaught great confusion prevailed among
+the volunteers. Mentana seemed lost, but the sound of the guns they
+had captured at Monte Rotondo restored their _moral_, and making a
+gallant rush forward they retook the principal positions with the
+bayonet. As they saw the Pontificals swerve back they uttered cries of
+joy. It was two o'clock. The enemy's fire slackened; something was
+going on which the volunteers could not make out. All at once there
+was a sharp unfamiliar detonation, resembling the whirring sound of a
+machine. The French had come into action.
+
+A hailstorm of bullets mowed down the Garibaldian ranks. Their two
+guns were useless, for the ammunition, seventy rounds in all, was
+exhausted. They fought till four o'clock--till nearly their last
+cartridge was gone; then they slowly retreated. Very few of them
+guessed what that peculiar sound meant, or imagined that they had been
+engaged with the French, but next morning Europe knew from General De
+Failly's report that 'the Chassepots had done wonders.'
+
+Garibaldi left the field, haggard and aged, unable to reconcile
+himself to a defeat which he thought that more discipline, more
+steadiness in his rank and file, would have turned into a victory. He
+had always demanded the impossible of his men; till now they had given
+it to him. In time he judged more justly. Those miserably-armed lads
+who lately had been glad to eat the herbs of the field, if haply they
+found any, stood out for four hours against the pick of two regular
+armies, one of which was supposed to be the finest in the world. They
+had done well.
+
+Mentana remained that night in the hands of 1500 Garibaldians, who
+still occupied the castle and most of the houses when the general
+retreat was ordered. In the morning the Garibaldian officer who held
+the castle capitulated, on condition that the volunteers 'shut up in
+Mentana' should be reconducted across the frontier; terms which the
+French and Papal generals interpreted to embrace only the defenders of
+the castle. Eight hundred of the others were taken in triumph to Rome.
+It would have been wiser to let them go. The Romans had been told that
+the Garibaldians were cut-throats, incendiaries, human bloodhounds
+waiting to fly at them. What did they behold? 'The beast is gentle,'
+as Euripides makes his captors say of Dionysius. The stalwart Romans
+saw a host of boys, with pale, wistful, very young-looking faces. If
+anything was wanting to seal the fate of the Temporal Power it was the
+sight of that procession of famished and wounded Italians brought to
+Rome by the foreigner.
+
+The victors, however, were jubilant. Their inharmonious shouts of
+_Vive Pie Neuf_ vexed the delicate Roman ears. It was the battle-cry
+of the day of Mentana. Begun by the masked, finished by the unmasked
+soldiers of France, Mentana was a French victory, and it was the last.
+
+The Garibaldian retreat continued through the night to Passo Corese on
+the Italian frontier. The silence of the Campagna was only broken by
+little gusts of a chilly wind off the Tiber; it seemed as if a
+spectral army moved without sound. Garibaldi rode with his hat pressed
+down over his eyes; only once he spoke: 'It is the first time they
+make me turn my back like this,' he said to an old comrade, 'it would
+have been better ...' He stopped, but it was easy to supply the words:
+'to die.'
+
+As he was getting into the train at Figline, with the intention of
+going straight to Caprera, he was placed under arrest by order of the
+Italian Government. His officers had their hands on their swords, but
+he forbade their using force. The arrest seemed an unnecessary slight
+on the beaten man, who had loved Italy too well. But General Menabrea,
+who ordered it, believes that he thereby saved Italian unity.
+According to an account given by him many years after to the
+correspondent of an English newspaper, Napoleon wrote at this juncture
+to King Victor Emmanuel, that as he was not strong enough to govern
+his kingdom, he, Napoleon, was about to help him by relieving him of
+all parts of it except Piedmont, Lombardy and Venetia. The arrest of
+Garibaldi, by showing that the King 'could govern,' averted the
+impending danger. In communicating it to Napoleon, the King is said to
+have added 'that Italians would lose their last drop of blood before
+consenting to disruption,' a warning which he was not unlikely to
+give, but the whole story lacks verisimilitude. It appears more
+credible that an old man's memory is at fault than that a letter, so
+colossally insolent, was actually written. Menabrea, and even the
+King, may have feared that something of the kind was in the mind of
+the Emperor.
+
+As after Aspromonte so after Mentana; Garibaldi was confined in the
+fortress of Varignano, on the bay of Spezia. A few weeks later he was
+released and sent to Caprera. As he left the fortress-prison he wrote
+the words: 'Farewell, Rome; farewell, Capitol; who knows who will
+think of thee, and when?'
+
+The last crusade was over; destiny would do the rest.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+ROME, THE CAPITAL
+
+1867-1870
+
+M. Rouher's 'Never'--Papal Infallibility--Sédan--The Breach in Porta
+Pia--The King of Italy in Rome.
+
+
+Mentana had its epilogue in the debate in the French Corps Législatif,
+which lasted from the 2nd to the 5th of December. Jules Favre proposed
+a vote of censure on the Ministry for their Roman policy. The most
+distinguished speaker who followed him was Thiers, who said that
+though in opposition, he would support the Government tooth and nail
+in their defence of French interests at Rome. The debate was wound up
+by the memorable declaration of the Prime Minister, Rouher, that
+'never' should Italy get possession of Rome. 'Is that clear?' he
+asked. It was quite clear. The word escaped him, he afterwards said,
+in 'the heat of improvisation.' The French Chamber confirmed it by
+throwing out Favre's motion by 237 votes against 17.
+
+Now, indeed, the Ultramontanes were jubilant throughout the world.
+Napoleon was compromised, enmeshed beyond extrication.
+
+Of all these events, Prussia, or rather the great man who was the
+brain of Prussia, took attentive note. He was convinced that the
+wonders accomplished by the Chassepot at Mentana would soon lead
+France to try the effect of the new rifle on larger game. Among the
+measures which he took with a view to that contingency, his
+correspondence with Mazzini is not the least remarkable. It began in
+November 1867, and was continued for a year. The object of both
+Bismarck and Mazzini was to prevent Italy from taking sides with
+France. The negotiations were carried on partly through Count
+d'Usedom, Prussian Minister at Florence, and partly through other
+intermediaries. Mazzini began by saying, that although the
+Chancellor's methods of unification had not his sympathy, he admired
+his energy, tenacity and independence; that he believed in German
+unity and opposed the supremacy which France arrogated to herself in
+Europe. He engaged to use his influence in Italy to make it difficult
+for an Italian Government to take up arms for the victors of Mentana.
+Bismarck was well aware that in speaking of his influence the writer
+used no idle phrase, but possibly one of his reasons for continuing
+the correspondence was to find out what Mazzini knew of the hidden
+plots and counter plots then in manufacture both in Paris and at
+Florence, because the Italian was more conversant with diplomatic
+secrets than any man living, except, perhaps, Cardinal Antonelli. In
+April 1868, Mazzini received through the Prussian Embassy at Florence,
+a document which even now possesses real interest on the relative
+advantages to Italy of a French or German Alliance. The whole question
+turned, observed the Prussian Chancellor, on the mastery of the
+Mediterranean: here France and Italy must find themselves at variance
+whether they willed it or not. 'The configuration of the terrestrial
+globe not being amenable to change, they will be always rivals and
+often enemies.' Nature has thrown between them an apple of discord,
+the possession of which they will not cease to contest. The
+Mediterranean ought to become an Italian lake. 'It is impossible for
+Italy to put up with the perpetual threats of France to obtain the
+mastery over Tunis, which would be for her the first stage to arriving
+in Sardinia.'
+
+At the Berlin Congress eight years later, Prince Bismarck pressed the
+same views upon Count Corti, the Italian delegate. He would have been
+glad to see the Italians go to Tunis, but Count Corti ingenuously
+replied: 'You want to make us quarrel with France.' Meanwhile the
+Englishman who represented France and the Englishman who represented
+England were discussing the same subject, and out of their discussion
+arose the French occupation of Tunis. Disquieting rumours got about at
+once, but they were dispelled. 'No French Government would be so
+rash,' said Gambetta, 'as to make Italy the _irreconcilable_ foe of
+France.' M. Waddington declared that he was personally opposed to the
+acquisition of Tunis, and gave his word of honour that nothing would
+be done without the full consent of Italy. What was done and how it
+was done is known to all. And so it happens that a great French naval
+station is in course of construction almost within sight of Sicily
+_and of Malta._
+
+In the document communicated by Bismarck to Mazzini, there is a
+curious inclusion of Trieste among Italian seaports which seems to
+indicate that he was still not averse from a rectification of the
+Italian north-east frontier. Whence it may be supposed that he
+expected to find Austria ranged on the part of France in the struggle
+for the Rhine bank. To explain how it was that this did not happen, we
+must leave the Chancellor and the Revolutionist, and see what at the
+same time was going on between Napoleon on the one side and Austria
+and Italy on the other.
+
+The French Emperor was not so infatuated as to court the risk of
+making war on Prussia single-handed if he could avoid it. He hoped for
+a triple alliance of France, Austria and Italy, or, if that could not
+be compassed, a dual alliance of France with either of these Powers.
+Now, wisely or unwisely, both the Italian and Austrian Governments
+were far from rejecting these proposals off-hand. The secret
+negotiations lasted from 1868 till June 1869. They took the shape of
+informal letters between the King of Italy and Napoleon, and of
+private communications with Count Beust through Prince Metternich, the
+Austrian Ambassador in Paris, who was the intimate friend and
+confidant of the Emperor and Empress. General Menabrea was not let
+into the secret till later. With regard to Victor Emmanuel, there is
+no doubt that he wished with all his heart to be able to do a good
+turn to his Imperial ally of 1859 if the occasion presented itself.
+Some men see their wives even to old age as they saw them when they
+were young and fair. The first print on the retina of the mental
+vision was so strong that no later impression can change or efface it.
+This hallucination is not confined to the marital relationship, and
+Victor Emmanuel never left off seeing Napoleon in one sole light: as
+the friend of Solferino. It may be that he perceived what the Italians
+did not perceive: that the obligation was owed to Napoleon alone,
+while all France had a part in the subsequent injuries. At any rate
+the idea of refusing the Emperor's appeal was repugnant in the extreme
+to the Italian King, who personally would have strained any point
+rather than give that refusal.
+
+The King, however, and General Menabrea, who was finally admitted into
+the conspiracy, could not be blind to the fact that an unpopular war
+might create so great an agitation in the country that the dynasty
+itself would be in danger. A war for France while the French were in
+Rome would have raised one storm of indignation from Palermo to Turin.
+So their ultimatum was this: Rome capital of Italy, or no alliance.
+
+There remained Austria, but if Napoleon ever hoped to conclude a
+separate treaty with her, he was to discover his mistake. From the
+moment that Austria resigned the Iron Crown, the symbol of her Italian
+power, she acted towards Italy with a loyalty that has few parallels
+in history. And she, too, replied to Napoleon: Rome capital of Italy,
+or no alliance.
+
+The Vatican has never forgiven this to Austria. At the present hour,
+while republican France with her open antagonism to all religion, is
+the favoured daughter of the Church, Austria, the only country in
+Europe except Spain where the Roman Catholic cultus retains all its
+original pomp and almost all its mediæval privileges, meets from the
+Vatican a studied plan of opposition, the object of which can only be
+to bring her Government to a deadlock. From France the Pope still
+hopes for aid in the recovery of his temporalities; from Austria he
+knows that he will never receive it. So much have politics and so
+little has religion to do now, as in all ages, with the motives that
+govern the Holy See.
+
+  Ahi, Costantin, di quanto mal fu matre
+    Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote
+  Che da te prese il primo ricco patre!
+
+The years 1868 and 1869 passed uneventfully for Italy. In the former
+year Prince Humbert married his cousin Margherita of Savoy. He was
+previously engaged to the Archduchess Matilda, the only daughter of
+the Victor of Custoza, but the young Princess met with a terrible
+death just when the betrothal was about to be announced. No one
+worthier to receive from Adelaide of Burgundy the lovely title of
+Queen of Italy could have been found than the Princess Margaret, who
+inherited the sunny charm which had endeared her father, the Duke of
+Genoa, to all who knew him.
+
+In the autumn of 1869 another domestic event, the severe illness of
+Victor Emmanuel, gave rise to an incident which made a deep impression
+in Italy, and attached the nation by one link more to the King of its
+choice. The illness which seized Victor Emmanuel at his hunting-box
+of San Rossore, in a malarious part of Tuscany, proved so serious
+that his life was despaired of. A priest was called to hear the King's
+last confession, and to administer the Sacraments for the dying. After
+hearing the confession, the priest said he could not give absolution
+unless Victor Emmanuel signed a solemn retractation of all the acts
+performed during his reign that were contrary to the interests of the
+Church. The King answered, without a moment's hesitation, that he died
+a Christian and a Catholic, and that if he had wronged anyone he
+sincerely repented and asked pardon of God, but the signature demanded
+was a political act, and if the priest wished to talk politics his
+ministers were in the next room. Thither the ecclesiastic retired, but
+he very soon returned, and administered the rite without more ado.
+What had passed was this: General Menabrea, with a decision for which
+he cannot be too much praised, threatened the priest with instant
+arrest unless he surrendered his pretensions. Only those who know the
+extraordinary terror inspired in an Italian Catholic by the prospect
+of dying unshriven can appreciate the merit of the King, whose faith
+was childlike, in standing as firm in the presence of supernatural
+arms as he stood before the Austrian guns.
+
+Menabrea's administration was then upon the eve of falling. The cause
+was one of those financial crises that were symptomatic of a mischief
+which has been growing from then till now, when some critics think
+they see in it the fatal upas tree of Italy. The process of
+transforming a country where everything was wanting--roads, railways,
+lines of navigation, schools, water, lighting, sanitary provisions,
+and the other hundred thousand requirements of modern life--into the
+Italy of to-day, where all these things have made leaps almost
+incredible to those who knew her in her former state, has proved
+costly without example. During the whole period it has been necessary
+to spend in ever-increasing ratio on the army and navy, and this
+expenditure, though emphatically not the chief, has yet been a
+concomitant cause of financial trouble. The point cannot be inquired
+into here of how far greater wisdom and higher character in Italian
+public servants might have limited the evil and reconciled progress
+with economy; but it may be said that if the path entered upon by the
+man who took charge of the exchequer after Menabrea's fall, Quintino
+Sella, had been rigorously followed by his successors, the present
+situation would not be what it is.
+
+Giovanni Lanza assumed the premiership in the government in which
+Sella was Minister of Finance. Both these politicians were
+Piedmontese, and both were known as men of conspicuous integrity, but
+Lanza's rigid conservatism made it seem unlikely that the Roman
+question would take a fresh turn under his administration. In
+politics, however, the unlikely is what generally happens; events are
+stronger than men.
+
+On the 8th of December the twenty-first Ecumenical Council assembled
+in Rome. From the day of its meeting, in spite of the strenuous
+opposition of its most learned and illustrious members, there was no
+more doubt that the dogma under consideration would be voted by the
+partly astute and partly complaisant majority than that it would have
+been rejected in the twenty preceding Councils. On the 18th of July
+1870, the Pope was proclaimed Infallible.
+
+That was a moment of excitement such as has not often thrilled Europe,
+but the cause was not the Infallibility of Pius IX. On the 16th,
+Napoleon declared war with Prussia. War, like death, comes as a shock,
+however plainly it has been foreseen; besides, it was only the
+well-informed who knew how near the match had been to the
+powder-magazine for two years and more. Whether the explosion, at the
+last, was timed by Napoleon or by Bismarck is not of great importance;
+it could have been but little delayed. Napoleon was beset alike by the
+revolutionary spectre and by the gaunt King of Terrors; he knew the
+throw was desperate, but with the gambler's instinct, which had always
+been so strong in him, he was magnetised by it because it was
+desperate. Pitiful egotist though he was, history may forgive him
+sooner than it forgives the selfish Chauvinism of Thiers, who had been
+goading his countrymen to war ever since Sadowa, or the insane bigotry
+of the party which, having triumphed over revolution at Mentana, now
+sought to triumph over heresy in what the Empress called 'Ma guerre.'
+
+Napoleon had the remaining sagacity to see the extreme danger of
+leaving a few thousand men isolated in Rome at a time when, happen
+what might, it would be impossible to reinforce them. Directly after
+declaring war, notwithstanding the cries of the Ultramontanes, he
+decided on recalling the French troops. He induced the Italian
+Government to resume the obligations of the September Convention, by
+which the inviolability of the Papal frontier was guaranteed. Lanza is
+open to grave criticism for entering into a contract which it was
+morally certain that he would not be able to keep. Perhaps he hoped
+that Napoleon would himself release Italy from her bond. But the
+'Jamais' of Rouher stood in the way. Could the Emperor, after such
+boasting, coolly throw the Pope overboard the first time it suited his
+convenience? Moreover, his present Prime Minister, M. Emile Olivier,
+when the question was put to him, did not hesitate to renew the
+declaration that the Italians must not be allowed to go to Rome.
+
+Napoleon made some last frantic efforts to get Austria and Italy to
+befriend him unconditionally. How far he knew the real state of his
+army before he declared war may be doubtful, but that he possessed
+overwhelming proof of it, even before the first defeats, cannot be
+doubted at all. His heart was not so light as his Prime Minister's. At
+the end of July he sent General Türr on a secret mission to try and
+obtain the help of Austria and Italy. The Hungarian general wrote from
+Florence, that unless something could be done to assure Italy that the
+national question would be settled in accordance with the wishes of
+her people, the Italian alliance was not possible. The Convention, he
+pointed out, was a bane instead of a boon to Italy. This letter was
+answered by a telegram through the French Ambassador at Vienna: 'Can't
+do anything for Rome; if Italy will not march, let her stand still.
+
+As in the former negotiations, Austria took her stand on precisely the
+same ground as Italy. And thus it was that France plunged into the
+campaign of 1870 single-handed.
+
+After Wörth, and once more after Gravelotte, the endeavour to draw
+Italy into the struggle was renewed. Napoleon was aware that Victor
+Emmanuel was wildly anxious to come to the rescue, and on this
+personal goodwill his last hope was built. Prince Napoleon was
+despatched from the camp at Châlons to see what he could do. At this
+eleventh hour (19th August) Napoleon was ready to yield about Rome. At
+the camp, the influence which guided him in Paris was less felt, or it
+is probable that he would not have yielded even now. Prince Napoleon
+carried a sheet of white paper with the Emperor's signature at the
+foot. He showed it to Lanza when he reached Florence, and told him to
+fill it up as he chose. Whatever he asked for was already granted. A
+month before, such terms would have won both Italy and Austria--not
+now.
+
+The Prince found his father-in-law eager to give the 50,000 men that
+were asked for, but the ministers protested that the Italian army was
+unprepared for war. Still, to satisfy the King, who signified his
+irritation so clearly to Lanza that this good servant was on the point
+of resigning, they agreed to submit the case to Austria; if Austria
+would co-operate, they would re-consider their decision. Austria
+replied: 'Too late.'
+
+When, in 1873, Victor Emmanuel paid a visit to Berlin, he caused some
+sensation at a grand State banquet by saying to his host: 'But for
+these gentlemen' (and he waved his hand towards the ministers who
+accompanied him) 'I should have gone to war with you.' Courtiers did
+not know which way to look, but the aged Emperor was not displeased by
+the soldierly bluntness of the avowal.
+
+Prince Napoleon remained in Florence, throwing away his eloquence,
+till the 2nd of September cut short the argument. When he had left his
+cousin, the Emperor was resolved to fall back on Paris according to
+MacMahon's plan, but the ministers and the Empress Regent forced him
+to his doom. On the 2nd of September Sédan was lost; on the 4th the
+Empire fell.
+
+'And to think,' exclaimed Victor Emmanuel when he heard the news,
+'that this good man was always wanting to give me advice!'
+
+From the date of the declaration of war, and still more since the
+evacuation of Rome by the French troops (begun on the 29th of July,
+ended on the 19th of August), Italy had been too deeply agitated for
+any sane person to suppose that the prescriptive right of the nation
+to seize the opportunity which offered itself of completing its unity
+could be resisted by the artificial dyke of a compromise which made
+the Government the instrument of France. Lanza was determined to
+maintain order; he had Mazzini arrested at Palermo, and suppressed
+disorders where they occurred, but the rising tide of the will of the
+people could not be suppressed, and had the ministry resisted it,
+something more than the ministry would have fallen.
+
+In justification of Lanza's slowness to move, and of the apparent, if
+not real, unwillingness with which he took every forward step, it is
+contended that more precipitate action would have caused what most
+people will agree would have been a misfortune for Italy, the
+departure of the Pope from Rome. It was only on the 20th of August
+that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Visconti-Venosta, sent a
+memorandum to the European Powers which announced that the Government
+had decided on occupying Rome at once. A week after, the fall of the
+Empire came as a godsend to the ministry which had possibly hardly
+deserved such a stroke of luck. They were no longer hampered by the
+September Convention, because the September Convention was dead. This
+was amply admitted by Jules Favre, though he declined to denounce the
+treaty formally; even a French Radical, in the hour of setting up the
+Republic, was afraid to proclaim aloud that France renounced all claim
+to interfere in her neighbour's concerns.
+
+Of the other Powers, Switzerland signified her approval, and the rest
+engaged to abstain from any opposition.
+
+The King addressed a letter to the Pope, in which, with the affection
+of a son and the faith of a Catholic, he appealed to his spirit of
+benevolence and his Italian patriotism to speak the word of peace in
+the midst of the storm of war that was distracting Europe, and to
+accept the love and protection of the people of Italy in lieu of a
+sovereignty which could not stand without the support of foreign arms.
+Pius IX. merely answered by saying that the letter was not worthy of
+an affectionate son, and that he prayed God to bestow upon His Majesty
+the mercy of which he had much need. To the bearer of the royal
+appeal, Count Ponza di San Martino, he said that he might yield to
+violence, but would never sanction injustice.
+
+This was about the time that the Pope, on his side, wrote an appeal
+not, be it observed, to any Catholic monarch, but to King William of
+Prussia, who would certainly not have read unmoved the complaint of
+one who, like himself, was crowned with white hairs, but Count
+Bismarck took the precaution of causing the letter not to reach his
+master's hands till the Italians were in Rome.
+
+The day following the Pope's interview with Count Ponza, the 11th of
+September, the Italian troops received the order to enter the Papal
+states. For several weeks five divisions under General Cadorna had
+been in course of concentration along the frontier; this force now
+marched on Rome. Bixio was sent to Civita Vecchia where resistance was
+expected, and had been ordered by Kanzler, but the native element
+prevailed over the foreign in the garrison, and the Spanish
+commandant, Colonel Serra, interpreting the wishes of the Roman
+troops, surrendered without firing a shot.
+
+Great was the indignation of the French and Belgian Zouaves. They were
+resolved that the same thing should not happen in Rome. That there was
+a chance of avoiding bloodshed may be inferred, from Count Arnim's
+numerous journeys between the Vatican and General Cadorna's
+headquarters outside Porta Salara; the Prussian representative hoping
+till the last moment to arrange matters in a pacific sense. Cardinal
+Antonelli is said to have been nearly persuaded, when he received a
+message from Colonel Charette in these terms: 'You had better go and
+say mass while we look after defending you.' The war party so far
+carried the day that the Pope adhered to his plan of 'sufficient
+resistance to show that he yielded only to force.'
+
+At half-past five on the morning of the 20th of September, all
+attempts at conciliation having failed, the Italian attack was opened
+upon five different points, Porta San Pancrazio, Porta San Giovanni
+Laterano, Porta San Lorenzo, Porta del Popolo and Porta Pia. General
+Maze de la Roche's division attacked the latter gate, and the wall
+near it, in which a breach was rapidly effected by the steady fire of
+the Italian batteries, though it was not till past eight o'clock that
+it seemed large enough to admit of an assault. Then the 41st of the
+line, and the 12th and 34th Bersaglieri were ordered up, and dashed
+into the breach with the cry of 'Savoia! Savoia!' The challenge was
+returned by the Zouaves with their 'Vive Pie Neuf.' They had been
+already ordered to desist, as the Pope's instructions were clear, 'to
+stop when a breach was made;' but on the plea that the order was sent
+to them verbally they continued firing. When the written order came,
+they displayed a white handkerchief fastened to a bayonet, and at this
+point the fight was over. Hundreds of Roman exiles poured through the
+breach after the soldiers; 15,000 of them had arrived or were arriving
+at the gates of the city.
+
+At the same time the white flag was hoisted on Porta Pia, but on the
+advance of the 40th Regiment and a battalion of Bersaglieri, shots
+were fired which killed and wounded several officers and men; when
+they saw their companions falling, the troops could not be restrained
+from scaling the barricade which had been formed to defend the gate,
+and surrounding and capturing the Zouaves who were behind it. The
+whole Diplomatic Corps now came out in full uniform to urge General
+Cadorna to effect the occupation as quickly as possible, that order
+might be maintained. By midday, the Italian troops had penetrated into
+most parts of the city left of the Tiber; as yet there was no formal
+capitulation on the part of the Zouaves, and their attitude was not
+exactly reassuring. This did not prevent the population, both men and
+women, from filling the streets and greeting the Italians with every
+sign of rejoicing. They cheered, they wept, they kissed the national
+flag, and the cry of _Roma Capitale_ drowned all other cries, even as
+the fact it saluted closed the discords and the factions of ages.
+
+In the afternoon all the Papal troops were persuaded to lay down their
+arms, which, in the case of the foreigners, were given back to them.
+Next day they were reviewed by General Cadorna. As the Italians
+presented arms to the retiring host, some of the Antibes Legion
+shouted at them: 'We are French, we shall meet you again.' The Roman
+troops were sent to their homes; the foreigners conducted to the
+frontier, Charette and other of the French officers went to the
+battlefields of their prostrate country, and thus it came to pass that
+the Pope's defenders were found fighting side by side with Garibaldi;
+they, indeed, only doing their simple duty, but he, acting on an
+impulse of Quixotic generosity which was repaid--the world knows how!
+
+Cadorna received three pressing requests from the Pope to occupy the
+Leonine City, and the third he granted. The idea of leaving the part
+of Rome on which the Vatican stands under the Pope's jurisdiction had
+been long favoured by a certain class of politicians, and Lanza made
+a last effort to give it effect by excluding the Leonine City from the
+plebiscite which was ordered to take place in Rome and in the Roman
+province on the 2nd of October. It was in vain. The first voting urn
+to arrive at the Capitol on the appointed day was a glass receptacle
+borne by a huge Trasteverino, and preceded by a banner inscribed:
+'Città Leonina Si.' As the Government had not supplied the inhabitants
+with an official urn, it occurred to them to provide themselves with
+an unofficial one in which they duly deposited their votes. The Roman
+plebiscite yielded the results of 133,681 affirmative and 1507
+negative votes.
+
+In December the Italian Parliament met for the last time in the Hall
+of the Five Hundred. 'Italy,' said the King in the speech from the
+throne, 'is free and united; it depends on us to make her great and
+happy.' Of this last session at Florence the principal labour was the
+Act embodying the Papal guarantees which was intended to safeguard the
+legitimate independence and decorum of the Holy See on the lines
+formerly advocated by Cavour. Neither extreme party was satisfied, but
+it seemed at first not unlikely that the Pope would tacitly acquiesce
+in the arrangement. The first monthly payment of the national
+dotation, calculated to correspond with his civil list, was accepted.
+But though the influence of Cardinal Antonelli and the Italian
+prelates had been sufficient to keep the Pope in Rome, the influence
+of those who wished him to leave it was strong enough to establish at
+the Vatican the intransigent policy which has been pursued till now.
+
+During the flood of the Tiber which devastated the city that winter,
+the King of Italy paid a first informal visit to his capital,
+accompanied only by a few attendants, and bent on bringing help to
+the suffering population. In July 1872, he made his solemn entry, and
+at the same time the seat of Government was transferred to the Eternal
+City.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Victor Emmanuel could say what few men have been able to say of so
+large a promise: 'I have kept my word.' He gathered up the Italian
+flag from the dust of Novara, and carried it to the Capitol. In spite
+of the grandeur of republican tradition in Italy, and the lofty
+character of the men who represented it during the struggle for unity,
+a study of these events leaves on the mind the conviction that, at
+least in our time, the country could neither have been freed from the
+stranger nor welded into a single body-politic without a symbol which
+appealed to the imagination, and a centre of gravity which kept the
+diverse elements together by giving the whole its proper balance. The
+Liberating Prince whom Machiavelli sought was found in the Savoyard
+King. 'Quali porte se gli serrerebbono? Quali popoli gli negherebbono
+la obbedienza? Quale invidia se gli opporrebbe? Quale Italiano gli
+negherebbe l'ossequio?' To fill the appointed part Victor Emmanuel
+possessed the supreme qualification, which was patriotism. Though he
+came of an ambitious race, not even his enemies could with any
+seriousness bring to his charge personal ambition, since every step
+which took him further from the Alps, his fathers' cradle, involved a
+sacrifice of tastes and habits, and of most that made life congenial.
+When his work was finished, though he was not old, he had the
+presentiment that he should not long survive its completion. And so it
+proved.
+
+In the first days of January 1878, the King was seized with one of
+those attacks on the lungs which his vigorous constitution had
+hitherto enabled him to throw off. But in Rome this kind of illness is
+more fatal than elsewhere, and the doctors were soon obliged to tell
+him that there was no hope. 'Are we come to that?' he asked; and then
+directed that the chaplain should be summoned. There was no repetition
+of the scene at San Rossore; the highest authority had already
+sanctioned the administration of the Sacraments to the dying King, nay,
+it is said that the Pope's first impulse was to be himself the bearer
+of them. At that hour the man got the better of the priest; Francis
+drove out Dominic. The heart that had been made to pity and the lips
+that had been formed to bless returned to their natural functions.
+When the aged Pius heard that all was over, exclaimed: 'He died like a
+Christian, a Sovereign and an honest man (galantuomo).' Very soon the
+Pope followed the King to the grave, and so, almost together, these
+two historical figures disappear.
+
+Six years before, solitary and unsatisfied, Mazzini died at Pisa, his
+heart gnawed with the desire of the extreme, as the hearts have been
+of all those who aspired less to change what men do, or even what they
+believe, than what they are. More deep than political regrets was the
+pain with which he watched the absorption of human energies, in the
+race for wealth, for ease, for material happiness; he discerned that
+if the egotism of capital led to oppression, the egotism of labour
+would lead to anarchy. To the end he preached the moral law of which
+he had been the apostle through life. His last message to his
+countrymen, written when the pen was falling from his hand, was a
+warning to Italian workingmen to beware of the false gods of the new
+socialism. When others saw darkness he saw light; now, Cassandra-like,
+he saw darkness when others saw light; yet he did not doubt the
+ultimate triumph of the light, but he no longer thought that his eyes
+would see it, and he was glad to close them.
+
+Less sad, notwithstanding his physical martyrdom, were Garibaldi's
+last years. Italy showed him an unforgetting love; when he came to the
+continent, the same multitudes waited for him as of old, but instead
+of cheers there was a not less impressive silence now, lest the
+invalid should be disturbed. Soon after the transfer of the capital he
+went to Rome to speak in favour of the works by which it was proposed
+to control the inundations of the Tiber, and it was curious to hear it
+said on all sides that, of course, the Tiber works must be taken in
+hand as Garibaldi wished it. Pius IX. summed up the situation wittily
+in the remark: 'Lately we were two here; now we are three.' The old
+hero invoked the day when bayonets might be turned into pruning-hooks,
+but he by no means thought that it had arrived, and in the meanwhile
+he urged the Italians to look to their defences, and above all, 'to be
+strong on the sea, like England.' In the matter of government he
+remained the impenitent advocate of the rule of one honest man--call
+him Dictator or what you please, so he be one! Garibaldi died at
+Caprera on the 2nd of June 1882. The play was ended, the actors
+vanished:
+
+  [Greek: Dote kroton, kai pantes hymeis meta charas ktypêsate.]
+
+A new epoch has begun which need not detain the chronicler of Italian
+Liberation. The prose of possession succeeds the poetry of desire.
+Nothing, however, can lessen the greatness of the achievement. With
+regard to the future, it may be allowable to recall the superstition
+which, like so many other seemingly meaningless beliefs, becomes full
+of meaning when read according to the spirit: that a house stands long
+if its foundations be watered with the blood of sacrifice. No work of
+man was ever watered with a purer blood than the restoration of Italy
+to the ranks of living nations. And the last word of this book shall
+be Hope.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Colston and Company, Printers, Edinburgh.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  Albrecht, Archduke, 364, 369.
+
+  Alessandria, 225.
+
+  Alfieri, 8, 18.
+
+  Alemann, General, 379.
+
+  Amedeo, Prince, 169, 344, 368.
+
+  Amadeus, Victor, 73.
+
+  Amadeus with the Tail, 172.
+
+  Ampère, 237.
+
+  Andreoli, Giuseppe, 51.
+
+  Antonelli, Cardinal, 101, 130, 184, 189, 191, 398, 409.
+
+  Anzani, Francesco, 124.
+
+  Appel, General, 140.
+
+  Arnim, Count, 409.
+
+  Aspre, d', General, 104, 139, 140.
+
+  Aspromonte, 300, 348, 350.
+
+  Austerlitz, 5.
+
+  Azeglio, Massimo d', 73, 74, 113, 175, 190, 195, 206.
+
+
+  Bandiera, 67-69.
+
+  Bassi, Ugo, 154. 163.
+
+  Bastide, Jules, 117.
+
+  Bava, General, 106, 114.
+
+  Bazaine, Marshal, 243
+
+  Beauharnais, Eugène, 6-9.
+
+  Beauregard, Costa de, 224.
+
+  Bellegarde, Marshal, 9-11.
+
+  Benedek, 240, 244, 245.
+
+  Bentinck, Lord William, 7, 11, 13, 14.
+
+  Bentivegna, Count, 209.
+
+  Berlin, Congress of, 399.
+
+  Bertani, Dr, 231, 297, 309.
+
+  Beust, Count, 400.
+
+  Bianchi, B. dei, 330.
+
+  Bismarck, 358, 397-8, 408.
+
+  Bixio, 101, 272, 301, 318, 360, 368, 408.
+
+  Boccheciampi, 68.
+
+  Borjès, Josè, 331.
+
+  Brescia, Revolution at, 142, 232, 245, 343.
+
+  Briganti, General, 301, 302,
+
+  Brofferio, 179.
+
+  Bronzetta, Pilade, 318, 320.
+
+  Bubna, Count, 43.
+
+  Brunetti, Angelo, 82.
+
+  Buol, Count, 223.
+
+  Buonaparte, Joseph, 6.
+
+  Buonaparte, Lucien, 213.
+
+
+  Cadorna, Gen., 408-9, 410-11.
+
+  Caiazzo, 316.
+
+  Cairoli, Benedetto, 281, 380, 391.
+
+  Calabria helps Garibaldi, 300.
+
+  Calandrelli, 184.
+
+  Calatafimi, 278.
+
+  Calderai del Contrapeso, 24.
+
+  Campo Formio, Treaty of, 4.
+
+  Canrobert, General, 229.
+
+  Capponi, 39, 135.
+
+  Caprera, 221, 325, 328, 337, 385, 396.
+
+  Capua, War around, 305, 318;
+    capitulation, 326.
+
+  Carignano, Prince of, 30, 32, 37.
+
+  Carignano. Eugene de, 333.
+
+  Carlyle, Thomas, 69.
+
+  Caroline, Queen, 13.
+
+  Casati, 100.
+
+  Caserta, 314, 318.
+
+  Carusso, 331.
+
+  Castelfidardo, 322, 337.
+
+  Castelnuovo, burning of village, 107.
+
+  Castel Sant Elmo, 306, 307.
+
+  Castiglione, Count, 370.
+
+  Castlereagh, Lord, 11, 12, 14, 27.
+
+  Cattaneo, 100; party of,
+
+  Cavour, Count, 85;
+    becomes minister, 192;
+    resolves Piedmont shall join Allies in Crimean War, 202;
+    visits England, 204;
+    meets Napoleon at Plombières, 247;
+    resigns office, 249;
+    recalled, 260;
+    resolves to invade Papal States, 310;
+    Garibaldi's veterans, 335;
+    Rome to be capital, 337;
+    death, 339.
+
+  Centurioni, Society of, 78.
+
+  Charette, General, 389.
+
+  Charles III, 208, 236.
+
+  Charles Albert, 30, 31, 34, 36, 38, 46;
+    accession 56;
+    Re Tentenna, 74;
+    promulgates Charter, 94;
+    retreat to Milan, 114;
+    abdicates, 141;
+    burial, 181.
+
+  Charles Emmanuel. 19, 30.
+
+  Charles Felix, Duke of Genoa, 30, 31, 36, 56.
+
+  Charles Ludovico, 87.
+
+  Chiavone, General, 330.
+
+  Chretien, General, 284, 286.
+
+  Chrzanowski, 139, 140.
+
+  Cialdini, General, 322, 328, 332, 348, 366, 370, 337.
+
+  Cipriani, L., 255.
+
+  Civita Vecchia, the French at, 391-408.
+
+  Clam Gallas, Count, 243.
+
+  Clarendon, Lord, 185, 206.
+
+  Clary, General, 292.
+
+  Clotilde, Princess, 217, 218.
+
+  Colonna, General, 281.
+
+  Commacchio, 16.
+
+  Confalonieri, Count, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45, 64.
+
+  Conneau, 216.
+
+  Corsini, Prince, 130, 135.
+
+  Corti, Count, 399.
+
+  Cosenz, 301, 308, 360.
+
+  Cowley, Lord, 260.
+
+  Crispi, Francesco, 269, 292, 294.
+
+  Cristina, Princess, 238.
+
+  Crocco, 331.
+
+  Custozza, 114, 370.
+
+
+  Dalmatia, sold with Venice, 364.
+
+  Dante, 1-3, 341, 363.
+
+  De Castillia, 42.
+
+  Del Bosco, 290, 291.
+
+  Depretis, Agostino, 293.
+
+  D'Este, Francis. 31, 51.
+
+  Dolfi, Giuseppe, 235.
+
+  Drouyn de Lhuys, 184.
+
+  Dunne, Colonel, 289, 319.
+
+  Durando, General. 102, 107, 112.
+
+
+  Eboli. 303.
+
+  Elliot, Mr, 314.
+
+  Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg, 199, 266.
+
+
+  Falloux, de, 185.
+
+  Fanti, General, 257, 312, 334.
+
+  Farini, L.C., 73, 127, 237, 255, 257, 333, 339.
+
+  Faro, Cape of, 297, 298, 300.
+
+  Favre, Jules. 215, 397.
+
+  Ferdinand II., 48, 90, 92, 93, 102, 188, 237.
+
+  Ferdinand III., 12, 26, 28.
+
+  Ferdinand, Emperor of Austria, 118.
+
+  Ferrara, Austrians in, 16.
+
+  Ferretti, Cardinal, 82.
+
+  Fleury, General, 247.
+
+  Florence, capital of Italy, 352-411.
+
+  Forbes, Commander, 304, 305.
+
+  Foscolo, Ugo, 17, 18.
+
+  Fra Giacomo. 201, 339.
+
+  Francis I., 47.
+
+  Francis II., 238, 267, 295, 299, 306, 327, 330.
+
+  Francis Joseph, Emperor, 119, 160, 227, 240, 242, 249.
+
+
+  Gaeta, Fall of, 317-326.
+
+  Gamba, Pietro, 24, 50.
+
+  Gambetta, 399.
+
+  Gaminara, Emmanuele, 9.
+
+  Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 64, 120;
+    declared enemy of the State, 121;
+    in South America, 123;
+    marries Anita, 123;
+    in Rome, 148;
+    death of Anita, 158;
+    leaves Caprera, 221, 256-263;
+    Sicilian expedition, 256;
+    march on Naples, 298;
+    Battle of Solferino, 319;
+    of Garigliano, 323;
+    returns to Caprera, 325, 334, 347;
+    wounded, 349; arrested, 383; in Rome, 391;
+    defeat at Mentana, 394; death, 414.
+
+  Garibaldi, Menotti, 257, 280, 286, 386, 392.
+
+  Garigliano, Battle of, 323.
+
+  Genoa, ceded to Sardinia, 13-15.
+
+  Genoa, Charles Felix, Duke of, 30-32.
+
+  Ghio, General, 302, 303.
+
+  Giacinta di Collegno, 38.
+
+  Gioberti, 78, 133.
+
+  Gladstone, W.E., 187.
+
+  Goito, Battle of, 112.
+
+  Gravelotte, Battle of, 405.
+
+  Gregory XVI., 50, 76, 77.
+
+  Guerrazzi, 135, 136.
+
+  Gyulai, Count, 227, 230, 231, 240.
+
+
+  Haynau, General, 145, 162.
+
+  Hess, General, 228, 230, 242.
+
+  Hilliers, Baraguay d', 229.
+
+  Hoche, 5.
+
+  Hortense, Queen, 55.
+
+  Humbert of the White Hands, 172.
+
+
+  Immaculate Conception, Doctrine of, 77.
+
+
+  Jesuits, 51, 75, 128, 379.
+
+
+  Kanzler, General, 392.
+
+  Kellersperg, Baron von, 227.
+
+  Klapka, General, 357.
+
+  Kohlen-Brenners, 22.
+
+  Kossuth, 246, 253.
+
+  Kuhn, General, 372.
+
+
+  Laderchi, Count, 40.
+
+  La Farina, 295.
+
+  La Gala, 331.
+
+  Lamartine, 117
+
+  La Marmora, General, 170, 171, 202. 348, 352,
+    357, 359, 361-366
+
+  Lamoricière, General, 311, 313.
+
+  Lannes, Marshal, 231.
+
+  Lanza, General, 282, 283, 286, 403, 406, 407.
+
+  Le Boeuf, General, 379.
+
+  Leo XII., 49.
+
+  Leopardi, 186.
+
+  Leopold II., 89, 159, 234.
+
+  Lesseps, Ferdinand, 151, 154.
+
+  Letizia, General, 284, 286.
+
+  Liborio Romano, 306.
+
+  Lincoln, President, 343.
+
+  Lissa, Battle of, 374.
+
+  Lodi, 4.
+
+  Lombardy, trials in, 40; Revolution, 100, 162.
+
+  Louis Philippe, 128.
+
+  Lucca, 16.
+
+
+  Machiavelli, 2, 3, 52, 412.
+
+  MacMahon, Marshal, 229, 233, 244, 406.
+
+  Magenta, Battle of, 232, 234, 236.
+
+  Malghella, 23.
+
+  Malmesbury, Lord, 223.
+
+  Mamelli, Goffredo, 154, 155.
+
+  Manin, Daniel, 99, 116, 160, 168, 203.
+
+  Mantua, Prince Eugene in, 8-10;
+    gallant defence, 105.
+
+  Manzoni, Alessandro, 19.
+
+  Margaret, Queen, 199, 401.
+
+  Maria Adelaide, Queen, 169.
+
+  Maria Teresa, Queen, 31.
+
+  Marie Louise, Empress, 12, 31;
+    death, 88.
+
+  Marie Sofia, Princess, 237.
+
+  Mamiani, Terenzio, 126, 131.
+
+  Maroncelli, Pietro, 44.
+
+  Marryat, Captain, 274.
+
+  Marsala, 274, 276, 345.
+
+  Martinengo, Count, 145.
+
+  Mary, Princess, of Cambridge, 205
+
+  Mastai Ferretti, Cardinal, 77.
+
+  Matilda, Archduchess, 401.
+
+  Maximilian, Archduke, 211.
+
+  Mazzini, Giuseppe, 53, 57, 58;
+    early life, 59;
+    becomes a Carbonaro, 60;
+    Association of Young Italy, 63;
+    takes refuge in England, 66;
+    writes 'Duties of Man,' 67;
+    meets Garibaldi, 120;
+    at Rome, 132, 157;
+    letters from Orsini, 214;
+    protests against Napoleonic war, 220;
+    in Naples, 313, 354-357;
+    corresponds with the king, 398;
+    arrested, 407;
+    death, 413.
+
+  Medici, Giacomo, 124, 125, 155, 231, 273, 289,
+    292, 301, 318, 360.
+
+  Melegnano, Battle of, 240.
+
+  Menabrea, General, 388-395, 400-402.
+
+  Menechini, 25.
+
+  Menotti, Ciro, 52, 55, 64.
+
+  Mentana, Battle of, 392-397, 404.
+
+  Merode, Marquis de, 330.
+
+  Messina, held by Royal troops, 290;
+    evacuated, 295.
+
+  Metternich, Prince, 15, 32, 46, 56, 83, 84, 86,
+    95, 400.
+
+  Mezzacapo, 237.
+
+  Micca, Pietro, 36.
+
+  Milan, revolt, 8-10;
+    fighting in the city, 95;
+    Austrians depart, 233.
+
+  Milano, Ageslao, 208.
+
+  Milazzo, Battle of, 290.
+
+  Mincio, Battle of. 107, 241, 365, 366, 369.
+
+  Minghetti, Marco, 101, 129.
+
+  Minto, Lord, 87, 116
+
+  Misilmeri, 280.
+
+  Misley, Dr, 52.
+
+  Missori, Major. 291.
+
+  Modena, revolution in, 53.
+
+  Monreale, 278.
+
+  Montalembert, 185.
+
+  Montanelli, Giuseppe, 112, 135, 136.
+
+  Monti, 16.
+
+  Montebello, Battle of, 231.
+
+  Morelli. 25, 29.
+
+  Moro, Domenico, 68.
+
+  Moscow, retreat from, 8.
+
+  Mundy, Admiral, 282, 283, 287, 288, 314, 320,
+    324, 354.
+
+  Murat, Joachim, 6, 7, 10, 13, 23.
+
+
+  Napier, Lord, 90, 92.
+
+  Naples, 25-29, 101;
+    massacre, 110;
+    misrule in, 186-187;
+    Garibaldi's march on, 299;
+    King enters, 324.
+
+  Napoleon Buonaparte, 2-10, 240.
+
+  Napoleon III., 55;
+    elected President of French Republic, 119, 149;
+    letter to Ney, 185;
+    attempt on his life, 212;
+    compact at Plombières, 217, 253;
+    demands Nice and Savoy, 260-262;
+    era of peace, 358.
+
+  Napoleon, Prince, 185, 229, 235, 351, 406.
+
+  Nélaton, Dr, 349.
+
+  Ney, Edgar, 185.
+
+  Nice, cession of. 221, 224, 258, 262
+
+  Nicotera, 209, 297.
+
+  Niel, 229, 244.
+
+  Ninco-Nanco, 330.
+
+  Normanby, Lord, 117, 228.
+
+  Novara, 37-39;
+    battle of, 141, 412.
+
+  Nugent, General, 107, 112, 113, 143.
+
+
+  O'Donnel, Count, 95.
+
+  Oliphant, Laurence, 263, 266.
+
+  Olivier, Emile, 405.
+
+  Orsini, Colonel, 280.
+
+  Orsini, Felice, 213, 216.
+
+  Oudinot, General, 150, 156.
+
+
+  Palermo, strange discovery, 92;
+    Sicilian expedition, 271-290;
+    insurrection, 381.
+
+  Pallavicini, Giorgio, 42, 137, 309, 314, 344, 348, 360.
+
+  Palma, 330.
+
+  Palmerston, Lord, 83, 111, 117: 161, 266, 282, 355, 371.
+
+  Panizzi, Anthony, 52.
+
+  Paris, Treaty of, 13;
+    Congress of, 185.
+
+  Parma, 12-16.
+
+  Passaglia, 341.
+
+  Pastrengo, Battle of, 109.
+
+  Peard, Colonel, 303-306.
+
+  Pellico, Silvio, 40, 43.
+
+  Pepe, Guglielmo, 29, 111, 126.
+
+  Périer, Casimir, 53.
+
+  Persano, Admiral, 274, 288, 308, 372, 377.
+
+  Peschiera, 112, 240, 242, 248.
+
+  Petitti. General, 378.
+
+  Petre, 81, 82.
+
+  Piacenza, garrisoned by Austrians, 16.
+
+  Piedmont, Revolution in, 33;
+    struggle within the Church, 189-192.
+
+  Pietri, 253.
+
+  Pilone, 330.
+
+  Pilo, Rosalino, 170, 278.
+
+  Pisacane, Carlo, 209
+
+  Pius VII., 12, 49.
+
+  Pius VIII., 50
+
+  Pius IX., 78;
+    election, 79, 93;
+    grants constitution, 101;
+    encyclical letter, 108;
+    flight to Gaeta, 130;
+    calls foreign aid to support temporal power, 132;
+    thanksgiving, 183, 259;
+    character, 311;
+    calls to arms, 363, 408;
+    death, 413.
+
+  Plombières, 217;
+    meeting between Napoleon and Cavour.
+
+  Poerio, Carlo, 90, 126, 134.
+
+  Pralormo, Count, 176.
+
+  Prina, General, 8.
+
+  Prince Consort, 198, 258.
+
+
+  Radetsky, 96, 104, 111, 139, 162, 167, 195, 249.
+
+  Raimondi, Captain, 35
+
+  Rattazzi, 138, 200, 207, 252, 260, 340, 342, 350, 382, 384.
+
+  Reggio, 301, 347.
+
+  Renzi, Pietro, 73.
+
+  Ricasoli, Baron, 135, 235, 236, 255, 335, 340, 361.
+
+  Rienzi, Cola di, 132.
+
+  Rimini, 9.
+
+  Risorgimento, 194.
+
+  Rolandis, de, 51.
+
+  Romagna, Carbonarism in the, 24, 50.
+
+  Rome, Entry of French, 157;
+    French depart from, 382;
+    declared capital, 412
+
+  Romeo, Domenico, 90.
+
+  Rossaroll, General, 29.
+
+  Rossetti, Gabriele, 49.
+
+  Rossi, 81, 128.
+
+  Rouher, 397, 405.
+
+  Ruffini, Jacobo, 65.
+
+  Ruskin, J., 192.
+
+  Russell, Lord John, 252, 268, 274. 327.
+
+  Russell, Odo, 225.
+
+
+  Sadowa, Battle of, 370.
+
+  Salemi, 275.
+
+  Salerno, 305.
+
+  San Bon, 374.
+
+  Sanfedesti, Secret Society of, 50.
+
+  San Marino, 13, 73.
+
+  San Martino, Count, 408.
+
+  Santa Rosa, 191.
+
+  Santorre di Santa Rosa, 38.
+
+  Sardinia--War with Austria, 137.
+
+  Savoy, 13;
+    cession of, 221, 224, 258, 259, 262.
+
+  Schmidt, Colonel, 237.
+
+  Schwarzenberg, Prince, 176, 187,243, 244.
+
+  Sella, Quintino, 361.
+
+  Settembrini, 209.
+
+  Sicily--Insurrection, 91;
+    Sicilian expedition, 266.
+
+  Silvati, 25, 29.
+
+  Sirtori, 272, 360.
+
+  Speri, Tito, 144.
+
+  Spielberg, 44.
+
+  Solaro della Margherita, 223.
+
+  Solferino, Battle of, 243, 245.
+
+  Superga, the, 181.
+
+
+  Talleyrand, Prince, 32, 260, 264.
+
+  Tardio, 330.
+
+  Tchernaja, Battle of, 202.
+
+  Tegethoff, Admiral, 373-377.
+
+  Theobald de Brie, 22.
+
+  Theodolinda, Crown of, 6.
+
+  Thiers, 175, 397, 404.
+
+  Thurn, General, 140.
+
+  Ticino, 120, 139, 226, 228, 233.
+
+  Tolentino, Battle of, 10.
+
+  Torelli, Prince, 134.
+
+  Tortona, 230.
+
+  Trazégnies, Marquis de, 331.
+
+  Trentino, 343, 363, 371.
+
+  Trescorre, 342, 343.
+
+  Türr, General, 315, 405.
+
+
+  Ulloa, General, 304.
+
+  Ultramontanes, 190, 259, 397, 404.
+
+  Umberto, Prince, 169, 344, 367, 368, 401.
+
+  Urban, 231, 232.
+
+
+  Vacca, Admiral, 374.
+
+  Vaillant, General, 229, 261.
+
+  Vecchj, Colonel, 328.
+
+  Venice, 3-5;
+    political trials in, 40-44;
+    Austrians expelled, 99;
+    re-occupied by Austria, 160-163, 251, 322, 356, 371;
+    united to Italy, 379.
+
+  Venosta, 350, 361, 407.
+
+  Verona, Congress of, 56.
+
+  Victor Amadeus, 181.
+
+  Victor Emmanuel I.,
+    at Turin, 12;
+    King of Sardinia, 30;
+    abdicates, 36;
+    recommends mercy, 38.
+
+  Victor Emmanuel II.;
+    accession, 141;
+    unpopularity, 165-166;
+    visits English and French courts, 204;
+    invites Garibaldi to join his army, 221;
+    enters Milan, 234;
+    courage at Soferino, 245;
+    peace with Austria, 249;
+    letter to Napoleon, 255;
+    hailed King of Italy, 323;
+    entry into Naples, 324;
+    in Venice, 380;
+    illness, 402;
+    visit to Berlin, 406;
+    death, 413.
+
+  Victoria, Queen, 261.
+
+  Vienna, Congress of, 13, 15, 32, 10;
+    Treaty of, 379.
+
+  Vimercati, Count, 168, 169.
+
+  Volturno, 307, 313, 315;
+    Battle of, 319.
+
+
+  Waddington, 399.
+
+  Welden, General, 127.
+
+  Wellesley, Admiral, 68.
+
+  Wellington, Duke of, 56.
+
+  William I., Emperor, 358, 408.
+
+  Wilmot, Lieutenant, 280, 284
+
+  Wörth, Battle of, 405.
+
+  Wratislaw, 140.
+
+
+  Young Italy, Association of, founded by Mazzini, 63.
+
+
+  Zamboni, Luigi, 51.
+
+  Zedwitz, 243, 244.
+
+  Zobel, 232.
+
+  Zorzi, 126.
+
+  Zucchi, General, 54.
+
+  Zurich, Conference of, 257;
+
+    Treaty of, 258.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: See _Memoirs of Lord Castlereagh_, 1848, Vol. i. p. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 2: It is now Carlyle's turn to be aspersed. Let Mazzini
+speak for him from the grave: 'I do not know if I told you,' he wrote
+to the Marchesa Eleonora Curlo Ruffini, in a letter published a few
+months ago, 'that I have met upon my path, deserted enough, I hope,
+by choice, a Scotchman of mind and things, the first person here, up
+till now, with whom I sympathise and who sympathises with me. We
+differ in nearly all opinions, but his are so sincere and
+disinterested that I respect them. He is good, good, good; he has
+been, and I think he is still, unhappy in spite of the fame which
+surrounds him; he has a wife with talent and feeling; always ailing;
+no children. They live out of town, and I go to see them every now and
+then. They have no insular or other prejudices that jar upon me. I
+have grown more intimate with this man in consequence, I think, of an
+article I wrote here, after knowing him, against an historical work of
+his; perhaps, accustomed as he is to common-place praise, to which he
+is indifferent, my frankness pleased him. For the rest I shall see him
+rarely, and I can only give him esteem and the warmest sympathy--not
+friendship, which I can henceforth give to no one.' (22nd March
+1840.)]
+
+[Footnote 3: On the production of Verdi's opera, _I Lombardi alla
+prima Crociata_, the Austrian Archbishop of Milan wished the
+Commissary of Police to prohibit the performance because it treated of
+sacred subjects. When it was recognised as one of the accelerating
+causes of the revolution, he drily remarked that they would have done
+better to take his advice. The grand chorus, 'O Signore dal tetto
+natiò,' in which the censor had only seen a pious chant, became the
+morning-song of national resurrection.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Long live who has money and who has none.']
+
+[Footnote 5: Of Garibaldi's foreign officers, Colonel (afterwards
+General) Dunne was one of the most marked personalities. When quite a
+young man he sold his commission in the English army and took to
+fighting under many flags. In the Crimean War he commanded a company
+of Bashi Bazouks. He had in him more than a dash of Gordon, of Burton,
+and like them he could do what he chose with untamed natures. If he
+was not obeyed fast enough he adopted rather strong measures. A
+Sicilian company, under fire for the first time, failed to show
+sufficient promptitude in executing an order to escalade a wall and
+jump into a garden, from which the enemy was keeping up a brisk fire.
+Dunne caught up half-a-dozen of the men into his saddle and pitched
+them bodily over the wall. The effect was singular, for seeing the
+Garibaldians falling from the clouds, the Neapolitans took to their
+heels, exclaiming: 'They can fly! they can fly!' Generally, however,
+he infused his own courage into all who served under him with a touch,
+perhaps, of his own fatalistic mysticism. It was a strange experience
+to hear this courteous, mild-mannered gentleman lament that Rome had
+not been burnt down; the disappearance of the scene of so many awful
+crimes he regarded necessary as a moral sanitary measure.]
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIBERATION OF ITALY***
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Liberation of Italy, by Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco</title>
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+<body>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Liberation of Italy, by Countess Evelyn
+Martinengo-Cesaresco</h1>
+<pre class="pg">
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: The Liberation of Italy</p>
+<p>Author: Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco</p>
+<p>Release Date: November 17, 2004  [eBook #14078]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIBERATION OF ITALY***</p>
+<h4><br /><br /><br />E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Jayam,<br />
+                      and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /><br /><br /></h4>
+<hr class="full" />
+<div>
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image1.jpg" alt="FRONTISPIECE: GUISEPPE
+GARIBALDI" /><br />
+<a name="GUISEPPE_GARIBALDI"></a> <span class="caption">GIUSEPPE
+GARIBALDI</span></div>
+
+<br />
+ <br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<h1>THE LIBERATION OF ITALY</h1>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<h3>1815-1870</h3>
+
+<h3>BY THE</h3>
+
+<h2>COUNTESS EVELYN MARTINENGO CESARESCO</h2>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<h4>AUTHOR OF 'ITALIAN CHARACTERS IN THE EPOCH OF UNIFICATION'<br />
+ (<i>Patriotti Italiani</i>), ETC.</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<h4><i>WITH PORTRAITS</i></h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<h6>LONDON<br />
+ SEELEY AND CO, LIMITED<br />
+ ESSEX STREET, STRAND</h6>
+<h4>1895</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<ul>
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CONTENTS"><b>CONTENTS.</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#PREFACE"><b>PREFACE.</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"><b>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>CHAPTER XVIII</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>CHAPTER XIX</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>CHAPTER XX</b></a><br />
+</p>
+</li>
+</ul>
+
+<a name="PREFACE"></a>
+
+<h3><i>PREFACE</i></h3>
+
+<p>The old figure of speech 'in the fulness of time' embodies a truth too
+often forgotten. History knows nothing of spontaneous generation; the
+chain of cause and effect is unbroken, and however modest be the scale on
+which an historical work is cast, the reader has a right to ask that it
+should give him some idea, not only of what happened, but of why it
+happened. A catalogue of dates and names is as meaningless as the
+photograph of a crowd. In the following retrospect, I have attempted to
+trace the principal factors that worked towards Italian unity. The
+Liberation of Italy is a cycle waiting to be turned into an epic.</p>
+
+<p>In other words, it presents the appearance of a series of detached
+episodes, but the parts have an intimate connection with the whole, which,
+as time wears on, will constantly emerge into plainer light. Every year
+brings with it the issue of documents, letters, memoirs, that help to
+unravel the tangled threads in which this subject has been enveloped, and
+which have made it less generally understood than the two other great
+struggles of the century, the American fight for the Union, and the
+unification of Germany.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot too strongly state my indebtedness to the voluminous
+literature which has grown up in Italy round the <i>Risorgimento</i> since
+its completion; yet it must not be supposed that the witness of
+contemporaries published from hour to hour, in every European tongue,
+while the events were going on, has become or will ever become valueless.
+I have had access to a collection of these older writings, formed with
+much care between the years 1850-1870, and some authorities that were
+wanting, I found in the library of Sir James Hudson, given by him to Count
+Giuseppe Martinengo Cesaresco after he left the British legation at
+Turin.</p>
+
+<p>There are, of course, many books in which the affairs of Italy figure
+only incidentally, which ought to be consulted by anyone who wishes to
+study the inner working of the Italian movement. Of such are Lord
+Castlereagh's <i>Despatches and Correspondence</i>, and the
+autobiographies of Prince Metternich and Count Beust.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps I have been helped in describing the events clearly, by the
+fact that I am familiar with almost all the places where they occurred,
+from the heights of Calatafimi to the unhappy rock of Lissa. Wherever the
+language of the <i>Si</i> sounds, we tread upon the history of the
+Revolution that achieved what a great English orator once called, 'the
+noblest work ever undertaken by man.'</p>
+
+<p>The supreme interest of the re-casting of Italy arises from the new
+spectacle of a nation made one not by conquest but by consent. Above and
+beyond the other causes that contributed to the conclusion must always be
+reckoned the gathering of an emotional wave, only comparable to the
+phenomena displayed by the medi&aelig;val religious revivals. Sentiment,
+it is said, is what makes the real historical miracles. A writer on
+Italian Liberation would be indeed misleading who failed to take account
+of the passionate longing which stirred and swayed even the most outwardly
+cold of those who took part in it, and nerved an entire people to heroic
+effort.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sal&ograve;, Lago di Garda.</i></p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+ <a name="CONTENTS"></a>
+
+<h3><i>CONTENTS</i></h3>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER I</p>
+
+<p>RESURGAM</p>
+
+<p>Italy from the Battle of Lodi to the Congress of Vienna.......... <a
+href="#Page_1">1</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER II</p>
+
+<p>THE WORK OF THE CARBONARI</p>
+
+<p>Revolutions in the Kingdom of Naples and in Piedmont&mdash;The<br />
+Conspiracy against Charles
+Albert........................................... <a href="#Page_21">
+21</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER III</p>
+
+<p>PRISON AND SCAFFOLD</p>
+
+<p>Political Trials in Venetia and Lombardy&mdash;Risings in the South
+and<br />
+ Centre&mdash;Ciro Menotti............................................. <a
+href="#Page_40">40</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER IV</p>
+
+<p>YOUNG ITALY</p>
+
+<p>Accession of Charles Albert&mdash;Mazzini's Unitarian
+Propaganda&mdash;The<br />
+Brothers Bandiera................................................ <a href=
+"#Page_56">56</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER V</p>
+
+<p>THE POPE LIBERATOR</p>
+
+<p>Events leading to the Election of Pius IX.&mdash;The Petty
+Princes&mdash;Charles<br />
+Albert, Leopold and Ferdinand................... ........<a href=
+"#Page_71">71</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER VI</p>
+
+<p>THE YEAR OF REVOLUTION</p>
+
+<p>Insurrection in Sicily&mdash;The Austrians expelled from Milan
+and<br />
+ Venice&mdash;Charles Albert takes the Field&mdash;Withdrawal of the<br />
+ Pope and King of Naples&mdash;Piedmont defeated&mdash;The Retreat...<a
+href="#Page_91">91</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER VII</p>
+
+<p>THE DOWNFALL OF THRONES</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi arrives&mdash;Venice under Manin&mdash;The Dissolution of
+the<br />
+ Temporal Power&mdash;Republics at Rome and Florence......<a href=
+"#Page_120">120</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER VIII</p>
+
+<p>AT BAY</p>
+
+<p>Novara&mdash;Abdication of Charles Albert&mdash;Brescia
+crushed&mdash;French<br />
+ Intervention&mdash;The Fall of Rome&mdash;The Fall of Venice..........<a
+href="#Page_137">137</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER IX</p>
+
+<p>'J'ATTENDS MON ASTRE'</p>
+
+<p>The House of Savoy&mdash;A King who Keeps his Word&mdash;Sufferings of
+the<br />
+ Lombards&mdash;Charles Albert's
+death...................................<a href="#Page_165">165</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER X</p>
+
+<p>THE REVIVAL OF PIEDMONT</p>
+
+<p>Restoration of the Pope and Grand-Duke of Tuscany&mdash;Misrule
+at<br />
+ Naples&mdash;The Struggle with the Church in Piedmont&mdash;The
+Crimean<br />
+ War.................................................................................<a
+href="#Page_183">183</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XI</p>
+
+<p>PREMONITIONS OF THE STORM</p>
+
+<p>Pisacane's Landing&mdash;Orsini's Attempt&mdash;The Compact of<br />
+ Plombi&egrave;res&mdash;Cavour's
+Triumph....................................... <a href="#Page_208">
+208</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XII</p>
+
+<p>THE WAR FOR LOMBARDY</p>
+
+<p>Austria declares War&mdash;Montebello&mdash;Garibaldi's<br />
+ Campaign&mdash;Palestro&mdash;Magenta&mdash;The Allies enter
+Milan&mdash;Ricasoli saves<br />
+ Italian Unity&mdash;Accession of Francis II.&mdash;Solferino&mdash;The
+Armistice of<br />
+ Villafranca.....................................................................
+<a href="#Page_227">227</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XIII</p>
+
+<p>WHAT UNITY COST</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon III. and Cavour&mdash;The Cession of Savoy and
+Nice&mdash;Annexations<br />
+ in Central
+Italy...............................................................<a
+href="#Page_251">251</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XIV</p>
+
+<p>THE MARCH OF THE THOUSAND</p>
+
+<p>Origin of the Expedition&mdash;Garibaldi at
+Marsala&mdash;Calatafimi&mdash;The Taking<br />
+ of Palermo&mdash;Milazzo&mdash;The Bourbons evacuate Sicily........<a
+href="#Page_266">266</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XV</p>
+
+<p>THE MEETING OF THE WATERS</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi's March on Naples&mdash;The Piedmontese in Umbria and
+the<br />
+ Marches&mdash;The Volturno. Victor Emmanuel enters Naples..... <a href=
+"#Page_298">298</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XVI</p>
+
+<p>BEGINNINGS OF THE ITALIAN KINGDOM</p>
+
+<p>The Fall of Gaeta&mdash;Political Brigandage&mdash;The Proclamation of
+the<br />
+ Italian Kingdom&mdash;Cavour's Death...................................<a
+href="#Page_326">326</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XVII</p>
+
+<p>'ROME OR DEATH!'</p>
+
+<p>Cavour's Successors&mdash;Aspromonte&mdash;The September
+Convention&mdash;Garibaldi's<br />
+ Visit to England.................................................. <a
+href="#Page_340">340</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XVIII</p>
+
+<p>THE WAR FOR VENICE</p>
+
+<p>The Prussian Alliance&mdash;Custoza&mdash;Lissa&mdash;The
+Volunteers&mdash;Acquisition of<br />
+ Venetia......................................................... <a href=
+"#Page_356">356</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XIX</p>
+
+<p>THE LAST CRUSADE</p>
+
+<p>The French leave Rome&mdash;Garibaldi's Arrest and Escape&mdash;The
+Second<br />
+ French Intervention&mdash;Monte
+Rotondo&mdash;Mentana............................ <a href="#Page_381">
+381</a></p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XX</p>
+
+<p>ROME THE CAPITAL</p>
+
+<p>M. Rouher's 'Never!'&mdash;Papal
+Infallibility&mdash;S&eacute;dan&mdash;The Breach in Porta<br />
+ Pia&mdash;The King of Italy in Rome.................................. <a
+href="#Page_397">397</a></p>
+
+<br />
+ <a name="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>
+
+<h3><i>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</i></h3>
+
+<p>GUISEPPE GARIBALDI....................<a href=
+"#GUISEPPE_GARIBALDI">FRONTISPIECE</a></p>
+
+<p>GIUSEPPE MAZZINI.......................<a href="#Page_60">60</a></p>
+
+<p>KING VICTOR EMMANUEL............<a href="#Page_166">166</a></p>
+
+<p>COUNT CAVOUR...........................<a href="#Page_192">192</a></p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+ <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg.1]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<div class="center">
+<h2><strong>The Liberation of Italy</strong></h2>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_I"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+
+<h4>RESURGAM</h4>
+
+<h5>Italy from the Battle of Lodi to the Congress of Vienna.</h5>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>The unity of Italy, which the statesmen of Europe and all save a small
+number of the Italians themselves still regarded as an utopia when it was
+on the verge of accomplishment, was, nevertheless, desired and foreseen by
+the two greatest intellects produced by the Italian race. Dante conceived
+an Italy united under the Empire, which returning from a shameful because
+self-imposed exile would assume its natural seat in Rome. To him it was a
+point of secondary interest that the Imperial Lord happened to be bred
+beyond the Alps, that he was of Teutonic, not of Latin blood. If the
+Emperor brought the talisman of his authority to the banks of the Tiber,
+Italy would overcome the factions which rent her, and would not only rule
+herself, but lead mankind. Vast as the vision was, Dante cannot be called
+presumptuous for having entertained it. The Rome of the C&aelig;sars, the
+Rome of the Popes, had each transformed the world: Italy was transforming
+it for a third time at that moment by the spiritual awakening which,
+beginning with the <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">
+[Pg.2]</a></span> Renaissance, led by inevitable steps to the Reformation.
+The great Florentine poet had the right to dream that his country was
+invested with a providential mission, that his people was a chosen people,
+which, by its own fault and by the fault of others, had lost its way, but
+would find it again. Such was Dante's so-called Ghibelline
+programme&mdash;less Ghibelline than intensely and magnificently Italian.
+His was a mind too mighty to be caged within the limits of partisan
+ambitions. The same may be said of Machiavelli. He also imagined, or
+rather discerned in the future, a regenerate Italy under a single head,
+and this, not the advancement of any particular man, was the grand event
+he endeavoured to hasten. With the impatience of a heart consumed by the
+single passion of patriotism, he conjured his fellow-countrymen to seize
+the first chance that presented itself, promising or unpromising, of
+reaching the goal. The concluding passage in the <i>Principe</i> was meant
+as an exhortation; it reads as a prophecy. 'We ought not therefore,'
+writes Machiavelli, 'to let this occasion pass whereby, after so long
+waiting, Italy may behold the coming of a saviour. Nor can I express with
+what love he would be received in all those provinces which have suffered
+from the foreign inundations; with what thirst of vengeance, with what
+obstinate faith, with what worship, with what tears! What doors would be
+closed against him? What people would deny him obedience? What jealousy
+would oppose him? What Italian would not do him honour? The barbarous
+dominion of the stranger stinks in the nostrils of all.'</p>
+
+<p>Another man of genius, an Italian whom a fortuitous circumstance made
+the citizen and the master of a country not his own, grasped both the
+vital necessity of unity from an Italian point of view, and the certainty
+of its ultimate achievement. Napoleon's notes on the <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg.3]</a></span> subject, written
+at St Helena, sum up the whole question without rhetoric but with
+unanswerable logic:&mdash;'Italy is surrounded by the Alps and the sea.
+Her natural limits are defined with as much exactitude as if she were an
+island. Italy is only united to the Continent by 150 leagues of frontier,
+and these 150 leagues are fortified by the highest barrier that can be
+opposed to man. Italy, isolated between her natural limits, is destined to
+form a great and powerful nation. Italy is one nation; unity of customs,
+language and literature must, within a period more or less distant, unite
+her inhabitants under one sole government. And Rome will, without the
+slightest doubt, be chosen by the Italians as their capital.'</p>
+
+<p>Unlike Dante and Machiavelli, who could only sow the seed, not gather
+the fruit, the man who wrote these lines might have made them a reality.
+Had Napoleon wished to unite Italy&mdash;had he had the greatness of mind
+to proclaim Rome the capital of a free and independent state instead of
+turning it into the chief town of a French department&mdash;there was a
+time when he could plainly have done it. Whether redemption too easily won
+would have proved a gain or a loss in the long run to the populations
+welded together, not after their own long and laborious efforts, but by
+the sudden exercise of the will of a conqueror, is, of course, a different
+matter. The experiment was not tried. Napoleon, whom the simple splendour
+of such a scheme ought to have fascinated, did a very poor thing instead
+of a very great one: he divided Italy among his relations, keeping the
+lion's share for himself.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon's policy in Italy was permanently compromised by the
+abominable sale of Venice, with her two thousand years of freedom, to the
+empire which, as no one knew better than he did, was the pivot of European
+despotism. After that transaction he could never again come before the
+Italians with clean hands; they might for a season make him <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg.4]</a></span> their idol,
+carried away by the intoxication of his fame; they could never trust him
+in their inmost conscience. The ruinous consequences of the Treaty of
+Campo Formio only; ceased in 1866. The Venetians have been severely
+blamed, most of all by Italian historians, for making Campo Formio
+possible by opening the door to the French six months before. Napoleon
+could not have bartered away Venice if it had not belonged to him. The
+reason that it belonged to him was that, on the 12th of May 1797, the
+Grand Council committed political suicide by dissolving the old
+aristocratic form of government, in compliance with a mere rumour,
+conveyed to them through the ignoble medium of a petty shopkeeper, that
+such was the wish of General Buonaparte. In extenuation of their fatal
+supineness, it may be urged that they felt the inherent weakness of an
+oligarchy out of date; and in the second place, that the victor of Lodi,
+the deliverer of Lombardy, then in the first flush of his scarcely
+tarnished glory, was a dazzling figure, calculated indeed to turn men's
+heads. But, after all, the only really valid excuse for them would have
+been that Venice lacked the means of defence, and this was not the case.
+She had 14,000 regular troops, 8000 marines, a good stock of
+guns&mdash;how well she might have resisted the French, had they, which
+was probable, attacked her, was to be proved in 1849. Her people,
+moreover, that <i>basso popolo</i> which nowhere in the world is more free
+from crime, more patient in suffering, more intelligent and
+public-spirited than in Venice, was anxious and ready to resist; when the
+nobles offered themselves a sacrifice on the Gallic altar by welcoming the
+proposed democratic institutions, the populace, neither hoodwinked nor
+scared into <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">
+[Pg.5]</a></span> hysterics, rose to the old cry of San Marco, and
+attempted a righteous reaction, which was only smothered when the
+treacherous introduction of French troops by night on board Venetian
+vessels settled the doom of Venice's independence.</p>
+
+<p>'Under all circumstances,' Napoleon wrote to the Venetian Municipality,
+'I shall do what lies in my power to prove to you my desire to see your
+liberty consolidated, and miserable Italy assume, at last, a glorious
+place, free and independent of strangers.' On the 10th of the following
+October he made over Venice to Austria, sending as a parting word the
+cynical message to the Venetians 'that they were little fitted for
+liberty: if they were capable of appreciating it, and had the virtue
+necessary for acquiring it well and good; existing circumstances gave them
+an excellent opportunity of proving it.' At the time, the act of betrayal
+was generally regarded as part of a well-considered plot laid by the
+French Directory, but it seems certain that it was not made known to that
+body before it was carried out, and that with Napoleon himself it was a
+sort of after-thought, sprung from the desire to patch up an immediate
+peace with Austria on account of the appointment of Hoche to the chief
+command of the army in Germany. The god to which he immolated Venice was
+the selfish fear lest another general should reap his German laurels.</p>
+
+<p>Venice remained for eight years under the Austrians, who thereby
+obtained what, in flagrant perversion of the principles on which the
+Congress of Vienna professed to act, was accepted in 1815 as their
+title-deeds to its possession. Meanwhile, after the battle of Austerlitz,
+the city of the sea was tossed back to Napoleon, who incorporated it in
+the newly-created kingdom of Italy, which no more corresponded to its name
+than did the Gothic kingdom of which he <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg.6]</a></span> arrogated to himself the heirship,
+when, placing the Iron Crown of Theodolinda upon his brow, he uttered the
+celebrated phrase: 'Dieu me l'a donn&eacute;e, gare &agrave; qui la
+touche.'</p>
+
+<p>This is not the place to write a history of French supremacy in Italy,
+but several points connected with it must be glanced at, because, without
+bearing them in mind, it is impossible to understand the events which
+followed. The viceroyalty of Eug&egrave;ne Beauharnais in North Italy, and
+the government of Joseph Buonaparte, and afterwards of Joachim Murat, in
+the South, brought much that was an improvement on what had gone before:
+there were better laws, a better administration, a quickening of
+intelligence. 'The French have done much for the regeneration of Italy,'
+wrote an English observer in 1810; 'they have destroyed the prejudices of
+the inhabitants of the small states of Upper Italy by uniting them; they
+have done away with the Pope; they have made them soldiers.' But there was
+the reverse side of the medal: the absence everywhere of the national
+spirit which alone could have consolidated the new <i>r&eacute;gime</i> on
+a firm basis; the danger which the language ran of losing its purity by
+the introduction of Gallicisms; the shameless robbery of pictures,
+statues, and national heirlooms of every kind for the replenishment of
+French museums; the bad impression left in the country districts by the
+abuses committed by the French soldiery on their first descent, and kept
+alive by the blood-tax levied in the persons of thousands of Italian
+conscripts sent to die, nobody knew where or why; the fields untilled, and
+Rachel weeping for her children: all these elements combined in rendering
+it difficult for the governments established under French auspices to
+survive the downfall of the man to whose sword they owed their existence.
+Their <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg.7]</a></span>
+dissolution was precipitated, however, by the discordant action of Murat
+and Eug&egrave;ne Beauharnais. Had these two pulled together, whatever the
+issue was it would have differed in much from what actually happened.
+Murat was jealous of Eug&egrave;ne, and did not love his brother-in-law,
+who had annoyed and thwarted him through his whole reign; he was uneasy
+about his Neapolitan throne, and, in all likelihood, was already dreaming
+of acquiring the crown of an independent Italy. Throwing off his
+allegiance to Napoleon, he imagined the vain thing that he might gain his
+object by taking sides with the Austrians. It must be remembered that
+there was a time when the Allied Powers had distinctly contemplated
+Italian independence as a dyke to France, and there were people foolish
+enough to think that Austria, now she felt herself as strong as she had
+then felt weak, would consent to such a plan. Liberators, self-called,
+were absolutely swarming in Italy; Lord William Bentinck was promising
+entire emancipation from Leghorn; the Austrian and English allies in
+Romagna ransacked the dictionary for expressions in praise of liberty; an
+English officer was made the mouthpiece for the lying assurance of the
+Austrian Emperor Francis, that he had no intention of re-asserting any
+claims to the possession of Lombardy or Venetia.</p>
+
+<p>In 1814, Napoleon empowered Prince Eug&egrave;ne to adopt whatever
+attitude he thought best fitted to make head against Austria; for himself,
+he resigned the Iron Crown, and his Italian soldiers were freed from their
+oaths. It was not, therefore, Eugene's loyal scruples which prevented him
+from throwing down a grand stake when he led his 60,000 men to the attack.
+It was want of genius, or of what would have done instead, a flash of
+genuine enthusiasm for the Italian idea. In place <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg.8]</a></span> of appealing to all Italians
+to unite in winning a country, he appealed to one sentiment only, fidelity
+to Napoleon, which no longer woke any echo in the hearts of a population
+that had grown more and more to associate the name of the Emperor with
+exactions which never came to an end, and with wars which had not now even
+the merit of being successful. It is estimated that although the Italian
+troops amply proved the truth of Alfieri's maxim, that 'the plant man is
+more vigorous in Italy than elsewhere,' by bearing the hardships and
+resisting the cold in Russia better than the soldiers of any other
+nationality, nevertheless 26,000 Italians were lost in the retreat from
+Moscow. That happened a year ago. Exhausted patience got the better of
+judgment; in April 1814, the Milanese committed the irremediable error of
+revolting against their Viceroy, who commanded the only army which could
+still save Italy: the pent-up passions of a long period broke loose, the
+peasants from the country, who had always hated the French, flooded the
+streets of Milan, and allying themselves unimpeded with the dregs of the
+townsfolk, they murdered with great brutality General Prina, the Minister
+of Finance, whose remarkable abilities had been devoted towards raising
+funds for the Imperial Exchequer. Personally incorruptible, Prina was
+looked upon as the general representative of French voracity; he met his
+death with the utmost calmness, only praying that he might be the last
+victim. No one else was, in fact, killed, and next day quiet was resumed,
+but the affair had another victim&mdash;Italy. You cannot change horses
+when you are crossing a stream. Prince Eug&egrave;ne was in Mantua with a
+fine army, practically intact, though it had suffered some slight
+reverses; the fortress was believed to be impregnable; by merely waiting,
+Eugene <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">
+[Pg.9]</a></span> might, if nothing else, have exacted favourable terms.
+But the news of Prina's murder, and the blow dealt at his own authority in
+Milan, caused him to give over the fortress and the army to the Austrians
+without more ado; an act which looked like revenge, but it was most likely
+prompted by moral cowardice. The capitulation signed with Field-Marshal
+Bellegarde on the 23rd of April, so exasperated the army that the officers
+in command of the garrison decided to arrest Eugene, but it was found that
+he was already on his way to Germany, taking with him his treasure, in
+accordance with a secret agreement entered into with the Austrian
+Field-Marshal. Such was the end to the Italian career of Eug&egrave;ne
+Beauharnais.</p>
+
+<p>For the <i>Beau Sabreur</i> another ending was in store. Back on
+Napoleon's side in 1815, his Austrian allies having given him plenty of
+reason for suspecting their sincerity, he issued from Rimini, on the 30th
+of March, the proclamation of an independent Italy from the Alps to
+Sicily. There was no popular reply to his call. Italy, prostrate and
+impoverished, was unequal to a great resolve. The Napoleonic legend was
+not only dead, but buried; Napoleon had literally no friends left in Italy
+except those of his old soldiers who had managed to get back to their
+homes, many of them deprived of an arm or a leg, but so toughened that
+they lived to great ages. These cherished to their last hour the worship
+of their Captain, which it was his highest gift to be able to inspire. 'I
+have that feeling for him still, that if he were to rise from the dead I
+should go to him, if I could, wherever he was,' said the old conscript
+Emmanuele Gaminara of Genoa, who died at nearly a hundred in a Norfolk
+village in 1892: the last, perhaps, of the Italian veterans, and the type
+of them all.</p>
+
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg.10]</a></span>
+
+<p>But a few scattered invalids do not make a nation, and the Italian
+nation in 1815 had not the least wish to support any one who came in the
+name of Napoleon. So Murat failed without even raising a strong current of
+sympathy. Beaten by the Austrians at Tolentino on the 3rd of May, he
+retreated with his shattered army. In the last desperate moment, he issued
+the constitution which he ought to have granted years before. Nothing
+could be of any avail now; his admirable Queen, the best of all the House
+of Buonaparte, surrendered Naples to the English admiral; and Murat,
+harried by a crushing Austrian force, renounced his kingdom on the 30th of
+May. After Waterloo, when a price was set on his head in France, he
+meditated one more forlorn hope; but, deserted by the treachery of his few
+followers, and driven out of his course by the violence of the waves, he
+was thrown on the coast of Calabria with only twenty-six men, and was shot
+by order of Ferdinand of Naples, who especially directed that he should be
+only allowed half-an-hour for his religious duties after sentence had been
+delivered by the mock court-martial. His dauntless courage did not desert
+him: he died like a soldier. It was a better end for an Italian prince
+than escaping with money-bags to Germany. Great as were Murat's faults, an
+Italian should remember that it was he who first took up arms to the cry
+which was later to redeem Italy: independence from Alps to sea; and if he
+stand on the ill-omened shore of Pizzo, he need not refuse to uncover his
+head in silence.</p>
+
+<p>When Mantua surrendered, the Milanese sent a deputation to Paris with a
+view of securing for Lombardy the position of an independent kingdom under
+an Austrian prince. They hoped to obtain the first by <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg.11]</a></span> acquiescing in
+the second. They were aroused from their unheroic illusions with startling
+rapidity. Lord Castlereagh, to whom they went first (for they fancied that
+the English were interested in liberty), referred them 'to their master,
+the Austrian Emperor.' The Emperor Francis replied to their memorial that
+Lombardy was his by right of conquest; they would hear soon enough at
+Milan what orders he had to give them. Even after that, the distracted
+Lombards hoped that the English at Genoa would befriend them. All
+uncertainty ceased on the 23rd of May 1814, when Field-Marshal Bellegarde
+formally took possession of Lombardy on behalf of his Sovereign, dissolved
+the Electoral Colleges, and proclaimed himself Regent. There was no
+question of reviving the conditions under which Austria ruled Lombardy
+while there was still a German Empire: conditions which, though despotic
+in theory, were comparatively easy-going in practice, and did not exclude
+the native element from the administration. Henceforth the despotism was
+pure and simple; for Italians to even think of politics was an act of high
+treason.</p>
+
+<p>It is not generally known that a British army ultimately sent to Spain
+was intended for Italy,<a name="FNanchor1"></a><a href=
+"#Footnote_1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> but its destination was changed because
+the Italians showed so little disposition to rise against Napoleon. The
+English Government was continually advised by its agents in Italy to make
+Sicily, which was wholly in its power, the <i>point d'app&ugrave;i</i> for
+a really great intervention in the destinies of the peninsula. 'The grand
+end of all the operations in the Mediterranean,' wrote one of Lord
+Castlereagh's correspondents, 'is the emancipation of Italy, and its union
+in one great state.' Lord William Bentinck urged that if Sicily were
+reunited to Naples under the Bourbons, liberty, <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg.12]</a></span> established there by his
+own incredible efforts, would be crushed, and the King would wreck
+vengeance on the Constitution and its supporters. Universal terror, he
+said, was felt at 'the unforgiving temper of their Majesties.' He strongly
+supported a course proposed for her own reasons by Queen Caroline: the
+purchase of Sicily by the English Government which could make it 'not only
+the model but the instrument of Italian independence.'</p>
+
+<p>This way of talking was not confined to private despatches, and it was
+no wonder if the Italians were disappointed when they found that England
+declined to plead their cause with the Allies in Paris, and afterwards at
+Vienna. When charged directly with breach of faith before the House of
+Commons, Lord Castlereagh said that Austria, being 'in truth the great
+hinge on which the fate of mankind must ultimately depend,' had to be paid
+(this was exactly the sense, though not the form, of his defence) by
+letting her do what she liked with Italy. There is a certain brutal
+straightforwardness in the line of argument. Lord Castlereagh did not say
+that independence was not a good thing. He had tried to obtain it for
+Poland and had failed; he had not tried to obtain it for Italy, because he
+was afraid of offending Austria. At least he had the courage to tell the
+truth, and did not prate about the felicity of being subjects of the
+Austrian Emperor, as many English partisans of Austria prated in days to
+come.</p>
+
+<p>The political map of Italy in the summer of 1814 showed the Pope (Pius
+VII.) reinstated in Rome, Victor Emmanuel I. at Turin, Ferdinand III. of
+Hapsburg-Lorraine in Tuscany, the Genoese Republic for the moment restored
+by the English, Parma and Piacenza assigned to the Empress Marie-Louise,
+and Modena to the Austrian Archduke Francis, who was heir through the
+female line to the last of the Estes. Murat was still <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg.13]</a></span> at Naples,
+Ferdinand IV. in Sicily, Austria acknowledged supreme in Lombardy and
+Venetia, and the island of Elba ironically handed over to Napoleon. These
+were the chief features, so far as Italy was concerned, of the Treaty of
+Paris, signed on the 30th of May 1814. Next year the Congress of Vienna
+modified the arrangement by providing that the Spanish Infanta Maria
+Louisa, on whom had been bestowed the ex-republic of Lucca, should have
+the reversion of Parma and Piacenza, while Lucca was to go in the end to
+Tuscany. Murat having been destroyed, the Neapolitan Bourbons recovered
+all their old possessions. San Marino and Monaco were graciously
+recognised as independent, which brought the number of Italian states up
+to ten. The Sardinian monarchy received back the part of Savoy which by
+the Treaty of Paris had been reserved to France. It was also offered a
+splendid and unexpected gift&mdash;Genoa.</p>
+
+<p>Lord William Bentinck entered Genoa by a convention concluded with the
+authorities on the 18th of April 1814. A naval demonstration following an
+ably-conducted operation, by which Bentinck's hybrid force of Greeks and
+Calabrese, with a handful of English, became master of the two principal
+forts, hastened this conclusion, but the Genoese had no reluctance to open
+their gates to the English commander, who inspired them with the fullest
+confidence. He came invested with the halo of a
+constitution-maker-under-difficulties; it was known that he had stopped at
+nothing in carrying out his mission in Sicily; not even at getting rid of
+the Queen, who found in Bentinck the Nemesis for having led a greater
+Englishman to stain his fame in the roads of Naples. Driven rather than
+persuaded to leave Sicily, Marie Antoinette's sister encountered so
+frightful a sea voyage that she died soon after <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg.14]</a></span> joining her relations at
+Vienna. Lord William had acquired the art of writing the finest appeals to
+the love of freedom; a collection of his manifestoes would serve as
+handy-book to anyone instructed to stir up an oppressed nationality. He
+immediately gave the Genoese some specimens of his skill as a writer, and
+by granting them at once a provisional constitution, he dispelled all
+doubts about the future recognition of their republic. What was not,
+therefore, their dismay, when they were suddenly informed of the decision
+of the Holy Alliance to make a present of them to the people whom, of all
+others, they probably disliked the most. Italians had not ceased yet from
+reserving their best aversion for their nearest neighbours.</p>
+
+<p>Bentinck did not mean to deceive; perhaps he thought that by going
+beyond the letter of his instructions he should draw his government after
+him. That he did, in effect, deceive, cannot be denied; even Lord
+Castlereagh, while necessarily refusing to admit that definite promises
+had been made, yet allowed that, 'Of course he would have been glad if the
+proclamation issued to the Genoese had been more precisely worded.' The
+motive of the determination to sacrifice the republic was, he said, 'a
+sincere conviction of the necessity of a barrier between France and Italy,
+which ought to be made effectual on the side of Piedmont. The object was
+to commit the defence of the Alps and of the great road leading round them
+by the Gulf of Genoa, between France and Italy, to the same power to which
+it had formerly been entrusted. On that principle, the question relating
+to Genoa had been entertained and decided upon by the allied sovereigns.
+It was not resolved upon because any particular state had unworthy or
+sordid views, or from any interest or feeling in favour of the King of
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg.15]</a></span>
+Sardinia, but solely to make him, as far as was necessary, the instrument
+of the general policy of Europe.'</p>
+
+<p>A better defence might have been made. Piedmont was destined to serve
+as a bulwark, not so much against France, which for the time was not to be
+feared, as against Austria, absolute except for the subalpine kingdom in
+all Italy. But this belongs to the shaping of rough-hewn ends, which is in
+higher hands than those of English ministers. The ends then looked very
+rough-hewn.</p>
+
+<p>Piedmont was a hotbed of reaction and bigotry. True, she had a history
+differing vastly from that of the other Italian states, but the facts of
+the hour presented her in a most unattractive light. The Genoese felt the
+keenest heart-burnings in submitting to a decision in which they had no
+voice, and which came to them as a mandate of political extinction from
+the same powers that confirmed the sentence of death on Genoa's ancient
+and glorious rival. The seeds were laid of disaffection, always
+smouldering among the Genoese, till Piedmont's king became King of Italy.
+It might almost be said that the reconciliation was not consummated till
+the day when the heir and namesake of Humbert of the White Hands received
+the squadrons of Europe in the harbour of Genoa, and the proud republican
+city showed what a welcome she had prepared for her sovereign of the Savoy
+race.</p>
+
+<p>After the Congress of Vienna finished its labours, there were, as has
+been remarked, ten states in Italy, but out of Sardinia (whose subjugation
+Prince Metternich esteemed a mere matter of time) there was one master.
+The authority of the Emperor Francis was practically as undisputed from
+Venice to the Bay of Naples as it was in the Grand Duchy of Austria. The
+Austrians garrisoned Piacenza, Ferrara and <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg.16]</a></span> Commacchio; Austrian princes
+reigned in Tuscany, Parma, Modena and Lucca; the King of Naples, who paid
+Austria twenty-six million francs for getting back his throne, thankfully
+agreed to support a German army to protect him against his subjects. In
+the secret treaty concluded between himself and the Emperor of Austria, it
+was stipulated that the King of the Two Sicilies should not introduce into
+his government any principles irreconcilable with those adopted by His
+Imperial Majesty in the government of his Italian provinces. As for the
+Roman States, Austria reckoned on her influence in always securing the
+election of a Pope who would give her no trouble. Seeing herself without
+rivals and all-powerful, she deemed her position unassailable. She forgot
+that, by giving Italy an unity of misery, she was preparing the way for
+another unity. Common hatred engendered common love; common sufferings led
+on to a common effort. If some prejudices passed away under the Napoleonic
+rule, many more still remained, and possibly, to eradicate so old an evil,
+no cure less drastic than universal servitude would have sufficed.
+Italians felt for the first time what before only the greatest among them
+had felt&mdash;that they were brothers in one household, children of one
+mother whom they were bound to redeem. Jealousies and millennial feuds
+died out; the intense municipal spirit which, imperfect as it was, had yet
+in it precious political germs, widened into patriotism. Italy was
+re-born.</p>
+
+<p>Black, however, was the present outlook. Total commercial stagnation
+and famine increased the sentiment of unmitigated hopelessness which
+spread through the land. The poet Monti, who, alas! sang for bread the
+festival songs of the Austrians as he had sung those of Napoleon, said
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg.17]</a></span> in
+private to an Englishman who asked him why he did not give his voice to
+the liberties of his country which he desired, though he did not expect to
+see them: 'It would be <i>vox clamantis in deserto</i>; besides, how can
+the grievances of Italy be made known? No one dares to
+write&mdash;scarcely to think&mdash;politics; if truth is to be told, it
+must be told by the English; England is the only tribunal yet open to the
+complaints of Europe.' A greater poet and nobler man, Ugo Foscolo, had but
+lately uttered a wail still more despondent: 'Italy will soon be nothing
+but a lifeless carcass, and her generous sons should only weep in silence
+without the impotent complaints and mutual recriminations of slaves.' That
+as patriotic a heart as ever beat should have been afflicted to this point
+by the canker of despair tells of the quagmire&mdash;not only political
+but spiritual&mdash;into which Italy was sunk. The first thing needful was
+to restore the people to consciousness, to animation of some sort, it did
+not matter what, so it were a sign of life. Foscolo himself, who impressed
+on what he wrote his own proud and scornful temperament, almost savage in
+its independence, fired his countrymen to better things than the
+despairing inertia which he preached. Few works have had more effect than
+his <i>Letters of Jacobo Ortis</i>. As often happens with books which
+strongly move contemporaries, the reader may wonder now what was the
+secret of its power, but if the form and sentiment of the Italian <i>
+Werther</i> strike us as antiquated, the intense, though melancholy
+patriotism that pervades it explains the excitement it caused when
+patriotism was a statutory offence. Such mutilated copies as were allowed
+to pass by the censor were eagerly sought; the young read it, women read
+it&mdash;who so rarely read&mdash;the mothers of the fighters of <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg.18]</a></span>
+to-morrow. Foscolo's life gave force to his words: when all were
+flattering Napoleon, he had reminded him that no man can be rightly
+praised till he is dead, and that his one sure way of winning the praise
+of posterity was to establish the independence of Italy. The warning was
+contained in a 'discourse' which Foscolo afterwards printed with the motto
+from Sophocles: 'My soul groans for my country, for myself and for thee.'
+Sooner than live under the Austrians, he went into voluntary exile, and
+finally took refuge in England, where he was the <i>f&ecirc;ted</i> lion
+of a season, and then forgotten, and left almost without the necessaries
+of life. No one was much to blame; Foscolo was born to misunderstand and
+to be misunderstood; he hid himself to hide his poverty, which, had it
+been known, might have been alleviated. His individual tragedy seemed a
+part of the universal tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>With Foscolo, his literary predecessor Alfieri must be mentioned as
+having helped in rekindling the embers, of patriotic feeling, because,
+though dead, he spoke; and his plays, one of which was prophetically
+dedicated <i>al libero Popolo Italiano</i>, had never been so much read.
+The <i>Misogallo</i>, published for the first time after the fall of
+Napoleon, though aimed at the French, served equally well as an onslaught
+on every foreign dominion or even moral or intellectual influence. 'Shall
+<i>we</i> learn liberty of the Gauls, <i>we</i> who taught every lofty
+thing to others?' was a healthy remonstrance to a race that had lost faith
+in itself; and the Austrians were wise in discountenancing the sale of a
+work that contained the line which gave a watchword to the
+future:&mdash;</p>
+
+<pre>
+       <i>Schiavi or siam si; ma schiavi almen frementi</i>.
+</pre>
+
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg.19]</a></span>
+
+<p>Like Foscolo's, Alfieri's life was a lesson in independence: angry at
+the scant measure of freedom in Piedmont, he could never be induced to go
+near his sovereign till Charles Emmanuel was staying at Florence as a
+proscript. Then the poet went to pay his respects to him, and was received
+with the good-humoured banter: 'Well, Signor Conte, here am I, a king, in
+the condition you would like to see them all.'</p>
+
+<p>Against the classical, not to say pagan, leanings of these two poets, a
+reaction set in with Alessandro Manzoni, the founder of Italian
+Romanticism, to which he gave an aspect differing from that which the same
+movement wore in France, because he was an ardent Catholic at a time when
+Christianity had almost the charm of novelty. His religious outpourings
+combine the fervour of the Middle Ages with modern expansion, and he freed
+the Italian language from pedantic restrictions without impairing its
+dignity. It was once the fashion to inveigh against Manzoni for, as it was
+said, inculcating resignation; but he did nothing of the kind. As a young
+man he had sung of the Italians as 'Figli tutti d'un solo Riscatto,' and
+though he was not of those who fight either with the sword or the pen, yet
+that 'Riscatto' was the dream of his youth and manhood, and the joy of his
+old age. His gentleness was never contaminated by servility, and the love
+for his country, profound if placid, which appears in every line of his
+writings, appealed to a class that could not be reached by fiery
+turbulence of thought.</p>
+
+<p>In an age when newspapers have taken the place of books, it may seem
+strange to ascribe any serious effect to the works of poets and
+romancists; but in the Italy of that date there were no newspapers to
+speak of; the ordinary channels of opinion were blocked up. Books were
+still not only read, but discussed and thought over, and every slight
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg.20]</a></span>
+allusion to the times was instantly applied. In the prevailing
+listlessness, the mere fact of increased mental activity was of
+importance. A spark of genius does much to raise a nation. It is in itself
+the incontrovertible proof that the race lives: a dead people does not
+produce men of genius. Whatever awakes one part of the intelligence reacts
+on all its parts. You cannot lift, any more than you can degrade, the
+heart of man piecemeal. In this sense not literature only but also music
+helped, who can say how effectually, to bring Italy back to life. The land
+was refreshed by a flood of purely national song, full of the laughter and
+the tears of Italian character, of the sunshine and the storms of Italian
+nature. Music, the only art uncageable as the human soul, descended as a
+gift from heaven upon the people whose articulate utterance was stifled.
+And</p>
+
+<pre>
+         ... No speech may evince
+         Feeling like music.
+</pre>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+ <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg.21]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_II"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+
+<h4>THE WORK OF THE CARBONARI</h4>
+
+<h5>1815-1821</h5>
+
+<h5>Revolutions in the Kingdom of Naples and in Piedmont&mdash;The
+Conspiracy against Charles Albert.</h5>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>Considering what the state of the country was after 1815, and how
+apparently inexhaustible were the resources of the Empire of which the
+petty princes of the peninsula were but puppets, it is remarkable that
+political agitation, with a view to reversing the decisions of Vienna,
+should have begun so soon, and on so large a scale. Not that the nation,
+as a whole, was yet prepared to move; every revolution, till 1848, was
+partial in the sense that the mass of the people stood aloof, because
+unconvinced of the possibility of loosening their chains. But, during that
+long succession of years, the number of Italians ready to embark on
+enterprises of the most desperate character, accounting as nothing the
+smallness of the chance of success, seems enormous when the risks they ran
+and the difficulties they faced are fully recognised. Among the means
+which were effective in first rousing Italy from her lethargy, and in
+fostering the will to acquire her independence at all costs, the secret
+society of the Carbonari undoubtedly occupies the front rank. The
+Carbonari acted in two ways; by what they did and by what they caused to
+be done by others who were outside their society, and perhaps unfavourable
+to it, <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">
+[Pg.22]</a></span> but who were none the less sensible of the pressure it
+exercised. The origin of Carbonarism has been sought in vain; as a
+specimen of the childish fables that once passed for its history may be
+noticed the legend that Francis I. of France once stumbled on a charcoal
+burner's hut when hunting 'on the frontiers of his kingdom next to
+Scotland,' and was initiated into the rites similar to those in use among
+the sectaries of the nineteenth century. Those rites referred to vengeance
+which was to be taken on the wolf that slew the lamb; the wolf standing
+for tyrants and oppressors, and the lamb for Jesus Christ, the sinless
+victim, by whom all the oppressed were represented. The Carbonari
+themselves generally believed that they were heirs to an organisation
+started in Germany before the eleventh century, under the name of the
+Faith of the Kohlen-Brenners, of which Theobald de Brie, who was
+afterwards canonised, was a member. Theobald was adopted as patron saint
+of the modern society, and his fancied portrait figured in all the lodges.
+That any weight should have been attached to these pretensions to
+antiquity may appear strange to us, as it certainly did not matter whether
+an association bent on the liberation of Italy had or had not existed in
+German forests eight hundred years before; age and mystery, however, have
+a great popular attraction, the first as an object of reverence, the
+second as food for curiosity with the profane, and a bond of union among
+the initiated. The religious symbolism of the Carbonari, their oaths and
+ceremonies, and the axes, blocks and other furniture of the initiatory
+chamber, were well calculated to impress the poorer and more ignorant and
+excitable of the brethren. The Vatican affected to believe that
+Carbonarism was an offshoot of Freemasonry, but, in spite of sundry points
+of <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg.23]</a></span>
+resemblance, such as the engagements of mutual help assumed by members,
+there seems to have been no real connection between the two. Political
+Freemasonry remained somewhat of an exotic in Italy, and was inclined to
+regard France as its centre. As far as can be ascertained, it gave a
+general support to Napoleon, while Carbonarism rejected every foreign
+yoke. The practical aims of the Carbonari may be summed up in two words:
+freedom and independence. From the first they had the penetration to grasp
+the fact that independence, even if obtained, could not be preserved
+without freedom; but though their predilections were theoretically
+republican, they did not make a particular form of government a matter of
+principle. Nor were they agreed in a definite advocacy of the unity of
+Italy.</p>
+
+<p>A Genoese of the name of Malghella, who was Murat's Minister of Police,
+was the first person to give a powerful impetus to Carbonarism, of which
+he has even been called the inventor, but the inference goes too far.
+Malghella ended miserably; after the fall of Murat he was arrested by the
+Austrians, who consigned him as a new subject to the Sardinian Government,
+which immediately put him in prison. His name is hardly known, but no
+Italian of his time worked more assiduously, or in some respects more
+intelligently, for the emancipation of Italy. Whatever was truly Italian
+in Murat's policy must be mainly attributed to him. As early as 1813 he
+urged the King to declare himself frankly for independence, and to grant a
+constitution to his Neapolitan subjects. But Malghella did not find the
+destined saviour of Italy in Murat; his one lasting work was to establish
+Carbonarism on so strong a basis that, when the Bourbons returned, there
+were thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Carbonari in all parts of
+the realm. The discovery was not a pleasant one to the restored rulers,
+and the Prince of Canosa, the new Minister <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg.24]</a></span> of Police, thought to counteract
+the evil done by his predecessor by setting up an abominable secret
+society called the Calderai del Contrapeso (Braziers of the Counterpoise),
+principally recruited from the refuse of the people, lazzaroni, bandits
+and let-out convicts, who were provided by Government with 20,000 muskets,
+and were sworn to exterminate all enemies of the Church of Rome, whether
+Jansenists, Freemasons or Carbonari. This association committed some
+horrible excesses, but otherwise it had no results. The Carbonari closed
+in their ranks, and learnt to observe more strictly their rules of
+secrecy. From the kingdom of Naples, Carbonarism spread to the Roman
+states, and found a congenial soil in Romagna, which became the focus
+whence it spread over the rest of Italy. It was natural that it should
+take the colour, more or less, of the places where it grew. In Romagna,
+where political assassination is in the blood of the people, a dagger was
+substituted for the symbolical woodman's axe in the initiatory rites. It
+was probably only in Romagna that the conventional threat against
+informers was often carried out. The Romagnols invested Carbonarism with
+the wild intensity of their own temperament, resolute even to crime, but
+capable of supreme impersonal enthusiasm. The ferment of expectancy that
+prevailed in Romagna is reflected in the Letters and Journals of Lord
+Byron, whom young Count Pietro Gamba made a Carbonaro, and who looked
+forward to seeing the Italians send the barbarians of all nations back to
+their own dens, as to the most interesting spectacle and moment in
+existence. His lower apartments, he writes, were full of the bayonets,
+fusils and cartridges of his Carbonari cronies; 'I suppose that they
+consider me <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">
+[Pg.25]</a></span> as a d&eacute;p&ocirc;t, to be sacrificed in case of
+accidents. It is no great matter, supposing that Italy could be liberated,
+who or what is sacrificed. It is a grand object&mdash;the very poetry of
+politics. Only think&mdash;free Italy!!! Why, there has been nothing like
+it since the days of Augustus.'</p>
+
+<p>The movement on which such great hopes were set was to begin in the
+kingdom of Naples in the spring of 1820. The concession of the hard-won
+Spanish Constitution in the month of March encouraged the Neapolitans to
+believe that they might get a like boon from their own King if they
+directed all the forces at their command to this single end. To avoid
+being compromised, they sought rather to dissociate themselves from the
+patriots of other parts of Italy than to co-operate with them in an united
+effort. The Carbonari of the Neapolitan kingdom, who were the entire
+authors of the revolution, which, after many unfortunate delays, broke out
+on the 1st of July, had good cause for thinking that they were in a
+position to dictate terms; the mistake they made was to suppose that a
+charter conceded by a Bourbon of Naples could ever be worth the paper on
+which it was written. Not only among the people, but in the army the
+Carbonari had thousands of followers on whom they could rely, and several
+whole regiments were only waiting their orders to rise in open revolt. The
+scheme was to take possession of the persons of the King and the royal
+family, and retain them as hostages till the Constitution was granted.
+Such extreme measures were not necessary. The standard of rebellion was
+raised at Monteforte by two officers named Morelli and Silvati, who had
+brought over a troop of cavalry from Nola, and by the priest Menechini. In
+all Neapolitan insurrections there was sure to be a priest; the Neapolitan
+Church, much though there is to be laid to its account, must be admitted
+to have frequently shown sympathy with the <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg.26]</a></span> popular side. Menechini enjoyed
+an immense, if brief, popularity which he used to allay the anger of the
+mob and to procure the safety of obnoxious persons. The King sent two
+generals and a body of troops against the Chartists, but when the
+Carbonari symbols were recognised on the insurgent flags, the troops
+showed such clear signs of wishing to go over to the enemy that they were
+quietly taken back to Naples. The cry of 'God, the King, and the
+Constitution,' was taken up through the land; General Pepe, who had long
+been a Carbonaro in secret, was enthusiastically hailed as commander of
+the Chartist forces, which practically comprised the whole army. The King
+was powerless; besides which, when pushed up into any corner people who do
+not mind breaking their word have a facility for hard swearing. On the
+13th of July, Ferdinand standing at the altar of the royal chapel, with
+his hand on the Bible, swore to defend and maintain the Constitution which
+he had just granted. If he failed to do so, he called upon his subjects to
+disobey him, and God to call him to account. These words he read from a
+written form; as if they were not enough, he added, with his eyes on the
+cross, and his face turned towards heaven: 'Omnipotent God, who with Thine
+infinite power canst read the soul of man and the future, do Thou, if I
+speak falsely, or intend to break my oath, at this moment direct the
+thunder of Thy vengeance on my head.'</p>
+
+<p>The Neapolitans had got their liberties, but they soon found themselves
+face to face with perplexities which would have taxed the powers of men
+both wiser and more experienced in free government than they were. In the
+first place, although a revolution may be made by a sect, a government
+cannot be carried on by one. The Carbonari who had <span class="newpage">
+<a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg.27]</a></span> won the day were blind
+to this self-evident truth; and, to make matters worse, there was a split
+in their party, some of them being disposed to throw off the Bourbon yoke
+altogether; a natural desire, but as it was only felt by a minority, it
+added to the general confusion. Then came, as it was sure to come, the cry
+for separation from Sicily. The Sicilians wanted back the violated
+constitution obtained for them by the English in 1812, and would have
+nothing to do with that offered them from Naples. In every one of the
+struggles between Sicily and Naples, it is impossible to refuse sympathy
+to the islanders, who, in the pride of their splendid independent history,
+deemed themselves the victims of an inferior race; but it is equally
+impossible to ignore that, politically, they were in the wrong. In union,
+and in union alone, lay the only chance of resisting the international
+plot to keep the South Italian populations in perpetual bondage. The
+Sicilian revolt was put down at first mildly, and finally, as mildness had
+no effect, with the usual violence by the Neapolitan Constitutional
+Government, which could not avoid losing credit and popularity in the
+operation. Meanwhile, the three persons who traded under the name of
+Europe met at Troppau, and came readily to the conclusion that 'the
+sovereigns of the Holy Alliance exercised an incontestable right in taking
+common measures of security against states which the overthrow of
+authority by revolt placed in a hostile attitude towards every legitimate
+government.' The assumption was too broadly stated, even for Lord
+Castlereagh's acceptance; but he was contented to make a gentle protest,
+which he further nullified by allowing that, in the present case,
+intervention was very likely justified. France expressed no disapproval.
+Only the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden and Spain gave the
+Constitutional <i>r&eacute;gime</i> tacit <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg.28]</a></span> support by recognising it. The
+Emperor of Russia was very anxious to take part in the business, and would
+have sent off an army instantly had not his royal brother of Prussia
+hesitated to consent to the inconvenience of a Cossack march through his
+territory. The work was left, therefore, to the Emperor of Austria. Before
+entering upon it, it occurred to these three to invite the King of Naples
+to meet them at Laybach. They knew his character.</p>
+
+<p>Ferdinand assured his Parliament that he was going to Laybach solely to
+induce the Holy Alliance to think better of its opposition, and to agree,
+at least, to all the principal features of the new state of things. Most
+foolishly the Parliament, which, according to the Constitution, might have
+vetoed his leaving the country, let him go. Before starting he wrote an
+open letter to his dear son, the Duke of Calabria, who was appointed
+Regent, in which he said: 'I shall defend the events of the past July
+before the Congress. I firmly desire the Spanish Constitution for my
+kingdom; and although I rely on the justice of the assembled sovereigns,
+and on their old friendship, still it is well to tell you that, in
+whatever circumstance it may please God to place me, my course will be
+what I have manifested on this sheet, strong and unchangeable either by
+force or by the flattery of others.'</p>
+
+<p>Brave words! News came in due time of the sequel. On the 9th of
+February 1821, the Regent received a letter from the King, in which he
+gave the one piece of advice that the people should submit to their fate
+quietly. He was coming back with 50,000 Austrians, and a Russian army was
+ready to start if wanted. Nevertheless, to prevent a sudden outbreak
+before the foreign troops arrived, the Regent carried on a game of
+duplicity to the last, and pretended to second, whilst he <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg.29]</a></span> really
+baulked, the preparations for resistance decreed by Parliament. Baron
+Poerio, the father of two patriot martyrs of the future, sustained the
+national dignity by urging Parliament to yield only to force, and to defy
+the barbarous horde which was bearing down on the country. The closing
+scene is soon told. On the 7th of March, in the mountains near Rieti,
+General Guglielmo Pepe, with 8000 regular troops and a handful of militia,
+encountered an overwhelmingly superior force of Austrians. The Neapolitans
+stood out well for six hours, but on the Austrian reserves coming up, they
+were completely routed, and obliged to fly in all directions.</p>
+
+<p>'Order reigned' in the kingdom of Naples. In Sicily, a gallant attempt
+at insurrection was begun, but there was not the spirit to go on with it,
+and General Rossaroll, its initiator, had to fly to Spain. The afterpiece
+is what might have been expected; an insensate desire for vengeance got
+hold of Ferdinand, and the last years of his life were spent in hunting
+down his enemies, real or imaginary. Morelli and Silvati were hung, the
+fugitives, Pepe and Rossaroll, were condemned to death, but this was only
+the beginning. The Austrian commander counselled mercy, but in this
+respect the King showed an independent mind. A court-martial was
+instituted to examine the conduct of ecclesiastics, public functionaries
+and soldiers, from the year 1793 downwards. No one was safe who had
+expressed a dislike of absolutism within the last thirty years. A
+blameless gentleman who was a Carbonaro, was conducted through Naples on
+the back of an ass, and beaten with a whip, to which nails were attached.
+Eight hundred persons are said to have perished at the hands of the state
+in one year. Ferdinand himself expired on the 3rd of January 1825, after
+misgoverning for sixty-five years.</p>
+
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg.30]</a></span>
+
+<p>The Neapolitan revolution had just collapsed, when another broke out in
+Piedmont, which, though short in duration, was to have far-reaching
+consequences.</p>
+
+<p>At that time, the King of Sardinia was Victor Emmanuel I., who
+succeeded his brother Charles Emmanuel in 1802, when the latter abdicated
+and retired to Rome, where he joined the Society of Jesus. Victor
+Emmanuel's only son was dead, and the throne would devolve on his youngest
+brother, Charles Felix, Duke of Genoa, whom reasons of state led to
+abandon the wish to become a monk, which he had formed as a boy of eleven,
+on being taken to visit a convent near Turin. But Charles Felix, though
+married, was without children, and the legitimate heir-presumptive was
+Charles Albert, Prince of Carignano, who represented the younger branch of
+the family, which divided from the main line in the early part of the
+seventeenth century. Charles Albert's father was the luckless Prince
+Charles of Carignano, who, alone of his house, came to terms with
+Napoleon, who promised him a pension, which was not paid. His mother, a
+Saxon Princess, paraded the streets of Turin, dressed in the last
+republican fashion, with her infant son in her arms. Afterwards, she gave
+him a miscellaneous education, that included a large dose of Rousseau from
+a Swiss professor. The boy was shifted from place to place, happier when
+his mother forgot him, than when, in temporary recollection of his
+existence, she called him to her. Once when he was travelling with the
+Princess and her second husband, M. de Montl&eacute;art, Charles Albert
+was made to sit on the box of the carriage, in a temperature many degrees
+below zero.</p>
+
+<p>His uncles (as the King and Charles Felix called themselves, though
+they were his cousins) heard with natural horror of the vagaries of <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg.31]</a></span> the
+Princess of Carignano, and they extended their antipathy from the mother
+to the son, even when he was a child. In Victor Emmanuel, this antipathy
+was moderated by the easy good-nature of his character; in Charles Felix,
+it degenerated into an intense hatred.</p>
+
+<p>It is a singular thing that Prince Metternich, from the very first, had
+an instinctive feeling that the unfortunate boy, who seemed the most
+hopeless and helpless of human creatures, would prove the evil genius of
+the Austrian power. He therefore set to work to deprive him of his
+eventual rights. He was confident of success, as fortune had arranged
+matters in a manner that offered a ready-made plan for carrying out the
+design. Victor Emmanuel had four daughters, precluded from reigning by the
+Salic law, which was in force in Piedmont. His wife, the Queen Maria
+Teresa, a woman of great beauty and insatiable ambition, was sister to the
+Austrian Archduke Francis d'Este, Duke of Modena. Francis had never
+married, having been robbed of his intended bride, the Archduchess
+Marie-Louise, by her betrothal to Napoleon. What simpler than to marry the
+eldest of the Sardinian princesses to her uncle, abrogate the Salic law,
+and calmly await the desired consummation of an Austrian prince, by right
+of his wife, occupying the Sardinian throne?</p>
+
+<p>The first step was soon taken; princesses came into the world to be
+sacrificed. The plot ran on for some time, the Queen, who was in the habit
+of calling Charles Albert 'that little vagrant,' giving it her
+indefatigable support. Victor Emmanuel was weak, and stood in considerable
+awe of his wife, who had obtained a great ascendancy over him in the
+miserable days of their residence in the island of Sardinia. His nephew,
+who was almost or wholly unknown to him, partook <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg.32]</a></span> of the nature of a
+disagreeable myth. Nevertheless he had a sense of justice, as well as
+Savoy blood, in his veins&mdash;he resisted; but the day came when his
+surrender seemed probable. Just at that moment, however, the Duke of
+Modena prematurely revealed the project by asking through his
+representative at the Congress of Vienna for the port of Spezia, in order
+that he might conveniently connect his own state with his prospective
+possession, the island of Sardinia. Prince Talleyrand was alarmed by the
+vision of Austria supreme in the Mediterranean, and through his opposition
+the conspiracy, for the time, was upset, and the rights of Charles Albert
+were recognised.</p>
+
+<p>Curiously enough, Prince Metternich had insisted on the young Prince,
+then seventeen, visiting the headquarters of the Allies. Charles Felix
+(who was unconnected with the Modena scheme) wrote a letter to the King on
+this subject, in which he stated it as his belief that the Austrian plan
+was to get Charles Albert accidentally killed, or to plunge him in vice,
+or to make him contract a discreditable marriage. This was why they had
+invited him to their camp. He adds the characteristic remark that their
+nephew would be in no less danger at the headquarters of the Duke of
+Wellington '&agrave; cause de la religion.' Have him home and have him
+married, is his advice. 'We are well treated, because there is the
+expectation of soon devouring our remains by extinguishing the House of
+Savoy. It is the habit of the cabinet of Vienna; it was thus they made an
+end of the House of Este.'</p>
+
+<p>These counsels were the more likely to impress Victor Emmanuel from his
+knowledge that they were inspired by no shadow of personal interest in
+'the little vagrant,' but by the race-feeling alone. The Queen contrived
+to prevent the immediate recall of the Prince of <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg.33]</a></span> Carignano, but she was
+obliged to give way, and he was definitely established in Piedmont. In
+1818 he was married at Florence to the Archduchess Maria Teresa of
+Tuscany, who, on the 14th of March 1820, gave birth to the child that was
+to become the first King of Italy.</p>
+
+<p>Very soon after his return to his country, the hopes of the Liberal
+party began to centre in the young Prince, whom some of their more ardent
+spirits already saluted as the rising sun. Those who made his acquaintance
+were fascinated by the charm of manner which he could always exert when he
+chose, and were confirmed in their hopes by his evident susceptibility to
+the magnetism of new ideas and fatalistic ambitions. What they did not
+perceive was, that in his nature lay that ingrained tendency to drift
+before the wind, which is the most dangerous thing in politics. In the
+mid-sea of events he might change his course without conscious
+insincerity, but with the self-abandonment of a mind which, under
+pressure, loses the sense of personal responsibility.</p>
+
+<p>In Piedmont, Carbonarism had made great way among the upper classes and
+among the younger officers; the flower of the country was enrolled in its
+ranks, and the impatience to take some action towards procuring free
+institutions for themselves, and doing something for their Lombard
+brothers, had reached fever heat in the spring of 1821, when the affairs
+of Naples were creating much excitement. The principal conspirators, noble
+young men, full of unselfish ardour, were the chosen friends and
+companions of the Prince of Carignano. It was formerly the opinion that
+they made him the confidant of their plans from the first, that he was one
+of them, in short&mdash;a Carbonaro bound by all the oaths and obligations
+of the society. The judgment of his conduct afterwards is, of course, much
+affected by this point; were <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_34" id=
+"Page_34">[Pg.34]</a></span> the assumption correct, the invectives
+launched against him, not by any means only by republican writers, would
+hardly seem excessive. But by the light of documents issued in recent
+times, it appears more just as well as more charitable to suppose that
+Charles Albert's complicity was of a much less precise character. A little
+encouragement from a prince goes a long way.</p>
+
+<p>According to his own account, he was taken by surprise when, on the and
+or 3rd of March, his friends Carail, Collegno, Santa Rosa and Lisio came
+to tell him in secret that they belonged to societies which had been long
+working for the independence of Italy, and that they reckoned on him,
+knowing well his affection for his country, to aid them in obtaining from
+the King some few first concessions, which would be the prelude of a
+glorious future. It is clear that he ought either to have broken with them
+altogether from that moment or to have cast his lot with them for good or
+evil. He tried a middle course. He induced the conspirators to put off the
+revolution by which they intended to enforce their demands, and he
+conveyed to the King information of what had happened, asking at the same
+time that no measures should be taken against incriminated persons.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, no precautions of any kind seem to have been taken. Victor
+Emmanuel, frightened at first, was soon reassured. The revolution, which
+was to have begun on the 8th, actually broke out on the 10th of March at
+Alessandria, where the counter orders issued at Charles. Albert's request,
+after the interview just described, were not obeyed. The garrison
+'pronounced' in favour of the Spanish Constitution. It was now impossible
+to draw back. From Alessandria the revolution spread to the capital. The
+bulk of the army sympathised with the movement, and relied on the support
+of the people. <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">
+[Pg.35]</a></span> The greatest ladies mixed with the crowds which
+gathered under the Carbonaro flag&mdash;black, blue and red. On the other
+hand, there were a few devoted servants of the House of Savoy who beheld
+these novelties with the sensations of a quiet person who sees from his
+window the breaking loose of a menagerie. Invincibly ignorant of all that
+was really inspiring in this first breath of freedom, they saw nothing in
+it but an unwarrantable attack on the authority of their amiable, if weak,
+old King, for whom they would gladly have shed every drop of their
+blood&mdash;not from the rational esteem which the people of Italy, like
+the people of England, now feel for their sovereign, but from the pure
+passion of loyalty which made the cavalier stand blindly by his prince,
+whether he was good or bad, in the right or in the wrong. Men of their
+type watched the evolution of Piedmont into Italy from first to last with
+the same presentiment of evil, the same moral incapacity of appreciation.
+A handful of these loyal servitors hurried to Victor Emmanuel to offer
+their assistance. They marshalled their troop in battle-array in the
+courtyard of the palace. Their arms were antiquated pistols and rapiers,
+and they themselves were veterans, some of them of eighty years, mounted
+on steeds as ancient. The King thanked them, but declined their services;
+nor would he give <i>carte blanche</i> to Captain Raimondi, who assured
+him that with his one company he could suppress the insurrection if
+invested with full powers. Soon after this refusal, a firing of guns
+announced that the citadel was in the hands of the insurgents. The troops
+within and without fraternised; it was a fine moment for those who knew
+history and who were bent in their hearts on driving the foreigner out of
+Italy. Here at the citadel of Turin, during the siege of 1706, occurred
+the memorable deed of Pietro Micca, the peasant-soldier, who, <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg.36]</a></span> when he heard
+the enemy thundering at the door of the gallery, thought life and the
+welcome of wife and child and the happy return to his village of less
+account than duty, and fired the mine which sent him and three companies
+of French Grenadiers to their final reckoning.</p>
+
+<p>After vacillating for two or three days, Victor Emmanuel abdicated on
+the 13th of March. The Queen desired to be appointed regent, but, to her
+intense vexation, the appointment was given to Charles Albert. A more
+unenviable honour never fell to the lot of man.</p>
+
+<p>Deserted by the ministers of the crown, who resigned in a body, alone
+in the midst of a triumphant revolution, appealed to in the name of those
+sentiments of patriotism which he could never hear invoked unmoved, the
+young Prince uttered the words which were as good as a surrender: 'I, too,
+am an Italian!' That evening he allowed the Spanish Constitution to be
+proclaimed subject to the arrival of the orders of the new King.</p>
+
+<p>The new King! No one remembered that there existed such a person. Nor
+had anyone recollected that the Spanish Constitution abrogated the Salic
+law, and that hence, instead of a new King, they had a new Queen&mdash;the
+wife of the Duke of Modena! An eminent Turinese jurisconsulist, who was
+probably the only possessor of a copy of the charter in the town which was
+screaming itself hoarse for it, divulged this awkward
+discovery.&mdash;Several hours were spent in anxious discussion, when the
+brilliant suggestion was made that the article should be cancelled. The
+article was cancelled.</p>
+
+<p>But Charles Felix could not be disposed of so easily. The news of the
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg.37]</a></span>
+late events reached him at Modena of all places in the world, the
+rallying-point of the Prince of Carignano's bitterest foes. He was not
+long in sending his orders. He repudiated everything that had been done,
+and commanded Charles Albert, 'if he had a drop of our royal blood left in
+his veins,' to leave the capital instantly for Novara, where he was to
+await his further instructions.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Albert obeyed. He was accompanied on his journey&mdash;or, as
+it may be called, his flight&mdash;by such of the troops as remained
+loyal. At Novara he found a sentence of exile, in a fresh order, to quit
+Piedmontese territory. Tuscany was indicated as the state where he was to
+reside.</p>
+
+<p>The Austrians crossed the frontier with the consent of the King.
+Charles Felix's opinion of Austria has been already given; another time he
+said: 'Austria is a sort of bird-lime which, if you get it on your
+fingers, you can never rub off.' If anything was needed to increase his
+loathing for the revolution, it was the necessity in which it placed him,
+as he thought, of calling in this unloved ally. But Charles Felix was not
+the man to hesitate. Not caring a straw for the privilege of wearing a
+crown himself, his belief in the divine right of kings, and the obligation
+to defend it, amounted to monomania. The Austrian offer was therefore
+accepted. On her part Austria declined the obliging proposal of the Czar
+of a loan of 100,000 men. She felt that she could do the work unaided, nor
+was she mistaken.</p>
+
+<p>On the 8th of April the Constitutionalist troops which marched towards
+Novara, sanguine that the loyal regiments there quartered would end by
+joining them, were met by an armed resistance, in which the newly-arrived
+Austrians assisted. Their defeat was complete, and it was the signal of
+the downfall of the revolution. The leaders retired <span class="newpage">
+<a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg.38]</a></span> from Turin to
+Alessandria, and thence to Genoa, that had risen last and was last to
+submit. Thus most of them escaped by sea, which was fortunate, as Charles
+Felix had the will to establish a White Terror, and was only prevented by
+the circumstance that nearly all the proposed victims were outside his
+kingdom. Capital sentences were sent after them by the folio: there was
+hardly a noble family which had not one of its members condemned to death.
+When his brother, Victor Emmanuel, recommended mercy, he told him that he
+was entirely ready to give him back the crown, but that, while he reigned,
+he should reign after his own ideas. He seems to have had thoughts of
+hanging the Prince of Carignano, and for a long time he seriously meant to
+devise the kingdom to his son, the infant Prince Victor. Thus a new set of
+obstacles arose between Charles Albert and the throne.</p>
+
+<p>Of the personal friends of that ill-starred Prince all escaped. One of
+them, the noble-minded Count Santorre di Santa Rosa, died fighting for
+liberty in Greece. In the miseries of exile and poverty he had never lost
+faith in his country, but fearlessly maintained that 'the emancipation of
+Italy was an event of the nineteenth century.' To another, Giacinta di
+Collegno, it was reserved to receive the dying breath of Charles Albert,
+when as an exiled and crownless king he found rest, at last, at
+Oporto.</p>
+
+<p>There were deeper reasons than any which appear on the surface for the
+failure of the revolutionary movements of this period. North and south,
+though the populations exhibited a childish delight at the overthrow of
+the old, despotic form of government, their effervescence ended as rapidly
+as it began. They did not really understand what was going on.
+'By-the-bye, what <i>is</i> this same constitution they are making such a
+noise about?' asked a lazzarone who had been shouting <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg.39]</a></span> 'Viva la
+Costituzione' all the day. Within a few weeks of the breakdown at Novara,
+Count Confalonieri wrote wisely to Gino Capponi that revolutions are not
+made by high intelligences, but by the masses which are moved by
+enthusiasm, and for a possibility of success, the word Constitution, the
+least magical of words, should have been replaced by the more
+comprehensible and stirring call: 'War to the stranger.' But this, instead
+of sounding from every housetop, was purposely stifled at Naples, and kept
+a mysterious secret in Piedmont.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg.40]</a></span> <a
+name="CHAPTER_III"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
+
+<h4>PRISON AND SCAFFOLD</h4>
+
+<h5>1821-1831</h5>
+
+<h5>Political Trials in Venetia and Lombardy&mdash;Risings in the South
+and Centre&mdash;Ciro Menotti.</h5>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>The Austrians fully expected a rising in Lombardy in the middle of
+March, and that they were not without serious fears as to its consequences
+is proved by the preparations which they quietly made to abandon Milan, if
+necessary. The Court travelling-carriages were got ready, and the younger
+princes were sent away. Carbonarism had been introduced into Lombardy the
+year before by two Romagnols, Count Laderchi and Pietro Maroncelli. It was
+their propaganda that put the Austrian Government on the alert, and was
+the cause of the Imperial decree which denounced the society as a
+subversive conspiracy, aiming at the destruction of all constituted
+authority, and pointed to death and confiscation of property as the
+penalty for joining it. There was the additional clause, destined to bear
+terrible fruit, which declared accomplices, punishable with
+life-imprisonment, all who knew of the existence of lodges
+(<i>Vendite</i>, as they were called) or the names of associates, without
+informing the police. In the autumn of 1820, Maroncelli and many others,
+including Silvio Pellico, the young Piedmontese poet, were arrested as
+Carbonari, while the arrest of the so-called accomplices began with Count
+Giovanni Arrivabene of Mantua, who had no connection with the society, but
+was charged with having heard from Pellico that he was a member. Pellico
+and his companions <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">
+[Pg.41]</a></span> were still lying untried in the horrible Venetian
+prisons, called, from their leaden roofs, the 'Piombi,' when the events of
+1821 gave rise to a wholesale batch of new arrests. As soon as they knew
+of a movement in Piedmont, the Lombard patriots prepared to co-operate in
+it; that they were actually able to do nothing, was because it broke out
+prematurely, and also, to some extent, because their head, Count
+Confalonieri, was incapacitated by severe illness. But though their
+activity profited not at all to the cause, it was fatal to themselves. The
+Austrian Government had, as has been stated, a correct general notion of
+what was going on, but at the beginning it almost entirely lacked proofs
+which could inculpate individuals. In the matter of arrests, however,
+there was one sovereign rule which all the despotic Governments in Italy
+could and did follow in every emergency: it was to lay hands on the most
+intelligent, distinguished and upright members of the community. This plan
+never failed; these were the patriots, the conspirators of those days. The
+second thing which the Austrians made a rule of doing, was to extort from
+the prisoners some incautious word, some shadow of an assent or admission
+which would place them on the track of other compromised persons, and
+furnish them with such scraps of evidence as they deemed sufficient, in
+order to proceed against those already in their power. In their secret
+examination of prisoners, they had reduced the system of provocative
+interrogation to a science. They made use of every subterfuge, and, above
+all, of fabricated confessions fathered on friends of the prisoner, to
+extract the exclamation, the nod of the head, the confused answer, which
+served their purpose. The prisoners, <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg.42]</a></span> men of good faith, and
+inexperienced in the arts of deception, were but children in their hands,
+and scarcely one of them was not doomed to be the involuntary cause of
+some other person's ruin&mdash;generally that of a dear and intimate
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>The first to be arrested was Gaetano De-Castillia, who went with the
+Marquis Giorgio Pallavicini on a mission to Piedmont while the revolution
+there was at its height. They even had an interview with the Prince of
+Carignano, 'a pale and tall young man, with a charming expression' (so
+Pallavicini describes him), but had obtained from him no assurance, except
+the characteristic parting word: 'Let us hope in the future.' When
+De-Castillia was arrested, Pallavicini, then a youth of twenty, and full
+of noble sentiments, rushed to the director of the police with the avowal:
+'It was I who induced De-Castillia to go to Piedmont; if the journey was a
+crime, the fault is mine; punish me!' No error could have proved more
+calamitous; till that moment the Austrians were in ignorance of the
+Piedmontese mission; De-Castillia was arrested on some far more trifling
+charge. Pallavicini's generous folly was rewarded by fourteen years'
+imprisonment, and its first consequence was the arrest of Count
+Confalonieri, at whose instance the visit to Turin had been made. For
+months the Austrians had desired to have a clue against him; the
+opportunity was come at last.</p>
+
+<p>Federico Confalonieri, brilliant, handsome, persuasive, of great wealth
+and ancient lineage, innately aristocratic, but in the best sense, was
+morally at the head of Lombardy, by the selection of the fittest, which at
+certain junctures makes one man pre-appointed leader while he is still
+untried. When in England, the Duke of Sussex prevailed upon him to become
+a Freemason, but he was not a Carbonaro <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg.43]</a></span> in the technical sense, though
+both friends and foes believed him to be one. He knew, however, more about
+this and the other secret societies then existing in Italy&mdash;even
+those of the reactionary party&mdash;than did most of the initiated. In an
+amusing passage in his memoirs he relates how, when once forcibly detained
+in a miserable hostelry in the Calabrian Mountains, a den of brigands, of
+whom the chief was the landlord, he guessed that this man was a Calderaio,
+and it occurred to him to make the sign of that bloodthirsty sect. Things
+changed in a second; the brigand innkeeper was at his feet, the complete
+household was set in motion to serve him. In 1821, he founded at Milan,
+not a secret society, but an association in which all the best patriots
+were enrolled, and of which the sole engagement was the formula, repeated
+on entering its ranks: 'I swear to God, and on my honour, to exert myself
+to the utmost of my power, and even at the sacrifice of my life, to redeem
+Italy from foreign dominion.'</p>
+
+<p>Knowing to what extent he was a marked man, Confalonieri would have
+only exercised common prudence in leaving the country, but he could not
+reconcile himself to the idea of flight. Anonymous warnings rained upon
+him: most likely they all came from the same quarter, from Count Bubna,
+the Austrian Field-Marshal, with whom Confalonieri was personally on
+friendly terms. On the 12th of December the Countess Bubna made a last
+effort to save him; her carriage was ready, she implored him to take it
+and escape across the frontier. He refused, and next day he was
+arrested.</p>
+
+<p>Austrian legal procedure was slow; the trial of the first Carbonari,
+Silvio Pellico and his companions, did not take place till 1822. On the
+22nd of February the sentence of death was read to Silvio Pellico in his
+Venetian prison, to be commuted to one of fifteen years' <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg.44]</a></span> imprisonment
+at Spielberg, a fortress converted into a convict prison in a bleak
+position in Moravia. To that rock of sorrow, consecrated for ever by the
+sufferings of some of the purest of men, Silvio Pellico and Pietro
+Maroncelli, with nine or ten companions, condemned at the same time, were
+the first Italians to take the road. Here they remained for the eight
+years described by the author of <i>Francesca da Rimini</i>, in <i>Le Mie
+Prigioni</i>, a book that served the Italian cause throughout the world.
+Even now some Italians are indignant at the spirit of saintly resignation
+which breathes upon Silvio Pellico's pages, at the veil which is drawn
+over many shocking features in the treatment of the prisoners; they do not
+know the tremendous force which such reticence gave his narrative. <i>Le
+Mie Prigioni</i> has the reserve strength of a Greek tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>Maroncelli contracted a disease of the leg through the hardships
+endured; amputation became necessary, but could not be performed till
+permission was received from Vienna&mdash;a detail showing the red-tapism
+which governed all branches of the Austrian administration. This patriot
+went, after his release, to America, where he died, poor, blind and mad.
+Pellico, crushed in soul, devoted his latter years entirely to religion.
+Only men of iron fibre could come out as they went in. The Spielberg
+prisoners wore chains, and their food was so bad and scanty that they
+suffered from continual hunger, with its attendant diseases. Unlike the
+thieves and assassins confined in the same fortress, the State prisoners
+were given no news of their families. Such was Spielberg, 'a sepulchre
+without the peace of the dead.'</p>
+
+<p>The State trials of the Lombard patriots in 1823 resulted in seven
+capital sentences on the Milanese, thirteen on the Brescians, and four
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg.45]</a></span> on
+the Mantuans. The fate of the other prisoners depended on that of Count
+Confalonieri. If the sentence on him were not carried out, the lives at
+least of the others might be regarded as safe, since he was looked upon as
+the head. It is certain that the authorities, and the Emperor himself, had
+the most firm intention of having him executed; the more merciful decision
+was solely due to the Countess Confalonieri's journey to Vienna.
+Accompanied by the prisoner's aged father, this beautiful and heroic
+woman, a daughter of the noble Milanese house of Casati, went to Vienna
+before the conclusion of the trial, to be ready for any eventuality. When
+the sentence of death was passed, it was announced by the Emperor to old
+Count Confalonieri, whom he advised to return with the Countess Teresa as
+fast as possible if they wished to see the condemned man alive. Undaunted
+by the news, the brave wife sought an interview with the Empress, in whom
+she found a warm advocate, but who was obliged to own, after several
+attempts to obtain a reprieve, that she despaired of success. Teresa
+Confalonieri hurried back to Milan through the bitter winter weather, in
+doubt whether she should arrive before the execution had taken place. But
+the unceasing efforts of the Empress won the day. The respite was granted
+on the 13th of January; life-imprisonment was substituted for death. The
+countess sent her husband the pillow which she had bathed with her tears
+during her terrible journey; needless to say that it was not given to him.
+She died broken-hearted with waiting before he was set at liberty in the
+year 1836.</p>
+
+<p>When Count Confalonieri reached Vienna on his way to Spielberg, he was
+surprised to find himself installed in a luxurious apartment, with <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg.46]</a></span> three
+servants to wait upon him. Though too ill to touch solid food, a sumptuous
+breakfast and dinner were daily set before him; and but for the constant
+jingle of his chains, he would have thought himself in a first-class hotel
+on a journey of pleasure. The object of these attentions was clear when
+one evening Prince Metternich came to see him, and stayed for three hours,
+endeavouring by every exquisite flattery, by every promise and persuasion,
+to worm out of him the secrets of which he alone was believed to be the
+depositary. The Austrian Government had spent &pound;60,000 on the Milan
+Commission, and, practically, they were no wiser than when it began. Would
+Confalonieri enlighten them? Whatever scruples he might have felt during
+the trial could be now laid aside; there was no question of new arrests.
+It was from pure, abstract love of knowledge that the Government, or,
+rather, the Emperor, desired to get at the truth. If he preferred to open
+his mind to the Emperor in person, His Majesty would grant him a secret
+audience. Above all, what was the real truth about the Prince of
+Carignano?</p>
+
+<p>All the rest was a blind; it was the wish to have some damnatory
+evidence against Charles Albert, such as would for ever exclude him from
+the throne, that had induced the Emperor and his astute minister to make
+this final attempt.</p>
+
+<p>'Confalonieri need never go to Spielberg,' said the Prince; 'let him
+think of his family, of his adored wife, of his own talents, of his future
+career, which was on the brink of being blotted out as completely as if he
+were dead!' Confalonieri was worthy of his race, of his class, of himself;
+he stood firm, and next morning, almost with a sense of relief, he started
+for the living grave.</p>
+
+<p>'The struggle was decided,' Prince Metternich had said in the course
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg.47]</a></span> of
+the interview, 'and decided not only for our own, but for many
+generations. Those who still hoped to the contrary were madmen.'</p>
+
+<p>Some years of outward quiet doubtless confirmed him in the first
+opinion, while the second was not likely to be shaken by the next attempt
+that was made to take up arms for freedom. On the 28th of June 1828,
+several villages in the province of Salerno rose in obedience to the
+harangues of two patriotic ecclesiastics, Canon de Luca and Carlo da
+Celle, superior of a capuchin convent. This was meant to develop into a
+general insurrection, but it was nowhere followed up, and the sword of
+vengeance fell speedily on the wretched villagers. Surrounded by the royal
+troops, they were forced into submission, many were shot on the spot,
+others were dragged in chains to Salerno, not even a drop of water being
+allowed them during the journey under the scorching sun. The village of
+Bosco was rased to the ground. The priest, the monk, and twenty-two
+insurgents were shot after the repression. The heads of the victims were
+cut off and placed in iron cages where their wives or mothers were likely
+to see them. A woman went to Naples to beg for the pardon of her two
+grandsons, by name Diego and Emilio. The King, with barbarous clemency,
+told her to choose one. In vain she entreated that if both could not be
+saved the choice should be left to chance, or decided by someone else. But
+no; unless she chose they would both be shot. At last she chose Diego.
+Afterwards she went mad, and was constantly heard wailing: 'I have killed
+my grandson Emilio.' This anecdote gives a fair notion of Francis I.,
+whose short reign was, however, less signalised by acts of cruelty, though
+there were enough of these, than by a venality never surpassed. The
+grooms-in-waiting and ladies-of-the-bedchamber sold the public offices
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg.48]</a></span> in
+the daylight; and the King, who was aware of it, thought it a subject for
+vulgar jokes with his intimates. Francis died in 1830 of bad humour at the
+Paris revolution, and was succeeded by Ferdinand II., to be known
+hereafter as Bomba&mdash;then a clownish youth, one of whose first kingly
+cares was to create St Ignatius Loyola a Field-Marshal.</p>
+
+<p>The revolution which upset the throne of Charles X., and ushered in the
+eighteen years' reign of the Citizen King, seemed likely to have momentous
+consequences for Italy. The principle of non-intervention proclaimed by
+French politicians would, if logically enforced, sound the death-knell of
+the Austrian power in Italy. Dupin, the Minister of War, enlarged on the
+theme in a speech which appeared to remove all doubt as to the real
+intentions of the Government. 'One phrase,' he remarked, 'has made a
+general impression; it expresses the true position of a loyal and generous
+Government. Not only has the President of the Council laid down the
+principle that France should abstain from intervention; he has declared
+that she would not tolerate intervention on the part of others. France
+might have shut herself up in a cold egotism, and simply said that she
+would not intervene; this would have been contemptible, but the
+proclamation of not suffering the interventions of others is the noblest
+attitude a strong and magnanimous people can assume; it amounts to saying:
+Not only will I not attack or disturb other nations, but I, France, whose
+voice is respected by Europe and by the whole world, will never permit
+others to do so. This is the language held by the ministry and by the
+ambassadors of Louis Philippe; and it is this which the army, the National
+Guard, France entire, is ready to maintain.'</p>
+
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg.49]</a></span>
+
+<p>Truly language was invented to travesty the truth, and when French
+politicians say they are going to the right it is an almost sure sign that
+they are going to the left; nevertheless, is it possible to blame the
+Italians who read in these assurances a positive promise affecting their
+own case?</p>
+
+<p>The same assurances were repeated again and again through the winter of
+1830-31; they were repeated authoritatively as late as March in the latter
+year. Well may a French writer inquire: 'Was it insanity or
+treachery?'</p>
+
+<p>The good tidings were published by the Italian exiles, who, living
+close to the great centres of European politics, were the first to
+intoxicate themselves with the great delusion. From London, Gabriele
+Rossetti sent the exultant summons:</p>
+
+<pre>
+       Cingi l'elmo, la mitra deponi,
+       O vetusta Signora del mondo:
+       Sorgi, sorgi dal sonno profondo,
+       Io son l'alba del nuovo tuo d&igrave;.
+
+      Saran rotte le vostre catene,
+     O Fratelli che in ceppi languite;
+     O Fratelli che il giogo soffrite
+     Calcherete quel giogo col pi&egrave;.
+</pre>
+
+<p>The child beside whose cradle the ode was written, was to grow to
+manhood while Italy still remained 'the weeping, desolate mother.' The cry
+of the poet was not, however, without an echo. In 1831, Romagna, Parma and
+Modena rose in rebellion.</p>
+
+<p>Things had been going, without much variation, from bad to worse in the
+Roman states, ever since 1815. Pius VII. (Chiaramonti), who died in 1823,
+was succeeded by Leo XII. (Genga), an old man who was in such enfeebled
+health that his death was expected at the time of his <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg.50]</a></span> election, but,
+like a more famous pontiff, he made a sudden recovery, which was
+attributed to the act of a prelate, who, in prayer, offered his own life
+for the Pope's, and who died a few days after resolving on the sacrifice.
+During this Pope's reign, the smallpox was rife in Rome, in consequence of
+the suppression of public vaccination. The next conclave, held in 1829,
+resulted in the election of Pius VIII. (Castiglioni da Cingoli), who died
+on the 30th of November 1830, and was followed by Gregory XVI.
+(Cappellari). In each conclave, Austria had secured the choice of a
+'Zealot,' as the party afterwards called Ultramontane was then designated.
+The last traces of reforms introduced by the French disappeared; criminal
+justice was again administered in secret; the police were arbitrary and
+irresponsible. All over the Roman states, but especially in Romagna, the
+secret society of the Sanfedesti flourished exceedingly; whether, as is
+probable, an offshoot of the Calderai or of indigenous growth, its aims
+were the same. The affiliated swore to spill the last drop of the blood of
+the Liberals, without regard to sex or rank, and to spare neither children
+nor old men. Many Romagnols had left their country after the abortive
+agitation of 1821, and amongst these were the Gambas. Count Pietro died in
+Greece, where he had gone on the service of freedom. Had he lived, this
+young man would have been sure to win a fair name in the annals of Italian
+patriotism; he should not, as it is, be quite forgotten, as it was chiefly
+due to him that Byron's life took the redeeming direction which led to
+Missolonghi.</p>
+
+<p>In February 1831, Romagna and the Marches of Ancona threw off the Papal
+Government with an ease which must have surprised the most sanguine. The
+white, red and green tricolor was hoisted at Bologna, <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg.51]</a></span> where, as far
+as is known, this combination of colours first became a political badge.
+Thirty-six years before Luigi Zamboni and Gian Battista De Rolandis of
+Bologna had distributed rosettes of white, red and green ribbon; Zamboni
+was arrested, and strangled himself, afraid of betraying his friends; De
+Rolandis was hung on the 23rd of April 1796. Such was the origin of the
+flag, but, until 1831, the Carbonaro red, blue and black was the common
+standard of the revolution. From that year forth, the destinies of Italy
+were accomplished under the colours of better augury, so fit to recall her
+fiery volcanoes, her wooded Apennines, her snow-crowned Alps; colours
+which in one sense she receives from Dante, who clothes in them the vision
+of the glorified Beatrice.</p>
+
+<p>The rising at Parma requires but little comment. The Empress
+Marie-Louise neither hated her subjects, nor was hated by them, but her
+engagements with Austria prevented her from granting the demanded
+concessions, and she abandoned her state, to return to it, indeed, under
+Austrian protection, but without the odious corollary of vindictive
+measures which was generally meant by a restoration.</p>
+
+<p>Much more important is the history of the Modenese revolution.
+Apologists have been found for the Bourbons of Naples, but, if anyone ever
+said a good word for Francesco d'Este, it has escaped the notice of the
+present writer. Under a despotism without laws (for the edicts of the
+Prince daily overrode the Este statute book which was supposed to be in
+force), Modena was far more in the power of the priests, or rather of the
+Jesuits, than any portion of the states of the Church. Squint-eyed,
+crooked in mind and bloodthirsty, Francis was as ideal a bogey-tyrant as
+can be discovered outside fiction. In 1822, he hung the priest Giuseppe
+Andreoli on the charge of Carbonarism; and his <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg.52]</a></span> theory of justice is
+amusingly illustrated by the story of his sending in a bill to Sir Anthony
+Panizzi&mdash;who had escaped to England&mdash;for the expenses of hanging
+him in effigy.</p>
+
+<p>Francis felt deeply annoyed by the narrow limits of his dominions, and
+his annoyance did not decrease with the decreasing chances of his ousting
+the Prince of Carignano from the Sardinian throne. He was intensely
+ambitious, and one of his subjects, a man, in other respects, of high
+intelligence, thought that his ambition could be turned to account for
+Italy. It was the mistake over again that Machiavelli had made with Cesare
+Borgia.</p>
+
+<p>Ciro Menotti, who conceived the plan of uniting Italy under the Duke of
+Modena, was a Modenese landed proprietor who had exerted himself to
+promote the industry of straw-plaiting, and the other branches of commerce
+likely to be of advantage to an agricultural population. He was known as a
+sound philanthropist, an excellent husband and father, a model member of
+society. Francis professed to take an interest in industrial matters;
+Menotti, therefore, easily gained access to his person. In all the
+negotiations that followed, the Modenese patriot was supported and
+encouraged by a certain Dr Misley, who was of English extraction, with
+whom the Duke seems to have been on familiar terms. It appears not
+doubtful that Menotti was led to believe that his political views were
+regarded with favour, and that he also received the royal promise that,
+whatever happened, his life would be safe. This promise was given because
+he had the opportunity of saving the Duke from some great
+peril&mdash;probably from assassination, though the particulars were never
+divulged.</p>
+
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg.53]</a></span>
+
+<p>Misley went to Paris to concert with the Italian committee which had
+its seat there; the movement in Modena was fixed for the first days of
+February. But spies got information of the preparations, and on the
+evening of the 3rd, before anything had been done, Menotti's house was
+surrounded by troops, and after defending it, with the help of his
+friends, for two hours, he was wounded and captured. Next day the Duke
+despatched the following note to the Governor of Reggio-Emilia: 'A
+terrible conspiracy against me has broken out. The conspirators are in my
+hands. Send me the hangman.&mdash;Francis.'</p>
+
+<p>Not all, however, of the conspirators were in his hands; the movement
+matured, in spite of the seizure of Menotti, and Francis, 'the first
+captain in the world,' as he made his troops call him, was so overcome
+with fright that on the 5th of February he left Modena with his family,
+under a strong military escort, dragging after him Giro Menotti, who, when
+Mantua was reached, was consigned to an Austrian fortress.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the revolution triumphed. Modena chose one of her citizens
+as dictator, Biagio Nardi, who issued a proclamation in which the words
+'Italy is one; the Italian nation is one sole nation,' testified that the
+great lesson which Menotti had sought to teach had not fallen on
+unfruitful ground. Wild as were the methods by which, for a moment, he
+sought to gain his end, his insistance on unity nevertheless gives Menotti
+the right to be considered the true precursor of Mazzini in the Italian
+Revolution.</p>
+
+<p>Now that the testing-time was come, France threw to the winds the
+principle announced in her name with such solemn emphasis. 'Precious
+French blood should never be shed except on behalf of French interests,'
+said Casimir P&eacute;rier, the new President of the Council. A <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg.54]</a></span> month
+after the flight of the Duke of Modena, the inevitable Austrians marched
+into his state to win it back for him. The hastily-organised little army
+of the new government was commanded by General Zucchi, an old general of
+Napoleon, who, when Lombardy passed to Austria, had entered the Austrian
+service. He now offered his sword to the Dictator of Modena, who accepted
+it, but there was little to be done save to retire with honour before the
+6000 Austrians. Zucchi capitulated at Ancona to Cardinal Benvenuti, the
+Papal delegate. Those of the volunteers who desired it were furnished with
+regular passports, and authorised to take ship for any foreign port. The
+most compromised availed themselves of this arrangement, but the vessel
+which was to bear Zucchi and 103 others to Marseilles, was captured by the
+Austrian Admiral Bandiera, by whom its passengers were kidnapped and
+thrown into Venetian prisons, where they were kept till the end of May
+1832. This act of piracy was chiefly performed with a view to getting
+possession of General Zucchi, who was tried as a deserter, and condemned
+to twenty years' imprisonment. Among the prisoners was the young wife of
+Captain Silvestro Castiglioni of Modena. 'Go, do your duty as a citizen,'
+she had said, when her husband left her to join the insurrection. 'Do not
+betray it for me, as perhaps it would make me love you less.' She shared
+his imprisonment, but just at the moment of the release, she died from the
+hardships endured.</p>
+
+<p>By the end of the month of March, the Austrians had restored Romagna to
+the Pope, and Modena to Francis IV. In Romagna the amnesty published by
+Cardinal Benvenuti was revoked, but there were no executions; this was not
+the case in Modena. The Duke brought back <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg.55]</a></span> Ciro Menotti attached to his
+triumphal car, and when he felt that all danger was past, and that the
+presence of the Austrians was a guarantee against a popular expression of
+anger, he had him hung.</p>
+
+<p>'When my children are grown up, let them know how well I loved my
+country,' Menotti wrote to his wife on the morning of his execution. The
+letter was intercepted, and only delivered to his family in 1848. The
+revolutionists found it in the archives of Modena. On the scaffold he
+recalled how he was once the means of saving the Duke's life, and added
+that he pardoned his murderer, and prayed that his blood might not fall
+upon his head.</p>
+
+<p>During the insurrection in Romagna, an event occurred which was not
+without importance to Europe, though it passed almost unnoticed at the
+time. The eldest son of Queen Hortense died in her arms at Forl&igrave;,
+of a neglected attack of measles; some said of poison, but the report was
+unfounded. He and his brother Louis, who had been closely mixed up with
+Italian conspiracies for more than a year, went to Romagna to offer their
+services as volunteers in the national army. By the death of the elder of
+the two, Louis Napoleon became heir to what seemed then the shadowy
+sovereignty of the Buonapartes.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had the Austrians retired from the Legations in July 1831,
+than the revolution broke out again. Many things had been promised,
+nothing performed; disaffection was universal, anarchy became chronic, and
+was increased by the indiscipline of the Papal troops that were sent to
+put it down. The Austrians returned and the French occupied Ancona, much
+to the Pope's displeasure, and not one whit to the advantage of the
+Liberals. This dual foreign occupation of the Papal states lasted till the
+winter of 1838.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg.56]</a></span> <a
+name="CHAPTER_IV"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
+
+<h4>'YOUNG ITALY' 1831-1844</h4>
+
+<h5>Accession of Charles Albert&mdash;Mazzini's Unitarian
+Propaganda&mdash;The Brothers Bandiera.</h5>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>On 27 April 1831, Charles Albert came to the throne he had so nearly
+lost. His reconciliation with his uncle, Charles Felix, had been effected
+after long and melancholy preliminaries. To wash off the Liberal sins of
+his youth, or possibly with a vague hope of finding an escape from his
+false position in a soldier's death, he joined the Duc d'Angoul&ecirc;me's
+expedition against the Spanish Constitutionalists. His extraordinary
+daring in the assault of the Trocadero caused him to be the hero of the
+hour when he returned with the army to Paris; but the King of Sardinia
+still refused to receive him with favour&mdash;a sufficiently icy favour
+when it was granted&mdash;until he signed an engagement, which remained
+secret, to preserve intact during his reign the laws and principles of
+government which he found in force at his accession. If there had been an
+Order of the Millstone, Charles Felix would doubtless have conferred it
+upon his dutiful nephew; failing that, he presented to him for signature
+this wonderful document, the invention of which he owed to Prince
+Metternich. At the Congress of Verona in 1822, Charles Albert's claims to
+the succession were recognised, thanks chiefly to the Duke of Wellington,
+who represented England in place of Lord Londonderry (Castlereagh), that
+statesman <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">
+[Pg.57]</a></span> having committed suicide just as he was starting for
+Verona. Prince Metternich then proposed that the Prince of Carignano
+should be called upon to enter into an agreement identical with the
+compact he was brought to sign a couple of years later. In communicating
+the proposal to Canning, the Duke of Wellington wrote that he had
+demonstrated to Prince Metternich 'the fatality of such an arrangement,'
+but that he did not think that he had made the slightest impression on
+him. So the event proved; baffled for the moment, the Prince managed to
+put his plan in execution through a surer channel.</p>
+
+<p>With the accession of Charles Albert appears upon the political scene a
+great actor in the Liberation of Italy, Giuseppe Mazzini. Young and
+unknown, except for a vague reputation for restlessness and for talent
+which caused the government of Charles Felix to imprison him for six or
+seven months at Savona, Mazzini proposed to the new King the terms on
+which he might keep his throne, as calmly as Metternich had proposed to
+him the terms on which he might ascend it. The contrast is striking; on
+the one side the statesman, who still commanded the armed force of
+three-fourths of Europe, doing battle for the holy alliance of autocrats,
+for the international law of repression, for all the traditions of the old
+diplomacy; on the other, the young student with little money and few
+friends, already an exile, having no allies but his brain and his pen, who
+set himself, certain of success, to dissolve that mighty array of power
+and pomp. All his life Charles Albert was a Faust for the possession of
+whose soul two irreconcilable forces contended; the struggle was never
+more dramatically represented than at this moment in the person of these
+two champions.</p>
+
+<p>Mazzini's letter to Charles Albert, which was read by the King, and
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg.58]</a></span>
+widely, though secretly, circulated in Piedmont, began by telling him that
+his fellow-countrymen were ready to believe his line of conduct in 1821 to
+have been forced on him by circumstances, and that there was not a heart
+in Italy that did not quicken at his accession, nor an eye in Europe that
+was not turned to watch his first steps in the career that now unfolded
+before him. Then he went on to show, with the logical strength in
+developing an argument which, joined to a novel and eloquent style, caused
+his writings to attract notice from the first, that the King could take no
+middle course. He would be one of the first of men, or the last of Italian
+tyrants; let him choose. Had he never looked upon Italy, radiant with the
+smile of nature, crowned with twenty centuries of sublime memories, the
+mother of genius, possessing infinite means, to which only union was
+lacking, girt round with such defences that a strong will and a few
+courageous breasts would suffice to defend her? Had it never struck him
+that she was created for a glorious destiny? Did he not contemplate her
+people, splendid still, in spite of the shadow of servitude, the vigour of
+whose intellect, the energy of whose passions, even when turned to evil,
+showed that the making of a nation was there? Did not the thought come to
+him: 'Draw a world out of these dispersed elements like a god from chaos;
+unite into one whole the scattered members, and pronounce the words, "It
+is mine, and it is happy"?'</p>
+
+<p>Mazzini in 1831 was twenty-six years of age. His father was a Genoese
+physician, his mother a native of Chiavari. She was a superior woman, and
+devoted more than a mother's care to the excitable and delicate child, who
+seemed to her (mothers have sometimes the gift of prophecy) <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg.50]</a></span> to be meant
+for an uncommon lot. One of the few personal reminiscences that Mazzini
+left recorded, relates to the time and manner in which the idea first came
+to him of the possibility of Italians doing something for their country.
+He was walking with his mother in the Strada Nuova at Genoa one Sunday in
+April 1821, when a tall, black-bearded man with a fiery glance held
+towards them a white handkerchief, saying: 'For the refugees of Italy.'
+Mazzini's mother, gave him some money, and he passed on. In the streets
+were many unfamiliar faces; the fugitives from Turin and Alessandria were
+gathered at Genoa before they departed by sea into exile. The impression
+which that scene made on the mind of the boy of sixteen was never
+effaced.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to his delicate health, Mazzini's early education was carried on
+at home, where the social atmosphere was that of one of those little
+centres in a provincial capital which are composed of a few people, mostly
+kindred, of similar tastes, who lead useful and refined lives, content
+with moderate ease. The real exclusiveness of such centres exceeds any
+that exists in the most aristocratic sphere in the world. The Mazzinis
+were, moreover, Genoese to the core; and this was another reason for
+exclusiveness, and for holding aloof from the governing class. Mazzini was
+born a few days after Napoleon entered Genoa as its lord. He had not,
+therefore, breathed the air of the ancient Republic; but there was the
+unadulterated republicanism of a thousand years in his veins.</p>
+
+<p>When he grew to manhood his appearance was striking. The black, flowing
+hair, the pale, olive complexion, the finely-cut features and lofty brow,
+the deep-set eyes, which could smile as only Italian eyes can smile, but
+which could also flash astral infinitudes of scorn, the <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg.60]</a></span> fragile
+figure, even the long, delicate, tapering fingers, marked him for a man
+apart&mdash;though whether a poet or an apostle, a seer or a saint, it was
+not easy to decide. Yet this could be said at once: if this man
+concentrated all his being on a single point, he would wield the power,
+call it what we will, which in every age has worked miracles and moved
+mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Mazzini became a Carbonaro, though the want of clear, guiding
+principles in Carbonarism made him misdoubt its efficacy, and its
+hierarchical mysteries and initiatory ordeals repelled him by their
+childishness. Then followed his arrest, and his detention in the fortress
+of Savona, which was the turning-point in his mental life. Before that
+date he learnt, after it he taught. From his high-perched cell he saw the
+sea and the sky&mdash;with the Alps, the sublimest things in Nature. The
+voices of the fishermen reached his ears, though he could not see them. A
+tame goldfinch was his companion. Here, in a solitude and peace which he
+remembered with regret in the stormy and sorrowful years that were to
+come, he conceived his message and the mission, in which he believed to
+the last day of his life.</p>
+
+<p>He resolved to found a new association on broader and simpler lines
+than the secret societies of the past, which should aim not only at the
+material freeing of Italy from her present bondage, but at her moral and
+religious regeneration. To aim at material progress of any kind, without
+at the same time aiming at a higher moral progress, seemed to Mazzini
+absurd; to attempt to pull down without attempting to build up seemed to
+him criminal. Thus he accused the Socialists of substituting the progress
+of humanity's kitchen for the progress of humanity. He believed that
+Italy, united and redeemed, was destined to <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg.61]</a></span> shed through the world the light
+of a new moral unity, which should end the reign of Scepticism, triumphant
+among discordant creeds. Mazzini's religious belief was the motor of his
+whole being. The Catholicism in which he was outwardly brought up never
+seems to have touched his inner nature; he went through no spiritual
+wrench in leaving a faith that was never a reality to him. The same is
+true of innumerable young Italians, who, when they begin to read and
+study, drift out of their childhood's religion without a struggle or a
+regret. But thought and study brought Mazzini what it rarely brings to
+these young men&mdash;the necessity to find something in which he could
+believe. He had not long to seek for a basis to his creed, because he was
+one of the men from the prophets of old to Spinoza, from Spinoza to
+Gordon, to whom the existence of God is a matter of experience rather than
+an object of faith. Starting from this point, he formed his religion out
+of what he regarded as its inevitable deductions. If God existed, his
+creatures must be intended for perfection; if this were the Divine scheme,
+man's one business was to carry it out. He considered the idea of duty
+separated from the idea of God to be illogical. Either the development of
+human things depended on a providential law, or it was left to chance and
+passing circumstance, and to the dexterity of the man who turned these to
+most account. God was the sole source of duty; duty the sole law of life.
+Mazzini did not denounce Catholicism or any other religion as false. He
+saw in it a stepping-stone to purer comprehension, which would be reached
+when man's intellect was sufficiently developed for him to be able to do
+without symbols.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image2.jpg" alt="GIUSEPPE MAZZINI" /><br />
+ <span class="caption">GIUSEPPE MAZZINI</span></div>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>The conscience of humanity is the last tribunal. Ideas, as well as
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg.62]</a></span>
+institutions, change and expand, but certain fundamental principles are
+fixed. The family would always exist; property would always exist. The
+first, 'the heart's fatherland,' was the source of the only true
+happiness, the only joys untainted by grief, which were given to man.
+Those who wished to abolish the second were like the savage who cut down
+the tree in order to gather the fruit. In the future, free association
+would be the great agent of moral and material progress. The authority
+which once rested in popes and emperors now devolved on the people.
+Instead of 'God and the King,' Mazzini proposed the new formula 'God and
+the People.' By the people he understood no caste or class, whether high
+or low, but the universality of men composing the nation. The nation is
+the sole sovereign; its will, expressed by delegates, must be law to all
+its citizens.</p>
+
+<p>By degrees certain words acquired more and more a mystical significance
+in Mazzini's mind; the very name of Rome, for instance, had for him a sort
+of talismanic fascination, not unlike that possessed by Jerusalem for the
+medi&aelig;val Christian. When he spoke of the people or the republic he
+frequently used those terms in an ideal and visionary sense (as
+theologians use the Church) rather than in one strictly corresponding with
+the case of any existing nation, or any hitherto tried form of government.
+This does not alter the fact that his theories, which have been briefly
+summarised, are not hard to comprehend, as has been said by those who did
+not know in what they consisted, nor, taken one by one, are they novel.
+What was new in the nineteenth century was the appearance of a
+revolutionary leader, who was before all things a religious and ethical
+teacher. And though Mazzini never founded the Church of Precursors, of
+which he dreamt, his influence was as surely due to his belief in his
+religious <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">
+[Pg.63]</a></span> mission, as was the influence of Savonarola. The
+Italians are not a mystical people, but they have always followed mystical
+leaders. The less men are prone to ideal enthusiasm the more attracted are
+they by it; Don Quixote, as Heine remarked, always draws Sancho Panza
+after him.</p>
+
+<p>Mazzini had a natural capacity for organisation, and the Association of
+Young Italy which he founded at Marseilles, the first nucleus being a
+group of young, penniless refugees, soon obtained an astonishing
+development. Up to the time of his 'Letter to Charles Albert,' his exile
+had been so far voluntary that he might have remained in Piedmont had he
+agreed to live in one of the smaller towns under the watchful care of the
+police, but he declined the terms, and the first effect of the 'Letter'
+was a stringent order to arrest him if he recrossed the frontier. He was
+not surprised at that result. Mazzini's attitude towards the Sardinian
+monarchy was perfectly well defined. Republican himself, even to
+fanaticism, he placed the question of unity, which for him meant national
+existence, above the question of the republic. He did not believe that the
+House of Savoy would unite Italy, but if unity could only be had under
+what he looked upon as the inauspicious form of monarchy, he would not
+reject it. He was like the real mother in the judgment of Solomon, who,
+because she loved her child, was ready to give it up sooner than see it
+cut in two.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from personal hereditary instincts and predilections, Mazzini
+thought that he saw in the glorious memories of the Italian republics a
+clear indication that the commonwealth was the form of government which
+ought and would be adopted by the Italy of the future. But, <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg.64]</a></span> unlike most
+politicians, he laid down the principle that, after all, when free, the
+nation must decide for itself. 'To what purpose,' he asks, 'do we
+constantly speak of the sovereignty of the people, and of our reverence
+for the national will, if we are to disregard it as soon as it pronounces
+in contradiction to our wishes?'</p>
+
+<p>He did not succeed in making the majority of his countrymen
+republicans, but he contributed more than any other man towards inspiring
+the whole country with the desire for unity. Herein lies his great work.
+Without Mazzini, when would the Italians have got beyond the fallacies of
+federal republics, leagues of princes, provincial autonomy, insular
+home-rule, and all the other dreams of independence reft of its only
+safeguard which possessed the minds of patriots of every party in Italy
+and of nearly every well-wisher to Italian freedom abroad?</p>
+
+<p>In 1831, most educated Italians did not even wish for unity, and this
+is still truer of the republicans than of the monarchists. Some, like
+Manzoni, did wish for it, but, like him, said nothing about it, for fear
+of being thought madmen. A flash of the true light illuminated the mind of
+Giro Menotti, but that was extinguished on the scaffold. Then it was that
+Mazzini came forward with the news that Italy could <i>only</i> be made
+free and independent by being united; unity was the ruling tendency of the
+century, and, as far as Italy went, no Utopia, but a certain conclusion.
+This was repeated over and over again, wherever there were Italians, over
+the inhabited globe. By means of sailors, 'Young Italy' spread like
+lightning. Giuseppe Garibaldi was made a member by a sailor on the shores
+of the Black Sea.</p>
+
+<p>With the masses, unity proved the wonder-working word which
+Confalonieri had said was the one thing needful&mdash;a word yet fitter to
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg.65]</a></span>
+work wonders than 'War to the Stranger.' Among the cultivated classes, it
+was much slower in gaining ground, and particularly among statesmen and
+diplomatists. But in the end it was to convert them all.</p>
+
+<p>'"Young Italy,"' writes Mazzini, 'closed the period of political sects,
+and initiated that of educational associations.' 'Great revolutions,' he
+says again, 'are the work of principles rather than of bayonets.' It was
+by the diffusion of ideas that 'Young Italy' became a commanding factor in
+the events of the next thirty years. The insurrectional attempts planned
+under its guidance did not succeed, nor was it likely that they should
+succeed. Devised by exiles, at a distance, they lacked the first elements
+of success. The earliest of these attempts aimed at an invasion of Savoy;
+it was hoped that the Sardinian army and people would join the little band
+of exiles in a movement for the liberation of Lombardy. The revolution of
+1821 had evidently suggested this plan to Mazzini, but it was foredoomed
+to misfortune. The Piedmontese authorities got wind of it, and a hunt
+followed for the members of 'Young Italy'; most severe measures were
+taken; there were eleven executions, and numberless sentences to long
+terms of imprisonment. Jacobo Ruffini, the younger brother of the author
+of <i>Dr Antonio</i>, and Mazzini's most beloved friend, committed suicide
+in prison, fearing to reveal the names of his associates. The apologists
+for Charles Albert say that if he had not shown the will and ability to
+deal severely with the conspirators, Austria would have insisted on a
+military occupation. Whatever were his motives, this is the saddest page
+of his unhappy reign.</p>
+
+<p>Checked in 1833, the descent on Savoy was actually attempted in 1834,
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg.66]</a></span>
+with Mazzini's consent, though not by his wish. An officer who had won
+some celebrity in the Polish revolution, General Ramorino, a Savoyard by
+origin, was given the command. Ramorino was a gambler, who could not be
+trusted with money, but Mazzini's suspicion that on this occasion he
+played the part of traitor is not proved. However that may be, the
+expedition ended almost as soon as it began. Ramorino crossed the frontier
+of Savoy at the head of the column, but when he heard that a Polish
+reinforcement had been stopped on the Lake of Geneva, he retreated into
+Switzerland, and advised the band to follow him.</p>
+
+<p>After these events, Mazzini could no longer carry on his propaganda in
+France. He took refuge in England, where a great part of his life was to
+be passed, and of which he spoke, to the last, as his second country. The
+first period of his residence in England was darkened by the deep distress
+and discouragement into which the recent events had plunged him; but his
+faith in the future prevailed, and he went on with his work. His
+endeavours to help his fellow-exiles reduced him to the last stage of
+poverty; the day came when he was obliged to pawn a coat and an old pair
+of boots. These money difficulties did not afflict him, and by degrees his
+writings in English periodicals brought some addition to the small
+quarterly allowance which he received from his mother. It seems strange,
+though it is easily explained, that it was in London that he first got to
+know the Italian working classes. He was surprised and gladdened by the
+abundance of good elements which he found in them. No country, indeed, has
+more reason to hope in her working men than the land whose sons have
+tunnelled the Alps, cut the most arduous railway lines in America and
+India, brought up English ships from the deep, laid the caissons (a <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg.67]</a></span> task of
+extreme danger) which support the great structure of the Bridge of the
+Firth of Forth, and left their bones to whiten at Panama. 'It is the
+universal testimony,' writes a high American authority, 'that no more
+faithful men have come among us.' What was the cause of the slaughter of
+the Aigues Mortes? That the Italians worked too well.</p>
+
+<p>Mazzini wrote for his humble friends the treatise on <i>The Duties of
+Man</i>, in which he told them that he loved them too well to flatter
+them. Another work that occupied him and consoled him was the rescue and
+moral improvement of the children employed by organ-grinders, and he was
+the first to call attention to the white slavery to which many of them
+were subjected. He opened a school in Hatton Garden, in which he taught,
+and which he mainly supported for the seven years from 1841 to 1848.</p>
+
+<p>The enterprise of the Brothers Bandiera belongs to the history of
+'Young Italy,' though Mazzini himself had tried to prevent it, believing
+that it could only end in the sacrifice of all concerned. Nor, at the
+last, did the actors in it expect anything else. They had hoped for better
+things; for a general movement in the South of Italy, or at least for an
+undertaking on a larger and less irrational basis. But promises failed,
+money was not forthcoming, and it was a choice between doing nothing or a
+piece of heroic folly. Contrary to Mazzini's entreaties, they chose the
+second alternative.</p>
+
+<p>Attilio and Emilio Bandiera were sons of the Austrian admiral who, in
+1831, arrested Italian fugitives at sea. Placed by their father in the
+Austrian navy, they renounced every prospect of a brilliant career to
+enter the service of their down-trodden country. When they deserted, <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg.68]</a></span> strong
+efforts were made by the Archduke Rainieri, through their mother, to win
+them back, but neither the offers of pardon nor the poor woman's tears and
+reproaches turned them from their purpose. Another deserter was with them,
+Lieutenant Domenico Moro, a youth of great charm of person and
+disposition, who had been employed with a mixed force of Englishmen and
+Austrians in the Lebanon, where he formed a warm friendship with
+Lieutenant, now Admiral, Sir George Wellesley, who still preserves an
+affectionate remembrance of him. Nicola Ricciotti, a Roman subject who had
+devoted all his life to Italy, and Anacarsi Nardi, son of the dictator of
+Modena, were also of the band, which counted about twenty.</p>
+
+<p>The Bandieras and their companions sailed from Corfu for the coast of
+Calabria on the 11th of June 1844. 'If we fall,' they wrote to Mazzini,
+'tell our countrymen to imitate our example, for life was given to us to
+be nobly and usefully employed, and the cause for which we shall have
+fought and died is the purest and holiest that ever warmed the heart of
+man.' It was their last letter. After they landed in Calabria one of their
+number disappeared; there is every reason to suppose that he went to
+betray them. They wandered for a few days in the mountains, looking for
+the insurgent band which they had been falsely told was waiting for them,
+and then fell into an ambush prepared by the Neapolitan troops. Some died
+fighting; nine were shot at Cosenza, including the Bandieras, Mori,
+Ricciotti and Nardi. Boccheciampi the Corsican, whom they suspected of
+treason, was brought up to be confronted with them during the trial; when
+asked if he knew who he was, Nardi replied: 'I know no word in my divine
+Italian language that can fitly describe that man.' Boccheciampi was
+condemned to a nominal imprisonment; when he came out of prison he wrote
+to a <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">
+[Pg.69]</a></span> Greek girl of Corfu, to whom he was engaged, to join
+him at Naples, that they might be married. The girl had been deeply in
+love with him, and had already given him part of her dowry, but she
+answered: 'A traitor cannot wed a Greek maiden; I bear with me the
+blessing of my parents; upon you rests the curse of God.'</p>
+
+<p>The martyrdom of the Bandieras made a great impression, especially in
+England, where the circumstance came to light that their correspondence
+with Mazzini had been tampered with in the English Post Office, and that
+information as to their plans had reached the Austrian and Neapolitan
+Governments through the British Foreign Office. The affair was brought
+before the House of Commons by Thomas Duncombe. The Home Secretary
+repeated a calumny which had appeared many years before in a French
+newspaper, to the effect that the murder of an Italian in Rodez by two of
+his fellow-countrymen was the result of an order from the Association of
+Young Italy. Sir James Graham had to apologise afterwards for 'the injury
+inflicted on Mr Mazzini' by this statement, which he was obliged to admit
+was supported by no evidence, and was contrary to the opinion of the Judge
+who tried the case.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Times</i> having observed in a leading article that the gravity
+of the fact in question, the violation of private correspondence in the
+Post Office, was not affected by the merits or demerits of Mr Mazzini, of
+whom it professed to 'know nothing,' Thomas Carlyle wrote next day a
+letter containing words which may be quoted as some of the best and truest
+ever written about the great Italian: 'I have had the honour to know Mr
+Mazzini for a series of years, and, whatever I may think of his practical
+insight and skill in worldly affairs, I can with great <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg.70]</a></span> freedom
+testify that he, if I have ever seen one such, is a man of genius and
+virtue, one of those rare men, numerable unfortunately but as units in
+this world, who are worthy to be called martyr souls; who in silence,
+piously in their daily life, understand and practise what is meant by
+that.' <a name="FNanchor2"></a><a href=
+"#Footnote_2"><sup>[2]</sup></a></p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg.71]</a></span> <a
+name="CHAPTER_V"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER V</h3>
+
+<h4>THE POPE LIBERATOR</h4>
+
+<h5>1844-1847</h5>
+
+<h5>Events leading to the Election of Pius IX.&mdash;The Petty
+Princes&mdash;Charles Albert, Leopold and Ferdinand.</h5>
+
+<p><br />
+ The day is drawing near when the century which witnessed the liberation
+of Italy will have passed away. Already a generation has grown up which
+can but faintly realise the passionate hopes and fears with which the
+steps that led through defeat to the ultimate victory were watched, not
+only by Italians, but by thousands who had never set foot in Italy. Never
+did a series of political events evoke a sympathy so wide and so
+disinterested, and it may be foretold with confidence that it never will
+again. Italy rising from the grave was the living romance of myriads of
+young hearts that were lifted from the common level of trivial interests
+and selfish ends, from the routine of work or pleasure, both deadening
+without some diviner spark, by a sustained enthusiasm that can hardly be
+imagined now. There were, indeed, some who asked what was all this to
+them? What were the 'extraneous Austrian Emperor,' or the 'old chimera of
+a Pope' (Carlyle's designations) to the British taxpayer? Some there were
+in England who were deeply attached still to the 'Great Hinge on which
+Europe depended,' and even to the most clement Spanish Bourbons of Naples,
+about whom strangely beautiful things are to be read in old numbers of
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg.72]</a></span>
+the <i>Quarterly Review</i>. But on the whole, English men and
+women&mdash;in mind half Italian, whether they will it or not, from the
+day they begin to read their own literature from Chaucer to Shakespeare,
+from Shakespeare to Shelley, from Shelley to Rossetti and
+Swinburne&mdash;were united at that time in warmth of feeling towards
+struggling Italy as they have been united in no political sentiment
+relating to another nation, and in few concerning their own country.</p>
+
+<p>It would be vain to expect that the record of Italian vicissitudes
+during the years when the fate of Italy hung in the balance can awake or
+renew the spellbound interest caused by the events themselves. The reader
+of recent history is like the novel reader who begins at the last
+chapter&mdash;he is too familiar with how it all ended to be keenly
+affected by the development of the plot. Yet it is plain that we are in a
+better position to appreciate the process of development than was the case
+when the issue remained uncertain. We can estimate more accurately the
+difficulties which stood in the way, and judge more impartially the means
+that were taken to remove them. One outcome of this fuller knowledge is
+the conviction that patriotism was the monopoly of no single Italian
+party. The leaders, and still more their henchmen, were in the habit of
+saying very hard things about each other. It was natural and unavoidable;
+but there is no excuse now for failing to recognise that there were pure
+and devoted patriots on the one side as well as on the other&mdash;men
+whose only desire was the salvation of Italy, to effect which no sacrifice
+seemed too great. Nor were their labours unfruitful, for there was work
+for all of them to do; and the very diversity of opinion, though
+unfortunate under some aspects, was not so under all. If no one had raised
+the question of unity before all things, Italy might be still a
+geographical expression. If no one had tried to wring concessions from the
+old <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">
+[Pg.73]</a></span> governments, their inherent and irremediable vices
+would never have been proved; and though they might have been overturned,
+they would have left behind a lasting possibility of ignorant
+reaction.</p>
+
+<p>The Great Powers had presented to the Court of Rome in 1831 a
+memorandum, in which various moderate reforms and improvements were
+proposed as urgently necessary to put an end to the intolerable abuses
+which were rife in the states of the Church, and, most of all, in Romagna.
+The abolition of the tribunal of the Holy Office, the institution of a
+Council of State, lay education, and the secularisation of the
+administration were among the measures recommended. In 1845 a certain
+Pietro Renzi collected a body of spirited young men at San Marino, and
+made a dash on Rimini, where he disarmed the small garrison. The other
+towns were not prepared, and Renzi and his companions were obliged to
+retire into Tuscany; but the revolution, partial as it had been, raised
+discussion in consequence of the manifesto issued by its promoters, in
+which a demand was made for the identical reforms vainly advocated by
+European diplomacy fourteen years before. If these were granted, the
+insurgents engaged to lay down their arms. The manifesto was written by
+Luigi Carlo Farini, who was destined to play a large part in future
+affairs. It proved to Europe that even the most conservative elements in
+the nation were driven to revolution by the sheer hopelessness of the
+dead-lock which the Italian rulers sought by every means to prolong.
+Massimo d'Azeglio, who was then known only as a painter of talent and a
+writer of historical novels, first made his mark as a politician by the
+pamphlet entitled <i>Gli ultimi casi di Romagna</i>, in which his
+arguments derived force from the fact that, when travelling in the
+district, he had done all in his power to induce the Liberals to keep
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg.74]</a></span>
+within the bounds of legality. But he confessed that, when someone says:
+'I suffer too much,' it is an unsatisfactory answer to retort: 'You have
+not suffered enough.' Massimo d'Azeglio had lived for many years an
+artist's life in Rome and the country round, where his aristocratic birth
+and handsome face made him popular with all classes. The transparent
+integrity of his nature overcame the diffidence usually inspired by
+strangers among a somewhat suspicious people, and he got to know more
+thoroughly than any other North Italian the real aspirations of the Pope's
+subjects. He listened to their complaints and their plans, and if they
+asked his advice, he invariably replied: 'Let us speak clearly. What is it
+that you wish and I with you? You wish to have done with priestly rule,
+and to send the Teutons out of Italy? If you invite them to decamp, they
+will probably say, "No, thank you!" Therefore you must use force; and
+where is it to be had? If you have not got it, you must find somebody who
+has. In Italy who has it, or, to speak more precisely, who has a little of
+it? Piedmont, because it, at least, enjoys an independent life, and
+possesses an army and a surplus in the treasury.' His friends answered:
+'What of Charles Albert, of 1821, of 1832?' Now, there was no one who felt
+less trust in Charles Albert than Massimo d'Azeglio; he admitted it with
+something like remorse in later years. But he believed in his ambition,
+and he thought it madness to throw away what he regarded as the sole
+chance of freeing Italy on account of private doubts of the King of
+Sardinia's sincerity.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Albert had reigned for fourteen years, and still the mystery
+which surrounded his character formed as impenetrable a veil as ever. The
+popular nickname of <i>Re Tentenna</i> (King Waverer) seemed, in a <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg.75]</a></span> sense,
+accepted by him when he said to the Duke d'Aumale in 1843: 'I am between
+the dagger of the Carbonari and the chocolate of the Jesuits.' He chose,
+as bride for his eldest son, an Austrian princess, who, however, had known
+no country but Italy. His internal policy was not simply stationary, it
+was retrograde. If his consent was obtained to some progressive measure,
+he withdrew it at the last moment, or insisted on the introduction of
+modifications which nullified the whole. His want of stability drove one
+of his ministers to jump out of a window. In spite of the candid reference
+to the Jesuit's cup of chocolate, he allowed the Society of Jesus to
+dictate its will in Piedmont. Victor Amadeus, the first King of Sardinia,
+took public education out of the hands of the Jesuits, after receiving the
+following deathbed communication from one of the Order who was his own
+confessor: 'Deeply sensible of your many favours, I can only show my
+gratitude by a final piece of advice, but of such importance that perhaps
+it may suffice to discharge my debt. Never have a Jesuit for confessor. Do
+not ask me the grounds of this advice, I should not be at liberty to tell
+them to you.' The lesson was forgotten now. Charles Albert was not content
+to wear a hair-shirt himself; he would have liked to see all his subjects
+furnished with the same garment. The result was, that Piedmont was not a
+comfortable place for Liberals to live in, nor a lively place for anyone.
+Yet there is hardly anything more certain than that all this time the King
+was constantly dreaming of turning the Austrians out of Italy. His
+government kept its attention fixed on two points: the improvement of the
+army, and the accumulation of a reserve fund to be available in case of
+war. Drill and thrift, which made the German Empire out of Prussia, if
+they did <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">
+[Pg.76]</a></span> not lead straight to equally splendid results south of
+the Alps, were still what rendered it possible for Piedmont to defy
+Austria when the time came. In 1840, Charles Albert wrote to his Minister
+of War: 'It is a fine thing to win twenty battles; as for me, I should be
+content to win ten on behalf of a cause I know of, and to fall in the
+tenth&mdash;then, indeed, I would die blessing the Lord.' A year or two
+later, he unearthed and reassumed the ancient motto of the House of Savoy:
+'J'attends mon astre.' Nevertheless, to the outward world his intentions
+remained enigmatical, and it was therefore with extreme surprise that
+Massimo d'Azeglio (who, on his return from the Roman states, asked
+permission to inform the King of the impressions made on him by his
+travels) received the injunction to tell his Liberal friends 'that when
+the occasion presented itself, his life, the life of his sons, his
+treasure, and his army would all be spent for the Italian cause.'</p>
+
+<p>The fifteen years' pontificate of Gregory XVI. ended on the 1st June of
+1846. In spite of the care taken by those around him to keep the aged
+pontiff in a fool's paradise with regard to the real state of his
+dominions, a copy of <i>The Late Events in Romagna</i> fell into his
+hands, and considerably disturbed his peace of mind. He sent two prelates
+to look into the condition of the congested provinces, and their tour,
+though it resulted in nothing else, called forth new protests and
+supplications from the inhabitants, of which the most noteworthy was an
+address written by Count Aurelio Saffi, who was destined to pass many
+honourable years of exile in England. This address attacked the root of
+the evil in a passage which exposed the unbearable vexations of a
+government based on espionage. The acknowledged power of an irresponsible
+police was backed by the secret force of an army of private spies and
+informers. The sentiment of legality was being <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg.77]</a></span> stamped out of the public
+conscience, and with it religion and morality. 'Bishops have been heard to
+preach civil war&mdash;a crusade against the Liberals; priests seem to mix
+themselves in wretched party strife, egging on the mob to vent its worst
+passions. There is not a Catholic country in which the really Christian
+priest is so rarely found as in the States of the Church.'</p>
+
+<p>If Gregory XVI. was not without reasons for disquietude in his last
+hours, he could take comfort in the fact that he had succeeded in keeping
+railways out of all parts of his dominions. Gas and suspension bridges
+were also classed as works of the Evil One, and vigorously tabooed. Among
+the Pope's subjects there was a young prelate who had never been able to
+make out what there was subversive to theology in a steam-engine, or why
+the safety of the Papal government should depend on its opposing every
+form of material improvement, although in discussing these subjects he
+generally ended by saying: 'After all I am no politician, and I may be
+mistaken.' This prelate was Cardinal Mastai-Ferretti, Bishop of Imola.
+Born in 1792 at Sinigaglia, of a good though rather needy family, Count
+Giovanni Maria Mastai was piously brought up by his mother, who dedicated
+him at an early age to the Virgin, to whom she believed that she owed his
+recovery from an illness which had been pronounced fatal. Roman Catholic
+writers connect the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception
+with this incident of childhood. After entering the priesthood, young
+Mastai devoted most of his energies to active charity, and remained, as he
+said, 'no politician,' being singularly ignorant of the world and of
+public affairs, though full of amiable wishes that everyone should be
+happy. Some years spent in missionary work in South America <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg.78]</a></span> failed to
+enlarge his practical knowledge, the limits of which he was the first to
+recognise&mdash;a fact that tended to make him all his life the
+instrument, not of his own will, but of the wills of men whom he honestly
+thought cleverer and more experienced than himself. His chief friends in
+his Romagnol diocese, friends on the intimate basis of social equality and
+common provincial interests, were sound patriots, though not
+revolutionists, and the future Pio Nono involuntarily adopted their ideas
+and sympathies. He saw with his eyes certain abuses so glaring that they
+admitted of no two opinions, and these helped to convince him of the truth
+of his friends' arguments in favour of a completely new order of things.
+One such abuse was the encouragement given by government to the Society of
+the Centurioni, the latest evolution of the Calderai; the Centurions,
+recruited among roughs and peasants, were set upon the respectable middle
+classes, over which they tyrannised by secret accusations or open
+violence: it was well understood that anyone called a Liberal, or
+Freemason, or Carbonaro could be beaten or killed without inquiries being
+made.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop of Imola was frequently in the house of the Count and
+Countess Pasolini, who kept their friend well supplied with the new books
+on Italian affairs; thus he read not only D'Azeglio's <i>Cast di
+Romagna</i>, but also Cesare Balbo's <i>Le Speranze d'Italia,</i> which
+propounded a plan for an Italian federation, and Gioberti's <i>Primato
+morale e civile degli Italiani</i>, in which this plan was elaborately
+developed. Gioberti indicated the Supreme Pontiff as the natural head of
+the Italian Union, and the King of Sardinia as Italy's natural deliverer
+from foreign domination. The eternal fitness of things, and the history of
+many centuries, proved the Pope to be the proper paramount civil authority
+in Italy, 'which is the capital of Europe, <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg.79]</a></span> because Rome is the religious
+metropolis of the world.' An ex-member of 'Young Italy,' a Piedmontese by
+birth, a priest by ordination, Gioberti's profession of faith was derived
+from these three sources, and it attracted thousands of Italians by its
+apparent reconciliation of the interests of the papacy, and of the
+Sardinian monarchy, with the most advanced views of the newest school.
+History, to which Gioberti appealed, might have told him that a reversal
+of the law of gravity was as likely to happen as the performance by the
+papacy of the mission he proposed to it; but men believe what they wish to
+believe, and his work found, as has been said, thousands of admirers,
+among whom none was more sincere than Cardinal Mastai. The day on which
+Count Pasolini gave him a copy of <i>Il Primato</i> he created that great,
+and under some aspects pathetic illusion, the reforming Pope.</p>
+
+<p>The Conclave opened on the 14th of June 1846. During the Bishop of
+Imola's journey to Rome a white pigeon had perched several times on his
+carriage. The story became known; people said the same thing had occurred
+to a coming Pope on former occasions, and the augury was accepted with joy
+and satisfaction. He was, in fact, elected after the Conclave had lasted
+only two days, while the Conclave which elected his predecessor lasted
+sixty-four. The brevity of that to which Pius IX. owed the tiara was
+looked upon by the populace as something miraculous, but it was the result
+of the well-considered determination of the Italian Cardinals not to allow
+time for Austrian intrigues to obtain the election of a Pope who would be
+ruled from Vienna. When the new Pope appeared on the balcony of the
+Quirinal to give his first benediction, the people, carried away by his
+youthful yet majestic bearing, and by the hopes which already centred in
+him, broke into <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">
+[Pg.80]</a></span> frantic cries of: 'We have a Pope! He loves us! He is
+our Father!' If they had cried: 'We have a new heaven and a new earth,'
+they would but have expressed the delirium which, starting from Rome,
+spread throughout Italy.</p>
+
+<p>On the night of the 6th of December 1846, the whole line of the
+Apennines from Liguria to Calabria was illuminated. A hundred years
+before, a stone thrown by the child Balilla had given the signal for the
+expulsion of the Austrians from Genoa: this was the memory flashed from
+height to height by countless beacons, but while celebrating the past,
+they were the fiery heralds of a greater revolution.</p>
+
+<p>The upheaval of Europe did not become a fact, however, for another
+year. Meantime, the Roman States attracted more attention than any other
+part of the peninsula, from the curiosity awakened by the progress of the
+experiment of which they were the scene. It is not doubtful that at the
+first moment Pius IX. was under the impression that the problem he had
+taken in hand was eminently simple. A little goodwill on the part of
+everybody, an amnesty to heal old sores, and a few administrative reforms,
+ought, he thought, to set everything right. Such was not the opinion of
+intelligent onlookers who were students of politics&mdash;especially if
+they were foreigners, and could therefore keep their heads moderately cool
+in the prevailing excitement. The wave of a wand may seem to effect
+marvels, but long and silent causes prepare the way for each event. Now
+what had been going on for years in the Roman States was not the process
+of gradual growth, but the process of rapid disintegration. The Temporal
+Power of the Popes had died without anyone noticing it, and there was
+nothing <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">
+[Pg.81]</a></span> left but a body in the course of dissolution. Every
+foreigner in Rome during the reign of Gregory XVI. bore witness that his
+government depended for its existence absolutely on the Swiss Guards. In
+1845, Count Rossi told Guizot that without the Swiss regiments the
+government in the Legations and the Marches 'would be overthrown in the
+twinkling of an eye.' The British agent in Rome, writing during the
+Conclave, bore this out by the statement, which applied not to one portion
+of the Roman states, but to all, that 'the government could not stand
+without the protection of Austria and the immediate presence of the
+Swiss.' On the accession of Pius IX., the props, such as they were, which
+had prevented an earlier collapse of the Temporal Power, were either
+removed or rendered useless. The Swiss might as well have been disbanded
+at once as retained merely to be a bone of contention between the new
+government and the people, since it was understood that a vigorous use of
+their services would never be resorted to; while Austrian protection was
+transferred from the Pope to the disaffected party in the Church, which
+consisted in a large proportion of the cardinals and of the inferior
+clergy who were afraid that, with the reform of abuses, they would lose
+their influence over the lower class of their flocks. The English
+diplomatic agents in Italy also firmly believed that Austria coupled with
+her support of the ultramontane malcontents the direct encouragement of
+the disorderly elements of the population. To resist all these contrary
+forces, Pius IX. had only a popularity which, though for the time immense,
+was founded almost completely on imagination. 'It was,' said Mr Petre,
+'the name and known views of Pius, rather than his acts, <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg.82]</a></span> which aroused
+so much interest.' If for 'known views' be substituted 'supposed views,'
+the remark exactly describes the situation.</p>
+
+<p>Popularity is very well, but a government cannot long subsist on the
+single fact of the popularity of the sovereign. When the Roman mob began
+to cry: 'Viva Pio Nono <i>solo</i>,' the fate of the experiment was
+sealed. Real control slipped from the hands that nominally wielded it.
+'The influence,' Mr Petre wrote to Sir George Hamilton, 'of one individual
+of the lower class, Angelo Brunetti, hardly known but by his nickname of
+Ciceruacchio, has for the last month kept the peace of the city more than
+any power possessed by the authorities, from the command which he exerts
+over the populace.' It was Ciceruacchio who preserved order when in July
+1847 the air was full of rumours of a vast reactionary plot, which aimed
+at carrying off the Pope, and putting things back as they were under
+Gregory. That such a plot was ever conceived, or, at anyrate, that it
+received the sanction of the high personages whose names were mentioned in
+connection with it, is generally doubted now; but it was believed in by
+many of the representatives of foreign Powers then in Italy. The public
+mind in Rome was violently disturbed. Austria made the excitement the
+excuse for occupying the town of Ferrara, where, by the accepted
+interpretation of the Treaty of Vienna, she had only the right to garrison
+the fortress. This aggression called forth a strong remonstrance from the
+Pope's Secretary of State, Cardinal Ferretti; and though a compromise was
+arrived at through the mediation of Lord Palmerston, the feeling against
+Austria grew more and more exasperated in the Roman states, and the Pope
+consented, not, it seemed, much against the grain, to preparations being
+taken in hand with a view to the possible eventuality of war.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg.83]</a></span>
+At this date the Italian question was better apprehended at Vienna than in
+any other part of Europe. A man of Prince Metternich's talents does not
+devote a long life to statecraft without learning to distinguish the real
+drift of political currents. While Lord Palmerston still felt sure that
+reforms, and nothing but reforms, were what Italy wanted, Prince
+Metternich saw that two real forces were at work from the Alps to the
+Straits of Messina, and two only: desire for union, hatred of Austria. Nor
+was it his fault if the English Cabinet or the rest of the world remained
+unenlightened. Besides enlarging on this truth in frequent diplomatic
+communications, he caused it to be continually dwelt upon in the Vienna
+<i>Observer</i>, the organ of the Austrian Government, which printed
+illustrative quotations from the writings of Mazzini, of whom it said that
+'he has the one merit of despising hypocrisy, and proceeding firmly and
+directly to his true end. Persons who are versed in history will know that
+this is exactly the same end as that at which Arnold of Brescia and Cola
+di Rienzi formerly aimed. The only difference is, that the revolutionary
+dream has in the course of centuries gained in self-reliance and
+confidence.' It may truly be affirmed after this that Metternich 'had the
+one merit of despising hypocrisy.' Exactly the same end as Arnold of
+Brescia and Cola di Rienzi&mdash;who better could have described the
+scheme of Italian redemption?</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the summer of 1847, the Prince said more than once to
+the British Ambassador: 'The Emperor is determined not to lose his Italian
+dominions.' It was no idle boast, the speaker felt confident, that the
+troops in Lombardy and Venetia could keep those provinces from taking an
+active part in the 'revolution' which he declared to be <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg.84]</a></span> already
+complete over all central Italy, though the word revolution had never yet
+been mentioned. Nor was it only in the Austrian army that he trusted;
+Metternich was persuaded that neither in Lombardy nor in Venetia was there
+any fear of a really popular and, therefore, formidable movement. He
+believed that Austria's only enemy was the aristocracy. He even threw out
+hints that if the Austrian Government condescended to do so, it could
+raise a social or peasants' war of the country people against their
+masters. This is the policy which has been elaborately followed by the
+Russians in Poland. The Austrians pointed to their virtue in not resorting
+to it; but some tentative experiments in such a direction had not given
+results of a kind to encourage them to go on. The Italian peasant, though
+ignorant, had a far quicker innate intelligence than his unfortunate
+Polish brother. He did not dislike his masters, who treated him at least
+with easy familiarity, and he detested foreigners&mdash;those foreigners,
+no matter of what nation, who for two thousand years had brought the
+everlasting curse of war upon his fields. The conscription, which carried
+off his sons for eight years into distant lands, of which he could not
+pronounce the name, was alone enough to alienate him from the Austrian
+Government. In hoping to find a friend in the Italian peasant, Metternich
+reckoned without his host. On the other hand, he was strictly correct in
+his estimate of the patriotism of the aristocracy. The fact always seemed
+to the Prince a violation of eternal laws. According to him, the
+fore-ordained disaffected in every country were drawn from the middle
+classes. What business had noblemen with ancient names and fine estates to
+prefer Spielberg to their beautiful palaces and fairy-like villas on the
+Lombard lakes? Was it on purpose to spite the best of governments, and the
+one most favourable to the <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_85" id=
+"Page_85">[Pg.85]</a></span> aristocratic principle, which had always held
+out paternal hands to them? Could anything be imagined more
+aggravating?</p>
+
+<p>This feature in Italian liberation has been kept mostly in the
+background. Democratic chroniclers were satisfied to ignore it, and to the
+men themselves their enormous sacrifices seemed so natural that they were
+very willing to let them pass out of mind. It is in the works of those
+who, while sympathising with Italy, are not Italians, that the best record
+of it is to be found; nowhere better than in a recent book by a French
+writer, M. Paul Bourget, in which occurs the following just and eloquent
+tribute: 'We must say in praise of the aristocracy on this side of the
+Alps that the best soldiers of independence were nobles. If Italy owes the
+final success to the superior capabilities of Victor Emmanuel and Cavour,
+and to the agitating power of the General of the Thousand, it is well not
+to forget the struggles sustained for years by gentlemen whose example did
+so much to raise partisans among the humble. These aristocrats, passionate
+for liberty, have (like our own of the eighteenth century) done more for
+the people than the people itself. The veritable history of this <i>
+Risorgimento</i> would be in great part that of the Italian nobility in
+which the heroic blood of feudal chiefs revolted against the oppressions
+and, above all, the perpetual humiliation, born of the presence of the
+stranger.'</p>
+
+<p>When Prince Metternich looked beyond the borders of those provinces
+which he said that his Sovereign did not intend to lose, he saw sooner
+than most people that a ball was set rolling which would not stop half way
+down the hill. The one element in the situation which came as a surprise
+to him, was that introduced by Pius IX. 'A liberal Pope is an impossible
+being!' he exclaimed. <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_86" id=
+"Page_86">[Pg.86]</a></span> Nevertheless this impossible being was a
+reality which had to be dealt with. He hoped all along, however, that Pius
+would fall a victim to the Frankenstein he had called into existence, and
+his only real anxiety lay where it had always lain&mdash;on the side of
+Piedmont. 'Charles Albert ought to let us know,' he wrote to the Austrian
+Minister at Turin, 'whether his reign has been only a mask under which was
+hidden the Prince of Carignano, who ascended the throne through the order
+of succession re-established in his favour by the Emperor Francis.'
+Considering all things, the endeavour to make it appear that the King was
+indebted for his crown to Austria was somewhat venturesome. Charles
+Albert, Metternich went on to say, had to choose between two systems, the
+system now in force, or 'the crassest revolution.' He wrote again: 'The
+King is sliding back upon the path which he enters for the second time in
+his life, <i>and which he will never really quit</i>.' Words of a bitter
+enemy, but juster than the 'Esecrato o Carignano,' hurled for a quarter of
+a century at Charles Albert by those who only saw in him a traitor.</p>
+
+<p>The constant invocation of the revolutionary spectre by the Austrian
+statesman convinced the King that the wish was father to the thought, and,
+afraid of introducing the thin end of the wedge, he showed himself more
+than ever averse to reforming the antiquated machinery of the Sardinian
+Government. Instead of being the first of Italian princes to yield to
+popular demands, he was almost the last. He believed that the question of
+nationality, of independence, could be separated from the question of free
+institutions. Of all the chimerical ideas then afloat, this was the most
+chimerical. Even the example of the Pope, for whom Charles Albert felt a
+romantic devotion, <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">
+[Pg.87]</a></span> was not enough to induce him to open the road to
+reforms. The person who seems first to have impressed him with their
+absolute necessity was Lord Minto, whose visit to Turin, in October 1847,
+coincided with the dismissal of Count della Margherita, the minister most
+closely associated with the absolutist and Jesuitical <i>
+r&eacute;gime</i>. Lord Minto was sent to Italy to encourage in the ways
+of political virtue those Italian princes who were not entirely
+incorrigible. His mission excited exaggerated hopes on the part of the
+Liberals, and exaggerated wrath in the retrograde party&mdash;both failing
+to understand its limitations. The hopes died a natural death, but long
+afterwards, reactionary writers attributed all the 'troubles' in Italy to
+this estimable British diplomatist. What is not doubtful is, that,
+accustomed as they were to being lectured and bullied by foreign courts,
+the Italians derived the greatest encouragement from the openly expressed
+sympathy of well-known English visitors, whether they came in an official
+capacity like Lord Minto, or unofficially like Mr Cobden, who travelled as
+a missionary of Free Trade, and was received with rapture&mdash;with
+which, it is to be feared, Free Trade had little to do&mdash;by the
+leading Liberals in Italy: Massimo d'Azeglio at Genoa, Mancini at Naples
+Cavour and Scialoja at Turin, Minghetti at Bologna, Ridolfi at Florence,
+and Manin and Tommaseo at Venice.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the end of 1847, there was a curious shuffling of the cards in
+the small states of Lucca and Parma, resulting in much irritation, which,
+in an atmosphere so charged with revolutionary electricity, was not
+without importance. The dissolute Bourbon prince who reigned in Lucca,
+Charles Ludovico, had but one desire, which was to increase his civil
+list. He hit upon an English jockey named Ward, who came to <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg.88]</a></span> Italy in the
+service of a German count, and this person he made his Chancellor of the
+Exchequer. By various luminous strokes, Ward furthered his Sovereign's
+object without much increasing the taxation, and when matters began to
+grow complicated, and here, too, a cry was raised for a Constitution
+(which had been solemnly guaranteed to the people of Lucca at the Congress
+of Vienna, but had never been heard of since), he proposed the sale of the
+Duchy off-hand to Tuscany, with which it would, in any case, be united,
+when, on the death of the ex-Empress Marie-Louise, the Duchy of Parma
+devolved on the Duke of Lucca. At the same time, by a prior agreement, a
+district of Tuscany called the Lunigiana was consigned, one-half to the
+Duchess of Parma, and the other to the Duke of Modena. The indignation of
+the population, which was made, by force, subject to the Duke of Modena,
+was intense, and the whole transaction of handing about Italians to suit
+the pleasure of princes, or to obey the articles of forgotten treaties,
+reminded the least sensitive of the everyday opprobrium of their lot.</p>
+
+<p>The bargain with Tuscany had been struck only eight days when
+Marie-Louise died&mdash;unlamented, since the latter years of her reign
+formed a sad contrast to the earlier. Marie-Louise had not a bad
+disposition, but she always let her husband of the hour govern as he
+chose; of the four or five of these husbands, the last two, and
+particularly the hated Count de Bombelles, undid all the good done by
+their more humane predecessors. The Parmese petitioned their new Duke to
+send the man away, and to grant them some measure of freedom. The answer
+he gave was the confirmation of Bombelles in all his honours, and the
+conclusion of a treaty with Austria, securing the assistance of her arms.
+A military force had been sent to Parma to escort the <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg.89]</a></span> body of the
+late Duchess to Vienna; but on the principle that the living are of more
+consequence than the dead, it remained there to protect the new Duke from
+his subjects. Marie-Louise and her lovers, Charles Ludovico and his
+jockey-minister, are instructive illustrations of the scandalous point
+things had reached in the small states of Italy.</p>
+
+<p>There was, indeed, one state in which, though the dynasty was Austrian,
+the government was conducted without ferocity and without scandal. This
+was Tuscany. The branch of the Hapsburg-Lorraine family established in
+Tuscany produced a series of rulers who, if they exhibited no magnificent
+qualities, were respectable as individuals, and mild as rulers. Giusti
+dubbed Leopold II. 'the Tuscan Morpheus, crowned with poppies and lettuce
+leaves,' and the clear intelligence of Ricasoli was angered by the
+languid, let-be policy of the Grand-Ducal government, but, compared with
+the other populations of Italy, the Tuscans might well deem themselves
+fortunate. Only on one occasion had the Grand Duke given up a fugitive
+from the more favoured provinces, and the presence of distinguished exiles
+lent brilliancy to his capital. Leopold II. hesitated between the desire
+to please his subjects and the fear of his Viennese relations, who sent
+him through Metternich the ominous reminder, 'that the Italian Governments
+had only subsisted for the last ten years by the support they received
+from Austria'&mdash;an assertion at which Charles Albert took umbrage, but
+he was curtly told that he was not intended. In spite of his fears,
+however, the Grand Duke instituted a National Guard on the 4th of
+September, which was correctly judged the augury of further concessions.
+In August, the Austrian Minister had distinctly threatened to occupy
+Tuscany, or any other of the Italian duchies <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg.90]</a></span> where a National Guard was
+granted; its institution was therefore interpreted as a decisive act of
+rebellion against the Imperial dictatorship. The red, white and green
+tricolor, not yet permitted in Piedmont, floated already from all the
+towers of the city on the Arno.</p>
+
+<p>Where there were no signs of improvement was in the government of the
+Two Sicilies. King Ferdinand undertook a journey through several parts of
+the country, but as Lord Napier, the British Minister, expressed it:
+'Exactly where the grace of the royal countenance was principally
+conferred, the rebels sprung up most thickly.' A revolution was planned to
+break out in all the cities of the kingdom, but the project only took
+effect at Messina and at Reggio, and in both places the movement was
+stifled with prompt and barbarous severity. When the leader of the
+Calabrian attempt, Domenico Romeo, a landed proprietor, was caught on the
+heights of Aspromonte, his captors, after cutting off his head, carried it
+to his young nephew, whom they ordered to take it to Reggio with the cry
+of 'Long live the King.' The youth refused, and was immediately killed. In
+the capital, Carlo Poerio and many patriots were thrown into prison on
+suspicion. Settembrini had just time to escape to Malta.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1847 closed amid outward appearances of quiet.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg.91]</a></span> <a
+name="CHAPTER_VI"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3>
+
+<h4>THE YEAR OF REVOLUTION</h4>
+
+<h5>1848</h5>
+
+<h5>Insurrection in Sicily&mdash;The Austrians expelled from Milan and
+Venice &mdash;Charles Albert takes the Field&mdash;Withdrawal of the Pope
+and King of Naples&mdash;Piedmont defeated&mdash;The Retreat.</h5>
+
+<p><br />
+ On the 12th of January, the birthday of the King of the Two Sicilies,
+another insurrection broke out in Sicily; this time it was serious indeed.
+The City of the Vespers lit the torch which set Europe on fire.</p>
+
+<p>So began the year of revolution which was to see the kings of the earth
+flying, with or without umbrellas, and the principle of monarchy more
+shaken by the royal see-saw of submission and vengeance than ever it was
+by the block of Whitehall or the guillotine of the Place Louis XV.</p>
+
+<p>In Italy, the errors and follies of that year were not confined to
+princes and governments, but it will remain memorable as the time when the
+Italian nation, not a dreamer here or there, or a handful of heroic
+madmen, or an isolated city, but the nation as a whole, with an unanimity
+new in history, asserted its right and its resolve to exist.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg.92]</a></span>
+King Ferdinand sent 5000 soldiers to 'make a garden,' as he described it,
+of Palermo, if the offers sent at the same time failed to pacify the
+inhabitants. These offers were refused with the comment: 'Too late,' and
+the Palermitans prepared to resist to the death under the guidance of the
+veteran patriot Ruggiero Settimo, Prince of Fitalia. 'Separation,' they
+said, 'or our English Constitution of 1812.' Increased irritation was
+awakened by the discovery in the head office of the police at Palermo of a
+secret room full of skeletons, which were supposed to belong to persons
+privately murdered. The Neapolitans were compelled to withdraw with a loss
+of 3000 men, but before they went, the general in command let out 4000
+convicts, who had been kept without food for forty-eight hours. The
+convicts, however, did not fulfil the intentions of their liberator, and
+did but little mischief. Not so the Neapolitan troops, who committed
+horrors on the peasantry as they retreated, which provoked acts of
+retaliation almost as barbarous. In a short time all Sicily was in its own
+hands except the citadel of Messina.</p>
+
+<p>It is not possible to follow the Sicilians in their long struggle for
+their autonomy. They stood out for some fourteen months. An English
+Blue-book is full of the interminable negotiations conducted by Lord
+Napier and the Earl of Minto in the hope of bringing the strife to an end.
+When the parliament summoned by the revolutionary government declared the
+downfall of the House of Bourbon, all the stray princes in Europe,
+including Louis Napoleon, were reviewed as candidates for the throne. The
+choice fell on the Duke of Genoa; it was well received in England, and the
+British men-of-war were immediately ordered to salute the Sicilian flag.
+But the Duke's reign never became a reality. <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg.93]</a></span> After an heroic struggle,
+the islanders were subjugated in the spring of 1849.</p>
+
+<p>So stout a fight for independence must win admiration, if not approval.
+The political reasons against the course taken by the Sicilians have been
+suggested in a former chapter. In separating their lot from that of
+Naples, in rejecting even freedom unless it was accompanied by disruption,
+they hastened the ruin of the Neapolitans and of themselves, and surely
+played into the hands of the crafty tyrant who desired nothing better than
+to fish in the troubled waters of his subjects' dissensions.</p>
+
+<p>In the gathering storm of January 1848, the first idea that occurred to
+Ferdinand II. was the good old plan of calling in Austrian assistance. But
+the Austrians were told by Pius IX. that he would not allow their troops
+to pass through his territory. Had they attempted to pass in spite of his
+warning, events would have taken a different turn, as the Pope would have
+been driven into a war with Austria then and there; perhaps he would have
+been glad, as weak people commonly are, of the compulsion to do what he
+dared not do without compulsion. The Austrian Government was too wise to
+force a quarrel; it was easy to lock up Austrian subjects for crying 'Viva
+Pio Nono,' but the enormous importance of keeping the Head of the Church,
+if possible, in a neutral attitude could not be overlooked. All thoughts
+of going to Ferdinand's help were politely abandoned, and he, seeing
+himself in a defenceless position, and pondering deeply on the upsetting
+of Louis Philippe's throne, which was just then the latest news, decided
+on that device, dear to all political conjurors, which is known as taking
+the wind out of your enemy's sails. The Pope, the Grand Duke of <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg.94]</a></span> Tuscany
+and the King of Sardinia, had worried him for six months with admonitions.
+'Very well,' he now said; 'they urge me forward, I will precipitate them.'
+Constitution, representative government, unbridled liberty of the press, a
+civic guard, the expulsion of the Jesuits; what mattered a trifle more or
+less when everything could be revoked at the small expense of perjury?
+Ferdinand posed to perfection in the character of Citizen King. He
+reassured those who ventured to show the least signs of apprehension by
+saying: 'If I had not intended to carry out the Statute, I should not have
+granted it.'</p>
+
+<p>Not many days later, the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the King of Sardinia
+each promulgated a Charter. In the case of Charles Albert, it had been
+formally promised on the 8th of February, after sleepless nights, severe
+fasts, much searching of the heart&mdash;contrasting strangely with the
+gay transformation scene at Naples; but promises have a more serious
+meaning to some persons than to others. Nor did Charles Albert take any
+pleasure in the shouts of a grateful people. 'Born in revolution,' he once
+wrote, 'I have traversed all its phases, and I know well enough what
+popularity is worth&mdash;<i>viva</i> to-day, <i>morte</i> to-morrow.'</p>
+
+<p>In the Lombardo-Venetian provinces all seemed still quiet, but the
+brooding discontent of the masses increased with the increasing
+aggressiveness of the Austrian soldiers, while the refusal to grant the
+studiously moderate demands of men like Nazari of Bergamo and Manin and
+Tommasco of Venice, who were engaged in a campaign of legal agitation,
+brought conviction to the most cautious that no measure of political
+liberty was obtainable under Austrian rule.</p>
+
+<p>At the Scala Theatre some of the audience had raised cries of 'Viva Pio
+Nono' during a performance of <i>I Lombardi.</i><a name="FNanchor3"></a><a
+href="#Footnote_3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> This was the excuse <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg.95]</a></span> for
+prohibiting every direct or indirect public reference to the reigning
+Pontiff. Nevertheless, a few young men were caught singing the Pope's
+hymn, upon which the military charged the crowd. On the 3rd of January the
+soldiers fell on the people in the Piazza San Carlo, killing six and
+wounding fifty-three. The parish priest of the Duomo said that he had seen
+Russians, French and Austrians enter Milan as invaders; but a scene like
+that of the 3rd of January he had never witnessed; 'they simply murdered
+in the streets.'</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Judicium Statuarium</i>, equivalent to martial law, was
+proclaimed in February; but the Viennese revolution of the 8th of March,
+and Prince Metternich's flight to England, were followed by promises to
+abolish the censure, and to convoke the central congregations of the
+Lombardo-Venetian kingdom. The utmost privilege of these assemblies was
+consultative. In 1815 they were invested with the right to 'make known
+grievances,' but they had only once managed to perform this modest
+function. It was hardly worth while to talk about them on the 18th of
+March 1848.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of that day, Count O'Donnel, the Vice-Governor of Milan,
+announced the Emperor's concessions. Before night he was the hostage of
+the revolution, signing whatever decrees were demanded of him till in a
+few hours even his signature was dispensed with. The Milanese had begun
+their historic struggle.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg.96]</a></span>
+Taking refuge in the Citadel, Radetsky wrote to the Podest&agrave;, Count
+Gabrio Casati (brother of Teresa Confalonieri), that he acknowledged no
+authority at Milan except his own and that of his soldiers. Those who
+resisted would be guilty of high treason. If arguments did not avail, he
+would make use of all the means placed in his hands by an army of 100,000
+men to bring the rebel city to obedience. Unhappily for Radetsky, there
+were not any such 100,000 men in Italy, though long before this he had
+told Metternich that he could not guarantee the safety of Lombardy with
+less than 150,000. In spite of partial reinforcements, the number did not
+amount to more than from 72,000 to 75,000, while at Milan it stood at
+between 15,000 and 20,000. But if we take the lower estimate, 15,000
+regular troops under such a commander, who, most rare in similar
+emergencies, knew his own mind, and had no thought except the recovery of
+the town for his Sovereign, constituted a formidable force against a
+civilian population, which began the fight with only a few hundred
+fowling-pieces. The odds on the side of Austria were tremendous.</p>
+
+<p>If the Milan revolt had been one of the customary revolutions, arranged
+with the help of pen and paper, its first day would have been certainly
+its last. But even more than the Sicilian Vespers, it was the
+unpremeditated, irresistible act of a people sick of being slaves. At the
+beginning Casati tried to restrain it; so, with equal or still stronger
+endeavours, did the republican Carlo Cattaneo, whose influence was great.
+'You have no arms,' he said again and again. Not a single man of weight
+took upon himself the awful responsibility of urging the unarmed masses
+upon so desperate an enterprise; but when the die was cast none held back.
+Initiated by the populace, the revolt <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg.97]</a></span> was led to its victorious close
+by the nerve and ability of the influential men who directed its
+course.</p>
+
+<p>Towards nightfall on the 18th, during which day there had been only
+scuffles between the soldiers and the people, Radetsky took the Broletto,
+where the Municipality sat, after a two hours' siege, and sent forthwith a
+special messenger to the Emperor with the news that the revolution was on
+a fair way to being completely crushed. Meanwhile, he massed his troops at
+all the entrances to the city, so that at dawn he might strangle the
+insurrection by a concentric movement, as in a noose. The plan was good;
+but to-morrow does not belong even to the most experienced of
+Field-Marshals.</p>
+
+<p>In all quarters of the city barricades sprang up like mushrooms.
+Everything went, freely given, to their construction; the benches of the
+Scala, the beds of the young seminarists, the court carriages, found
+hidden in a disused church, building materials of the half-finished
+Palazzo d'Adda, grand pianofortes, valuable pieces of artistic furniture,
+and the old kitchen table of the artisan. Before the end of the fight the
+barricades numbered 1523. Young nobles, dressed in the velvet suits then
+in vogue, cooks in their white aprons, even women and children, rushed to
+the defence of the improvised fortifications. Luciano Manara and other
+heroes, who afterwards fell at Rome, were there to lead. In the first
+straits for want of arms the museums of the Uboldi and Poldi-Pozzoli
+families were emptied of their rare treasures by permission of the owners;
+the crowd brandished priceless old swords and specimens of early firearms.
+More serviceable weapons were obtained by degrees from the Austrian killed
+and wounded, and from the public offices which fell into their hands.
+Bolza, long the hated agent of the Austrian police, was discovered by
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg.98]</a></span>
+the people, but they did not harm him. Throughout the five days, the
+Milanese showed a forbearance which was the more admirable, because there
+can be no doubt that when the Austrians found they were getting the worst
+of it, they vented their rage in deplorable outrages on non-combatants.
+That Radetsky was personally to blame for these excesses has never been
+alleged, and it was perhaps beyond the power of the officers to keep
+discipline among soldiers who, towards the end, were wild with panic.</p>
+
+<p>'The very foundations of the city were torn up,' wrote the
+Field-Marshal in his official report; 'not hundreds, but thousands of
+barricades crossed the streets. Such circumspection and audacity were
+displayed that it was evident military leaders were at the head of the
+people. The character of the Milanese had become quite changed. Fanaticism
+had seized every rank and age and both sexes.'</p>
+
+<p>As always happens with street-fighting, the number of the slain has
+never been really known; the loss of the citizens was small compared with
+that of the Austrians, who, according to some authorities, lost 5000,
+between killed and wounded.</p>
+
+<p>Radetsky ordered the evacuation of the town and citadel on the night of
+Wednesday, the 22nd of March. The Milanese had won much more than
+freedom&mdash;they had won the right to it. And what they had done they
+had done alone. When the news that the capital was up in arms spread
+through Lombardy, there was but one gallant impulse, to fly to its aid.
+But the earliest to arrive, Giuseppe Martinengo Cesaresco, with his troop
+of Brescian peasants, found when he reached Milan that they were a few
+hours too late to share in the last shots fired upon the retreating
+Austrians.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg.99]</a></span>
+Nowhere, except in Milan, did the revolution meet with a Radetsky. The
+Austrian authorities became convinced that their position was untenable,
+and they desired to avoid a useless sacrifice of life. This, rather than
+cowardly fears, was the motive which induced Count Palffy and Count Zichy,
+the civil and military governors of Venice, to yield the city without
+deluging it in blood. The latter had been guilty of negligence in leaving
+the Venetian arsenal in charge of troops so untrustworthy that Manin could
+take it on the 22nd of March by a simple display of his own courage, and
+without striking a blow, but after this first success on the side of the
+revolution, which supplied the people with an unlimited stock of arms and
+ammunition, the Austrians did well to give way even from their own point
+of view. At seven o'clock on the evening of the 22nd of March, the famous
+capitulation was signed. Manin's prediction of the previous day,
+'To-morrow the city will be in my power, or I shall be dead,' had been
+realised in the first alternative.</p>
+
+<p>Daniel Manin, who was now forty-four years of age, was by profession a
+lawyer, by race a Jew. His father became a Christian, and, according to
+custom, took the surname of his godfather, who belonged to the family of
+the last Doge of Venice. Manin and the Dalmatian scholar, Niccol&ograve;
+Tommaseo, had been engaged in patiently adducing proof after proof that
+Austria did not even abide by her own laws when the expression of
+political opinion was concerned. At the beginning of the revolution they
+were in prison, and Palffy's first act of surrender was to set them free.
+Henceforth Manin was undisputed lord of the city. It is strange how, all
+at once, a man who was only slightly known to the world should have been
+chosen as spokesman and ruler. It did not, however, happen by chance. The
+people in Italy are observant; <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_100"
+id="Page_100">[Pg.100]</a></span> the Venetians had observed Manin, and
+they trusted him. The power of inspiring trust was what gave this Jewish
+lawyer his ascendancy, not the talents which usually appeal to the masses.
+He had not the advantage of an imposing presence, for he was short,
+slight, with blue eyes and bushy hair; in all things he was the opposite
+to a demagogue; he never beguiled, or flattered, or told others what he
+did not believe himself. But, on his side, he <i>knew</i> the people, whom
+most revolutionary leaders know not at all. 'That is my sole merit,' he
+used to say. It was that which enabled him to cleanse Venice from the
+stain of having bartered her freedom for the smile of a conqueror, and
+give her back the name and inheritance of 'eldest child of liberty.'</p>
+
+<p>It was a matter of course that emancipated Venice should assume a
+republican form of government. Here the republic was a restoration. At
+Milan the case was different; there were two parties, that of Cattaneo,
+which was strongly republican, that of Casati, which was strongly
+monarchical. There was a third party, which thought of nothing except of
+never again seeing a soldier with a white coat. By mutual agreement, the
+Provisional Government declared that the decision as to the form of
+government should be left to calmer days. For a time this compromise
+produced satisfactory results.</p>
+
+<p>The revolution gained ground. Francis of Modena executed a rapid
+flight, and the Duke of Parma presently followed him. By the end of March,
+Lombardy and Venetia were free, saving the fortresses of the
+Quadrilateral. The exception was of far greater moment than, in the
+enchantment of the hour, anyone dreamt of confessing. Mantua, Legnano,
+Peschiera and Verona were so many cities of refuge to the flying Austrian
+troops, where they could rest in safety and nurse their strength. <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg.101]</a></span>
+Still, the results achieved were great, almost incredible; with the
+expectation that Rome, Naples, Tuscany and Piedmont would send their
+armies to consolidate the work already done, it was natural to think that,
+whatever else might happen, Austrian dominion was a thing of the past.
+Alessandro Bixio (brother of the General), who was a naturalised
+Frenchman, wrote to the French Government on the 7th of April from Turin:
+'In the ministries, in meetings, in the streets, you only see and hear
+people to whom the question of Italian independence seems to be one of
+those historical questions about which the time is past for talking.
+According to the general opinion, Austria is nothing but a phantom, and
+the army of Radetsky a shadow.' Such were the hopes that prevailed. They
+were vain, but they did not appear so then.</p>
+
+<p>Pius IX. seemed to throw in his lot definitely with the revolution
+when, on the 19th of March, he too granted a Constitution, having
+previously formed a lay ministry, which included Marco Minghetti and Count
+Pasolini, under the presidency of Cardinal Antonelli, who thus makes his
+first appearance as Liberal Premier. That the Roman Constitution was an
+unworkable attempt to reconcile lay and ecclesiastical pretensions, that
+the proposed Chamber of Deputies, which was not to make laws affecting
+education, religious corporations, the registration of births and
+marriages; or to confer civil rights on non-catholics, or to touch the
+privileges and immunities of the clergy, might have suited
+Cloud-cuckoo-town, but would not suit the solid earth, were facts easy to
+recognise, but no one had time to pause and consider. It was sufficient to
+hear Pius proclaim that in the wind which was uprooting oaks and cedars
+might be clearly distinguished the Voice of the Lord. Such utterances,
+mingled <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">
+[Pg.102]</a></span> with blessings on Italy, brought balm to patriotic
+souls. The Liberals had no fear that the Pope would veto the participation
+of his troops in the national war, for they were blind to the
+complications with which a fighting Pope would find himself embarrassed in
+the middle of the nineteenth century. But the other party discerned these
+complications from the first, and knew what use to make of them.</p>
+
+<p>The powers of reaction had only to catch hold of a perfectly modern
+sentiment, the doctrine that ecclesiastics should be men of peace, in
+order to dissipate the myth of a Pope liberator. It was beside the
+question that, from the moment he accepted such a doctrine, the Pope
+condemned the institution of prince-bishoprics, of which he represented
+the last survival. Nor was it material that, if he adopted it, consistency
+should have made him carry it to its logical consequence of
+non-resistance. By aid of this theory of a peaceful Pontiff, with the
+threat, in reserve, of a schism, Austria felt confident that she could
+avoid the enormous moral inconvenience of a Pope in arms against her.</p>
+
+<p>Either, however, the full force of the influence which caused Pius IX.
+to draw back was not brought to bear till somewhat late in the day, or the
+part acted by him during the months of March and April can be hardly
+acquitted of dissimulation. War preparations were continued, with the warm
+co-operation of the Cardinal President of the Council, and when General
+Durando started for the frontier with 17,000 men, he would have been a
+bold man who had said openly in Rome that they were intended not to
+fight.</p>
+
+<p>While the Pope was still supposed to favour the war, Ferdinand of
+Naples did not dare to oppose the enthusiasm of his subjects, and the
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg.103]</a></span>
+demand that a Neapolitan contingent should be sent to Lombardy. The first
+relay of troops actually started, but the generals had secret orders to
+take the longest route, and to lose as much time as possible.</p>
+
+<p>Tuscany had a very small army, but such assistance as she could give
+was both promised and given. The fate of the Tuscan corps of 6000 men will
+be related hereafter. The Grand Duke Leopold identified himself with the
+Italian cause with more sincerity than was to be found at Rome or Naples;
+still, the material aid that he could offer counted as next to
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>There remained Piedmont and Charles Albert. Now was the time for the
+army which he had created (for Charles Felix left no army worthy of the
+name) to assert upon the Lombard fields the reason of its existence. War
+with Austria was declared on the 23rd of March. It was midnight; a vast
+crowd waited in silence in Piazza Castello. At last the windows of the
+palace were opened, a sudden flood of light from within illuminating the
+scene. Charles Albert stepped upon the balcony between his two sons. He
+was even paler than usual, but a smile such as no one had seen before was
+on his lips. He waved the long proscribed tricolor slowly over the heads
+of the people.</p>
+
+<p>The King said in his proclamation that 'God had placed Italy in a
+position to provide for herself ('in grado di fare da s&egrave;'). Hence
+the often repeated phrase: 'L'Italia far&agrave; da s&egrave;.' He told
+the Lombard delegates, who met him at Pavia that he would not enter their
+capital, which had shown such signal valour, till after he had won a
+victory. He declared to all that his only aim was to complete the splendid
+work of liberation so happily begun; questions of government would be
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg.104]</a></span>
+reserved for the conclusion of the war. Joy was the order of the day, but
+the fatal mistakes of the campaign had already commenced; there had been
+inexcusable delay in declaring war; if it was pardonable to wait for the
+Milanese initiative, it was as inexpedient as it seemed ungenerous to wait
+till the issue of the struggle at Milan was decided. Then, after the
+declaration of war, considering that the Sardinian Government must have
+seen its imminence for weeks, and indeed for months, there was more time
+lost than ought to have been the case in getting the troops under weigh.
+Still, at the opening of the campaign, two grand possibilities were left.
+The first was obviously to cut Radetsky off in his painful retreat,
+largely performed along country by-roads, as he had to avoid the principal
+cities which were already free. Had Charles Albert caught him up while he
+was far from the Quadrilateral, the decisive blow would have been struck,
+and the only man who could save Austria in Italy would have been taken
+prisoner. Radetsky chose the route of Lodi and the lower Brescian plains
+to Montechiaro, where the encampments were ready for the Austrian spring
+manoeuvres: from this point an easy march carried him under the walls of
+Verona. Here he met General d'Aspre, who had just arrived with the
+garrison of Padua. D'Aspre, by skill and resolution, had brought his men
+from Padua without losing one, having refused the Paduans arms for a
+national guard, though ordered from Milan to grant them. 'You come to tell
+me all is lost,' said the Field-Marshal when they met 'No,' rejoined the
+younger general, 'I come to tell you all is saved.'</p>
+
+<p>This great chance missed, there was another which could have been
+seized. Mantua, extraordinary to relate, was defended by only three
+hundred artillerymen and a handful of hussars. It would have fallen <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg.105]</a></span> into
+the hands of its own citizens but for the presence of mind of its
+commandant, the Polish General Gorzhowsky, who told them that to no one on
+earth would he deliver the keys of the fortress except to his Emperor, and
+that the moment he could no longer defend it he would blow it into the
+air, with himself and half Mantua. He showed them the flint and the steel
+with which he intended to do the deed. Enemy though he was, that incident
+ought to be recorded in letters of gold on the gates of Mantua, as a
+perpetual lesson of that most difficult thing for a country founded in
+revolution to learn: the meaning of a soldier's duty.</p>
+
+<p>It is easy to see that, if Charles Albert had made an immediate dash on
+Mantua, the fortress, or its ruins, would have been his, to the enormous
+detriment of the Austrian position. But this chance too was missed. On the
+31st of March, the 9000 men sent with all speed by Radetsky to the
+defenceless fortress arrived, and henceforth Mantua was safe. Charles
+Albert only got within fifteen or sixteen miles of it five days later, to
+find that all hope of its capture was gone.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign began with political as well as with military mistakes. At
+the same time that the King of Sardinia was declaring in the Proclamation
+addressed to the Lombards that, full of admiration of the glorious feats
+performed in their capital, he came to their aid as brother to brother,
+friend to friend, his ambassadors were trying to persuade the foreign
+Powers, and especially Austria, Prussia and Russia, that the only object
+of the war was to avoid a revolution in Piedmont, and to prevent the
+establishment of a republic in Lombardy. No one was convinced or placated
+by these assurances; far better as policy than so ignominious an attempt
+at hedging would have been the <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_106"
+id="Page_106">[Pg.106]</a></span> acknowledgment to all the world of the
+noble crime of patriotism. But, as Massimo d'Azeglio once observed,
+Charles Albert had the incurable defect of thinking himself cunning. It
+was, moreover, only too true that, although in these diplomatic
+communications the King allowed the case against him to be stated with
+glaring exaggeration, yet they contained an element of fact. He <i>was</i>
+afraid of revolution at home; he <i>was</i> afraid of a Lombard republic;
+these were not the only, nor were they the strongest, motives which drove
+him into the war, but they were motives which, associated with deeper
+causes, contributed to the disasters of the future.</p>
+
+<p>The Piedmontese force was composed of two <i>corps d'arm&eacute;e,</i>
+the first under General Bava and the second under General Sonnaz: each
+amounted to 24,000 men. The reserves, under the Duke of Savoy, numbered
+12,000. Radetsky, at first (after strengthening the garrisons in the
+fortresses), could not put into the field more than 40,000 men. As has
+been stated, the King assumed the supreme command, which led to a constant
+wavering between the original plan of General Bava, a capable officer, and
+the criticisms and suggestions of the staff. The greatest mistake of all,
+that of never bringing into the field at once more than about half the
+army, was not without connection with the supposed necessity, based on
+political reasons, of garrisoning places in the rear which might have been
+safely left to the care of their national guards.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the royal army, there were in the field 17,000 Romans, 3000
+Modenese and Parmese, and 6000 Tuscans. There were also several companies
+of Lombard volunteers, Free Corps, as they were called, which might have
+been increased to almost any extent had they not been discouraged by the
+King, who was believed to look coldly on all these <span class="newpage">
+<a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg.107]</a></span> extraneous allies,
+either from doubt of their efficiency, or from the wish to keep the whole
+glory of the campaign for his Piedmontese army.</p>
+
+<p>The first engagements were on the line of the Mincio. On the 8th of
+April the Sardinians carried the bridge of Goito after a fight of four
+hours. The burning of the village of Castelnuovo on the 12th, as a
+punishment for its having received Manara's band of volunteers, excited
+great exasperation; many of the unfortunate villagers perished in the
+flames, and this and other incidents of the same kind did much towards
+awakening a more vivid hatred of the Austrians among the peasants.</p>
+
+<p>After easily gaining possession of the left (Venetian) bank of the
+Mincio, Charles Albert employed himself in losing time over chimerical
+operations with a view to taking the fortresses of Peschiera and Mantua,
+now strongly garrisoned, and impregnable while their provisions lasted.
+This object governed the conduct of the campaign, and caused the waste of
+precious months during every day of which General Nugent, with his 30,000
+men, was approaching one step nearer from the mountains of Friuli, and
+General Welden, with his 10,000, down the passes of Tyrol. If, instead of
+playing at sieges, Charles Albert had cut off these reinforcements,
+Radetsky would have been rendered powerless, and the campaign would have
+had another termination. Never was there a war in which the adoption of
+Napoleon's system of crushing his opponents one by one, when he could not
+outnumber them if united, was more clearly indicated.</p>
+
+<p>General Durando crossed the Po on the 21st of April with 17,000 men,
+partly Pontifical troops and partly volunteers, to which weak corps fell
+the task of opposing Nugent's advance in Venetia. The colours of the
+Pontifical troops were solemnly blessed before they left Rome, but <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg.108]</a></span> as
+the order was only given to go to the frontier, and nothing was said,
+though everything was understood, about crossing it, the Pope was
+technically able to assert that the war was none of his making. His
+ministry ventured to suggest to him that the situation was peculiar. Now
+it was that Catholic Austria and Russia, herself schismatic, flourished in
+the face of the Pope the portentous scare of a new schism. It is said that
+the Pope's confessor, a firm Liberal, died just at this time, not without
+suspicion of poison. Thoroughly alarmed in his spiritual capacity, the
+Pope issued his Encyclical Letter of the 29th of April&mdash;when his
+ministers and the whole country still hoped from day to day that he would
+formally declare war&mdash;in which he protested that his sacred office
+obliged him to embrace all nations in an equal paternal love. If his
+subjects, he added, followed the example of the other Italians, he could
+not help it: a half-hearted admission which could not mitigate the
+indignation which the document called forth. With regard to Durando's
+corps, the Pope did what was the best thing under the altered
+circumstances; he sent L.C. Farini as envoy to the King of Sardinia, with
+the request that he would take the Roman troops under his supreme command,
+the Papal Government agreeing to continue the pay of such of them as
+belonged to the regular army. Pius IX. made one last effort to help his
+fellow-countrymen which people hardly noticed, so futile did it appear,
+but which was probably made in profound seriousness. He wrote a letter to
+the Emperor of Austria begging him to make all things right and pleasant
+by voluntarily withdrawing from his Italian dominions. Popes had dictated
+to sovereigns before now; was there not Canossa? Besides, if a miracle was
+sought, why should not a miracle <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_109"
+id="Page_109">[Pg.100]</a></span> happen? Pope and Emperor shaking hands
+over a free Italy and a world reconciled&mdash;how delightful the
+prospect! Who can doubt that when the Pope wrote that letter all the
+beautiful dreams of Cardinal Mastai carried him once more away (it was the
+last time) in an ecstasy of blissful hopes? 'Let not your Majesty take
+offence,' ran the appeal, 'if we turn to your pity and religion, exhorting
+you with fatherly affection to desist from a war which, powerless to
+re-conquer the hearts of the Lombards and Venetians, can only lead to a
+dark series of calamities. Nor let the generous Germanic nation take
+offence if we invite it to abandon old hatreds, and convert into useful
+relations of friendly neighbourhood a dominion which can be neither noble
+nor happy if it depend only on the sword. Thus we trust in the nation
+itself, honestly proud of its own nationality, to no longer make a point
+of honour of sanguinary attempts against the Italian nation, but rather to
+perceive that its true honour lies in recognising Italy as a sister.'</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor received the bearer of the letter with coldness, and
+referred him to his ministers, who simply called his attention to the fact
+that the Pope owed the Temporal Power to the same treaties as those which
+gave Austria the possession of Lombardy and Venetia.</p>
+
+<p>The day after the publication of the Encyclical, that is to say, the
+30th of April, the Piedmontese obtained their first important success in
+the battle of Pastrengo, near Peschiera. Fighting from daybreak to
+sundown, they drove the enemy back into Verona, with a loss of 1200 killed
+and wounded. The Austrians were in rather inferior numbers; but the
+victory was highly creditable to the hitherto untried army of Piedmont,
+and showed that it contained excellent fighting material. It <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg.110]</a></span> was not
+followed up, and might nearly as well have never been fought.</p>
+
+<p>The Neapolitan troops, of whom 41,000 were promised, 17,000 being on
+the way already, were intended to reinforce Durando's corps in Venetia.
+With the two or three battalions which Manin could spare from the little
+army of Venice, the Italian forces opposed to Nugent's advance would have
+been brought up to 60,000 men; in which case not even Charles Albert's
+'masterly inactivity' could have given Austria the victory.</p>
+
+<p>The Neapolitan Parliament convoked under the new Constitution was to
+meet on the 15th of May. A dispute had been going on for several days
+between the Sovereign and the deputies about the form of the parliamentary
+oath, the deputies wishing that the Chambers should be left free to amend
+or alter the Statute, while the King desired that they should be bound by
+oath to maintain it as it was presented to them. It was unwise to provoke
+a disagreement which was sure to irritate the King. However, late on the
+14th, he appeared to yield, and consented that the wording of the oath
+should be referred to the discussion of Parliament itself. It seems that,
+at the same time, he ordered the troops of the garrison to take up certain
+positions in the city. A colonel of the National Guard raised the cry of
+royal treason, calling upon the people to rise, which a portion of them
+did, and barricades were constructed in the Toledo and other of the
+principal streets. A more insane and culpable thing than this attempt at
+revolution was never put in practice. It was worse even than that 20th of
+May at Milan, which threw Eugene into the arms of Austria. Its
+consequences were those which everyone could have foreseen&mdash;a two
+days' massacre in the streets of Naples, begun by the troops and <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg.111]</a></span>
+continued by the lazzaroni, who were allowed to pillage to their hearts'
+content; the deputies dispersed with threats of violence, Parliament
+dissolved before it had sat, the original Statute torn up, and (by far the
+most important) the Neapolitan troops, now at Bologna, recalled to Naples.
+This was the pretty work of the few hundred reckless rioters on the 15th
+of May.</p>
+
+<p>Had not Pius IX. by this time repudiated all part in the war, the King
+of the Two Sicilies would have thought twice before he recalled his
+contingent, though the counsels of neutrality which he received from
+another quarter&mdash;from Lord Palmerston in the name of the English
+Government&mdash;strengthened his hand not a little in carrying out a
+defection which was the direct ruin of the Italian cause. When the order
+to return reached Bologna, the veteran patriot, General Pepe, who had been
+summoned from exile to take the chief command, resolved to disobey, and
+invited the rest to follow him. Nearly the whole of the troops were,
+however, faithful to their military oath. The situation was horrible. The
+choice lay between the country in danger and the King, who, false and
+perjured though he might be, was still the head of the State, to whom each
+soldier had sworn obedience. One gallant officer escaped from the dilemma
+by shooting himself. Pepe, with a single battalion of the line, a company
+of engineers, and two battalions of volunteers, went to Venice, where they
+fought like heroes to the end.</p>
+
+<p>On the 27th of May, Radetsky, taking the offensive with about 40,000
+men, marched towards Mantua, near which was stationed the small Tuscan
+corps, whose commander only received when too late General Bava's order to
+retire from an untenable position. On the 29th the Austrians, <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg.112]</a></span> in
+overwhelming numbers, bore down upon the 6000 Tuscans at Montanara and
+Curtatone, and defeated them after a resistance of six hours. The Tuscan
+professor, Giuseppe Montanelli, fell severely wounded while holding the
+dead body of his favourite pupil, but he recovered to show less discretion
+in politics than he had shown valour in the field.</p>
+
+<p>Peschiera, where the supplies were exhausted, capitulated on the 30th,
+and the day after found 22,000 Piedmontese ready to give Radetsky battle
+at Goito, whence, after a severe contest, they drove him back to Mantua.
+The Austrians lost 3000 out of 25,000 men. The honours of the day fell to
+the Savoy brigade, which was worthy of its own fame and of the future King
+of Italy, who was slightly wounded while leading it. Outwardly this seemed
+the most fortunate period of the war for Charles Albert, but that had
+already happened which was to cause the turning of the tide. Nugent, with
+his 30,000 men, had joined Radetsky. His march across Venetia was harassed
+by the inhabitants, who left him no peace, especially in the mountain
+districts, but the poor little force of Romans and volunteers under
+Durando and Ferrari was unable to seriously check his progress in the open
+country, though he failed in the attempt to take the towns of Treviso and
+Vicenza in his passage. The repulse of the Austrians, 18,000 strong, from
+Vicenza on the 23rd of May, did great credit to Durando, who only had
+10,000 men, most of them <i>Crociati</i>, as the volunteers were called,
+whose ideas about fighting were original. It is hard to see how this
+General could have done more than he did with the materials at his
+disposal, or in what way he merited the abuse which was heaped upon him.
+The case would have been very different if his hybrid force had been
+supported by the Neapolitan army.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">
+[Pg.113]</a></span> Nugent was ordered by Radetsky to let the intermediate
+places alone, and to come on to him as fast as circumstances would admit.
+The junction of their troops was, the Field-Marshal saw, of vital
+necessity, but when this was achieved, and when Welden had also brought
+his 15,000 fresh men from Tyrol, he turned his attention to Vicenza,
+since, as long as that town remained in Durando's hands, Venetia would
+still be free. He conceived the bold plan of making an excursion to
+Vicenza with his complete army, while Charles Albert enjoyed the pleasant
+illusion that the Austrians were in full retreat owing to his success at
+Goito. The result of Radetsky's attack was not doubtful, but the defence
+of the town on the 10th of June could not have been more gallant; the 3500
+Swiss, the Pontifical Carabineers, and the few other troops belonging to
+the regular army of the Pope did wonders. Cialdini, the future general,
+and Massimo d'Azeglio, the future prime minister, fought in this action,
+and the latter was severely wounded. After several hours' resistance there
+was nothing to be done but to hoist the white flag; Radetsky's object was
+accomplished, the Venetian <i>terra firma</i> was practically once more in
+the power of Austria. On the 14th he was back again at Verona without the
+least harm having happened in his absence.</p>
+
+<p>Only military genius of the first order could now have saved the
+Piedmontese, and what prevailed was the usual infatuation. Charles
+Albert's lines were extended across forty miles of country, from Peschiera
+to Goito. On the 23rd of July the Austrians fell upon their weakest point,
+and obliged Sonnaz' division to cross over to the right bank of the
+Mincio. On the 24th, the King succeeded in dislodging the Austrians from
+Custozza after four hours' struggle; but next day, <span class="newpage">
+<a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg.114]</a></span> which was spent
+entirely in fighting, Radetsky retook Custozza, and obliged the King to
+fall back on Villafranca. Now began the terrible retreat on Milan,
+performed under the ceaseless fire of the pursuers, who attacked and
+defeated the retreating army for the last time, close to Milan, on the 4th
+of August. Radetsky had with him 45,000 men; Charles Albert's forces were
+reduced to 25,000. He had lost 5000 since he recrossed the Mincio. He
+begged for a truce, and, defeated and undone, he entered the city which he
+had vowed should only receive him victorious.</p>
+
+<p>To suppose that anything could have been gained by subjecting Milan to
+the horrors of a siege seems at this date the veriest madness; whatever
+Charles Albert's sins were, the capitulation of Milan was not among them.
+The members of a wild faction, however, demanded resistance to the death,
+or the death of the King if he refused. It is their severest censure to
+say that their pitiless fury is not excused even by the tragic fate of a
+population which, having gained freedom unaided less than six months
+before, saw itself given back to its ancestral foe by the man in whom it
+had hoped as a saviour. They saw crimes where there were only blunders,
+which had brought the King to a pass only one degree less wretched than
+their own. Crushed, humiliated, his army half destroyed, his personal
+ambition&mdash;to rate no higher the motive of his actions&mdash;trodden
+in the dust; and now the name of traitor was hissed in his ears by those
+for whom he had made these sacrifices.</p>
+
+<p>Stung to the heart, the King instructed General Bava to tell the
+Milanese that if they were ready to bury themselves under the ruins of the
+city, he and his sons were ready to do the same. But the Municipality,
+convinced of the desperateness of the situation, had <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg.115]</a></span> already
+entered into negotiations with Radetsky, by which the capitulation was
+ratified. On this becoming known, the Palazzo Greppi, where Charles Albert
+lodged, was the object of a new display of rage; an attempt was even made
+to set it on fire. During the night, the King succeeded in leaving the
+palace on foot, guarded by a company of Bersaglieri and accompanied by his
+son, the Duke of Genoa, who, on hearing of his father's critical position,
+disobeyed the order to stay with his regiment, and came into the city to
+share his danger.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, the 6th of August, the Austrians reentered Milan. They
+themselves said that the Milanese seemed distraught. The Municipality was
+to blame for having concealed from the people the real state of things, by
+publishing reports of imaginary victories. Had the unthinking fury of the
+mob ended, as it so nearly ended, in an irreparable crime, the authors of
+these falsehoods would have been, more than anyone else, responsible for
+the catastrophe.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign of 1848 was finished. From the frontier, Charles Albert
+issued a proclamation to his people, calling upon the Piedmontese to
+render the common misfortunes less difficult to bear by giving his army a
+brotherly reception. 'In its ranks,' he concluded, 'are my sons and I,
+ready, as we all are, for new sacrifices, new hardships, or for death
+itself for our beloved fatherland.'</p>
+
+<p>The political and diplomatic transactions connected with the war in
+Lombardy were the subject after it closed of much discussion, and of some
+violent recriminations. Even from the short account given in these pages,
+it ought to be apparent that the supreme cause of disaster was simply bad
+generalship. Contemporaries, however, judged <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg.116]</a></span> otherwise; if they were
+monarchists, they attributed the failure to the want of whole-hearted
+co-operation of the Provisional Governments of Lombardy with the
+liberating King; if they were republicans, they attributed it to the
+King's want of trust in the popular element, and anxiety lest, instead of
+receiving an increase of territory, he should find himself confronted with
+a new republic at his door. Both parties were so far correct that the
+strain of double purposes, or, at least, of incompatible aspirations which
+ran through the conduct of affairs, militated against a fortunate ending.
+The Piedmontese Government, even had it wished, would have found it
+difficult to adhere strictly to the programme of leaving all political
+matters for discussion after the war. What actually happened was that the
+union, under the not altogether attractive form of Fusion with Piedmont
+(instead of in the shape of the formation of an Italian kingdom), was
+effected at the end of June and beginning of July over the whole of
+Lombardy and Venetia, including Venice, where, perhaps alone, the feeling
+against it was not that of a party, but of the bulk of the population.
+Manin shared that feeling, but his true patriotism induced him to push on
+the Fusion in order to avoid the risk of civil war. He retired into
+private life the day it was accomplished, only to become again by
+acclamation Head of the State when the reverses of Sardinia obliged the
+King's Government to renounce the whole of his scarcely&mdash;acquired
+possessions, not excepting Modena, which had been the first, by a
+spontaneous plebiscite, to elect him Sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>The diplomatic history of the war is chiefly the history of the efforts
+of the English Cabinet to pull up a runaway horse. Lord Minto had been
+sent to urge the Italian princes to grant those concessions which Austria
+always said (and she was perfectly right) would lead to <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg.117]</a></span> a general
+attack upon her power, but when the attack began, the British Government
+strained every nerve to limit its extension and diminish its force. That
+Lord Palmerston in his own mind disliked Austria, and would have been glad
+to see North Italy free, does not alter the fact that he played the
+Austrian game, and played it with success. He strongly advised every
+Italian prince to abstain from the conflict, and it is further as certain
+as anything can well be, that his influence, exercised through Lord
+Normanby, alone averted French intervention in August 1848, when the
+desperate state of things made the Italians willing to accept foreign aid.
+What would have happened if the French had intervened it is interesting to
+speculate, but impossible to decide. Their help was not desired, except as
+a last resource, by any party in Italy, nor by any man of note except
+Manin. The republicans wished Italy to owe her liberation to herself;
+Charles Albert wished her to owe it to him. The King also feared a
+republican propaganda, and was uneasy, not without reason, about Savoy and
+Nice. Lamartine would probably have been satisfied with the former, but it
+is doubtful if Charles Albert, though capable of giving up his crown for
+Italy, would have been capable of renouncing the cradle of his race. When
+Lamartine was succeeded by Cavaignac, perhaps Nice would have been
+demanded as well as Savoy. That both the King and Mazzini were right in
+mistrusting the sentiments of the French Government, is amply testified by
+a letter written by Jules Bastide to the French representative at Turin,
+in which the Minister of Foreign Affairs speaks of the danger to France of
+the formation of a strong monarchy at the foot of the Alps, that would
+tend to assimilate the rest of Italy, adding the significant words: 'We
+could admit the unity of <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_118" id=
+"Page_118">[Pg.118]</a></span> Italy on the principle and in the form of a
+federation of independent states, each balancing the other, but never a
+unity which placed the whole of Italy under the dominion of one of these
+states.'</p>
+
+<p>Whether, in spite of all this, a political mistake was not made in not
+accepting French aid when it was first offered (in the spring of 1848)
+must remain an open question. When the French came eleven years later,
+they were actuated by no purer motives, but who would say that Cavour,
+instead of seeking, should have refused the French alliance?</p>
+
+<p>One other point has still to be noticed: the proposal made by Austria
+in the month of May to give up Lombardy unconditionally if she might keep
+Venetia, which was promised a separate administration and a national army.
+Nothing shows the state of mind then prevailing in a more distinct light
+than the scorn with which this offer was everywhere treated. Lord
+Palmerston declined to mediate on such a basis 'because there was no
+chance of the proposal being entertained,' which proved correct, as when
+it was submitted to the Provisional Government of Milan, it was not even
+thought worth taking into consideration. No one would contemplate the
+sacrifice of Venice by a new Campo Formio.</p>
+
+<p>Far, indeed, was Austria the victorious in August from Austria the
+humiliated in May. On the 9th of August, Hess and Salasco signed the
+armistice between the lately contending Powers. The next day the Emperor
+Ferdinand returned to his capital, from which he had been chased in the
+spring. He might well congratulate himself upon the marvellous recovery of
+his empire; but the revolution in Hungary was yet to be quelled, and
+another rising at Vienna in October tried his nerves, which were never of
+the strongest. On the 2nd of December he <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg.119]</a></span> abdicated in favour of his
+young nephew, the Archduke Francis Joseph, who had been brought face to
+face more than once on the Mincio with the Duke of Savoy, whom he rivalled
+in personal courage.</p>
+
+<p>On the 10th of December, another event occurred which placed a new
+piece on the European chess-board: Louis Napoleon was elected to the
+Presidency of the French Republic.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg.120]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_VII"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3>
+
+<h4>THE DOWNFALL OF THRONES</h4>
+
+<h5>1848-1849</h5>
+
+<h5>Garibaldi Arrives&mdash;Venice under Manin&mdash;The Dissolution of
+the Temporal Power&mdash;Republics at Rome and Florence.</h5>
+
+<p><br />
+ While the remnant of the Piedmontese army recrossed the bridge over the
+Ticino at Pavia, crushed, though not though want of valour, outraged in
+the person of its King, surely the saddest vanquished host that ever
+retraced in sorrow the path it had traced in the wildest joy, a few
+thousand volunteers in Lombardy still refused to lay down their arms or to
+recognise that, after the capitulation of Milan, all was lost. Valueless
+as a fact, their defiance of Austria had value as a prophecy, and its
+prophetic aspect comes more clearly into view when it is seen that the
+leader of the little band was Garibaldi, while its standard-bearer was
+Mazzini. These two had lately met for the first time since 1833, when
+Garibaldi, or 'Borel,' as he was called in the ranks of 'Young Italy,'
+went to Marseilles to make the acquaintance of the head and brain of the
+society which he had joined, as has been mentioned, on the banks of the
+Black Sea.</p>
+
+<p>'When I was young and had only aspirations,' said Garibaldi in London
+in April 1864, 'I sought out a man who could give me counsel and guide my
+youthful years; I sought him as the thirsty man seeks water. This man I
+found; he alone kept alive the sacred fire, he alone watched <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg.121]</a></span> while all
+the world slept; he has always remained my friend, full of love for his
+country, full of devotion for the cause of freedom: this man is Joseph
+Mazzini.'</p>
+
+<p>The words spoken then&mdash;when the younger patriot was the chosen
+hero of the greatest of free nations, while the elder, still misunderstood
+by almost all, was shunned and calumniated, and even called 'the worst
+enemy of Italy'&mdash;gave one fresh proof, had one been wanting, that,
+though there have been more flawless characters than Garibaldi, never in a
+human breast beat a more generous heart. Politically, there was nearly as
+much divergence between Mazzini and Garibaldi as between Mazzini and
+Cavour; the master thought the pupil lacked ideality, the pupil thought
+the master lacked practicalness; but they were at one in the love of their
+land and in the desire to serve her.</p>
+
+<p>On parting with Mazzini in 1833, Garibaldi, then captain of a sailing
+vessel, went to Genoa and enrolled himself as a common sailor in the Royal
+Piedmontese Navy. The step, strange in appearance, was certainly taken on
+Mazzini's advice, and the immediate purpose was doubtless to make converts
+for 'Young Italy' among the marines. Had Garibaldi been caught when the
+ruthless persecution of all connected with 'Young Italy' set in, he would
+have been shot offhand, as were all those who were found dabbling with
+politics in the army and navy. He escaped just in time, and sailed for
+South America.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Gazzetta Piemontese</i> of the 17th of June 1834 published the
+sentence of death passed upon him, with the rider which declared him
+exposed to public vengeance 'as an enemy of the State, and liable to all
+the penalties of a brigand of the first category.' He saw the paper; and
+it was the first time that he or anyone else had seen the <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg.122]</a></span> name of
+Giuseppe Garibaldi in print; a name of which Victor Emmanuel would one day
+say that 'it filled the furthest ends of the earth.'</p>
+
+<p>Profitable to Italy, over nearly every page of whose recent history
+might be written 'out of evil cometh forth good,' was the banishment which
+threw Garibaldi into his romantic career of the next twelve years between
+the Amazon and the Plata. Soldier of fortune who did not seek to enrich
+himself; soldier of freedom who never aimed at power, he always meant to
+turn to account for his own country the experience gained in the art of
+war in that distant land, where he rapidly became the centre of a legend,
+almost the origin of a myth. Antique in simplicity, singleness,
+superabundance of life, and in a sort of naturalism which is not of
+to-day; unselfconscious, trustful in others, forgiving, incapable of fear,
+abounding in compassion, Garibaldi's true place is not in the aggregation
+of facts which we call history, but in the apotheosis of character which
+we call the <i>Iliad</i>, the <i>Mahabharata</i>, the <i>Edda</i>, the
+cycles of Arthur and of Roland, and the <i>Romancero del Cid</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In childhood he rescued a drowning washerwoman; in youth he nursed men
+dying of cholera; as a veteran soldier he passed the night among the rocks
+of Caprera hunting for a lamb that was lost. No amount of habit could
+remove the repugnance he felt at uttering the word 'fire.' Yet this gentle
+warrior, when his career was closed and he lay chained to his bed of pain,
+endorsed his memoirs with the Spanish motto: 'La guerra es la verdadera
+vida del hombre.' War was the veritable life of Garibaldi; war, not
+conspiracy; war, not politics; war, not, alas! model farming, for which
+the old chief fancied in his later years that he had discovered in himself
+a vocation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">
+[Pg.123]</a></span> Riding the wild horses and chasing the wild cattle of
+the Pampas, his eyes covering the immense spaces untrodden by man, this
+corsair of five-and-twenty drank deep of the innocent pleasures of untamed
+nature, when not occupied in fighting by land or sea, with equal fortune;
+or rather, perhaps, with greater fortune and greater proof of inborn
+genius as commander of the naval campaign of the Paran[=a] than as
+defender of Monte Video. No adventures were wanting to him; he was even
+imprisoned and tortured. In South America he found the one woman worthy to
+bear his name, the lion-hearted Anita, whom he carried off, she
+consenting, from her father and the man to whom her father had betrothed
+her. Garibaldi in after years expressed such deep contrition for the act
+which bore Anita away from the quiet life in store for her, and plunged
+her into hardships which only ended when she died, that, misinterpreting
+his remorse, many supposed the man from whom he took her to have been
+already her husband. It was not so. Shortly before the Church of San
+Francisco at Monte Video was burnt down (some twenty years ago), the
+marriage register of Garibaldi and Anita was found in its archives, and a
+legal copy was made. In it she is described as 'Do&ntilde;a Ana Maria de
+Jesus, unmarried daughter of Don Benito Rivevio de Silva, of Laguna, in
+Brazil.' The bridegroom, who during all his American career had scarcely
+clothes to cover him, parted with his only possession, an old silver
+watch, to pay the priest's fees. Head of the Italian Legion, he only took
+the rations of a common soldier, and as candles were not included in the
+rations, he sat in the dark. Someone reported this to the Government, who
+sent him a present of &pound;20, half of which he gave to a poor
+widow.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">
+[Pg.124]</a></span> When the first rumours that something was preparing in
+Italy reached Monte Video, Garibaldi wrote a letter offering his services
+to the Pope, still hailed as Champion of Freedom, and soon embarked
+himself for the Old World, with eighty-five of his best soldiers, among
+whom was his beloved friend, Francesco Anzani. Giacomo Medici had been
+despatched a little in advance to confer with Mazzini. At starting, the
+Legion knew nothing of the revolution in Milan and Venice, or of Charles
+Albert having taken the field. Great was their wonder, therefore, on
+reaching Gibraltar, to see hoisted on a Sardinian ship a perfectly new
+flag, never beheld by them out of dreams&mdash;the Italian tricolor.</p>
+
+<p>So Garibaldi returned at forty-one years of age to the country where
+the sentence of death passed upon him had never been revoked. Before the
+law he was still 'a brigand of the first category.' Nor was he quite sure
+that he would not be arrested, and, as a precaution, when he cast anchor
+in the harbour of his native Nice, he ran up the Monte Videan colours. It
+was needless. Throngs of people crowded the quays to welcome home the
+Ligurian captain, who had done great things over sea. Anita was there; she
+had preceded him to Europe with their three children, Teresita, Menotti
+and Ricciotti. There, also, was his old mother, who never ceased to be
+beautiful, the 'Signora Rosa,' as the Nizzards called her. She was almost
+a woman of the people, but the simple dignity of her life made all treat
+her as a superior being. To her prayers, while she lived, Garibaldi
+believed that he owed his safety in so many perils, and after her death
+the soldiers used to say that on the eve of battles he walked apart
+communing with her spirit.</p>
+
+<p>From Nice, Garibaldi went to Genoa, where he took a last leave of his
+friend Anzani, who returned from exile not to fight, as he had hoped,
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg.125]</a></span>
+but to die. The day before he expired, Medici arrived at Genoa; he was
+very angry with the Chief, in consequence of some disagreement as to the
+place of landing. Anzani said to him entreatingly: 'Do not be hard,
+Medici, on Garibaldi; he is a predestined man: a great part of the future
+of Italy is in his hands.' The counsel from dying lips sank deep into
+Medici's heart; he often disagreed with Garibaldi, but to his last day he
+never quarrelled with him again. Long years after, if friction arose
+between Garibaldi and his King, it was Medici's part to throw oil on the
+waters.</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi sought an interview with Charles Albert, and offered him his
+arms and the arms of his Legion, 'not unused to war.' Pope or prince,
+little it mattered to him who the saviour of Italy should be. But Charles
+Albert, though he was polite, merely referred his visitor to his
+ministers, and the inestimable sword of the hero went begging for a month
+or more, till the Provisional Government of Milan gave him the command of
+the few thousand volunteers with whom we saw him at the conclusion of the
+campaign. The war was over before he had a chance of striking a blow. His
+indignant cry of defiance could not be long sustained, for Garibaldi never
+drove men to certain and useless slaughter; when the real position of
+things became known to him, he led his band over the Swiss confines, and
+bid them wait for a better and not distant day.</p>
+
+<p>Under Manin's wise rule, which was directed solely to the preservation
+of peace within the city, and resistance to the enemy at its gates, Venice
+remained undaunted by the catastrophes in Lombardy, after all the Venetian
+<i>terra firma</i> had been restored to Austria. (Even the heroic little
+mountain fort of Osopo in the Friuli was compelled to capitulate on the
+12th of October.) The blockade of the city on the <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg.126]</a></span> lagunes did not prevent
+Venice from acting not only on the defensive but on the offensive; in the
+sortie of the 27th of October, 2500 Venetians drove the Austrians from
+Mestre with severe losses, carrying back six captured guns, which the
+people dragged in triumph to the Doge's palace. A cabin-boy named Zorzi
+was borne on the shoulders of the soldiers enveloped in the Italian flag;
+his story was this: the national colours, floating from the mast of the
+pinnace on which he served, were detached by a ball and dropped into the
+water; the child sprang in after them, and with a shout of <i>Viva
+l'Italia,</i> fixed them again at the masthead under a sharp fire. Zorzi
+was, of course, the small hero of the hour, especially among the women.
+General Pepe commanded the sortie, with Ulloa, Fontana and Cosenz as his
+lieutenants; Ugo Bassi, the patriot monk of Bologna, marched at the head
+of a battalion with the crucifix, the only arms he ever carried, in his
+hand. The success cost Italy dear, as Alessandro Poerio, poet and patriot,
+the brother of Baron Carlo Poerio of Naples, lost his life by a wound
+received at Mestre. But the confidence of Venice in her little army was
+increased a hundredfold.</p>
+
+<p>The most important event of the autumn of 1848 was the gradual but
+continuous break-up of the Papal authority in Rome. The meeting of the new
+Parliament only served to accentuate the want of harmony between the Pope
+and his ministers; assassinations were frequent; what law there was was
+administered by the political clubs. In Count Terenzio Mamiani, Pius IX.
+found a Prime Minister who, for eloquence and patriotism, could hardly be
+rivalled, but hampered as he was by the opposition he encountered from the
+Sovereign, and by the absence of any real or solid moderate constitutional
+party in the Chamber of <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_127" id=
+"Page_127">[Pg.127]</a></span> Deputies, Mamiani could carry out very few
+of the improvements he desired to effect, and in August he retired from an
+impracticable task, to be replaced by men of less note and talent than
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>Wishing to create fresh complications for the Pope, the Austrians
+invaded the Legations, regardless of his protests, and after the fall of
+Milan, General Welden advanced on Bologna, where, however, his forces were
+so furiously attacked by the inhabitants and the few carabineers who were
+all the troops in the town, that they were dislodged from the strong
+position they had taken up on the Montagnola, the hill which forms the
+public park, and obliged to fly beyond the city walls. Radetsky
+disapproved of Welden's movements on Bologna, and ordered him not to
+return to the assault.</p>
+
+<p>Had the Austrians returned and massacred half the population of
+Bologna, the Pope might have been saved. When Rome heard that the stormy
+capital of Romagna was up in arms, once more, for a moment, there were
+united counsels. 'His Holiness,' ran the official proclamation, 'was
+firmly resolved to repel the Austrian invasion with all the means which
+his State and the well-regulated enthusiasm of his people could supply.'
+The Chamber confirmed the ministerial proposal to demand French help
+against Austria. But all this brave show of energy vanished with the
+pressing danger, and Bologna, which, by its manly courage, had galvanised
+the whole bloodless body-politic, now hastened the hour of dissolution by
+lapsing into a state of deplorable anarchy, the populace using the arms
+with which they had driven out the Austrians, to establish a reign of
+murder and pillage. L.C. Farini restored something like order, but the
+general weakness of the power of government became every day more
+apparent.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">
+[Pg.128]</a></span> The Pope made a last endeavour to avert the
+catastrophe by calling to his counsels Count Pellegrino Rossi, a man of
+unyielding will, who was as much opposed to demagogic as to theocratic
+government. Rossi, having been compromised when very young in Murat's
+enterprises, lived long abroad, and attained the highest offices under
+Louis Philippe, who sent him to Rome to arrange with the Pope the delicate
+question of the expulsion of the Jesuits from France, which he conducted
+to an amicable settlement, though one not pleasing to the great Society.
+Not being one of those who change masters as they change their boots
+according to the state of the roads, the ambassador retired from the
+French service when Louis Philippe was dethroned. As minister to the Pope,
+he made his influence instantly felt; measures were taken to restore order
+in the finances, discipline in the army, public security in the streets,
+and method and activity in the Government offices. The tax on
+ecclesiastical property was enforced; fomenters of anarchy, even though
+they wore the garb of patriots, and perhaps honestly believed themselves
+to be such, were vigorously dealt with. If anyone could have given the
+Temporal Power a new lease of life, it would have been a man so gifted and
+so devoted as Pellegrino Rossi, but the entire forces, both of subversion
+and of reaction, were against him, and most of all was against him the
+fatality of dates. Not at human bidding do the dead arise and walk. The
+most deeply to be regretted event that happened in the course of the
+Italian revolution gave his inevitable failure the appearance of a
+fortuitous accident.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">
+[Pg.129]</a></span> Parliament, which had been prorogued on the 26th of
+August, was to open on the 15th of November. Anarchy, black and red, was
+in the air. Though disorders were expected, Rossi made no provision for
+keeping the space clear round the palace where Parliament met; knots of
+men, with sinister faces, gathered in all parts of the square. Rossi was
+warned in the morning that an attempt would be made to assassinate him; he
+was entreated not to go to the Chamber, to which he replied that it was
+his duty to be present, and that if people wanted his blood they would
+have it sooner or later, whether he took precautions or not. Two policemen
+to keep the passage free when he reached the Chamber would, nevertheless,
+have saved his life. As he walked from his carriage to the stairs, an
+unknown individual pushed against him on the right side, and when he
+turned to see who it was, the assassin plunged a dagger in his throat. He
+fell, bathed in blood, to expire without uttering a word.</p>
+
+<p>In the Chamber, the deputies proceeded to business; not one raised an
+indignant protest against a crime which violated the independence of the
+representatives of the nation. The mere understanding of what liberty
+means is absolutely wanting in most populations when they first emerge
+from servitude.</p>
+
+<p>After the craven conduct of the deputies, it is no wonder if the dregs
+of the people went further, and paraded the streets singing songs in
+praise of the assassin. The Pope summoned the Presidents of the two
+Chambers and Marco Minghetti, whom he requested to form a new ministry.
+But the time for regular proceeding was past; the city was in the hands of
+the mob, which imposed on the Pope the acceptance of a ministry of
+nonentities nominated by it. The Swiss Guard fired on the crowd which
+attempted to gain access to the Quirinal; the crowd, reinforced by the
+Civic Guard, returned to the attack and fired <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg.130]</a></span> against the walls, a
+stray shot killing Monsignor Palma, who was in one of the rooms. The Pope
+decided on flight. He left Rome in disguise during the evening of the 25th
+of November. After gaining the Neapolitan frontier, he took the road to
+Gaeta. The illusion of the Pope Liberator ended with the Encyclical; the
+illusion of the Constitutional Pope ended with the flight to Gaeta. Pius
+IX. was only in a limited degree responsible for his want of success,
+because the task he had set before him was the quadrature of the circle in
+politics.</p>
+
+<p>The weight of a less qualified responsibility rests upon him for his
+subsequent actions. On the 3rd of December Parliament voted a proposal to
+send a deputation to the Pope, praying him to return to his States. To
+give the deputation greater authority, the Municipality of Rome proposed
+that the Syndic, the octogenarian Prince Corsini, should accompany it. It
+also comprised two ecclesiastics, and thus constituted, it left Rome for
+Gaeta on the 5th of December. On the borders of the Neapolitan kingdom its
+passage was barred by the police, and it was obliged to retrace its steps
+to Terracina. Here the deputation drew up a letter to Cardinal Antonelli
+(no longer the patriotic minister of the spring), in which an audience
+with the Sovereign Pontiff was respectfully requested. The answer came
+that the Pope would not receive the deputation. It was an answer that he
+was at liberty to make, but it should have meant abdication. If, called
+back by the will of the Parliament of his own making, the Sovereign
+deigned not even to receive the bearers of the invitation, in what way did
+he contemplate resuming the throne? It was only too easy to guess. The
+Head of Christendom had become a convert of King Ferdinand of Naples,
+otherwise Bomba. By a path strewn with the sinister flowers of war did
+Pius IX. meditate returning to his subjects&mdash;by that path and no
+other.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">
+[Pg.131]</a></span> The Galetti-Sterbini ministry, appointed by the Pope
+under popular pressure a few days before his departure, remained in charge
+of affairs, somewhat strengthened by the adhesion of Terenzio Mamiani as
+Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mamiani at first declined to form part of the
+ministry, but joined it afterwards with self-sacrificing patriotism, in
+the hope of saving things from going to complete rack and ruin during the
+interregnum caused by the withdrawal of the Head of the State. He only
+retired from the ungrateful office when he saw the imminence of a radical
+change in the form of government, which was not desired by him any more
+than it had been by Rossi.</p>
+
+<p>The mass of the population of the Roman States had desired such a
+change ever since the days of Gregory; the temporary enthusiasm for Pius,
+if it arrested the flow of the stream, did not prevent the waters from
+accumulating beyond the dyke. One day the dyke would burst, and the waters
+sweep all before them.</p>
+
+<p>A Constituent Assembly was convoked for the 5th of February 1849. The
+elections, which took place on the 21st of January, were on this basis:
+every citizen of more than twenty-one years was allowed to vote; every
+citizen over twenty-five could become a deputy; the number of deputies was
+fixed at two hundred; a candidate who received less than 500 votes would
+not be elected. On the 9th of February, the Constituent Assembly voted the
+downfall of the Temporal Power (free exercise of his spiritual functions
+being, at the same time, assured to the Supreme Pontiff), and the
+establishment of a republican form of government. The Roman Republic was
+proclaimed from the Capitol.</p>
+
+<p>Ten votes were given against the republic. No government ever came
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg.132]</a></span>
+into existence in a more strictly legal manner. Had it not represented the
+true will of the people, the last Roman Commonwealth could not have left
+behind so glorious, albeit brief, a record.</p>
+
+<p>A youthful poet, descendant of the Doges of Genoa, Goffredo Mameli,
+whose 'Fratelli d'Italia' was the battle-hymn to which Italy marched,
+wrote these three words to Mazzini: 'Roma, Repubblica, Venite.' So Mazzini
+came to Rome, which confided her destinies to him, as she had once
+confided them to the Brescian Arnold and to Cola di Rienzi. Not
+Arnold&mdash;not Rienzi in his nobler days&mdash;dreamed a more sublime
+dream of Roman liberty than did Giuseppe Mazzini, or more nearly wrote
+down that dream in facts.</p>
+
+<p>Originally the executive power was delegated to a committee, but this
+was changed to a Triumvirate, the Triumvirs being Armellini, Saffi and
+Mazzini. Mazzini's mind and will directed the whole.</p>
+
+<p>On the 18th of February, Cardinal Antonelli demanded in the Pope's name
+the armed intervention of France, Austria, Spain and Naples, 'as in this
+way alone can order be restored in the States of the Church, and the Holy
+Father re-established in the exercise of his supreme authority, in
+compliance with the imperious exigencies of his august and sacred
+character, the interests of the universal Church, and the peace of
+nations. In this way he will be enabled to retain the patrimony which he
+received at his accession, and transmit it in its integrity to his
+successors.'</p>
+
+<p>The Pope, who could not bring himself to stain his white robes with the
+blood of the enemies of Italy, called in four armies to shoot down his
+subjects, because in no other way could he recover his lost throne.</p>
+
+<p>Pius IX. was the twenty-sixth Pontiff who called the foreigner into
+Italy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">
+[Pg.133]</a></span> The final conquest of the Pope by the party of
+universal reaction could only be effected by his isolation from all but
+one set of influences; this is precisely what happened at Gaeta. There are
+reasons for thinking that his choice of the hospitality of the King of the
+Two Sicilies, rather than that of France or Spain or Sardinia, was the
+result of an intrigue in which Count Spaur, the Bavarian minister who
+represented the interests of Austria in Rome after that power withdrew her
+ambassador, played a principal part. Even after Pius arrived at Gaeta, it
+is said that he talked of it as the first stage of a longer journey. He
+had never shown any liking for the Neapolitan Bourbons, and the
+willingness which he expressed to Gioberti to crown Charles Albert King of
+Italy if his arms were successful, was probably duly appreciated by
+Ferdinand II. To save the Pope from absorption by the retrograde party,
+and to avoid the certainty of a foreign invasion, Gioberti, who became
+Prime Minister of Piedmont in November 1848, was anxious to occupy the
+Roman states with Sardinian troops immediately after the Pope's flight,
+when his subjects still recognised his sovereignty. Gioberti resigned
+because this policy was opposed by Rattazzi and other of his colleagues in
+the ministry. It would have been a difficult <i>r&ocirc;le</i> to play;
+Sardinia, while endeavouring to checkmate the reaction, might have become
+its instrument. The failure of Gioberti's plan cannot be regretted, but
+his forecast of what would happen if it were not attempted proved to be
+correct.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after the arrival of his exalted guest, King Ferdinand with his
+family, a great number of priests, and a strong escort, moved his
+residence from the capital to Gaeta. The modified Constitution,
+substituted for the first charter after the events of the 15th of May, was
+still nominally in force; Parliament had met during the summer, <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg.134]</a></span> but
+the King solved the riddle of governing through his ministers, on purely
+retrograde principles, without paying more heed to the representatives of
+the nations than to the benches on which they sat. Prorogued on the 5th of
+September, Parliament was to have met on the 30th of November, but when
+that date approached, it was prorogued again to the 1st of February. 'Our
+misery has reached such a climax,' wrote Baron Carlo Poerio, 'that it is
+enough to drive us mad. Every faculty of the soul revolts against the
+ferocious reactionary movement, the more disgraceful from its execrable
+hypocrisy. We are governed by an oligarchy; the only article maintained is
+that respecting the taxes. The laws have ceased to exist; the Statute is
+buried; a licentious soldiery rules over everything, and the press is
+constantly employed to asperse honest men. The lives of the deputies are
+menaced. Another night of St Bartholomew is threatened to all who will not
+sell body and soul.' Ferdinand only waited till he had recovered
+substantial hold over Sicily to do away with even the fiction of
+parliamentary government. Messina had fallen in September, though not till
+half the city was in flames, the barbarous cruelties practised on the
+inhabitants after the surrender exciting the indignation of the English
+and French admirals who witnessed the bombardment. This was the first step
+to the subjection of Sicily, but not till after Syracuse and Catania fell
+did the King feel that there was no further cause for anxiety&mdash;the
+taking of the capital becoming a mere question of time. He was so much
+pleased at the fall of Catania that he had a mock representation of the
+siege performed at Gaeta in presence of the Pope and of half the sacred
+college.</p>
+
+<p>On the 13th of March Prince Torelli handed the President of the <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg.135]</a></span>
+Neapolitan Chamber of Deputies a sealed packet which contained a royal
+decree dissolving Parliament. Naples was once more under an irresponsible
+despotism. The lazzaroni of both the lower and higher classes, if by
+lazzaroni may be understood the born allies of ignorance, idleness and
+bigotry, rejoiced and were glad. Nor were they few. Unlike the Austrians
+in the north, Ferdinand had his party; the 'fidelity of his subjects' of
+which he boasted, was not purely mythical. Whether, considering its basis,
+it was much to boast of, need not be discussed.</p>
+
+<p>In March, the happy family at Gaeta was increased by a new arrival. Had
+he been better advised, Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, would have never
+gone to breathe that malarious atmosphere. He had played no conjuror's
+tricks with his promises to his people; Austrian though he was, he had
+really acted the part of an Italian prince, and there was nothing to show
+that he had not acted it sincerely. But a persistent bad luck attended his
+efforts. Though the ministers appointed by him included men as
+distinguished as the Marquis Gino Capponi, Baron Ricasoli and Prince
+Corsini, they failed in winning a strong popular support. Leghorn, where
+the population, unlike that of the rest of Tuscany, is by nature
+turbulent, broke into open revolution. In the last crisis, the Grand Duke
+entrusted the government to the extreme Liberals, Montanelli the
+professor, and Guerrazzi the novelist; both were honourable men, and
+Guerrazzi was thought by many to be a man of genius. The vigorous rhetoric
+of his <i>Assedio di Firenze</i> had warmed the patriotism of many young
+hearts. But, as statesmen, the only talent they showed was for upsetting
+any <i>r&eacute;gime</i> with which they were connected.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">
+[Pg.136]</a></span> The Grand Duke was asked to convoke a Constituent
+Assembly, following the example of Rome. If every part of Italy were to do
+the same, the constitution and form of government of the whole country
+could be settled by a convention of the various assemblies. The idea was
+worthy of respect because it pointed to unity; but in view of the existing
+situation, Tuscany's solitary adhesion would hardly have helped the
+nation, while it was accompanied by serious risks to the state. The Grand
+Duke seemed about to yield to the proposal, but, on receiving a strong
+protest from the Pope, he refused to do so on the ground that it would
+expose himself and his subjects to the terrors of ecclesiastical censure.
+He still remained in Tuscany, near Viareggio, till he was informed that a
+band of Leghornese had set out with the intention of capturing his person.
+Then he left for Gaeta on board the English ship <i>Bull Dog.</i> The
+republic had been already proclaimed at Florence, with Montanelli and
+Guerrazzi as its chief administrators. It succeeded in pleasing no one.
+Civil war was more than once at the threshhold of Florence, for the
+peasants rose in armed resistance to the new government. In less than two
+months the restoration of the Grand. Ducal authority was accomplished
+almost of itself. Unfortunately, the Grand Duke who was to come back was
+not the same man as he who went away. The air of Gaeta did its work.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">
+[Pg.137]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3>
+
+<h4>AT BAY</h4>
+
+<h5>1849</h5>
+
+<h5>Novara&mdash;Abdication of Charles Albert&mdash;Brescia
+crushed&mdash;French Intervention&mdash;The Fall of Rome&mdash;The Fall of
+Venice.</h5>
+
+<p><br />
+ In the spring of 1848, a date might be found when every Italian ruler
+except the Duke of Modena wore the appearance of a friend to freedom and
+independence. In the spring of 1849 no Italian prince preserved that
+appearance except the King of Sardinia. Many causes contributed to the
+elimination, but most of all the logic of events. It was a case of the
+survival of the fittest. What seemed a calamity was a step in advance.</p>
+
+<p>Early in March, the Marquis Pallavicini, prisoner of Spielberg, had a
+long interview with Charles Albert. They sat face to face talking over
+Italian matters, and the King said confidently that the army was now
+flourishing; if the die were cast anew, they would win. At parting he
+embraced the Lombard patriot with the words: 'Dear Pallavicini, how glad I
+am to have seen you again! You and I had always the same thought; the
+independence of Italy was the first dream of my youth; it is my dream
+still, it will be till I die.'</p>
+
+<p>Some characters grow small in misfortune, others grow great. The
+terrible scene at the Palazzo Greppi, the charge of treason, the <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg.138]</a></span>
+shouts of 'death,' had left only one trace on Charles Albert's mind: the
+burning desire to deliver his accusers.</p>
+
+<p>The armistice was denounced on the 12th of March, a truce of eight days
+being allowed before the recommencement of hostilities. There is such a
+thing in politics as necessary madness, and it may be doubted if the
+Sardinian war of 1849 was not this thing. The programme of <i>fare da
+s&egrave;</i> had now to be carried out in stern earnest. Sardinia stood
+alone, neither from south of the Apennines nor from north of the Alps
+could help be hoped for. France, which was meditating quite another sort
+of intervention, refused the loan even of a general. 'They were not going
+to offend Austria to please Piedmont,' said the French Cabinet. Worse than
+this, the army was not in the flourishing state of which the King had
+spoken. The miseries of the retreat, but infinitely more, the incidents of
+Milan, though wiped out by the King from his own memory, were vividly
+recollected by all ranks. Affection was not the feeling with which the
+Piedmontese soldiers regarded the 'fratelli Lombardi.' Did anyone beside
+the King believe that this army, which had lost faith in its cause, in its
+leaders and in itself, was going to beat Radetsky? The old Field-Marshal
+might well show the wildest joy when the denunciation of the armistice was
+communicated to him. And yet the higher expediency demanded that the
+sacrifice of Piedmont and of her King for Italy should be consummated.</p>
+
+<p>Rattazzi announced the coming campaign to the Chambers on the 14th of
+March; the news was well received; there was a general feeling that,
+whatever happened, the present situation could not be prolonged. With
+regard to the numbers they could put in the field, Austria and <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg.139]</a></span>
+Sardinia were evenly balanced, each having about 80,000 disposable men.
+The request for a French marshal having been refused, the chief command
+was given to Chrzanowski, a Pole, who did not know Italian, had not
+studied the theatre of the war, and was so little favoured by nature that,
+to the impressionable Italians, his appearance seemed ludicrous. This
+deplorable appointment was made to satisfy the outcry against Piedmontese
+generalship; as if it was not enough, the other Polish general, Ramorino,
+accused of treachery by the revolutionists in 1832, but now praised to the
+skies by the democratic party, was placed in command of the fifth or
+Lombard division.</p>
+
+<p>Though Radetsky openly gave the word 'To Turin!' Chrzanowski seems to
+have failed to realise that the Austrians intended to invade Piedmont. He
+ordered Ramorino, however, with his 8000 Lombards, to occupy the fork
+formed by the Po and the Ticino, so as to defend the bridge at Pavia, if,
+by chance, any fraction of the enemy tried to cross it. What Ramorino did
+was to place his division on the right bank of the Po, and to destroy the
+bridge of boats at Mezzana Corte <i>between</i> himself and the enemy. The
+Austrians crossed the Ticino in the night of the 20th of April, not with a
+fraction, but with a complete army. Ramorino was deprived of his command,
+and was afterwards tried by court-martial and shot. Whether his treason
+was intentional or involuntary, it is certain that, had he stemmed the
+Austrian advance even for half a day, the future disasters, if not
+averted, would not have come so rapidly, because the Piedmontese would
+have been forewarned. On the evening of the 21st, General D'Aspre, with
+15,000 men, took a portion of the Sardinian army unawares near Mortara,
+and, owing to the scattered distribution of the Piedmontese, who would
+have <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">
+[Pg.140]</a></span> outnumbered him had they been concentrated, he
+succeeded in forcing his way into Mortara by nightfall. The moral effect
+of this first reverse was bad, but Chrzanowski rashly decided staking the
+whole fate of the campaign in a field-day, for which purpose he gathered
+what troops he could collect at La Biccocca, a hill capped with a village
+about a mile and a half from Novara. Not more than 50,000 men were
+collected; some had already deserted, and 20,000 were doing nothing on the
+other side of the Po.</p>
+
+<p>Towards eleven o'clock D'Aspre arrived, and lost no time in beginning
+the attack. He sent post-haste to Radetsky, Appel and Thurn to bring all
+the reinforcements in their power as fast as possible. D'Aspre's daring
+was rewarded by his carrying La Biccocca at about mid-day, but the Duke of
+Genoa retook the position with the aid of the valorous 'Piemonte' brigade,
+and by two p.m. D'Aspre's brave soldiers were so thoroughly beaten, that
+nothing could have saved his division from destruction, as he afterwards
+admitted, had Chrzanowski joined in the pursuit instead of staying behind
+with more than half the army, in accordance with a preconceived plan of
+remaining on the defensive.</p>
+
+<p>At two o'clock on the 23rd of March, the news started on the wings of
+the wind, and, as great news will do, swiftly reached every part of the
+waiting country, that the Sardinians were getting the best of it, that the
+cause was saved. Men who are not very old remember this as the first
+strong sensation of their lives&mdash;this, and its sequel.</p>
+
+<p>Appel and Thurn, and Wratislaw and the old Field-Marshal were on the
+march, and by four o'clock they were pouring their fresh troops upon the
+Piedmontese, who had not known how to profit by their success. <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg.141]</a></span>
+Heroism such as few battlefields have seen, disorder such as has rarely
+disgraced a beaten army, were displayed side by side in Charles Albert's
+ranks. At eight in the evening, the whole Sardinian army retired into
+Novara; the Austrians bivouacked on La Biccocca. The Sardinians had lost
+4000 in dead and wounded; the losses of the victors were a thousand
+less.</p>
+
+<p>All the day long the King courted death, pressing forward where the
+balls fell like hail and the confusion was at its height, with the answer
+of despair to the devoted officers who sought to hold him back: 'Let me
+die, this is my last day.' But death shuns the seeker. Men fell close
+beside him, but no charitable ball struck his breast. In the evening he
+said to his generals: 'We have still 40,000 men, cannot we fall back on
+Alessandria and still make an honourable stand?' They told him that it
+could not be done. Radetsky was asked on what terms he would grant an
+armistice; he replied: 'The occupation of a large district in Piedmont,
+and the heir to the throne as a hostage.' Then Charles Albert knew what he
+must do. 'For eighteen years,' he said, 'I have made every effort for the
+good of the people; I grieve to see that my hopes have failed, not so much
+for myself as for the country. I have not found death on the field of
+battle as I ardently desired; perhaps my person is the only obstacle to
+obtaining juster terms. I abdicate the crown in favour of my son, Victor
+Emmanuel.' And turning to the Duke of Savoy he said: 'There is your
+King.'</p>
+
+<p>In the night he left Novara alone for Nice. As he passed through the
+Austrian lines, the sentinels were nearly firing upon his carriage;
+General Thurn, before whom he was brought, asked for some proof that <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg.142]</a></span> he
+was in fact the 'Count de Barge' in whose name his passport was made out.
+A Bersagliere prisoner who recognised the King, at a sign from him gave
+the required testimony, and he was allowed to pass. At Nice he was
+received by the governor, a son of Santorre di Santa Rosa, and to him he
+addressed the last words spoken by him on Italian ground: 'In whatever
+time, in whatever place, a regular government raises the flag of war with
+Austria, the Austrians will find me among their enemies as a simple
+soldier.' Then he continued his journey to Oporto.</p>
+
+<p>The principal side-issue of the campaign of 1849 was the revolution at
+Brescia. Had the original plan been carried out, which was to throw the
+Sardinian army into Lombardy (and it is doubtful whether, even after
+Radetsky's invasion of Piedmont, it would not have been better to adhere
+to it), a corresponding movement on the part of the inhabitants would have
+become of the greatest importance. To Brescia, which was the one Lombard
+town where the Piedmontese had been received in 1848 with real effusion,
+the Sardinian Minister of War despatched Count Giuseppe Martinengo
+Cesaresco with arms and ammunition, and orders to reassume the colonelcy
+of the National Guard which he held in the previous year, and to take the
+general control of the movement as far as Brescia was concerned.
+Martinengo succeeded in transporting the arms through the enemy's country
+from the Piedmontese frontier to Iseo, and thence to his native city. When
+he reached Brescia, he found that the Austrians had evacuated the town,
+though they still occupied the castle which frowns down upon it. This was
+the 23rd of March: Novara was fought and lost, Piedmont was powerless to
+come to the <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">
+[Pg.143]</a></span> assistance of the people she had commanded to rise.
+What was to be done? Plainly common sense suggested an honourable
+compromise with the Austrian commandant, by which he should be allowed to
+reoccupy the city on condition that no hair of the citizens' heads was
+touched. This is what Bergamo and the other towns did, nor are they to be
+blamed.</p>
+
+<p>Not so Brescia. Here, where love of liberty was an hereditary instinct
+from the long connection of Brescia with free Venice, where hatred of the
+stranger, planted by the ruthless soldiery of Gaston de Foix, had but gone
+on maturing through three centuries, where the historical title of
+'Valiant,' coming down from a remote antiquity, was still no fable; here,
+with a single mind, the inhabitants resolved upon as desperate a
+resistance as was ever offered by one little town to a great army.</p>
+
+<p>The Austrian bombardment was begun by the Irish General, Nugent-Lavall,
+who, dying in the midst of it, left all his fortune to the heroic city
+which he was attacking. The Austrians, flushed with their victory over
+Charles Albert's army of 80,000, were seized with rage at the sight of
+their power defied by a town of less than half that number of souls. But
+with that rage was mingled, even in the mind of Haynau, an admiration not
+to be repressed.</p>
+
+<p>Haynau who was sent to replace Nugent, was already known at Brescia,
+where he had been appointed military governor after the resumption of
+Austrian authority in 1848. In order to punish the 'persistent opposition
+manifested to the legitimate Imperial and Royal Government,' and as an
+example to the other towns, he had imposed on the Brescian householders
+and the landed proprietors of the province a <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg.144]</a></span> fine of half a million
+francs.</p>
+
+<p>He now returned, and what he did may be best read in his own report on
+the operations. 'It was then,' he wrote, 'that began the most murderous
+fight; a fight prolonged by the insurgents from barricade to barricade,
+from house to house, with extraordinary obstinacy. I should never have
+believed that so bad a cause could have been sustained with such
+perseverance. In spite of this desperate defence, and although the assault
+could only be effected in part, and with the help of cannons of heavy
+calibre, our brave troops with heroic courage, but at the cost of great
+losses, occupied a first line of houses; but as all my columns could not
+penetrate into the town at the same time, I ordered the suspension of the
+attack at nightfall, limiting myself to holding the ground conquered. In
+spite of that, the combat continued late into the night. On the 1st of
+April, in the earliest morning light, the tocsin was heard ringing with
+more fury than ever, and the insurgents reopened fire with an entirely new
+desperation. Considering the gravity of our losses, as well as the
+obstinacy and fury of the enemy, it was necessary to adopt a most rigorous
+measure. I ordered that no prisoners should be taken, but that every
+person seized with arms in his hand should be immediately put to death,
+and that the houses from which shots came should be burnt. It is thus that
+conflagrations, partly caused by the troops, partly by the bombardment,
+broke out in various parts of the town.'</p>
+
+<p>During the ten days' struggle, the citizens did not flinch for a
+moment. Count Martinengo was the guiding spirit of the defence, and
+scarcely left the most exposed of the barricades night or day. From the
+nobles to the poorest of the people, all did their duty. A youth named
+Tito Speri led and animated the populace. The horrors of the <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg.145]</a></span> repression
+make one think of the fall of Khartoum. Not even in Hungary, where he went
+from Brescia to continue his 'system,' did Haynau so blacken his own and
+his country's name as here. In a boys' school kept by a certain Guidi, the
+master's wife, his mother and ten of his pupils were slaughtered. A little
+hunchback tailor was carried to the barracks to be slowly burnt alive. But
+stray details do not give the faintest idea of the whole. And for all
+this, Haynau was in a far higher degree responsible than the actual
+executants of the vengeance to which he hounded on his ignorant soldiers,
+maddened with the lust of blood.</p>
+
+<p>Such was General Haynau, 'whose brave devotion to his master's service
+was the veteran's sole crime,' said the <i>Quarterly Review</i> (June
+1853), but who was judged otherwise by some in England. Wherefore was he
+soundly beaten by the brewers in the employment of Messrs Barclay &amp;
+Perkins; and the nice words of the <i>Quarterly</i> could not undo that
+beating, redress for which Lord Palmerston blandly advised the complainant
+to seek 'before the common tribunals.' He thought it best to neglect the
+advice, and to leave the country.</p>
+
+<p>Among the curious taxes levied at Brescia during the six months after
+its fall was one of &pound;500 for 'the expenses of the hangman.' Count
+Martinengo escaped after the Austrians were in possession of the town
+through the courageous assistance given to him by a few young men of the
+working class. Camozzi's band of Bergamasques, which started for the
+relief of the sister city, was driven back with loss.</p>
+
+<p>The end was come, but woe to the victors.</p>
+
+<p>Following the Italian flag to where it still floated, we pass from
+Brescia in the dust to Rome still inviolate, though soon to be assailed by
+the bearers of another tricolor. A few days after Novara, <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg.146]</a></span> the
+Triumvirate issued a proclamation, in which they said: 'The Republic in
+Rome has to prove to Italy and to Europe that our work is eminently
+religious, a work of education and of morality; that the accusations of
+intolerance, anarchy and violent upturning of things are false; that,
+thanks to the republican principle, united as one family of good men under
+the eye of God, and following the impulse of those who are first among us
+in genius and virtue, we march to the attainment of true order, law and
+power united.' Englishmen who were in Rome at the time attest how well the
+pledge was kept. Peace and true freedom prevailed under the republican
+banner as no man remembered them to have prevailed before in Rome. The
+bitter provocation of the quadruple attack was not followed by revengeful
+acts on the parts of the government against those who were politically and
+religiously associated with him at whose bidding that attack was made.
+Nothing like a national party was terrorised or kept under by fear of
+violence. 'That at such a time,' writes Henry Lushington, who was not
+favourable to Mazzini, 'not one lawless or evil deed was done would have
+been rather a miracle than a merit, but on much concurrent testimony it is
+clear that the efforts of the government to preserve order were incessant,
+and to a remarkable degree successful.' He adds that the streets were far
+safer for ordinary passengers under the Triumvirs than under the
+Papacy.</p>
+
+<p>Of great help in quieting the passions of the lower orders was the
+people's tribune, Ciceruacchio, who had not put on black cloth clothes, or
+asked for the ministry of war, or of fine arts, according to the usual
+wont of successful tribunes. Ciceruacchio had the sense of humour of the
+genuine Roman <i>popolano</i>, and it never came into his <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg.147]</a></span> head to
+make himself ridiculous. His influence had been first acquired by works of
+charity in the Tiber floods. Being a strong swimmer, he ventured where no
+one else would go, and had saved many lives. At first a wine-carrier, he
+made money by letting out conveyances and dealing in forage, but he gave
+away most of what he made. He opposed the whole force of his popularity to
+a war of classes. 'Viva chi c'ia e chi non c'ia quattrini!' <a name=
+"FNanchor4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4"><sup>[4]</sup></a> was his favourite
+cry. Once when a young poet read him a sonnet in his honour he stopped him
+at the line 'Thou art greater than all patricians,' saying that he would
+not have that published: 'I respect the nobility, and never dream of being
+higher than they. I am a poor man of the people, and such I will always
+remain.'</p>
+
+<p>When the siege came, Ciceruacchio was invaluable in providing the
+troops with forage, horses, and even victuals, which he procured by making
+private sorties on his own account during the night; his intimate
+knowledge of every path enabling him to go unobserved. He planned the
+earthworks, at which he laboured with his hands, and when fighting was
+going on, he shouldered a musket and ran with his two sons, one of them a
+mere child, to wherever the noise of guns directed him. No picture of Rome
+in 1849 would be complete without the burly figure and jocund face of
+Angelo Brunetti.</p>
+
+<p>The republican government found Rome with a mere shadow of an army; the
+efforts to create one had been too spasmodic to do anything but make
+confusion worse confounded by changes and experiments soon abandoned.
+Perseverance and intelligence now had a different result, and the little
+army, called into existence by the republic, proved admirable in
+discipline, various and fantastic as were its components.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">
+[Pg.148]</a></span> Towards the end of April, Garibaldi, who had been
+stationed at Rieti, was ordered to bring his legion to Rome. Those who
+witnessed the arrival saw one of the strangest scenes ever beheld in the
+Eternal City. The men wore pointed hats with black, waving plumes; thin
+and gaunt, their faces dark as copper, with naked legs, long beards and
+wild dark hair hanging down their backs, they looked like a company of
+Salvator Rosa's brigands. Beautiful as a statue amidst his extraordinary
+host rode the Chief, mounted on a white horse, which he sat like a
+centaur. 'He was quite a show, everyone stopping to look at him,' adds the
+sculptor Gibson, to whom these details are owed. 'Probably,' writes
+another Englishman, 'a human face so like a lion, and still retaining the
+humanity nearest the image of its Maker, was never seen.' Garibaldi wore
+the historic red shirt, and a small cap ornamented with gold.</p>
+
+<p>The origin of the red shirt might have remained in poetic uncertainty
+had it not been mentioned a few years ago in a volume of reminiscences
+published by an English naval officer. The men employed in the
+Salad&eacute;ros or great slaughtering and salting establishments for
+cattle in the Argentine provinces wore scarlet woollen shirts; owing to
+the blockade of Buenos Ayres, a merchant at Monte Video had a quantity of
+these on his hands, and as economy was a great object to the government,
+they bought the lot cheap for their Italian legion, little thinking that
+they were making the 'Camicia Rossa' immortal in song and story.</p>
+
+<p>The coming to Rome of the 1200 legionaries aroused private fears in the
+hearts of the more timid inhabitants, but Garibaldi knew how to keep his
+wild followers in hand, and gallant was the service they rendered to Roman
+liberty.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">
+[Pg.149]</a></span> That liberty was now on the eve of its peril. The
+preliminaries of the French intervention in Rome are tolerably well known;
+here it suffices to say that every new contribution to a more precise
+knowledge of the facts only serves to confirm the charge of dissimulation,
+or, to use a plainer and far better adapted word, of dishonesty, brought
+against the French government for their part in the matter. White, indeed,
+do Austria, Spain and Naples appear&mdash;the avowed upholders of priestly
+despotism&mdash;beside the ruler of republican France and his ministers,
+whose plan it was not to fight the Roman republic: fighting was far from
+their counsels, but to betray it. It is proved that the restoration of the
+Temporal Power was the aim of the expedition from the first; it is equally
+proved that the French sought to get inside Rome by distinct disclaimers
+of any such intention. 'We do not go to Italy,' they said, 'to impose with
+our arms a system of government, but to assure the rights of liberty, and
+to preserve a legitimate interference in the affairs of the peninsula.'
+They adopted a curious method of assuring the rights of liberty.</p>
+
+<p>The Pope would not have anything to do with the affair. 'If you say
+openly that you are going to give me back my Temporal Power, well and
+good; if not, I prefer the aid of Austria.' So he replied to the
+flattering tales whispered in his ear, while tales no less flattering were
+being whispered in the ear of Mazzini. He declined to give the French any
+guarantees as to his future mode of governing; it cannot be said,
+therefore, that they were under the delusion that they were restoring a
+constitutional sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>Efforts have been made to cast the responsibility of the Roman
+intervention entirely on Louis Napoleon. Even Mazzini favoured that view,
+but it is impossible to separate the President of the Republic <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg.150]</a></span> from
+the 325 deputies who voted the supplies for the expedition on the 2nd of
+April. Does anyone pretend that they were hoodwinked any more than Ledru
+Rollin was hoodwinked, or the minority, which, roused by his vigorous
+speech, voted against the grant? Louis Napoleon was far less Papal in his
+sentiments than were most of the assenting deputies; his own opinion was
+more truly represented by the letter which, as a private citizen, he wrote
+to the 'Constitutionnel' in December 1848 than by his subsequent course as
+President. In this letter he declared that a military demonstration would
+be perilous even to the interests which it was intended to safeguard. He
+had but one fixed purpose: to please France, so as to get himself made
+Emperor. France must be held answerable for the means taken to please
+her.</p>
+
+<p>General Oudinot landed at Civitavecchia on the 25th of April, his
+friendly assurances having persuaded the local authorities to oppose no
+resistance, an unfortunate error, but the last. The correct judgment
+formed by the Roman Government of the designs of the invaders was
+considerably assisted by a French officer, Colonel Leblanc, who was sent
+to Rome by Oudinot to come to an agreement with Mazzini for the amicable
+reception of the French, and who, losing his temper, revealed more than he
+was meant to reveal. His last words, 'Les Italiens ne se battent pas,'
+unquestionably expressed the belief of the whole French force, from the
+general-in-chief to the youngest drummer. They were soon going to have a
+chance of testing its accuracy.</p>
+
+<p>The Roman Assembly passed a vote that 'force should be repelled by
+force.' Well-warned, therefore, but with the proverbial <i>coeur
+l&eacute;ger</i>, Oudinot advanced on Rome with 8000 men early on the 30th
+of April. At <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">
+[Pg.151]</a></span> eleven o'clock the two columns came in sight of St
+Peter's, and soon after, the first which moved towards Porta Angelica was
+attacked by Colonel Masi. Garibaldi attacked the second column a mile out
+of Porta San Pancrazio. At the first moment the superior numbers of the
+French told, and the Italians fell back on Villa Pamphilli, but Colonel
+Galetti arrived with reinforcements, and before long Garibaldi drove the
+French from the Pamphilli Gardens and had them in full retreat along the
+Civitavecchia road. Oudinot was beaten, Rome was victorious. 'This does
+not surprise us Romans; but it will astonish Paris!' ran a manifesto of
+the hour; the words are a little childish, but men are apt to be childish
+when they are deeply moved. And as to the astonishment of Paris, all the
+words in the world would fail to paint its proportions. Paris was indeed
+astonished.</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi had not the chief command of the Roman army, or he would have
+done more; there was nothing to prevent the Italians from driving Oudinot
+into the sea. The Triumvirate, when appealed to directly by Garibaldi,
+refused their sanction, either fearing to leave the capital exposed to the
+Neapolitans who were advancing, or (and this seems to have been the real
+reason) still hoping that France would repudiate Oudinot and come to
+terms. Garibaldi was right on this occasion, and Mazzini was wrong. When
+you are at war, nothing is so ruinous as to be afraid of damaging the
+enemy.</p>
+
+<p>The French ministers, bombarded with reproaches by friends and foes,
+and most uneasy lest their troops in Italy should be destroyed before they
+could send reinforcements, did disown Oudinot's march on Rome, and
+Ferdinand de Lesseps was despatched nominally 'to arrange matters in a
+pacific sense,' but actually to gain time.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">
+[Pg.152]</a></span> In a sitting in the French Assembly, a member of the
+opposition said to the President of the Council: 'You are going to
+reinstate the Pope!' 'No, no,' ejaculated Odilon Barrot. 'You are going to
+do the same as Austria,' cried Lamorici&egrave;re. 'We should be culpable
+if we did,' was the answer. Lesseps' instructions, very vague, for the
+rest, were given to him in this spirit. That Lesseps acted in good faith
+has been generally admitted, and was always believed by Mazzini. It was to
+the interest of the French Government to choose a tool who did not see how
+far he was a tool. But if Lesseps had no suspicions, if he had not strong
+suspicions of the real object of his employers, then he was already at
+this date a man singularly easy to deceive.</p>
+
+<p>The French envoy was commissioned to treat, not with the Triumvirate,
+but with the Roman Assembly: a piece of insolence which the former would
+have done well to reply to by sending him about his business. Lesseps,
+however, thought that he would gain by speaking in person to Mazzini, and
+in order that the interview should remain a secret, he decided to go to
+him alone in the dead of the night and unannounced. Having made the
+needful inquiries, he proceeded to the palace of the Consulta, the doors
+of which seem to have been left open all night; there were guards, but
+they were asleep, and the French diplomatist traversed the long suite of
+splendid apartments, opening one into the other without corridors. At last
+he reached the simply-furnished room where, upon an iron bedstead, Mazzini
+slept. Lesseps watched him sleeping, fascinated by the beauty of his
+magnificent head as it lay in repose. He still looked very young, though
+there was hardly a state in Europe where he was not proscribed. When
+Lesseps had gazed his full, he called 'Mazzini, Mazzini!' The Triumvir
+awoke, sat up and <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">
+[Pg.153]</a></span> asked if he had come to assassinate him? Lesseps told
+him his name, and a long conversation followed. One thing, at least, that
+Lesseps said in this interview was strictly true, namely, that Mazzini
+must not count on the French republican soldiers objecting to fire on
+republicans: 'The French soldier would burn down the cottage of his mother
+if ordered by his superiors to do so.' The discipline of a great army is
+proof against politics.</p>
+
+<p>Lesseps was himself in much fear of being assassinated. He believed
+that his footsteps were dogged by three individuals, one of whom was an
+ex-French convict. He complained to Mazzini, who said that he could do
+nothing, which probably shows that he gave no credence to the story. Then
+Lesseps had recourse to Ciceruacchio, 'a man of the people who had great
+influence on the population, and who had organised the revolution.' The
+tribune seems to have quieted his fears and guaranteed his safety.</p>
+
+<p>The French envoy could not help being struck by the tender care taken
+of his wounded fellow-countrymen by the Princess Belgiojoso and other
+noble ladies who attended the hospitals. Of prisoners who were not wounded
+there were none, as they had been sent back scot-free to their general a
+few days after the 30th of April. He was struck also by the firm resolve
+of all classes not to restore the Pope. Some liked the existing
+government, some did not, but all prayed heaven to be henceforth delivered
+from the rule of an infallible sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever was the measure of confidence which Mazzini felt in Lesseps,
+he was firm as iron on the main point&mdash;the non-admittance of the
+'friendly' French troops into Rome. Lesseps dragged on the negotiations
+till his government had finished the preparations for <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg.154]</a></span> sending to
+Rome a force which should not be much less than twice in number the whole
+military resources of the republic. Then they recalled him, and, in order
+not to be bound by anything that he might have said, they set about the
+rumour that he was mad. Indignant at such treatment, Lesseps left the
+diplomatic service, and turned his attention to engineering. This was the
+origin of the Suez Canal.</p>
+
+<p>While all these things were going on, the Austrians moved from Ferrara
+and Modena towards Bologna, the Spaniards landed at Fiumicino, and 16,000
+Neapolitans, commanded by Ferdinand II., encamped near Albano. Garibaldi
+was attacked on the 9th of May by the Neapolitan vanguard, which he
+obliged to fall back. On the 18th, he completely defeated King Ferdinand's
+army near Velletri, and the King ordered a general retreat into his own
+dominions, which was accomplished in haste and confusion.</p>
+
+<p>By the end of May, Oudinot's forces were increased to over 35,000 men.
+The defenders of Rome, under the chief command of General Rosselli, were
+about 20,000, of whom half were volunteers. Colonel Marnara's Lombard
+Legion of Bersaglieri was, in smartness of appearance and perfect
+discipline, equal to any regular troops; in its ranks were the sons of the
+best and richest Lombard families, such as Dandolo, Morosini and many
+others. Medici's legion was also composed of educated and well-to-do young
+men. The Bolognese, under the Marquis Melara, had the impetuous daring of
+their race, and Count Angelo Masina did wonders with his forty lancers.
+Wherever Garibaldi was&mdash;it was always in the hottest
+places&mdash;there were to be seen, at no great distance, the patriot
+monk, Ugo Bassi, riding upon a fiery horse, and the young poet of Free
+Italy, Goffredo Mameli, with his slight, boyish <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg.155]</a></span> figure, and his fair
+hair floating in the breeze. Nor must we omit from the list of Garibaldi's
+bodyguard Forbes, the Englishman, and Anghiar, the devoted negro, who
+followed his master like a dog.</p>
+
+<p>Oudinot formally disavowed all Lesseps' proceedings from first to last,
+and announced, on the 1st of June, that he had orders to take Rome as soon
+as possible. Out of regard, however, for the French residents, he would
+not begin the attack 'till the morning of Monday the 4th.' Now, though no
+one knew it but the French general, that Monday morning began with
+Sunday's dawn, when the French attacked Melara's sleeping battalion at the
+Roman outposts. It was easy for the French to drive back these 300 men,
+and to occupy the Villa Corsini ('Villa,' in the Roman sense, means a
+garden) and the position dominating Porta San Pancrazio; but Galetti came
+up and retook them all, to lose them again by nine o'clock. Then
+Garibaldi, who was ill, hurried to the scene from his sick-bed, and thrice
+that day he retook and thrice he lost the contested positions&mdash;a
+brief statement, which represents prodigies of valour, and the oblation of
+as noble blood as ever watered the earth of Rome. Melara, Masina, Daverio,
+Dandolo, Mameli: every schoolboy would know these names if they belonged
+to ancient, not to modern, history. Bright careers, full of promise, cut
+short; lives renounced, not only voluntarily, but with joy, and to what
+end? Not for interest or fame&mdash;not even in the hope of winning; but
+that, erect and crowned with the roses of martyrdom, Rome might send her
+dying salutation to the world.</p>
+
+<p>At sunset the French had established their possession of all the points
+outside the Gate of San Pancrazio, except the Vascello, a villa which had
+been seized from their very teeth by Medici, who held it against all
+comers. Monte Mario was also in their hands.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">
+[Pg.156]</a></span> Mazzini, whose judgment was obscured by his
+attribution of the Italian policy of France to Louis Napoleon alone, hoped
+for a revolution in Paris, but Ledru Rollin's attempt at agitation
+completely failed, and the country applauded its government now that the
+mask was thrown away. The reasons for revolutions in Paris have always
+been the same; they have to do with something else than the garrotting of
+sister-republics.</p>
+
+<p>Oudinot tightened his cordon; on the 12th of June he invited the city
+to capitulate. The answer was a refusal; so, with the aid of his excellent
+artillery, he crept on, his passage contested at each step, but not
+arrested, till, on the 27th, the Villa Savorelli, Garibaldi's
+headquarters, fell into the hands of the enemy, and, on the night of the
+29th, the French were within the city walls. St Peter's day is the great
+feast of Rome, and this time, as usual, the cupola of St Peter's was
+illuminated, the Italian flag flying from the highest point. The
+thunderstorm, which proverbially accompanies the feast, raged during the
+night; the French shells flew in all directions; the fight raged fiercer
+than the storm; Medici held out among the crumbling walls of the Vascello,
+which had been bombarded for a week; the heroic Manara fell fighting at
+Villa Spada; Garibaldi, descending into the <i>m&ecirc;l&eacute;e</i>,
+dealt blows right and left: he seemed possessed by some supernatural
+power. Those around him say that it is impossible that he would have much
+longer escaped death, but suddenly a message came summoning him to the
+Assembly&mdash;it saved his life. When he appeared at the door of the
+Chamber, the deputies rose and burst into wild applause. He seemed
+puzzled, but, looking down upon himself, he read the explanation; he was
+covered with blood, his clothes were honeycombed by balls and <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg.157]</a></span> bayonet
+thrusts, his sabre was so bent with striking that it would not go more
+than half into its sheath.</p>
+
+<p>What the Assembly wanted to know was whether the defence could be
+prolonged; Garibaldi had only to say that it could not. They voted,
+therefore, the following decree: 'In the name of God and of the People:
+the Roman Constituent Assembly discontinues a defence which has become
+impossible, and remains at its post.' At its post it remained till the
+French soldiers invaded the Capitol, where it sat, when, yielding to brute
+force, the deputies dispersed.</p>
+
+<p>Mazzini, who would have resisted still, when all resistance was
+impossible, wandered openly about the city like a man in a dream. He felt
+as though he were looking on at the funeral of his best-beloved. How it
+was that he was not killed or arrested is a mystery. At the end of a week
+his friends induced him to leave Rome with an English passport.</p>
+
+<p>On the 2nd of July, before the French made their official entry,
+Garibaldi called his soldiers together in the square of the Vatican, and
+told them that he was going to seek some field where the foreigner could
+still be fought. Who would might follow him; 'I cannot offer you honours
+or pay; I offer you hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles, death.'</p>
+
+<p>Three thousand followed him. Beside her husband rode Anita; not even
+for the sake of the child soon to come would she stay behind in safety.
+Ugo Bassi was there; Anghiar was dead, Mameli was dying in a hospital, but
+there was 'the partisan or brigand Forbes,' as he was described in a
+letter of the Austrian general D'Aspre to the French general Oudinot, with
+a good handful of Garibaldi's best surviving officers. Ciceruacchio came
+with his two sons, and offered himself as <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg.158]</a></span> guide. No one knew what the
+plan was, or if there was one. Like knights of old in search of
+adventures, they set out in search of their country's foes. It was the
+last desperate venture of men who did not know how to yield.</p>
+
+<p>After wandering hither and thither, and suffering severe hardships, the
+column reached the republic of San Marino. The brave hospitality of that
+Rock of freedom prevented Garibaldi from falling into the clutches of the
+Austrians, who surrounded the republic. He treated with the Regent for the
+immunity of his followers, who had laid down their arms; and, in the
+night, he himself escaped with Anita, Ugo Bassi, Forbes, Ciceruacchio and
+a few others. They hoped to take their swords to Venice, but a storm
+arose, and the boats on which they embarked were driven out of their
+course. Some of them were stranded on the shore which bounds the
+pine-forest of Ravenna, and here, hope being indeed gone, the Chief
+separated from his companions. Of these, Ugo Bassi, and an officer named
+Livraghi, were soon captured by the Austrians, who conveyed them to
+Bologna, where they were shot. Ciceruacchio and his sons were taken in
+another place, and shot as soon as taken. The boat which contained Colonel
+Forbes was caught at sea by an Austrian cruiser: he was kept in Austrian
+prisons for two months, and was constantly reminded that he would be
+either shot or hung; but the English Government succeeded in getting him
+liberated, and he lived to take part in more fortunate fights under
+Garibaldi's standard.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Anita was dying in a peasant's cottage, to which Garibaldi
+carried her when the strong will and dauntless heart could no longer stand
+in place of the strength that was finished. This was the 4th of August.
+Scarcely had she breathed her last breath when Garibaldi, <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg.159]</a></span> broken down
+with grief as he was, had to fly from the spot. The Austrians were hunting
+for him in all directions. All the Roman fugitives were proclaimed
+outlaws, and the population was forbidden to give them even bread or
+water. Nevertheless&mdash;aided in secret by peasants, priests and all
+whose help he was obliged to seek&mdash;Garibaldi made good his flight
+from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean, the whole route being overrun by
+Austrians. When once the western coast was reached, he was able, partly by
+sea and partly by land, to reach the Piedmontese territory, where his life
+was safe. Not even there, however, could he rest; he was told, politely
+but firmly, that his presence was embarrassing, and for the second time he
+left Europe&mdash;first for Tunis and then for the United States.</p>
+
+<p>While the French besieged Rome, the Austrians had not been idle. They
+took Bologna in May, after eight days' resistance; and in June, after
+twenty days' attack by sea and land, Ancona fell into their hands. In
+these towns they pursued means of 'pacification' resembling those employed
+at Brescia. All who possessed what by a fiction could be called arms were
+summarily slaughtered. At Ancona, a woman of bad character hid a rusty
+nail in the bed of her husband, whom she wished to get rid of; she then
+denounced him to the military tribunal, and two hours later an English
+family, whose house was near the barracks, heard the ring of the volley of
+musketry which despatched him. Austria had also occupied the Grand Duchy
+of Tuscany; and when, in July, Leopold II. returned to his state, which
+had restored him by general consent and without any foreign intervention,
+he entered Florence between two files of Austrian soldiery, in violation
+of the article of the Statute to which he had sworn, which stipulated that
+no foreign <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">
+[Pg.160]</a></span> occupation should be invited or tolerated. The Grand
+Duke wrote to the Emperor of Austria, from Gaeta, humbly begging the loan
+of his arms. Francis Joseph replied with supreme contempt, that it would
+have been a better thing if Leopold had never forgotten to whose family he
+belonged, but he granted the prayer. Such was the way in which the House
+of Hapsburg-Lorraine, that had done much in Tuscany to win respect if not
+love, destroyed all its rights to the goodwill of the Tuscan people, and
+removed what might have been a serious obstacle to Italian unity.</p>
+
+<p>Austria, unable alone to cope with Hungary, committed the immeasurable
+blunder of calling in the 200,000 Russians who made conquest certain, but
+the price of whose aid she may still have to pay. Venice, and Venice only,
+continued to defy her power. Since Novara, the first result of which was
+the withdrawal of the Sardinian Commissioners, who had taken over the
+government after the Fusion, Venice had been ruled by Manin on the terms
+which he himself proposed: 'Are you ready,' he asked the Venetian
+Assembly, 'to invest the Government with unlimited powers in order to
+direct the defence and maintain order?' He warned them that he should be
+obliged to impose upon them enormous sacrifices, but they replied by
+voting the order of the day: 'Venice resists the Austrians at all costs;
+to this end the President Manin is invested with plenary powers.' All the
+deputies then raised their right hand, and swore to defend the city to the
+last extremity. They kept their word.</p>
+
+<p>It is hard to say which was the most admirable: Manin's fidelity to his
+trust, or the people's fidelity to him. To keep up the spirits, to
+maintain the decorum of a besieged city even for a few weeks or a few
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg.161]</a></span>
+months, is a task not without difficulty; but when the months run into a
+second year, when the real pinch of privations has been felt by everyone,
+not as a sudden twinge, but as a long-drawn-out pain, when the bare
+necessities of life fail, and a horrible disease, cholera, enters as
+auxiliary under the enemy's black-and-yellow, death-and-pestilence flag;
+then, indeed, the task becomes one which only a born leader of men could
+perform.</p>
+
+<p>The financial administration of the republic was a model of order and
+economy. Generous voluntary assistance was afforded by all classes, from
+the wealthy patrician and the Jewish merchant to the poorest gondolier.
+Mazzini once said bitterly that it was easier to get his countrymen to
+give their blood than their money; here they gave both. The capable manner
+in which Manin conducted the foreign policy of the republic is also a
+point that deserves mention, as it won the esteem even of statesmen of the
+old school, though it was powerless to obtain their help.</p>
+
+<p>The time was gone when France was disposed to do anything for Venice;
+no one except the Archbishop of Paris, who was afterwards to die by the
+hand of an assassin, said a word for her.</p>
+
+<p>In the past year, Lord Palmerston, though he tried to localise the war,
+and to prevent the co-operation of the south, abounded in good advice to
+Austria. He repeated till he was tired of repeating, that she would do
+well to retire from her Italian possessions of her own accord. If the
+French did not come now, he said, they would come some day, and then her
+friends and allies would give her scanty support. As for Lombardy, it was
+notorious that a considerable Austrian party was in favour of giving it
+up, including the Archduke Ranieri, who was strongly attached to Italy,
+which was the land of his birth. As for <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg.162]</a></span> Venice, Austria had against
+her both the principle of nationality, now the rallying cry of Germany,
+and the principle of ancient prescription which could be energetically
+invoked against her by a state to which her title went back no farther
+than the transfer effected by Buonaparte in the treaty of Campo Formio.
+These were his arguments; but he was convinced, by this time, that
+arguments unsupported by big battalions might as well be bestowed on the
+winds as on the Cabinet of Vienna. From the moment that Radetsky recovered
+Lombardy for his master, the Italian policy of the Austrian Government was
+entirely inspired by him, and he was determined that while he lived, what
+Austria had got she should keep. It was thus that, in reply to Manin's
+appeal to Lord Palmerston, he only received the cold comfort of the
+recommendation that Venice should come to terms with her enemy.</p>
+
+<p>The Venetian army of 20,000 men was reduced by casualties and sickness
+to 18,000 or less. It always did its duty. The defence of Fort Malghera,
+the great fort which commanded the road to Padua and the bridge of the
+Venice railway, would have done credit to the most experienced troops in
+the world. The garrison numbered 2500; the besiegers, under Haynau,
+30,000. Radetsky, with three archdukes, came to see the siege, but, tired
+with waiting, they went away before it was ended. The bombardment began on
+the 4th of May; in the three days and nights ending with the 25th over
+60,000 projectiles fell on the fort. During the night of the 25th the
+Commandant, Ulloa, by order of Government, quietly evacuated the place,
+and withdrew his troops; only the next morning the Austrians found out
+that Malghera was abandoned, and proceeded to take possession of the heap
+of ruins, which was all <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_163" id=
+"Page_163">[Pg.163]</a></span> that remained.</p>
+
+<p>After the beginning of July, an incessant bombardment was directed
+against the city itself. Women and children lived in the cellars; fever
+stalked through the place, but the war feeling was as strong as
+ever&mdash;nay, stronger. Moreover, the provisions became daily scarcer,
+the day came when hunger was already acutely felt, when the time might be
+reckoned by hours before the famished defenders must let drop their
+weapons, and Venice, her works of art and her population, must fall a prey
+to the savage vengeance of the Austrians, who would enter by force and
+without conditions.</p>
+
+<p>And this is what Manin prevented. The cry was still for resistance; for
+the first time bitter words were spoken against the man who had served his
+country so well. But he, who had never sacrificed one iota to popularity,
+did not swerve. His great influence prevailed. The capitulation was
+arranged on the 22nd, and signed on the 24th of July. Manin had calculated
+correctly; on that day there was literally nothing left to eat in
+Venice.</p>
+
+<p>In the last sad hours that Manin spent in Venice all the love of his
+people, clouded for an instant, burst forth anew. Not, indeed, in shouts
+and acclamations, but in tears and sobs; 'Our poor father, how much he has
+suffered!' they were heard saying. He embarked on a French vessel bound
+for Marseilles, poor, worn out and exiled for ever from the city which he
+had guided for eighteen months; if, indeed, no spark of his spirit
+animated the dust which it was the first care of liberated Venice to
+welcome home. The Austrians broke up his doorstep on which, according to a
+Venetian custom, his name was engraved. Another martyr, Ugo Bassi, had
+kissed the stone, exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">
+[Pg.164]</a></span> 'Next to God and Italy&mdash;before the
+Pope&mdash;Manin!' The people gathered up the broken fragments and kept
+them as relics, even as in their hearts they kept his memory, till the
+arrival of that day of redemption which, in the darkest hour, he
+foretold.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg.165]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_IX"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3>
+
+<h4>'J'ATTENDS MON ASTRE'</h4>
+
+<h5>1849-1850</h5>
+
+<h5>The House of Savoy&mdash;A King who keeps his Word&mdash;Sufferings of
+the Lombards&mdash;Charles Albert's Death.</h5>
+
+<p>Circumstances more gloomy than those under which Victor Emmanuel II.
+ascended the throne of his ancestors it would be hard to imagine.</p>
+
+<p>An army twice beaten, a bankrupt exchequer, a triumphant invader
+waiting to dictate terms; this was but the beginning of the inventory of
+the royal inheritance. The internal condition of the kingdom, even apart
+from the financial ruin which had succeeded to the handsome surplus of two
+years before, was full of embarrassments of the gravest kind. There was a
+party representing the darkest-dyed clericalism and reaction whose
+machinations had not been absent in the disaster of Novara. Who was it
+that disseminated among the troops engaged in the battle broadsides
+printed with the words: 'Soldiers, for whom do you think you are fighting?
+The King is betrayed; at Turin they have proclaimed the republic'? There
+were other broadsides in which Austria was called the supporter of thrones
+and altars. The dreadful indiscipline witnessed towards the end of, and
+after the conflict was due more to the demoralising doctrines that had
+been introduced into the army than to the insubordination of panic. There
+was another party <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">
+[Pg.166]</a></span> strengthened by the recent misfortunes and recruited
+by exiles from all parts of Italy, which was democratic to the verge of
+republicanism in Piedmont and over that verge at Genoa, where a revolution
+broke out before the new King's reign was a week old. Constitutional
+government stood between the fires of these two parties, both fanned by
+Austrian bellows, the first openly, the second in secret.</p>
+
+<p>Victor Emmanuel was not popular. The indifference to danger which he
+had shown conspicuously during the war would have awakened enthusiasm in
+most countries, but in Piedmont it was so thoroughly taken for granted
+that the Princes of the House of Savoy did not know fear, that it was
+looked on as an ordinary fact. The Austrian origin of the Duchess of Savoy
+formed a peg on which to hang unfriendly theories. It is impossible not to
+compassionate the poor young wife who now found herself Queen of a people
+which hated her race, after having lived since her marriage the most
+dreary of lives at the dismallest court in Europe. At first, as a bride,
+she seemed to have a desire to break through the frozen etiquette which
+surrounded her; it is told how she once begged and prayed her husband to
+take her for a walk under the Porticoes of Turin, which she had looked at
+only from the outside. The young couple enjoyed their airing, but when it
+reached Charles Albert's ears, he ordered his son to be immediately placed
+under military arrest. The chilling formalism which invaded even the
+private life of these royal personages, shutting the door to 'good
+comradeship' even between husband and wife, may have had much to do with
+driving Victor Emmanuel from the side of the Princess, whom, nevertheless,
+he loved and venerated, to unworthy pleasures, the habit of indulgence in
+which is far easier to contract than to cure.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image3.jpg" alt="VICTOR IMMANUEL" /><br />
+ <span class="caption">VICTOR IMMANUEL</span></div>
+
+<br />
+ <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">
+[Pg.167]</a></span> The King's address at this time was not conciliatory,
+and, indeed, it never lost a bluntness which later harmonised well enough
+with the reputation he gained for soldierly integrity, but which then
+passed for aristocratic haughtiness. His personal friends were said to
+belong to the aristocratic or even the reactionary party. In the
+perplexities which encompassed him, he could not reckon on the
+encouragement of any consensus of good opinion or confidence. He was
+simply an unknown man, against whom there was a good deal of
+prejudice.<br />
+<br />
+<p>Radetsky did not refuse to treat with Charles Albert, as has been
+sometimes said, but the intolerably onerous terms first proposed by him
+showed that he wished to force the abdication which Charles Albert had
+always contemplated in the event of new reverses of fortune. Radetsky was
+favourably disposed to the young Duke of Savoy, as far as his personal
+feeling was concerned, a fact which was made out in certain quarters to be
+almost a crime to be marked to the account of Victor Emmanuel. The
+Field-Marshal did not forget that he was the son-in-law of the Austrian
+Archduke Ranieri; it is probable, if not proved, that he expected to find
+him pliable; but Radetsky, besides being a politician of the purest
+blood-and-iron type, was an old soldier with not a bad heart, and some of
+his sympathy is to be ascribed to a veteran's natural admiration for a
+daring young officer.</p>
+
+<p>On the 24th of March, Victor Emmanuel, with the manliness that was born
+with him, decided to go and treat himself for the conditions of the
+armistice. It was the first act of his reign, and it was an act of
+abnegation; but of how much less humiliation than that performed by his
+father twenty-eight years before, when almost on the same day, by <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg.168]</a></span> order
+of King Charles Felix, the Prince of Carignano betook himself to the
+Austrian camp at Novara, to be greeted with the derisive shout of: 'Behold
+the King of Italy!' Little did Radetsky think that the words, addressed
+then in scorn to the father, might to-day have been addressed in truthful
+anticipation to the son.</p>
+
+<p>The Field-Marshal took good care, however, that nothing but respect
+should be paid to his visitor, whom he received half-way, surrounded by
+his superb staff, all mounted on fine horses and clad in splendid
+accoutrements. As soon as the King saw him coming, he sprang from his
+saddle, and Radetsky would have done the same had not he required, owing
+to his great age, the aid of two officers to help him to the ground. After
+he had laboriously dismounted, he made a military salute, and then
+embraced Victor Emmanuel with the greatest cordiality. The King was
+accompanied by very few officers, but the presence of one of these was
+significant, namely, of the Lombard Count Vimercati, whom he particularly
+pointed out to Radetsky.</p>
+
+<p>While observing the most courteous forms, the Field-Marshal was not
+long in coming to the point. The negotiations would be greatly
+facilitated, nay, more, instead of beginning his reign with a large slice
+of territory occupied by a foreign enemy for an indefinite period, the
+King might open it with an actual enlargement of his frontier, if he would
+only give the easy assurance of ruling on the good old system, and of
+re-hoisting the blue banner of Piedmont instead of the revolutionary
+tricolor. The moment was opportune; Victor Emmanuel had not yet sworn to
+maintain the Constitution. But he replied, without hesitation, that though
+he was ready, if needs be, to accept the full penalties of defeat, he was
+determined to observe the <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_169" id=
+"Page_169">[Pg.169]</a></span> engagements entered into by his father
+towards the people over whom he was called to reign.</p>
+
+<p>One person had already received from his lips the same declaration,
+with another of wider meaning. During the previous night, speaking to the
+Lombard officer above mentioned, the King said: 'I shall preserve intact
+the institutions given by my father; I shall uphold the tricolor flag,
+symbol of Italian nationality, which is vanquished to-day, but which one
+day will triumph. This triumph will be, henceforth, the aim of all my
+efforts.' In 1874, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Novara, Count
+Vimercati wrote to the King of Italy from Paris to remind him of the words
+he had then spoken.</p>
+
+<p>When the King started for his capital, Radetsky offered to draw up his
+troops as a guard of honour over the whole extent of occupied territory
+between Novara and Turin. The offer was declined, and Victor Emmanuel took
+a circuitous route to avoid observation. His journey was marked throughout
+by a complete absence of state. Before he arrived, a trusty hand consigned
+to him a note written in haste and in much anguish by the Queen, in which
+she warned him to enter by night, as he was likely to have a very bad
+reception. On the 27th of March he reviewed the National Guard in the
+Piazza Castello on the occasion of its taking the oath of allegiance. The
+ceremony was attended by Queen Maria Adelaide in a carriage with her two
+little boys, the Princes Umberto and Amedeo. There was no hostile
+demonstration, but there was a most general and icy coldness.</p>
+
+<p>That evening, the terms of the armistice were communicated to the
+Chamber. As was natural, they evoked the wildest indignation, a part of
+which fell undeservedly on the King. Twenty thousand Austrians were <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg.170]</a></span> to
+occupy the district between the Po, Sesia and Ticino and half the citadel
+of Alessandria. The excitement rose to its height when it was announced
+that the Sardinian Fleet must be recalled from Venetian waters, depriving
+that struggling city of the last visible sign of support from without. The
+Chamber sent a deputation to the King, who succeeded in persuading its
+members that, hard though the terms were, there was no avoiding their
+acceptance, and that the original stipulations were harder still.</p>
+
+<p>On the 29th, Victor Emmanuel took the oath to observe the Statute, to
+exercise the royal authority only in virtue of the laws, to cause justice
+to be fairly and fearlessly administered, and to conduct himself in all
+things with the sole view to the interest, honour and prosperity of the
+nation.</p>
+
+<p>A trifling accident occurred which might have been far from trifling;
+one of the ornaments of the ceiling of the Palazzo Madama, where the
+Parliament assembled, fell close to the King. As it was of great weight,
+it would have killed anyone on whom it had fallen. 'Never mind that,' said
+the King in Piedmontese dialect to Colonel Menabrea, who was near him, 'it
+will not be the last!'</p>
+
+<p>The ministry which held office under the late King resigned; a new one
+was formed, in which General Delaunay was President of the Council, and
+Gioberti minister without a portfolio. The King was advised to dissolve
+the Chamber, which had been elected as a war parliament, and was
+ill-constituted to perform the work now required. General La Marmora had
+orders to quell the insurrection at Genoa, the motive of which was not
+nominally a change of government, but the continuance of the war at all
+costs. Its deeper cause lay in the old <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg.171]</a></span> irreconcilability of
+republican Genoa with her Piedmontese masters, breaking out now afresh
+under the strain of patriotic disappointment. Like the 15th of May at
+Naples, the Genoese revolution was a folly which can hardly be otherwise
+described than as a crime; it happened, however, that in Piedmont there
+was a King who had not the slightest intention of turning it into an
+excuse for a royal hark-back. Austria and France offered Victor Emmanuel
+their arms to put down the revolution, but, declining the not exactly
+disinterested attention, he made a wise choice in La Marmora, who
+accomplished the ungrateful task with expedition and humanity. An amnesty
+was granted to all but a very few participators in the revolt. On the
+brief black list when it was submitted to the King was the name of the
+Marquis Lorenzo Pareto, who at one time had held the Foreign Office under
+Charles Albert. As Colonel of the Genoese National Guard, his
+responsibility in joining the insurrection was judged to be particularly
+heavy; but the King refused to confirm his exclusion from the amnesty. 'I
+would not have it said,' he objected, 'that I was harsh to one of my
+father's old ministers.'</p>
+
+<p>The conception of Victor Emmanuel as a bluff, easy-going monarch is
+mistaken. Very few princes have had a keener sense of the royal dignity,
+or a more deeply-rooted family pride, or, when he thought fit to resort to
+it, a more decisive method of preventing people from taking liberties with
+him. But he knew that, in nearly all cases, pardon is the best of a king's
+prerogatives.</p>
+
+<p>An instance to the point happened when he came to the throne. Two
+officers of the royal household had caused him annoyance while he was Duke
+of Savoy by telling tales of his unconventionality to his
+easily-scandalised father. To them, perhaps, he owed the condign <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg.172]</a></span>
+punishment he had undergone for the famous promenade under the Porticoes.
+At anyrate, they had procured for the Duke many bad quarters-of-an-hour,
+but the King, when he became King, chose to be completely oblivious of
+their conduct, and they remained undisturbed at their posts. To those who
+pointed to King Leopold of the Belgians, or to any other foreign example
+of a loyal sovereign who understood the needs of his people as a model for
+Victor Emmanuel to imitate, he was in the habit of replying: 'I remember
+the history of my fathers, and it is enough.'</p>
+
+<p>'The Persians,' says the Greek historian, 'taught their children to
+ride and to speak the truth.' In a land that had seen as much of enthroned
+effeminacy and mendacity as Italy had seen, a prince fond of manly
+exercise and observant of his word was more valuable than a heaven-sent
+genius, and more welcome than a calendar saint. Piedmont only could give
+such a prince to Italy. Its kings were not Spaniards who, by way of
+improvement, became lazzaroni, nor were they Austrians condemned by a
+fatal law to revert to their original type; they were children of the ice
+and snow, the fellow-countrymen of their subjects. All their traditions
+told of obstinacy and hardihood. They brought their useful if scarcely
+amiable moral qualities from Maurienne in the eleventh century. The second
+Count of Savoy, known as Amadeus with the Tail, son of Humbert of the
+White Hands, founder of the House, went to the Holy Roman Emperor with
+such a body of retainers that the guards refused them entrance to the
+Council Chamber. 'Either I shall go in with my Tail or not at all,' said
+Humbert, and with his Tail he went in. This was the metal of the race.
+Even at the time when they were vassals of the Empire, they expected to
+dictate rather than to obey. They studiously married into all the great
+royal houses of Europe. <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_173" id=
+"Page_173">[Pg.173]</a></span> Though they persecuted their Vaudois
+subjects, who were only in 1848 rewarded by emancipation for centuries of
+unmerited sufferings and splendid fidelity, yet the Princes of Savoy had
+from the first, from the White-Handed Humbert himself, held their heads
+high in all transactions with the Holy See, between which and them there
+was an ever-returning antagonism. Not to the early part of the nineteenth
+century, when the rebound from revolutionary chaos did not suffice to
+denationalise the Kings of Sardinia, but sufficed to ally them with
+reaction, ought we to turn if we would seize the true bearings of the
+development of the Counts of Maurienne into Kings of Italy. At that moment
+the mission of Piedmont, though not lost, was obscured. What has rather to
+be contemplated is the historic tendency, viewed as a whole, of both
+reigning house and people. No one has pointed out that tendency more
+clearly than the anonymous author of a pamphlet entitled <i>Le Testament
+politique du Chevalier Walpole</i> (published at Amsterdam in 1769), who
+was able to draw the horoscope of the House of Savoy with a correctness
+which seems almost startling. He was not helped by either sympathy or
+poetic imagination, but simply by political logic. Sardinia, he said, was
+the best governed state in Europe. Instead of yielding to the indolent
+apathy in which other reigning families were sunk, its princes sought to
+improve its laws and develop its resources according to the wants of the
+population and the exigences of the climate. Finance, police, the
+administration of justice, military discipline, presented the picture of
+order. From the nature of the situation, a King of Sardinia must be
+ambitious, and to satisfy his ambition he had only to bide his time.
+Placed between two great Powers he could choose for his ally whichever
+would give him the most, and by playing this mute <i>r&ocirc;le</i>, it
+was impossible that he would not <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_174"
+id="Page_174">[Pg.174]</a></span> hereafter be called upon to play one of
+the most important parts in Europe. Italy was the oyster disputed by
+Austria and France; might it not happen that the King of Sardinia,
+becoming judge and party, would devour the oyster and leave the shells to
+the rival aspirants? It was unlikely, added this far-seeing observer, that
+the Italian populations should have got so innured to their chains as to
+prefer the harsh, vexatious government of Austria to the happy lot which
+Sardinian domination would secure to them, but even if they had become
+demoralised to this extent, they could not resist the providential advance
+of a temperate, robust and warlike nation like Piedmont, led by a prince
+as enlightened as the King (Charles Emmanuel) who then reigned over
+it.</p>
+
+<p>The metaphor of the oyster recalls another, that of Italy being an
+artichoke which the House of Savoy was to devour, a leaf at a time.
+Whether or not a Duke of Savoy really invented this often-quoted
+comparison, it is certain that power was what the rulers of Piedmont cared
+for. They were no more a race of scholars and art patrons than their
+people was a people of artists and poets. There is a story to the effect
+that one Duke of Savoy could never make out what poetry was, except that
+it was written in half lines, which caused a great waste of paper. The
+only poet born in Piedmont found the country unlivable. Recent research
+among the archives at Turin revealed facts which were thought to be not
+creditable to certain princely persons, and a gleaning was therefore made
+of documents to which the historical student will no longer have access.
+The step was ill advised; what can documents tell us on the subject that
+we do not know? Did anyone suppose that the Savoy princes were commonly
+saints? Sainthood has been the privilege of the women of the family, and
+they have kept it <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">
+[Pg.175]</a></span> mostly to themselves. But peccable and rough though
+the members of this royal house may have been, very few of them were
+without the governing faculty. 'C'est bien le souverain le plus fin que
+j'ai connu en Europe,' said Thiers of Victor Emmanuel, whose acquaintance
+he made in 1870, and in whom he found an able politician instead of the
+common soldier he had expected. The remark might be extended back to all
+the race. They understood the business of kings. A word not unlike the 'Tu
+regere imperio populos, Romane, memento' of Virgil was breathed over the
+cradle at Maurienne. If it did not send forth sons to rule the world, its
+children were, at least, to be enthroned in the capital of the
+C&aelig;sars, and to make Italy one for the first time since Augustus.</p>
+
+<p>From April to August 1849, the peace negotiations dragged on. The
+pretensions of Austria were still exorbitant, and she resisted the demand
+which Piedmont, weak and reduced though she was, did not fear to make,
+that she should amnesty her Italian subjects who had taken part in the
+revolution. Unequal to cope with the difficulties of the situation, the
+Delaunay ministry fell, and Massimo d'Azeglio was appointed President of
+the Council. This was a good augury for Piedmont; D'Azeglio's patriotism
+had received a seal in the wound which he carried away from the defence of
+Vicenza. Honour was safe in his hands, whatever were the sacrifices to
+which he might be obliged to consent.</p>
+
+<p>Some pressure having been put on Austria by France and England, she
+agreed in July to evacuate Alessandria, and to reduce the war indemnity
+from 230,000,000 francs to 75,000,000, which Piedmont undertook to pay,
+onerous though the charge was in her deplorable financial condition. But
+the amnesty question was the last to be <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg.176]</a></span> settled, and in this Piedmont
+stood alone. France and England gave her no support; The other powers were
+against her. The Piedmontese special envoy at Milan, Count Pralormo, wrote
+to Prince Schwarzenberg on the 2nd of July that his Government could not
+give up this point. It was a conscientious duty so universally and
+strongly felt, that they were readier to submit to the consequences,
+whatever they might be, than to dishonour themselves by renouncing it. In
+other words, they were ready to face a new war, abandoned to their fate by
+all Europe, to undergo a new invasion, which meant the utter destruction
+of their country, rather than leave their Lombard and Venetian
+fellow-countrymen to the revenge of Austria. Count Pralormo added that he
+was speaking not only in the name of the ministry, but of the King and the
+whole nation. The risk was no imaginary one; there were many in Austria
+who desired an excuse for crushing the life out of the small state which
+was the eternal thorn in the side of that great Empire. Few remember now
+the sufferings of Piedmont for Italy, or the perils, only too real, which
+she braved again and again, not from selfish motives&mdash;for the
+Piedmontese of the old, narrow school, who said that their orderly little
+country had nothing to gain from being merged in a state of 25,000,000
+were by no means in error&mdash;but from genuine Italian fellow-feeling
+for their less happy compatriots beyond their confines.</p>
+
+<p>At last, when the armistice concluded on the morrow of Novara had been
+prolonged for five months, the treaty of peace was signed. Prince
+Schwarzenberg offered to further reduce the indemnity, 75,000,000 to
+71,000,000, but D'Azeglio having agreed to the former figure, preferred to
+abide by his agreement. He thought, probably, that he would thus gain some
+concession as to the amnesty, and, in fact, <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg.177]</a></span> Austria finally consented to
+pardon all but a small number of the persons compromised in the late
+events. D'Azeglio still stood out, but finding that there was no shadow of
+a chance of obtaining more than this, he reluctantly accepted it. The
+great mass, the hundred thousand and more fugitives who had left their
+homes in Lombardy and Venetia, were, at any rate, promised a safe return.
+The city of Venice, as yet undominated, though on the brink of her fall,
+was totally excluded. The list of those whose banishment from Lombardy was
+confirmed, comprises the noblest names in the province; with the exception
+of a few who were excluded from the amnesty on the score that, before the
+revolution, they were Austrian functionaries, nearly every unpardoned
+Lombard was noble: Casati, Arese, Borromeo, Litta, Greppi, Pallavicini,
+and the Princess Cristina Belgiojoso of Milan, the two Camozzis of
+Bergamo, and G. Martinengo Cesaresco of Brescia.</p>
+
+<p>It must not be imagined that this amnesty ushered in a reign of
+oblivion and mildness. It seemed, rather, that Austria, afraid of the
+moral consequences of the return of so many unloving subjects, redoubled
+her severity. The day following the promulgation of the amnesty was the
+18th of August, the Emperor of Austria's birthday. In the morning,
+placards dissuading the citizens from taking part in the official
+rejoicings were to be seen on the walls of Milan. The persons who put
+these up were not caught, but in the course of the day a crowd, consisting
+of all classes, made what the official report called 'a scandalous and
+anti-politic demonstration,' raising revolutionary cries, and even saying
+uncomplimentary things of His Majesty, and worse still, of the Austrian
+soldiers. During this 'shameful scene,' <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg.178]</a></span> of which the above is the
+Austrian and hence the most highly-coloured description, the military
+arrested at hazard some of the crowd, who, by a 'superior order,' were
+condemned to the following pains and penalties:&mdash;</p>
+
+<pre>
+     1. Angelo Negroni, of Padua, aged thirty, proprietor, forty
+      strokes;
+
+     2. Carlo Bossi, watchmaker, aged twenty-two, forty strokes;
+
+     3. Paolo Lodi, of Monza, student, aged twenty-one, thirty strokes;
+
+     4. Giovanni Mazzuchetti, Milanese, barrister, aged twenty-four,
+     thirty strokes;
+
+     5. Bonnetti, Milanese, lithographer, aged thirty-one, fifty
+     strokes;
+
+     6. Moretti, Milanese, domestic servant, aged twenty-six, fifty
+     strokes;
+
+     7. Cesana, artist, aged thirty-two, forty strokes;
+
+     8. Scotti, shopkeeper, of Monza, fifty strokes;
+
+     9. Vigorelli, Milanese, proprietor, fifty strokes;
+
+     10. Garavaglia, of Novara, aged thirty-nine, thirty strokes;
+
+     11. Giuseppe Tandea, Milanese, aged forty, twenty-five strokes;
+
+     12. Rossi, Milanese, student, thirty strokes;
+
+     13. Carabelli, workman, forty strokes;
+
+     14. Giuseppe Berlusconi, fifty strokes;
+
+     15. Ferrandi, bookseller, thirty strokes;
+
+     16. Ernestina Galli, of Cremona, operatic singer, aged twenty,
+     forty strokes;
+
+     17. Maria Conti, of Florence, operatic singer, aged eighteen,
+     thirty strokes.
+</pre>
+
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg.179]</a></span>
+
+
+<p>There were other sentences of imprisonment in irons and on bread and
+water, but the roll of the bastinado, extracted from the official <i>
+Gazzetta di Milano</i> may be left to speak for all the rest, and to tell,
+with a laconicism more eloquent than the finest rhetoric, what the
+Austrian yoke in Italy really meant.</p>
+
+<p>A few days after, the military commandant sent the Milanese
+Municipality a bill for thirty-nine florins, the cost of rods broken or
+worn-out, and of ice used to prevent gangrene, in the punishment
+administered to the persons arrested on the 18th of August. Sixty strokes
+with the Austrian stick were generally enough to prove fatal. Women were
+flogged half-naked, together with the men, and in the presence of the
+Austrian officers, who came to see the spectacle.</p>
+
+<p>When the treaty of peace with Austria was signed, there arose a new
+difficulty; the Sardinian Chamber of Deputies refused to approve it. Some
+of the deputies asked why they should be called upon either to accept or
+reject it, on which they were reminded of the 75,000,000 francs indemnity,
+funds for the discharge of which could not be legally raised without a
+parliamentary vote. The reluctance to share in an odious though necessary
+responsibility made these novices in representative government anxious to
+throw away the greatest, if not the sole guarantee of constitutional
+freedom. Brofferio, by far the ablest man of the extreme radical party,
+who had opposed all peace proposals as long as Rome and Venice still
+resisted, now advised his friends to bow before the inevitable. But they
+did not comply, and the ministers had no other alternative than to resort
+to a fresh appeal to the country.</p>
+
+<p>The crisis was serious, because no amount of loyalty on the part of the
+head of the state can save liberty when the representatives of a <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg.180]</a></span>
+nation, taking the bit between their teeth, set themselves deliberately to
+work to make government impossible. People are too fond of talking of
+liberty as if it were something locked up in a box which remains safe as
+long as the guardian of the box does not steal it or sell it. Liberty is
+in the charge of all and at the mercy of all. There were not wanting
+persons who blamed the new dissolution as unconstitutional, and who called
+the proclamation of Moncalieri which announced it an act of despotism and
+of improper interference with the independence of the electors. It is
+hardly too much to say that it was this royal proclamation that saved
+Piedmont. The King appealed to Italy and to Europe for judgment on the
+conduct of the late Chamber. Having signed, he said, a 'not ruinous'
+treaty with Austria, which the honour of the country and the sanctity of
+his word required to be faithfully executed, the majority sought to make
+that execution legally impracticable. He continued: 'I have promised to
+save the nation from the tyranny of parties, whatever be the name, scope
+and position of the men who constitute them. These promises I fulfil by
+dissolving a Chamber which had become impossible, and by convoking the
+immediate assemblage of another parliament; but if the electors of the
+country deny me their help, not on me will fall henceforth the
+responsibility of the future; and if disorders follow, let them complain,
+not of me, but of themselves. Never, up till now, has the House of Savoy
+had recourse in vain to the faithfulness, wisdom and honour of its
+peoples. I have therefore the right to trust in them on the present
+occasion, and to hold for certain that, united together, we shall save the
+constitution and the country from the dangers by which they are
+menaced.'</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">
+[Pg.181]</a></span> The Proclamation produced a great effect, and the
+parliament which met on the 20th of December contained a working majority
+of men who were not only patriotic, but who were also endowed with common
+sense. When the ratification of the peace came on for discussion, there
+was, indeed, one deputy who spoke in favour of immediate war, which, in a
+fortnight, was to effect the liberation, not only of Lombardy and Venetia,
+but also of Hungary, a speech worth recalling, as it shows how far madness
+will go. The debate concluded with a vote authorising the King's
+government to fully carry out the treaty of peace which was concluded at
+Milan on the 6th of August 1849, the ayes being 137 against 17 noes.
+Piedmont had learnt the bitter but useful lesson, that if you play and
+lose, you must pay the cost. He who had played and lost his crown had
+already paid the last fee to fortune. Charles Albert was now a denizen of
+the Superga&mdash;of all kings' burial places, the most inspiring in its
+history, the most sublime in its situation. Here Victor Amadeus, as he
+looked down on the great French army which, for three months, had besieged
+his capital, vowed to erect a temple if it should please the Lord of Hosts
+to grant him and his people deliverance from the hands of the enemy. Five
+days later the French were in flight. All the Alps, from Mon Viso to the
+Simplon, all Piedmont, and beyond Piedmont, Italy to the Apennines, can be
+scanned from the church which fulfilled the royal vow.</p>
+
+<p>To the Superga the body of Charles Albert was brought from the place of
+exile. Before the coffin, his sword was carried; after it, they led the
+war-horse he had ridden in all the battles. After the war-horse followed a
+great multitude. He had said truly that it was an opportune <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg.182]</a></span> time for
+him to die. The pathos of his end rekindled the affections of the people
+for the dynasty.</p>
+
+<p>As in the Mosque of dead Sultans in Stamboul, so in the Mausoleum of
+the Superga, each sovereign occupied the post of honour only till the next
+one came to join him. But the post of honour remains, and will remain, to
+Charles Albert. His son lies elsewhere.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_X"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER X</h3>
+
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg.183]</a></span>
+
+
+<h4>THE REVIVAL OF PIEDMONT</h4>
+
+<h5>1850-1856</h5>
+
+<h5>Restoration of the Pope and Grand Duke of Tuscany&mdash;Misrule at
+Naples&mdash;The Struggle with the Church in Piedmont&mdash;The Crimean
+War.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>The decade from 1849 to 1859 may seem, at first sight, to resemble an
+interregnum, but it was an evolution. There is no pause in the life of
+nations any more than in the life of individuals: they go forward or they
+go backward. In these ten years Piedmont went forward; the other Italian
+governments did not stand still, they went backward. The diseases from
+which they suffered gained daily upon the whole body-politic, and even
+those clever foreign doctors who had been the most convinced that this or
+that remedy would set them on their feet, were in the end persuaded that
+there was only one place for them&mdash;the Hospital for Incurables. After
+the fall of Rome, Pius IX. issued a sort of canticle from Gaeta, in which
+he thanked the Lord at whose bidding the stormy ocean had been arrested,
+but he did not even so much as say thank you to the French, without whom,
+nevertheless, the stormy ocean would have proceeded on its way. To all
+suggestions from Paris that now that victory had been won by force the
+time was come for the Sovereign to give some guarantee that it would not
+be abused, <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">
+[Pg.184]</a></span> the Pope turned a completely deaf ear. 'The Pope,'
+said M. Drouyn de Lhuys, 'prefers to return to Rome upon the dead bodies
+of his subjects rather than amidst the applause which would have greeted
+him had he taken our advice.' That advice referred in particular to the
+secularisation of the public administration, and this was exactly what the
+Pope and the ex-Liberal Cardinal Antonelli, now and henceforth his most
+influential counsellor, were determined not to concede. They had grown
+wise in their generation, for a priest whose ministers are laymen is as
+much an anomaly as a layman whose ministers are priests. The French
+government desired that the Statute should be maintained, and demanded
+judicial reforms and an amnesty for political offenders. None of these
+points was accepted except the last, and that only nominally, as the
+amnesty of the 18th of September did not put a stop to proscriptions and
+vindictive measures. Count Mamiani, whose stainless character was
+venerated in all Italy, and who had devoted all his energies to the
+attempt to save the Papal government after the Pope's flight, was
+ruthlessly excluded, and so were many other persons who, though
+liberal-minded, had shown signal devotion to the Holy See. All sorts of
+means were used to serve the ends of vengeance; for instance, Alessandro
+Calandrelli, a Roman of high reputation, who held office under the
+republic, was condemned to death for high treason, and to twenty years at
+the galleys, on a trumped-up charge of theft, which was palpably absurd;
+but the Pope, while quashing the first sentence, confirmed the second, and
+Calandrelli would have remained in prison till the year of grace 1870, as
+many others did, but for the chance circumstance that his father had been
+a friend of the King of Prussia, who took up his cause so warmly that
+after two years he was <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_185" id=
+"Page_185">[Pg.185]</a></span> let out and sent to Berlin, where the King
+and A. von Humboldt received him with open arms.</p>
+
+<p>These were the auspices under which Pius IX. returned to Rome after
+seventeen months' absence. A four-fold invasion restored the Temporal
+Power, which F&eacute;nelon said was the root of all evil to the Church,
+but which, according to Pius IX., was necessary to the preservation of the
+Catholic religion. The re-established <i>r&eacute;gime</i> was
+characterised by Lord Clarendon at the Congress of Paris as 'the
+opprobrium of Europe.' The Pope tried to compensate for his real want of
+independence (for a prince who could not stand a day without foreign
+bayonets, whatever else he was, was not independent) by laughing at the
+entreaties of France to relieve that advanced nation from the annoyance of
+having set up a government fit for the Middle Ages. He rated at its
+correct value the support of Napoleon, and believing it to be purely
+interested, he believed in its permanence. The President had thought of
+nothing in the world but votes, and he thought of them still. The Roman
+Expedition secured him the services of M. de Falloux as minister, and won
+over to him the entire Clerical Party, including Montalembert and the
+so-called Liberal Catholics. Thus, and thus only, was the leap from the
+Presidential chair to the Imperial throne made possible. The result was
+flattering, but still there are reasons to think (apart from Prince
+J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Napoleon's express statement to that effect) that
+Napoleon III. hated the whole business from the bottom of his soul, and
+that of his not few questionable acts, this was the only one of which he
+felt lastingly ashamed. Seeing that the communications of his ministers
+failed in their object, he tried the expedient of writing a private letter
+to his friend Edgar Ney, couched in the <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg.186]</a></span> strongest terms of
+disapproval of the recalcitrant attitude of the Papal Government. This
+letter was published as it was intended to be, but in the Roman States,
+except that its circulation was forbidden, no notice was taken of it.
+Though the incident may be regarded as a stroke of facing-both-ways
+policy, the anger expressed was probably as sincere as any of Napoleon's
+sentiments could be, and the letter had the effect of awakening the idea
+in many minds that something of the former Italian conspirator still
+existed in the ruler of France. The question arose, What sort of pressure
+would be needed to turn that germ to account for Italy?</p>
+
+<p>In the kingdom of Naples, where the laws, to look at them on paper,
+were incomparably better than those in force in the Roman States, the
+administration was such as would have disgraced a remote province of the
+Turkish Empire. The King's naturally suspicious temperament was worked
+upon by his courtiers and priests till he came to detect in every Liberal
+a personal antagonist, whose immunity from harm was incompatible with his
+own, and in Liberalism a plague dangerous to society, which must be
+stamped out at all costs. Over 800 Liberals were sent to the galleys. The
+convictions were obtained, in a great proportion of cases, by false
+testimony. Bribes and secret protection in high quarters were the only
+means by which an innocent man could hope to escape; 50,000 persons were
+under police supervision, to be imprisoned at will. The police often
+refused to set at liberty those whom the judges had acquitted. The
+government had a Turkish or Russian fear of printed matter. A wretched
+barber was fined 1000 ducats for having in his possession a volume of
+Leopardi's poems, which was described as 'contrary to religion and
+morals.'</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">
+[Pg.187]</a></span> What was meant by being an inmate of a Neapolitan
+prison was told by Mr Gladstone in his two 'Letters to the Earl of
+Aberdeen,' which the latter sent to Prince Schwarzenberg, the Austrian
+Prime Minister, with a strong appeal to him to make known their contents
+to the King of the Two Sicilies, and to use his influence in procuring a
+mitigation of the abuses complained of. Prince Schwarzenberg did nothing,
+and it was then that the 'Letters' were published. The impression created
+on public opinion was almost without a parallel. The celebrated phrase,
+'The negation of God erected into a system of government,' passing into
+currency as a short history of Bourbon rule at Naples, kept alive the
+wrathful feelings which the 'Letters' aroused, even when these ceased to
+be read. Some small errors of fact (such as that of stating that all the
+prisoners were chained, whereas an exception was made of those undergoing
+life sentences) were magnified by the partisans of Ferdinand II.; but the
+truth of the picture as a whole was amply confirmed from independent
+sources. Baron Carlo Poerio (condemned to nineteen years' imprisonment)
+<i>was</i> chained to a common malefactor, the chain never being undone,
+and producing in the end a disease of the bone from which he never
+recovered. His case was that of all the political prisoners in the same
+category with himself. Luigi Settembrini and the others on whom sentence
+of death had been passed, but commuted into one of life imprisonment, were
+not chained, but they were put to associate with the worst thieves and
+assassins, while their material surroundings accorded with the moral
+atmosphere they were forced to breathe.</p>
+
+<p>The Neapolitan prisoners did more than suffer for freedom; they
+delivered the name of their country from being a reproach among the
+nations. They showed what men the South of Italy can produce. Those <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg.188]</a></span> who
+wish to know what types of probity, honour and ideal patriotism may grow
+out of that soil, which is sometimes charged with yielding only the rank
+weeds planted by despotism, may read the letters and memoirs of the noble
+Poerios, of Settembrini, gentlest but most fearless of human souls, of the
+Calabrian Morellis, all patriots and martyrs; of the Duke of
+Castromediano, who lately, in his old age, has set down a few
+recollections of the years he spent at the Neapolitan galleys. He records
+in these notes what he calls the most perilous moment in his life. It was
+when he was summoned, with six fellow-prisoners who had asked for and
+obtained freedom, to hear, as he feared, his own pardon pronounced. For
+pardon was equivalent to dishonour; it was granted either in consequence
+of real submission and retraction, or in order to be able to blacken the
+character of the pardoned man by falsely asserting that such submission
+had been made. His fear was groundless. He had been led out, perhaps, in
+the hope that the example of the others would prove contagious. He was not
+pardoned. As he returned to his prison, he thanked Divine Providence for
+the chains which left him pure.</p>
+
+<p>Strange to tell, Ferdinand II. rendered one considerable service to the
+national cause; not that he saw it in that light, but the service was none
+the less real because its motive was a narrow one. Austria proposed a
+defensive league between the Italian Sovereigns: defensive not only with
+the view to outward attack, but also and chiefly against 'internal
+disorder.' Piedmont was to be invited to join as soon as she had renounced
+her constitutional sins, which it was sanguinely expected she would do
+before very long. Meanwhile Parma, Modena, Tuscany and Rome embraced the
+idea with enthusiasm, but the King of <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg.189]</a></span> the Two Sicilies, who dimly
+saw in it an opening for interference in his own peculiar governmental
+ways, boldly declined to have anything to do with it. And so, to Prince
+Schwarzenberg's serious disappointment, the scheme by which he had hoped
+to create an absolutist Italian federation, came to an untimely end.</p>
+
+<p>The Grand Duke of Tuscany timidly inquired of the Austrian premier if
+he might renew the constitutional <i>r&eacute;gime</i> in his state.
+Schwarzenberg replied with the artful suggestion that he should hear what
+the Dukes of Modena and Parma, the Pope, and King Ferdinand had to say on
+the subject. Their advice was unanimously negative: Cardinal Antonelli
+going so far as to declare that Constitutionalism in Tuscany would be
+regarded as a constant menace and danger to the States of the Church. The
+different counsels of Piedmont, conveyed by Count Balbo, weighed little
+against so imposing an array of opinion, backed as it was by the Power
+which still stabled its horses in the Convent of San Marco. The Tuscan
+Statute was formally suspended in September 1850.</p>
+
+<p>From that day forth, Tuscany sank lower and lower in the slough. To
+please the Pope, havoc was made of the Leopoldine laws&mdash;named after
+the son of Maria Theresa, the wise Grand Duke Leopold I.&mdash;laws by
+which a bridle was put on the power and extension of the Church. The
+prosecution and imprisonment of a Protestant couple who were accused of
+wishing to make proselytes, proclaimed the depth of intolerance into which
+what was once the freest and best-ordered government in Italy had
+descended.</p>
+
+<p>The ecclesiastical question became the true test question in Piedmont
+as well as in Tuscany, but there it had another issue.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">
+[Pg.190]</a></span> It had also a different basis. In Piedmont there were
+no Leopoldine laws to destroy; what was necessary was to create them. To
+privileges dating from the Middle Ages which in the kingdom of Sardinia
+almost alone had been restored without curtailment after the storm of the
+French Revolution, were added the favours, the vast wealth, the
+preponderating influence acquired during Charles Felix' reign, and the
+first seventeen years of that of Charles Albert. Theoretically, the
+Statute swept away all privileges of classes and sects, and made citizens
+equal before the law, but to put this theory into practice further
+legislation was needed, because, as a matter of fact, the clergy preserved
+their immunities untouched and showed not the slightest disposition to
+yield one jot of them. The Piedmontese clergy, more numerous in proportion
+to the population than in any state except Rome, were more intransigent
+than any ecclesiastical body in the world. The Italian priest of old days,
+whatever else might be said about him, was rarely a fanatic. The very
+nickname 'Ultramontane' given by Italians to the religious extremists
+north of the Alps, shows how foreign such excesses were to their own
+temperaments. But the Ultramontane spirit had already invaded Piedmont,
+and was embraced by its clergy with all the zeal of converts. There was
+still a <i>Foro Ecclesiastico</i> for the arraignment of religious
+offenders, and this was one of the first privileges against which Massimo
+d'Azeglio lifted his 'sacrilegious' hand. To go through all the list would
+be tedious, and would demand more explanation regarding the local modes of
+acquisition and tenure of religious property than would be interesting
+now. The object of the Siccardi laws, as they were named after the
+Minister of Grace and Justice who introduced them, and of the stronger
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg.191]</a></span>
+measures to which they led up, was to make the priest amenable to the
+common law of the land in all except that which referred to his spiritual
+functions; to put a limit on the amassment of wealth by religious
+corporations; to check the multiplication of convents and the
+multiplication of feast days, both of which encouraged the people in sloth
+and idleness; to withdraw education from the sole control of
+ecclesiastics; and finally, to authorise civil marriage, but without
+making it compulsory. The programme was large, and it took years to carry
+it out. The Vatican contended that it was contrary to the Concordat which
+existed between the Holy See and the Court of Sardinia. Massimo d'Azeglio
+replied that the maintenance of the Concordat, in all its parts, meant the
+ruin of the state; that he had tried every means of conciliation, made
+every effort towards arriving at a compromise, and that since his
+endeavours had failed in consequence of the refusal of the Vatican to
+abate pretensions which it neither could nor did enforce in Austria,
+Naples or Spain, heaven and the world must judge between Rome and
+Piedmont, between Cardinal Antonelli and himself.</p>
+
+<p>The struggle throughout was bitter in the extreme, but its most
+striking incident was the denial of the last Sacraments to a member of the
+Government, the Minister of Agriculture, Santa Rosa, who happened to die
+soon after the passing of the Act abolishing the <i>Foro
+Ecclesiastico</i>. Santa Rosa was a sincerely religious man, but he
+resisted all the attempts of the priest to extort a retractation, and died
+unabsolved rather than leave a dishonoured name to his children. The
+popular indignation excited by this incident was in proportion with the
+importance attached to outward observances of religion in Catholic
+countries; the government had to protect the Archbishop of <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg.192]</a></span> Turin from
+violence, while, at the same time, they sent him for a month to the
+Citadel for having forbidden his clergy to obey the law on the <i>Foro
+Ecclesiastico</i>. He and one or two of the other bishops were afterwards
+expelled from the kingdom. An unwelcome necessity, but whose was the
+fault? In other countries, where the privileges claimed by the Piedmontese
+clergy had been abolished for centuries, did the bishops dictate revolt
+against the law? If not, why should they do so in Piedmont?</p>
+
+<p>The successor of Santa Rosa in the ministry was Count Cavour, who thus
+in 1850 for the first time became an official servant of the state. When
+D'Azeglio submitted the appointment to the King, Victor Emmanuel remarked
+that, though he did not object to it in the least, they had better take
+care, as this man would turn them all out before long. This man was, in
+fact, to stand at the helm of Piedmont, with short intervals, till he
+died, and was to carve out from the block of formless marble, not the
+Italy of sublime dreams, which, owing her deliverance to her sons alone,
+should arise immaculate from the grave a Messiah among the nations, but
+the actual Italy which has been accomplished; imperfect and peccable as
+human things mostly are, belonging rather to prose than to poetry, to
+matter than to spirit, but, for all that, an Italy which is one and is
+free.</p>
+
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image4.jpg" alt="COUNT CAVOUR" /><br />
+ <span class="caption">COUNT CAVOUR</span></div>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p>Fifty years ago a great English writer pointed out what the real Italy
+would be, if it were to be; 'The prosperity of nations as of individuals,'
+wrote Mr Ruskin in one of his earliest papers, 'is cold and hard-hearted
+and forgetful. The dead lie, indeed, trampled down by the living; the
+place thereof shall know them no more, for that place is not in the hearts
+of the survivors, for whose interest they have made way.<span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg.193]</a></span> But
+adversity and ruin point to the sepulchre, and it is not trodden on; to
+the chronicle, and it does not decay. Who would substitute the rush of a
+new nation, the struggle of an awakening power, for the dreamy sleep of
+Italy's desolation, for the sweet silence of melancholy thought, her
+twilight time of everlasting memories?'</p>
+
+<p>There is the case, stated with beautiful lucidity, of the somewhat
+ghoulish dilettantism which, enjoying tombs, would condemn all mankind to
+breathe their atmosphere. It is not, however, in order to discuss that
+view that the passage is quoted, but because of its relevancy to what
+Cavour attempted and what he did. Never was there a mind which cherished
+fewer illusions. He believed that the pursuit of the unattainable was
+still more a political crime than a political blunder. He was, in this,
+what is now called an opportunist, and he was also an opportunist in
+believing that though in politics you can choose your aim, you can very
+rarely choose your means. He held (and this was the reason that he was so
+profoundly hated by men of very different parties) that to accomplish
+great changes you have to make sacrifices, not only of the higher sort,
+but, in a certain sense, also of the lower. As he thought that the
+Austrians could not be expelled from Italy for good and all without
+foreign help, he contemplated from the first securing that foreign help,
+though no one would have been more glad than he to do without it. He
+thought that Italian freedom could not be won without a closer alliance
+with the democratic party than politicians like D'Azeglio, who had the
+fear of the ermine, of tarnishing its whiteness, would have ever brought
+themselves to acquiesce in, and he therefore immediately took steps to
+establish that alliance. Cavour had no faith in the creation of ideally
+perfect <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">
+[Pg.194]</a></span> states, such as the Monarchy of Dante or the Republic
+of Mazzini, but he did think that a living land was better than a dead
+one, that the struggle of an awakening power, the rush of a new nation,
+was infinitely to be preferred to the desolation of dreamy sleeps, sweet
+silences, and everlasting memories that spelt regrets.</p>
+
+<p>It may be possible now to see clearly that if no one had tried for the
+unattainable, Cavour would not have found the ground prepared for his
+work. The appreciation of his rank among Italian liberators rests on a
+different point, and it is this: without a man of his positive mould, of
+his practical genius, of his force of will and force of patience, would
+the era of splendid endeavours have passed into the era of accomplished
+facts? If the answer to this is 'No,' then nothing can take from Cavour
+the glory of having conferred an incalculable boon on the country which he
+loved with a love that was not the less strong because it lacked the
+divinising qualities of imagination.</p>
+
+<p>An aristocrat by birth and the inheritor of considerable wealth, Cavour
+was singularly free from prejudices; his favourite study was political
+economy, and in quiet times he would probably have given all his energies
+to the interests of commerce and agriculture. He was an advocate of free
+trade, and was, perhaps, the only one of the many Italians who <i>
+f&ecirc;ted</i> Mr Cobden on his visit to Italy who cared in the least for
+the motive of his campaign. Cavour understood English politics better than
+they have ever been understood by a foreign statesman; his article on
+Ireland, written in 1843, may still be read with profit. Before
+parliamentary life existed in Piedmont, he took the only way open of
+influencing public opinion by founding a newspaper, the <i>
+Risorgimento,</i> in which he continued to write for <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg.195]</a></span> several
+years. In the Chamber of Deputies he soon made his power felt&mdash;power
+is the word, for he was no orator in the ordinary sense; his speeches read
+well, as hard hitting and logical expositions, but they were not well
+delivered. Cavour never spoke Italian with true grace and ease though he
+selected it for his speeches, and not French, which was also allowed and
+which he spoke admirably. His presence, too, did not lend itself to
+oratory; short and thickset, and careless in his dress, he formed a
+contrast to the romantic figure of D'Azeglio. Yet his prosaic face, when
+animated, gave an impressive sense of that attribute which seemed to
+emanate from the whole man: power.</p>
+
+<p>It needed a more wary hand than D'Azeglio's to steer out of the
+troubled waters caused by the ecclesiastical bills, and to put the final
+touches to the legislation which he, to his lasting honour be it said, had
+courageously and successfully initiated. In the autumn of 1852 D'Azeglio
+resigned, and Cavour was requested by the King to form a ministry. He was
+to remain, with short breaks, at the head of public affairs for the nine
+following years.</p>
+
+<p>At this time the government of Lombardy and Venetia was vested in
+Field-Marshal Radetsky, with two lieutenant-governors under him, who only
+executed his orders. Radetsky resided at Verona. Politically and
+economically the two provinces were then undergoing an extremity of
+misery; the diseases of the vines and the silkworms had reached the point
+of causing absolute ruin to the great mass of proprietors who, reckoning
+on having always enough to live on, had not laid by. Many noble families
+sank to the condition of peasants. The taxation was heavier than in any
+other part of the Austrian Empire; in proof of <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg.196]</a></span> which it may be
+mentioned that Lombardy paid 80,000,000 francs into the Austrian treasury,
+which, had the Empire been taxed equally, would have given an annual total
+of 1,100,000,000, whereas the revenue amounted to only 736,000,000. The
+landtax was almost double what it was in the German provinces. Italians,
+however, have a great capacity for supporting such burdens with patience,
+and it is doubtful whether the material aspect of the case did much to
+increase their hatred of foreign dominion. Its moral aspect grew daily
+worse; the terror became chronic. The possession of a sheet of printed
+paper issued by the revolutionary press at Capolago, on the lake of
+Lugano, was enough to send a man to the gallows. These old, badly printed
+leaflets, with no name of author or publisher attached, but chiefly
+written in the unmistakable style of Mazzini, can still be picked up in
+the little booksellers' shops in Canton Ticino, and it is difficult to
+look at them without emotion. What hopes were carried by them. What risks
+were run in passing them from hand to hand. Of what tragedies were they
+not the cause! In August 1851, Antonio Sciesa, of Milan, was shot for
+having one such leaflet on his person. The gendarmes led him past his own
+house, hoping that the sight of it would weaken his nerve, and make him
+accept the clemency which was eagerly proffered if he would reveal the
+names of others engaged in the patriotic propaganda. 'Tiremm innanz!'
+('come along') he said, in his rough Milanese dialect, and marched
+incorruptible to death. On a similar charge, Dottesio and Grioli, the
+latter a priest, suffered in the same year, and early in 1852 the long
+trial was begun at Mantua of about fifty <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg.197]</a></span> patriots whose names had been
+obtained by the aid of the bastinado from one or two unhappy wretches who
+had not the fortitude to endure. Of these fifty, nine were executed, among
+whom were the priests Grazioli and Tazzoli, Count Montanari of Verona, and
+Tito Speri, the young hero of the defence of Brescia. Speri had a trifling
+part in the propaganda, but the remembrance of his conduct in 1849 ensured
+his condemnation. He was deeply attached to the religion in which he was
+born, and his last letters show the fervour of a Christian joined to the
+calmness of a stoic. If he had a regret, it was that he had been unable to
+do more for his country; but here too his simple faith sustained him.
+Surely the Giver of all good would not refuse to listen to the prayers of
+the soul which passed to Him through martyrdom. 'To-morrow they lead me
+forth,' he wrote. 'I have done with this world, but, in the bosom of God,
+I promise you I will do what I can.' So did this clear and childlike
+spirit carry its cause from the Austrian Assizes to a higher tribunal.</p>
+
+<p>In the spring of 1853 there was an attempt at a rising in Milan from
+which the mass of the citizens stood aloof, if they even knew of it till
+it was over; an attempt ill-considered and not easily justified from any
+point of view, the blame for which has been generally cast on Mazzini; but
+though he knew of it, he was unwilling that its authors should choose the
+time and mode of action which they chose. He was, moreover, misinformed as
+to the extent of the preparations, since no Milanese of any standing gave
+his support to the plan.</p>
+
+<p>On the plea that the Lombard emigration was concerned in the abortive
+movement, which was by no means consistent with facts, the Austrian
+Government sequestered the landed property of the exiles and voluntary
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg.198]</a></span>
+emigrants, reducing them and their families (which in most instances
+remained behind) to complete beggary. Nine hundred and seventy-eight
+estates were placed under sequestration. The Court of Sardinia held the
+measure to be a violation of the amnesty, which was one of the conditions
+of the peace of 1850. The Sardinian Minister was recalled from Vienna, and
+the relations between the two governments were once more on a footing of
+open rupture.</p>
+
+<p>Not less important was the moral effect of the sequestrations in France
+and England, but particularly in England. They acted as the last straw,
+coming as they did on the top of the flogging system which had already
+enraged the English public mind to the highest degree. The Prince Consort
+wrote in March to his brother: 'To give you a conception of the maxims of
+justice and policy which Austria has been lately developing, I enclose an
+extract of a report from Turin which treats of the decrees of confiscation
+in Italy. People here will be very indignant.' He goes on to say (somewhat
+too broadly) that the English upper classes were till then thoroughly
+Austrian, but that she had succeeded in turning the whole of England
+against her, and there was now no one left to defend her.</p>
+
+<p>Austria, through Count Buol, complained that she was 'dying of
+legality,' but England took the Sardinian view that the sequestrations
+directly violated the treaty between the two Powers. In the Austrian Note
+of the 9th of March, it was distinctly declared that Piedmont would be
+crushed if she did not perform the part of police-agent to Austria.
+Cavour's uncowed attitude at this crisis was what first fixed upon him the
+eyes of European diplomacy.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the summer, the Duke of Genoa, Victor Emmanuel's
+brother, paid a visit to the English Court, where the Duke of <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg.199]</a></span> Saxe-Coburg
+was also staying, by whom he was described as 'one of the cleverest and
+most amiable men of our time.' Sunny Italy, adds Duke Ernest, seemed to
+have sent him to England so that by his mere presence alone, in the prime
+of his age, he might make propaganda for the cause of his country. The
+Queen presented her guest with a handsome riding-horse, and when he
+thanked her in warm and feeling terms, she spoke the memorable words, the
+effect of which spoken at that date by the Queen of England can hardly be
+imagined: 'I hope you will ride this horse when the battles are fought for
+the liberation of Italy.'</p>
+
+<p>The battle-day was indeed to come, but when it came the sword which the
+young Duke wielded with such gallantry in the siege of Peschiera would be
+sheathed for ever. The Prince Charming of Casa Savoia died in February
+1855, leaving a daughter to Italy, the beloved Queen Margaret.</p>
+
+<p>In the space of a few weeks, Victor Emmanuel lost his brother, his
+mother, and his wife. The King, who felt keenly when he did feel, was
+driven distraught with grief; no circumstance was wanting which could
+sharpen the edge of his sorrow. The two Queens, both Austrian princesses,
+had never interfered in foreign politics; what they suffered they suffered
+in silence. But they were greatly influenced by the ministers of the
+religion which had been a comfort of their not too happy lives, and they
+had frequently told Victor Emmanuel that they would die of grief if the
+anti-papal policy of his government were persisted in. Now that they were
+dead, every partisan of the Church declared, without a shadow of
+reticence, that the mourning in which the House of Savoy was plunged was a
+clear manifestation of Divine wrath. Victor Emmanuel had been brought up
+in superstitious surroundings; it was hardly possible that he should
+listen to these <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">
+[Pg.200]</a></span> things altogether unmoved. But on this as on the other
+occasions in his life when he was to be threatened with ghostly terrors,
+he did not belie the name of 'Re Galantuomo,' which he had written down as
+his profession when filling up the papers of the first census taken after
+his accession&mdash;a jest that gave him the title he will ever be known
+by. Harassed and tormented as the King was, when the law on religious
+corporations had been voted by the Senate and the Chamber, and was
+presented to him by Cavour for signature, he did his duty and signed it.
+The commentary which came from the Vatican was the decree of major
+excommunication promulgated in the Consistory of the 27th of July against
+all who had approved or sanctioned the measure, or who were concerned in
+putting it into execution.</p>
+
+<p>The law was known as the 'Rattazziana,' from Urbano Rattazzi, whom
+Cavour appointed Minister of Grace and Justice, thereby effecting a
+coalition between the Right Centre, which he led himself, and the Left
+Centre, which was led by Rattazzi; an alliance not pleasing to the Pure
+Right or to the Advanced Left, but necessary to give the Prime Minister
+sufficient strength to command the respect, both at home and abroad, which
+can only be won by a statesman who is not afraid of being overturned by
+every whiff of the parliamentary wind. The 'Legge Rattazziana' certainly
+aimed at asserting the supremacy of the state, but in substance it was an
+arrangement for raising the stipend of the poorer clergy at the expense of
+the richer benefices and corporations, and save for the bitter animosity
+of Rome, it would not have excited the degree of anger that descended upon
+its promoters. In a country where the Church had a rental of 15,000,000
+francs, there were many <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_201" id=
+"Page_201">[Pg.201]</a></span> parish priests who had not an income of
+&pound;20; a state of things seen to be anomalous by the best
+ecclesiastics themselves, but their efforts at conciliation failed because
+the Holy See would not recognise the right of the civil authority to
+interfere in any question affecting the status or property of the clergy,
+and this right was the real point at issue.</p>
+
+<p>In these days, Cavour came to an understanding with a friendly monk in
+order that when his last hour arrived, he should not, like Santa Rosa, go
+unshriven to his account. In 1861, Fra Giacomo performed his part in the
+agreement, and was duly punished for having saved his Church from a
+scandal which, from the position of the great minister, would have reached
+European dimensions.</p>
+
+<p>Cavour's work of bringing into order the Sardinian finances, which,
+from the flourishing state they had attained prior to 1848, had fallen
+into what appeared the hopeless confusion of a large and steadily
+increasing deficit, is not to the ordinary observer his most brilliant
+achievement, but it is possibly the one for which he deserves most praise.
+It could not have been carried through except by a statesman who was
+completely indifferent to the applause of the hour. During all the earlier
+years that he held office, Cavour was extraordinarily unpopular. The
+nickname of 'la bestia neira' conferred on him by Victor Emmanuel referred
+to the opinion entertained of him by the Clerical party, but he was almost
+as much a 'bestia neira' to a large portion of the Liberals as to the
+Clericals or to the old Piedmontese party. His house was attacked by the
+mob in 1853, and had not his servants barred the entrance, something
+serious might have occurred. Happily the King and the majority in the
+Chamber and in the country had, if not much love for Cavour, a profound
+conviction that he could not be done without, and that, consequently, he
+must be allowed to do <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_202" id=
+"Page_202">[Pg.202]</a></span> what he liked. Thus the large sacrifices he
+demanded of the taxpayers were regularly voted, and Cavour could afford to
+despise the abuse heaped upon himself since he saw his policy advancing to
+maturity along a steady line of success.</p>
+
+<p>When, in 1854, Cavour resolved that Piedmont should join France and
+England in the coming war with Russia, it seemed to a large number of his
+countrymen that he had taken leave of his senses, but the firm support
+which in this instance he found in the King enabled him next year to equip
+and despatch the contingent, 15,000 strong, commanded by General La
+Marmora, which not only won the respect of friends and foes in the field,
+but offered an example of efficiency in all departments that compared
+favourably with the faulty organisation of the great armies beside which
+it fought. Its gallant conduct at the battle of the Tchernaja flattered
+the native pride, and when, in due time, 12,000 returned of the 15,000
+that had gone forth, the increased credit of Piedmont in Europe was
+already felt to compensate for the heavy cost of the expedition.</p>
+
+<p>Among the Italians living abroad, Cavour's motives in taking part in
+the Crimean War were, from the first, better understood than they were at
+home. Piedmont, by qualifying for the part of Italian advocate in the
+Councils of Europe, gave a guarantee of good faith which patriots like
+Daniel Manin and Giorgio Pallavicini accepted as a happy promise for the
+future. It was then that a large section of the republican party frankly
+embraced the programme of Italian unity under Victor Emmanuel. They
+foresaw that a repetition of the discordant action of 1848 would end in
+the same way. Manin wrote to Lorenzo Valerio in September 1855: 'I, who am
+a republican, plant the banner of <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_203"
+id="Page_203">[Pg.203]</a></span> unification; let all who desire that
+Italy should exist, rally round it, and Italy will exist.' The ex-dictator
+of Venice was eking out a scanty livelihood by giving lessons in Paris; he
+had only three years left to live, and was not destined to see his words
+verified. But, poor and sick and obscure though he was, his support was
+worth legions.</p>
+
+<p>It was not the first time that Italian republicans had said to the
+House of Savoy: If you will free Italy we are with you; but the
+circumstances of the case were completely changed since Mazzini wrote in
+somewhat the same language to Charles Albert a quarter of a century
+before. Both times the proposal contained an ultimatum as well as an
+offer, but Manin made it without second thoughts in the strongest hope
+that the pact would be accepted and full of anticipatory joy at the
+prospect of its success; while by the Genoese republican it was made in
+mistrust and in the knowledge that were it accepted (which he did not
+believe), its acceptance, though bringing with it for Italy a state of
+things which he recognised as preferable to that which prevailed, would
+bring to him personally nothing but disappointment and the forfeiture of
+his dearest wishes.</p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to say what were at this date Cavour's own private
+sentiments about Italian unity. Though he once confessed that as a young
+man he had fancied himself Prime Minister of Italy, whenever the subject
+was now discussed he disclaimed any belief in the feasibility of uniting
+all parts of the peninsula in one whole. He even called Manin 'a very good
+man, but mad about Italian unification.' It wanted, in truth, the
+prescience of the seer rather than the acumen of the politician to discern
+the unity of Italy in 1855. All outward facts seemed more adverse to its
+accomplishment than at any period since <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg.204]</a></span> 1815. Yet it was for Italy
+that Cavour always pleaded; Italy, and not Piedmont or even Lombardy and
+Venetia. He invariably asserted the right of his King to uphold the cause
+of all the populations from the Alps to the Straits of Messina. If he
+adopted the proverb 'Chi va piano va sano,' he kept in view the end of it,
+'Chi va sano va lontano.' In short, if he did not believe in Italian
+unity, he acted in the same way as he would have acted had he believed in
+it.</p>
+
+<p>It is evident that one thing he could not do. Whatever was in his
+thoughts, unless he was prepared to retire into private life then and
+there, he could not proclaim from the house-tops that he espoused the
+artichoke theory attributed to Victor Amadeus. There were only too many
+old diplomatists as it was, who sought to cripple Cavour's resources by
+reviving that story. The time was not come when, without manifest damage
+to the cause, he could plead guilty to the charge of preparing an Italian
+crown for his Sovereign. 'The rule in politics,' Cavour once observed, 'is
+to be as moderate in language as you are resolute in act.'</p>
+
+<p>At the end of 1855, Victor Emmanuel, with Cavour and Massimo d'Azeglio,
+paid a visit to the French and English Courts. He was received with more
+marked cordiality at the English Court than at the French. No Prince
+Charming, indeed, but the ideal of a bluff and burly Longobard chief, he
+managed to win the good graces of his entertainers, even if they thought
+him a trifle barbaric. The Duchess of Sutherland declared that of all the
+knights of St George whom she had ever seen, he was the only one who would
+have had the best of it in the fight with the dragon. The Queen rose at
+four o'clock in the morning to take leave of him. Cavour was so much
+struck by the <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">
+[Pg.205]</a></span> interest which Her Majesty evinced in the efforts of
+Piedmont for constitutional freedom, that he did not hesitate to call her
+the best friend his country possessed in England.</p>
+
+<p>It is not generally known, but it is quite true, that Victor Emmanuel
+wished to contract a matrimonial alliance with the English royal family.
+He did not take Cavour into his confidence, but a high English personage
+was sounded on the matter, a hint being given to him to say nothing about
+it to the Count. The lady who might have become Queen of Italy was the
+Princess Mary of Cambridge. The negotiations were broken off because the
+young Princess would not hear of any marriage which would have required
+her living out of England.</p>
+
+<p>The Congress which met in Paris in February 1856 for the conclusion of
+the peace between the Allies and Russia was to have far more momentous
+results for Italy than for the countries more immediately concerned in its
+discussions, but, contrary to the general impression, it does not appear
+that these results were anticipated by Cavour. He even said that it was
+idle for Sardinia to send delegates to a congress in which they would be
+treated like children. Cavour feared, perhaps, to lose the ground he had
+gained in the previous year with Napoleon III., when the Emperor's rather
+surprising question: 'Que peut-on faire pour l'Italie?' had suggested to
+the Piedmontese statesman that definite scheme of a French alliance, which
+henceforth he never let go. In any case, when D'Azeglio, who was appointed
+Sardinian representative, refused at the last moment to undertake a charge
+for which he knew he was not fitted, it was only at the urgent request of
+the King that Cavour consented to take his place. When once in Paris,
+however, he <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">
+[Pg.206]</a></span> warmed to the work, finding an unexpectedly strong
+ally in Lord Clarendon. He won what was considered in all Europe a great
+diplomatic triumph, by getting a special sitting assigned to the
+examination of Italian affairs, which had as little to do with the natural
+work of the Congress as the affairs of China. The chief points discussed
+at the secret sitting of the 8th of April were the foreign occupations in
+Central Italy, and the state of the Roman and Neapolitian governments,
+which was stigmatised by Lord Clarendon in terms much more severe than
+Cavour himself thought it prudent to use. Count Buol, the chief Austrian
+representative, grew very angry, and his opposition was successful in
+reducing the sitting to a mere conversation; but what had been said had
+been said, and Cavour prepared the way for his future policy by remarking
+to everyone: 'You see that diplomacy can do nothing for us; the question
+needs another solution.' Lord Clarendon's vigorous support made him think
+for a moment that England might take an active part in that other
+solution, and with this idea in his mind he hurried over the Channel to
+see Lord Palmerston, but he left England convinced that nothing more than
+moral assistance was ever to be expected from that quarter. The Marquis
+Emmanuel d'Azeglio, who for many years represented Sardinia, and
+afterwards Italy, at the Court of St James, has placed it on record that
+the English Premier repeatedly assured him that an armed intervention on
+behalf of Italian freedom would have been much to his taste, but that the
+country would not have been with him. It is certain that Cavour would have
+preferred an English to a French alliance; as it was not to be had, he
+reposed his sole hopes in the Emperor Napoleon, who had not the French
+people <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">
+[Pg.207]</a></span> really more with him in this matter than Lord
+Palmerston had the English&mdash;nay, he had them less with him, for in
+England there would have been a party of Italian sympathisers favourable
+to the war, and in France, there was no one except Prince Napoleon and the
+workmen of Paris. But the French Emperor was a despotic sovereign, and not
+the Prime Minister of a self-governing country. After all, some good may
+come out of despotism.</p>
+
+<p>Upon Cavour's return to Turin, he received not only the approval of the
+King and Parliament, but also congratulations from all parts of Italy. His
+position had gained immensely in strength, both at home and abroad. Yet
+the power of the Clerical party in Piedmont was still such that, in the
+elections of 1857&mdash;the first that had taken place since the
+legislation affecting the Church&mdash;they obtained seventy seats out of
+a total of two hundred. Cavour did not conceal his alarm. What if eight
+years' labour were thrown away, and the movement of the State turned
+backward? 'Never,' he said, 'would he advise a <i>coup d'&eacute;tat,</i>
+nor would his master resort to one; but if the King abdicated, what then?'
+Victor Emmanuel said to his Prime Minister: 'Let us do our duty; stand
+firm, and we shall see!' He often declared that, sooner than beat a
+retreat from the path he had entered on, he would go to America and become
+plain <i>Mons&ugrave; Savoia</i>; but he never lost faith in the
+predominating patriotism and good sense of his subjects; and at this time,
+as at others, he proved to be right. The crisis was surmounted. On the one
+hand, some elections were invalidated where the priests had exercised
+undue influence; and, on the other, Rattazzi, who was especially obnoxious
+to the Clerical party, retired from office. Cavour thus found himself
+still able to command the Chamber.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg.208]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XI"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XI</h3>
+
+<h4>PREMONITIONS OF THE STORM</h4>
+
+<h5>1857-1858</h5>
+
+<h5>Pisacane's Landing&mdash;Orsini's Attempt&mdash;The Compact of
+Plombi&egrave;res&mdash;Cavour's Triumph.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>In spite of the accusation of favouring political assassination which
+was frequently launched against the Italian secret societies, only one of
+the faithless Italian princes came to a violent death, and his murder had
+no connection with politics. Charles III., Duke of Parma, was mortally
+stabbed in March 1854; some said that the assassin was a groom whom he had
+struck with a riding-whip; others, that he was the father or brother of
+one of the victims of the Duke's dissolute habits. The Duchess, a daughter
+of the Duke de Berry, assumed the Regency on behalf of her son, who was a
+child. She began by initiating many reforms; but a street disturbance in
+July gave Austria the desired excuse for meddling in the government, when
+all progress was, of course, arrested.</p>
+
+<p>In December 1856, a soldier named Ageslao Milano attempted to
+assassinate the King of the Two Sicilies at a review. He belonged to no
+sect, but he had long premeditated the act. A few days later an earthquake
+occurred in the kingdom of Naples, by which over ten thousand persons lost
+their lives. Ferdinand II. grew morose, and shut <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg.209]</a></span> himself up in the royal
+palace of Caserta. The constant lectures of France and England annoyed him
+without persuading him to take the means to put a stop to them. Not till
+1859 did he open the doors of the prisons in which Poerio, Settembrini and
+their companions were confined. Many plans were made, meanwhile, for their
+liberation, and English friends even provided a ship by which they were to
+escape; but the ship foundered: perhaps fortunately, as Garibaldi, with
+characteristic disinterestedness, had agreed to direct the enterprise,
+which could not have been otherwise than perilous, and was not unlikely to
+end in the loss of all concerned.</p>
+
+<p>Disaster attended Baron Bentivegna's attempt at a rising at Taormina in
+1856, and Carlo Pisacane's landing at Sapri in the summer of the following
+year had no better result. Pisacane, a son of the Duke Gennaro di San
+Giovanni of Naples, had fought in the defence of Rome and was a firm
+adherent of Mazzini, in conjunction with whom he planned his unlucky
+venture. Pisacane watched the growing ascendency of Piedmont with sorrow;
+he was one of the few, if not the only one of his party to say that he
+would as soon have the dominion of Austria as that of the House of Savoy.
+But if he was an extremist in politics, none the less he was a patriot,
+who took his life in his hands and offered it up to his country in the
+spirit of the noblest devotion. He had the slenderest hope of success, but
+he believed that only by such failures could the people be roused from
+their apathy. 'For me,' he wrote, 'it will be victory even if I die on the
+scaffold. This is all I can do, and this I do; the rest depends on the
+country, not on me. I have only my affections and my life to give, and I
+give them without hesitation.'</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">
+[Pg.210]</a></span> With the young Baron Nicotera and twenty-three others,
+Pisacane embarked on the <i>Cagliari</i>, a steamer belonging to a
+Sardinian mercantile line, which was bound for Tunis. When at sea, the
+captain was frightened into obedience, and the ship's course was directed
+to the isle of Ponza, where several hundred prisoners, mostly political,
+were undergoing their sentences. The guards made little resistance, and
+Pisacane opened the prisons, inviting who would to follow him. The first
+plan had been to make a descent on San Stefano, the island where
+Settembrini was imprisoned, but that good citizen had refused to admit the
+liberation of the non-political prisoners, which was an unavoidable
+feature in the scheme. With the addition of about three hundred men,
+Pisacane left Ponza for the mainland and disembarked near the village of
+Sapri, in the province of Salerno. From information received, he imagined
+that a revolutionary movement was on the point of breaking out in that
+district. Nothing could be further from the fact. The country people did
+all the harm they could to the band, which, after making a brave stand
+against the local militia, was cut to pieces by the royal troops. Pisacane
+fell fighting; those who were not killed were taken, and amongst these was
+Nicotera, who was kept in prison till set free by Garibaldi.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Cagliari</i> was captured and detained with its crew. As two of
+the seamen were British subjects, the English Government joined Sardinia
+in demanding its restitution, which, after long delays, was conceded.</p>
+
+<p>In 1857, the Emperor of Austria relieved Field-Marshal Radetsky, then
+in his ninety-third year, of the burden of office. He was given the right
+of living in any of the royal palaces, even in the Emperor's own residence
+at Vienna, but he preferred to spend the one remaining year <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg.211]</a></span> of his life
+in Italy. At the same time, the Archduke Maximilian was appointed Viceroy
+of Lombardy and Venetia. A more naturally amiable and cultivated Prince
+never had the evil fate forced upon him of attempting impossible tasks.
+Just married to the lovely Princess Charlotte of Belgium, he came to Italy
+radiant with happiness, and wishing to make everyone as happy as he was
+himself. Not even the chilling welcome he received damped his enthusiasm,
+for he thought the aversion of the population depended on undoubted
+wrongs, which it was his full intention to redress. He was to learn two
+things; firstly, that the day of reconciliation was past: there were too
+many ghosts between the Lombards and Venetians, and the House of Hapsburg.
+Secondly, that an unseen hand beyond the Brenner would diligently thwart
+each one of his benevolent designs. The system was, and was to remain,
+unchanged. It was not carried out quite as it was carried out in the first
+years after 1849. The exiles were allowed to return and the sequestrations
+were revoked. It should be said, because it shows the one white spot in
+Austrian despotism, its civil administration, that on resuming their
+rights of ownership the proprietors found that their estates had not been
+badly managed. But the depressing and deadening influence of an
+anti-national rule continued unabated. Lombardy and Venetia were governed
+not from Milan, but from Vienna. Very small were the crumbs which the
+Viceroy obtained, though he went on a journey to Austria expressly to
+plead for concessions. It is sad to think what an enlightened heir to the
+great Austrian empire was lost, when Napoleon III. and his own family sent
+Maximilian of Hapsburg to Queretaro.</p>
+
+<p>While Cavour had come to the conclusion that the aid which he believed
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg.212]</a></span>
+essential for the expulsion of the Austrians could only come from the
+French Emperor, this sovereign was regarded by a not inconsiderable party
+of Italians as the greatest, if not the sole, obstacle to their
+liberation. All those, in particular, who came in contact with the French
+exiles, were impressed by them with the notion that France, the real
+France, was only waiting for the disappearance of the Man of December to
+throw herself into their arms. Among the Italians who held these opinions,
+there were a few with whom it became a fixed idea that the greatest
+service they could render their country was the removal of Napoleon from
+the political scene. They conceived and nourished the thought
+independently of one another; they belonged to no league, but for that
+reason they were the more dangerous; somewhere or other there was always
+someone planning to put an end to the Emperor's life. It is not worth
+while to pause to discuss the ethics of political assassination;
+civilisation has decided against it, and history proves its usual failure
+to promote the desired object. What benefit did the Confederate cause
+derive from the assassination of the good President Lincoln, or the cause
+of Russian liberty from that of Alexander II.? What will Anarchy gain by
+the murder of Carnot? It is certain, however, that never were men more
+convinced that they were executing a wild kind of justice than were the
+men who plotted against Napoleon III. They looked upon him as one of
+themselves who had turned traitor. There is a great probability that, in
+his early days when he was playing at conspiracy in Italy, he was actually
+enrolled as a Carbonaro. At all events, he had conspired for Italian
+freedom, and afterwards, to serve his own selfish interests, he
+extinguished it in Rome. The temporal power of the Pope was kept alive
+through him. <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">
+[Pg.213]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A true account of the attempts on Napoleon's life will never be
+written, because the only persons who were able and willing to throw light
+on the subject, ex-police agents and their kind, are authorities whose
+word is worth a very limited acceptance. It is pretty sure that there were
+more plots than the public ever knew of, and that in some cases the
+plotters were disposed of summarily. Most of them were poor, ignorant
+creatures, but in January 1858 an attempt was made by a man of an entirely
+different stamp, Felice Orsini.</p>
+
+<p>Born at Meldola in Romagna in 1819, he was of the true Romagnol type in
+mind and body; daring, resourceful, intolerant of control. From his
+earliest youth all his actions had but one object, the liberation of his
+country. His youthful brain was enflamed by Alfieri and Foscolo, who
+remained his favourite authors. He hated Austria well, and he hated the
+Papal government as no one but one of its own subjects could hate it.
+'When the French landed in Italy' (he told his judges) 'it was hoped that
+they were come as friends, but they proved the worst of enemies. For a
+time they were repulsed, then they resumed the cloak of friendship, but
+only to wait for reinforcements. When these arrived they returned to the
+assault, a thousand against ten, and we were judicially assassinated.' A
+succinct and true narrative. During the republic Orsini was sent to
+Ancona, where anarchy had broken out; by vigorous measures he restored
+perfect order. In 1854 he was arrested in Hungary and condemned to death,
+but he escaped from Mantua under romantic circumstances and reached
+England, where the story of his audacious flight won for him many
+sympathisers. He was often seen in society. On one occasion he was asked
+to meet Prince Lucien Buonaparte. Orsini knew Mazzini, but he was
+impatient of his <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">
+[Pg.214]</a></span> mystical leanings, and he disapproved of such
+enterprises as Pisacane's, by which, as he thought, twenty or thirty men
+were sacrificed here or there without anything coming of it. He finally
+repudiated Mazzini's leadership, and in March 1857 he wrote to Cavour,
+asking him for a passport to return to Italy, and placing at the disposal
+of the Sardinian government 'the courage and energy which it had pleased
+God to give him,' provided that government left wavering behind, and
+showed its unmistakable will to achieve the independence of Italy. Cavour
+sent no reply, 'because,' he said later, 'the letter was noble and
+energetic, and I should have had to pay Orsini compliments which I did not
+deem fitting. 'Unlike Victor Emmanuel, who in after years carried on
+regular negotiations with Mazzini, Cavour, while ready to make an alliance
+with the Radicals in the Chamber, was extremely loth to have anything to
+do with actual revolutionists. His not answering Orsini's letter certainly
+led up to the attempt of the 14th of January 1858.</p>
+
+<p>Having quarrelled with Mazzini, and receiving no encouragement from
+Cavour, Orsini evolved the plan which on that day he endeavoured to put
+into execution. He would have preferred to act alone, but since that was
+impossible, he sought and found without much difficulty two or three
+accomplices. One of these, Pieri, a teacher of languages, was arrested by
+the police, who recognised him as an old conspirator, before he threw the
+bomb which he was carrying. The other bombs were thrown just as the
+carriage containing the Imperial party drove up to the opera house. A
+number of people in the street were killed or injured, but the Emperor and
+Empress escaped unhurt. When they entered the theatre the Rutli scene of
+the conspirators in <i>Guillaume Tell</i> was being performed. Not a
+breath of applause greeted them, though <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg.215]</a></span> everyone knew what had
+happened. Napoleon III. had a striking proof of how little hold he
+possessed on the affections of his subjects.</p>
+
+<p>When at his trial Orsini was asked what he expected would happen if he
+had succeeded in killing the Emperor he answered: 'We were convinced that
+the surest way of making a revolution in Italy was to excite one in
+France, and that the surest way of making a revolution in France was to
+kill the Emperor.' There is a good deal of curious evidence to show that
+very elaborate preparations had been made for a revolution in Paris. The
+French police had orders, however, to keep all this aspect of the affair
+out of sight. It was to be made to appear the isolated act of a misguided
+Italian patriot. 'The world possesses an Orsini legend,' writes the late
+Duke of Saxe-Coburg, who was present at the event, having been invited to
+join the Emperor at the opera, 'which is quite at variance with facts.'
+The duke clearly thinks that the conviction of the instability of his
+throne which was brought home to the Emperor on this occasion, was one of
+the causes which decided him to try the diversion of public opinion into
+other channels by means of a foreign war.</p>
+
+<p>Everything was done to make Orsini a hero in the eyes of the French
+public, and to excite sympathy in his cause. Jules Favre by his eloquent
+defence in which he pleaded not for the life, but for the honour of his
+client, and still more Orsini's own letter to the Emperor, produced a
+powerful impression; there was a dramatic interest in the man who,
+disdaining to crave clemency for himself, tried a last supreme effort in
+the service of the country he had loved too well. 'Deliver my fatherland,
+and the blessings of twenty-five million citizens will be with you.' So
+concluded the letter in which Orsini <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg.216]</a></span> told Napoleon, that till
+Italy was free there would be no peace for Europe&mdash;nor for him. It
+was whispered that the Emperor had a secret interview with the condemned
+man at the Mazas prison; at any rate, when Orsini mounted the scaffold, he
+was borne up, not only by his invincible courage, but by the strongest
+hope, if not the certainty that his last prayer would have only a short
+time to wait for fulfilment.</p>
+
+<p>Though persons who were able to read the signs of the times no longer
+doubted that Napoleon had resolved to solve the Italian question by force
+of arms, it suited his purpose to occupy the public mind for the moment
+with the furious agitation against England and Piedmont as 'dens of
+assassins,' which led to the fall of the Palmerston administration on the
+Conspiracy Bill, and seemed to almost place in jeopardy the throne of
+Victor Emmanuel. Napoleon sent the King of Sardinia demands so sweeping in
+language so threatening, that the old Savoy blood was fired, and Victor
+Emmanuel returned the answer: 'Tell the Emperor in whatever terms you
+think best that this is not the way to treat a faithful ally; that I have
+never tolerated violence from anyone; that I follow the path of unstained
+honour, and for that honour I am only answerable to God and to my people.
+That we have carried our head high for 850 years, and no one will make me
+lower it; and that, nevertheless, I desire nothing better than to remain
+his friend.' This reply was benevolently received; Cavour passed through
+the Chambers a bill which, though not corresponding to the extravagant
+pretensions of the French Government, gave reasonable security against the
+concoction of plots of a criminal nature; Napoleon expressed himself
+satisfied, and three months after, despatched Dr Conneau to Turin, to
+mention, quite by the way, to the Piedmontese minister, that <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg.217]</a></span> he would be
+glad to have a conversation with him on Italian affairs. This was the
+preliminary of the interview of Plombi&egrave;res.</p>
+
+<p>Plombi&egrave;res is a watering-place in the Vosges, which became
+famous on the 20th of July 1858, the day on which Napoleon III. and Cavour
+entered into the compact that laid down the conditions of the Italian war.
+The Emperor was to bring 200,000 men into Italy, and the King of Sardinia
+undertook to furnish 100,000. The Austrians were to be expelled from
+Italy. The kingdom of Upper Italy would embrace the Legations and the
+Marches then under the Pope. Savoy would be ceded to France. The marriage
+of the Emperor's cousin with the Princess Clotilde was not made a
+condition of the war, and only in case it had been made a condition, was
+Cavour empowered to agree to it. He, therefore, left it uncertain; but he
+came away from Plombi&egrave;res convinced that nearly everything depended
+upon its happening. Napoleon was beyond measure anxious for a marriage
+which would ally him with one of the oldest reigning families in Europe.
+It would be a fatal mistake, Cavour thought, to join the Emperor, and at
+the same time, to offend him in a way which he would never forget.
+Directly after the interview, he wrote a long letter to the King to
+persuade him to yield the point. After all, where would the Princess find
+a more promising match? Was it easy to provide husbands for princesses?
+Were not they generally extremely unhappy in marriage? What had happened
+to the King's four aunts, all charming princesses, who had married the
+Duke of Modena, the Duke of Lucca, the Emperor Ferdinand of Austria, and
+the King of Naples? Had they been happy? Prince Napoleon could not be so
+very bad, as he was known to have hurried to Cannes to pay a last visit to
+a woman whom he had loved, a great actress, then upon her <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg.218]</a></span> deathbed.
+This reminiscence was a singular one to evoke under the circumstances, but
+Cavour was not an Englishman, and he was not impressed by the propriety of
+drawing a veil over facts which everyone knew.</p>
+
+<p>The King's instinct told him that his young daughter, pious and simple
+and destitute even of that seasoning of vanity which is so good and
+necessary a thing in a woman, but proud at heart like all her race, would
+derive no compensation from the outward brilliancy of the Imperial Court
+for the absence of domestic joy which would be her wedded lot unless a
+surprising change came over the bridegroom. When, however, he was
+persuaded of the importance, or rather, of the essential character of the
+concession, he said to Cavour: 'I am making a great sacrifice, but I yield
+to your arguments. Still my consent is subordinate to the freely given
+consent of my daughter.' The matter was referred to the Princess, who
+answered: 'It is the wish of my father; therefore this marriage will be
+useful to my family and my country, and I accept.' An answer worthy of one
+who, twelve years later, when the members of the Imperial House were
+flying, remained quietly in Paris, saying: 'Savoy and fear are not
+acquainted.'</p>
+
+<p>The marriage was celebrated at Turin in January. The King made a
+present to Cavour, as a souvenir of the event, of a ring representing two
+heartseases. In thanking him, the minister said: 'Your Majesty knows that
+I shall never marry.' 'I know,' replied the King; 'your bride is the
+country.'</p>
+
+<p>Though warlike rumours circulated off and on, the secret of the
+understanding arrived at in the Plombi&egrave;res interview was well
+preserved, and the words spoken by Napoleon to the Austrian Ambassador at
+the New Year's Day reception fell on Europe with the effect of a <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg.219]</a></span>
+bombshell. Turning to Baron Hubner, he said: 'Je regrette que les
+relations entre nous soient si mauvaises; d&icirc;tes cependant &agrave;
+votre souverain que mes sentiments pour lui ne sont pas
+chang&eacute;s.'</p>
+
+<p>Even Cavour was startled. Probably till that moment he had never felt
+sure that Napoleon would not after all throw the Italian cause to the
+winds. The Emperor's invariable method in dealing with men was to mystify
+them. He was pleased to pose as a faithful ally, but human intellect was
+insufficient to fathom what he meant. On this system, skilfully pursued,
+was reared the whole fabric of Louis Napoleon's reputation for being a
+profound politician. Bearing the fact in mind, we can easily see why that
+reputation crumbled away almost entirely when the present became the past.
+There are few cases in which there is more disagreement between the
+judgment of contemporaries and that of immediate posterity than the case
+of the French Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>The least surprised, and, among Italians, the most dissatisfied at the
+New Year's Day pronouncement was Mazzini, who when he read it in the <i>
+Times</i> next morning felt that the Napoleonic war closed the heroic
+period of Italian Liberation. To men like Mazzini failure is apt to seem
+more heroic than success, and the war of 1859 did close the period of
+failure. The justification for calling in foreign arms could only be in
+necessity, and Mazzini denied the necessity. Charles Albert denied it in
+1848 with no less confident a voice. Then, indeed, there did appear a
+chance of Italy making herself, but was there the slightest prospect,
+eleven years later, of that chance being repeated? Each student of history
+may answer for himself. What is plain is, that France and Sardinia <i>
+together</i> were to find it an exceedingly hard task even to drive the
+Austrians out of Lombardy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">
+[Pg.220]</a></span> The unconquerable dislike of men of principle, like
+Mazzini, to joining hands with the author of the <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i>
+was perfectly explicable. There were doubtless some sincere Bulgarian
+patriots who disliked joining hands with the Autocrat of all the Russias.
+The gift of freedom from a despot means a long list of evils. Mazzini
+grasped the maleficent influence which Napoleon III. would be in a
+position to exercise over the young state; he knew, moreover, when only
+two or three other persons in Europe knew it, that the bargain of
+Plombi&egrave;res was on the principle of give-and-take. How Mazzini was
+for many years better informed than any cabinet in Europe, remains a
+secret. 'I know positively,' he wrote on the 4th of January 1859, 'that
+the idea of the war is only to hand over a zone of Lombardy to Piedmont,
+and the cession of Savoy and Nice to France: the peace, upon the offer of
+which they count, would abandon the whole of Venetia to Austria.' A month
+before this he had disclosed what was certainly true, namely, that
+Napoleon wanted to place a Murat on the throne of Naples, and to
+substitute Prince Napoleon for the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The point that
+is doubtful in the above revelation is the statement that the Emperor
+never meant to emancipate Venetia. The probabilities are against this. He
+may, however, have questioned all along whether his troops, with those of
+the King of Sardinia, would display a superiority over the Austrian forces
+sufficiently incontestable for him to risk taking them into the mouse-trap
+of the Quadrilateral. In this one thing Napoleon was amply
+justified&mdash;in having no sort of desire to take a beaten army back to
+Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Mazzini, with the more extreme members of the Party of Action
+(including Crispi), issued a protest against the Napoleonic war, with
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg.221]</a></span>
+the advice to have nothing to do with it or its authors. But Italy thought
+otherwise, and Garibaldi, the man who of all others most nearly
+represented the heart of Italy, rejoiced and was glad. He did not believe
+a word about the proposed cession of Savoy and Nice; no one did, except
+Mazzini and his few disciples. What he saw was, that a great step towards
+independence was about to be taken. In 1856, he not only adhered to
+Manin's call to all Italians to rally round the house of Savoy, but went
+further than Manin in accepting unconditionally what he called the 'Savoy
+Dictatorship,' to which he left full liberty of choice in the matter of
+ways and means. He did justice then to Cavour's patriotism: it was only
+after the sacrifice of Nice that a feeling of bitter antagonism grew up in
+him for the man who he thought had deceived Italy and himself. In December
+1858, on a summons from Cavour, he left Caprera (the island which he had
+bought with a little inheritance falling to him on the death of his
+brother) and proceeded to Turin, where he was informed of a plan for a
+rising in Massa and Carrara, which was originally intended to be the
+signal of the war. The plan was given up, but in March 1859, Garibaldi was
+told by Victor Emmanuel in person of the imminence of war, and was invited
+to take part in it as commander of an auxiliary corps of volunteers which
+took the name of 'Cacciatori delle Alpi.' In this way, all his own
+followers, not only those in arms, but the great mass of the people which
+was obedient to his lead, became enrolled in the service of the Sardinian
+monarchy; a fact of capital importance in the future development of
+affairs. Without it, the Italian kingdom could not have been formed. And
+this fact was due to Cavour, who had to fight the arrayed strength of the
+old, narrow, military caste at Turin, which <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg.222]</a></span> had succeeded in getting
+Garibaldi's sword refused in 1848, and wished for nothing in the world
+more than to get it refused in 1859. Near the end of his life, Cavour said
+in the Chamber that the difficulties he encountered in inducing the
+Sardinian War Office to sanction the appointment were all but
+insurmountable. Unfortunately, the jealousy of the heads of the regular
+army for the revolutionary captain never ceased. As for Cavour, even when
+he opposed Garibaldi politically, he always strove to have the highest
+personal honour paid to the man of whom he once wrote 'that he had
+rendered Italy the greatest service it was possible to render her.'</p>
+
+<p>True to his <i>r&ocirc;le</i> of mystification, one week after the shot
+fired on the 1st of January, Napoleon inserted an official statement in
+the <i>Moniteur</i> to the effect that, although public opinion had been
+agitated by alarming rumours, there was nothing in the foreign relations
+of France to justify the fears these rumours tended to create. He
+continued on this tack, with more or less consistency, to the very verge
+of the outbreak of hostilities. 'The Empire was peace,' as it was always
+announced to be in the intervals when it was not war; there was no more
+harmless dove in Europe than the person enthroned in the Tuileries. These
+assurances were given more credence than they deserved by the Conservative
+Cabinet then in power in England, and the British ministers believed to
+the last that war would be averted, to which end they strained every
+nerve. Besides the wish felt by every English government to preserve
+European peace, there was at this juncture, not only in the Cabinet, but
+in the country, so much fear of Napoleon's ambition and restlessness, that
+for the time being, <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_223" id=
+"Page_223">[Pg.223]</a></span> sympathy with Italy was relegated to a
+second place.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile there was no want of plainness in the language employed in
+Piedmont. In opening the second session of the sixth Sardinian Parliament,
+Victor Emmanuel pronounced, on 10th January, the historic phrase declaring
+that he could not remain insensible to the cry of grief, <i>il grido di
+dolore</i>, that reached him from all parts of Italy. Every corner of the
+fair country where the <i>Si</i> sounds was electrified. The words, as has
+since become known, were introduced into the speech by the King himself.
+As Cavour had foreseen, Austria played into his hands. To Lord
+Malmesbury's appeal to evacuate the Roman Legations, and to use Austrian
+influence with the Italian princes in procuring the concession of
+necessary reforms, Count Buol replied in terms that were the reverse of
+obliging: 'We do not mean to abdicate our right of intervention, and if we
+are called upon to help the Italian sovereigns with our arms, we shall do
+so. We shall not recommend their governments to undertake any reforms.
+France plays the part of protectress of nationalities; we are, and shall
+be, protectors of dynastic rights.' Finally, England proposed a congress
+with a view to general disarmament. Piedmont, counting on the madness of
+her adversary, risked agreement with this plan. Austria gave a peremptory
+refusal to have anything to do with it.</p>
+
+<p>Cavour now asked Parliament to vote a war loan of &pound;2,000,000,
+which was passed by a majority of 81 out of 151 votes. No foreign banker
+would undertake to negotiate the loan, but it was twice covered by Italian
+buyers, nearly all small capitalists, who put their money into it as a
+patriotic duty. Amongst the few deputies who opposed the loan was the old
+apostle of retrogression, Count Solaro della Margherita, who raised his
+solitary voice against the tide of revolution; and the Savoyard the
+Marquis Costa de Beauregard whose speech was pathetic <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg.224]</a></span> from the
+melancholy foreboding which pervaded it that the making of Italy meant the
+unmaking of Savoy. Speaking in the name of his fellow-countrymen, the
+Marquis reconfirmed the profound love of Savoy for her Royal House and her
+total lack of solidarity with the aspirations of Italy. With time the
+Savoyards might have learnt to be Italians as their king had learnt to be
+an Italian king. Or they might not. Possibly the best solution would have
+been to join Savoy to the Swiss Confederation, though the martial
+instincts of the race were not favourable to their Conversion into
+peaceful Helvetic citizens. From one point of view, that of military
+defence, the retention of the province was of infinitely more moment to
+the future Italy than to little Piedmont. Sardinia could keep the peace
+with France for an indefinite period; Italy cannot. What is true of Savoy
+is far more true of Nice. To have it in foreign keeping is to have a very
+partially reformed burglar inside your house.</p>
+
+<p>'Notre roi,' said an old ragged fisherman of the Lac de Bourget to the
+writer of this book,&mdash;'Notre roi nous a vendus.' Not willingly did
+Victor Emmanuel incur that charge, in which the rebound from love to hate
+was so clearly heard; not willingly did he give up Maurienne, cradle of
+his race, Hautecombe, grave of his fathers. It was the greatest sacrifice,
+he said, that Italy could have asked of him. Nor is there any reason to
+doubt his word. But it is incorrect to suppose, as many have supposed,
+that Cavour promised at Plombi&egrave;res to give up Savoy (Nice he did
+not promise) without the King's knowledge. Before he went there, he had
+brought Victor Emmanuel over to his own belief, justified or not, that
+without a bait Napoleon could not be got to <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg.225]</a></span> move. Directly after the
+interview, he wrote a full account of it to the King, in which he said:
+'When the future fate of Italy was arranged, the Emperor asked me what
+France would have, and if your Majesty would cede Savoy and the county of
+Nice?' To which Cavour answered 'Yes' as to Savoy, but objected that Nice
+was essentially Italian. The Emperor twirled his moustache several times,
+and only said that these were secondary questions, about which there would
+be time to think later.</p>
+
+<p>Austria was always appealing to the right of treaties and the right of
+nations; not, as it happened, with much reason, for she had ridden or
+tried to ride rough-shod through as many treaties and through quite as
+many rights as most European Powers. In 1816 she was so determined to
+possess herself of Alessandria and the Upper Novarese that Lord
+Castlereagh advised Piedmont to join the Austrian Confederation, as then
+and only then the Emperor might withdraw his pretensions to this large
+slice of territory of a Prince with whom he was at peace. If he did
+withdraw them, it was not from respect for the treaties which, a year
+before, had confirmed the King of Sardinia's rights as an independent
+sovereign, but from respect for the untoward results to himself which he
+was afraid, on reflection, might arise from enforcing his claims with the
+bayonet. But people forget; and it was of vital consequence that virtuous
+Austria should figure in the coming conflict not as the victim of
+aggression but as the aggressor. On all sides it was said that the
+Austrian Government would never commit an error of such magnitude; only
+Cavour thought the contrary. 'I shall <i>force</i> her to declare war
+against us,' he told Mr Odo Russell in December 1858. When asked by the
+incredulous diplomatist at what date he expected to <span class="newpage">
+<a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg.226]</a></span> perform so great a
+feat, Cavour quietly answered: 'In the first week of May.' War was
+actually declared a few days sooner.</p>
+
+<p>For months Austria had been pouring troops into Italy, a large portion
+of which were massed on the frontier line of the Ticino. Who shall count
+the number of the men brought to fight and die in the Italian plains
+between 1848 and 1866 to sustain for that short time the weight of a
+condemned despotism? The supply was inexhaustible; they came from the
+Hungarian steppes, from the green valleys of Styria, from the mountains of
+Tyrol, from the woodlands of the Banat and of Bohemia; a blind million
+battling for a chimera. They came, and how many did not return?</p>
+
+<p>Austria's final refusal to adhere to the Congress scheme meant, of
+course, war, and Cavour called the Chamber and demanded a vote conferring
+upon Government the power to take such prompt measures as the situation
+required. 'We trust,' he said, 'that the Chamber will not hesitate to
+sanction the proposal to invest the King with plenary powers. Who could be
+a better guardian of our liberty? Who more worthy of the faith of the
+nation? He it is whose name a ten years' reign had made synonymous with
+honour and loyalty; who has always held high the tricolor standard of
+Italy, who now prepares to unsheath his sword for freedom and
+independence.'</p>
+
+<p>When Cavour walked out of the Chamber after the vote had been taken, he
+said: 'I am leaving the last sitting of the Piedmontese Parliament, the
+next will be that of the Kingdom of Italy.' At that moment, if ever in his
+career, the great minister who had fought so long a fight against
+incalculable obstacles learnt what it is to taste the sweetness of
+triumph.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg.227]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XII"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XII</h3>
+
+<h4>THE WAR FOR LOMBARDY</h4>
+
+<h5>1859</h5>
+
+<h5>Austria declares War&mdash;Montebello&mdash;Garibaldi's
+Campaign&mdash;Palestro&mdash;Magenta&mdash;The Allies enter
+Milan&mdash;Ricasoli saves Italian Unity&mdash;Accession of Francis
+II.&mdash;Solferino&mdash;The Armistice of Villafranca.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>Baron von Kellersperg reached Turin on the 23rd of April, bringing with
+him the Austrian ultimatum: 'Disarmament within three days, or war.'
+Cavour read the document, and then drew his watch out of his pocket. It
+was half-past five in the afternoon. At the same hour on the 26th, he gave
+Baron von Kellersperg the answer: 'Sardinia having accepted the principle
+of a general disarmament, as formulated by England, with the adhesion of
+France, Prussia and Russia, the Sardinian Government has no other
+explanation to make.' The retort was justified. Austria, which now
+required Sardinia to disarm, had refused to disarm herself. She must take
+the consequences.</p>
+
+<p>The British Government made a last desperate effort to maintain peace,
+and the Austrians always said that this was their ruin, as it delayed the
+invasion of Piedmont for a week. On the 29th appeared the Emperor Francis
+Joseph's Declaration of War, and on the same day the first Austrian
+columns crossed the Ticino. The Austrian commander-in-chief was Count
+Gyulai, who was in high favour with the aristocratic party, <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg.228]</a></span> by which
+his appointment was suggested to, if not forced upon, the Emperor. The
+latter, not altogether easy in his mind about Gyulai's capabilities,
+commissioned General Hess, in whom he placed full confidence, to keep his
+eye on him. Hess could not, however, do much more than take notes of one
+of the most remarkable and providential series of blunders ever committed
+by the commander of an army.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the delay which the Austrians ascribed to the English peace
+negotiations, there was time for them to destroy the Sardinian army before
+the French came up. Gyulai had 100,000 men in the theatre of war, a number
+increased up to 200,000 during the campaign. Both Sardinia and her ally
+mustered much fewer men than were spoken of at Plombi&egrave;res. The
+Piedmontese could dispose of 56,000 infantry, formed in five divisions,
+one division of cavalry numbering 4,000, and one brigade of volunteers, to
+which the name was given of 'Cacciatori delle Alpi.' The enrolment of
+these was stopped when it had reached the small figure of 4,500 men, a
+figure that looks out of all proportion with the brilliant part they
+played. The same influences which cut short the enrolment prevented Cavour
+from keeping his distinct promise to give Garibaldi, now invested with the
+official rank of major-general, 10,000 regulars, with a battery and a
+troop of horse.</p>
+
+<p>The French army consisted of 128,000 men, including about 10,000
+cavalry. The Emperor's Government had notified beforehand to Vienna that
+the passage of the Ticino by the Austrian troops would be considered
+equivalent to a declaration of war, and accordingly, on the 29th of April,
+diplomatic relations between the two Powers were broken off. The French
+forces had been really on the move for more than a week&mdash;ever since,
+in fact, by what the Marquis of Normanby called 'an <span class="newpage">
+<a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg.229]</a></span> unpardonable breach
+of confidence,' the intention of Austria to invade Sardinia was
+communicated to Paris. The mobilisation was conducted with rapidity; in
+spite of the snow, which lay deep on the Mont Cenis, the first corps,
+under Marshal Baraguay d'Hilliers, made a swift march over the Alps, and
+the foremost division entered Turin on the 30th of April. The troops of
+Canrobert and Niel, who commanded the third and fourth corps, were sent by
+Toulon and Marseilles, while the generals themselves went on to Turin in
+advance. MacMahon's corps, which was the second, was on its way from
+Algiers. The fifth corps, under the command of Prince Napoleon, was
+despatched at a later date to Tuscany, where it was kept in a state of
+inactivity, which suggested rather a political than a military mission.
+General Regnault de Saint-Jean d'Ang&eacute;ly commanded the Imperial
+Guard. Napoleon III assumed the supreme command of the allied armies, with
+General Vaillant as head of the staff.</p>
+
+<p>The condition of neither French nor Austrian army was satisfactory. The
+former had more modern arms and a greater proportion of old soldiers, but
+it was generally thought that the French cavalry, so far superior to the
+Prussian in the war of 1870, was inferior to the Austrian in 1859. The
+commissariat and ambulance arrangements of the French were disgraceful,
+though they had this advantage, that when there was food to be had the
+soldiers were allowed to eat it, while the Austrians were limited to
+half-a-pound of beef a day, and were only allowed to cook once in the
+twenty-four hours, which led to their having constantly to fight fasting.
+In point of discipline, they were probably superior to the French, who
+fought, however, and this should always be remembered of them in Italy,
+with the best will in the <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_230" id=
+"Page_230">[Pg.230]</a></span> world. They carried about their pet monkeys
+and dogs, and were always good-humoured and in good spirits, even when
+wounded. What would have been the effect on them of even a single defeat
+is a question which it is useless to discuss.</p>
+
+<p>In Napoleon's proclamation to the French people it was stated that the
+scope of the war was to give Italy to herself, not to make her change
+masters; the recompense of France would be to have upon her frontiers a
+friendly people which owed its independence to her. As things stood there
+were but two alternatives: Austria supreme as far as the Alps, or Italy
+free to the Adriatic. On the 12th of May, the Imperial yacht, the <i>Reine
+Hortense</i>, steamed into the harbour of Genoa with the Emperor on board.
+A splendid reception awaited him, and amongst the first to greet him was
+Cavour. 'You may well rejoice,' said Napoleon, as he embraced the
+Sardinian statesman, 'for your plans are being realised.'</p>
+
+<p>Gyulai, who had insisted on invading Piedmont, contrary to the opinion
+of Hess (who counselled waiting for reinforcements on the left bank of the
+Mincio), wasted his time after crossing the Ticino in making plans and
+changing them while he could unquestionably have thrown himself on Turin
+had he possessed more resolution, and this was the only operation that
+could have justified the initial folly of the invasion. The taking of the
+capital might not have altered the fortunes of the war, but it would have
+had all the appearance of a triumph, and would have raised the <i>
+moral</i> of the Austrian soldiers. The allies had time to concentrate
+their forces near Tortona, and it was left to them to assume the
+offensive. The Austrians retired towards the Apennines, but made a forward
+movement on the 20th of May with the object of seizing <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg.231]</a></span> the heights
+of Casteggio which command the road to Piacenza; they were met by the
+allies at the village of Montebello where Marshal Lannes obtained a
+victory in 1800. The allies were completely successful in this first
+battle, the honours of the day falling to the Sardinian cavalry, which
+showed great gallantry. The Austrian forces were considerably superior in
+strength.</p>
+
+<p>Almost at the same time as the engagement of Montebello, Garibaldi with
+his diminutive army (which through the weeding-out of men unfit for
+service was reduced to about 3,500 before it took the field), crossed the
+Lago Maggiore, and advanced boldly into the heart of the enemy's country.
+The volunteers had no artillery, and by way of cavalry only some forty or
+fifty were mounted on their own horses and dignified with the name of
+'guides.' They were badly armed and worse equipped; the only good thing
+they had was an excellent ambulance organised by Dr Bertani, Garibaldi's
+surgeon-general from Roman days downwards. But they formed a picturesque
+sight as they marched along gaily to the everlasting song, 'Addio, mia
+bella, addio'; and a physiognomist would have been struck by their
+intelligent and often distinguished faces: nobles and poets, budding
+doctors and lawyers, bristled in the ranks, while the officers were the
+still young veterans of 1848-1849: Cosenz, hero of Venice; Medici, the
+defender of the Vascello; Bixio, Sirtori, Cairoli&mdash;all the Knights of
+the Legend.</p>
+
+<p>Moving swiftly from place to place, and appearing where and when he was
+least expected, Garibaldi took the entire country of the Lombard lakes.
+Gyulai, who at first looked upon the Garibaldian march as a simple
+diversion intended to draw off his attention, now became <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg.232]</a></span> concerned,
+and dispatched Urban with 10,000 men to destroy the volunteers, and stem
+the insurrection which everywhere followed in their wake. On the 27th of
+May Garibaldi drove Urban from his position near San Fermo, and that
+commander had his mission still unfulfilled when he received the order to
+retreat after the battle of Magenta. The volunteers were free to pursue
+their way to Brescia and the Valtellina, where they performed many feats
+in the latter period of the war, winning the admiration of Hayn, the
+Austrian general opposed to them, which he was generous enough to express
+in no measured terms.</p>
+
+<p>The great war was meanwhile approaching its climax. After Montebello
+the whole French army executed a secret flank movement, changing its
+position from Voghera, where Gyulai believed it to be, and whence he
+expected it to move on to Piacenza, to the line of the Sesia, between
+Cameriano and Casale. To mask the main operations, the Sardinian forces
+were sent to Palestro, on the other side of the Sesia. On the 30th of May,
+they drove in the outposts of the enemy, and on the 31st fought the
+important engagement by which the Austrian attempt to retake Palestro was
+repelled, and great damage caused to Zobel's corps, which was obliged to
+leave eight guns sticking in the mud. The French Zouaves of the 3rd
+regiment fought with the Piedmontese, and made the battle famous by the
+reckless valour of their bayonet charges. Victor Emmanuel, deaf to all
+remonstrances, placed himself at their head, in consequence of which they
+elected him their corporal, an honour once paid to the first Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>There is reason to think that after Palestro, Gyulai, having at last
+realised what Napoleon was about, wished to evacuate Lombardy, but was
+prevented from doing so by strong protests sent by the Emperor Francis
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg.233]</a></span>
+Joseph, who was at Verona. The Austrian army was in full retreat when it
+was pulled up near Magenta, with the object of checking the advance of the
+French, who had already begun to cross the Ticino by the bridges of San
+Martino and Buffalora, which the Austrians had tried to blow up, but had
+not succeeded from want of proper powder. In the great battle of the 4th
+of June, Austrians and French numbered respectively about 60,000 men; no
+Piedmontese were engaged till the evening, when a battalion of Bersaglieri
+arrived. The Imperial Guard, with which was Napoleon, had to bear the
+brunt of the fight for four hours, and ran a good chance of being
+annihilated; not a brilliant proof of French generalship, but happily the
+Austrians also committed grave mistakes. MacMahon's arrival at five in the
+afternoon prevented a catastrophe, and the fighting, which continued far
+into the night, was from this moment attended by results on the whole
+advantageous to the French. Not much more can be said. Magenta was very
+like a drawn battle. The Austrians are calculated to have lost 10,000 men,
+the French between 4,000 and 5,000. It was expected that the Austrians
+would renew the attack, but on the 5th, Gyulai ordered the retreat, which
+was the last order he had the opportunity of giving, as he was deprived of
+his command immediately after.</p>
+
+<p>At mid-day on the 5th, Milan, which was trembling on the verge of
+revolution, made the pleasurable discovery that there were no Austrians
+left in the town. The municipality sent out delegates with the keys of the
+city to Victor Emmanuel. At ten a.m. on the 7th, MacMahon's corps began to
+file down the streets. Words cannot describe the welcome given to them.
+How MacMahon lifted to his saddle-bow a child that was in danger of being
+crushed by the crowd will be <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_234" id=
+"Page_234">[Pg.234]</a></span> remembered from the pretty incident having
+passed into English poetry. On the 8th, the King and the Emperor made
+their entry amidst a new paroxysm of enthusiasm. Napoleon is reported to
+have exclaimed: 'How this people must have suffered!' In his proclamation
+'to the Italian people,' which bears the same date as his entry into
+Milan, he renewed the assurance of the disinterested motives which had
+brought him to Italy: 'Your enemies, who are also mine, have endeavoured
+to diminish the universal sympathy felt in Europe for your cause, by
+causing it to be believed that I am making war for personal ambition, or
+to increase French territory. If there are men who fail to comprehend
+their epoch, I am not one of them. In the enlightened state of public
+opinion now prevailing, true greatness lies in the moral influence which
+we exercise rather than in sterile conquests.' The proclamation ended with
+the words: 'To-morrow you will be the citizens of a great country.' Not
+the least effusive demonstrations were reserved for Cavour, who joined his
+Sovereign a few days after the battle of Magenta.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p>Leaving the Milanese to put their faith in princes while yet there was
+time, a glance must be taken at what had been going on in the rest of
+Italy, which was becoming a great nation far more rapidly, and in a much
+fuller sense than Napoleon III. expected or wished. When Austria sent her
+ultimatum to Turin, the Sardinian minister at the Court of Tuscany invited
+the Grand Duke's Government to take part in the war of liberation. This
+they refused to do. On perceiving, however, that he could not depend on
+his troops, the Grand Duke promised to co-operate with Piedmont, but his
+advisers did not now think it possible to save the grand ducal throne,
+unless Leopold II. abdicated in favour of his <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg.235]</a></span> son, who was not
+burdened with the fatal associations of the reaction of ten years before.
+Leopold probably thought that even his abdication would not keep out the
+deluge, and he took the more dignified course of declining to yield to
+force. On the 27th of April, accompanied by the Corps Diplomatique as far
+as the frontier, he left Tuscany. A Provisional Government was formed with
+Peruzzi at its head, which hastily raised 8000 men for immediate service
+under the command of General Ulloa. Before long Prince Napoleon, with the
+fifth corps of the French army, landed, for no reason that could be
+avowed, at Leghorn. The real motive was to prepare the way for the
+fabrication of a new kingdom of Etruria, which existed already in
+Napoleon's brain. This masterpiece of folly had but a lukewarm supporter
+in Prince Napoleon, who was the only Napoleon and about the only Frenchman
+(if he could be called one) who grasped the idea of the unity of Italy and
+sincerely applauded it. Had J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Napoleon been born with
+the least comprehension of self-respect and personal dignity, his strong
+political intelligence and clear logical discernment must have produced
+something better than the most ineffectual career of the century.</p>
+
+<p>On the 8th of May, Baron Ricasoli took office under the Provisional
+Government as Minister of the Interior, and for nearly twelve months he
+was the real ruler of Tuscany. He had an ally of great strength, though of
+humble origin, in Giuseppe Dolfi, the baker, of whom it was currently said
+that any day he could summon 10,000 men to the Piazza della Signoria, who
+would obey him to the death. To Dolfi it was due that there were no
+disorders after the Grand Duke left. What Italy owes to the Lord of
+Brolio, history will never adequately state, because it is well-nigh
+impossible fully to realise how critical was <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg.236]</a></span> her position during all
+that year, from causes external and internal, and how disastrous would
+have been the slightest mistake or wavering in the direction of Tuscan
+affairs, which formed the central hinge of the whole complicated
+situation. Fortunate, indeed, was it that there was a man like the Iron
+Baron, who, by simple force of will, outwitted the enemies of Italy more
+thoroughly than even Cavour could do with all his astuteness. Austere,
+aristocratic, immovable from his purpose, indifferent to praise or blame,
+Ricasoli aimed at one point&mdash;the unity of the whole country; and
+neither Cavour's impatience for annexation to Piedmont, nor the scheme of
+Farini and Minghetti for averting the wrath of the French Emperor by a
+temporary and preparatory union of the central states, drew him one inch
+from the straight road, which was the only one he had ever learnt to walk
+in.</p>
+
+<p>In June, the Duke of Modena and the Duchess-Regent of Parma found it
+impossible to remain in their states, now that Austrian protection was
+withdrawn. The latter had done what she could to preserve the duchy for
+her young son, but the tide was too strong. These revolutions were
+accomplished quietly; but, some months after, on the incautious return to
+Parma of a man deeply implicated in the abuses of Charles III.'s
+government&mdash;Colonel Anviti&mdash;he was cruelly murdered; an act of
+vengeance which happily remained alone.</p>
+
+<p>After the battle of Magenta, when the Austrian troops were recalled
+from the Marches and Romagna, those districts rose and demanded the
+dictatorship of Piedmont. Napoleon foresaw that this would happen as far
+back as the Plombi&egrave;res interview, and at that date it did not
+appear that he meant to oppose it. But now, in Paris, the Clerical party
+were seized with panic, and the Empress-Regent, then, as always,
+completely under their control, did all in her power to arouse the <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg.237]</a></span>
+Emperor's opposition. The Pope , on his part, knowing that he was secure
+in Rome&mdash;thanks to the French garrison, which, though it hated its
+office, as the French writer Amp&egrave;re and others bore witness, was
+sure to perform it faithfully&mdash;had the idea of sending his Swiss
+troops to put down the growing revolution. With these, and a few Roman
+troops of the line, Colonel Schmidt marched against Perugia, where, in
+restoring the Papal authority, he used a ferocity which, though denied by
+clerical writers, was attested by all contemporary accounts, and was
+called 'atrocious' by Sir James Hudson in a despatch to Lord John Russell.
+The significance of such facts, wrote the English minister at Turin, could
+only be the coming fall of the Pope's Temporal Power.</p>
+
+<p>L.C. Farini was sent by Victor Emmanuel to administer the provinces of
+Modena and Parma, and Massimo d'Azeglio was charged with the same mission
+in Romagna. The Marches of Ancona had been recovered by the Papal troops,
+which were concentrated in the district called La Cattolica, near Rimini.
+A volunteer corps, under the Piedmontese General Mezzacapo, was entrusted
+with the task of preventing them from crossing into the Legations.</p>
+
+<p>In the month of May, when the allies were reaping their first
+successes, an event occurred at Caserta which precipitated crisis in the
+South Italy. Ferdinand II. died at forty-eight years of age of a terrible
+complaint which had attacked him a few months earlier, when he went to
+meet his son's bride, the Princess Maria Sofia of Bavaria, sister of the
+Empress of Austria. The news from Upper Italy hastened his end; he is said
+to have exclaimed not long before he died: 'They have won the cause!'</p>
+
+<p>The accession of a youth, of whom nothing bad was known, to a throne
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg.238]</a></span>
+that had been occupied by a sovereign so out of place in modern
+civilisation as Ferdinand, would appear at first sight a fortunate
+circumstance for the chances of the dynasty; but it was not so. In an
+eastern country it matters little whether the best of the inhabitants
+loathe and detest their ruler; but it matters much whether he knows how to
+cajole and frighten the masses, and especially the army, into obedience.
+Naples, more Oriental than western, possessed in Ferdinand a monarch
+consummately expert in this side of the art of government. Though without
+the higher military virtues, his army was his favourite plaything; he
+always wore uniform, never forgot a face he had once seen, and treated the
+officers with a rather vulgar familiarity, guessing at their weaknesses
+and making use of them on occasion. The rank and file regarded him as a
+sort of supernatural being. Francis II., who succeeded him, could scarcely
+appear in this light even to the most ignorant. Popular opinion considered
+him not quite sound in his mind. Probably his timorous, awkward ways and
+his seeming stupidity were simply the result of an education conducted by
+bigoted priests in a home that was no home: populated as it was by the
+offspring of a stepmother who hated him. His own mother, the charming
+Princess Cristina of Savoy, died while the city was rejoicing at his
+birth. The story is well known of how, shortly after the marriage,
+Ferdinand thought it diverting to draw a music-stool from under his wife,
+causing her to fall heavily. It gives a sample of the sufferings of her
+brief married life. An inheritance of sorrow descended from her to her
+child.</p>
+
+<p>If Francis II. was not popular, neither was the new queen. Far more
+virile in character and in tastes than her husband, her high spirit was
+not what the Neapolitans admire in women, and those who were <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg.239]</a></span> devoted to
+the late King accused her of having shown impatience during his illness
+for the moment when the crown would fall to Francis. Malicious gossip of
+this kind, however false, serves its end. Thus, from one cause or another,
+the young King exercised a power sensibly weaker than that of his father,
+while, besides other enemies, he had an inveterate one in his stepmother,
+who began weaving a conspiracy to oust him from the throne and place on it
+the eldest of his half-brothers. This plot received, however, very little
+popular support.</p>
+
+<p>The Sardinian Government sought to persuade Francis to join in the war
+against Austria; disinterested counsel, as in taking it lay his only hope,
+but it was opposed by England, Russia and France. In July two of the Swiss
+regiments at Naples mutinied. The Swiss Government, becoming alive to the
+discredit cast on the country by mercenary service, had decided that Swiss
+subjects serving abroad should lose their rights as citizens of the
+Confederation whilst so employed, and that they should no longer introduce
+the arms of their respective cantons into their regimental colours. This
+was the immediate cause of their insubordination. The mutineers, most of
+whom were unarmed, were ruthlessly shot down in the Campo di Marte to the
+terror of the population, and the two Swiss regiments which remained quiet
+were dissolved; by which the monarchy lost the troops that were chiefly to
+be depended on in emergencies. The Austrians and Bavarians imported in
+their stead did not form separate regiments, but were incorporated among
+the native troops, though the regiments that contained them were commonly
+called 'Bavarian.' They only partially filled the place of the Swiss.</p>
+
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg.240]</a></span>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p>Between the 4th and the 24th of June, no engagement of any magnitude
+was fought in Lombardy except the attack on Benedek at Melegnano, a battle
+in which the French lost most men, and gained no strategical advantage. It
+was supposed to have been fought because Napoleon I. had gained a victory
+in the same neighbourhood. The Austrians retreated to the Mincio,
+destroying the bridges over the Adda, Serio, Oglio and Mella as they went;
+these rivers the allies had to make repassable, which is the excuse given
+for the dilatory nature of their pursuit of the enemy. The Emperor Francis
+Joseph had now assumed the command, with Hess as his principle adviser,
+and Wimpffen and Schlick, famous as the 'One-eyed,' as heads of the two
+great corps into which the army was divided.</p>
+
+<p>On the 22nd of June, the Austrians were ranged along the left bank of
+the Mincio from Peschiera to Mantua, and the French were massed near
+Montechiaro, on the Brescia road, which Napoleon had made his
+headquarters. In withdrawing all their men from the right bank of the
+river, the Austrians desired to create the impression that they had
+finally abandoned it. It was their plan, which did not lack boldness, to
+throw the whole army back upon the right bank, and to perform a concentric
+movement on Montechiaro, where they hoped to fall unawares on the French
+and destroy them. They were confident of success, for they knew what a
+good stand they had made at Magenta, and now that Gyulai was got rid of,
+and the young Emperor had taken the field, they did not doubt that fortune
+would turn her wheel. To these men of many nations, the presence of their
+Emperor was the one inspiration that could rouse them, for if they were
+fighting for anything, it was for him in the most personal sense; it was
+to secure his mastery of the <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_241" id=
+"Page_241">[Pg.241]</a></span> splendid land over which he looked from the
+castle of Valleggio, on the 23rd of June, whilst his brilliant staff stood
+round, waiting for the signal to mount and clatter down the steep road to
+the Mincio bridge. The army now advanced along all its line.</p>
+
+<p>Even the soberest writers have not resisted making some reference to
+the magnificent scene of to-morrow's battle. On one side, the mountain
+bulwarks rising tier on tier, gorgeous with the trancendent beauty of
+colour and light of the Italian summer; on the other, the vine-clad
+hillocks which fall gently away from the blue lake of Garda till they are
+lost in the</p>
+
+<pre>
+        .....harvest shining plain
+        Where the peasant heaps his grain
+        In the garner of his foe.
+</pre>
+
+<p>The 24th of June was to decide how much longer the Lombard peasant
+should labour to fill a stranger's treasury.</p>
+
+<p>The calculations of the Austrians were founded on the slowness which
+had hitherto characterised Napoleon's movements. Hess thought that two
+days might be safely allowed for the Austrian advance, and that the enemy
+would remain passive on the west bank of the river Chiese, waiting to be
+attacked on the 25th. If the operation could have been performed in one
+day, and it is thought that it could, there would have been more prospect
+of success. But even then, the original plan of attacking the allies west
+of the Chiese could not have been carried out, as on the 23rd the whole
+allied army moved forward, the French occupying Castiglione and Lonato,
+and the Sardinians Rezzato and Desenzano, on the lake of Garda. It is not
+clear how far the allies believed in the Austrian advance; that they had
+warning of it from several quarters is certain. For instance, a gentleman
+living at <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">
+[Pg.242]</a></span> Desenzano heard from the country people, who, for
+marketing or other purposes, constantly go to and fro between that place
+and Peschiera, that the Austrians had ordered a quantity of country carts
+and transport waggons to be in readiness on the 23rd, and he hastened with
+the intelligence to the Piedmontese General Delia Rocca, who, in a fine
+spirit of red-tapism, pooh-poohed the information. The French encountered
+several Austrian patrols in the course of the day, but they were inclined
+to think that the Austrians were only executing a reconnaissance. On the
+whole, it seems that the conflict came as a surprise to both sides.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor of Austria, after accompanying the advance for a short
+distance, returned with Hess to Valleggio for the night. Napoleon slept at
+Montechiaro. The Austrian forces bivouacked on the little hills between
+Solferino and Cavriana. They rested well, still confident that no fighting
+would be done next day. At two in the morning, the French began to move in
+the direction of Solferino, and the Sardinians in that of Peschiera. There
+is a legend, that in the grey mists of dawn an advance party of French
+cavalry espied a huge and gaunt hussar standing by the roadside. For a
+moment the figure was lost sight of, but it reappeared, and after running
+across the road in front of the French, it turned and dealt the officer
+who led the party so tremendous a blow that he fell off his horse. Then
+the adventurous Austrian fled, followed by a volley from the French
+troopers; the sound vibrating through the dawn stillness gave the call to
+arms to the contrasted hosts. The battle of Solferino had begun.</p>
+
+<p>The news flew to Montechiaro and to Valleggio. Napoleon started for
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg.243]</a></span>
+the scene of action with the Imperial Guard; Francis Joseph's staff was
+sent forward at six a.m., but the Emperor and Hess did not start till
+later. At near nine, the staff was looking for the Emperor, and the
+Emperor was looking for the staff in the open country about Volta; the
+sixty or seventy staff-officers dashed across ploughed fields and over
+hedges and ditches, in a style which would have done credit to an English
+fox-hunt. This remarkable incident was in keeping with the general
+management of the battle on the part of the Austrians, who had been
+fighting for many hours before the commander-in-chief arrived. After his
+arrival, they continued fighting without any visible plan, according to
+the expedients of the divisional generals. The particular expedient
+adopted by General Zedwitz was to withdraw 15,000 men, including six
+regiments of cavalry, from the field. At a critical moment, Count Clam
+Gallas had the misfortune to lose his artillery reserve, and sent
+everywhere to ask if anyone had seen it. The Prince of Hesse, acting
+without orders, or against orders, separated his division from
+Schwarzenberg's and brought it up at the nick of time to save the
+Austrians, when they were threatened with actual destruction, at two
+o'clock in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>At that hour the French were in possession of the Spia d'Italia, and of
+all the heights of Solferino. They had been engaged in attacking them
+since eight in the morning, Napoleon having seen at once that they were
+the key to the position, and must be taken, cost what it might. The cost
+was great; if there is any episode in French military history in which
+soldiers and officers earned all the praise that can be given to brave
+men, it is the taking of these Solferino hills. Again and again Forey's
+division and Bazaine's brigade returned to the <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg.244]</a></span> charge; the cemetery and
+streets of Solferino were piled up with their dead, mingled with the dead
+of the defenders, who contested every inch of ground. The individual
+valour of the French soldiers in that six hours' struggle made it possible
+to win the battle.</p>
+
+<p>The Austrians, however, after their desperate straits at two o'clock
+recovered to so great an extent that, had Zedwitz returned with his
+cavalry, as the Emperor was hoping that he would, the day might still have
+been theirs. Even as it was, MacMahon's corps swerved under Zobel's
+repulse of his attack on San Cassiano, and Niel, in the plain, was
+dangerously hard pressed by Schwarzenberg. But, by degrees, the French
+recommenced gaining and the Austrians losing ground, and at six p.m., the
+latter were retreating in good order, defending each step before they
+yielded it.</p>
+
+<p>In the last stage of the battle the French limbered up their guns in
+the belief that a vast reserve of Austrian cavalry was galloping into
+action. What made them think so was a dense yellowish wall advancing
+through the air. Had they been natives, they would have recognised the
+approach of one of those frightful storms which bring devastation in their
+train, and which, as they move forward in what appears a solid mass, look
+to the inexperienced eye exactly like the clouds of dust raised by
+innumerable horsemen. The bursting of the storm hastened the end of the
+fight.</p>
+
+<p>All the day another fight, separate from this, had been going on
+between Benedek and the Sardinian army near the knoll of San Martino,
+overlooking the lake of Garda. The battle, which began in the early
+morning among the cypresses that crown the hillock, raged till seven <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg.245]</a></span> p.m.
+with a fury which cost the Piedmontese over 4,000 in dead and wounded. It
+consisted largely in hand-to-hand fighting, which now gave an advantage to
+the Austrians, now to the Italians; many of the positions were lost and
+re-taken more than half-a-dozen times; the issue seemed long doubtful, and
+when Benedek, who commanded his side with unquestionable ability, received
+orders from the field of Solferino to begin a retreat, each combatant was
+firmly convinced that he was getting the best of it. Austrian writers
+allege that this order saved the Sardinians from defeat, while in both
+Italian and French narratives, the Piedmontese are represented as having
+been already sure of success. The courage shown alike by Piedmontese and
+Austrians could not be surpassed. Victor Emmanuel, as usual, set an
+example to his men.</p>
+
+<p>An incident in the battle brings into striking relief what it was this
+bloody strife was meant to end. An Austrian corporal fell, mortally
+wounded by a Bersagliere whom he conjured, in Italian, to listen to what
+he had got to say. It was this: Forced into the Austrian army, he had been
+obliged to serve through the war, but had never fired his rifle on his
+fellow-countrymen; now he preferred to die rather than defend himself. So
+he yielded up his breath with his hand clasped in the hand which had slain
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The Austrians lost, on the 24th of June, 13,000 men in killed and
+wounded; the French, 10,000. It was said that the frightful scene of
+carnage on the battlefield after Solferino influenced Napoleon III. in his
+desire to stop the war. Had that scene vanished from his recollection in
+June 1870?</p>
+
+<p>Even a field of battle, with its unburied dead, speaks only of a small
+part of the miseries of a great war. Those who were at that time at <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg.246]</a></span>
+Brescia, to which town the greater portion of the French wounded and all
+the worst cases were brought, still shudder as they recall the dreadful
+human suffering which no skill or devotion could do more than a very
+little to assuage. The noble Brescian ladies who had once nursed Bayard,
+turned, with one accord, into sisters of charity; every house, every
+church, became a hospital, all that gratitude and pity could do was done;
+but many were to leave their bones in Italy, and how many more to go home
+maimed for life, or bearing with them the seeds of death.</p>
+
+<p>Other reasons than those of sentiment in reality decided Napoleon's
+course. Though these can only be guessed at, the guess, at the present
+date, amounts to certainty. In the first place, the skin-deep rejoicings
+in Paris at the news of the victories did not hide the fact that French
+public opinion, never genuinely favourable to the war, was becoming more
+and more hostile to it. Then there was the military question. It is true
+that the Fifth Corps, estimated at 30,000 men, had, at last, emerged from
+its crepuscular doings in Tuscany, and was available for future
+operations. Moreover, Kossuth paid a visit to the Imperial headquarters,
+and held out hopes of a revolution in Hungary which would oblige the
+Austrian Emperor to remove part of his troops from the scene of the war.
+Nevertheless, Napoleon was by no means convinced that his army was
+sufficient to take the Quadrilateral. He realised the bad organisation and
+numerous shortcomings of the forces under him so vividly that it seems
+incredible that, in the eleven following years, he should have done
+nothing to remedy them. He attributed his success mainly to chance, though
+in a less degree to a certain lack of energy in the Austrians, joined with
+the exaggerated fear of responsibility felt by their leaders. He never
+could <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">
+[Pg.247]</a></span> thoroughly understand why the Austrians had not won
+Solferino. Naturally, he did not express these opinions to his marshals,
+but there is ample proof that he held them; and if the fact stood alone,
+it ought not to be difficult to explain why he was not anxious for a
+continuance of the war.</p>
+
+<p>But it does not stand alone. Napoleon feared being defeated on the
+Rhine as well as in the Quadrilateral. Prussia had six army corps ready,
+and she was about to move them. That, after her long hesitations, she
+resolved to intervene was long doubted, but it cannot be so after the
+evidence which recent years have produced.</p>
+
+<p>At the time things wore a different complexion. Europe was never more
+amazed than when, on the 6th of July, Napoleon the victor sent General
+Fleury to Francis Joseph the vanquished with a request for an armistice.
+One point only was plain; an armistice meant peace without Venetia, and
+never did profound sorrow so quickly succeed national joy than when this,
+to contemporaries astonishing intelligence, went forth. But the blow fell
+on no Italian with such tremendous force as on Cavour.</p>
+
+<p>There are natives of Italy who appear to be more cool, more
+calculating, more completely masters of themselves, than the men of any
+other nationality. Cavour was one of these. But there comes, sooner or
+later, the assertion of southern blood, the explosion of feeling the more
+violent because long contained, and the cool, quiet Italian of yesterday
+is not to be recognised except by those who know the race intimately well,
+and who know the volcano that underlies its ice and snow as well as its
+luxuriant vegetation.</p>
+
+<p>On Wednesday, the 6th of June, the French army was spread out in <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg.248]</a></span>
+battle array along the left bank of the Mincio, and everything led to the
+supposition that a new and immediate battle was in contemplation. The
+Piedmontese were engaged in making preparations to invest Peschiera.
+Napoleon's headquarters were at Valleggio, those of the King at
+Monzambano. By the evening a very few persons had picked up the
+information that Napoleon had sent a messenger to Verona. Victor Emmanuel
+knew nothing of it, nor did any of the French generals except Marshal
+Vaillant, but such things leak out, and two or three individuals were
+aware of the journey to Verona, and spent that night in racking their
+brains as to what it might mean. Next day at eleven o'clock General Fleury
+returned; the Austrian Emperor had accepted the armistice. Further secrecy
+was impossible, and like lightning the news flashed through the world.</p>
+
+<p>Cavour rushed from Turin to Desenzano, where he arrived the day before
+the final meeting between Napoleon and Francis Joseph. He waited for a
+carnage in the little <i>caf&eacute;</i> in the piazza; no one guessed who
+it was, and conversation went on undisturbed: it was full of curses on the
+French Emperor. Mazzini, someone said, was right; this is the way the war
+was sure to end. When a shabby conveyance had at length been found, the
+great statesman drove to Monzambano. There, of course, his arrival did not
+escape notice, and all who saw him were horrified by the change that had
+come over his face. Instead of the jovial, witty smile, there was a look
+of frantic rage and desperation. What passed between him and his Sovereign
+is partly a matter of conjecture; the exact sense of the violent words
+into which his grief betrayed him is lost, in spite of the categorical
+versions of the interview which have been printed. Even in a fit of
+madness he can hardly have spoken some of the words attributed to him.
+That he advised the King to withdraw <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg.249]</a></span> his army or to abdicate
+rather than agree to the peace which was being plotted behind his back,
+seems past doubting. It is said that after attempting in vain to calm him,
+Victor Emmanuel brought the interview to a sudden close. Cavour came out
+of the house flushed and exhausted, and drove back to Desenzano. He had
+resigned office.</p>
+
+<p>The King showed extraordinary self-control. Bitter as the draught was,
+he saw that it must be drunk, and he was determined to drink it with
+dignity. Probably no other Italian grasped as clearly as he did the real
+reason which actuated Napoleon; at any rate his chivalrous appreciation of
+the benefits already received, closed his lips to reproaches. 'Whatever
+may be the decision of your Majesty,' he said to the Emperor on the eve of
+Villafranca, 'I shall feel an eternal gratitude for what you have done for
+the independence of Italy, and I beg you to believe that under all
+circumstances you may reckon on my complete fidelity.'</p>
+
+<p>If there was sadness in the Sardinian camp, so there was in that of
+Austria. The Austrians by no means thought that the game was up for them.
+It would be interesting to know by what arguments Napoleon persuaded the
+young Emperor to renounce the hope of retrieving his disasters, whilst he
+slowly pulled to pieces some flowers which were on the table before which
+he and Francis Joseph sat. When they left the house, the heir to all the
+Hapsburgs looked pale and sad. Did he remember the dying counsels of
+'Father' Radetsky&mdash;not to yield if he was beaten on the Mincio, on
+the Tagliamento, on the Isonzo, before the gates of Vienna.</p>
+
+<p>When, on the evening of the same day, the Emperor of Austria signed the
+preliminaries of peace, he said to Prince Napoleon, who took the <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg.250]</a></span>
+document to Verona for his signature: 'I pray God that if you are ever a
+sovereign He may spare you the hour of grief I have just passed.' Yet the
+defeat of Solferino and the loss of Lombardy were the first steps in the
+transformation of Radetsky's pupil from a despot, who hourly feared
+revolution in every land under his sceptre, to a wise and constitutional
+monarch ruling over a contented Empire. To some individuals and to some
+states, misfortune is fortune.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg.251]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIII</h3>
+
+<h4>WHAT UNITY COST</h4>
+
+<h5>1859-1860</h5>
+
+<h5>Napoleon III. and Cavour&mdash;The Cession of Savoy and
+Nice&mdash;Annexations in Central Italy.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>Napoleon's hurried journey to Turin on his way back to France was
+almost a flight. Everywhere his reception was cold in the extreme. He was
+surprised, he said, at the ingratitude of the Italians. It was still
+possible to ask for gratitude, as the services rendered had not been paid
+for; no one spoke yet of the barter of Savoy and Nice. But Napoleon, when
+he said these words to the Governor of Milan, forgot how the Lombards, in
+June 1848, absolutely refused to take their freedom at the cost of
+resigning Venice to Austria. And if Venice was dear to them and to Italy
+then, how much dearer had she not become since the heroic struggle in
+which she was the last to yield. The bones of Manin cried aloud for
+Venetian liberty from his grave of exile.</p>
+
+<p>Venice was the one absorbing thought of the moment; yet there were
+clauses in the brief preliminaries of peace more fraught with insidious
+danger than the abandonment of Venice. If the rest of Italy became one and
+free, it needed no prophet to tell that not the might of twenty Austrias
+could keep Venetia permanently outside the fold. <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg.252]</a></span> But if Italy was to
+remain divided and enslaved, then, indeed, the indignant question went up
+to heaven, To what end had so much blood been shed?</p>
+
+<p>When he resolved to cut short the war, Napoleon still had it in his
+power to go down to history as the supreme benefactor of Italy. He chose
+instead to become her worst and by far her most dangerous enemy. The
+preliminaries of peace opened with the words: 'The Emperor of Austria and
+the Emperor of the French will favour the creation of an Italian
+Confederation under the honorary presidency of the Holy Father.' Further,
+it was stated that the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Duke of Modena would
+return to their states. Though Napoleon proposed at first to add, 'without
+foreign armed intervention,' he waived the point (Rome was in his mind)
+and no such guarantee was inserted. Here, then, was the federative
+programme which all the personal influence and ingenuity of the French
+Emperor, all the arts of French diplomacy, were concentrated on
+maintaining, and which was only defeated by the true patriotism and strong
+good sense of the Italian populations, and of the men who led them through
+this, the most critical period in their history.</p>
+
+<p>In England Lord Derby's administration had fallen and the Liberals were
+again in power. Napoleon was so strangely deluded as to expect to find
+support in that quarter for his anti-unionist conspiracy. His earliest
+scheme was that the federative plan should be presented to Europe by Great
+Britain. Lord John Russell answered: 'We are asked to propose a partition
+(<i>morcellement</i>) of the peoples of Italy, as if we had the right to
+dispose of them.' It was a happy circumstance for Italy that her unity had
+no better friends than in the English Government during those difficult
+years. Cavour's words soon after Villafranca, 'It is England's turn now,'
+were not belied.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">
+[Pg.253]</a></span> One thing should have made Napoleon uneasy; a man like
+Cavour, when his blood is roused, when his nature is fired by the
+strongest passions that move the human heart, is an awkward adversary. If
+there was an instant in which the great statesman thought that all was
+lost, it was but an instant. With the quick rebound of virile characters
+he recovered his balance and understood his part. It was to fight and
+conquer.</p>
+
+<p>'Your Emperor has dishonoured me,' he said to M. Pietri in the presence
+of Kossuth (the interview taking place at Turin on the 15th of July).
+'Yes, sir, he has dishonoured me,' and he set forth how, after promising
+to hunt the last Austrian out of Italy, after secretly exacting the price
+of his assistance to which Cavour had induced his good and honest King to
+consent, he now left them solemnly in the lurch; Lombardy might suffice!
+And, for nothing to be wanting, the King was to be forced into a
+confederation with Austria and the Italian princes under the presidency of
+the Pope. After painting the situation with all the irony and scorn of
+which he was master, he gave his note of warning: 'If needs be, I will
+become a conspirator, I will become a revolutionist, but this treaty shall
+never be executed; a thousand times no&mdash;never!'</p>
+
+<p>The routine business of the Prime Minister still fell to Cavour, as
+Rattazzi, who succeeded him, had not yet formed his cabinet. He was
+obliged, therefore, to write officially to the Royal Commissioners at
+Modena, Bologna and Florence to abandon their posts. But in the character
+of Cavour, the private citizen, he telegraphed to them at the same time to
+remain and do their duty. And they remained.</p>
+
+<p>On one point there was a temporary lull of anxiety. Almost the last
+words spoken by Napoleon to Victor Emmanuel before he left Turin were:
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg.254]</a></span>
+'We shall think no more about Nice and Savoy.' The mention of Nice shows
+that though it had not been promised, Napoleon was all along set upon its
+acquisition. It is impossible to say how far, at the moment, he was
+sincere in the renunciation. That, very soon after his return to Paris, he
+was diligently weaving plans for getting both provinces into his net, is
+evident from the tenor of the articles and notes published in the
+'inspired' French newspapers.</p>
+
+<p>Two chief motives can be divined for Napoleon's determined opposition
+to Italian unity which never ceased till Sedan. The first was his wish,
+shared by all French politicians, that Italy should be weak. The second
+was his regard for the Temporal Power which proceeded from his still being
+convinced that he could not reign without the Clerical vote. The French
+prelates were perpetually giving him reminders that this vote depended on
+his keeping the Pope on his throne. For instance, Cardinal Donnet told him
+at Bordeaux in October 1859, that he could not choose a better way of
+showing his appreciation of the Blessed Virgin than 'en m&eacute;nageant
+un triomphe &agrave; son Fils dans la personne de son Vicaire.' It would
+be a triumph which the Catholic world would salute with transport. Hints
+of this sort, the sense of which was not hard to read, in spite of their
+recondite phraseology, reached him from every quarter. He feared to set
+them aside. The origins of his power were too much tainted for him to
+advance boldly on an independent policy. Thus it was that bit by bit he
+deliberately forfeited all title to the help of Italy when the same
+whirlwind that dashed him to earth, cleared the way for the final
+accomplishment of her national destinies.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst Victor Emmanuel was more alive than Cavour to the military
+arguments in favour of stopping hostilities when the tide of success <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg.255]</a></span> was
+at its height, he was not one whit more disposed to stultify his past by
+becoming the vassal at once of Paris and Vienna. In a letter written to
+the Emperor of the French in October, in answer to a very long one in
+which Napoleon sought to convert him to the plan of an Austro-Italian
+Confederation, he wound up by saying: 'For the considerations above
+stated, and for many others, I cannot, Sire, second your Majesty's policy
+in Italy. If your Majesty is bound by treaties and cannot revoke your
+engagements in the (proposed) congress, I, Sire, am bound on my side, by
+honour in the face of Europe, by right and duty, by the interests of my
+house, of my people and of Italy. My fate is joined to that of the Italian
+people. We can succumb, but never betray. Solferino and San Martino may
+sometimes redeem Novara and Waterloo, but the apostasies of princes are
+always irreparable. I am moved to the bottom of my soul by the faith and
+love which this noble and unfortunate people has reposed in me, and rather
+than be unworthy of it, I will break my sword and throw the crown away as
+did my august father. Personal interest does not guide me in defending the
+annexations; the Sword and Time have borne my house from the summit of the
+Alps to the banks of the Mincio, and those two guardian angels of the
+Savoy race will bear it further still, when it pleases God.'</p>
+
+<p>The events in Central Italy to which the King alludes were of the
+highest importance. L.C. Farini, the Sardinian Royal Commissioner at
+Modena, when relieved of his office, assumed the dictatorship by the will
+of the people. L. Cipriani became Governor of Romagna, and at Florence
+Ricasoli continued at the head of affairs, undismayed and unshaken in his
+resolve to defeat the combined machinations of France and Austria. In
+August the populations of Modena, Reggio, Parma and <span class="newpage">
+<a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg.256]</a></span> Piacenza declared
+their union with Piedmont by an all but unanimous popular vote, the two
+last provinces placing themselves for temporary convenience under the
+Dictator Farini. A few days later, Tuscany and Romagna voted a like act of
+union through their Constituent Assemblies. The representatives of the
+four States, Modena, Parma, Romagna and Tuscany, formally announced to the
+great Powers their choice of Victor Emmanuel, in whose rule they
+recognised the sole hope of preserving their liberties and avoiding
+disorder. Delegates were sent to Turin with the offer of the crown.</p>
+
+<p>Peace, of which the preliminaries only were signed at Villafranca, was
+not yet definitely concluded, and a large French army was still in Italy.
+The King's government feared therefore to adopt the bold course of
+accepting the annexations outright, and facing the responsibilities which
+might arise. Victor Emmanuel thanked the delegates, expressing his
+confidence that Europe would not undo the great work that had been done in
+Central Italy. The state of things, however, in these provinces, whose
+elected King could not yet govern them, was anomalous, most of all in what
+related to defence; they being menaced on the Austrian side by the Duke of
+Modena, and on the South by the Papal troops in the Cattolica. An armed
+force of 25,000 men was organised, of which the Tuscan contingent was
+under the command of Garibaldi, and the rest under that of the Sardinian
+General Fanti, 'lent' for the purpose. Garibaldi hoped not merely to
+defend the provinces already emancipated, but to carry war into the
+enemy's camp and make revolution possible throughout the States of the
+Church. To the Party of Action the chance seemed an unique one of
+hastening the progress of events. Unaccustomed as they were to weigh
+diplomatic <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">
+[Pg.257]</a></span> difficulties, they saw the advantages but not the
+perils of a daring course. Meanwhile Napoleon threatened to occupy
+Piacenza with 30,000 men on the first forward step of Garibaldi, who, on
+his side, seemed by no means inclined to yield either to the orders of the
+Dictator Farini, or to the somewhat violent measures taken to stop him by
+General Fanti, who instructed the officers under his command to disobey
+him. It was then that Victor Emmanuel tried his personal influence, rarely
+tried without success, over the revolutionary chief, who reposed absolute
+faith in the King's patriotism, and who was therefore amenable to his
+arguments when all others failed. The general was summoned to Turin, and
+in an audience given on the 16th of November, Victor Emmanuel persuaded
+him that the proposed enterprise would retard rather than advance the
+cause of Italian freedom. Garibaldi left for Caprera, only insisting that
+his 'weak services' should be called into requisition whenever there was
+an opportunity to act.</p>
+
+<p>Before quitting the Adriatic coast the hero of Rome went one evening
+with his two children, Menotti and Teresita, to the Chapel in the Pine
+Forest, where their mother was buried. Within a mile was the farmhouse
+where he had embraced her lifeless form before undertaking his perilous
+flight from sea to sea. In 1850, at Staten Island, when he was earning his
+bread as a factory hand, he wrote the prophetic words: 'Anita, a land of
+slavery holds your precious dust; Italy will make your grave free, but
+what can restore to your children their incomparable mother?' Garibaldi's
+visit to Anita's grave closes the story of the brave and tender woman who
+sacrificed all to the love she bore him.</p>
+
+<p>After sitting for three months, the Conference which met at Zurich to
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg.258]</a></span>
+establish the definite treaty of peace finished its labours on the 10th of
+November. The compact was substantially the same as that arranged at
+Villafranca. Victor Emmanuel, who had signed the Preliminaries with the
+reservation implied in the note: 'In so far as I am concerned,' preserved
+the same liberty of action in the Treaty of Zurich. He still hesitated,
+however, in assuming the government of the central provinces, and even the
+plan of sending the Prince of Carignano as governor fell through in
+consequence of Napoleon's opposition. His hesitations sprang from the
+general apprehension that a hint from Paris might any day be followed by a
+new eruption of Austrians in Modena and Tuscany for the purpose of
+replacing the former rulers of those states on their thrones. Such a fear
+existed at the time, and Rattazzi's timid policy was the result; it is
+impossible not to ask now whether it was not exaggerated? 'What
+statesman,' wrote the Prince Consort in June 1859, 'could adopt measures
+to force Austrian rule again upon delighted, free Italy?' If this was true
+in June was it less true in November? For the rest, would not the supreme
+ridicule that would have fallen on the French Emperor if he encouraged the
+Austrians to return to Central Italy after driving them out of Lombardy,
+have obliged him to support the principle of non-intervention, whether he
+wished it or not? England was prepared to back up the government of
+Piedmont, in which lay a great moral force. It is plain that the long
+wavering about what ought to be done with the central provinces is what
+cost the country Savoy and Nice, or at any rate, Nice. Napoleon did all in
+his power to prevent and to retard the annexations, especially that of
+Tuscany, which, as he said, 'would make Italian unity a mere question of
+time,' but when he found that neither threats nor blandishments could move
+the population from their <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_259" id=
+"Page_259">[Pg.259]</a></span> resolve to have Victor Emmanuel for their
+king, he decided to sell his adhesion for a good price. Compelled for the
+sake of appearances to withdraw his claim after the abrupt termination of
+the war, he now saw an excellent excuse for reviving it, and he was not
+likely to let the opportunity slip.</p>
+
+<p>At this period there was continual talk, which may or may not have been
+intended to end in talk, of a Congress to which the affairs of Italy were
+to be referred. It gave an opening to Napoleon for publishing one of the
+anonymous pamphlets by means of which he was in the habit of throwing out
+tentative ideas, and watching their effect. The chief idea broached in <i>
+Le Pape et le Congr&egrave;s</i> was the voluntary renunciation by the
+Pope of all but a small zone of territory round Rome; it being pointed out
+that his position as an independent sovereign would remain unaffected by
+such an act, which would smooth the way to his assuming the hegemony of
+the Italian Confederation. The Pope, however, let it be clearly known that
+he had no intention of ceding a rood of his possessions, or of recognising
+the separation of the part which had already escaped from him. Anyone
+acquainted with the long strife and millennial manoeuvres by which the
+Church had acquired the States called by her name, will understand the
+unwillingness there was to yield them. To do Pius IX. justice, an
+objection which merits more respect weighed then and always upon his mind.
+He thought that he was personally debarred by the oath taken on assuming
+the tiara from giving up the smallest part of the territory he received
+from his predecessor. The Ultramontane party knew that they had only to
+remind him of this oath to provoke a fresh assertion of <i>Non
+possumus.</i> The attitude of the Pope was one reason why the Congress was
+abandoned; but there was a deeper reason. A European <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg.260]</a></span> Congress
+would certainly not have approved the cession of Nice and Savoy, and to
+that object the French Emperor was now turning all his attention.</p>
+
+<p>At Turin there was an ignoble cabal, supported not so much, perhaps, by
+Rattazzi himself as by followers, the design of which was to prevent
+Cavour from returning to power. Abroad, the Empress Eug&eacute;nie, who
+looked on Cavour as the Pope's worst foe, did what she could to further
+the scheme, and its promoters counted much on the soreness left in Victor
+Emmanuel's mind by the scene after Villafranca. That soreness did, in
+fact, still exist; but when in January the Rattazzi ministry fell, the
+King saw that it was his duty to recall Cavour to his counsels, and he at
+once charged him to form a cabinet.</p>
+
+<p>That Cavour accepted the task is the highest proof of his abnegation as
+a statesman. He was on the point of getting into his carriage to catch the
+train for Leri when the messenger reached the Palazzo Cavour with the
+royal command to go to the castle. If he had refused office and returned
+to the congenial activity of his life as a country gentleman, his name
+would not be attached to the melancholy sacrifice which Napoleon was now
+determined to exact from Italy. The French envoy, Baron de Talleyrand,
+whose business it was to communicate the unwelcome intelligence, arrived
+at Turin before the collapse of Rattazzi; but, on finding that a
+ministerial crisis was imminent, he deferred carrying out his mission till
+a more opportune moment.</p>
+
+<p>On the 18th of January 1860, the Emperor admitted to Lord Cowley that,
+though there was as yet no arrangement between himself and Victor Emmanuel
+on the subject, he intended to have Savoy. After the long series of
+denials of any such design, the admission caused the most indignant
+feeling in the English ministers and in the Queen, who <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg.261]</a></span> wrote to
+Lord John Russell: 'We have been made regular dupes.' She went on to say
+that the revival of the English Alliance, and the hymns of universal peace
+chanted in Paris on the occasion of the Commercial Treaty, had been simply
+so many blinds, 'to hide from Europe a policy of spoliation.' Cavour came
+in for a part of the blame, as, during the war, he denied cognisance of
+the proposal to give up Savoy. The best that can be said of that denial
+is, that it was diplomatically impracticable for one party in the
+understanding of Plombi&egrave;res to make a clean breast of the truth,
+whilst the other party was assuring the whole universe that he was
+fighting for an idea.</p>
+
+<p>When the war was broken off, Cavour fully expected that Napoleon, of
+whom he had the worst opinion, would then and there demand whole pay for
+his half service; and this had much to do with his furious anger at
+Villafranca; but later, in common with the best-informed persons, he
+believed that the claim was finally withdrawn. When, however, Napoleon
+asked again for the provinces&mdash;not as the price of the war, but of
+the annexations in Central Italy&mdash;Cavour instantly came to the
+conclusion that, cost what it might (and he thought that, amongst other
+things, it would cost his own reputation and popularity), the demand must
+be granted. Otherwise Italian unity would never be accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>In considering whether he was mistaken, it must not be forgotten that
+the French troops were still in Italy. Not to speak of those in Rome,
+Marshal Vaillant had five divisions of infantry and two brigades of
+cavalry in Lombardy up to the 20th of March 1860. The engagement had been
+to send this army home as soon as the definite peace was concluded; why,
+then, was it still south of the Alps four months after?</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">
+[Pg.262]</a></span> In spite of this, however, and in spite of the
+difficulty of judging an act, all the reasons for which may not, even now,
+be in possession of the world, it is very hard indeed to pardon Cavour for
+having yielded Nice as well as Savoy to France. The Nizzards were Italians
+as the lower class of the population is Italian still; they had always
+shown warm sympathy with the hopes of Italy, which could not be said of
+the Savoyards; and Nice was the birthplace of Garibaldi!</p>
+
+<p>England would have supported and applauded resistance to the claim for
+Nice on general grounds, though her particular interest was in Savoy, or
+rather in that part of the Savoy Alps which was neutralised by treaty in
+1814. It was the refusal of Napoleon to adopt the compromise of ceding
+this district to Switzerland which caused the breach between him and the
+British ministry. From that moment, also, Prussia began to increase her
+army, and resolved, when she was ready, to check the imperial ambition by
+force of arms. 'The loss of Alsace and Lorraine,' writes an able
+publicist, M.E. Tallichet, 'was the direct consequence of the annexation
+of Nice and Savoy.'</p>
+
+<p>If anything could have rendered more galling to Italy the deprivation
+of these two provinces, it was the tone adopted in France when speaking of
+the transaction. What were Savoy and Nice? A barren rock and an
+insignificant strip of coast! The French of thirty-four years ago
+travelled so little that they may have believed in the description. The
+vast military importance of the ceded districts has been already referred
+to. Some scraps on the Nice frontier were saved in a curious way: They
+were spots which formed part of the favourite playground of the Royal
+Hunter of the Alps, and it was pointed out to <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg.263]</a></span> Napoleon that it would
+be a graceful act to leave these particular 'barren rocks' to his
+Sardinian Majesty. The zig-zags in the line of demarcation which were thus
+introduced are said to be of great strategic advantage to Italy. So far,
+so good; but it remains true that France is <i>inside</i> the Italian
+front-door.</p>
+
+<p>At the elections for the new Chamber in March 1860, the Nizzards chose
+Garibaldi; and this was their real plebiscite&mdash;not that which
+followed at a short interval, and presented the phenomenon of a population
+which appeared to change its mind as to its nationality in the course of a
+few weeks. In voting for Garibaldi, they voted for Italy.</p>
+
+<p>The Nizzard hero made some desperate efforts on behalf of his
+fellow-citizens in the Chamber, not his natural sphere, and was on the
+brink of making other efforts in a sphere in which he might have succeeded
+better. He had the idea of going to Nice with about 200 followers, and
+exciting just enough of a revolution to let the real will of the people be
+known, and to frustrate the wiles of French emissaries and the pressure of
+government in the official plebiscite of the 15th of April. The story of
+the conspiracy, which is unknown in Italy, has been told by one of the
+conspirators, the late Lawrence Oliphant. The English writer, who reached
+Turin full of wrath at the proposed cession, was introduced to Garibaldi,
+from whom he received the news of the proposed enterprise. Oliphant
+offered his services, which were accepted, and he accompanied the general
+to Genoa, where he engaged a diligence which was to carry the vanguard to
+Nice. But, on going to Garibaldi for the last orders, he found him supping
+with twenty or thirty young men; 'All Sicilians!' said the chief. 'We must
+give up the Nice programme; the general opinion is that we shall lose
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg.264]</a></span>
+all if we try for too much.' He added that he had hoped to carry out the
+Nice plan first, but now everything must be sacrificed to freeing Sicily.
+And he asked Oliphant to join the Thousand, an offer which the adventurous
+Englishman never ceased to regret that he did not accept. As it was, he
+elected to go all the same to Nice, where he was the spectator and became
+the historian of the arts which brought about the semblance of an
+unanimous vote in favour of annexation to France.</p>
+
+<p>The ratification of the treaty&mdash;which, by straining the
+constitution, was concluded without consulting Parliament&mdash;was
+reluctantly given by the Piedmontese Chambers, the majority of members
+fearing the responsibility of upsetting an accomplished fact. Cavour, when
+he laid down the pen after signing the deed of cession, turned to Baron de
+Talleyrand with the remark: 'Now we are accomplices!' His face, which had
+been depressed, resumed its cheerful air. In fact, though Napoleon's
+dislike of the central annexations was unabated, he could no longer oppose
+them. Victor Emmanuel accepted the four crowns of Central Italy, the
+people of which, during the long months of waiting, and under
+circumstances that applied the most crucial test to their resolution, had
+never swerved from the desire to form part of the Italian monarchy under
+the sceptre of the <i>Re Galantuomo</i>. The King of Sardinia, as he was
+still called, had eleven million subjects, and on his head rested one
+excommunication the more. The Bull fulminated against all who had,
+directly or indirectly, participated in the events which caused Romagna to
+change hands, was published a day or two before the opening of the new
+Parliament at Turin.</p>
+
+<p>Addressing for the first time the representatives of his widened realm,
+Victor Emmanuel said: 'True to the creed of my fathers, and, <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg.265]</a></span> like them,
+constant in my homage to the Supreme Head of the Church, whenever it
+happens that the ecclesiastical authority employs spiritual arms in
+support of temporal interests, I shall find in my steadfast conscience and
+in the very traditions of my ancestors, the power to maintain civil
+liberty in its integrity, and my own authority, for which I hold myself
+accountable to God alone and to my people.'</p>
+
+<p>The words: 'Della quale debbo ragione a Dio solo ed ai miei popoli,'
+were added by the King to the speech prepared by his ministers; it was
+noticed that he pronounced them with remarkable energy. The speech
+concluded: 'Our country is no more the Italy of the Romans, nor the Italy
+of the Middle Ages; no longer the field for every foreign ambition, it
+becomes, henceforth, the Italy of the Italians.'</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg.266]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIV</h3>
+
+<h4>THE MARCH OF THE THOUSAND</h4>
+
+<h5>1860</h5>
+
+<h5>Origin of the Expedition&mdash;Garibaldi at
+Marsala&mdash;Calatafimi&mdash;The Taking of
+Palermo&mdash;Milazzo&mdash;The Bourbons evacuate Sicily.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>During the journey from Turin to Genoa, Garibaldi was occupied in
+opening, reading and tearing up into small pieces an enormous mass of
+letters, while his English companion spent the time in vainly speculating
+as to what this vast correspondence was about. When they approached Genoa,
+the floor of the railway carriage resembled a gigantic wastepaper basket.
+It was only afterwards that Lawrence Oliphant guessed the letters to be
+responses to a call for volunteers for Sicily.</p>
+
+<p>The origin of the Sicilian expedition has been related in various ways;
+there is the version which attributes it entirely to Cavour, and the
+version which attributes it to not irresponsible personages in England.
+The former was the French and Clerical official account; the latter has
+always obtained credence in Germany and Russia. For instance, the late
+Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg said that 'the mystery of how 150,000 men were
+vanquished by a thousand Red-shirts was wrapped in English bank-notes!' Of
+this theory, it need only be said that the notion of Lord Palmerston (for
+it comes to that) supporting a foreign revolution out of the British
+exchequer is not one that commends itself to the belief of the average
+Englishman. With regard <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_267" id=
+"Page_267">[Pg.267]</a></span> to the other theory&mdash;namely, that
+Cavour 'got up' the Sicilian expedition, it has been favoured to a certain
+degree, both by his friends and foes; but it will not bear careful
+examination. As far as Sicily goes (Naples is another thing), the most
+that can be brought home to Cavour is a complicity of toleration; and even
+this statement should be qualified by the addition, 'after the act.' It is
+true that, in the early days after Villafranca, he had exclaimed: 'They
+have cut me off from making Italy from the north, by diplomacy; very well,
+I will make her from the south, by revolution!' True, also, that earlier
+still, in 1856, he expressed the opinion, shared by every man of common
+sense, that while the Bourbons ruled over the Two Sicilies there would be
+no real peace for Italy. Nevertheless, in April 1860, he neither thought
+the time ripe for the venture nor the means employed adequate for its
+accomplishment. He was afraid that Garibaldi would meet with the death of
+the Bandieras and Pisacane. No one was more convinced than Cavour of the
+importance of Garibaldi's life to Italy; and it is a sign of his true
+superiority of mind that this conviction was never entertained more
+strongly than at the moment when the general was passionately inveighing
+against him for the cession of Nice. To Cavour such invectives seemed
+natural, and even justified from one point of view; they excited in him no
+bitterness, and he was only too happy that they fell upon himself and not
+upon the King, since it was his fixed idea that, without the maintenance
+of a good understanding between Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi, Italy would
+not be made. Few men under the sting of personal attacks have shown such
+complete self-control.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">
+[Pg.268]</a></span> As has been stated, when Francis II. ascended the
+Neapolitan throne, he was invited to join in the war with Austria, and he
+refused. Since then, the same negative result had attended the reiterated
+counsels of reform which the Piedmontese Government sent to that of
+Naples&mdash;the young King showing, by repeated acts, that not Sardinia
+but Rome was his monitress and chosen ally in Italy. The Pope had lately
+induced the French General Lamorici&egrave;re to take the command of the
+Pontifical troops, and he and the King of Naples were organising their
+armies, with a view to co-operating at an early date against the common
+enemy at Turin. In January 1860, Lord Russell wrote to Mr Elliot, the
+English Minister at Naples: 'You will tell the King and his Ministers that
+the Government of her Majesty the Queen does not intend to accept any part
+in the responsibility nor to guarantee the certain consequences of a
+misgovernment which has scarcely a parallel in Europe.' Mr Elliot replied,
+early in March: 'I have used all imaginable arguments to convince this
+Government of the necessity of stopping short on the fatal path which it
+has entered. I finished by saying that I was persuaded of the inevitable
+fall of his Majesty and the dynasty if wiser counsels did not obtain a
+hearing, and requested an audience with the King; since, when the
+catastrophe occurs, I do not wish my conscience to reproach me with not
+having tried all means of saving an inexperienced Sovereign from the ruin
+which threatens him. The Ministers of France and Spain have spoken to the
+same effect.' Even Russia advised Francis to make common cause with
+Piedmont. In April, Victor Emmanuel wrote to his cousin, 'as a near
+relative and an Italian Prince,' urging him to listen while there was yet
+time to save something, if not everything. 'If you will not hear <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg.269]</a></span> me,'
+he said, 'the day may come when I shall be obliged to be the instrument of
+your ruin!' It has been said that the Sardinian Government, in tendering
+similar advice, hoped for its refusal and contemplated the eventuality
+hinted at with the reverse of apprehension. Of course this is true. Yet
+the responsibility of declining to take the only course which might by any
+possibility have saved him must rest with the King of Naples and not with
+Victor Emmanuel and his Ministers. The attempt to make Francis appear the
+innocent victim of a diabolical conspiracy will never succeed, however
+ingenious are the writers who devote their abilities to so unfruitful a
+task.</p>
+
+<p>To trace the real beginning of the expedition we must go back to the
+summer of 1859. When the war ended in the manner which he alone had
+foreseen, Mazzini projected a revolutionary enterprise in the south which
+should restore to the Italian movement its purely national character and
+defeat in advance Napoleon's plans for gathering the Bourbon succession
+for his cousin, Prince Murat. He sent agents to Sicily, and notably
+Francesco Crispi, who, as a native of the island and a man of resource and
+quick intelligence, was well qualified to execute the work of propaganda
+and to elude the Bourbon police. Crispi travelled in all parts of Sicily
+for several months, and in September he was able to report to Mazzini that
+the insurrection might be expected in a few weeks&mdash;which proved
+incorrect, but only as to date. Mazzini forbade his agents to agitate in
+favour of a republic; unity was the sole object to be aimed at; unity in
+whatever form and at whatever cost.</p>
+
+<p>In March 1860 he had an interview in London with the man who was to
+become the actual initiator of the revolutionary movement in South <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg.270]</a></span>
+Italy. This was Rosalino Pilo, son of the Count di Capaci, and descended
+through his mother from the royal house of Anjou, whose name, Italianised
+into Gioeni, is still borne by several noble families in Sicily. Rosalino
+Pilo, who was now in his fortieth year, had devoted all his life to his
+country's liberties. After 1849, when he was obliged to leave Sicily, he
+sold his ancestral acres to supply the wants of his fellow exiles, and
+help the work of revolutionary propaganda. Handsome in person, cultivated
+in mind, ready to give his life, as he had already given most of what
+makes life tolerable, to the Italian cause, he won the affection of all
+with whom he was brought in contact, and especially of Mazzini, from whom
+he parted after that last interview radiant with hope, and yet with a
+touch of sadness in his smile, as if in prevision that the place allotted
+to him in the ranks of men was among the sowers, not among the
+reapers.</p>
+
+<p>Rosalino Pilo believed, as Mazzini believed, that Sicily was ripe for
+revolution, but he realised the fact that under existing circumstances
+there was an exceeding probability of a Sicilian revolution being rapidly
+crushed. It was the tendency of Mazzini's mind to think the contrary; to
+put more faith in the people themselves than in any leader or leaders; to
+imagine that the blast of the trumpet of an angered population was
+sufficient to bring down the walls of all the citadels of despotism,
+however well furnished with heavy artillery. Pilo saw that there was only
+one man who could give a real chance of success to a rising in his native
+island, and that man was Garibaldi. As early as February he began to write
+to Caprera, urging the general to give his co-operation to the projected
+movement. It is notorious that the scheme, until almost the last moment,
+did not find favour with Garibaldi. In spite of his perilous enterprises,
+the chief had never been a courtier of failure, and he understood more
+clearly than <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">
+[Pg.271]</a></span> his correspondent what failure at that particular
+juncture would have meant. The ventures of the Bandieras and of Pisacane,
+similar in their general plan to the one now in view (though on a smaller
+scale). ended in disasters, but disasters that were useful to Italy. A
+disaster now would have been ruinous to Italy. Garibaldi's hesitations do
+not, as some writers of the extreme party have foolishly assumed, detract
+from his merit as victorious leader of the expedition; they only show him
+to have been more amenable to political prudence than most people have
+supposed.</p>
+
+<p>Rosalino Pilo wrote, finally, that in any case he was determined to go
+to Sicily himself to complete the preparations, and he added: 'The
+insurrection in Sicily, consider it well, will carry with it that of the
+whole south of the peninsula,' by which means not only would the Muratist
+plots be frustrated, but also a new army and fleet would become available
+for the conquest of independence and the liberation of Venetia. The writer
+concluded by wishing the general 'new glories in Sicily in the
+accomplishment of our country's redemption.'</p>
+
+<p>True to his word Rosalino Pilo embarked at Genoa on the 24th of March,
+on a crazy old coasting vessel, manned by five friendly sailors. He had
+with him a single companion, and carried such arms and ammunition as he
+had been able to get together. Terrible weather and the deplorable
+condition of their craft kept them at sea for fifteen days, during which
+time something of great importance happened at Palermo. On the 4th of
+April the authorities became aware that arms and conspirators were
+concealed in the convent of La Gancia, which was to have been the focus of
+the revolution. Troops were sent to besiege the <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg.272]</a></span> convent, which they only
+succeeded in taking after four hours' resistance; its fall was the signal
+for a general slaughter of the inmates, both monks and laymen. The
+insurrection was thus stifled in its birth in the capital, but from this
+time it began to spread in the country, and when, at last, Rosalino Pilo
+landed near Messina on the 10th of April, he found that several armed
+bands were already roving the mountains, as yet almost unperceived by the
+Government, which had gone to sleep again after its exhibition of energy
+on the 4th. Events were, however, to awake it from its slumbers, and to
+cause it to renew its vigilance. It required all Rosalino Pilo's skill and
+courage to sustain the revolution of which he became henceforth the
+responsible head, till the fated deliverer arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Pilo's letters, brought back to Genoa by the pilot who guided him to
+Sicilian waters, were what decided Garibaldi to go to the rescue. Some,
+like Bixio and Bertani, warmly and persistently urged him to accept the
+charge; others, like Sirtori, were convinced that the undertaking was
+foredoomed, and that its only result would be the death of their beloved
+captain: but this conviction did not lessen their eagerness to share his
+perils when once he was resolved to go.</p>
+
+<p>Like all born men of action, Garibaldi did not know what doubt was
+after he came to a decision. From that moment his mental atmosphere
+cleared; he saw the goal and went straight for it. In a surprisingly short
+time the expedition was organised and ready to leave. 'Few and good,' had
+been the rule laid down by Garibaldi for the enrolments; if he had chosen
+he could have taken with him a much more numerous host. When it was the
+day to start few they were (according to the most recent computation the
+exact number was 1072 men), and they were <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg.273]</a></span> certainly good. The force was
+divided into seven companies, the first entrusted to the ardent Nino
+Bixio, who acted in a general way as second-in-command through both the
+Sicilian and Neapolitan campaigns, and the seventh to Benedetto Cairoli,
+whose mother contributed a large sum of money as well as three of her sons
+to the freeing of Southern Italy. Sirtori, about whom there always clung
+something of the priestly vocation for which he had been designed, was the
+head of the staff; T&uuml;rr (the Hungarian) was adjutant-general. The
+organisation was identical with that of the Italian army 'to which we
+belong,' said Garibaldi in his first order of the day.</p>
+
+<p>One name is missing, that of Medici, who was left behind to take the
+command of a projected movement in the Papal States. By whom this plan was
+invented is not clear, but simultaneous operations in different parts of
+the peninsula had been always a favourite design of the more extreme
+members of the Party of Action, and Garibaldi probably yielded to their
+advice. All that came of it was the entry into Umbria of Zambianchi's
+small band of volunteers, which was promptly repulsed over the frontier.
+Medici, therefore, remained inactive till after the fall of Palermo; he
+headed the second expedition of 4,000 volunteers which arrived in time to
+take part in the final Sicilian battles.</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi's political programme was the cry of the Hunters of the Alps
+in 1859: <i>Italy and Victor Emmanuel.</i> Those who were strict
+republicans at heart, while abstaining from preaching the republic till
+the struggle was over, would have stopped short at the first word <i>
+Italy</i>. But Garibaldi told Rosalino Pilo, who was of this way of
+thinking, that either he marched in the King's name or he did not march at
+all. This was the condition of his acceptance, because he <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg.274]</a></span> esteemed it
+the condition on which hung the success of the enterprise, nay more, the
+existence of an united Italy.</p>
+
+<p>The Thousand embarked at Quarto, near Genoa, during the night of the
+5th of May on the two merchant vessels, the <i>Piemonte</i> and <i>
+Lombardo</i>, which, with the complicity of their patriotic owner, R.
+Rubattino, had been sequestered for the use of the expedition. On hearing
+of Garibaldi's departure, Cavour ordered Admiral Persano, whose squadron
+lay in the gulf of Cagliari, to arrest the expedition if the steamers
+entered any Sardinian port, but to let it go free if they were encountered
+on the high seas. Persano asked Cavour what he was to do if by stress of
+storms Garibaldi were forced to come into port? The answer was that 'the
+Ministry' decided for his arrest, which Persano rightly interpreted to
+mean that Cavour had decided the contrary. He resolved, therefore, not to
+stop him under any circumstances, but the case did not occur, for the
+fairest of May weather favoured the voyage, and six days after the start
+the men were quietly landed at Marsala without let or hindrance from the
+two Neapolitan warships which arrived almost at the same time as the <i>
+Piemonte</i> and <i>Lombardo</i>, an inconceivable stroke of good fortune
+which, like the eventful march that was to follow, seems to belong far
+more to romance than to history.</p>
+
+<p>On the day before, the British gunboat <i>Intrepid</i> (Captain
+Marryat), and the steam vessel <i>Argus</i>, had cast anchor in the
+harbour of Marsala. Their presence was again and again spoken of by
+Garibaldi as the key to the mystery of why he was not attacked. No matter
+how it was done&mdash;it may have been a mere accident&mdash;but it can
+hardly be doubted that the English men-of-war did practically cover the
+landing of the Thousand. Lord John Russell denied emphatically to the
+House of Commons that they were sent there for the purpose, as to this day
+is <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">
+[Pg.275]</a></span> believed by some grateful Italians, and by every
+Clerical writer who handles the subject. The British Government had early
+information of Italian revolutionary doings, just then, through Sir James
+Hudson, who was in communication with men of all shades of opinion, and it
+is credible that orders which must necessarily have been secret, were
+given to afford a refuge on board English ships to the flying patriots in
+the anticipated catastrophe. More than this is not credible, but the
+energy shown by Captain Marryat in safeguarding the interests of the
+British residents at Marsala caused the Neapolitan ships to delay opening
+fire till the very last Red-shirt was out of harm's way on dry land. Then
+and then only did they direct their guns on the <i>Piemonte</i> and <i>
+Lombardo</i>, and fire a few shots into the city, which caused no other
+damage than the destruction of two casks of wine.</p>
+
+<p>On the 12th, Garibaldi left Marsala for Salemi, a mountain city
+approached by a steep, winding ascent, where he was sure of a warm
+reception, as it had already taken arms against the Bourbon king. Hence he
+promulgated the decree by which he assumed the dictatorship of Sicily in
+the name of Victor Emmanuel.</p>
+
+<p>The Neapolitan army numbered from 120,000 to 130,000 men; of these
+30,000 were actually in Sicily at the time the Thousand landed at Marsala,
+18,000 being in and about Palermo, and the rest distributed over the
+island. At Salemi, Garibaldi reviewed his united forces: he had been
+joined by 200 fresh volunteers, and by a fluctuating mass of Sicilian
+irregulars, which might be estimated to consist of 2,000 men, but it
+increased or decreased along the road, because it was formed of peasants
+of the districts traversed, who did not go far from their homes. These
+undisciplined bands were not useless, as they gave the <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg.276]</a></span> Bourbon
+generals the idea that Garibaldi had more men than he could ever really
+count upon, and also the peasants knew the country well. When they came
+under fire they behaved better than anyone would have expected. The first
+batch joined the Thousand half-way between Marsala and Salemi. There might
+have been fifty of them, dressed in goat-skins, and armed with the old
+flint muskets and rusty pistols dear to the Sicilian heart, which he would
+not for the world leave behind were he going no farther than to buy a lamb
+at the fair. The feudal lord marched at the head of his uncouth
+retainers&mdash;a company of bandits in an opera&mdash;yet, to Garibaldi,
+they seemed the blessed assurance that this people whom he was come to
+save was ready and willing to be saved. He received the poor little band
+with as much rapture as if it had been a powerful army, and, in their
+turn, the impressionable islanders were enraptured by the affability of
+the man whom the population of Sicily soon came seriously to consider as a
+new Messiah. It is a fact that the people of Southern Italy did believe
+that Garibaldi had in him something superhuman, only the Bourbon troops
+looked rather below than above for the source of it. The picturesque
+incidents of the historic march were many; one other may be mentioned.
+While the chief watered his horse at a spring a Franciscan friar threw
+himself on his knees, and implored to be allowed to follow him. Some of
+the volunteers thought the friar a traitor in disguise, but larger in
+faith, Garibaldi said: 'Come with us, you will be our Ugo Bassi.' Fra
+Pantaleo proved of no small use to the expedition.</p>
+
+<p>A glance at the map makes clear the military situation. Garibaldi's
+objective was Palermo, and if anything shows his genius as a Condottiere
+it is this immediate determination to make straight for the capital where
+the largest number of the enemy's troops was massed, <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg.277]</a></span> instead of
+seeking an illusionary safety for his weak army in the open country. As
+the crow flies the distance from Marsala to Palermo is not more than sixty
+or seventy miles, but the routes being mountainous, the actual ground to
+be covered is much longer. About midway lies Calatafimi, where all the
+roads leading from the eastern coast to Palermo converge, and above it
+towers the immensely strong position called Pianto dei Romani, from a
+battle in which the Romans were defeated. These heights command a vast
+prospect, and here General Landi, with 3,000 men and four pieces of
+artillery, prepared to intercept the Garibaldians with every probability
+of driving them back into the sea.</p>
+
+<p>The royal troops took the offensive towards ten o'clock on the 15th of
+May. They met the Red-shirts half way down the mountain, but were driven
+up it again, inch by inch, till, at about three o'clock, they were back at
+Pianto dei Romani. A final vigorous assault dislodged them from this
+position, and they retreated in disorder to Calatafimi. Not wishing to
+tempt fortune further for that day, Garibaldi bivouacqued on the field of
+battle. In a letter written to Bertani, on the spur of the moment, he bore
+witness with a sort of fatherly pride to the courage displayed by the
+Neapolitans: 'It was the old misfortune,' he said, 'a fight between
+Italians; but it proved to me what can be done with this family when
+united. The Neapolitan soldiers, when their cartridges were exhausted,
+threw stones at us in desperation.' How then, with much superior numbers
+and a seemingly impregnable position, did they end in ignominious flight?
+The answer may be found in the reply given to Bixio, bravest of the brave,
+who <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">
+[Pg.278]</a></span> yet feared, at one hotly-contested point, that retreat
+was inevitable. 'Here,' retorted the chief,'we <i>die</i>.' Men who really
+mean to conquer or die can do miracles.</p>
+
+<p>The moral effect of the victory was tremendous. The world at large had
+made absolutely sure of the destruction of the expedition. 'Garibaldi has
+chosen to go his own way,' said Victor Emmanuel; 'but if you only knew the
+fright I was in about him and the brave lads with him!' In Sicily, where
+the insurrectionary activity of April was almost totally spent, the news
+sent an electric shock of revolution through the whole island. In the
+mountains Rosalino Pilo still resisted, weary of waiting for the help that
+came not, discouraged or hopeless, but unyielding. Food and ammunition
+were almost gone; his ragged band, held together only by the magnetism of
+his personal influence, began to feel the pangs of hunger. A price was set
+on his head, and he was harassed on all sides by the Neapolitan troops,
+whose attacks became more frequent now that the Government realised that
+there was danger. He knew nothing of Garibaldi's movements; but he was
+resolved to keep his promise as long as he could: to hold out till the
+chief came. At the hour when everything looked most desperate, a messenger
+arrived in his camp with a letter in Garibaldi's handwriting, which bore
+the date of the 16th of May. 'Yesterday,' it ran, we fought and
+conquered.' Never was unexpected news more welcome. Filled with a joy such
+as few men have tasted, Rosalino read the glad tidings to his men. 'The
+cause is won,' he said. 'In a few days, if the enemy's balls respect me,
+we shall be in Palermo.'</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Garibaldi had occupied Calatafimi, and was proceeding towards
+Monreale, from which side he contemplated a descent on the capital. On the
+high tableland of Renda he met Rosalino Pilo with his <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg.279]</a></span> reanimated
+band. That day the Garibaldian army, all told, amounted to 5,000 men. On
+the 21st of May, Rosalino was ordered to make a reconnaissance in the
+direction of Monreale; while carrying out this order a Neapolitan bullet
+struck his forehead, causing almost instantaneous death. 'I am happy to be
+able to give my blood to Italy, but may heaven be propitious once for
+all,' he had written when he first landed, words realised to the
+letter.</p>
+
+<p>The Neapolitans were put in high spirits by Rosalino Pilo's death; the
+discomfiture of Calatafimi was forgotten; they represented Garibaldi as a
+mouse that was obligingly walking into a well-laid trap. In fact, his
+position could not have been more critical, but he had recourse to a
+stratagem which saved him. He succeeded in placing the enemy upon a
+completely false scent. Abandoning the idea of reaching Palermo from the
+east (Monreale), he decided to attempt the assault from the south (Piana
+de' Greci and Misilimeri), but, all the while, he continued to throw the
+Sicilian <i>Picciotti</i> on the Monreale route, and gave them orders to
+fire stray shots in every direction and to light innumerable camp-fires.
+These troops frequently came in contact with the Neapolitans in trifling
+skirmishes, and kept their attention so well occupied that General
+Colonna, in command of the force sent in search of the 'Filibuster,' did
+not doubt that the whole Garibaldian army was concentrated over Monreale.
+Garibaldi rapidly moved his own column by night to its new base of
+operations. The ground was steep and difficult, and a storm raged all the
+night; fifteen years later he declared that none of his marches in the
+virgin forests of America was so arduous as this. While the Neapolitans
+remained in ignorance of these changes, three English naval officers,
+guided by a sort of sporting dog's instinct, happened to be driving
+through the village of <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_280" id=
+"Page_280">[Pg.280]</a></span> Misilmeri just after Garibaldi established
+his headquarters in that neighbourhood. Of course it was by chance; still,
+Misilmeri is an odd place to go for an afternoon drive, and the escapade
+ended in the issue of a severe warning to Her Majesty's officers and
+marines to keep in future 'within the bounds of the sentinels of the royal
+troops.' Luckily record exists of the experiences of Lieutenant Wilmot and
+his two companions at Misilmeri. Garibaldi, on hearing that three English
+naval officers were in the village, sent to invite them to the vineyard
+where he was taking his dinner. They found him standing in a large
+enclosure in the midst of a group of followers who all, like himself, wore
+the legendary red flannel shirt and grey trousers. Fra Pantaleo's brown
+habit formed the only exception. Several Hungarian officers were present,
+and by his father stood Menotti, then a stout youth of nineteen, with his
+arm in a sling from the severe wound he received at Calatafimi. Around
+were soldiers who looked like mere boys. They gazed with delight on the
+English uniforms. Garibaldi requested his guests to be seated and to
+partake of some freshly-gathered strawberries. He spoke of his affection
+and respect for England, and said it was his hope soon to make the
+acquaintance of the British admiral. He mentioned how he had seen and
+admired from the heights the beautiful effect of the salutes fired in
+honour of the Queen's birthday, two days before. He then retired into his
+tent, made of an old blanket stretched over pikes; a child, under the name
+of a sentry, paced before it to keep off the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>To complete the deception of the enemy the Garibaldian artillery, under
+Colonel Orsini, was ordered to make a retrograde march on Corleone
+previous to joining the main force at Misilmeri. Orsini narrowly escaped
+getting caught while executing this movement, and for <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg.281]</a></span> the sake of
+celerity was obliged to throw his five cannon (including one taken at
+Calatafimi) down deep water courses. He returned to pull them out again
+when the immediate danger was past. General Colonna, who followed him
+closely, was convinced that the whole of the Garibaldians were in
+disorderly retreat as witnessed by the mules and waggons purposely
+abandoned by Orsini along the route. For four days Colonna believed that
+he had Garibaldi flying before him, and sent intelligence to that effect
+to Naples, whence it was published through the world. On the fifth day he
+was immeasurably surprised by hearing that Garibaldi had entered
+Palermo!</p>
+
+<p>It was at early dawn on Whitsunday, the 27th of May, that Garibaldi
+reached the threshold of the capital, and after overcoming the guard at
+Ponte dell' Ammiraglio, pushed on to Porta Termini, the strategic key to
+the city. The royalists, though taken by surprise in the first instance,
+had time to dispose a strong force behind walls and barricades before
+Garibaldi could reach the gate, and it required two hours of severe
+fighting to take the position. Many Red-shirts were killed, and Benedetto
+Cairoli received the severe wound from which he never wholly recovered.
+Success, however, was complete, and the Palermitans got up to find, to
+their frantic joy, the Liberator within their gates. According to the old
+usage their first impulse was to run to the belfries in order to sound the
+tocsin, but they found that the royalists had removed the clappers of the
+bells. Nothing daunted, they beat the bells all day with hammers and other
+implements, and so produced an indescribable noise which had a material
+influence on the nerves of the terrified Neapolitan troops. Being
+disarmed, the only other help which the inhabitants could render to their
+deliverers was the erection of barricades.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">
+[Pg.282]</a></span> Even after Garibaldi's entry, it is thought that
+General Lanza could have crushed him in the streets by sheer force of
+superiority in numbers and artillery had he made proper use of his means.
+However, at about three p.m., he chose the less heroic plan of ordering
+the castle and the Neapolitan fleet to bombard the city. Most of his staff
+opposed the decision, and one officer broke his sword, but Lanza was
+inexorable. The measure so exasperated the Palermitans that even had it
+achieved its end for the moment, never after would they have proved
+governable from Naples. Thirteen hundred shells were thrown into the city.
+Lord Palmerston denounced the bombardment and its attendant horrors as
+'unworthy of our time and of our civilisation.' The soldiers helped the
+work by setting fire to some quarters of the city. Among the spots where
+the shells fell in most abundance was the convent of the Sette Angeli. The
+Garibaldians escorted the nuns to a place of safety and carried their more
+valuable possessions after them. The good sisters were charmed by the
+courtesy with which the young Italians performed these duties.</p>
+
+<p>Fighting in the streets went on more or less continuously, and the
+liberators kept their ground, but every hour brought fresh perils. A
+Bavarian regiment arrived to reinforce General Lanza, and the return of
+the Neapolitan column from Corleone was momentarily expected. The
+Garibaldians, and this was the gravest fact of all, had used almost their
+last cartridge. The issue of the struggle was awaited with varying
+sentiments on board the English, French, Austrian, Spanish and Sardinian
+warships at anchor in the bay. Admiral Mundy had placed his squadron so
+close to the land that the ships were in danger of suffering from the
+bombardment, a course attributed to the humane <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg.283]</a></span> desire to afford a
+refuge for non-combatants, and in fact, the officers were soon engaged in
+entertaining a frightened crowd of ladies and children. The <i>
+Intrepid</i> in particular, was so near the Marina that a fair swimmer
+could have reached it in a few minutes; nobody guessed, least of all
+Garibaldi, that her mission in the mind of the British admiral was to save
+the chiefs own life in what seemed the likely case of its being placed in
+peril.</p>
+
+<p>Admiral Mundy begged the authorities to stop the bombardment before the
+city was destroyed, but Lanza appeared to have no intention of yielding to
+his counsels, and it is still uncertain what at last induced him on the
+30th of May to sue the Filibuster, hastily transformed into his
+Excellency, for an armistice of twenty-four hours. 'God knows,' writes
+Garibaldi, 'if we had want of it!' The royalists had lost nearly the whole
+city except the palace and its surroundings, and, cut off from the sea,
+they began to feel a scarcity of food, but not to a severe extent. It
+seems most probable that with his men panic-stricken and constantly driven
+back in spite of the bombardment, Lanza looked upon the game as lost, when
+had he known the straits to which the Garibaldians were reduced for
+ammunition, he might have considered it as won.</p>
+
+<p>An unforeseen incident now occurred; the royalist column, recalled from
+Corleone, which was largely composed of Bavarians, reached Porta Termini
+and opened a furious fire on the weak Garibaldian detachment stationed
+there. Was it ignorance or bad faith? Lieutenant Wilmot, who happened to
+be passing by, energetically waved his handkerchief and shouted that a
+truce was concluded; the assailants continued the attack till an officer
+of the Neapolitan staff who was in conference with Garibaldi at the time
+hurried to the spot, at his indignant <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg.284]</a></span> request, and ordered them to
+desist. A few minutes later, Garibaldi himself rode up in a wrathful mood,
+and while he was renewing his protests, a shell fell close by him, thrown
+from a ship which re-opened the bombardment on its own account. Lieutenant
+Wilmot, who witnessed the whole affair, was convinced that there was a
+deliberate plan to surprise and capture the Italian chief after he had
+granted the armistice.</p>
+
+<p>At a quarter past two on this eventful day, the 30th of May 1860,
+Garibaldi and the Neapolitan generals, Letizia and Chretien, stepped on
+board the flag-ship <i>Hannibal</i> which Admiral Mundy offered as neutral
+ground for their meeting. Curiously enough, both parties, reaching the
+mole simultaneously, were rowed out in the same ship's boat, which was
+waiting in readiness. The Neapolitans insisted that Garibaldi should go on
+board first, either from courtesy or, as the admiral suspected, out of
+desire to find out whether he would be received with military honours.
+With instinctive tact he had donned his old and rather shabby uniform of a
+major-general in the Sardinian army; the admiral's course was, therefore,
+marked out, and Garibaldi received the same salute as the two generals who
+followed him. After a foolish attempt on the part of the Neapolitan
+officers to make themselves disagreeable, which was repressed with
+dignified decision by Admiral Mundy, business began, and things went
+smoothly till the fifth article of the proposed convention came under
+discussion: 'That the municipality should direct a humble petition to his
+Majesty the King expressing the real wants of the city.' 'No,' cried
+Garibaldi, starting to his feet, 'the time for humble petitions to the
+King, or to anyone else, is past; I am the municipality, and I refuse.'
+General Letizia grew excited at this declaration, but afterwards he agreed
+to <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">
+[Pg.285]</a></span> submit the question of quashing the fifth article to
+his chief, General Lanza. The armistice was prolonged till nine the next
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he was back on shore, Garibaldi issued a manifesto, in which
+he announced that he had refused a proposal dishonouring the city, and
+that to-morrow, at the close of the armistice, he should renew
+hostilities. There was a splendid audacity in the threat; his powder was
+literally exhausted; nothing was left for him to do but to die with all
+his men, and to do this he and they were unquestionably ready. The conduct
+of the citizens was on a level with the occasion. As soon as the manifesto
+came to be known, the inhabitants rushed to the Palazzo Pretorio, where
+the man who had so proudly answered in their name, addressed them in these
+terms: 'People of Palermo; the enemy has made me propositions which I
+judged humiliating to you, and knowing that you are ready to bury
+yourselves under the ruins of your city, I refused.' Those who were
+present say that never did Garibaldi seem so great as at that moment. The
+answer was one deafening shout, in which the women and children joined, of
+'War! war!' In the evening the city was illuminated as on a feast-day.</p>
+
+<p>Once more in history, the game of greatly daring succeeded. Appalled by
+the reports of the dreadful threats emanating from a population without
+arms, and a handful of volunteers without powder, distrustful henceforth
+of the courage of his soldiers, and, if the truth must be told, of the
+fidelity of his fleet, Lanza sent General Letizia to Garibaldi betimes, on
+the 31st of May, with an unconditional demand for the continuance of the
+armistice. A convention was drawn up, which conceded the fullest liberty
+to the royalists to supply their material wants, succour the wounded, and,
+if they desired, embark <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_286" id=
+"Page_286">[Pg.286]</a></span> them on board ships with their families for
+Naples. Garibaldi, always humane, had a special tenderness for the victims
+of that civil strife which his soul abhorred, and he never forgot that the
+enemy was his fellow-countryman. His influence sufficed to secure to the
+royal troops an immunity from reprisals which was the more creditable
+because some horrid crimes had been done by miscreants in their ranks when
+they found that they were getting the worst of it in the street-fighting.
+Unfortunately the same mercy was not extended to some of the secret agents
+of Maniscalco, head of the Sicilian police, who, discovered in
+hiding-places by the mob, were murdered before any protection could be
+given them. At the time the act of barbarity was judged, even by English
+observers, with more leniency than it deserved (because cruelty can have
+<i>no</i> excuse), so great was the disgust excited by the most odious
+system of espionage ever put in practice.</p>
+
+<p>The convention bore the signatures of 'Ferdinando Lanza,
+General-in-Chief,' and of 'Francesco Crispi, Secretary of State to the
+Provisional Government of Sicily.' One article provided for the
+consignment of the Royal Mint to the victors; a large sum was stored in
+its coffers, and Garibaldi found himself in the novel position of being
+able to pay his men and the Sicilian <i>squadre</i>, and to send large
+orders for arms and ammunition to the Continent.</p>
+
+<p>General Letizia made two journeys to Naples, and on his return from the
+second he came invested with full powers to treat with Garibaldi for the
+evacuation of the city. On the 7th of June, 15,000 royal troops marched
+down to the Marina to the ships that were to take them away. At the
+entrance of the Toledo, the great main street of Palermo, Menotti
+Garibaldi was on guard, on a prancing black charger, with a <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg.287]</a></span> few other
+Red-shirts of his own age around him, and before this group of boys
+defiled the might and pomp of the disciplined army to which King Bomba had
+given the thoughtful care of a life-time.</p>
+
+<p>The closing formalities which wound up these events at Palermo formed a
+fitting ending to the dramatic scenes which have been briefly narrated. On
+the 19th, General Lanza went on board the <i>Hannibal</i> to take leave of
+the British admiral. He was covered with decorations and attended by his
+brilliant personal staff. There, in the beautiful bay, lay the ship on
+board which he was to sail at sunset, and twenty-four steam transports
+were also there, each filled with Neapolitan troops. The defeated general
+was deeply moved as he walked on to the quarter-deck. 'We have been
+unfortunate,' he said&mdash;words never spoken by one officer of
+unquestioned personal courage to another without striking a responsive
+chord. When he quitted the <i>Hannibal</i>, the English admiral ordered
+the White Flag of the King of the Two Sicilies to be hoisted at the
+foretop-gallant masthead for the last time in Sicilian waters; and a
+salute of nineteen guns, the salute due to the direct representative or
+<i>alter ego</i> of a sovereign, speeded the parting guest. Thus, wrapped
+in the dignity of misfortune, vanished the last semblance of the graceless
+and treacherous thraldom of the Spanish Bourbons in the capital of Sicily.
+The flag of Italy was run up on the tower of the Semaphore. Everywhere the
+revolution triumphed except at Messina, Milazzo and Syracuse. Even
+Catania, where a rising had been put down after a sanguinary struggle, was
+now evacuated and left to itself.</p>
+
+<p>So the 20th of June dawned, and the Queen's ships in the harbour put
+forth all their bravery of flags in commemoration of her accession, which
+display was naturally interpreted by the Palermitans as a <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg.288]</a></span> compliment
+to the Dictator, who had fixed that day for calling on the British, French
+and Sardinian admirals and on the captain of the United States frigate <i>
+Iroquois</i>. With what honours the American captain received him is not
+recorded; for certain it was with cordial goodwill; of the others, Admiral
+Mundy treated him as on the previous occasion; the French admiral affected
+to consider him a 'simple monsieur' who had unexpectedly come to call,
+whilst Admiral Persano, on board the <i>Maria Adelaide</i>, gave him a
+salute of nineteen guns, which formed a virtual recognition on the part of
+Piedmont of his assumption of the dictatorship. Cavour had ordered Persano
+to act on his own responsibility as the exigencies of the hour demanded,
+and the admiral knew that these vague instructions assigned him a more
+vigorous policy than the other ministers would have agreed to officially.
+His bold initiative was therefore justified. As some severe words will
+have to be said of Persano in a later chapter, it is well to remark here
+that during his Sicilian command he behaved like a thorough patriot,
+although it was not in his power to render such great moral services to
+freedom as were undoubtedly rendered by Admiral Mundy, who at the same
+time acted with so much tact that his neutrality was not impugned, and he
+even won the equal personal gratitude of both parties. On the other hand,
+the Austrian commodore, Baron von W&uuml;llersdorf, succeeded in pleasing
+no one and no one pleased him. He did not expect that the Garibaldians
+would lose much love to him, but he took it unkindly that the royalists
+fired at his boat with himself in it, and the Austrian flag at the stern.
+In high dudgeon he related this grievance to his British colleague, who
+gently suggested that since Austria had always supported the Bourbon
+system of Government, it was hardly strange if the royalists were hurt at
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg.289]</a></span>
+receiving neither assistance nor even sympathy from the Austrian squadron
+which witnessed their destruction. The remark was acute; even Austria was,
+in fact, tired of the Bourbons of Naples; a portent of their not distant
+doom. But it was not likely that the royalists should appreciate the
+phlegmatic attitude of their erewhile protectors.</p>
+
+<p>The concluding military operations in Sicily presented a more arduous
+task than, in the first flush of success, might have been anticipated. In
+the general panic, one, if one only, royalist officer, Colonel Del Bosco,
+turned round and stood at bay. His spirited course was not far from
+undoing all that had been done. Fortunately Garibaldi had received
+important reinforcements. General Medici touched the Sicilian shores three
+days after the evacuation of Palermo with 3500 volunteers, well-armed and
+equipped out of the so-called 'Million Rifle Fund,' which was formed by
+popular subscription in the north of Italy. The Dictator went as far as
+Alcamo to meet the hero of the last glorious fight of Rome, whom he
+greeted with delight and affection. Later, arrived the third and last
+expedition, consisting of 1500 men under Cosenz, till recently
+commander-in-chief of the Italian army. The Sicilian <i>squadre</i> had
+been brought into something like military organisation; and an Englishman,
+Colonel Dunne, had raised a picked corps of 400 Palermitans which
+contained, besides its commander, between thirty and forty of his
+countrymen, and was hence called the English Regiment. This battalion was
+ready to do anything and go anywhere; it performed excellent work both in
+Sicily and on the mainland.<a name="FNanchor5"></a><a href=
+"#Footnote_5"><sup>[5]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">
+[Pg.290]</a></span> Garibaldi arranged his forces in three divisions; one,
+under T&uuml;rr, was sent to Catania; the second, under Bixio, to
+Girgenti; the third, under Medici, was to follow the northern sea-coast
+towards Messina, the strongest position still in the enemy's hands. All
+three were ultimately to converge with a view to the grand object of
+crossing over to the mainland. Medici had 2500 men; the royalists in and
+about Messina could dispose of 15,000. The Garibaldians did not expect
+much opposition till they got near Messina, but when they reached
+Barcelona they heard that the garrison of Milazzo had been reinforced by
+Del Bosco with 4000 men, with the evident design of cutting off their
+passage to Messina. It is said that this move was made in consequence of
+direct communications between that officer and Francis II., whose
+ministers had already decided to abandon the whole island. But Del Bosco
+secretly assured his King that such a measure was not necessary, and that
+he would undertake not only to bar Medici's advance, but to march over the
+dead bodies of the Garibaldians to Palermo. Milazzo is a small hilly
+peninsula, on which stands a fort and a little walled city. The spot was
+well chosen. On the 17th of <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_291" id=
+"Page_291">[Pg.291]</a></span> July, Del Bosco attacked the Garibaldian
+right, and it was not without difficulty that Medici retained his
+positions. Some further reinforcements were sent to Del Bosco from
+Messina, though not so numerous as they ought to have been, but they would
+have almost ensured him the victory had not Medici also received help;
+Cosenz' column, and, yet more important, Garibaldi himself with the 1000
+men he had kept in Palermo, hastening at full speed to the rescue. The
+belligerents were, for once, about equally balanced in numbers when on the
+20th of July Garibaldi attacked Del Bosco with the purpose of driving him
+on to the tongue of the peninsula, thus cutting him off from Messina and
+leaving the road open. A desperate engagement followed. The Neapolitans
+showed that they could fight if they were properly led, and inflicted a
+loss of 800 in killed and wounded (heavy out of a total of 5000) on their
+gallant opponents. Garibaldi's own life was nearly sacrificed. He was
+standing in a field of prickly pears in conversation with Major Missori
+when a party of the enemy's cavalry rode up, the captain of which dealt a
+violent blow at him with his sword, without knowing who it was. Garibaldi
+coolly parried the blow, and struck down his assailant, while Missori shot
+the three nearest dragoons with his revolver. Hearing the noise, other
+Garibaldians hurried up, and the chief was saved. For a long time the
+issue of the battle remained uncertain, and it was only after hours of
+severe fighting that Del Bosco was compelled to recognise his defeat, and
+to take refuge on the projecting strip of land as Garibaldi had meant that
+he should do.</p>
+
+<p>A few days later, four transports arrived in the bay of Milazzo to
+carry Del Bosco and his men to Naples. The ministry had prevailed, and the
+complete abandonment of the island was decreed. General Clary, <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg.292]</a></span>
+commandant of Messina, informed Garibaldi that he had orders to evacuate
+the town and its outlying forts; the citadel would be also handed over if
+the Dictator would engage not to cross to the mainland, but this
+conditional offer was declined. The citadel of Messina therefore remained
+in the power of the royalists, but on agreement that it should not resume
+hostilities unless attacked. It only capitulated in March 1861. Garibaldi
+reigned over the rest of the island. The convention was signed on the 28th
+of July by Marshal Tommaso de Clary for the King of Naples, and
+Major-General Giacomo Medici for the Dictator.</p>
+
+<p>Before following Garibaldi across the Straits, some allusion is called
+for to the general political situation both in Sicily and in Italy. And
+first as regards Sicily. When a government is pulled down another must be
+set up, and the last task is often not the easiest. Garibaldi appointed a
+ministry in which the ruling spirit was Francesco Crispi. A Sicilian
+patriot from his youth, and one of the Thousand, he has been judged the
+man best fitted to direct the helm of United Italy in days of unexampled
+difficulty. This is enough to prove that he was not the first-come
+ignoramus or madman that some people then liked to think him. But Crispi
+had the art of making enemies, nor has he lost it. Though volumes have
+been written on the civil administration under the dictatorship, the
+writers' judgments are so warped by their political leanings that it is
+not easy to get at the truth. It would have been strange had no confusion
+existed, had no false steps been made; yet some of the old English
+residents in Sicily say that the island made more real progress during the
+few months of Garibaldi's reign than in all the years that have followed.
+Towards the end of <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">
+[Pg.293]</a></span> June, Garibaldi appointed Agostino Depretis as
+Pro-Dictator. Of the many decrees formulated and measures adopted at this
+period, Garibaldi, who had many other things to think of, was personally
+responsible only for those of a philanthropic nature. Busy as he was, he
+found time to inquire minutely into the State of the population of
+Palermo, and he was horrified at the ignorance and misery in which the
+poorer classes were plunged. Forthwith, out came a bushel-basket of edicts
+and appeals on behalf of these poor children of the sun. He visited the
+orphan asylum and found that eighty per cent. of the inmates died of
+starvation. One nurse had to provide for the wants of four infants.
+Garibaldi wrote off an address to the ladies of Palermo, in which he
+implored them to interest themselves in the wretched little beings created
+in the image of God, at the sight of whose wasted and puny bodies he, an
+old soldier, had wept. He had money and food distributed every morning to
+the most destitute, at the gates of the royal palace, where he lived with
+a frugality that scandalised the aged servants of royalty whom he kept,
+out of kindness, at their posts. Theoretically, he disapproved of
+indiscriminate almsgiving, but in the misery caused by the recent
+bombardment, such theories could not be strictly applied, or, at any rate,
+Garibaldi was not the man to so apply them; whence it happened that
+though, as <i>de facto</i> head of the State, he allowed himself a civil
+list of eight francs a day, the morning had never far advanced before his
+pockets were empty, and he had to borrow small sums from his friends,
+which next morning were faithfully repaid.</p>
+
+<p>When he walked about the town, the women pressed forward to touch the
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg.294]</a></span>
+hem of his <i>poncho</i>, and made their children kneel to receive his
+blessing. On one occasion a convent of nuns, from the youngest novice to
+the elderly abbess, insisted on giving him the kiss of peace. An idolatry
+which would have made anyone else ridiculous; but Garibaldi, being
+altogether simple and unselfconscious, was above ridicule. One of the good
+works that he initiated was the transformation of the Foundling Hospital,
+of which the large funds were turned to little account, into a Military
+School under the direction of his best officers. In less than a month the
+school could turn out two smart battalions, and there were few mornings
+that the Dictator did not go to watch the boys at their drill. He
+encouraged them with the promise that before long he would lead them
+himself to the wars.</p>
+
+<p>Such actions smell sweeter from the dust, than the old story of the
+antagonism that sprang up in those days between Garibaldi and Cavour,
+between Crispi and La Farina. This dualism, as it was called, was the
+fruit of a mutual distrust, which, however much to be deplored, was not to
+be avoided. Although Cavour had a far juster idea of Garibaldi than that
+entertained by his <i>entourage</i>, he was nevertheless haunted by the
+fear that the general's revolutionary friends would persuade him to depart
+from his programme of 'Italy and Victor Emmanuel,' and embark upon some
+adventure of a republican complexion. He was also afraid that the
+Government of the Dictator would, by its unconventional methods, discredit
+the Italian cause in the eyes of European statesmen. These reasons caused
+him to desire and to endeavour to bring about the immediate annexation of
+Sicily to the Sardinian kingdom. On the other hand, Garibaldi's faith in
+Cavour had <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">
+[Pg.295]</a></span> ceased with the cession of Nice, and he believed him
+to be even now contemplating the cession of the island of Sardinia as a
+further sop to Cerberus&mdash;a project which, if it existed nowhere else,
+did exist in the mind of Napoleon III. With regard to immediate
+annexation, he had no intention of agreeing to it, and for one sufficing
+reason: had he consented he could not have carried the war of liberation
+across the Straits of Messina. His Sicilian army must have laid down their
+arms at a command from Turin were it given. And it would have been
+given.</p>
+
+<p>La Farina, like Crispi, a Sicilian by birth, arrived suddenly at
+Palermo, representing Cavour, as everyone thought, but in reality he
+represented himself. Strong-willed and prejudiced, he was, in his own way,
+a perfectly good patriot, and he had done all that was in his power
+(though not quite so much as in later years he fancied that he had done)
+to aid and further the expedition of the Thousand. But he tried to force
+the annexation scheme by means so openly hostile to the government of the
+day, that Garibaldi at length sent him on board Persano's flag-ship with a
+request that the admiral would forward him to Turin.</p>
+
+<p>After the evacuation of Messina by the royal troops, Garibaldi received
+persuasions of all sorts to let the kingdom of Naples alone. On the part
+of King Francis an offer was made to him of 50,000,000 francs and the
+Neapolitan navy in aid of a war for the liberation of Venice. Almost
+simultaneously he received a letter from Victor Emmanuel sent by the hand
+of Count Giulio Litta, in which the writer said that in the event of the
+King of Naples giving up Sicily 'I think that our most reasonable course
+would be to renounce all ulterior undertakings against the Neapolitan
+kingdom.' This was the first <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_296" id=
+"Page_296">[Pg.296]</a></span> direct communication between the King and
+Garibaldi since the latter's landing at Marsala; it is to be surmised that
+of indirect communications there had been several, and that they took the
+form of substantial assistance, sent, probably without Cavour being aware
+of it, for Victor Emmanuel carried on his own little conspiracies with a
+remarkable amount of secrecy. What induced him now to address words of
+restraint to Garibaldi in the midway of his work, was the arrival of a
+letter from Napoleon III. in which the Emperor urged him in the strongest
+manner to use his well-known personal influence with the general to hold
+him back. It was not easy for Victor Emmanuel to refuse point blank to
+make the last effort on behalf of his cousin. Francis had appointed a
+constitutional ministry, promised a statute, granted an amnesty and
+engaged to place himself in accord with the King of Sardinia, adopted even
+the tricolor flag with the royal arms of Bourbon in the centre.
+Concessions idle as desperate on the 25th of June 1860, the date which
+they bore. Their only consequence then was to facilitate the fall of the
+dynasty, the usual result of similar inspirations of the eleventh hour.
+Had all this been done on the day of the King's accession it might have
+imperilled Italian unity&mdash;not now. But the fatal words, 'Too late,'
+would have fallen with ill grace from Victor Emmanuel's lips. Garibaldi
+answered his royal correspondent that when he had made him King of Italy
+he would be only too happy to obey him for the rest of his life.</p>
+
+<p>The King's letter, though delivered after the battle of Milazzo, was
+written before it. That event convinced Cavour, and doubtless the King
+with him, that it was utterly impossible to arrest the tide at Cape Faro.
+It convinced him of a great deal more. He saw that if Piedmont <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg.297]</a></span>
+continued much longer a passive spectator of the march of events, she
+would lose the lead forever And he prepared to act.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile counsels reached Garibaldi from quite a different quarter not
+to abandon Naples, but to go there from Rome instead of by Calabria. This
+daring scheme was favoured by Mazzini, Nicotera, Bertani; indeed, by all
+the republicans. A corps of about 8000 volunteers was ready to start for a
+descent on the coast of the Papal States. At present it was in the island
+of Sardinia, awaiting the arrival of Garibaldi to assume the command. And
+now occurred Garibaldi's mysterious disappearance from Cape Faro, which at
+the time excited endless curiosity. The truth was, that he actually went
+to Sardinia, but instead of taking command of the volunteers bound for
+Rome, he induced them to alter their plans and to join his Sicilian army
+in the arduous undertaking before it of overthrowing the Bourbons in the
+Neapolitan kingdom. Thus he gained a reinforcement of which he knew the
+enormous need, for though he was willing to face difficulties, he was not
+blind to them, as were many men of the extreme party. He also prevented
+what would have been a step of exceeding danger to the national cause, as
+it would have obliged the Sardinian Government to break off all relations
+with Garibaldi and to use force against the patriots in suppressing a
+movement which, if successful, would have brought a hostile French army
+into Italy.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg.298]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XV"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XV</h3>
+
+<h4>THE MEETING OF THE WATERS</h4>
+
+<h5>1860</h5>
+
+<h5>Garibaldi's March on Naples&mdash;The Piedmontese in Umbria and the
+Marches&mdash;The Volturno&mdash;Victor Emmanuel enters Naples.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>The Italian kingdom is the fruit of the alliance between the strong
+monarchical principles of Piedmont and the dissolvent forces of
+revolution. Whenever either one side or the other, yielding to the
+influence of its individual sympathies or prejudices, failed to recognise
+that thus only, by the essential logic of events, could the unity of the
+country be achieved, the entire edifice was placed in danger of falling to
+the ground before it was completed.</p>
+
+<p>When Garibaldi stood on Cape Faro, conqueror and liberator, clothed in
+a glory not that of Wellington or Moltke, but that of Arthur or Roland or
+the Cid Campeador; the subject of the gossip of the Arabs in their tents,
+of the wild horsemen of the Pampas, of the fishers in ice-bound seas; a
+solar myth, nevertheless certified to be alive in the nineteenth
+century&mdash;Cavour understood that if he were left much longer single
+occupant of the field, either he would rush to disaster, which would be
+fatal to Italy, or he would become so powerful that, in the event of his
+being plunged, willingly or unwillingly, by the more ardent apostles of
+revolution into opposition with the King of Sardinia, the issue of the
+contest would be by no means sure. To guard <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg.299]</a></span> against both possibilities,
+Cavour decided to act, and to act at once. He said of the conjuncture in
+which he was placed that it was not one of the most difficult, but the
+most difficult of his political life. But he proved equal to the task,
+which does the more honour to his statesmanship because his first plan
+failed completely. This plan was, that the Neapolitan population should
+overthrow Francis II., and proclaim Victor Emmanuel their King before
+Garibaldi crossed the Straits. But the Neapolitans would not move hand or
+foot till Garibaldi was among them. The fact that when Cavour was
+convinced that the Bourbon dynasty at Naples was about to fall, he tried
+to hasten its collapse by a few weeks or days, was made the most of by his
+enemies as an example of base duplicity. At this distance of time, it need
+only be said that whether his conduct of affairs was scrupulous or
+unscrupulous, it deceived no one, for the Neapolitan King and his friends
+were well convinced that the Filibuster of Caprera was their less deadly
+foe than the Prime Minister of Piedmont.</p>
+
+<p>But of all the foes of Franceschiello, to use the diminutive by which,
+half in pity, half in contempt, the people of Naples remember him, the
+most irrevocably fatal was himself. Two courses were open to him when,
+after losing Sicily, he saw the loss of his other kingdom and of his
+throne staring him in the face. One was to go forth like a man at the head
+of his troops to meet the storm. There had been such a thing as loyalty in
+the Kingdom of Naples; not loyalty of the highest sort, but still the
+sentiment had existed. Who knows what might not have been the effect of
+the presence of their young Sovereign on the broken <i>moral</i> of the
+Neapolitan soldiers? 'Sire, place yourself at the head <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg.300]</a></span> of the
+40,000 who remain, and risk a last stake, or, at least, fall gloriously
+after an honourable battle,' was the advice given him by his minister of
+war, Pianell. But his stepmother or somebody (certainly not his wife) said
+that the sacred life of a king ought to be kept in cotton wool, like other
+curiosities. Meanwhile his uncle, the Count of Syracuse, proposed the
+other course which, though not heroic, would have been intelligible and
+even patriotic. This was to absolve his subjects from their obedience, and
+embark on the first available ship for foreign parts. Fitting the action
+to the word, the Count himself started for Turin. Francis awaited the doom
+of those who only know how to take half measures.</p>
+
+<p>The demoralisation, not only of the troops but of every branch of the
+public administration in the kingdom of Naples, was not yet a certified
+fact; and the enterprise which Garibaldi at Cape Faro had before him, of
+invading the dominions of a monarch who still had a large army, and whose
+subjects showed not the slightest visible sign of being disposed to strike
+a blow for their own freedom, looked rather fabulous than difficult. The
+only part of the <i>Regno</i> where the people were taking action was in
+the furthermost region of Calabria; a fortunate circumstance, since it was
+the first point to be attacked. Calabria, which had contributed its quota
+to the Thousand, contained more patriotic energy than the rest of the <i>
+Regno</i> put together. On the 8th of August, Garibaldi sent over a small
+vanguard of 200 men under a Calabrian officer, with the order to join the
+Calabrian band of insurgents which was hiding in the woods and gorges of
+Aspromonte, and to spread the news that his own coming would not be long
+delayed. The Neapolitan generals had acquired the idea that, instead of
+these <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">
+[Pg.301]</a></span> few men, a large force had already disembarked, and so
+turned their attention to the mountains; while Garibaldi, after throwing
+the war-ships in the Straits on an equally false scent by various
+intentionally abortive operations, crossed in the night of the 19th and
+effected a landing not far from Reggio, of which, for both moral and
+strategic reasons, it was of vital importance to gain possession as soon
+as possible. He took with him 4500 men, and had between 14,000 and 15,000
+more in readiness to follow. The royalist army in Calabria numbered about
+27,000, including the garrison of Reggio, 2000 men, under the command of
+General Galotti. On the 20th, Bixio attacked the outposts; and on the
+21st, Garibaldi fought his way into the city&mdash;not, however, without
+meeting a strong resistance on the part of the garrison, which might have
+been continued longer, and even with a different result, had not the
+Calabrian insurgents hurried down from Aspromonte on hearing the sound of
+guns, their sudden appearance making the Royalists think that they were
+being attacked on all sides. Next day the castle surrendered, and thus a
+quantity of valuable war material fell into Garibaldi's hands. His luck
+had not deserted him.</p>
+
+<p>Cosenz and Medici landed their divisions in the night of the 21st of
+August, near Scilla, in the neighbourhood of which General Briganti had
+massed his Neapolitans, 7000 strong. On the 23rd, Briganti found himself
+attacked on the south and north&mdash;from Scilla by Cosenz, and from
+Reggio by Garibaldi. His position was critical but not desperate had he
+been able to depend upon his men, who were more numerous than their
+combined opponents; but he saw at once that fighting was the <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg.302]</a></span> last thing
+they meant to do, and he had no choice but to surrender at discretion,
+almost without firing a shot. Unfortunately, Garibaldi had no power to
+keep prisoners of war, even if he wished to do so. Who was to feed and
+guard them? Now, as subsequently, he bade the disbanded troops go where
+they listed, undertaking to send to Naples by sea as many as desired to go
+there. About a thousand accepted; the rest dispersed, forming the first
+nucleus of the semi-political and wholly dastardly brigandage which was
+later to become the scourge of Southern Italy. Their earliest exploit was
+the savage murder of General Briganti, whom they called a traitor, after
+the fashion of cowards. This happened at Mileto on the 25th of August,
+when Briganti was on his way to join General Ghio, who had concentrated
+12,000 men on the town of Monteleone. Garibaldi, whose sound principle it
+was to dispose of his enemies one by one as they cropped up, prepared to
+attack Ghio with his whole available forces, but he was spared the
+trouble. He came, he saw, and he had no need of conquering, for the
+soldiers of that bad thing that had been Bourbon despotism in the Italian
+south vanished before his path more quickly than the mists of the morning
+before the sun. No grounds that will bear scrutiny have ever been adduced
+for the reactionary explanation of the marvel: to wit, that the Neapolitan
+generals were bribed. By Cavour? The game would have been too risky. By
+'English bank-notes,' that useful factor in European politics that has
+every pleasing quality except reality? It is not apparent how the
+corruptibility of the generals gives a better complexion to the matter,
+but the writers on the subject who are favourable to Francis II. seem to
+think that it does. Panic-stricken these helpless Neapolitan officers may
+deserve to be called, but they <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_303"
+id="Page_303">[Pg.303]</a></span> were not bought. And they had cause for
+panic with troops of whose untrustworthiness they held the clearest
+proofs, and with the country up in arms against them; for a few days after
+the taking of Reggio this was the case, and this was by far the greatest
+miracle operated by Garibaldi. The populations shook off their apathy, and
+not in Calabria only but in the Puglie, the Basilicata, the Abruzzi, there
+was a sudden awakening as from a too long sleep. When Garibaldi got to
+Monteleone he found that Ghio had evacuated the town. He pursued him to
+Soveria, where, on the 30th of August, the 12,000 men laid down their
+arms. A few days later, another officer, General Caldarelli, capitulated
+with 4000 men. Garibaldi's onward march was a perpetual <i>f&ecirc;te</i>;
+everywhere he was received with frantic demonstrations of delight. Still
+there was one point between himself and the capital which might reasonably
+cause him some anxiety. There were 30,000 men massed near Salerno, in
+positions of immense natural strength, where they ought to have been able
+to stop the advance of an army twice the size of Garibaldi's. How this
+obstacle was removed is far more suggestive of a scene in a comic opera
+than of a page in history. Colonel Peard, 'Garibaldi's Englishman,' went
+in advance of the army to Eboli, where he was mistaken, as commonly
+happened, for his chief. He was past middle age; very tall, with a
+magnificent beard and a stern, dictatorial air, which answered admirably
+to the popular idea of what the conqueror of Sicily ought to be like,
+although there was no resemblance to the real person. It happened that
+Eboli was a royalist town and beyond the pale of declared
+revolution&mdash;a placid and antiquated little city with a forgotten air,
+where life had been probably too easy for its inhabitants to wish for a
+change. But the <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">
+[Pg.304]</a></span> supposed arrival of the Terrible Man turned everything
+upside-down. Peard, with Commander Forbes, who was following the campaign
+as a non-combatant, rode up to the house of the old Syndic, who instantly
+became their devoted servant. Like wildfire spread the news&mdash;the
+whole population besieged the house, brass bands resounded, chinese
+lanterns were hung out; the Church, led by the bishop, hurried to the
+spot, the Law, headed by a judge, closely following, while the wives of
+the local officials appeared in perfectly new bonnets. They all craved an
+audience, and the same answer was given to all: that General Garibaldi was
+much fatigued and was asleep&mdash;so he was, but ninety miles away. He
+would be pleased to receive the deputations if they would return
+punctually at half-past three a.m. In the meantime, Peard was in an inner
+room, engaged in cannonading Naples with telegrams. He had sent for the
+telegraph master, who came trembling like an aspen, and from whom it was
+elicited that he had already telegraphed to the Home Office at Naples, and
+to the general commanding at Salerno, that Garibaldi was in the town.
+Peard remarked casually that he supposed he knew his life was in jeopardy,
+and then handed him the following message: 'Eboli, 11.30
+p.m.&mdash;Garibaldi has arrived with 5000 of his own men, and 5000
+Calabrese are momentarily expected. Disembarkations are expected in the
+bay of Naples and the gulf of Salerno to-night. I strongly advise your
+withdrawing the garrison from the latter place without delay, or they will
+be cut off.' This was despatched to General Ulloa, whom rumour reported to
+have been just made minister of war, and was signed in the name of one of
+his personal friends. The rumour was false; but the telegram, of course,
+reached the desired <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_305" id=
+"Page_305">[Pg.305]</a></span> quarter, and the name attached removed all
+doubt of its genuineness. It was hardly sent off when a despatch came from
+the real war minister, asking the telegraph clerk if news had been
+received of the division Caldarelli? To this Peard answered that General
+Caldarelli and his division had gone over to Garibaldi yesterday, and now
+formed part of the national army. Similar information was sent to General
+Scotti at Salerno. Finally, the Syndic of Salerno was asked if he had seen
+anything of the Garibaldian expeditions by sea?</p>
+
+<p>Satisfied with his work, Colonel Peard, who knew that there were
+Neapolitan troops within four miles of Eboli, and who did not think that
+things looked entirely reassuring, decided to beat a somewhat precipitous
+retreat. He told the Syndic that he was going to reconnoitre in the
+direction of Salerno, and that his departure must be kept a dead secret,
+but as soon as he was out of the town he turned the horses' heads
+backwards towards the Garibaldian lines. He was still accompanied by
+Commander Forbes, to whom, during their midnight drive, he related his
+performance on the telegraph wires. 'What on earth is the good of all
+this?' said Forbes; 'you don't imagine they will be fools enough to
+believe it?' 'You will see,' answered the colonel, 'it will frighten them
+to death, and to-morrow they will evacuate Salerno.' And, in fact, at four
+o'clock in the morning the evacuation was begun in obedience to
+telegraphic orders from Naples.</p>
+
+<p>The 30,000 men recalled from Salerno and the adjacent districts marched
+towards Capua. The river Volturno, which runs by that fortified town, was
+now chosen as the line of defence of the Bourbon monarchy.</p>
+
+<p>On the 5th of September the King and Queen with the Austrian, Prussian,
+Bavarian and Spanish ministers, left Naples for Gaeta on <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg.306]</a></span> board a
+Spanish man-of-war. The King issued a proclamation of which the language
+was dignified and even pathetic: it is believed to have been written by
+Liborio Romano, the Prime Minister, who was at the same moment betraying
+his master. Be that as it may, the King's farewell to his subjects and
+fellow-citizens might have touched hearts of stone could they but have
+forgotten the record of the hundred and twenty-six years of rule to which
+he fondly alluded. As it was, in the vast crowds that watched him go,
+there was not found a man who said, 'God bless him;' not a woman who shed
+a tear. Had any one of the bullets aimed at Ferdinand II. taken fatal
+effect, it would have been a less striking punishment for his political
+sins than this leaden weight of indifference which descended on his
+son.</p>
+
+<p>In the Royal Proclamation Francis II. stated that he had adhered to the
+great principles of Italian nationality, and had irrevocably surrounded
+his throne with free institutions; nevertheless it is alleged on what
+seems good authority that in those last days he veered round to the party
+of the Queen Dowager, who was doing all she could to provoke the lazzaroni
+to reaction. It was also believed at Naples that he left orders for Castel
+Sant' Elmo to bombard the town if Garibaldi entered.</p>
+
+<p>The Dictator was so much pleased with Colonel Peard's telegraphic feats
+at Eboli, that he sent him on to Salerno to repeat the farce. Peard's
+despatches determined the departure of the Court, and it was to him (in
+the belief that he was Garibaldi) that Liborio Romano, three hours before
+the King embarked, addressed the celebrated telegram invoking the 'most
+desired presence' of the Dictator in Naples. With this document in his
+hand, Peard went out with the National Guard to meet the real Garibaldi
+who was on his way from Auletta. The Dictator hailed his double with the
+cry of 'Viva <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">
+[Pg.307]</a></span> Garibaldi,' in which Cosenz and the other officers
+cordially joined. The entry of the Liberator into Salerno was greeted with
+the wildest enthusiasm, the wonderful beauty of the surroundings seeming a
+fitting setting for a scene like the vision of some freedom-loving
+poet.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning at half-past nine, Garibaldi, with thirteen of his staff,
+started by special train for the capital.</p>
+
+<p>It must be remembered that though the army of Salerno was recalled to
+the Volturno, no troops had been withdrawn from Naples. The sentries still
+paced before the palaces and public offices, the barracks held their full
+complement, Castel Sant' Elmo had all its guns in position. These troops
+quartered in the capital, where everything contributed to stimulate their
+fidelity, were of different stuff from Ghio's or Caldarelli's frightened
+sheep; a White Terror, a repetition of the 15th of May 1848, would have
+been much to their mind. There had been no actual revolution; nothing
+officially proved that Naples had thrown off the royal allegiance. Such
+were the strange circumstances under which Garibaldi, without a single
+battalion, came to take possession of a city of 300,000 inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p>Courage of this sort either does not exist, or it is supremely
+unconscious. It is likely, therefore, that the Dictator gave no thought to
+the enormous risk he ran, but his passage from the station to the palace
+of the Foresteria, where he descended, was a bad quarter-of-an-hour to the
+friends who followed him, and to whom his life seemed the point on which
+Italian regeneration yet hung. A chance shot fired by some Royalist
+fanatic, and who could measure the result? As he passed under the muzzle
+of the guns at the opening of the Toledo, he gave the order: 'Drive
+slower, slower&mdash;more slowly still.' <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg.308]</a></span> And he rose and stood up for
+a moment in the carriage with his arms crossed. The artillerymen, who had
+begun to make a kind of hostile demonstration, changed their minds and
+saluted. The sullen looks of the royal soldiers was the only jarring note
+in the display of intoxicating joy with which the Neapolitans welcomed the
+bringer of their freedom; freedom all too easily had, for if anything
+could have purified the Neapolitans from the evil influences of servitude,
+it would have been the necessity of paying dearly for their liberties. The
+delirium in the streets lasted for several days and nights; what the
+consequences would have been of such a state of madness under a paler sky,
+it is not pleasant to reflect; here, at least, there were no robberies, no
+drunken person was seen; if there were some murders, a careful inquiry
+made by an Englishman showed that the number was the same as the average
+number of street-murders through the year. At night, when the word passed
+'Il Dittatore dorme,' it was enough to clear the streets as if by magic
+near the palace (a private one) where in a sixth floor room the idol of
+the hour slept. The National Guard, who were the sole guardians of order,
+behaved admirably.</p>
+
+<p>For a few days such of the townsfolk as had not completely lost their
+heads, underwent acute anxiety as they gazed at the frowning pile of Sant'
+Elmo; but finally the officers in command of the garrison decided to
+capitulate, contrary, in this instance, to the wishes of the soldiery. The
+royal troops marched out of the city towards Capua on the 11th of
+September.</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi's first act had been to hand over the Neapolitan fleet in the
+bay to Admiral Persano, a solemn reassertion of his loyalty to Victor
+Emmanuel, whom, in his every utterance, he held up to the people as the
+best of kings and the father of his country. He instructed his Neapolitan
+officer, Cosenz, to form a ministry, and <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg.309]</a></span> wrote to the Marquis
+Pallavicini, the prisoner of Spielberg, inviting him to become
+Pro-Dictator. Had a man of authority like Pallavicini, who also entirely
+possessed the Dictator's confidence, at once assumed that office, much of
+the friction which followed might have been spared. But he did not enter
+into his functions till October, and in the meanwhile the 'dualism' of
+Sicily broke out in an exaggerated form, each side sincerely believing the
+other to be on the verge of ruining the country to which they were both
+sincerely attached. The appointment of Dr Bertani as Secretary of the
+Dictatorship gave rise to controversies which even now, when the grave has
+closed over the actors, are hardly at rest. It is time that they should
+be. Apart from the war about persons, some of them not very wise persons,
+and apart from the fears entertained at Turin, that the freeing of the Two
+Sicilies would drift into a republican movement: fears which were
+invincible, though, as far as they regarded Garibaldi, they were neither
+just nor generous, the question resolved itself, as was the case in
+Sicily, into whether the unification of Italy was to go on or whether it
+was to halt? Garibaldi refused to give up Sicily to the King's government
+because he intended making it the base for the liberation of Naples.
+Events had justified him. He now refused to hand over Naples because he
+intended making it the base for the liberation of Rome. It has been seen
+that he and he alone prevented an attempt at a landing in the Papal states
+from being made in the month of August. In deciding, however, that it was
+expedient to finish one enterprise before beginning another, he did not
+give up Rome: he merely chose what he thought a safer road to go there.
+And he now declared without the least concealment that he intended to
+proclaim Victor Emmanuel King of Italy from the Quirinal.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">
+[Pg.310]</a></span> Would events have justified him again? There was a
+French garrison in Rome; this, to Cavour, seemed a conclusive answer.</p>
+
+<p>Cavour was engaged on a series of measures, unscrupulous manoeuvres as
+some have called them, masterpieces of statesmanship as they have been
+described by others, by which he got back the reins of the Italian team
+into his own hands. The plan of an annexionist revolution in Naples before
+Garibaldi arrived had failed. So much discontent was felt at the apparent
+indifference, or, at least, 'masterly inactivity' of the Sardinian
+government in presence of the great struggle in the south that Cavour
+began to be afraid of a revolution breaking out in quite a different
+quarter, in Victor Emmanuel's own kingdom. It was at this critical
+juncture that he resolved to invade the Papal states, and take possession
+of the Province of Umbria and the Marches of Ancona.</p>
+
+<p>The decision was one of extreme boldness. For three months Cavour had
+been stormed at by all the Foreign Ministers in Turin, excepting Sir James
+Hudson, but, as he wrote to the Marquis E. D'Azeglio: 'I shall not draw
+back save before fleets and armies.'</p>
+
+<p>Austria, France, Spain, Russia and Prussia now broke off diplomatic
+relations with Sardinia. What would be their next act? The danger of
+Austria intervening was smaller than it then appeared; Austria was too
+much embarrassed in her own house, and especially in Hungary, for her to
+covet adventures in Italy. But the French Government did, in the plainest
+terms, threaten to intervene, and this notwithstanding that the Emperor
+himself appeared to be convinced by Cavour's argument, that the proposed
+scheme was the only means of checking the march of revolution, which from
+Rome might spread to Paris. By announcing one <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg.311]</a></span> line of policy in public
+and another in private, Napoleon left the door open to adopt either one or
+the other, according to the development of events. In the sequel, the
+Papal party had a right to say that he lured them to their destruction, as
+their plan of operations, and in particular the defence of Ancona, was
+undertaken in the distinct expectation of being supported by the French
+fleet.</p>
+
+<p>As early as April 1860, the Pope invited the Orleanist General
+Lamorici&egrave;re to organise and command the forces for the defence of
+the Temporal Power, which he had summoned from the four quarters of the
+Catholic world. 5000 men, more or less, answered the call; they came
+chiefly from France, Belgium and Ireland. Of his own subjects the Pope had
+10,000 under arms. In a proclamation, issued on assuming the command,
+Lamorici&egrave;re compared the Italian movement with Islamism, a
+comparison which aroused intense exasperation in Italy, where the rally of
+a foreign crusade against the object which was nearest to Italian hearts,
+and for which so many of the best Italians had suffered and died, could
+not but call up feelings which in their turn were expressed in no moderate
+language. It was a fresh illustration of the old truth&mdash;that the
+Papal throne existed only by force of foreign arms, foreign influence.
+Lamorici&egrave;re's 'mercenaries' did much harm to the Pope's cause by
+bringing home this truth once more to the minds of all. That the corps
+contained some of the bluest blood of France, that there were good young
+men in it, who thought heaven the sure reward for death in defence of
+dominions painfully added in the course of centuries by devices not
+heavenly to the original patrimony of Peter, did not and could not
+reconcile the Italians to the defiance thrown down to them by a band of
+strangers in their own country.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">
+[Pg.312]</a></span> Before the opening of hostilities, Victor Emmanuel
+offered Pius IX. to assume the administration of the Papal states (barring
+Rome) while leaving the nominal sovereignty to the Pope. Nothing came of
+the proposal, which was followed by a formal demand for the dissolution of
+Lamorici&egrave;re's army, and an intimation that the Sardinian troops
+would intervene were force used to put down risings within the Papal
+border. On the 11th of September, symptoms of revolution having meanwhile
+broken out in the Marches, General Fanti in command of 35,000 men crossed
+the frontier. Half these forces under Fanti himself were directed on
+Perugia; the other half under Cialdini marched towards Ancona. The
+garrisons of Perugia and Spoleto were compelled to surrender, and
+Lamorici&egrave;re found his communications cut off, so that he could only
+reach the last fortress in the power of the Papal troops, Ancona, by
+fighting his way through Cialdini's division, which by rapid marches had
+reached the heights of Castelfidardo. His men passed the day of the 17th
+in religious exercises, and in going to confession; the vicinity of the
+Holy House of Loreto, brought hither by angels from Bethlehem, filled the
+young Breton soldiers with transports of religious fervour.
+Lamorici&egrave;re had taken from the Santa Casa some of the flags of the
+victors of Lepanto to wave over his columns. In the battle of the next day
+the French fought with the gallantry of the Vend&eacute;ans whose
+descendants they were, and the Irish behaved as Irishmen generally behave
+under fire, but the Swiss and Romans mostly fought ill or not at all.
+Lamorici&egrave;re excused the conduct of the latter on the ground that
+they were young troops; it is likely that they had but little eagerness to
+fire on their fellow-countrymen. Being Italians, and above all being
+Romans, they <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">
+[Pg.313]</a></span> assuredly were not sustained by one scrap of the
+mystical enthusiasm of the French: such a state of mind would have been
+incomprehensible to them. They knew that so far as dogmas went Victor
+Emmanuel was as good a Catholic as the Pope. It is surprising that with
+part of his force demoralised Lamorici&egrave;re was still able to hold
+his own for three or four hours. General Pimodan and many of the French
+officers were killed; Lamorici&egrave;re could say truly: 'All the best
+names of France are left on the battlefield.'</p>
+
+<p>After the victory of Castelfidardo, the Sardinian attack was
+concentrated on Ancona. Admiral Persano brought the squadron from Naples
+to co-operate with Fanti's land forces, and the fortress capitulated on
+the 29th of September. The campaign had lasted eighteen days. The
+Piedmontese held Umbria and the Marches, and a road was thus opened for
+the army of Victor Emmanuel to march to Naples. During the progress of
+these events Garibaldi was preparing for the final struggle on the
+Volturno. He had not yet given up the hope of carrying his victorious arms
+to the Capitol, and from the Capitol to the Square of St Mark. The whole
+republican party, and Mazzini himself, who had arrived in Naples, ardently
+adhered to this programme. Their argument was not without force, risk or
+no risk, when would there be another opportunity as good as the present?
+It was very well for Cavour to look forward, as he did to the day of his
+death, to a pacific solution of the Roman question; Mazzini saw&mdash;in
+which he was far more clear-sighted than Cavour&mdash;that such a solution
+would never take place. His arrival at Naples caused alarm at Turin, both
+on account of his presumed influence over Garibaldi, the extent of which
+was much exaggerated, and from the terror his name spread among European
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg.314]</a></span>
+diplomatists. The Dictator was asked to proscribe the man whose latest act
+had been to give the last 30,000 francs he possessed in the world to the
+expenses of the Calabrian campaign. He refused to do this. 'How could I
+have insisted upon sending Mazzini into exile when he has done so much for
+Italian unity?' he said afterwards to Victor Emmanuel, who agreed that he
+was right. However, he allowed the Pro-Dictator Pallavicini to write a
+letter to Mazzini, inviting him to show his generosity by spontaneously
+leaving Naples in order to remove the unjust fears occasioned by his
+presence. Mazzini replied, as he had a perfect right to do, that every
+citizen is entitled to remain in a free country as long as he does not
+break the laws. And so the incident closed.</p>
+
+<p>While the Party of Action urged Garibaldi not to give up Rome, other
+influences were brought to bear on him in the opposite sense, and
+especially that of the English Government, which instructed Admiral Mundy
+to arrange a 'chance' meeting between the Dictator and the English
+Minister at Naples, Mr. Elliot, on board the flagship <i>Hannibal</i>. Mr.
+Elliot pointed out the likelihood of a European war arising from an attack
+on Venice, and the certainty of French intervention in case of a
+revolutionary dash on Rome. Garibaldi replied that Rome was an Italian
+city, and that neither the Emperor nor anyone else had a right to keep him
+out of it. 'He was evidently,' writes Admiral Mundy in reporting the
+interview, 'not to be swayed by any dictates of prudence.'</p>
+
+<p>In Sicily, the rival factions were bringing about a state approaching
+anarchy, but a flying visit from Garibaldi in the middle of September
+averted the storm. At this time, Garibaldi's headquarters were at Caserta,
+in the vast palace where Ferdinand II. breathed his last. The <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg.315]</a></span> Garibaldian
+and the Royal armies lay face to face with one another, and each was
+engaged in completing its preparations. It might have been expected, and
+for a moment it seems that Garibaldi did expect, that after the solemn
+collapse of the Neapolitan army south of Naples, the comedy was now only
+awaiting its final act and the fall of the curtain. But it soon became
+apparent that, instead of the last act of a comedy, the next might be the
+first of a tragedy. The troops concentrated on the right bank of the
+Volturno amounted to 35,000, with 6000 garrisoning Capua. About 15,000
+more formed the reserves and the garrison of Gaeta. The position on the
+Volturno was favourable to the Royalists; the fortress of Capua on the
+left bank gave them a free passage to and fro, while the Volturno, which
+is rather wide and very deep, formed a grave impediment to the advance of
+their opponents. But the chief reason why there was a serious possibility
+of the fortunes of war being reversed, lay in the fact that the <i>
+moral</i> of these troops was good. All the picked regiments of the army
+were here, including 2500 cavalry. The men were ashamed of the stampede
+from the south, and were sincerely anxious to take their revenge. Thus the
+Neapolitan plan of a pitched battle and a victorious march on Naples was
+by no means foredoomed, on the face of things, to failure.</p>
+
+<p>In Garibaldi's short absence at Palermo, the Southern Army (as he now
+called his forces) was left under the command of the Hungarian General
+T&uuml;rr, as brave an officer as ever lived, and a fast friend to Italy,
+but his merits do not undo the fact that as soon as the Dictator's back
+was turned, everything got into a muddle. Pontoon bridges had been thrown
+across the river at four points; availing himself of one of these,
+T&uuml;rr crossed the Volturno with a view to taking up a <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg.316]</a></span> position on
+the right bank at a place called Caiazzo, a step which, if attempted at
+all, ought to have been supported by a very strong force. On the 19th of
+September, Caiazzo was actually taken, but on the 21st the Royalists came
+out of Capua with 3000 men and defeated with great loss the thousand or
+fewer Garibaldians charged with its defence, only a small number of whom
+were able to recross the bridges and join their companions. The saddest
+part of this adventure was the slaughter of nearly the whole of the boys'
+company&mdash;lads under fifteen, who had run away from home or school to
+fight with Garibaldi. Fight they did for five mortal hours, with the
+heroism of veterans or of children. Only about twenty were left.</p>
+
+<p>When Garibaldi returned from Sicily, this was the first news he heard,
+and it was not cheering. The Royalists, who thought they had won another
+Waterloo, were in the wildest spirits, and the march on Naples was talked
+of in their camp as being as good as accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi's lines were spread in the shape of a semi-circle, of which
+the two ends started from Santa Maria on the left, and Maddaloni on the
+right, with Castel Morone at the apex. The country is hilly, and this
+fact, together with the great distance covered, divided the 20,000 men
+into a number of practically distinct bodies, each of which, in the
+decisive battle, had to fight its own fight. Here and there improvised
+fortifications were thrown up. Garibaldi was aware that his line of battle
+was perilously extended, but the necessity of blocking all the roads and
+by-ways which led to Naples, dictated tactics which he was the last to
+defend.</p>
+
+<p>The best policy for the Royalists would have been to bring <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg.317]</a></span>
+overwhelming numbers to bear on a single point, and, breaking the line, to
+march straight on the capital. They were doubtless afraid of an advance
+which would have left a portion of the Garibaldian army unbeaten in their
+rear. Nevertheless, of the chances that remained to them, this was the
+best. At Naples there were no Garibaldian troops to speak of, and the
+powers of reaction had been working night and day to procure for the
+rightful King the reception due to a saviour of society. Perhaps they
+would not have completely failed. There were nobles who were sulking,
+shopkeepers who were frightened, professional beggars with whom the
+Dictator had opened a fierce but unequal contest, for no blue-bottle fly
+is more difficult to tackle than a genuine Neapolitan mendicant; there
+were priests who, though not by any means all unpatriotic, were beginning
+to be scared by Garibaldi's gift of a piece of land for the erection of an
+English church, and by the sale of Diodati's Bible in the streets. And
+finally, there was the Carrozzella driver whom a Garibaldian officer had
+struck because he beat his horse. These individuals formed a nucleus
+respectably numerous, if not otherwise respectable, of anxious watchers
+for the Happy Return.</p>
+
+<p>If anyone question the fairness of this catalogue of the partisans of
+the fallen dynasty, the answer is, that had their ranks contained worthier
+elements, they would not have carefully reserved the demonstration of
+their allegiance till the King should prove that he had the right of the
+strongest.</p>
+
+<p>Towards five o'clock in the morning of the 1st of October, the
+royalists, who crossed the river in three columns, fired the first shots,
+and the fight soon became general. King Francis had come from <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg.318]</a></span> Gaeta to
+Capua to witness what was meant to be an auspicious celebration of his
+birthday. General Ritucci held the chief command. Of the Garibaldians,
+Milbitz and Medici commanded the left wing (Santa Maria and Sant' Angelo),
+and Bixio the right (Maddaloni), while Castel Morone, through which a road
+led to Caserta, was entrusted to Colonel Pilade Bronzetti and three
+hundred picked volunteers. Garibaldi's own headquarters was with the
+reserves at Caserta, but he appeared, as if by magic, at all parts of the
+line during the day, sometimes bringing up reinforcements, sometimes
+almost alone, always arriving at the nick of time whenever things looked
+serious, to help, direct and reanimate the men. A dozen times in these
+journeys by the rugged mountain paths he narrowly escaped falling into the
+enemy's hands. No trace of uneasiness was visible on his placid face;
+there was, however, more than enough to make a man uneasy. In the early
+part of the battle, both Medici and Bixio were pushed back from their
+positions. Only Pilade Bronzetti with his handful of Lombard Bersaglieri
+never swerved, and held in check an entire Neapolitan column, whose
+commander (Perrone) has been blamed for wasting so much time in trying to
+take that position instead of joining his 2000 men to the troops attacking
+Bixio, but his object was to march on Caserta, where his appearance might
+have caused very serious embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>Up to midday the Royalists advanced, not fast, indeed, but surely. They
+fired all the buildings on their path, and amongst others one in which
+there were thirty wounded Garibaldians who were burned to death. It was
+said to be an accident, but such accidents had better not happen. Victory
+seemed assured to them. It is not disputed that on this occasion they
+fought well, and they had all the advantages of <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg.319]</a></span> ground, numbers and
+artillery. But the volunteers, also, were at their best; they surpassed
+themselves. If every man of them had not shown the best military
+qualities, skill, resource, the power of recovery, Francis II. would have
+slept that night at Naples.</p>
+
+<p>Medici acted with splendid firmness, but at the most critical moment he
+had Garibaldi by his side. Bixio was left to fight his separate battle
+unaided (so great was the chief's confidence in him), and consummately
+well he fought it. After the middle of the day, the Garibaldians began to
+retake their positions, and at some points to assume the offensive; still
+it was five o'clock before Garibaldi could send his famous despatch to
+Naples: 'Victory along all the line.' The battle had lasted ten hours.</p>
+
+<p>The Sicilians and Calabrese under Dunne, who stemmed the first onset at
+Casa Brucciata, and under Eber, whose desperate charge at Porta Capua
+ushered in the changing fortunes of the day, rivalled the North Italians
+in steadiness and in dash. The French company and the Hungarian Legion
+covered themselves with glory; it was a pity there was not the English
+brigade, 600 strong, which mismanaged to arrive at Naples the day after
+the fair. Had they been in time for the fight, they would doubtless have
+left a brighter record than the only one which they did leave: that of
+being out of place in a country where wine was cheap.</p>
+
+<p>Putting aside Dunne and a few other English officers, England was
+represented on the Volturno by three or four Royal Marines who had slipped
+away from their ship, the <i>Renown</i>, and were come over to see the
+'fun.' It seems that they did ask for rifles, but they did not get them,
+their martial deeds consisting in the help they gave in dragging <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg.320]</a></span> off
+two captured field-pieces. Never did an exploit cause so much discussion
+in proportion with its importance; the Neapolitan Minister in London
+informed Lord John Russell that a body of armed men from the British fleet
+had been sent by Admiral Mundy to serve pieces of Garibaldian
+artillery.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the striking incidents of the day, that which should be
+remembered while Italy endures, was the defence of the hillock of Castel
+Morone by Bronzetti and his Lombards. Their invincible courage contributed
+in no small degree to the final result. One man to eight, they held their
+own for ten hours; when summoned to yield by the Neapolitan officer, who
+could not help admiring his courage, Pilade Bronzetti replied: 'Soldiers
+of liberty never surrender!' It was only in the moment of victory that
+Perrone passed over their dead bodies and uselessly advanced&mdash;which
+cost him dear on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>The Garibaldian losses were 2000 killed and wounded and 150 prisoners;
+the Neapolitans had the same number placed <i>hors de combat</i>, and lost
+3000 prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi had none but his own men; the report that the battle had been
+won by soldiers of the Sardinian army who arrived in the afternoon was
+false, because they did not arrive till next day, when a battalion of
+Piedmontese Bersaglieri took part in defeating Perrone's column, which (it
+is hard to say with what idea) descended nearly to Caserta, as its
+commander wished to do on the first. Did Perrone not know of the defeat of
+yesterday? His column was surrounded and all the men were taken
+prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>After the battle of the Volturno the belligerents re-occupied the
+positions on the right and left banks of that river which they held <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg.321]</a></span>
+before. Military critics speculate as to why Garibaldi did not follow up
+his advantage, and the opinion seems general that he did not feel himself
+strong enough to do so. The fortress of Capua was a serious obstacle, but
+Garibaldi was not accustomed to attach much weight to obstacles whatever
+they were, and it is pretty certain that he would have gone in pursuit had
+he not received a letter from Victor Emmanuel, who bade him wait till he
+came.</p>
+
+<p>By this time he had abandoned all thoughts of marching on Rome. From
+the moment that the King's army started for Naples he understood that
+persistence in the Roman programme would lead to something graver than a
+war of words with the authorities at Turin. Always positive, he gathered
+some consolation from the gain to Italy of two Roman provinces, Umbria and
+the Marches, and trusted the future with the larger hope.</p>
+
+<p>Constitutional government triumphed over the old absolutism and over
+the new dictatorship. And here it may be noted which Constitutional
+government, which never had a more sincere and faithful votary than
+Cavour, found no favour with Garibaldi at any period of his life. Its
+hampering restrictions, its slow processes, irritated his mind, intolerant
+of constraint, and he failed to see that this cumbersome mechanism still
+gives the best, if not the only, guarantee for the maintenance of freedom.
+The sudden transition of Southern Italy from a corrupt despotism to free
+institutions brought with it a train of evils, but there was no
+alternative. If Italy was to be one, all parts of it must be placed under
+the same laws, and that at once.</p>
+
+<p>On the 11th of October the Sardinian parliament sitting at Turin passed
+all but unanimously the motion authorising the King's Government to accept
+the annexation of those Italian provinces which <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg.322]</a></span> manifested, by universal
+suffrage, their desire to form part of the Constitutional Monarchy.
+Cavour's speech on this occasion was memorable: 'Rome,' he said, 'would
+inevitably become the splendid capital of the Italian kingdom, but that
+great result would be reached by means of moral force; it was impossible
+that enlightened Catholics should not end by recognising that the Head of
+Catholicism would exercise his high office with truer freedom and
+independence guarded by the love and respect of 22,000,000 Italians than
+entrenched behind 25,000 bayonets.' Of Venice, the martyr-city, he said
+'that public opinion was rapidly turning against its retention by Austria,
+and that when the great majority of Germans refused to be any longer
+accomplices in its subjection, that subjection would be brought to a close
+either by force of arms or by pacific negotiations.'</p>
+
+<p>The words were strangely prescient at a time when the Prince Regent of
+Prussia was making most melancholy wails over the fall of the Neapolitan
+King. The Prussian Government issued a formal protest, which Cavour met by
+observing that Prussia, of all Powers, had the least reason to object, as
+Piedmont was simply setting her an example which she ought to follow and
+would follow, the mission of the two nations being identical. He already
+thought of Prussia as an ally: 'Never more French alliances,' he was once
+heard to say.</p>
+
+<p>On the same day, the 11th of October, Victor Emmanuel crossed the
+Neapolitan frontier at the head of the army which Cialdini led to victory
+at Castelfidardo. The King published a proclamation, in which he said that
+he closed the era of revolution in Italy. Other bodies of <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg.323]</a></span> Piedmontese
+troops had been despatched by sea to Naples and Manfredonia. The passage
+of the Piedmontese troops over the Abruzzi mountains was opposed both by a
+division of the Bourbon army and by armed peasants, who burnt a man alive
+at a place called Isernia; but their advance was not long delayed.</p>
+
+<p>The Neapolitans now began to retire from the right bank of the
+Volturno, and retreat towards the Garigliano, their last line of defence.
+Garibaldi crossed the river with 5000 men, and moved in the direction by
+which the vanguard of the Piedmontese was expected to arrive. At daybreak
+on the 26th of October, near Teano, the Piedmontese came in sight.
+Garibaldi, who had dismounted, walked up to Victor Emmanuel and said:
+'Hail, King of Italy!'</p>
+
+<p>Once before the title was given to a prince of the House of
+Savoy&mdash;to Charles Albert, in the bitterest irony by the Austrian
+officers who saw him flying from his friends and country by order of his
+implacable uncle. A change had come since then.</p>
+
+<p>Victor Emmanuel answered simply: 'Thanks,' and remained talking for a
+quarter of an hour in the particularly kind and affectionate manner he
+used with Garibaldi, but at the end of the interview, when the leader of
+the volunteers asked that in the imminent battle on the Garigliano they
+might have the honour of occupying the front line, he received the reply:
+'Your troops are tired, mine are fresh, it is my turn now.'</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi said sadly that evening to an English friend: 'They have sent
+us to the rear.' It was the first sign of the ungenerous treatment meted
+out to the Garibaldian array to which the King lent himself more than he
+ought to have done. He promised to be present on the 6th of November, when
+Garibaldi reviewed his volunteers, but after keeping them waiting, sent a
+message to say that he could not come. <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg.324]</a></span> The last meeting of all
+between the chief and his faithful followers was at Naples, on the
+occasion of the distribution of medals to as many as were left of the
+Thousand&mdash;less than half. In all his farewell addresses the same note
+sounded: 'We have done much in a short time.... I thank you in the name of
+our country.... We shall meet again.'</p>
+
+<p>The plebiscites in Umbria and the Marches and in the kingdoms of Naples
+and Sicily took place in October. The formula adopted at Naples was more
+broadly framed than in the previous plebiscites; it ran: 'The people
+desire an united Italy under the sceptre of the House of Savoy.' The vote
+was almost unanimous.</p>
+
+<p>On the 7th of November, Victor Emmanuel made his entry into Naples,
+with Garibaldi at his side. Next day, in the great throne-room of the
+palace, the king-maker delivered to the King the plebiscites of the Two
+Sicilies.</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi had nothing more to do except to pay a last visit to Admiral
+Mundy, whose flagship still lay at anchor in the bay. This duty was
+performed in the grey dawn of the 9th of November. 'There is the ship
+which is to carry me away to my island home,' he said, pointing to an
+American merchant vessel, 'but, Admiral, I could not depart without paying
+you a farewell visit. Your conduct to me since our first meeting at
+Palermo has been so kind, so generous, that it can never be erased from my
+memory; it is engraven there indelibly&mdash;it will last my life.'</p>
+
+<p>On leaving the flagship he rowed straight to the American vessel, which
+soon afterwards steamed out of the bay. The parting salute fired by the
+guns of the <i>Hannibal</i> was all the pomp that attended his departure.
+Several hours later the people of Naples knew that their <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg.325]</a></span> liberator
+had gone to dig up the potatoes which he had planted in the spring.</p>
+
+<p>By Cavour's advice, Victor Emmanuel offered Garibaldi a dukedom and the
+Collar of the Annunziata, which confers the rank of cousin to the King,
+besides riches to support these honours. He refused everything, and
+returned to Caprera poorer than when he left it.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg.326]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVI</h3>
+
+<h4>BEGINNINGS OF THE ITALIAN KINGDOM</h4>
+
+<h5>1860-1861</h5>
+
+<h5>Beginnings of the Italian Kingdom&mdash;The Fall of
+Gaeta&mdash;Political Brigandage&mdash;The Proclamation of the Italian
+Kingdom&mdash;Cavour's Death.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>The Neapolitan army retreated, as has been already stated, beyond the
+Garigliano. Capua, isolated and surrounded, could render no material
+service to the royal cause; it capitulated on the 2nd of November, though
+not until the town had been bombarded for forty-eight hours. The siege was
+witnessed by Victor Emmanuel, who said to General Delia Rocca: 'It breaks
+my heart to think that we are sending death and destruction into an
+Italian town.' Two days after the surrender of Capua, Cialdini threw a
+bridge over the Garigliano near its mouth, an operation covered by the
+guns of Admiral Persano's squadron. His first attempt on the 29th of
+October had met with a decided repulse, another proof that this last
+remnant of the Neapolitan army was not an enemy to be despised. The second
+attempt, however, was successful; part of the Neapolitans fell back upon
+Gaeta, and the other part fled over the Papal frontier.</p>
+
+<p>Gaeta, the refuge of the Pope and the fugitive Princes in 1848, now
+became the ultimate rock of defence of the Bourbon dynasty. The position
+of the fortress is extremely strong and not unlike Gibraltar in its main
+features. A headland running out into the sea and rising <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg.327]</a></span> to a height
+of three or four hundred feet, it is divided by a strip of sand from the
+shore-line. The principal defences were then composed of a triple
+semi-circle of ditches and ramparts one higher than the other. Had the
+country been flat the difficulties of the siege would have been much
+increased; its hilly character allowed Cialdini to fix his batteries on
+heights which commanded the top of the Gaeta hill. But to profit by this,
+the Piedmontese were obliged to make fourteen miles of roads by which to
+bring up their artillery. For a month, 10,000 out of the 20,000 besiegers
+were at work with the spade. The defending force amounted to 11,000 men,
+and was commanded by General Ritucci. From the first, it was certain that
+the obstinate stand made at Gaeta could only result in what Lord John
+Russell called a useless effusion of blood; nevertheless it seems to have
+been prompted by a real belief that Francis would still recover his
+kingdom. The precedent of his father's return from Gaeta may have
+strengthened the King's illusion; every day he received highly-coloured
+reports of a gathering reaction, and as the French fleet in the bay
+prevented Admiral Persano from attacking from the sea, he believed that
+the time which he could hold out was indefinite. This policy of the French
+Government need not have greatly cheered him, as its motive was less to
+help Francis than to prepare the way, by hampering the Piedmontese, for a
+little fishing in troubled waters. Prince Murat, descendant of the <i>Beau
+Sabreur</i>, was busy writing proclamations to remind the world that if
+Francis were impossible and Victor Emmanuel 'wanted finish,' there was an
+eligible young man ready to sacrifice the charms of the Boulevards for the
+cares of kingship.</p>
+
+<p>On the representations of the British Government the Emperor withdrew
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg.328]</a></span>
+his fleet in January, advising Francis II. to renounce a hopeless
+resistance. But at this eleventh hour the King had adopted the principle
+of 'no surrender,' and he meant to stick to it. It is difficult to blame
+him; at anyrate, much more serious is the blame due to the methods of
+warfare which he was to adopt or to approve thereafter. His young Queen,
+who was frequently seen on the ramparts encouraging the artillerymen at
+their guns, had probably much to do with his virile resolution. The
+fortress was now attacked by land and by sea, and the bursting of a
+powder-magazine inside the walls hastened its doom. On the 15th of January
+the Neapolitans laid down their arms, the King having left his dominions
+by sea. The first act of the conquerors in the half-ruined town was to
+attend a mass for the repose of the souls of the brave men, friends and
+foes, who had fallen during the siege. Noisy rejoicings would have been
+unseemly, for the vanquished were fellow-countrymen.</p>
+
+<p>The telegram announcing the fall of Gaeta went to Caprera; Garibaldi
+read it, and a weight was taken off his mind. 'Civil war is at an end,' he
+announced to the little party round the supper-table; 'Cialdini with our
+army is in Gaeta; now the Italians will not cut one another's throats any
+more.' Later in the evening he seemed so depressed that they thought him
+ill; Colonel Vecchj went to his bedside to discover what was the matter.
+He found him reading the <i>Times</i>, and inquired why he had become so
+suddenly sad. After a pause, Garibaldi said: 'Poor boy! Born at the foot
+of a throne and perhaps not by his own fault, hurled from it. He too will
+have to feel the bitterness of exile without preparation.' 'Is that all?'
+asked Vecchj. 'Do you think it nothing?' was the answer. 'Why then,'
+persisted Vecchj, half in jest, 'did you go to Marsala?' 'It was the <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg.329]</a></span> duty
+of us all to go,' Garibaldi said quickly, 'else how could there have been
+one Italy?'</p>
+
+<p>Francis II. would have been happy had he found counsellors to persuade
+him to keep pure such titles to sympathy as he then possessed. Decorum, if
+not humanity, should have urged him to retire, surrounded by the solitary
+flash of glory cast on his fallen cause by the brave defence of Gaeta. But
+the revolution, the new Islam, if it could not be conquered must be made
+to suffer for its triumph. Hence the exiled King was advised to call in
+murder, pillage and rapine as accomplices. The political brigandage which
+followed the downfall of the King of the Two Sicilies began after the
+battle of the Volturno and extended over five years. Its effect on the
+general situation was nil; it harassed and distracted the Italian
+Government and created the odious necessity of using severe repressive
+measures, but it never placed the crown in danger. One effect it did have,
+and that was to raise all over Italy a feeling of reprobation for the late
+dynasty, which not all the crimes and follies of the two Ferdinands and
+the first Francis had succeeded in evoking. How many bright lives, full of
+promise, were lost in that warfare which even the sacred name of duty
+could not save from being ungrateful and inglorious! Italians who have
+lost their children in their country's battles have never been heard to
+complain; nowhere was the seemliness of death for native land better
+understood than it has been in the Italy of this century, but to lose son
+or brother in a brigand ambush by the hand of an escaped
+galley-slave&mdash;this was hard. The thrust was sharpened by the
+knowledge that the fomenter of the mischief was dwelling securely in the
+heart of Italy, the guest of the Head of the Church. From Rome came money
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg.330]</a></span>
+and instructions; from Rome, whether with or without the cognizance of the
+authorities, came recruits. The Roman frontier afforded a means of escape
+for all who could reach it, however red their hands were with blood. What
+further evidence was needed of the impossibility of an indefinite duration
+of this state within a state?</p>
+
+<p>King Francis held back at first, but his uncle, the Count of Trapani,
+who openly abetted the brigand partisans, drew him more and more into
+collusion with them and their works. The Belgian ecclesiastic, Mgr. de
+M&eacute;rode, who had then an influence at the Vatican not possessed even
+by Antonelli, looked, unless he was much belied, with a very kind eye upon
+the new defenders of throne and altar. Efforts have been made to represent
+the war as one carried on by loyal peasants. No one denies that every
+peasants' war must assume, more or less, an aspect of brigandage;
+nevertheless there have been righteous and patriotic peasants' wars, such
+as that of the Klephts in Greece. The question is, Whether the political
+brigandage in South Italy had any real affinity with the wars of the
+Klephts, or even of the Carlists? And the answer must be a negative.</p>
+
+<p>The partisan chiefs in the kingdom of Naples were brigands, pure and
+simple, most of whom had either been long wanted by the police, or had
+already suffered in prison for their crimes. They organised their troops
+on the strict principles of brigand bands, and proposed to them the same
+object: pillage. 'Lieut-General' Chiavone who had a mania for imitating
+Garibaldi, was the least bad among them; unlike his prototype, he did not
+like being under fire, but neither did he care to spill innocent blood.
+What, however, can be said for Pilone, 'commander of His Majesty's forces'
+on Vesuvius; for Ninco Nanco, <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_331" id=
+"Page_331">[Pg.331]</a></span> Bianco dei Bianchi, Tardio, Palma; for
+Carusso, who cut the throats of thirteen out of fourteen labourers and
+told the one left to go and tell the tale; for the brothers La Gala, who
+roasted and ate a priest? It was said that no horror committed during the
+Indian Mutiny was here without a parallel.</p>
+
+<p>Of respectable Neapolitans who held responsible posts under the late
+<i>r&eacute;gime</i> not one joined the bands, but they contained French,
+Austrian and Belgian officers, and one Prussian. A nephew of Mgr. de
+M&eacute;rode, the young Marquis de Traz&eacute;gnies, was with Chiavone;
+the Carlist, Jos&egrave; Borj&egrave;s, was with a scoundrel named Crocco.
+Borj&egrave;s' case is a hard one. He had been made to believe in the
+genuine character of the insurrection and thought that he was giving his
+sword to an honourable cause. The melancholy disillusion can be traced in
+the pages of a note-book which he kept from day to day, and which fell
+into the hands of the Italians when he was captured. The brief entries
+show a poetic mind; he observes the fertile soil, deploring, only, that it
+is not better cultivated; he admires the smiling valleys and the
+magnificent woods whose kings of the forest show no mark of the centuries
+that passed over their fresh verdure. At first Borj&egrave;s was pleased
+with the peasants who came to him, but as they were few, he was obliged to
+join Crocco's large band, and he now began to see, with horror, what kind
+of associates he had fallen amongst. He had no authority; the brigands
+laughed at his rebukes; never in his life, he writes, had he come across
+such thieves. Before the enemy they ran away like a flock of sheep, but
+when it was safe to do so, they murdered both men and women. In
+desperation, Borj&egrave;s resolved to try and get to Rome, that he might
+lay the whole truth before the King, but after suffering many hardships,
+he was taken with a few others close to the Papal frontier <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg.332]</a></span> and was
+immediately shot. He died bravely, chanting a Spanish litany.</p>
+
+<p>Borj&egrave;s' journal notes the opposition of all classes, except the
+very poorest and most ignorant. Was it to be believed, therefore, that
+this mountain warfare, however long drawn out, could alter one iota the
+course of events? If Francis II. supposed the insurrection to be the work
+of a virtuous peasantry, why did he allow them to rush to their
+destruction?</p>
+
+<p>The task of restoring order was assigned to General Cialdini. He found
+the whole country, from the Abruzzi to Calabria, terrorised by the league
+of native assassins and foreign noblemen. The Modenese general was a
+severe officer who had learnt war in Spain, not a gentle school. If he
+exceeded the bounds of dire necessity he merits blame; but no one then
+hoped in the efficacy of half measures.</p>
+
+<p>One element in the epidemic of brigandage, and looking forward, the
+most serious of all, was an unconscious but profoundly real socialism. If
+half-a-dozen socialistic emissaries had assumed the office of guides and
+instructors, it is even odds that the red flag of communism would have
+displaced the white one of Bourbon. This feature became more accentuated
+as the struggle wore on, and after experience had been made of the new
+political state. The economic condition of a great part of the southern
+population was deplorable, but liberty, so many thought, would exercise an
+instantaneous effect, filling the mouths of the hungry, clothing the
+naked, providing firing in winter, sending rain or sunshine as it was
+wanted. But liberty does none of these things. The disappointment of the
+discovery did not count for nothing in the difficulties of that period; it
+counts for everything <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_333" id=
+"Page_333">[Pg.333]</a></span> in the difficulties of this.</p>
+
+<p>The reorganisation of the southern provinces proceeded very slowly. The
+post of Lieutenant-Governor was successively conferred on L.C. Farini,
+Prince Eugene of Carignano, and Count Ponza di San Martino; for a short
+time Cialdini was invested with the supreme civil as well as military
+power. None of these changes met with entire success. The government was
+sometimes too weak, sometimes too arbitrary; of the great number of
+Piedmontese officials distributed through the south, a few won general
+approval, but the majority betrayed want of knowledge and tact, and were
+judged accordingly. It was a misfortune for the new administration that it
+was not assisted by the steam power of moral enthusiasm which appeared and
+disappeared with Garibaldi. There is a great amount of certainty that the
+vast bulk of the population desired union with Italy; but it is equally
+certain that the new Government, though not without good intentions, began
+by failing to please anybody, and the seeds of much future trouble were
+planted.</p>
+
+<p>On the 18th of February 1861, the first Italian legislature assembled
+at Turin in the old Chamber, where, by long years of patient work and
+self-sacrificing fidelity to principle, the possibility of establishing an
+Italian constitutional monarchy had been laboriously tested and
+established. Only the deputies of Rome and Venice were still missing. The
+first act of the new parliament was to pass an unanimous vote to the
+effect that Victor Emmanuel and his heirs should assume the title of King
+of Italy. The Italian kingdom thus constituted was recognised by England
+in a fortnight, by France in three months, by Prussia in a year, by Spain
+in four years, by the Pope never.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">
+[Pg.334]</a></span> After the merging of Naples in the Italian
+body-politic, one of the thorniest questions that arose was the disposal
+of the Garibaldian forces. The chief implored Victor Emmanuel to receive
+his comrades into his own army, a prayer which the King had not the power,
+even if he had the will, to grant, as in the constitutional course of
+things the decision was referred to the ministers, who, again, were
+crippled in their action by the military authorities at Turin. Though it
+is natural to sympathise with Garibaldi in his eagerness to obtain
+generous terms for his old companions-in-arms, it may be true that his
+demand was not one that could be satisfied in its full extent. The
+volunteers were not inferior to the ordinary soldier; about half of them
+were decidedly his superior, but they were a political body improvised for
+a special purpose, and it is easy to see how many were the reasons against
+their forming a division of a conventional army like that of Piedmont.
+Nevertheless, the means ought to have been found of convincing them that
+their King and country were proud of them, that their great, their
+incalculable services were appreciated. That such means were not found was
+supposed to be the fault of Cavour. It was only in 1885, on the
+publication of the fourth volume of the Count's letters, that it became
+known how strenuously he had fought for justice. Military prejudice was
+what was really to blame; General Fanti, the Minister of War, even
+provoked Cavour into telling him 'that they were not in Spain, and that in
+Italy the army obeyed.' 'A cry of reprobation would be raised,' he wrote,
+'if, while the Bourbon officers who ran away disgracefully were confirmed
+in their rank, the Garibaldians who beat them were coolly sent about their
+business. Rather than bear the responsibility of such an act of black
+ingratitude, I would go and bury myself at Leri. I despise the <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg.335]</a></span>
+ungrateful to the point of not feeling angered by them, and I forgive
+their abuse. But, by Heaven, I could not bear the merited blot of having
+failed to recognise services such as the conquest of a kingdom of
+9,000,000 inhabitants.'</p>
+
+<p>Cavour, in fact, did obtain something; much more than the army
+authorities wished to give, but much less than Garibaldi asked or than the
+Count would doubtless have given had not his hands been tied. And,
+doubtless, he would have given it with more grace.</p>
+
+<p>As it was, the volunteers were deeply offended and sent their griefs by
+every post to Caprera. Garibaldi, who refused every favour and honour for
+himself, was worked up into a state of fury by what he deemed the wrongs
+of his faithful followers, and in April he arrived unexpectedly at Turin
+to plead their cause before the Chamber of Deputies. Perhaps by a wise
+presentiment he had refused to stand for any constituency; but when Naples
+elected him her representative, almost without opposition, he submitted to
+the popular will. At Turin he fell ill with rheumatic fever, but on the
+day of the debate on the Southern Army he rose from his bed to take his
+seat in the Chamber. The case for the volunteers was opened, and this is
+worthy of note, by Baron Ricasoli, aristocrat and conservative. Afterwards
+Garibaldi got up&mdash;at first he tried to make out the statistics and
+particulars which he had on paper, but blinded by passion and by fever, he
+threw down his notes and launched into a fierce invective against 'the man
+who had made him a foreigner in his own birthplace and the government
+which was driving the country straight into civil war.' At the words
+'civil war' Cavour sprang to his feet, unwontedly moved, and uttered some
+expressions of protest, which were lost in the general uproar. When this
+was quieted, Garibaldi finished his speech in a moderate <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg.336]</a></span> tone, and
+then General Bixio rose to make that noble appeal to concord which, had he
+done nothing else for Italy, should be a lasting title to her gratitude.
+'I am one of those,' he said, 'who believe in the sacredness of the
+thoughts which have guided General Garibaldi, but I am also one of those
+who have faith in the patriotism of Count Cavour. In God's holy name let
+us make an Italy superior to the strife of parties.' He might not be
+making a parliamentary speech, he added, but he would give his children
+and his life to see peace established&mdash;words flowing so plainly from
+his honest heart that savage indeed would have been the enmity which, for
+the time, at least, was not quelled. Cavour grasped the olive branch at
+once; all his momentary ire vanished. He made excuses for his adversary;
+from the grief which he had felt himself when he advised the King to cede
+Savoy and Nice, he could understand the general's resentment. He had
+always been, he said in general terms, a friend to the volunteers. What he
+did not even remotely suggest was the dissension which existed between
+himself and his military colleague on the subject of the Garibaldians. The
+least hint would have gained for Cavour any amount of applause and
+popularity; but he preferred to bear all the blame rather than bring the
+national army into disfavour. Garibaldi replied 'that he had never doubted
+the Count's patriotism;' but at the end of the three days' debate he
+declared himself dissatisfied with the Ministerial assurances touching the
+volunteers in particular and the country's armaments as a whole. As Cavour
+left the Chamber after the final night's sitting, he remarked to a
+friend&mdash;all his fine equanimity returned: 'And yet, and yet, when the
+time comes for war, I shall take General Garibaldi under my arm and say:
+"Let's go and see what they are about inside Verona!"'</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">
+[Pg.337]</a></span> Cialdini tried to stir up the quarrel anew by a letter
+full of foolish personalities; but to this sort of attack Garibaldi was
+impervious. It mattered nothing to him that a man should make rude remarks
+about his wearing a red shirt. He admired the victor of Castelfidardo as
+one of Italy's best soldiers. He was, therefore, perfectly ready to
+embrace Cialdini at the King's request before he left Turin for Caprera.
+It cost him more to consent to an interview of reconciliation with the
+Prime Minister in the royal presence, because his disagreement with Cavour
+was purely political and impersonal, and was rooted more deeply in his
+heart than any private irritation could be; but he did consent, and the
+interview took place on the 23rd of April. Probably Victor Emmanuel in
+after days was never gladder of anything he had done than of having caused
+his two great subjects&mdash;both his subjects born&mdash;to part for the
+last time in this mortal life in peace.</p>
+
+<p>On one other memorable occasion the man who, at twenty-two, said that
+he meant to be Prime Minister of Italy, and who now, at fifty-one, was
+keeping his word, filled with his presence the Chamber of which he seemed
+to incarnate the life and history&mdash;which may be said to have been his
+only home, for Cavour hardly had a private life. Very soon the familiar
+figure was to vacate the accustomed place for ever.</p>
+
+<p>An obscure deputy put a question on the 25th of May, which gave Cavour
+the opportunity of expounding his views about Rome still more explicitly
+than in the previous autumn. It was impossible, he said, to conceive
+Italian unity without Rome as capital. Were there any other solution to
+the problem he would be willing to give it due consideration, but there
+was not. The position of a capital was not <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg.338]</a></span> decided by climatic or
+topographical reasons: a glance at capitals of Europe was sufficient to
+certify the fact; it was decided by moral reasons. Now Rome, alone out of
+the Italian cities, had an undisputed moral claim to primacy. 'As far as I
+am personally concerned,' he said, 'I shall go to Rome with sorrow; not
+caring for art, I am sure that among the most splendid monuments of
+ancient and modern Rome I shall regret the sedate and unpoetic streets of
+my native town.' It grieved him to think that Turin must resign her most
+cherished privilege, but he knew his fellow-citizens, and he knew them to
+be ready to make this last sacrifice to their country. Might Italy not
+forget the cradle of her liberties when her seat of government was firmly
+established in the Eternal City!</p>
+
+<p>He went on to say that he had not lost the hope that France and the
+Head of the Church would yield to the inexorable logic of the situation,
+and that the same generation which had resuscitated Italy would accomplish
+the still grander task of concluding a peace between the State and the
+Church, liberty and religion. These were no formal words; Cavour's whole
+heart was set on their realisation. He did not doubt that the knot, if not
+untied, would be cut by the sword sooner or later. He felt as sure as
+Mazzini felt that this would happen; but more than any man of any party he
+had reckoned the cost of ranging the Church with its vast potential powers
+for good, for order, for public morality, among the implacable enemies of
+the nascent kingdom. And, therefore, his last public utterance was a cry
+for religious peace.</p>
+
+<p>Always an immense worker, in these latter months Cavour had been
+possessed by a feverish activity. 'I must make haste to finish my work,'
+he said; 'I feel that this miserable body of mine is giving way <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg.339]</a></span>
+beneath the mind and will which still urge it on. Some fine day you will
+see me break down upon the road.' On the 6th of June, after two or three
+days of so-called sudden illness, he broke down upon the road.</p>
+
+<p>Fra Giacomo, faithful to his old promise, administered the sacraments
+to the dying minister, who told Farini 'to tell the good people of Turin
+that he died a Christian.' After this his mind rambled, but always upon
+the themes that had so completely absorbed it: Rome, Venice,
+Naples&mdash;'no state of siege,' was one of his broken sayings that
+referred to Naples. It was his farewell protest against brute force in
+which he had never believed. 'Cleanse them, cleanse them,' he repeated;
+cleanse the people of the South of their moral contagion; that, not force,
+was the remedy. He was able to recognise the King, but unable to collect
+the ideas which he wished to express to him.</p>
+
+<p>Cavour's death caused a profound sensation in Europe, and in Italy and
+in England awakened great sorrow. Hardly any public man has received so
+splendid a tribute as that rendered to his memory in the British Houses of
+Parliament. The same words were on the lips of all: What would Italy do
+without him? Death is commonly the great reminder that no man is
+necessary. Nations fulfil their destinies even though their greatest sons
+be laid under the turf. And Italy has fulfilled her destinies, but there
+are Italians who believe that had Cavour lived to complete his task,
+although his dream of an Eirenicon might never have been realised, their
+country would not have passed through the <i>selva selvaggia</i> of
+mistakes and humiliations into which she now entered.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg.340]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVII</h3>
+
+<h4>ROME OR DEATH</h4>
+
+<h5>1861-1864</h5>
+
+<h5>Cavour's Successors&mdash;Aspromonte&mdash;The September
+Convention&mdash;Garibaldi's Visit to England.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>There were two possible successors to Cavour, the Tuscan, Bettino
+Ricasoli, and Urban Rattazzi, a Piedmontese barrister. The first belonged
+to the right, the second to the left centre in the Parliamentary
+combinations. Cavour had no very close personal relations with either, but
+he knew their characters. Rattazzi formerly held ministerial office under
+him, and the long Tuscan crisis of 1859, looked at, as he looked at it,
+from the inside, gave him opportunities of judging the Iron Baron who
+opposed even his own will on more than one occasion in that great
+emergency. Ricasoli was rigid, frigid, a frequenter of the straightest
+possible roads; Rattazzi, supple, accommodating, with an incorrigible
+partiality for umbrageous by-ways. He was already an 'old parliamentary
+hand,' and in the future, through a series of ministerial lapses, any one
+of which would have condemned most men to seclusion, he preserved his
+talent for manufacturing majorities and holding his party together.
+Choosing between these two candidates, Cavour before he died gave his
+preference to Ricasoli, who was charged by the King with the formation of
+a ministry in which he <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_341" id=
+"Page_341">[Pg.341]</a></span> took the Treasury and the Foreign
+Office.</p>
+
+<p>Ricasoli was without ambition, and he rather under than over-rated his
+abilities, but he went to work with considerable confidence in his power
+of setting everything right. A perfectly open and honest statesman ought
+to be able, he imagined, to solve the most difficult problems. Why not,
+except that the world is not what it ought to be? In home politics he
+offended the Party of Action by telling them plainly that if they broke
+the law they would have to pay the cost, and he offended his own party by
+refusing to interfere with the right of meeting or any other
+constitutional right of citizens, whether they were followers of Mazzini
+or of anybody else, as long as they kept within legal bounds. He wrote an
+elaborate letter to Pius IX., in which he sought to persuade the Pontiff
+of the sweet reasonableness of renouncing claims which, for a very long
+spell, had cast nothing but discredit on religion. Ricasoli's attitude
+towards the Temporal Power was unique in this century. Like Dante's, his
+hatred of it was religious. He was a Catholic, not because he had never
+thought or studied, but because, having thought and studied, he assented,
+and from this standpoint he ascribed most of the wounds of the Church to
+her subordination of her spiritual mission to material interests. He
+encouraged Padre Passaglia to collect the signatures of priests for a
+petition praying the Pope to cease opposing the desires of all Italy; 8943
+names were affixed in a short time. The only result of these transactions
+was that Cardinal Antonelli remarked to the French Government that the
+Holy See would never come to terms with robbers, and that, although at war
+with the Turin Cabinet, 'the Pope's relations with Italy were excellent.'
+More harmful to Ricasoli than the fulminations of the Vatican was the
+veiled but determined hostility of Napoleon III. Cavour succeeded in <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg.342]</a></span> more
+or less keeping the Emperor in ignorance of the degree to which their long
+partnership resembled a duel. He made him think that he was leading while
+he was being led. With Ricasoli there could be no such illusions. Napoleon
+understood him to be a man whom he might break, not bend. He thought it
+desirable to break him, and Imperial desires had many channels, at that
+time, towards fulfilment.</p>
+
+<p>The Ricasoli ministry fell in February 1862, and, as a matter of
+course, Rattazzi was called to power. The new premier soon ingratiated
+himself with the King, who found him easier to get on with than the
+Florentine <i>grand seigneur</i>; with Garibaldi, whom he persuaded that
+some great step in the national redemption was on the eve of
+accomplishment; with Napoleon, who divined in him an instrument.
+Meanwhile, in his own mind, he proposed to eclipse Cavour, out-manoeuvre
+all parties, and make his name immortal. This remains the most probable,
+as it is the most lenient interpretation to which his strange policy is
+open.</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi was encouraged to visit the principal towns of North Italy in
+order to institute the <i>Tiro Nazionale</i> or Rifle Association, which
+was said to be meant to form the basis of a permanent volunteer force on
+the English pattern. For many reasons, such a scheme was not likely to
+succeed in Italy, but most people supposed the object to be
+different&mdash;namely, the preparation of the youth of the nation for an
+immediate war. The idea was strengthened when it was observed that
+Trescorre, in the province of Bergamo, where Garibaldi stopped to take a
+course of sulphur baths, became the centre of a gathering which included
+the greater part of his old Sicilian staff. There was no concealment in
+what was done, and the Government manifested no alarm. <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg.343]</a></span> The air was
+full of rumours, and in particular much was said about a Garibaldian
+expedition to Greece, for which, it was stated and re-stated, Rattazzi had
+promised &pound;40,000. That Garibaldi meant to cast his lot in any
+struggle not bearing directly on Italian affairs, as long as the questions
+of Rome and Venice still hung in the balance, is not to be believed. A
+little earlier than this date, President Lincoln invited him to take the
+supreme command of the Federal army in the war for the Union, and he
+declined the offer, attractive though it must have been to him, both as a
+soldier and an abhorrer of slavery, because he did not think that Italy
+could spare him. But the 'Greek Expedition,' though a misleading name, was
+not altogether a blind. Before Cavour's death, there had been frequent
+discussion of a project for revolutionising the east of Europe on a grand
+scale; Hungary and the southern provinces of the Austrian Empire were to
+co-operate with the Slavs and other populations under Turkey in a movement
+which, even if only partially successful, would go far to facilitate the
+liberation of Venice. It cannot be doubted that Rattazzi's brain was at
+work on something of this sort, but the mobilisation, so to speak, of the
+Garibaldians suggested proceedings nearer home. Trescorre was very far
+from the sea, very near the Austrian frontier.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of contradictions, a plan for invading the Trentino, or South
+Tyrol, almost certainly did exist. Whether Garibaldi was alone answerable
+for it cannot be determined. The Government became suddenly alive to the
+enormous peril such an attack would involve, and arrested several of the
+Garibaldian officers at Sarnico. They were conveyed to Brescia, where a
+popular attempt was made to liberate them; the troops <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg.344]</a></span> fired on
+the crowd, and some blood was shed. Garibaldi wrote an indignant protest
+and retired, first to the villa of Signora Cairoli at Belgirate, and then
+to Caprera. He did not, however, remain there long.</p>
+
+<p>After this point, the thread of events becomes tangled beyond the hope
+of unravelment. What were the causes which led Garibaldi into the
+desperate venture that ended at Aspromonte? Recollecting his hesitation
+before assuming the leadership of the Sicilian expedition, it seemed the
+more unintelligible that he should now undertake an enterprise which,
+unless he could rely on the complicity of Government, had not a single
+possibility of success. His own old comrades were opposed to it, and it
+was notorious that Mazzini, to whom the counsels of despair were generally
+either rightly or wrongly attributed, had nothing to do with inspiring
+this attempt. In justice to Rattazzi, it must be allowed that, after the
+arrests at Sarnico, Garibaldi went into open opposition to the ministry,
+which he denounced as subservient to Napoleon. Nevertheless, with the
+remembrance of past circumstances in his mind, he may have felt convinced
+that the Prime Minister did not mean or that he would not dare to oppose
+him by force. One thing is certain; from beginning to end he never
+contemplated civil war. His disobedience to the King of Italy had only one
+purpose&mdash;to give him Rome. He was no more a rebel to Victor Emmanuel
+than when he marched through Sicily in 1860.</p>
+
+<p>The earlier stages of the affair were not calculated to weaken a belief
+in the effective non-intervention of Government. Garibaldi went to
+Palermo, where he arrived in the evening of the 28th of June. The young
+Princes Umberto and Amedeo were on a visit to the Prefect, the <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg.345]</a></span>
+Marquis Pallavicini, and happened to be that night at the opera. All at
+once they perceived the spectators leave the house in a body, and they
+were left alone; on asking the reason, they heard that Garibaldi had just
+landed&mdash;all were gone to greet him! Before the departure of the
+Princes next day, the chief and his future King had an affectionate
+meeting, while the population renewed the scenes of wild enthusiasm of two
+years ago. Some of Garibaldi's intimate friends assert that when he
+reached Palermo he had still no intention of taking up arms. He soon
+began, however, to speak in a warlike tone, and at a review of the
+National Guard in presence of the Prefect, the Syndic, and all the
+authorities, he told the 'People of the Vespers' that if another Vespers
+were wanted to do it, Napoleon III., head of the brigands, must be ejected
+from Rome. The epithet was not bestowed at random; Lord Palmerston
+confirmed it when he said from his place in the House of Commons: 'In Rome
+there is a French garrison; under its shelter there exists a committee of
+200, whose practice is to organise a band of murderers, the scum and dross
+of every nation, and send them into the Neapolitan territory to commit
+every atrocity!' As a criticism the words are not less strong; but the
+public defiance of Napoleon, and the threat with which it was accompanied,
+dictated one plain duty to the Italian Government if they meant to keep
+the peace&mdash;the arrest of Garibaldi and his embarkation for
+Caprera.</p>
+
+<p>This they did not do; confining themselves to the recall of the Marquis
+Pallavicini. Garibaldi went over the ground made glorious by his former
+exploits&mdash;past Calatafimi to Marsala. It was at Marsala that, while
+he harangued his followers in a church, a voice in the crowd raised a cry
+of '<i>Rome or death!</i>' 'Yes; Rome or death!' <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg.346]</a></span> repeated Garibaldi; and
+thus the watchword originated which will endure written in blood on the
+Bitter Mount and on the Plain of Nomentum. Who raised it first? Perhaps
+some humble Sicilian fisherman. Its haunting music coming he knew not
+whence, sounding in his ear like an omen, was what wedded Garibaldi
+irrevocably to the undertaking. It was the casting interposition of
+chance, or, shall it be said, of Providence? Like all men of his mould,
+Garibaldi was governed by poetry, by romance. Besides the general
+patriotic sentiment, he had a peculiar personal feeling about Rome, 'which
+for me,' he once wrote, 'is Italy.' In 1849, the Assembly in its last
+moments invested him with plenary powers for the defence of the Eternal
+City, and this vote, never revoked, imposed on his imagination a permanent
+mandate. 'Rome or death' suggested an idea to him which he had never
+before entertained, prodigal though he had been of his person in a hundred
+fights: What if his own death were the one thing needful to precipitate
+the solution of the problem?</p>
+
+<p>From Marsala he returned to Palermo, where, in the broad light of day,
+he summoned the Faithful, who came, as usual, at his bidding, without
+asking why or where?&mdash;the happy few who followed him in 1859 and
+1860; who would follow him in 1867, and even in 1870, when they gave their
+lives for a people that did not thank them, because he willed it so. He
+sent out also a call to the Sicilian <i>Picciotti</i>, the <i>Squadre</i>
+of last year; and it is much to their credit that they too who cared
+possibly remarkably little for <i>Roma Capitale</i>, obeyed the man who
+had freed them. And Rattazzi knew of all this, and did nothing.</p>
+
+<p>On the 1st of August, Garibaldi took command of 3000 volunteers in the
+woods of Ficuzza. Then, indeed, the Government wasted much paper on <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg.347]</a></span>
+proclamations, and closed the door of the stable when the horse was gone.
+General Cugia was sent to Palermo to repress the movement. Nevertheless
+Garibaldi, with his constantly increasing band, made a triumphant progress
+across the island, and a more than royal entry into Catania. At Mezzojuso
+he was present at a <i>Te Deum</i> chanted in his honour. On the 22nd,
+when the royal troops were, it seems, really ordered to march on Catania,
+Garibaldi took possession of a couple of merchant vessels that had just
+reached the port, and sailed away by night for the Calabrian coast with
+about 1000 of his men.</p>
+
+<p>By this time the Italian Government, whether by spontaneous conviction
+or by pressure from without, had resolved that the band should never get
+as far as the Papal frontier. If Garibaldi knew or realised their
+resolution, it is a mystery why he did not attempt to effect a landing
+nearer that frontier, if not actually within it. The deserted shore of the
+Pontine marshes would, one would think, have offered attractions to men
+who were as little afraid of fever as of bullets. A sort of superstition
+may have ruled the choice of the path, which was that which led to victory
+in 1860. It was not practicable, however, to follow it exactly. The
+tactics were different. Then the desire was to meet the enemy anywhere and
+everywhere; now the pursuer had to be eluded, because Garibaldi was
+determined not to fight him. Thus, instead of marching straight on Reggio,
+the volunteers sought concealment in the great mountain mass which forms
+the southernmost bulwark of the Apennines. The dense and trackless forests
+could have given cover for a long while to a native brigand troop, with
+intimate knowledge of the country and ways and means of obtaining
+provisions&mdash;not to a band like this of Garibaldi. They wandered about
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg.348]</a></span>
+for three days, suffering from almost total want of food, and from the
+great fatigue of climbing the dried-up watercourses which serve as paths.
+On the 28th of August they reached the heights of Aspromonte&mdash;a
+strong position, from which only a large force could have dislodged them
+had they defended it.</p>
+
+<p>General La Marmora, then Prefect of Naples, and commander-in-chief of
+the army in the south, reinforced the troops in Calabria to prevent
+Garibaldi's advance, but the direction of the decisive operation fell by
+accident to Cialdini, whom the Government despatched to Sicily when they
+tardily made up their minds to take energetic measures. On his voyage to
+Messina, Cialdini heard that the volunteers had already crossed the
+Straits; he therefore changed his course, and hastening to Reggio,
+invested himself with the command on the mainland. At Reggio he met
+Colonel Pallavicini, whom he ordered in terms that might have been more
+suitable had he been engaged in hunting brigands, 'to crush Garibaldi
+completely, and only accept from him unconditional surrender.' Pallavicini
+started with six or seven battalions of Bersaglieri. It was the 29th of
+August. Garibaldi saw them coming when they were still three miles off. He
+could have dispersed his men in the forest and himself escaped, for the
+time, and perhaps altogether, for the sea which had so often befriended
+him was not far off. But although he did not mean to resist, a dogged
+instinct drove away the thought of flight. In the official account it was
+stated that an officer was sent in advance of the royal troops to demand
+surrender. No such officer was seen in the Garibaldian encampment till
+after the attack. The troops rapidly ascended an eminence, facing that on
+which the Garibaldians were posted, and opened a violent fusillade, which,
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg.349]</a></span>
+to Garibaldi's dismay, was returned for a few minutes by his right,
+consisting of young Sicilians who were not sufficiently disciplined to
+stand being made targets of without replying. The contention, however,
+that they were the first to fire, has the testimony of every eye-witness
+on the side of the volunteers against it. All the Garibaldian bugles
+sounded 'Cease firing,' and Garibaldi walked down in front of the ranks
+conjuring the men to obey. While he was thus employed, a spent ball struck
+his thigh, and a bullet entered his right foot. At first he remained
+standing, and repeated, 'Do not fire,' but he was obliged to sit down, and
+some of his officers carried him under a tree. The whole 'feat of arms,'
+as General Cialdini described it, did not last more than a quarter of an
+hour.</p>
+
+<p>Pallavicini approached the wounded hero bareheaded, and said that he
+made his acquaintance on the most unfortunate day of his own life. He was
+received with nothing but kind praise for doing his duty. The first night
+was passed by the prisoner in a shepherd's hut. The few devoted followers
+who were with him were strangely impressed by that midnight watch; the
+moon shining on the forest, the shepherds' dogs howling in the mountain
+silence, and their chief lying wounded, it might be to death, in the name
+of the King to whom he had given this land.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, in a litter sheltered from the sun with branches of wild
+laurel, Garibaldi was carried down the steep rocks to Scilla, whence he
+was conveyed by sea to the fort of Varignano. It was not till after months
+of acute suffering, borne with a gentleness that made the doctors say:
+'This man is not a soldier, but a saint,' that, through the skill of the
+French surgeon, N&eacute;laton, the position of the ball was determined,
+and its extraction rendered possible.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">
+[Pg.350]</a></span> A general amnesty issued on the occasion of the
+marriage of the King's second daughter with the King of Portugal relieved
+the Government of having to decide whether Garibaldi was to be tried, and
+if so, what for; but the unpopularity into which the ministry had fallen
+could not be so easily dissipated. The Minister of Foreign Affairs
+(Durando) published a note in which it was stated that Garibaldi had only
+attempted to realise, in an irregular way, the desire of the whole nation,
+and that, although he had been checked, the tension of the situation was
+such that it could not be indefinitely prolonged. This was true, but it
+hardly improved the case for the Government. In Latin countries, ministers
+do not cling to power; as soon as the wind blows against them, they resign
+to give the public time to forget their faults, and to become dissatisfied
+with their political rivals. Usually a very short time is required.
+Therefore, forestalling a vote of censure in the Chambers, where he had
+never yet had a real majority, Rattazzi resigned office with a parting
+homily in which he claimed to have saved the national institutions.</p>
+
+<p>The administration which followed contained the well-known names of
+Farini, Minghetti, Pasolini, Peruzzi, Delia Rovere, Menabrea. When
+Farini's fatal illness set in, Minghetti replaced him as Prime Minister,
+and Visconti Venosta took the Foreign Office. They found the country in a
+lamentable state, embittered by Aspromonte, still infected with
+brigandage, and suffering from an increasing deficit, coupled with a
+diminishing revenue. The administrative and financial unification of
+Italy, still far from complete, presented the gravest difficulties. The
+political aspect of affairs, and especially the presence of the French in
+Rome, provoked a general sense of instability which was contrary to the
+organisation of the new state <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_351" id=
+"Page_351">[Pg.351]</a></span> and the development of its resources. The
+ministers sought remedies or palliatives for these several evils, and to
+meet the last they opened negotiations with France, which resulted in the
+compromise known as the September Convention. It was long before the
+treaty was concluded, as for more than a year the French Government
+refused to remove the garrison on any terms; but in the autumn of 1864 the
+following arrangement was signed by both parties: that Italy should
+protect the Papal frontier from all attack from the outside; that France
+should gradually withdraw her troops, the complete evacuation to take
+place within two years; that Italy should waive the right of protest
+against the internal organisation of the Papal army unless its proportions
+became such as to be a manifest threat to the Italian kingdom; that the
+Italian capital should be moved to Florence within six months of the
+approval of the Convention by Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>These terms were in part the same as those proposed by Prince Napoleon
+to Cavour shortly before the death of that statesman, who had promised to
+support them as a temporary makeshift, and in order to get the French out
+of Italy. But they were in part different, and they contained two new
+provisions which it is morally certain that Cavour would never have agreed
+to&mdash;the prolongation of the French occupation for two years (Cavour
+had insisted that it should cease in a fortnight), and the transfer of the
+capital, which was now made a <i>sine qu&acirc; non</i> by Napoleon, for
+evident reasons. While it was clear that Turin could not be the permanent
+capital of a kingdom that stretched to &AElig;tna, if once the seat of
+government were removed to Florence a thousand arguments and interests
+would spring up in favour of keeping it there. So, at least, it was sure
+to seem to a foreigner. As a matter of fact, the solution was no solution;
+the Italians could <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">
+[Pg.352]</a></span> not be reconciled to the loss of Rome either by the
+beauty and historic splendour of the city on the Arno, or by its immunity
+from malaria, which was then feared as a serious drawback, though Rome has
+become, under its present rulers, the healthiest capital in Europe. But
+Napoleon thought that he was playing a trump card when he dictated the
+sacrifice of Turin.</p>
+
+<p>The patriotic Turinese were unprepared for the blow. They had been told
+again and again that till the seat of government was established on the
+Tiber, it should abide under the shadow of the Alps&mdash;white guardian
+angels of Italy&mdash;in the custody of the hardy population which had
+shown itself so well worthy of the trust. The ministry foresaw the effect
+which the convention would have on the minds of the Turinese, and they
+resorted to the weak subterfuge of keeping its terms secret as long as
+they could. Rumours, however, leaked out, and these, as usual, exaggerated
+the evil. It was said that Rome was categorically abandoned. On the 20th
+of September crowds began to fill the streets, crying: 'Rome or Turin!'
+and on the two following days there were encounters between the populace
+and the military, in which the latter resorted to unnecessary and almost
+provocative violence. Amidst the chorus of censure aroused by these
+events, the Minghetti cabinet resigned, and General La Marmora, who, as a
+Piedmontese, was fitted to soothe the excited feelings of his
+fellow-citizens, was called upon to form a ministry.</p>
+
+<p>The change of capital received the sanction of Parliament on the 19th
+of November. Outside Piedmont it was not unpopular; people felt that,
+after all, it rested with themselves to make Florence no final
+halting-place, but a step towards Rome. The Papal Government, which had
+been a stranger to the late negotiations, expressed a supreme <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg.353]</a></span>
+indifference to the whole affair, even to the contemplated departure of
+the French troops, 'which concerned the Imperial Government, not the
+Pope,' said Cardinal Antonelli, 'since the occupation had been determined
+by French interests.' It cannot be asserted that the Pope ever assumed a
+gratitude which he did not feel towards the monarch who kept him on his
+throne for twenty years.</p>
+
+<p>This year, 1864, was marked by an incident which, though not a
+political event, should never be forgotten in the history of Italian
+liberation&mdash;Garibaldi's visit to England. He came, the prisoner of
+Aspromonte, not the conqueror of Sicily: a distinction that might have
+made a difference elsewhere, but the English sometimes worship misfortune
+as other peoples worship success. No sovereign from oversea was ever
+received by them as they received the Italian hero; a reception showing
+the sympathies of a century rather than the caprice or curiosity of an
+hour. Half a million throats shouted London's welcome; the soldier of two
+worlds knew the roar of battle, and the roar of the sea was familiar to
+the Nizzard sailor, but it is said that when Garibaldi heard the
+stupendous and almost awful British roar which greeted him as he came out
+of the Nine Elms station, and took his seat in the carriage that was to
+convey him to Stafford House, he looked completely disconcerted. From the
+heir to the throne to the crossing-sweeper, all combined to do him honour;
+where Garibaldi was not, through the breadth of the land the very poor
+bought his portrait and pasted it on their whitewashed cottage walls.
+London made him its citizen. The greatest living English poet invited him
+to plant a tree in his garden: a memory he recalled nearly at the close of
+his own honoured life:&mdash;</p>
+
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg.354]</a></span>
+
+
+<pre>
+    Or watch the waving pine which here
+      The warrior of Caprera set,
+      A name that earth shall not forget
+    Till earth has rolled her latest year.
+</pre>
+
+<p>Garibaldi showed himself mindful of old friends; at the opera he
+recognised Admiral Mundy in a box, and immediately rose and went to offer
+him his respects. At Portsmouth, he not only went to see the mother of
+Signora White-Mario (the providence of his wounded in many a campaign),
+but also paid an unrecorded visit to two maiden sisters in humble
+circumstances, who had shown him kindness when he was an exile in England;
+they related ever afterwards the sensation caused by his appearance in
+their narrow courtyard, where it was difficult to turn the big carriage
+which the authorities had placed at his disposal. He twice met the great
+Italian whom he addressed as Master: transferring, as it were, to
+Mazzini's brows the crown of glory that surrounded his own. Another exile,
+Louis Blanc, used to tell how, when he went to call on Garibaldi, he found
+him seated on a sofa, receiving the homage of the fairest and most
+illustrious members of the English aristocracy; when the Friend of the
+People was announced (a title deserved by Louis Blanc, if not for his
+possibly fallacious theories, still for the rare sincerity of his life),
+the hero started to his feet and most earnestly begged him to sit beside
+him. 'Which I could not do!' the narrator of the scene would add with a
+look of comical alarm for his threatened modesty.</p>
+
+<p>These friendly passages with the proscripts in London, as well as the
+stirring appeal spoken by Garibaldi on behalf of the Poles, did not please
+foreign Powers. The Austrian ambassador shut himself up in his house; it
+was remarked that the only members of the diplomatic body <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg.355]</a></span> who were
+seen at the Garibaldi <i>f&ecirc;tes</i> were the representatives of the
+United States and of the Sublime Porte. The Emperor Napoleon was said to
+be angry. Lord Palmerston assured the House of Commons that no
+remonstrance had been received from France or from any foreign government,
+and that if it had been received, it would not have been heeded. Yet the
+English Government took the course of hinting to the guest of England that
+his visit had lasted long enough. In some quarters it was reported that
+they feared disturbances among the Irish operatives in the manufacturing
+towns, had he gone, as he intended, to the north. Whatever were the
+motives that inspired it, their action in the matter cannot be remembered
+with complacency, but it was powerless to undo the significance of the
+great current of enthusiasm which had passed through the English land.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg.356]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVIII</h3>
+
+<h4>THE WAR FOR VENICE</h4>
+
+<h5>1864-1866</h5>
+
+<h5>The Prussian Alliance&mdash;Custoza&mdash;Lissa&mdash;The
+Volunteers&mdash;Acquisition of Venetia.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>The change of capital was carried out in 1865, and the lull which
+followed gave an appearance of correctness to the surmise that if the
+September Convention had not solved the Roman question, it had, anyhow,
+reduced it to a state of quiescence. But there were other reasons why Rome
+was kept, for the moment, not indeed out of mind, but out of sight. The
+opinion grew that the emancipation of Venice, too long delayed, ought to
+take precedence of every other political object. On this point there was
+no disagreement among the 22,000,000 free Italians, who felt the servitude
+of Venice to be an hourly disgrace and reproach; no one even ventured to
+preach patience. A curious chapter might be written on the schemes woven
+between the Peace of Villafranca and the year 1866, for the realisation of
+the unfulfilled promise of freedom from Alps to sea. Foremost among the
+schemers was Victor Emmanuel, and if some persons may be shocked by the
+idea of a royal conspirator, more will admire the patriotism which made
+the King hold out his hand to Mazzini, whose sentiments about monarchy,
+and especially about the Savoy dynasty, were a secret to no one, least of
+all to him. But as Mazzini placed those sentiments on <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg.357]</a></span> second rank
+to the grand end of Italian unity, so the King, to serve the same end,
+showed himself superior to prejudices which in most men would have proved
+insuperable. The fact that Victor Emmanuel opened negotiations with
+Mazzini, and maintained them, off and on, for years, proves amongst other
+things, that he knew the exiled patriot better than the world yet knew
+him. He may have understood that by turning republican sympathies into the
+groove of unity (not their necessary or even their most natural groove),
+Mazzini made an Italian kingdom possible. There is reason to think that
+the King's ministers were kept entirely ignorant of his correspondence
+with the Agitator. The letters were impersonal drafts carried to and fro
+by means of trusted emissaries; each party freely expounded his views, and
+stated the terms on which his support could be given. Victor Emmanuel's
+favourite idea was a revolution in Galicia. When Garibaldi returned from
+England he was nearly commissioned to start for Constantinople, whence he
+was to lead an expedition through Roumania into Galicia. It seems to have
+been due to Garibaldi's own good sense that so extremely unpromising a
+project was abandoned. General Klapka was another of Victor Emmanuel's
+secret revolutionary correspondents. The very wildness of the plans that
+floated in the air betokened the feverish anxiety to do something which
+had taken hold of all minds.</p>
+
+<p>In 1865 a scheme of a different sort, and of momentous consequences,
+grew into shape. It was a scheme of which Cavour first guessed the
+possibility, as well as the far-reaching results. In August 1865 Count
+Bismarck asked General La Marmora whether Italy would join Prussia in the
+contingency of a war with Austria? Only a year before he was still <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg.358]</a></span>
+thinking of carrying out his policy with the aid of Austria, and he had
+offered to help her to wrench Lombardy from Italy (and from France if she
+intervened), in payment for her consent to his designs. But now, though
+the Austrians did not even remotely suspect it, his thoughts were
+resolutely turned to the Italian alliance. Without this alliance Italy
+might, indeed, have acquired Venice, but would the German Empire have been
+founded?</p>
+
+<p>For a time the proposal was suspended, owing to the temporary
+understanding concluded between Prussia and Austria at Gastein; and in the
+interim, General La Marmora urged the Viennese Government to cede Venetia
+in return for a compensation of five hundred million francs. But those
+whom the gods would destroy they make mad. Austria preserved her
+infatuated sense of security almost till the rude awakening caused by the
+rifle-shots that ushered in the campaign of Sadowa.</p>
+
+<p>One thing which contributed to keeping Europe in the dark as to the
+impending cataclysm was the character and known tendencies of King William
+I. of Prussia, whose conservative, not to say retrograde sentiments made
+it difficult to picture him at the head of what was really a great
+revolutionary movement, in spite of the militarism that surrounded it.
+With consummate art, Count Bismarck little by little concentrated all his
+master's ideas about royal divinity in general into one overwhelming
+belief in his own divine right to be German Emperor, and so transformed an
+obstacle into the corner-stone of the edifice he wished to build. But this
+could hardly be foreseen. At the New Year's Day reception of 1866,
+Napoleon announced an era of universal peace; henceforth all nations were
+to arrange their <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">
+[Pg.359]</a></span> differences amicably, as had been done at Gastein If
+the illusion was complete, it was destined to be of short duration.</p>
+
+<p>In the spring the Prussian proposal to Italy was formally renewed, and
+this time it was accepted. The secret treaty of an offensive and defensive
+alliance for three months was signed on the 8th of April. Less than three
+weeks later, Austria, which was slowly beginning to feel some uneasiness,
+proposed to Napoleon the cession of Venetia, while exacting from Italy
+only a simple promise of neutrality in case of war. General La Marmora
+held the honour of the country and his own to compel fidelity to the prior
+arrangement with Prussia, and he refused the tempting offer. His choice
+has been variously characterised as one of common honesty and of uncommon
+magnanimity; at all events, it was of incalculable advantage to Prussia,
+which already gave signs of not being a particularly delicate-minded ally.
+When La Marmora asked Bismarck whether, in case Austria took the
+initiative of attacking Italy, Prussia would intervene, the answer was
+'No.'</p>
+
+<p>The three countries now pushed on their war preparations: Austria with
+less ardour than the others, as she still failed to more than faintly
+realise her danger. The Italian army, which the opening of the year found
+in a deplorably unserviceable condition, was rapidly placed on a
+war-footing, and, considering the shortness of the time allowed for the
+work, and the secrecy with which, at the outset, it had to be conducted,
+it is generally agreed that La Marmora produced surprising results. As was
+natural in an army which, except for the old Piedmontese nucleus, might
+almost be called improvised, the weakest points were the cavalry and the
+artillery. The infantry was good; not only the picked corps of
+Bersaglieri, but also the line regiments were <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg.360]</a></span> equal to any troops
+likely to be opposed to them. No one can see the fine appearance of a line
+regiment marching down the streets of an Italian town without receiving
+the impression that, however much the other branches of the service may
+have improved since the Sixties, the fondest hopes of Italy in case of war
+still lie in that common soldier who best supported the rigours of the
+Russian snows.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, the attention paid to the army was not extended to the
+fleet, which continued totally unready; nor was the organisation of the
+volunteers carried out in an efficient manner. The excuse afterwards
+advanced was that not more than 15,000 enrolments were expected, while the
+actual figure reached 35,000. Besides being from its very bulk less
+manageable than the 'few and good' of 1859, this mass of men was
+ill-provided with officers who could inspire and keep discipline.
+Garibaldi's own generals, Bixio, Medici, Cosenz and Sirtori, were now all
+in the regular army, and therefore not free to join him. He begged for the
+loan of a few regular officers, indicating amongst other names that of
+Colonel Pallavicini, who commanded against him at Aspromonte: a trait
+characteristic of the man. But this assistance, though promised, was not
+granted, and the same was the case with the guns which were vainly asked
+for. Without charging La Marmora with a deliberate intention of neglecting
+the volunteers, it must be owned that under the influence of the prejudice
+which holds irregular troops in small esteem, he did not do for them what
+ought to have been done if their services were accepted at all.</p>
+
+<p>The Austrian Southern Army, excellent in discipline and equipment
+though weak in numbers, was commanded up to the outbreak of the war by
+Field-Marshal Benedek, but he was called to Vienna to take command of
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg.361]</a></span>
+the unfortunate army of operation against Prussia, and was succeeded in
+Italy by the Archduke Albrecht, with General Von John, an officer of the
+first capacity, as chief of the staff.</p>
+
+<p>The numerical strength of the forces which could be put in the field
+has been stated with startling divergence by different military writers on
+the war, but every calculation gives the Italian side (exclusive of the
+volunteers) a superiority of not less than two to one. The Austrian
+mobilised army has been reckoned at as low a figure as 63,000, certainly
+an understatement, as it appears that the Archduke mustered not less than
+70,000 at the battle of Custoza. That he mustered on that day every man he
+could produce is probably a fact. Had the Italian generals followed the
+same rule, however enormous their other errors might have been, they would
+have won. Of all conceivable faults in a military commander that which is
+the least pardonable is the neglect to crush his antagonist by force of
+superior numbers when he has them at his disposal. How many great military
+reputations have been built up, and justly built up, on the care never to
+meet an enemy without the odds being largely in your favour!</p>
+
+<p>For obvious political reasons the King of Italy assumed the supreme
+command of the army, with General La Marmora as chief of the staff.
+Cialdini had been offered the latter post, but he declined it, objecting,
+it is said, to the arrangement by which the real head of the army has no
+guarantee against the possible interference of its nominal head. When La
+Marmora went to the front, Baron Ricasoli took his place as Prime
+Minister; Visconti-Venosta became Minister of Foreign Affairs; and the
+Ministry of the Marine was offered to Quintino Sella, who refused it on
+the ground that he knew nothing of naval matters. It was then offered to
+and accepted by a man who knew <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_362"
+id="Page_362">[Pg.362]</a></span> still less, because he did not even know
+his own ignorance, Agostino Depretis, a Piedmontese advocate.</p>
+
+<p>Before the commencement of hostilities a secret treaty was concluded
+between Napoleon III. and the Austrian Government, according to which
+Venetia was to be ceded to the Emperor for Italy, even if Austrian arms
+were victorious both on the Mincio and on the Maine. Napoleon's real
+purpose in this singular transaction is not perfectly clear; but he was
+probably acting under a semi-romantic desire to have the appearance of
+completing his programme of freeing Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic
+which had been interrupted at Villafranca. In spite of his enmity towards
+Italian unity, there is no reason to doubt that he was in very few things
+as sincere as in the wish to see the Austrians out of Italy. His
+reckonings at this time were all founded on the assumption that Prussia
+would be defeated; he even seems to have had some hopes of getting the
+Rhine bank in return for his good offices on behalf of that Power with
+triumphant Austria. Be this as it may, he inspired the Italian Government
+(or rather La Marmora, for there were then two Italian Governments, and
+the real one was on the Mincio) with his own expectation of Prussian
+disasters, and it is possible that this expectation had a material and
+unfavourable influence on the manner of conducting the war in Italy.</p>
+
+<p>Through the Prussian Minister at Florence, General La Marmora received
+the draft of a plan of campaign which is known to have been prepared by
+Count Moltke; in it the great feature was a descent on the Dalmatian
+coast. From an independent quarter he received another plan in which a
+descent on the east coast of the Adriatic was contemplated, the main
+difference being that Istria, instead of Dalmatia, was <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg.363]</a></span> proposed
+for the landing-point. This second plan was modestly submitted to him by
+Garibaldi, who was thus in substantial accord with the Prussian
+strategist. The prospect which either of these plans opened was one of
+great fascination. What Italian can look across the sea to where the sun
+rises and forget that along that horizon lies a land colonised by Rome and
+guarded for four hundred years by Venice?</p>
+
+<p>Istria was marked out by Dante as the frontier province of Italy:</p>
+
+<pre>
+     Si come a Pola presso del Quarnero
+     Che Italia chiude e i suoi termini bagna.
+</pre>
+
+<p>It forms, with the Trentino, what is called <i>Italia Irredenta</i>.
+Although the feeling of Italians for unredeemed Italy is not what their
+feeling was for Lombardy or Venetia, it is a mistake to imagine that they
+have renounced all aspirations in that direction. Only fanatics of the
+worst kind would be disposed to attempt, in the present situation, to win
+those provinces by force, but that has nothing to do with the matter. The
+aspiration exists and cannot help existing. It has always been shared by
+patriots of all denominations. An English statesman who called on Pius IX.
+was somewhat surprised by the Pope saying that Italian unity was very
+well, but it was a pity it did not include Trento and Trieste.</p>
+
+<p>The case of Dalmatia is different; there the mass of the population is
+unquestionably of a non-Italian race, though that race is one which,
+whenever left to itself, seems created to amalgamate with the Italian.
+Slav and Teuton are racially antagonistic, but the Slav falls into Italian
+ways, speaks the Italian language and mixes his blood with Italian blood:
+with what results Venice can tell. For more than two thousand years the
+civilisation of Dalmatia has been exclusively Latin; the Roman column
+points to the Venetian Campanile; all the <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg.364]</a></span> proudest memories are
+gathered round the Lion of St Mark, which in every town, almost in every
+village, recalls the splendid though not blameless suzerainty of the
+Serene Republic. The sky, the olive-groves, the wild pomegranates make us
+think of Salerno; by the spoken tongue we are often reminded of Tuscany,
+for few Italian dialects are so pure. The political subjection of the
+country to Italy dates from Augustus; its political subjection to Austria
+dates from Napoleon. Dalmatia, with the glorious little commonwealth of
+Ragusa, and the free city of Cattaro, was bartered away with Venice at
+Campo Formio; and as with Venice, so with Dalmatia, the Holy Alliance
+violated its own principle of restoring the proe-Napoleonic state of
+things and confirmed the sale.</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning of the war, Austria did not ignore that her loss of
+territory might exceed Venetia. The Archduke Albrecht, in his proclamation
+to his soldiers, appealed to them to protect their mothers, wives and
+sisters from being ruled by a foreign race.</p>
+
+<p>Even a successful raid upon Dalmatia or Istria need not have given
+those districts to Italy, but it would have brought such an event within
+the range of a moderately strong political telescope. The Slavs (erected
+since into a party hostile to their Italian fellow-citizens by a fostering
+of Panslavism which may not, in the long run, prove sound policy for
+Austria) were then ready to make friends with anyone opposed to their
+actual rulers. They would not have been easy to govern after an Italian
+invasion; still less easy to govern would the Latin element have been,
+which was and is <i>Italianissimo</i>. Since Prussia became the German
+Empire, she has set her face against Italian extension eastward, but in
+1866, had her advice been intelligently acted upon, it might have
+generated facts the logic of which none <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg.365]</a></span> would have had the power to
+stay.</p>
+
+<p>Moltke's plan more than hinted at a march on Vienna by the Semmering,
+and this is what is supposed to have induced La Marmora to treat it with
+scorn. With the bogey of Prussia vanquished before his eyes, he doubtless
+asked what the Italians would do at Vienna if they got there? He put the
+plan in his pocket, and showed it neither to his staff nor to the King,
+who would certainly have been attracted by it, as he had set his heart on
+the volunteers, at least, crossing the Adriatic. With regard to the
+campaign at home, both Moltke and Garibaldi counselled turning the
+Quadrilateral in preference to a direct attack upon fortresses which had
+been proved impregnable except with the assistance of hunger, and at
+present they were better provisioned than in 1848. The turning of the
+Quadrilateral meant the adoption of a route into Venetia across the Po
+below Mantua. An objection not without gravity to that route was the
+unfavourable nature of the ground which, being marshy, is liable after
+heavy rains to become impassable. But against this disadvantage had to be
+weighed the advantage of keeping out of the mouse-trap, the fatality of
+which needed no new demonstration.</p>
+
+<p>In Italy it is common to hear it said that it was necessary to station
+a large army on the Mincio to bar the Archduke's path to Milan. But apart
+from the rumoured existence of a promise to the French Emperor not to
+invade Lombardy, it was unlikely that so good a general as the Archduke
+would have taken his small army far from the security it enjoyed among the
+four fortresses which, if the worst came to the worst, assured him a safe
+line of retreat.</p>
+
+<p>The plan adopted by La Marmora is vaguely said to have been that which
+was prepared by the French and Sardinian staffs for use in 1859, had <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg.366]</a></span> the
+war been continued. But in what it really consisted is not to this day
+placed beyond dispute. The army, roughly speaking, was divided into
+halves; one (the larger) half under the King and La Marmora was to operate
+on the Mincio; the other, under Cialdini, was to operate on the lower Po.
+It is supposed that one of these portions was intended to act as a blind
+to deceive the enemy as to the movements of the other portion; the
+undecided question is, which was meant to be the principal and which the
+accessory?</p>
+
+<p>The volunteers were thrown against the precipices of the Tridentine
+mountains, where a detachment of the regular army, well-armed and properly
+supplied with artillery, would have been better suited for the work. The
+Garibaldian headquarters was at Sal&ograve; on the Lake of Garda. Less
+than half of the 35,000 volunteers who appear upon paper, were ever ready
+to be sent to the front. It was widely said that only patriotism prevented
+Garibaldi from throwing up his command, so dissatisfied was he with the
+conduct of affairs.</p>
+
+<p>Prussia invaded Hanover and Saxony on the 16th of June, and declared
+war with Austria on the 21st, one day after the Italian declaration of war
+had been delivered to the Archduke Albrecht. On the 23rd La Marmora's army
+began to cross the Mincio. It consisted of three <i>corps
+d'arm&eacute;e</i> under the command of Generals Durando, Cucchiari and
+Delia Rocca, each corps containing four divisions. The force under
+Cialdini was composed of eight divisions forming one <i>corps
+d'arm&eacute;e.</i> An Italian military writer rates the numbers at
+133,000 and 82,000 respectively. La Marmora acquired the belief that the
+Archduke's attention was absorbed by Cialdini's movements on the Po, and
+that his <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">
+[Pg.367]</a></span> own operations on the Mincio would pass
+unobserved.</p>
+
+<p>While the Italian commander had no information of what was going on in
+the enemy's camp, the Archduke's intelligence department was so efficient
+that he knew quite well the disposition of both Italian armies. Cialdini's
+advance, if he meant to advance, was checked by floods. On the night of
+the 23rd most of La Marmora's force bivouacked on the left (Venetian) bank
+of the Mincio. No reconnaissances were made; everyone supposed that the
+Austrians were still beyond the Adige, and that they intended to stay
+there. The King slept at Goito.</p>
+
+<p>Before the early dawn next morning the whole Italian army of the Mincio
+had orders to advance. The soldiers marched with heavy knapsacks and empty
+stomachs, and with no more precautions than in time of peace. The Austrian
+Archduke was in the saddle at four a.m., and watched from an eminence the
+moving clouds of dust which announced the approach of his unsuspecting
+foe.</p>
+
+<p>La Marmora's intention had been to occupy the heights of Santa
+Giustina, Sona and Somma Campagna, but the Archduke anticipated his
+design, and while the Italians were moving from the Mincio, the Austrians
+were ranging themselves in those positions. At half-past five on the
+midsummer Sunday morning, the Austrian advance guard led by Colonel Pulz
+came up with Prince Humbert's division near Villafranca. The battle began
+dramatically, with a charge of the splendid Polish and Hungarian Hussars,
+who dashed their horses against the Italian squares, in one of which,
+opportunely formed for his shelter, was the gallant heir to the throne.
+Bixio's division was also engaged in this prelude, which augured not ill
+for the Italians, since at about eight o'clock Pulz received the
+Archduke's orders to retire.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">
+[Pg.368]</a></span> The first hours of the battle were spent in fortuitous
+encounters along the extensive chain of hillocks which La Marmora had
+intended to occupy. As the Italians approached each position they found it
+in the possession of a strong force of the enemy. On the right, however,
+Custoza and the heights between it and Somma Campagna had not been
+occupied by the Austrians. Here La Marmora placed the flower of his army,
+the Sardinian and Lombard Grenadiers, the latter commanded by Prince
+Amedeo. The fighting continued through the day over very widely
+distributed ground, but from about nine in the morning the supreme
+interest was concentrated at and near Custoza, in which the Archduke
+promptly detected the turning-point of the battle. To wrest Custoza from
+the hold of the Italians was to the Austrians on the 24th of June 1866,
+what the taking of the crest of Solferino had been to the French on the
+24th of June 1859. La Marmora in person led the Grenadiers into action;
+they proved worthy of their reputation, but after losing a great many men,
+Prince Amedeo being among the wounded, they were obliged to retreat. At
+about midday, however, the Italian prospects improved so much that in the
+opinion of Austrian military writers, with moderate reinforcements they
+would have had a strong probability of winning the battle. La Marmora saw
+the importance of getting fresh troops into the field, but, instead of
+sending for the divisions under Bixio and Prince Humbert, which since
+eight a.m. had been fretting in inaction close by, at Villafranca, he rode
+himself to Goito, a great distance away, to look after the reserves
+belonging to the 2nd <i>corps d'arm&eacute;e</i>; a task which any staff
+officer could have performed as well. This inexplicable proceeding left
+the army without a commander-in-chief. The generals of division followed
+their <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">
+[Pg.369]</a></span> individual inspirations, Govone, Pianel and Cugia
+especially distinguishing themselves: it is sad to think that death has
+removed these three officers from the Italian ranks. But the Austrians
+fatally gained ground, and as the afternoon closed in the Archduke began
+to feel sure that the Italian reinforcements whose arrival he had so much
+feared, were never coming. He therefore prepared for the final effort
+which was to give him the well-deserved honours of the day. Towards seven
+o'clock in the evening, his soldiers succeeded in storming the heights of
+Custoza, and Austria could write a second battle of that name among her
+victories.</p>
+
+<p>The Italians lost 720 killed, 3112 wounded and 3608 prisoners. The
+Austrian loss was 960 killed, 3690 wounded and 1000 prisoners. Both sides
+were much tried by the scorching midsummer sun, but the Italians laboured
+under the additional drawback of having to fight fasting. In his report,
+the Archduke Albrecht mentioned that the prisoners said they had not
+tasted food for twenty-four hours. In the same report, he did ample
+justice to the courage of the Italian soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>As has been stated, the Archduke fought Custoza with not less, probably
+with rather more, than 70,000 men. The force which La Marmora placed in
+the field was actually inferior in number. The divisions of Bixio and
+Prince Humbert were kept doing nothing all day at a stone's throw from the
+scene of action. Of the whole 2nd <i>corps d'arm&eacute;e</i> only a
+trifling detachment ever reached the ground. Inexplicably little use was
+made of the Italian cavalry.</p>
+
+<p>This bungling had lost the battle, but the fact that on the morrow, six
+divisions of the army of the Mincio were practically fresh, might have
+suggested to a general of enterprise to try again, since it was known that
+the Archduke had not a single new man to fall back on. And <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg.370]</a></span> there was
+Cialdini on the Po with his eight divisions that had not been engaged at
+all. But, instead of adopting a spirited course, the Italian authorities
+gave way to unreasoning panic. It appears, unfortunately, that the King
+was the first to be overcome by this moral vertigo. The long and fiercely
+discussed question of who telegraphed to Cialdini: 'Irreparable disaster;
+cover the capital,' seems to have been settled since that general's death
+in 1892. It is now alleged that the telegram, the authorship of which was
+disowned by La Marmora, was signed by the King's adjutant, Count Verasio
+di Castiglione. Cialdini obeyed the order and fell back on Modena. Whether
+he was bound to obey an almost anonymous communication signed by an
+irresponsible officer is a moot point; it is reported that he repented
+having done so to the last day of his life.</p>
+
+<p>A great event now happened across the Alps; one of the decisive battles
+of the world was lost and won on the 5th of July at Sadowa near
+K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz in Bohemia. The fate of Europe was shaped on that day
+for decades, if not for centuries. Of the immediate results, the first was
+the scattering to the wind of all calculations based upon a long
+continuance of the war, the issue of which, as far as Prussia was
+concerned, could not be regarded as doubtful. In respect to Italy,
+Austria's first thought was to prevent her from taking a revenge for
+Custoza. She attempted to compass this by ceding Venetia to Napoleon two
+days after Sadowa. It was making a virtue of necessity, as she was bound
+in any case to cede it at the conclusion of the war; but as the secret of
+the treaty had been well kept, the step caused great surprise, and in
+Italy, where the public mind had leapt from profound discouragement to
+buoyant hope, the impression was one of embarrassment and mortification.
+Italy was distinctly precluded by her <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg.371]</a></span> engagement with Prussia from
+accepting Napoleon's invitation to conclude a separate peace. Meanwhile,
+Austria gained by the move, as it set her at liberty to recall the larger
+part of her troops from Venetia for the defence of Vienna. Her honour did
+not require her to contest the ground in a province which she had already
+given away. When Cialdini, at the head of the reorganised Italian army of
+which he now held the chief command, advanced across the Po to Padua, he
+found the path practically open.</p>
+
+<p>It was still possible for Italy to accomplish two things which would
+have in a great measure retrieved her <i>prestige</i>. The first was to
+occupy the Trentino; the second was to destroy the Austrian fleet. With
+the means at her disposal she ought to have been able to do both.</p>
+
+<p>In the earlier phases of Italian liberation, no one disputed that if
+Lombardy and Venetia were lost to the Empire the Tridentine province,
+wedged in as it is between them, would follow suit. When, in 1848, Lord
+Palmerston offered his services as mediator between Austria and revolted
+Italy, it was on a minimum basis of a frontier north of Trento. The
+arguments for the retention of Trieste&mdash;that Austria had made it what
+it was; that Germany needed it as a seaport, etc.&mdash;were inapplicable
+here; and even after the defeat of Custoza, an occupation of the Trentino,
+had it happened in conjunction with a naval victory, would have opened a
+fair prospect to possession. But there was no time to lose, and much time
+was lost by ordering Garibaldi to descend to the southern extremity of the
+lake of Garda to 'cover Brescia' from an imaginary attack. When the fear
+of an Austrian invasion subsided, and Garibaldi returned to the mountains,
+he endeavoured to re-take the position of Monte Suello which he had
+previously held, but the attempt <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_372"
+id="Page_372">[Pg.372]</a></span> failed. The volunteers were forced to
+retire with great loss, and the chief himself was wounded. On the 16th of
+July the volunteers renewed their advance up the mountain ravines, and,
+after taking Fort Ampola, reached the village of Bezzecca, where they were
+attacked by the Austrians early on the 21st. Each side claimed that
+sanguinary day as a victory; the Garibaldians remained masters of the
+ground, but the Austrians, in retiring, took with them a large number of
+prisoners. The losses of the volunteers on this and other occasions when
+they were engaged were disproportionately heavy. They were spendthrift of
+their lives, but in war, and especially in mountain warfare, caution is as
+needful as courage, and in caution they were so deficient that they were
+always being surprised. General Kuhn's numerically inferior force of tried
+marksmen, supported by good artillery and favoured by ground which may be
+described as one great natural fortification, had succeeded up till now in
+holding the Trentino, but his position was becoming critical, because
+while Garibaldi sought to approach Trento from the west, Medici with
+10,000 men detached from the main army at Padua, was ascending the
+Venetian valleys that lead to the same destination from the east. Kuhn was
+therefore on the point of being taken between two fires when the armistice
+saved him.</p>
+
+<p>These operations on the Tridentine frontier, though not without a real
+importance, passed almost unnoticed in the excitement which attended the
+first calamitous appearance of United Italy as a naval power.</p>
+
+<p>When invited to assume the command of the Italian fleet, Admiral
+Persano twice refused; it was only when the King pressed upon him a third
+invitation that he weakly accepted a charge to which he felt himself
+unequal. He had been living in retirement for some years, and <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg.373]</a></span> neither
+knew nor was known by most of the officers and men whom he was now to
+command. The fleet under his orders comprised thirty-three vessels, of
+which twelve were ironclads. The Austrian fleet numbered twenty-seven
+ships, including seven ironclads. When the war broke out, both fleets were
+far from ready for active service; but, while the Austrian Admiral
+Tegethoff said nothing, but worked night and day at Pola to make his ships
+and his men serviceable, Persano despatched hourly lamentable reports to
+the Minister of Marine, without finding the way to bring about a change
+for the better. He wasted time in minuti&aelig;, and took into his head to
+paint all the Italian ships a light grey, which was of the greatest use to
+the Austrians in the battle of Lissa, as it enabled them to distinguish
+between them and their own dark-coloured ships.</p>
+
+<p>After long delaying at Taranto, Persano brought his fleet to Ancona;
+and, two days later, Tegethoff appeared in front of that town&mdash;not
+knowing, it seems, that the Italian squadrons had arrived. Tegethoff was
+bound on a simple reconnaissance, and, after firing a few shots, he sailed
+away. On this occasion, Persano issued orders so hesitating and confused
+that the Austrian admiral must have correctly gauged the capacity of the
+man opposed to him, while the superior officers of the Italian fleet were
+filled with little less than dismay. A strong effort was made to induce
+Depretis to supersede Persano then and there; he promised to do so, but it
+is said that the fear of offending the King prevented him. Instead, he set
+about showering instructions on the admiral, the worth of which may be
+easily imagined. The mistrust felt by the fleet in its commander invaded
+all ranks; and if it did not break out in open insubordination, it
+deprived officers and men of all confidence in the issue of the
+campaign.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">
+[Pg.374]</a></span> Left to himself, Persano would have stayed quietly at
+Ancona, but the imperative orders of a cabinet council, presided over by
+the King, forced him to take some action. Against the advice of Admiral
+Albini, but in agreement with another admiral, Vacca, Persano decided to
+attack the fortified island of Lissa, on the Dalmatian coast. Though Lissa
+is a strong position, the usual comparison of it with Gibraltar is
+exaggerated. It ought to have been possible to land the Italian troops
+which Persano had with him under cover of his guns, and to take the island
+before Tegethoff came up. The surf caused by the rough weather, to which
+he chiefly attributed his failure, would not have proved an insuperable
+obstacle had the ships' crews been exercised in landing troops under
+similar circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>Persano reached Lissa on the morning of the 18th of July, and began a
+tremendous bombardment of the forts, which, though answered with the
+highest spirit by the Austrians, did most deadly damage to their
+batteries. In fact, by the evening, except one or two at a high elevation,
+they were practically silenced. At six o'clock Captain Saint Bon took the
+<i>Formidabile</i> into the narrow harbour to silence the inner works: a
+murderous fire rained on the corvette from Fort Wellington, which was too
+high for the Italian guns to get it into range. Though Saint Bon's attempt
+was not successful, the Italians had effected most of what they aimed at,
+and might have effected the rest had they continued the bombardment
+through the night, and so given the Austrians no time to repair their
+batteries, but at sunset Persano withdrew his fleet to a distance of eight
+miles. The Austrians worked all night at mending the batteries that could
+still be used, and hoped <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_375" id=
+"Page_375">[Pg.375]</a></span> in the coming of Tegethoff.</p>
+
+<p>The telegraph cable connecting the neighbouring island of Lesina with
+the coast, and so with Pola, had been cut by Persano's orders; but either
+(as the writer was told on the spot last year) there was another line that
+was not noticed, or before the cable was destroyed the official in charge
+got off a message to Tegethoff, informing him of the arrival of the
+Italian fleet. An answer, to the effect that Tegethoff would come to the
+rescue as soon as possible, fell into the hands of the Italians, but
+Persano appears not to have believed in it.</p>
+
+<p>The 19th was spent in attempts at landing, which the surf and the
+energetic play of the repaired batteries rendered fruitless. The
+bombardment was renewed, but it was not well conducted. Saint Bon, who
+made another plucky entry into the harbour, was unsupported, and, after an
+hour's fighting, he was obliged to retire, his ship having suffered
+severely.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning there was a blinding summer storm, but at about eight
+o'clock the <i>Esploratore</i> distinguished the forms of ironclads
+through the rain, and signalled to Persano: 'Suspicious vessels in sight.'
+Persano answered: 'No doubt they are fishing-boats.' When obliged to admit
+the truth he gave the order to unite, his ships being scattered in all
+directions with everything on board at sixes and sevens. The troops which
+had again been attempting to land, were in boats, tossed about by the
+heavy sea. The surprise was complete.</p>
+
+<p>Persano fought the battle of Lissa with nine ironclads, most of which
+had received some injuries during the bombardment. He ordered his wooden
+ships to keep out of the action altogether. Tegethoff had seven ironclads
+and fourteen wooden vessels, all of which he turned to the best
+account.</p>
+
+<p>Just before the battle Persano left his flagship, the <i>Re</i> <i>
+d'Italia</i>, <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">
+[Pg.376]</a></span> and went on board the <i>Affondatore</i>. By
+somebody's mistake it was a long time before the <i>Affondatore</i>
+hoisted the admiral's flag, and the fleet continued to look to the <i>Re
+d'Italia</i> for signals when he was no longer on board.</p>
+
+<p>Contrary to a well-known rule in naval science, Persano formed his
+squadron in single file, and quite at the beginning of the battle
+Tegethoff managed to break the line by dashing in between the first and
+second division whilst they were going at full speed, and under a furious
+cannonade from their guns. This daring operation placed him in the middle
+of the Italian ironclads, which, well directed, could have closed round
+him and destroyed him, but they were not directed either well nor
+ill&mdash;they were not directed at all. Persano put up contradictory
+signals, most of which were not seen, and those which were seen meant
+nothing. The plan followed by Admiral Tegethoff may be best described in
+his own words: 'It was hard to make out friend from foe, so I just rammed
+away at anything I saw painted grey.' Two Italian vessels had been already
+damaged, but not vitally injured, by the <i>Ferdinand Max</i>, when in the
+dense smoke a vast wall of grey appeared close to the bows of the Austrian
+flagship, which, to the cry of 'Ram her!' put on full steam and crashed
+into the enemy's flank. The shock was so great that the crew of the <i>
+Max</i> were thrown about in indescribable confusion. The Italian ship was
+the <i>Re d'Italia,</i> the flagship which did not carry the admiral. She
+quivered for one, two, some say for three minutes in her death agony, and
+then went down in two hundred fathoms of water.</p>
+
+<p>After the <i>Re d'Italia</i> was struck, one of her seamen, thinking to
+assert a claim to pity, began to lower her flag, but a young officer <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg.377]</a></span>
+pushed him aside and hoisted it again; so the great ship sank with her
+colours flying. The incident was noticed by the Austrians, who spoke of it
+in feeling terms. Willing enough were they to help, for after the first
+cheer of triumph they felt sick with horror at their own work, the fearful
+work of modern naval warfare. There were 550 men on board the doomed ship.
+Tegethoff shouted for the boats to be lowered, and signalled to the
+despatch boat <i>Elisabeth</i> to pick up all she could, but two Italian
+ironclads were bearing down upon him, and little could be done to save the
+drowning multitude either by the Austrians or by their own people. Persano
+did not know of the disaster till some hours after it happened.</p>
+
+<p>The sea had scarcely closed over the <i>Re d'Italia</i> when another
+misfortune occurred; the gunboat <i>Palestro</i> took fire. Her captain,
+Alfredo Cappellini, disembarked the sick and wounded, but remained himself
+with the rest of the crew, endeavouring to put out the fire. The ship blew
+up at 2.30 p.m., and over two hundred perished with her.</p>
+
+<p>Persano, still on the <i>Affondatore</i>, now led his fleet out of
+action, and it was the first time he had led it during the day. Tegethoff
+gazed after the vanishing squadron with anxiety, as had Persano turned and
+renewed the battle from a distance, he could have revenged his defeat at
+close quarters without receiving a shot, owing to the longer range of his
+guns. But for such an operation skilful manoeuvring was wanted, and also,
+perhaps, more precision in firing than the Italian gunners possessed. At
+any rate, Persano had no mind for new adventures. He took what remained of
+his fleet straight back to Ancona, where the <i>Affondatore</i> sank in
+the harbour from injuries received during the battle. For three days the
+Italian people were <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_378" id=
+"Page_378">[Pg.378]</a></span> told that they had won a victory, then the
+bitter truth was known. The admiral, tried before the Senate, was deprived
+of his rank and command in the Italian navy. The politician who, when
+convinced of his unfitness, yet had not the nerve to remove him from his
+post, died, full of years and honours, Prime Minister of Italy.</p>
+
+<p>Lissa was fought on the 20th of July. On the 25th, Prussia signed the
+preliminaries of peace with Austria without consulting her ally, who, if
+unfortunate, had been eminently loyal to her. Thus the whole forces of the
+Empire, not less than 350,000 men, were let loose to fall upon Italy. Such
+was the wrathful disappointment of the Italians at their defeats by land
+and sea, that if a vote had been taken they would possibly have decided
+for a renewal of the struggle. Ricasoli was inclined to risk war rather
+than bow to the Austrian demand that the evacuation of the Trentino should
+precede the conclusion of an armistice. At this crisis, La Marmora acted
+as a true patriot in forcing the hand of the Ministry by ordering the
+recall of the troops and sending General Petitti to treat directly with
+the Austrian military authorities. 'They will say that we have betrayed
+the country,' said the King in the interview in which these measures were
+concerted; to which La Marmora answered: 'Come what may, I take the whole
+responsibility upon myself.' 'This is too much,' replied Victor Emmanuel
+with tears in his eyes; 'I, also, will have my part in it.' In which brief
+dialogue the character of the two men stands revealed; men who might fall
+short in talent or in judgment, not in honour.</p>
+
+<p>The volunteers, so many of whose comrades lay dead along the mountain
+gorges&mdash;who believed, too, that they were in sight of the reward of
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg.379]</a></span>
+their sacrifices&mdash;were thrown into a ferment, almost into a revolt by
+the order to retreat. They had expected in a day or two to shake hands
+with Medici, who, after some hard fighting, was within a march of Trento.
+The order was explicit: instant evacuation of the enemy's territory.
+Garibaldi, to whom from first to last had fallen an ungrateful part, took
+up his pen and wrote the laconic telegram: 'Obbedisco.' 'I have obeyed,'
+he said to the would-be mutineers, 'do you obey likewise.' Someone
+murmured 'Rome.' 'Yes,' said the chief, 'we will march on Rome.'</p>
+
+<p>The armistice was signed at Cormons on the 12th of August, and the
+treaty of peace on the 3rd of October at Vienna. Italy received Venice
+from the hands of the French Emperor, whose interference since the
+beginning of the campaign had incensed Prussia against her ally without
+benefiting the Power which he affected and, perhaps, really meant to
+serve. Italy would have received Venetia without his interposition, for
+besides the Prussian obligation to claim it for her, Austria had no
+further wish to keep it. Despite the fact that Italian populations still
+remained under the rule of the Empire, the melancholy book of Austrian
+dominion in Italy might be fairly said to be closed forever. A new era was
+dawning for the House of Hapsburg, which was to show that, unlike the
+Bourbons, it could learn and unlearn.</p>
+
+<p>The comedy of the cession of Venice to Napoleon was enacted between
+General Le Boeuf and General Alemann, the Austrian military commandant.
+Among other formalities, the French delegate went the round of the museums
+and galleries to see that everything was in its place. Suddenly he came
+upon a most suspicious blank. 'A picture is <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg.380]</a></span> missing here,' he said. 'It
+is, blandly assented the Austrian officer. 'Well, but it must be sent back
+immediately&mdash;where is it?' 'In the Louvre.'</p>
+
+<p>At last Austrians and French departed, and Italy shook off her
+mourning, for however it had come about, the great object which had cost
+so much blood, so many tears, was attained; the stranger was gone! Out of
+642,000 votes, only 69 were recorded against the union of Venetia with the
+Italian kingdom. When the plebiscite was presented to the King, he said:
+'This is the greatest day of my life: Italy is made, though not complete.'
+On the 7th of November he entered Venice, and of all the pageants that
+greeted him in the hundred cities of Italy, the welcome of the Bride of
+the Adriatic was, if not the most imposing, certainly the fairest to see.
+More touching, however, than the glorious beauty of the Piazza San Marco
+and the Grand Canal in their rich adornment, was the universal decoration
+of the poorest quarters, which were all flagged and festooned so thickly
+that little could be seen of the stones of Venice. One poor cobbler,
+however, living at the end of a blind alley, had no flag, no garland to
+deck his abode: he had therefore pasted three strips of coloured paper,
+red, white and green, over his door, inscribing on the middle strip these
+words, which in their sublime simplicity merit to be rescued from
+oblivion: 'O mia cara Italia, voglio ma non posso fare pi&ugrave; per
+te.'</p>
+
+<p>The Iron Crown of the Lombard Kings of Italy, which the Austrians had
+taken away in 1859, was brought back and restored to the Cathedral of
+Monza. Less presumptuous than Napoleon, Victor Emmanuel never placed the
+mystical fillet upon his head, but it was carried after his coffin to the
+Pantheon.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIX"></a> <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_381" id=
+"Page_381">[Pg.381]</a></span>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIX</h3>
+
+<h4>THE LAST CRUSADE</h4>
+
+<h5>1867</h5>
+
+<h5>The French leave Rome&mdash;Garibaldi's Arrest and Escape&mdash;The
+Second French Intervention&mdash;Monte Rotondo&mdash;Mentana.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>The words of Victor Emmanuel to the Venetian Deputation contained a
+riddle easy to solve: what was meant by the 'completion' of Italy was the
+establishment of her capital on the Tiber. In most minds there was an
+intense belief in the inevitability of the union of Rome with the rest of
+Italy, but no one saw how it was to be brought about. What soothsayer
+foretold S&eacute;dan?</p>
+
+<p>In the first period after the war, domestic difficulties fixed the
+attention of the Italian Government on the present rather than on the
+future. An insurrection at Palermo assumed threatening proportions owing
+to the smallness of the garrison, and might have had still more serious
+consequences but for the courage and presence of mind shown by the Syndic,
+the young Marquis di Rudini. Crime and poverty, republican hankerings, the
+irritation of the priesthood at recent legislation, and most of all, the
+feeling that little had been done since 1860 to realise the millennium
+then promised, contributed to the outbreak which was quelled when troops
+arrived from the mainland, but the ministers were blamed for not having
+taken better precautions against its occurrence. Another stumbling-block
+lay in the path of Ricasoli, <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_382" id=
+"Page_382">[Pg.382]</a></span> namely, the application of the law for the
+suppression of religious houses, and the expropriation of ecclesiastical
+property. After an unsuccessful endeavour to cope with it, he dissolved
+the Chamber, but the new Parliament proved no more willing to support his
+measures, which were of the nature of a compromise, than the old one, and
+he finally resigned office. He was succeeded by Urban Rattazzi, under
+whose administration a measure was passed which, though drastic in
+appearance, has not prevented the re-establishment of a great many
+convents of which the property was bought in under the name of private
+individuals. Every Catholic country has seen the necessity sooner or later
+of putting a check to the increase of monasticism, but it may be a matter
+of regret that in Italy, the toleration granted to the learned community
+of Monte Cassino was not extended to more of the historic monasteries. The
+abstention of the Clerical party from the voting urns deprived them of an
+influence which, on such points as these, they might have exercised
+legitimately and perhaps beneficially. To that abstention, the
+disequilibrium of Italian political life, from first to last, is largely
+due.</p>
+
+<p>The time allowed to the French under the September Convention for the
+evacuation of Rome expired in December 1866, and at the opening of the new
+year, for the first time since 1849, the Eternal City was without a
+garrison in the service of a foreign Power. While executing their
+engagement, the French Government took occasion to say that they kept
+their hands perfectly free as concerned future action. The anomalous
+obligations of the September Convention now came into force, and it was
+not long before their inconvenience was felt. Had Ricasoli remained at the
+head of affairs the <i>status quo</i> might have lasted for <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg.383]</a></span> a time;
+because, although he was an unflinching opponent of the Temporal Power, he
+would have made it clear that since the Convention existed he meant to
+respect it, and to make others respect it. He had shown that he could
+dare, but that was when he bore himself the whole responsibility of his
+daring. He was not the man to tolerate heroic imprudence in others with
+the mental reservation of owning or disowning the results, as might prove
+convenient. Rattazzi, on the other hand, was believed to answer very
+closely to this description; and patriots who were willing to bear all the
+blame in case of failure and yield all the praise in case of success,
+began once more to speculate on the profit to the national cause which
+might be extracted from the peculiarities of his character. Aspromonte,
+that should have placed them on their guard, had the contrary effect, for
+it was supposed that the Prime Minister was very anxious to wipe that
+stain from his reputation.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, the Party of Action considered that, for the present, the
+wisest course was to wait and watch the development of events. This was
+Mazzini's personal view, but Garibaldi, almost alone in his dissent, did
+not share it. Impelled partly, no doubt, by the impatience of a man who
+sees the years going by and his own life ebbing away without the
+realisation of its dearest dream, but partly also by the deliberate belief
+that the political situation offered some favourable features which might
+not soon be repeated, Garibaldi decided to take the field in the autumn of
+1867. His friends, who one and all tried to dissuade him, found him
+immovable. It is too much to say that he expected assistance from the
+Government, but that he hoped to draw Rattazzi after him is scarcely
+doubtful, and he had good <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_384" id=
+"Page_384">[Pg.384]</a></span> reason for the hope.</p>
+
+<p>In Rattazzi's own version and defence of his policy, it is set forth
+that before the die was cast he did all that was humanly possible to
+prevent the expedition, but that having failed, he intended sending the
+Italian army over the frontier in the wake of the broken-loose
+condottiere. Though this gives a colour of consistency to his conduct, it
+is not satisfactory as an explanation, and still less as an apology.</p>
+
+<p>General La Marmora, who had always opposed the Convention, though he
+belonged to the party which made it, once declared that 200,000 men would
+not be sufficient to hold the Papal frontier against a guerilla invasion.
+True as this may be, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that a
+minister who had resolutely made up his mind to prevent any attempt from
+being made would not have acted as Rattazzi acted. The Prime Minister
+thought that he was imitating Cavour, but in reality he simply imitated
+the pendulum of a clock.</p>
+
+<p>Rattazzi's taste was for intrigue rather than for adventure in the
+grand sense. An adventurous minister would have accelerated the enterprise
+to the utmost, in secret or not in secret, and would then have preceded
+Garibaldi to Rome before the Clerical party in France had time to force
+Napoleon to act. The rest could have been left to the Roman people. What
+they did in 1870 they would have done in 1867; they were ready to acclaim
+any conquering liberator; they were not ready to make a revolution on
+their own account, and with all their leaders in prison or in exile, they
+are hardly to be blamed for it. For such a policy Italy might have pleaded
+that necessity which knows no law. Everybody allowed that if Garibaldi
+went to Rome the Italians must go there too: the very security of the Pope
+demanded it&mdash;at least, he said so. As to the first part of the
+programme, complicity <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_385" id=
+"Page_385">[Pg.385]</a></span> in the preparation of the movement, it
+would have been an infringement of the Convention, but had France kept the
+Convention? French bishops recruited soldiers for the Pope in every
+province of France, and the Antibes Legion was drawn, officers and men,
+from the French army. When some of the men deserted, the French War Office
+sent General Dumont to Rome to look to the discipline of the regiment.
+Those who argued that the spirit, if not the letter, of the agreement had
+been already evaded, could make out a good case for their position.</p>
+
+<p>It has been suggested that this is what Rattazzi's policy would have
+been, but for the opposition of the King. Were it so, the minister ought
+to have resigned at the beginning of the proceedings instead of at the
+end. That in the ultimate crisis it was the King who prevented the troops
+from moving is a fact, but the propitious moment was then past and gone.
+'Do as you like, but do it quickly,' Napoleon said to Cavour when Cialdini
+was to be sent to the Cattolica. And it was done quickly.</p>
+
+<p>After letting Garibaldi make what arrangements and issue what
+manifestoes he chose for six weeks, Rattazzi suddenly had him arrested at
+Sinalunga on the 23rd of September. The only consequence was fatal delay;
+not knowing what to do with their prisoner, the Government shipped him to
+Caprera. Personally he was perfectly free; no conditions were imposed; but
+nine men-of-war were despatched to the island to sweep the seas of erratic
+heroes. In spite of which, Garibaldi escaped in a canoe on the 14th of
+October.</p>
+
+<p>That night, between sundown and moonrise, there was only one hour's
+dark, but it sufficed the fugitive to make good his passage from <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg.386]</a></span>
+Caprera to the island of Maddalena. A strong south-east breeze was
+blowing; the waves, however, were rather favourable to the venture, as
+they hid the frail bark from any eyes that might be peering through the
+night. Garibaldi did not fear; he had often put out on this terrible sea
+when lashed to fury to succour sailors in their peril. On reaching
+Maddalena he scrambled over the rocks to the house of an English lady who
+was delighted to give him hospitality. Next evening he proceeded to
+Sardinia, from which, after several adventures, he sailed for the Tuscan
+coast in a boat held in readiness by his son-in-law, Canzio. And so, to
+the amazement of friends and foes, he arrived in Florence, where, before
+many hours were past, he was haranguing the enthusiastic crowd from a
+balcony.</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi had escaped, but the mischief done to the movement by the
+loss of nearly a month could not be remedied. Although large armed bands
+under Acerbi, Nicotera and Menotti Garibaldi were gathered near Viterbo,
+as usually happened in the absence of the chief, nothing effectual was
+done. But it was in Paris that the delay brought the most ruinous
+results.</p>
+
+<p>The history of the second French expedition to Rome will never be
+satisfactorily told, because, while the outward circumstances point one
+way, the inward probabilities point another. Napoleon had said that if the
+Convention were not observed he would intervene, and he did intervene;
+nothing could seem simpler. Yet it is not doubtful that, in his inmost
+heart, he was wishing day and night that something would turn up to
+extricate him from the Roman dilemma once for all. While he hesitated, the
+Clerical party in France did not hesitate. Not a moment was thrown away by
+them. Towards the middle of October, it was reported that 'half royalist
+and half Catholic France will be in <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg.387]</a></span> Rome in the course of the
+week. Men with names belonging to the proudest French nobility&mdash;the
+De Lusignans, De Clissons, De Lumleys, De Bourbon-Chalens, etc., are
+chartering vessels, arriving in Rome by scores and hundreds, and hence
+hurrying to the front to take their places as privates in the Zouaves.'
+That, however, does not describe the most important sphere of their
+activity which was the ante-chamber, nay, the boudoir of St Cloud. In that
+palace, three years later to be rased to the ground by the Germans, the
+net was woven which every day closed tighter and tighter round Napoleon,
+till he was enveloped in its meshes past escape. Ever since De Morny's
+death, the influence nearest the throne had been increasing in strength;
+it is needless to say in which direction it was exercised. Napoleon was
+ill; Maximilian's ghost floated over him; he felt his power slipping from
+his hands in spite of the noise and show of the Exhibition, which was
+supposed to mark its zenith. The words of the old pact with the Royalists
+buzzed in his ears: 'Do you keep the Pope on his throne, and we will keep
+you on yours.' And he yielded.</p>
+
+<p>The 'principle' of French intervention was adopted by the council of
+ministers on the 17th of October. Then, and not till then, Rattazzi
+decided to send the Italian troops over the frontier. On finding that
+neither the King nor several of his colleagues in the ministry would
+support him, he resigned office on the 19th of the month.</p>
+
+<p>It was on the day after that Garibaldi appeared in Florence. As there
+was no ministry, no one thought it his business to interfere with him.
+Cialdini, whom the King had requested to form a cabinet, did go and ask
+him to keep quiet till there was some properly qualified person to arrest
+him; but this, not unnaturally, he declined to do. He left <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg.388]</a></span> Florence by
+special train for Terni, whence he crossed the frontier and joined the
+insurgent bands near Rome.</p>
+
+<p>From the 19th to the 26th, Napoleon again and again ordered and
+countermanded the departure of the transports from Toulon. On the last
+date the final order was given and the ships started. The news must have
+just reached Paris that the King had called upon General Menabrea to
+undertake the task which had been abandoned by Cialdini, whose name
+recalled Castelfidardo too strongly to have a sound welcome either in the
+Vatican or at St Cloud. When Napoleon heard that Menabrea was to be
+Rattazzi's successor, he knew that there was no fear that the new
+Government, carried away by the popular current which was manifestly
+having its effect on the King, should, after all, order the Italian army
+to the front. Menabrea, the Savoyard who in 1860 chose the Italian
+nationality which his son has lately cast away, was the old opponent of
+Cavour in the Turinese chamber, and of all Italian politicians he was the
+most lukewarm on the Roman question. All chance of a collision between the
+French and Italian armies was removed. Menabrea did occupy some positions
+over the Papal frontier, it would be hard to say with what intention,
+unless it were to appear to fulfil a sort of promise given by the King
+during the ministerial interregnum. The troops were ordered on no account
+to attack the French, and as soon as the Garibaldian campaign was at an
+end, they were brought home. It was not worth while to send them with
+their hands tied to almost within earshot of where other Italians were
+fighting and falling. Menabrea's attitude towards the volunteers was
+immediately revealed by the issue of a royal proclamation, in which <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg.389]</a></span> they
+were declared rebels. The French were free to act.</p>
+
+<p>All this time the revolution in Rome, which it was admitted on all
+sides would have gone far towards cutting the knot, did not begin. Besides
+the cause already assigned, the absence of the heads, there was another,
+the almost total lack of arms. To remedy this, Enrico and Giovanni
+Cairoli, with some seventy followers, tried to take a supply of arms up
+the Tiber to Rome. Only the immense importance of the object could have
+justified so desperate an attempt. Obliged to abandon their boats near
+Ponte Molle, they struck off into the Monti Parioli, where they were
+attacked, within sight of the promised land, at a spot called Villa
+Gloria. Their assailants were three times their number, and those who were
+not killed were carried prisoners to Rome. Among the killed was the
+captain of the band, who fell in the arms of his young brother. As Enrico
+Cairoli lay dying, the French Zouaves (was this the chivalry of France?)
+charged the two brothers with their bayonets, piercing Giovanni with ten
+wounds, from injuries arising from one of which he expired a year later,
+after long torments. 'Dastardly French!' cried Enrico with his last
+breath. They were the third and fourth sons of Adelaide Cairoli who died
+for their country. One only of her five children remained to stand by her
+own death-bed&mdash;Benedetto, the future Prime Minister, and saviour of
+King Humbert from the knife of an assassin.</p>
+
+<p>The Papal army was composed of 13,000 men, General de Courten
+commanding the portion of it which could be spared out of Rome. The
+Breton, Colonel Charette, had charge of the Zouaves. Since the French
+garrison left, much trouble had been taken to make this force efficient.
+Under Garibaldi's own orders there were between 7000 and 8000 volunteers.
+Those who have made a higher estimate have included <span class="newpage">
+<a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg.390]</a></span> other bands which,
+either from the difficulty of provisioning a larger number, or from want
+of time for concentration, remained at a distance.</p>
+
+<p>The chief's arrival soon infused new life into the camp. On the 24th he
+moved towards Monte Rotondo, one of the castellated heights near Rome,
+which commands the Nomentane and Tiburtine ways to the south, and the
+railway and Via Salara to the west. It was generally considered the most
+important military position in the Papal states. The garrison was small,
+but, perched as they were on a hill crest which looks inaccessible, the
+defenders might well hope to hold out till help came from Rome. They had
+artillery, of which the volunteers had none, and the old castle of the
+Orsini, where they made their principal stand, was well adapted for
+defence. From the morning of the 25th till midnight, the Garibaldians
+hurled themselves against the walls of the rock town without making much
+way; but at last the resistance grew weak, and when the morning light
+came, the white flag was seen flying. At four in the afternoon of the 26th
+a Papal column tardily arrived upon the scene, but they perceived that all
+was over at Monte Rotondo, and, after firing a few musket shots, they fled
+to Rome in disorder.</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi rode into the cathedral, where he fixed his quarters for the
+night. In Italy churches have ever been applied to such uses. After the
+reduction of Milan, Francesco Sforza rode into the Duomo, and when King
+Ladislaus of Naples conquered Rome, he rode into the basilica of St John
+Lateran. The guerilla chief bivouacked in a confessional, while his
+Red-shirts slept where they could on the cathedral floor. Four hundred of
+them had been killed or wounded in the assault.</p>
+
+<p>The prisoners of war were brought before Garibaldi, who praised their
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg.391]</a></span>
+valour and sent them under an escort to the Italian frontier. Two or three
+were retained for the following reason. Garibaldi had heard of the
+Cairolis' heroic failure, and after his victory his first thought was of
+them and of their sorrowing mother. He asked Signora Mario if there were
+any notabilities among the Papal prisoners. She mentioned Captain
+Quatrebras and others, and he sent her into Rome on a mission to the Papal
+commander with a view to exchanging these prisoners for the wounded
+Giovanni and for his brother's body. The proposal was accepted, and the
+compact kept after Mentana had changed the aspect of affairs.</p>
+
+<p>'Garibaldi at the gates!' was the news that spread like wildfire
+through Rome on the evening of the 26th of October. Terror, real terror,
+and no less real joy filled all hearts; but the sides were soon to be
+reversed. Another piece of news was not long in coming: 'The French at
+Civita Vecchia!'</p>
+
+<p>The French arrived on the 29th, and on the same day Garibaldi advanced
+almost to the walls of Rome, still hoping for a revolutionary movement to
+break out within the city; but the information which he then received
+deprived him finally of this hope, and he gave the order to return to
+Monte Rotondo. Volunteers have the defect of being soldiers who <i>
+think</i>; on this occasion they thought that the backward march was the
+beginning of the end&mdash;that, in short, the game was up. A third of the
+whole number deserted, and took the road towards the Italian frontier.
+Garibaldi himself seems to have had a first idea of crossing into the
+Abruzzi, and there waiting to see what turn events would take; but he did
+not long entertain it, and, when he again left Monte Rotondo, it was with
+the fixed design of fighting a battle. He expected, however, to fight the
+Papal troops alone, and not the French.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">
+[Pg.392]</a></span> This was very nearly being the case. On the 1st of
+November, the Papal General Kanzler called on General De Failly at Civita
+Vecchia, and found him, to his concern, by no means anxious to rush into
+the fray. Even when sending the troops, Napoleon seems to have hoped to
+escape from being seriously compromised. He probably thought that the
+moral effect of their landing would cause Garibaldi to retire, and that
+thus the whole affair would collapse. But the Papal authorities did not
+want it to collapse; they wanted more bloodshed, and if the words which
+express the ungarnished truth as acknowledged by their own writers and
+apologists, sound indecent when describing the government of the Vicar of
+Christ, it only shows once more the irreconcilability of the offices of
+priest and king in the nineteenth century. Kanzler insisted that a
+crushing blow must be inflicted on the volunteers before they had time to
+retreat. He argued so long and so well that De Failly promised him a
+brigade under General Polh&egrave;s to aid in the attack which he proposed
+to make on Monte Rotondo.</p>
+
+<p>The Papal forces left Rome by Porta Pia, and took the Via Nomentana,
+which leads to Monte Rotondo by Mentana. They were on the march at four
+o'clock a.m. Garibaldi had ordered his men to be ready at dawn on the same
+day (it was the 3rd of November); but Menotti suggested that, before they
+started, there should be a distribution of shoes, a consignment of which
+had just reached the camp. Many of the volunteers were barefoot, which
+gives a notion of their general equipment. Garibaldi, who rarely took
+advice, yielded to his son. Had he not done so, before the Papal army
+reached Mentana, he would have been at Tivoli. One delay brings another,
+and it was midday when the march <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_393"
+id="Page_393">[Pg.393]</a></span> began. Garibaldi looked sad, and spoke
+to no one, but hummed some bars of Riego's hymn, the Spanish song of
+freedom, full of a wild, sweet pathos, to which his tanned-faced
+legionaries had marched under the Monte Videan sun. Could he but have had
+with him those strong warriors now! He mounted his horse, put it to a
+gallop, which he rarely did, and, riding down the ranks of the column,
+took his place at its head. When he arrived at the village of Mentana, he
+heard that the Pontificals were close by, and he waited to give them
+battle.</p>
+
+<p>Mentana lies in a depression commanded by the neighbouring mounds, not
+a good configuration for defence. This village in the Roman Campagna
+sprang into history on a November day one thousand and sixty-seven years
+before, as the meeting-place of Charlemagne and Leo III. Here they shook
+hands over their bargain: that the Pope should crown the great Charles
+Emperor, and that the Emperor should assure to the Pope his temporal
+power. And now the ragged band of Italian youths was come to say that of
+bargains between Popes and Emperors there had been enough.</p>
+
+<p>They numbered less than 5000. General De Failly reckoned the Papal
+troops engaged at 3000 and the French at 2000, but Italian authorities
+compute the former at a higher figure. The most experienced of the
+Garibaldian officers thought that the attackers were twice as numerous as
+they were. At the first onslaught great confusion prevailed among the
+volunteers. Mentana seemed lost, but the sound of the guns they had
+captured at Monte Rotondo restored their <i>moral</i>, and making a
+gallant rush forward they retook the principal positions with the bayonet.
+As they saw the Pontificals swerve back they uttered cries of joy. It was
+two o'clock. The enemy's fire slackened; something was going on which the
+volunteers could not make out. All at once there <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg.394]</a></span> was a sharp unfamiliar
+detonation, resembling the whirring sound of a machine. The French had
+come into action.</p>
+
+<p>A hailstorm of bullets mowed down the Garibaldian ranks. Their two guns
+were useless, for the ammunition, seventy rounds in all, was exhausted.
+They fought till four o'clock&mdash;till nearly their last cartridge was
+gone; then they slowly retreated. Very few of them guessed what that
+peculiar sound meant, or imagined that they had been engaged with the
+French, but next morning Europe knew from General De Failly's report that
+'the Chassepots had done wonders.'</p>
+
+<p>Garibaldi left the field, haggard and aged, unable to reconcile himself
+to a defeat which he thought that more discipline, more steadiness in his
+rank and file, would have turned into a victory. He had always demanded
+the impossible of his men; till now they had given it to him. In time he
+judged more justly. Those miserably-armed lads who lately had been glad to
+eat the herbs of the field, if haply they found any, stood out for four
+hours against the pick of two regular armies, one of which was supposed to
+be the finest in the world. They had done well.</p>
+
+<p>Mentana remained that night in the hands of 1500 Garibaldians, who
+still occupied the castle and most of the houses when the general retreat
+was ordered. In the morning the Garibaldian officer who held the castle
+capitulated, on condition that the volunteers 'shut up in Mentana' should
+be reconducted across the frontier; terms which the French and Papal
+generals interpreted to embrace only the defenders of the castle. Eight
+hundred of the others were taken in triumph to Rome. It would have been
+wiser to let them go. The Romans had been told that <span class="newpage">
+<a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg.395]</a></span> the Garibaldians were
+cut-throats, incendiaries, human bloodhounds waiting to fly at them. What
+did they behold? 'The beast is gentle,' as Euripides makes his captors say
+of Dionysius. The stalwart Romans saw a host of boys, with pale, wistful,
+very young-looking faces. If anything was wanting to seal the fate of the
+Temporal Power it was the sight of that procession of famished and wounded
+Italians brought to Rome by the foreigner.</p>
+
+<p>The victors, however, were jubilant. Their inharmonious shouts of <i>
+Vive Pie Neuf</i> vexed the delicate Roman ears. It was the battle-cry of
+the day of Mentana. Begun by the masked, finished by the unmasked soldiers
+of France, Mentana was a French victory, and it was the last.</p>
+
+<p>The Garibaldian retreat continued through the night to Passo Corese on
+the Italian frontier. The silence of the Campagna was only broken by
+little gusts of a chilly wind off the Tiber; it seemed as if a spectral
+army moved without sound. Garibaldi rode with his hat pressed down over
+his eyes; only once he spoke: 'It is the first time they make me turn my
+back like this,' he said to an old comrade, 'it would have been better
+...' He stopped, but it was easy to supply the words: 'to die.'</p>
+
+<p>As he was getting into the train at Figline, with the intention of
+going straight to Caprera, he was placed under arrest by order of the
+Italian Government. His officers had their hands on their swords, but he
+forbade their using force. The arrest seemed an unnecessary slight on the
+beaten man, who had loved Italy too well. But General Menabrea, who
+ordered it, believes that he thereby saved Italian unity. According to an
+account given by him many years after to the correspondent of an English
+newspaper, Napoleon wrote at this juncture <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg.396]</a></span> to King Victor Emmanuel, that
+as he was not strong enough to govern his kingdom, he, Napoleon, was about
+to help him by relieving him of all parts of it except Piedmont, Lombardy
+and Venetia. The arrest of Garibaldi, by showing that the King 'could
+govern,' averted the impending danger. In communicating it to Napoleon,
+the King is said to have added 'that Italians would lose their last drop
+of blood before consenting to disruption,' a warning which he was not
+unlikely to give, but the whole story lacks verisimilitude. It appears
+more credible that an old man's memory is at fault than that a letter, so
+colossally insolent, was actually written. Menabrea, and even the King,
+may have feared that something of the kind was in the mind of the
+Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>As after Aspromonte so after Mentana; Garibaldi was confined in the
+fortress of Varignano, on the bay of Spezia. A few weeks later he was
+released and sent to Caprera. As he left the fortress-prison he wrote the
+words: 'Farewell, Rome; farewell, Capitol; who knows who will think of
+thee, and when?'</p>
+
+<p>The last crusade was over; destiny would do the rest.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg.397]</a></span>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XX"></a>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XX</h3>
+
+<h4>ROME, THE CAPITAL</h4>
+
+<h5>1867-1870</h5>
+
+<h5>M. Rouher's 'Never'&mdash;Papal
+Infallibility&mdash;S&eacute;dan&mdash;The Breach in Porta Pia&mdash;The
+King of Italy in Rome.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<p>Mentana had its epilogue in the debate in the French Corps
+L&eacute;gislatif, which lasted from the 2nd to the 5th of December. Jules
+Favre proposed a vote of censure on the Ministry for their Roman policy.
+The most distinguished speaker who followed him was Thiers, who said that
+though in opposition, he would support the Government tooth and nail in
+their defence of French interests at Rome. The debate was wound up by the
+memorable declaration of the Prime Minister, Rouher, that 'never' should
+Italy get possession of Rome. 'Is that clear?' he asked. It was quite
+clear. The word escaped him, he afterwards said, in 'the heat of
+improvisation.' The French Chamber confirmed it by throwing out Favre's
+motion by 237 votes against 17.</p>
+
+<p>Now, indeed, the Ultramontanes were jubilant throughout the world.
+Napoleon was compromised, enmeshed beyond extrication.</p>
+
+<p>Of all these events, Prussia, or rather the great man who was the brain
+of Prussia, took attentive note. He was convinced that the wonders
+accomplished by the Chassepot at Mentana would soon lead France to try the
+effect of the new rifle on larger game. Among the <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg.398]</a></span> measures which he took
+with a view to that contingency, his correspondence with Mazzini is not
+the least remarkable. It began in November 1867, and was continued for a
+year. The object of both Bismarck and Mazzini was to prevent Italy from
+taking sides with France. The negotiations were carried on partly through
+Count d'Usedom, Prussian Minister at Florence, and partly through other
+intermediaries. Mazzini began by saying, that although the Chancellor's
+methods of unification had not his sympathy, he admired his energy,
+tenacity and independence; that he believed in German unity and opposed
+the supremacy which France arrogated to herself in Europe. He engaged to
+use his influence in Italy to make it difficult for an Italian Government
+to take up arms for the victors of Mentana. Bismarck was well aware that
+in speaking of his influence the writer used no idle phrase, but possibly
+one of his reasons for continuing the correspondence was to find out what
+Mazzini knew of the hidden plots and counter plots then in manufacture
+both in Paris and at Florence, because the Italian was more conversant
+with diplomatic secrets than any man living, except, perhaps, Cardinal
+Antonelli. In April 1868, Mazzini received through the Prussian Embassy at
+Florence, a document which even now possesses real interest on the
+relative advantages to Italy of a French or German Alliance. The whole
+question turned, observed the Prussian Chancellor, on the mastery of the
+Mediterranean: here France and Italy must find themselves at variance
+whether they willed it or not. 'The configuration of the terrestrial globe
+not being amenable to change, they will be always rivals and often
+enemies.' Nature has thrown between them an apple of discord, the
+possession of which they will not cease to contest. The Mediterranean
+ought to become an Italian lake. 'It is impossible for <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg.399]</a></span> Italy to
+put up with the perpetual threats of France to obtain the mastery over
+Tunis, which would be for her the first stage to arriving in
+Sardinia.'</p>
+
+<p>At the Berlin Congress eight years later, Prince Bismarck pressed the
+same views upon Count Corti, the Italian delegate. He would have been glad
+to see the Italians go to Tunis, but Count Corti ingenuously replied: 'You
+want to make us quarrel with France.' Meanwhile the Englishman who
+represented France and the Englishman who represented England were
+discussing the same subject, and out of their discussion arose the French
+occupation of Tunis. Disquieting rumours got about at once, but they were
+dispelled. 'No French Government would be so rash,' said Gambetta, 'as to
+make Italy the <i>irreconcilable</i> foe of France.' M. Waddington
+declared that he was personally opposed to the acquisition of Tunis, and
+gave his word of honour that nothing would be done without the full
+consent of Italy. What was done and how it was done is known to all. And
+so it happens that a great French naval station is in course of
+construction almost within sight of Sicily <i>and of Malta.</i></p>
+
+<p>In the document communicated by Bismarck to Mazzini, there is a curious
+inclusion of Trieste among Italian seaports which seems to indicate that
+he was still not averse from a rectification of the Italian north-east
+frontier. Whence it may be supposed that he expected to find Austria
+ranged on the part of France in the struggle for the Rhine bank. To
+explain how it was that this did not happen, we must leave the Chancellor
+and the Revolutionist, and see what at the same time was going on between
+Napoleon on the one side and Austria and Italy on the other.</p>
+
+<p><span class="newpage"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">
+[Pg.400]</a></span> The French Emperor was not so infatuated as to court
+the risk of making war on Prussia single-handed if he could avoid it. He
+hoped for a triple alliance of France, Austria and Italy, or, if that
+could not be compassed, a dual alliance of France with either of these
+Powers. Now, wisely or unwisely, both the Italian and Austrian Governments
+were far from rejecting these proposals off-hand. The secret negotiations
+lasted from 1868 till June 1869. They took the shape of informal letters
+between the King of Italy and Napoleon, and of private communications with
+Count Beust through Prince Metternich, the Austrian Ambassador in Paris,
+who was the intimate friend and confidant of the Emperor and Empress.
+General Menabrea was not let into the secret till later. With regard to
+Victor Emmanuel, there is no doubt that he wished with all his heart to be
+able to do a good turn to his Imperial ally of 1859 if the occasion
+presented itself. Some men see their wives even to old age as they saw
+them when they were young and fair. The first print on the retina of the
+mental vision was so strong that no later impression can change or efface
+it. This hallucination is not confined to the marital relationship, and
+Victor Emmanuel never left off seeing Napoleon in one sole light: as the
+friend of Solferino. It may be that he perceived what the Italians did not
+perceive: that the obligation was owed to Napoleon alone, while all France
+had a part in the subsequent injuries. At any rate the idea of refusing
+the Emperor's appeal was repugnant in the extreme to the Italian King, who
+personally would have strained any point rather than give that
+refusal.</p>
+
+<p>The King, however, and General Menabrea, who was finally admitted into
+the conspiracy, could not be blind to the fact that an unpopular war might
+create so great an agitation in the country that the dynasty itself would
+be in danger. A war for France while the French were in <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg.401]</a></span> Rome would
+have raised one storm of indignation from Palermo to Turin. So their
+ultimatum was this: Rome capital of Italy, or no alliance.</p>
+
+<p>There remained Austria, but if Napoleon ever hoped to conclude a
+separate treaty with her, he was to discover his mistake. From the moment
+that Austria resigned the Iron Crown, the symbol of her Italian power, she
+acted towards Italy with a loyalty that has few parallels in history. And
+she, too, replied to Napoleon: Rome capital of Italy, or no alliance.</p>
+
+<p>The Vatican has never forgiven this to Austria. At the present hour,
+while republican France with her open antagonism to all religion, is the
+favoured daughter of the Church, Austria, the only country in Europe
+except Spain where the Roman Catholic cultus retains all its original pomp
+and almost all its medi&aelig;val privileges, meets from the Vatican a
+studied plan of opposition, the object of which can only be to bring her
+Government to a deadlock. From France the Pope still hopes for aid in the
+recovery of his temporalities; from Austria he knows that he will never
+receive it. So much have politics and so little has religion to do now, as
+in all ages, with the motives that govern the Holy See.</p>
+
+<pre>
+     Ahi, Costantin, di quanto mal fu matre
+       Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote
+     Che da te prese il primo ricco patre!
+</pre>
+
+<p>The years 1868 and 1869 passed uneventfully for Italy. In the former
+year Prince Humbert married his cousin Margherita of Savoy. He was
+previously engaged to the Archduchess Matilda, the only daughter of the
+Victor of Custoza, but the young Princess met with a terrible death just
+when the betrothal was about to be announced. No one <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg.402]</a></span> worthier to
+receive from Adelaide of Burgundy the lovely title of Queen of Italy could
+have been found than the Princess Margaret, who inherited the sunny charm
+which had endeared her father, the Duke of Genoa, to all who knew him.</p>
+
+<p>In the autumn of 1869 another domestic event, the severe illness of
+Victor Emmanuel, gave rise to an incident which made a deep impression in
+Italy, and attached the nation by one link more to the King of its choice.
+The illness which seized Victor Emmanuel at his hunting-box of San
+Rossore, in a malarious part of Tuscany, proved so serious that his life
+was despaired of. A priest was called to hear the King's last confession,
+and to administer the Sacraments for the dying. After hearing the
+confession, the priest said he could not give absolution unless Victor
+Emmanuel signed a solemn retractation of all the acts performed during his
+reign that were contrary to the interests of the Church. The King
+answered, without a moment's hesitation, that he died a Christian and a
+Catholic, and that if he had wronged anyone he sincerely repented and
+asked pardon of God, but the signature demanded was a political act, and
+if the priest wished to talk politics his ministers were in the next room.
+Thither the ecclesiastic retired, but he very soon returned, and
+administered the rite without more ado. What had passed was this: General
+Menabrea, with a decision for which he cannot be too much praised,
+threatened the priest with instant arrest unless he surrendered his
+pretensions. Only those who know the extraordinary terror inspired in an
+Italian Catholic by the prospect of dying unshriven can appreciate the
+merit of the King, whose faith was childlike, in standing as firm in the
+presence of supernatural arms as he stood before the Austrian guns.</p>
+
+<p>Menabrea's administration was then upon the eve of falling. The cause
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg.403]</a></span>
+was one of those financial crises that were symptomatic of a mischief
+which has been growing from then till now, when some critics think they
+see in it the fatal upas tree of Italy. The process of transforming a
+country where everything was wanting&mdash;roads, railways, lines of
+navigation, schools, water, lighting, sanitary provisions, and the other
+hundred thousand requirements of modern life&mdash;into the Italy of
+to-day, where all these things have made leaps almost incredible to those
+who knew her in her former state, has proved costly without example.
+During the whole period it has been necessary to spend in ever-increasing
+ratio on the army and navy, and this expenditure, though emphatically not
+the chief, has yet been a concomitant cause of financial trouble. The
+point cannot be inquired into here of how far greater wisdom and higher
+character in Italian public servants might have limited the evil and
+reconciled progress with economy; but it may be said that if the path
+entered upon by the man who took charge of the exchequer after Menabrea's
+fall, Quintino Sella, had been rigorously followed by his successors, the
+present situation would not be what it is.</p>
+
+<p>Giovanni Lanza assumed the premiership in the government in which Sella
+was Minister of Finance. Both these politicians were Piedmontese, and both
+were known as men of conspicuous integrity, but Lanza's rigid conservatism
+made it seem unlikely that the Roman question would take a fresh turn
+under his administration. In politics, however, the unlikely is what
+generally happens; events are stronger than men.</p>
+
+<p>On the 8th of December the twenty-first Ecumenical Council assembled in
+Rome. From the day of its meeting, in spite of the strenuous opposition of
+its most learned and illustrious members, there was no <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg.404]</a></span> more doubt
+that the dogma under consideration would be voted by the partly astute and
+partly complaisant majority than that it would have been rejected in the
+twenty preceding Councils. On the 18th of July 1870, the Pope was
+proclaimed Infallible.</p>
+
+<p>That was a moment of excitement such as has not often thrilled Europe,
+but the cause was not the Infallibility of Pius IX. On the 16th, Napoleon
+declared war with Prussia. War, like death, comes as a shock, however
+plainly it has been foreseen; besides, it was only the well-informed who
+knew how near the match had been to the powder-magazine for two years and
+more. Whether the explosion, at the last, was timed by Napoleon or by
+Bismarck is not of great importance; it could have been but little
+delayed. Napoleon was beset alike by the revolutionary spectre and by the
+gaunt King of Terrors; he knew the throw was desperate, but with the
+gambler's instinct, which had always been so strong in him, he was
+magnetised by it because it was desperate. Pitiful egotist though he was,
+history may forgive him sooner than it forgives the selfish Chauvinism of
+Thiers, who had been goading his countrymen to war ever since Sadowa, or
+the insane bigotry of the party which, having triumphed over revolution at
+Mentana, now sought to triumph over heresy in what the Empress called 'Ma
+guerre.'</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon had the remaining sagacity to see the extreme danger of
+leaving a few thousand men isolated in Rome at a time when, happen what
+might, it would be impossible to reinforce them. Directly after declaring
+war, notwithstanding the cries of the Ultramontanes, he decided on
+recalling the French troops. He induced the Italian Government to resume
+the obligations of the September Convention, by <span class="newpage"><a
+name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg.405]</a></span> which the inviolability
+of the Papal frontier was guaranteed. Lanza is open to grave criticism for
+entering into a contract which it was morally certain that he would not be
+able to keep. Perhaps he hoped that Napoleon would himself release Italy
+from her bond. But the 'Jamais' of Rouher stood in the way. Could the
+Emperor, after such boasting, coolly throw the Pope overboard the first
+time it suited his convenience? Moreover, his present Prime Minister, M.
+Emile Olivier, when the question was put to him, did not hesitate to renew
+the declaration that the Italians must not be allowed to go to Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon made some last frantic efforts to get Austria and Italy to
+befriend him unconditionally. How far he knew the real state of his army
+before he declared war may be doubtful, but that he possessed overwhelming
+proof of it, even before the first defeats, cannot be doubted at all. His
+heart was not so light as his Prime Minister's. At the end of July he sent
+General T&uuml;rr on a secret mission to try and obtain the help of
+Austria and Italy. The Hungarian general wrote from Florence, that unless
+something could be done to assure Italy that the national question would
+be settled in accordance with the wishes of her people, the Italian
+alliance was not possible. The Convention, he pointed out, was a bane
+instead of a boon to Italy. This letter was answered by a telegram through
+the French Ambassador at Vienna: 'Can't do anything for Rome; if Italy
+will not march, let her stand still.</p>
+
+<p>As in the former negotiations, Austria took her stand on precisely the
+same ground as Italy. And thus it was that France plunged into the
+campaign of 1870 single-handed.</p>
+
+<p>After W&ouml;rth, and once more after Gravelotte, the endeavour to draw
+<span class="newpage"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg.406]</a></span>
+Italy into the struggle was renewed. Napoleon was aware that Victor
+Emmanuel was wildly anxious to come to the rescue, and on this personal
+goodwill his last hope was built. Prince Napoleon was despatched from the
+camp at Ch&acirc;lons to see what he could do. At this eleventh hour (19th
+August) Napoleon was ready to yield about Rome. At the camp, the influence
+which guided him in Paris was less felt, or it is probable that he would
+not have yielded even now. Prince Napoleon carried a sheet of white paper
+with the Emperor's signature at the foot. He showed it to Lanza when he
+reached Florence, and told him to fill it up as he chose. Whatever he
+asked for was already granted. A month before, such terms would have won
+both Italy and Austria&mdash;not now.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince found his father-in-law eager to give the 50,000 men that
+were asked for, but the ministers protested that the Italian army was
+unprepared for war. Still, to satisfy the King, who signified his
+irritation so clearly to Lanza that this good servant was on the point of
+resigning, they agreed to submit the case to Austria; if Austria would
+co-operate, they would re-consider their decision. Austria replied: 'Too
+late.'</p>
+
+<p>When, in 1873, Victor Emmanuel paid a visit to Berlin, he caused some
+sensation at a grand State banquet by saying to his host: 'But for these
+gentlemen' (and he waved his hand towards the ministers who accompanied
+him) 'I should have gone to war with you.' Courtiers did not know which
+way to look, but the aged Emperor was not displeased by the soldierly
+bluntness of the avowal.</p>
+
+<p>Prince Napoleon remained in Florence, throwing away his eloquence, till
+the 2nd of September cut short the argument. When he had left his cousin,
+the Emperor was resolved to fall back on Paris according to <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg.407]</a></span> MacMahon's
+plan, but the ministers and the Empress Regent forced him to his doom. On
+the 2nd of September S&eacute;dan was lost; on the 4th the Empire
+fell.</p>
+
+<p>'And to think,' exclaimed Victor Emmanuel when he heard the news, 'that
+this good man was always wanting to give me advice!'</p>
+
+<p>From the date of the declaration of war, and still more since the
+evacuation of Rome by the French troops (begun on the 29th of July, ended
+on the 19th of August), Italy had been too deeply agitated for any sane
+person to suppose that the prescriptive right of the nation to seize the
+opportunity which offered itself of completing its unity could be resisted
+by the artificial dyke of a compromise which made the Government the
+instrument of France. Lanza was determined to maintain order; he had
+Mazzini arrested at Palermo, and suppressed disorders where they occurred,
+but the rising tide of the will of the people could not be suppressed, and
+had the ministry resisted it, something more than the ministry would have
+fallen.</p>
+
+<p>In justification of Lanza's slowness to move, and of the apparent, if
+not real, unwillingness with which he took every forward step, it is
+contended that more precipitate action would have caused what most people
+will agree would have been a misfortune for Italy, the departure of the
+Pope from Rome. It was only on the 20th of August that the Minister of
+Foreign Affairs, Visconti-Venosta, sent a memorandum to the European
+Powers which announced that the Government had decided on occupying Rome
+at once. A week after, the fall of the Empire came as a godsend to the
+ministry which had possibly hardly deserved such a stroke of luck. They
+were no longer hampered by the September Convention, because the September
+Convention was dead. This <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_408" id=
+"Page_408">[Pg.408]</a></span> was amply admitted by Jules Favre, though
+he declined to denounce the treaty formally; even a French Radical, in the
+hour of setting up the Republic, was afraid to proclaim aloud that France
+renounced all claim to interfere in her neighbour's concerns.</p>
+
+<p>Of the other Powers, Switzerland signified her approval, and the rest
+engaged to abstain from any opposition.</p>
+
+<p>The King addressed a letter to the Pope, in which, with the affection
+of a son and the faith of a Catholic, he appealed to his spirit of
+benevolence and his Italian patriotism to speak the word of peace in the
+midst of the storm of war that was distracting Europe, and to accept the
+love and protection of the people of Italy in lieu of a sovereignty which
+could not stand without the support of foreign arms. Pius IX. merely
+answered by saying that the letter was not worthy of an affectionate son,
+and that he prayed God to bestow upon His Majesty the mercy of which he
+had much need. To the bearer of the royal appeal, Count Ponza di San
+Martino, he said that he might yield to violence, but would never sanction
+injustice.</p>
+
+<p>This was about the time that the Pope, on his side, wrote an appeal
+not, be it observed, to any Catholic monarch, but to King William of
+Prussia, who would certainly not have read unmoved the complaint of one
+who, like himself, was crowned with white hairs, but Count Bismarck took
+the precaution of causing the letter not to reach his master's hands till
+the Italians were in Rome.</p>
+
+<p>The day following the Pope's interview with Count Ponza, the 11th of
+September, the Italian troops received the order to enter the Papal
+states. For several weeks five divisions under General Cadorna had been in
+course of concentration along the frontier; this force now marched on
+Rome. Bixio was sent to Civita Vecchia where resistance was <span class=
+"newpage"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg.409]</a></span> expected,
+and had been ordered by Kanzler, but the native element prevailed over the
+foreign in the garrison, and the Spanish commandant, Colonel Serra,
+interpreting the wishes of the Roman troops, surrendered without firing a
+shot.</p>
+
+<p>Great was the indignation of the French and Belgian Zouaves. They were
+resolved that the same thing should not happen in Rome. That there was a
+chance of avoiding bloodshed may be inferred, from Count Arnim's numerous
+journeys between the Vatican and General Cadorna's headquarters outside
+Porta Salara; the Prussian representative hoping till the last moment to
+arrange matters in a pacific sense. Cardinal Antonelli is said to have
+been nearly persuaded, when he received a message from Colonel Charette in
+these terms: 'You had better go and say mass while we look after defending
+you.' The war party so far carried the day that the Pope adhered to his
+plan of 'sufficient resistance to show that he yielded only to force.'</p>
+
+<p>At half-past five on the morning of the 20th of September, all attempts
+at conciliation having failed, the Italian attack was opened upon five
+different points, Porta San Pancrazio, Porta San Giovanni Laterano, Porta
+San Lorenzo, Porta del Popolo and Porta Pia. General Maze de la Roche's
+division attacked the latter gate, and the wall near it, in which a breach
+was rapidly effected by the steady fire of the Italian batteries, though
+it was not till past eight o'clock that it seemed large enough to admit of
+an assault. Then the 41st of the line, and the 12th and 34th Bersaglieri
+were ordered up, and dashed into the breach with the cry of 'Savoia!
+Savoia!' The challenge was returned by the Zouaves with their 'Vive Pie
+Neuf.' They had been already ordered to desist, as the Pope's instructions
+were clear, 'to stop when a breach was made;' but on the plea that the
+order was sent <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">
+[Pg.410]</a></span> to them verbally they continued firing. When the
+written order came, they displayed a white handkerchief fastened to a
+bayonet, and at this point the fight was over. Hundreds of Roman exiles
+poured through the breach after the soldiers; 15,000 of them had arrived
+or were arriving at the gates of the city.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time the white flag was hoisted on Porta Pia, but on the
+advance of the 40th Regiment and a battalion of Bersaglieri, shots were
+fired which killed and wounded several officers and men; when they saw
+their companions falling, the troops could not be restrained from scaling
+the barricade which had been formed to defend the gate, and surrounding
+and capturing the Zouaves who were behind it. The whole Diplomatic Corps
+now came out in full uniform to urge General Cadorna to effect the
+occupation as quickly as possible, that order might be maintained. By
+midday, the Italian troops had penetrated into most parts of the city left
+of the Tiber; as yet there was no formal capitulation on the part of the
+Zouaves, and their attitude was not exactly reassuring. This did not
+prevent the population, both men and women, from filling the streets and
+greeting the Italians with every sign of rejoicing. They cheered, they
+wept, they kissed the national flag, and the cry of <i>Roma Capitale</i>
+drowned all other cries, even as the fact it saluted closed the discords
+and the factions of ages.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon all the Papal troops were persuaded to lay down their
+arms, which, in the case of the foreigners, were given back to them. Next
+day they were reviewed by General Cadorna. As the Italians presented arms
+to the retiring host, some of the Antibes Legion shouted at them: 'We are
+French, we shall meet you again.' The Roman troops were sent to their
+homes; the foreigners conducted to the <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg.411]</a></span> frontier, Charette and other
+of the French officers went to the battlefields of their prostrate
+country, and thus it came to pass that the Pope's defenders were found
+fighting side by side with Garibaldi; they, indeed, only doing their
+simple duty, but he, acting on an impulse of Quixotic generosity which was
+repaid&mdash;the world knows how!</p>
+
+<p>Cadorna received three pressing requests from the Pope to occupy the
+Leonine City, and the third he granted. The idea of leaving the part of
+Rome on which the Vatican stands under the Pope's jurisdiction had been
+long favoured by a certain class of politicians, and Lanza made a last
+effort to give it effect by excluding the Leonine City from the plebiscite
+which was ordered to take place in Rome and in the Roman province on the
+2nd of October. It was in vain. The first voting urn to arrive at the
+Capitol on the appointed day was a glass receptacle borne by a huge
+Trasteverino, and preceded by a banner inscribed: 'Citt&agrave; Leonina
+Si.' As the Government had not supplied the inhabitants with an official
+urn, it occurred to them to provide themselves with an unofficial one in
+which they duly deposited their votes. The Roman plebiscite yielded the
+results of 133,681 affirmative and 1507 negative votes.</p>
+
+<p>In December the Italian Parliament met for the last time in the Hall of
+the Five Hundred. 'Italy,' said the King in the speech from the throne,
+'is free and united; it depends on us to make her great and happy.' Of
+this last session at Florence the principal labour was the Act embodying
+the Papal guarantees which was intended to safeguard the legitimate
+independence and decorum of the Holy See on the lines formerly advocated
+by Cavour. Neither extreme party was satisfied, but it seemed at first not
+unlikely that the Pope would tacitly acquiesce in the arrangement. The
+first monthly payment of the national <span class="newpage"><a name=
+"Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg.412]</a></span> dotation, calculated to
+correspond with his civil list, was accepted. But though the influence of
+Cardinal Antonelli and the Italian prelates had been sufficient to keep
+the Pope in Rome, the influence of those who wished him to leave it was
+strong enough to establish at the Vatican the intransigent policy which
+has been pursued till now.</p>
+
+<p>During the flood of the Tiber which devastated the city that winter,
+the King of Italy paid a first informal visit to his capital, accompanied
+only by a few attendants, and bent on bringing help to the suffering
+population. In July 1872, he made his solemn entry, and at the same time
+the seat of Government was transferred to the Eternal City.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p>Victor Emmanuel could say what few men have been able to say of so
+large a promise: 'I have kept my word.' He gathered up the Italian flag
+from the dust of Novara, and carried it to the Capitol. In spite of the
+grandeur of republican tradition in Italy, and the lofty character of the
+men who represented it during the struggle for unity, a study of these
+events leaves on the mind the conviction that, at least in our time, the
+country could neither have been freed from the stranger nor welded into a
+single body-politic without a symbol which appealed to the imagination,
+and a centre of gravity which kept the diverse elements together by giving
+the whole its proper balance. The Liberating Prince whom Machiavelli
+sought was found in the Savoyard King. 'Quali porte se gli serrerebbono?
+Quali popoli gli negherebbono la obbedienza? Quale invidia se gli
+opporrebbe? Quale Italiano gli negherebbe l'ossequio?' To fill the
+appointed part Victor Emmanuel possessed the supreme qualification, which
+was patriotism. Though he <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_413" id=
+"Page_413">[Pg.413]</a></span> came of an ambitious race, not even his
+enemies could with any seriousness bring to his charge personal ambition,
+since every step which took him further from the Alps, his fathers'
+cradle, involved a sacrifice of tastes and habits, and of most that made
+life congenial. When his work was finished, though he was not old, he had
+the presentiment that he should not long survive its completion. And so it
+proved.</p>
+
+<p>In the first days of January 1878, the King was seized with one of
+those attacks on the lungs which his vigorous constitution had hitherto
+enabled him to throw off. But in Rome this kind of illness is more fatal
+than elsewhere, and the doctors were soon obliged to tell him that there
+was no hope. 'Are we come to that?' he asked; and then directed that the
+chaplain should be summoned. There was no repetition of the scene at San
+Rossore; the highest authority had already sanctioned the administration
+of the Sacraments to the dying King, nay, it is said that the Pope's first
+impulse was to be himself the bearer of them. At that hour the man got the
+better of the priest; Francis drove out Dominic. The heart that had been
+made to pity and the lips that had been formed to bless returned to their
+natural functions. When the aged Pius heard that all was over, exclaimed:
+'He died like a Christian, a Sovereign and an honest man (galantuomo).'
+Very soon the Pope followed the King to the grave, and so, almost
+together, these two historical figures disappear.</p>
+
+<p>Six years before, solitary and unsatisfied, Mazzini died at Pisa, his
+heart gnawed with the desire of the extreme, as the hearts have been of
+all those who aspired less to change what men do, or even what they
+believe, than what they are. More deep than political regrets was the pain
+with which he watched the absorption of human energies, in the <span
+class="newpage"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg.414]</a></span> race
+for wealth, for ease, for material happiness; he discerned that if the
+egotism of capital led to oppression, the egotism of labour would lead to
+anarchy. To the end he preached the moral law of which he had been the
+apostle through life. His last message to his countrymen, written when the
+pen was falling from his hand, was a warning to Italian workingmen to
+beware of the false gods of the new socialism. When others saw darkness he
+saw light; now, Cassandra-like, he saw darkness when others saw light; yet
+he did not doubt the ultimate triumph of the light, but he no longer
+thought that his eyes would see it, and he was glad to close them.</p>
+
+<p>Less sad, notwithstanding his physical martyrdom, were Garibaldi's last
+years. Italy showed him an unforgetting love; when he came to the
+continent, the same multitudes waited for him as of old, but instead of
+cheers there was a not less impressive silence now, lest the invalid
+should be disturbed. Soon after the transfer of the capital he went to
+Rome to speak in favour of the works by which it was proposed to control
+the inundations of the Tiber, and it was curious to hear it said on all
+sides that, of course, the Tiber works must be taken in hand as Garibaldi
+wished it. Pius IX. summed up the situation wittily in the remark: 'Lately
+we were two here; now we are three.' The old hero invoked the day when
+bayonets might be turned into pruning-hooks, but he by no means thought
+that it had arrived, and in the meanwhile he urged the Italians to look to
+their defences, and above all, 'to be strong on the sea, like England.' In
+the matter of government he remained the impenitent advocate of the rule
+of one honest man&mdash;call him Dictator or what you please, so he be
+one! Garibaldi died at Caprera on the 2nd of June 1882. The play was
+ended, the actors <span class="newpage"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">
+[Pg.415]</a></span> vanished:</p>
+
+<pre>
+  [Greek: Dote kroton, kai pantes hymeis meta charas ktup&ecirc;sate.]
+</pre>
+
+<p>A new epoch has begun which need not detain the chronicler of Italian
+Liberation. The prose of possession succeeds the poetry of desire.
+Nothing, however, can lessen the greatness of the achievement. With regard
+to the future, it may be allowable to recall the superstition which, like
+so many other seemingly meaningless beliefs, becomes full of meaning when
+read according to the spirit: that a house stands long if its foundations
+be watered with the blood of sacrifice. No work of man was ever watered
+with a purer blood than the restoration of Italy to the ranks of living
+nations. And the last word of this book shall be Hope.</p>
+
+<h3>THE END.</h3>
+
+<hr />
+<h5>COLSTON AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.</h5>
+
+<h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor1">[1]</a></p>
+
+<div class="note">
+<p>See <i>Memoirs of Lord Castlereagh</i>, 1848, Vol. i. p. 34.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor2">[2]</a></p>
+
+<div class="note">
+<p>It is now Carlyle's turn to be aspersed. Let Mazzini speak for him from
+the grave: 'I do not know if I told you,' he wrote to the Marchesa
+Eleonora Curlo Ruffini, in a letter published a few months ago, 'that I
+have met upon my path, deserted enough, I hope, by choice, a Scotchman of
+mind and things, the first person here, up till now, with whom I
+sympathise and who sympathises with me. We differ in nearly all opinions,
+but his are so sincere and disinterested that I respect them. He is good,
+good, good; he has been, and I think he is still, unhappy in spite of the
+fame which surrounds him; he has a wife with talent and feeling; always
+ailing; no children. They live out of town, and I go to see them every now
+and then. They have no insular or other prejudices that jar upon me. I
+have grown more intimate with this man in consequence, I think, of an
+article I wrote here, after knowing him, against an historical work of
+his; perhaps, accustomed as he is to common-place praise, to which he is
+indifferent, my frankness pleased him. For the rest I shall see him
+rarely, and I can only give him esteem and the warmest sympathy&mdash;not
+friendship, which I can henceforth give to no one.' (22nd March 1840.)</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor3">[3]</a></p>
+
+<div class="note">
+<p>On the production of Verdi's opera, <i>I Lombardi alla prima
+Crociata</i>, the Austrian Archbishop of Milan wished the Commissary of
+Police to prohibit the performance because it treated of sacred subjects.
+When it was recognised as one of the accelerating causes of the
+revolution, he drily remarked that they would have done better to take his
+advice. The grand chorus, 'O Signore dal tetto nati&ograve;,' in which the
+censor had only seen a pious chant, became the morning-song of national
+resurrection.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor4">[4]</a></p>
+
+<div class="note">
+<p>Long live who has money and who has none.'</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor5">[5]</a></p>
+
+<div class="note">
+<p>Of Garibaldi's foreign officers, Colonel (afterwards General) Dunne was
+one of the most marked personalities. When quite a young man he sold his
+commission in the English army and took to fighting under many flags. In
+the Crimean War he commanded a company of Bashi Bazouks. He had in him
+more than a dash of Gordon, of Burton, and like them he could do what he
+chose with untamed natures. If he was not obeyed fast enough he adopted
+rather strong measures. A Sicilian company, under fire for the first time,
+failed to show sufficient promptitude in executing an order to escalade a
+wall and jump into a garden, from which the enemy was keeping up a brisk
+fire. Dunne caught up half-a-dozen of the men into his saddle and pitched
+them bodily over the wall. The effect was singular, for seeing the
+Garibaldians falling from the clouds, the Neapolitans took to their heels,
+exclaiming: 'They can fly! they can fly!' Generally, however, he infused
+his own courage into all who served under him with a touch, perhaps, of
+his own fatalistic mysticism. It was a strange experience to hear this
+courteous, mild-mannered gentleman lament that Rome had not been burnt
+down; the disappearance of the scene of so many awful crimes he regarded
+necessary as a moral sanitary measure.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="note">
+<p>Of Garibaldi's foreign officers, Colonel (afterwards General) Dunne was
+one of the most marked personalities. When quite a young man he sold his
+commission in the English army and took to fighting under many flags. In
+the Crimean War he commanded a company of Bashi Bazouks. He had in him
+more than a dash of Gordon, of Burton, and like them he could do what he
+chose with untamed natures. If he was not obeyed fast enough he adopted
+rather strong measures. A Sicilian company, under fire for the first time,
+failed to show sufficient promptitude in executing an order to escalade a
+wall and jump into a garden, from which the enemy was keeping up a brisk
+fire. Dunne caught up half-a-dozen of the men into his saddle and pitched
+them bodily over the wall. The effect was singular, for seeing the
+Garibaldians falling from the clouds, the Neapolitans took to their heels,
+exclaiming: 'They can fly! they can fly!' Generally, however, he infused
+his own courage into all who served under him with a touch, perhaps, of
+his own fatalistic mysticism. It was a strange experience to hear this
+courteous, mild-mannered gentleman lament that Rome had not been burnt
+down; the disappearance of the scene of so many awful crimes he regarded
+necessary as a moral sanitary measure.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<h3>INDEX</h3>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Albrecht, Archduke, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>, <a href="#Page_369">
+369</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Alessandria, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Alfieri, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Alemann, General, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Amedeo, Prince, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_344">
+344</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Amadeus, Victor, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Amadeus with the Tail, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Amp&egrave;re, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Andreoli, Giuseppe, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Antonelli, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_130">
+130</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a
+href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_409">409</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Anzani, Francesco, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Appel, General, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Arnim, Count, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Aspre, d', General, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_139">
+139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Aspromonte, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>,
+<a href="#Page_350">350</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Austerlitz, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Azeglio, Massimo d', <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_74">
+74</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_206">
+206</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Bandiera, <a href="#Page_67">67-68</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bassi, Ugo, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_163">
+163</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bastide, Jules, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>
+
+<li>Bava, General, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_114">
+114</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bazaine, Marshal, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li>
+
+<li>Beauharnais, Eug&egrave;ne, <a href="#Page_6">6-9</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Beauregard, Costa de, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bellegarde, Marshal, <a href="#Page_9">9-11</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Benedek, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a
+href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bentinck, Lord William, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_11">
+11</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bentivegna, Count, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Berlin, Congress of, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bertani, Dr, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>,
+<a href="#Page_309">309</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Beust, Count, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bianchi, B. dei, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bismarck, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397-8</a>,
+<a href="#Page_408">408</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bixio, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a
+href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>, <a href="#Page_408">
+408</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Boccheciampi, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Borj&egrave;s, Jos&egrave;, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Brescia, Revolution at, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Briganti, General, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_302">
+302</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Brofferio, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bronzetta, Pilade, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_320">
+320</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Bubna, Count, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Brunetti, Angelo, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Buol, Count, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Buonaparte, Joseph, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Buonaparte, Lucien, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Cadorna, Gen., <a href="#Page_408">408-9</a>, <a href="#Page_410">
+410-11</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Caiazzo, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Cairoli, Benedetto, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_380">
+380</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Calabria helps Garibaldi, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Calandrelli, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Calatafimi, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Calderai del Contrapeso, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Campo Formio, Treaty of, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Canrobert, General, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Capponi, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Caprera, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a
+href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Capua, War around, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_318">
+318</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">capitulation, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Carignano, Prince of, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_32">
+32</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Carignano. Eugene de, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Carlyle, Thomas, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Caroline, Queen, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Casati, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Caserta, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_318">
+318</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Carusso, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Castelfidardo, <a href="#Page_337">
+337</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Castelnuovo, burning of village, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Castel Sant Elmo, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_307">
+307</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Castiglione, Count, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Castlereagh, Lord, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_12">
+12</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Cattaneo, ; party of,<a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Cavour, Count, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">becomes minister, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">resolves Piedmont shall join Allies in Crimean War, <a
+href="#Page_202">202</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">visits England, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">meets Napoleon at Plombi&egrave;res, <a href=
+"#Page_247">247</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">resigns office, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">recalled, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">resolves to invade Papal States, <a href="#Page_310">
+310</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Garibaldi's veterans, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Rome to be capital, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">death, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Centurioni, Society of, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Charette, General, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Charles III, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_236">
+236</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Charles Albert, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>,
+<a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_38">
+38</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">accession <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Re Tentenna, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">promulgates Charter, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">retreat to Milan, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">abdicates, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">burial, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Charles Emmanuel. <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_30">
+30</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Charles Felix, Duke of Genoa, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_56">
+56</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Charles Ludovico, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Chiavone, General, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Chretien, General, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_286">
+286</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Chrzanowski, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">
+140</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Cialdini, General, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_328">
+328</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a
+href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_337">337</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Cipriani, L.<a href="#Page_225">255</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Civita Vecchia, the French at, <a href="#Page_391">391-408</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Clam Gallas, Count, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Clarendon, Lord, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_206">
+206</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Clary, General, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Clotilde, Princess, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_218">
+218</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Colonna, General, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Commacchio, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Confalonieri, Count, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_41">
+41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Conneau, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Corsini, Prince, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_135">
+135</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Corti, Count, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Cosenz, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a
+href="#Page_360">360</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Cowley, Lord, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Crispi, Francesco, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_292">
+292</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Cristina, Princess, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Crocco, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Custozza, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_370">
+370</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Dalmatia, sold with Venice, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Dante, <a href="#Page_1">1-3</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a
+href="#Page_363">363</a>.</li>
+
+<li>De Castillia, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Del Bosco, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_291">
+291</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Depretis, Agostino, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>.</li>
+
+<li>D'Este, Francis. <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_51">
+51</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Dolfi, Giuseppe, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Drouyn de Lhuys, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Dunne, Colonel, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_319">
+319</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Durando, General. <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_107">
+107</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Eboli. <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Elliot, Mr, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_266">266</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Falloux, de, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Fanti, General, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_312">
+312</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Farini, L.C., <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>,
+<a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>, <a href="#Page_339">
+339</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Faro, Cape of, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_298">
+298</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Favre, Jules. <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_397">
+397</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ferdinand II., <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>,
+<a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_102">
+102</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ferdinand III., <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>,
+<a href="#Page_28">28</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ferdinand, Emperor of Austria, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ferrara, Austrians in, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ferretti, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Fleury, General, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Florence, capital of Italy, <a href="#Page_352">352-411</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Forbes, Commander, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_305">
+305</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Foscolo, Ugo, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">
+18</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Fra Giacomo. <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_339">
+339</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Francis I., <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Francis II., <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>,
+<a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_330">
+330</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Francis Joseph, Emperor, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_240">
+240</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Gaeta, Fall of, <a href="#Page_317">317-326</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Gamba, Pietro, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_50">
+50</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Gambetta, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Gaminara, Emmanuele, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Garibaldi, Giuseppe, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_120">
+120</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">declared enemy of the State, <a href="#Page_121">
+121</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">in South America, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">marries Anita, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">in Rome, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">death of Anita, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">leaves Caprera, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_256">256-263</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Sicilian expedition, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">march on Naples, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Battle of Solferino, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">of Garigliano, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">returns to Caprera, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a
+href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">wounded, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">arrested, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">in Rome, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">defeat at Mentana, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">death, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Garibaldi, Menotti, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_280">
+280</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a
+href="#Page_392">392</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Garigliano, Battle of, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Genoa, ceded to Sardinia, <a href="#Page_13">13-15</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Genoa, Charles Felix, Duke of, <a href="#Page_30">30-32</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ghio, General, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_303">
+303</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Giacinta di Collegno, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Gioberti, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Gladstone, W.E., <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Goito, Battle of, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Gravelotte, Battle of, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Gregory XVI., <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a
+href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Guerrazzi, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_136">
+136</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Gyulai, Count, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_230">
+230</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Haynau, General, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_162">
+162</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Hess, General, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_230">
+230</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Hilliers, Baraguay d' , <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Hoche, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Hortense, Queen, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Humbert of the White Hands, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Immaculate Conception, Doctrine of, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Jesuits, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a
+href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Kanzler, General, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Kellersperg, Baron von, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Klapka, General, <a href="#Page_357">357</a></li>
+
+<li>Kohlen-Brenners, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Kossuth, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_253">
+253</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Kuhn, General, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Laderchi, Count, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li>
+
+<li>La Farina, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.</li>
+
+<li>La Gala, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Lamartine, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li>
+
+<li>La Marmora, General, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_171">
+171</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a
+href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_357">348</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_359">348</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361-366</a></li>
+
+<li>Lamorici&egrave;re, General, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_313">313</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Lannes, Marshal, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Lanza, General, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_283">
+283</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>, <a
+href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Le Boeuf, General, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Leo XII., <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Leopardi, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Leopold II., <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>,
+<a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Lesseps, Ferdinand, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_154">
+154</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Letizia, General, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_286">
+286</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Liborio Romano, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Lincoln, President, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Lissa, Battle of, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Lodi, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Lombardy, trials in, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Revolution, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_162">162</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Louis Philippe, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Lucca, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Machiavelli, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a
+href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>.</li>
+
+<li>MacMahon, Marshal, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_233">
+233</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Magenta, Battle of, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_234">
+234</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Malghella, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Malmesbury, Lord, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Mamelli, Goffredo, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_155">
+155</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Manin, Daniel, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>,
+<a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_203">203</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Mantua, Prince Eugene in, <a href="#Page_8">8-10</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">gallant defence, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Manzoni, Alessandro, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Margaret, Queen, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_401">
+401</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Maria Adelaide, Queen, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Maria Teresa, Queen, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Marie Louise, Empress, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_31">
+31</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">death, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Marie Sofia, Princess, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Mamiani, Terenzio, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_131">
+131</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Maroncelli, Pietro, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Marryat, Captain, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Marsala, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a
+href="#Page_345">345</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Martinengo, Count, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Mary, Princess, of Cambridge, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Mastai Ferretti, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Matilda, Archduchess, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Maximilian, Archduke, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Mazzini, Giuseppe, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_57">
+57</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">early life, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">becomes a Carbonaro, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Association of Young Italy, <a href="#Page_63">
+63</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">takes refuge in England, <a href="#Page_66">
+66</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">writes 'Duties of Man,'<a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">meets Garibaldi, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">at Rome, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_157">157</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">letters from Orsini, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">protests against Napoleonic war, <a href="#Page_220">
+220</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">in Naples, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_354">354-357</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">corresponds with the king, <a href="#Page_398">
+398</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">arrested, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">death, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Medici, Giacomo, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">
+125</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a
+href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_318">
+318</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Melegnano, Battle of, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Menabrea, General, <a href="#Page_388">388-395</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_400">400-402</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Menechini, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Menotti, Ciro, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>,
+<a href="#Page_64">64</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Mentana, Battle of, <a href="#Page_392">392-397</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_404">404</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Merode, Marquis de, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Messina, held by Royal troops, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">evacuated, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Metternich, Prince, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_32">
+32</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>,
+<a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Mezzacapo, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Micca, Pietro, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Milan, revolt, <a href="#Page_8">8-10</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">fighting in the city, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Austrians depart, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Milano, Ageslao, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Milazzo, Battle of, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Mincio, Battle of. <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_241">
+241</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a
+href="#Page_369">369</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Minghetti, Marco, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_129">
+129</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Minto, Lord, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_116">
+116</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Misilmeri, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Misley, Dr, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Missori, Major. <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Modena, revolution in, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Monreale, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Montalembert, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Montanelli, Giuseppe, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Monti, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Montebello, Battle of, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Morelli. <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Moro, Domenico, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Moscow, retreat from, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Mundy, Admiral, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_283">
+283</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a
+href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Murat, Joachim, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a
+href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_23">
+23</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Napier, Lord, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_92">
+92</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Naples, <a href="#Page_25">25-29</a>, <a href="#Page_101">
+101</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">massacre, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">misrule in, <a href="#Page_186">186-187</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Garibaldi's march on, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">King enters, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Napoleon Buonaparte, <a href="#Page_2">2-10</a>, <a href="#Page_240">
+240</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Napoleon III., <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">elected President of French Republic, <a href=
+"#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">letter to Ney, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">attempt on his life, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">compact at Plombi&egrave;res, <a href="#Page_217">
+217</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">demands Nice and Savoy, <a href="#Page_260">
+260-262</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">era of peace, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Napoleon, Prince, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_229">
+229</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a
+href="#Page_406">406</a>.</li>
+
+<li>N&eacute;laton, Dr, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ney, Edgar, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Nice, cession of. <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_224">
+224</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Nicotera, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_297">
+297</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Niel, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ninco-Nanco, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Normanby, Lord, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_228">
+228</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Novara, <a href="#Page_37">37-39</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">battle of, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_412">412</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Nugent, General, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_112">
+112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>O'Donnel, Count, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Oliphant, Laurence, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_266">
+266</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Olivier, Emile, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Orsini, Colonel, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Orsini, Felice, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_216">
+216</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Oudinot, General, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_156">
+156</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Palermo, strange discovery, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Sicilian expedition, <a href="#Page_271">
+271-290</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">insurrection, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pallavicini, Giorgio, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_137">
+137</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a
+href="#Page_344"></a>, <a href="#Page_348"></a>, <a href="#Page_360">
+360</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Palma, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li>
+
+<li>Palmerston, Lord, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_111">
+111</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, 1<a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_355">
+355</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Panizzi, Anthony, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Paris, Treaty of, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Congress of, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Parma, <a href="#Page_12">12-16</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Passaglia, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pastrengo, Battle of, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Peard, Colonel, <a href="#Page_303">303-306</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pellico, Silvio, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_43">
+43</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pepe, Guglielmo, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_111">
+111</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li>
+
+<li>P&eacute;rier, Casimir, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Persano, Admiral, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_288">
+288</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>, <a
+href="#Page_377">377</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Peschiera, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>,
+<a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Petitti. General, <a href="#Page_378">378</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Petre, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Piacenza, garrisoned by Austrians, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Piedmont, Revolution in, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">struggle within the Church, <a href="#Page_189">
+189-192</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pietri, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pilone, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pilo, Rosalino, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_278">
+278</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pisacane, Carlo, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pius VII., <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pius VIII., <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pius IX., <a href="#Page_78">78</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">election, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_93">93</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">grants constitution, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">encyclical letter, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">flight to Gaeta, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">calls foreign aid to support temporal power, <a href=
+"#Page_132">132</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">thanksgiving, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_259">259</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">character, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">calls to arms, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_408">408</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">death, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Plombi&egrave;res, meeting between Napoleon and Cavour <a href=
+"#Page_217">217</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Poerio, Carlo, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>,
+<a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Pralormo, Count, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Prina, General, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Prince Consort, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_258">
+258</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Radetsky, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a
+href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_195">
+195</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Raimondi, Captain, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Rattazzi, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a
+href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_342">
+342</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>, <a
+href="#Page_384">384</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Reggio, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Renzi, Pietro, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ricasoli, Baron, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_235">
+235</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a
+href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_361">361</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Rienzi, Cola di, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Rimini, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Risorgimento, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Rolandis, de, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Romagna, Carbonarism in the, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_50">50</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Rome, Entry of French, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">French depart from, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">declared capital, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Romeo, Domenico, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Rossaroll, General, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Rossetti, Gabriele, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Rossi, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Rouher, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ruffini, Jacobo, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ruskin, J., <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Russell, Lord John, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_268">
+268</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>. <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Russell, Odo, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Sadowa, Battle of, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Salemi, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Salerno, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li>
+
+<li>San Bon, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Sanfedesti, Secret Society of, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li>
+
+<li>San Marino, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li>
+
+<li>San Martino, Count, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Santa Rosa, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Santorre di Santa Rosa, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Sardinia&mdash;War with Austria, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Savoy, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">cession of, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_259">
+259</a>, <a href="#Page_262"></a>.</li>
+
+<li>Schmidt, Colonel, <a href="#Page_237"></a>.</li>
+
+<li>Schwarzenberg, Prince, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_244">
+244</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Sella, Quintino, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Settembrini, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Sicily&mdash;Insurrection, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Sicilian expedition, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Silvati, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Sirtori, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_360">
+360</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Speri, Tito, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Spielberg, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Solaro della Margherita, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Solferino, Battle of, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_245">245</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Superga, the, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Talleyrand, Prince, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_260">
+260</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Tardio, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Tchernaja, Battle of, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Tegethoff, Admiral, <a href="#Page_373">373-377</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Theobald de Brie, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Theodolinda, Crown of, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Thiers, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>, <a
+href="#Page_404">404</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Thurn, General, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ticino, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a
+href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href=
+"#Page_233">233</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Tolentino, Battle of, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Torelli, Prince, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Tortona, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Traz&eacute;gnies, Marquis de, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Trentino, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>, <a
+href="#Page_371">371</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Trescorre, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_343">
+343</a>.</li>
+
+<li>T&uuml;rr, General, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_405">
+405</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Ulloa, General, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Ultramontanes, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_259">
+259</a>, <a href="#Page_397">379</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Umberto, Prince, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_344">
+344</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>, <a
+href="#Page_401">401</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Urban, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Vacca, Admiral, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Vaillant, General, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_261">
+261</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Vecchj, Colonel, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Venice, <a href="#Page_3">3-5</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">political trials in, <a href="#Page_40">40-44</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Austrians expelled, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">re-occupied by Austria, <a href="#Page_160">
+160-163</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a
+href="#Page_356">356</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">united to Italy, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Venosta, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>, <a
+href="#Page_407">407</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Verona, Congress of, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Victor Amadeus, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Victor Emmanuel I.,</li>
+
+<li class="indent">at Turin, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">King of Sardinia, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">abdicates, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">recommends mercy, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Victor Emmanuel II.;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">accession, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">unpopularity, <a href="#Page_165">165-166</a></li>
+
+<li class="indent">visits English and French courts, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">invites Garibaldi to join his army, <a href=
+"#Page_221">221</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">enters Milan, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">courage at Soferino,<a href="#Page_245">245</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">peace with Austria, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">letter to Napoleon, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">hailed King of Italy, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">entry into Naples, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">in Venice, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">illness, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">visit to Berlin, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">death, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Victoria, Queen, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Vienna, Congress of, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_15">
+15</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Treaty of, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Vimercati, Count, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_169">
+169</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Volturno, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a
+href="#Page_315">315</a>;</li>
+
+<li class="indent">Battle of, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Waddington, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Welden, General, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Wellesley, Admiral, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Wellington, Duke of, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</li>
+
+<li>William I., Emperor, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_408">
+408</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Wilmot, Lieutenant, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_284">
+284</a>.</li>
+
+<li>W&ouml;rth, Battle of, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Wratislaw, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Young Italy, Association of, founded by Mazzini, <a href="#Page_63">
+63</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Zamboni, Luigi, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Zedwitz, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_244">
+244</a>,</li>
+
+<li>Zobel, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Zorzi, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Zucchi, General, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.</li>
+
+<li>Zurich,</li>
+
+<li class="indent">(Conference of), <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li>
+
+<li class="indent">(Treaty of), <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIBERATION OF ITALY***</p>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Liberation of Italy, by Countess Evelyn
+Martinengo-Cesaresco
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Liberation of Italy
+
+Author: Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
+
+Release Date: November 17, 2004  [eBook #14078]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIBERATION OF ITALY***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Jayam, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+THE LIBERATION OF ITALY 1815-1870
+
+by the
+
+COUNTESS EVELYN MARTINENGO CESARESCO
+
+Author of 'Italian Characters In The Epoch Of Unification' (_Patriotti
+Italiani_), etc.
+
+With Portraits
+
+London
+
+Seeley And Co, Limited
+Essex Street, Strand
+
+1895
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[FRONTISPIECE: GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The old figure of speech 'in the fulness of time' embodies a truth too
+often forgotten. History knows nothing of spontaneous generation; the
+chain of cause and effect is unbroken, and however modest be the
+scale on which an historical work is cast, the reader has a right to
+ask that it should give him some idea, not only of what happened, but
+of why it happened. A catalogue of dates and names is as meaningless
+as the photograph of a crowd. In the following retrospect, I have
+attempted to trace the principal factors that worked towards Italian
+unity. The Liberation of Italy is a cycle waiting to be turned into an
+epic.
+
+In other words, it presents the appearance of a series of detached
+episodes, but the parts have an intimate connection with the whole,
+which, as time wears on, will constantly emerge into plainer light.
+Every year brings with it the issue of documents, letters, memoirs,
+that help to unravel the tangled threads in which this subject has
+been enveloped, and which have made it less generally understood than
+the two other great struggles of the century, the American fight for
+the Union, and the unification of Germany.
+
+I cannot too strongly state my indebtedness to the voluminous
+literature which has grown up in Italy round the _Risorgimento_ since
+its completion; yet it must not be supposed that the witness of
+contemporaries published from hour to hour, in every European tongue,
+while the events were going on, has become or will ever become
+valueless. I have had access to a collection of these older writings,
+formed with much care between the years 1850-1870, and some
+authorities that were wanting, I found in the library of Sir James
+Hudson, given by him to Count Giuseppe Martinengo Cesaresco after he
+left the British legation at Turin.
+
+There are, of course, many books in which the affairs of Italy figure
+only incidentally, which ought to be consulted by anyone who wishes to
+study the inner working of the Italian movement. Of such are Lord
+Castlereagh's _Despatches and Correspondence_, and the autobiographies
+of Prince Metternich and Count Beust.
+
+Perhaps I have been helped in describing the events clearly, by the
+fact that I am familiar with almost all the places where they
+occurred, from the heights of Calatafimi to the unhappy rock of Lissa.
+Wherever the language of the _Si_ sounds, we tread upon the history of
+the Revolution that achieved what a great English orator once called,
+'the noblest work ever undertaken by man.'
+
+The supreme interest of the re-casting of Italy arises from the new
+spectacle of a nation made one not by conquest but by consent. Above
+and beyond the other causes that contributed to the conclusion must
+always be reckoned the gathering of an emotional wave, only comparable
+to the phenomena displayed by the mediaeval religious revivals.
+Sentiment, it is said, is what makes the real historical miracles. A
+writer on Italian Liberation would be indeed misleading who failed to
+take account of the passionate longing which stirred and swayed even
+the most outwardly cold of those who took part in it, and nerved an
+entire people to heroic effort.
+
+Salo, Lago di Garda.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+RESURGAM
+
+Italy from the Battle of Lodi to the Congress of Vienna
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE WORK OF THE CARBONARI
+
+Revolutions in the Kingdom of Naples and in Piedmont--The Conspiracy
+against Charles Albert
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PRISON AND SCAFFOLD
+
+Political Trials in Venetia and Lombardy--Risings in the South and
+Centre--Ciro Menotti
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+YOUNG ITALY
+
+Accession of Charles Albert--Mazzini's Unitarian Propaganda--The
+Brothers Bandiera
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE POPE LIBERATOR
+
+Events leading to the Election of Pius IX.--The Petty Princes--Charles
+Albert, Leopold and Ferdinand
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE YEAR OF REVOLUTION
+
+Insurrection in Sicily--The Austrians expelled from Milan and
+Venice--Charles Albert takes the Field--Withdrawal of the Pope and
+King of Naples--Piedmont defeated--The Retreat
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE DOWNFALL OF THRONES
+
+Garibaldi arrives--Venice under Manin--The Dissolution of the Temporal
+Power--Republics at Rome and Florence
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+AT BAY
+
+Novara--Abdication of Charles Albert--Brescia crushed--French
+Intervention--The Fall of Rome--The Fall of Venice
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+'J'ATTENDS MON ASTRE'
+
+The House of Savoy--A King who Keeps his Word--Sufferings of the
+Lombards--Charles Albert's death
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE REVIVAL OF PIEDMONT
+
+Restoration of the Pope and Grand-Duke of Tuscany--Misrule at Naples--
+The Struggle with the Church in Piedmont--The Crimean War
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+PREMONITIONS OF THE STORM
+
+Pisacane's Landing--Orsini's Attempt--The Compact of
+Plombieres--Cavour's Triumph
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE WAR FOR LOMBARDY
+
+Austria declares War--Montebello--Garibaldi's Campaign--Palestro--
+Magenta--The Allies enter Milan--Ricasoli saves Italian Unity--
+Accession of Francis II.--Solferino--The Armistice of Villafranca
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+WHAT UNITY COST
+
+Napoleon III. and Cavour--The Cession of Savoy and Nice--Annexations
+in Central Italy
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE MARCH OF THE THOUSAND
+
+Origin of the Expedition--Garibaldi at Marsala--Calatafimi--The Taking
+of Palermo--Milazzo--The Bourbons evacuate Sicily
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE MEETING OF THE WATERS
+
+Garibaldi's March on Naples--The Piedmontese in Umbria and the
+Marches--The Volturno. Victor Emmanuel enters Naples
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+BEGINNINGS OF THE ITALIAN KINGDOM
+
+The Fall of Gaeta--Political Brigandage--The Proclamation of the
+Italian Kingdom--Cavour's Death
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+'ROME OR DEATH!'
+
+Cavour's Successors--Aspromonte--The September Convention--Garibaldi's
+Visit to England
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE WAR FOR VENICE
+
+The Prussian Alliance--Custoza--Lissa--The Volunteers--Acquisition of
+Venetia
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE LAST CRUSADE
+
+The French leave Rome--Garibaldi's Arrest and Escape--The Second French
+Intervention--Monte Rotondo--Mentana
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+ROME THE CAPITAL
+
+M. Rouher's 'Never!'--Papal Infallibility--Sedan--The Breach in Porta
+Pia--The King of Italy in Rome
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+     GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI (Frontispiece)
+
+     GIUSEPPE MAZZINI
+
+     KING VICTOR EMMANUEL
+
+     COUNT CAVOUR
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+RESURGAM
+
+Italy from the Battle of Lodi to the Congress of Vienna.
+
+
+The unity of Italy, which the statesmen of Europe and all save a small
+number of the Italians themselves still regarded as an utopia when it
+was on the verge of accomplishment, was, nevertheless, desired and
+foreseen by the two greatest intellects produced by the Italian race.
+Dante conceived an Italy united under the Empire, which returning from
+a shameful because self-imposed exile would assume its natural seat in
+Rome. To him it was a point of secondary interest that the Imperial
+Lord happened to be bred beyond the Alps, that he was of Teutonic, not
+of Latin blood. If the Emperor brought the talisman of his authority
+to the banks of the Tiber, Italy would overcome the factions which
+rent her, and would not only rule herself, but lead mankind. Vast as
+the vision was, Dante cannot be called presumptuous for having
+entertained it. The Rome of the Caesars, the Rome of the Popes, had
+each transformed the world: Italy was transforming it for a third time
+at that moment by the spiritual awakening which, beginning with the
+Renaissance, led by inevitable steps to the Reformation. The great
+Florentine poet had the right to dream that his country was invested
+with a providential mission, that his people was a chosen people,
+which, by its own fault and by the fault of others, had lost its way,
+but would find it again. Such was Dante's so-called Ghibelline
+programme--less Ghibelline than intensely and magnificently Italian.
+His was a mind too mighty to be caged within the limits of partisan
+ambitions. The same may be said of Machiavelli. He also imagined, or
+rather discerned in the future, a regenerate Italy under a single
+head, and this, not the advancement of any particular man, was the
+grand event he endeavoured to hasten. With the impatience of a heart
+consumed by the single passion of patriotism, he conjured his
+fellow-countrymen to seize the first chance that presented itself,
+promising or unpromising, of reaching the goal. The concluding passage
+in the _Principe_ was meant as an exhortation; it reads as a prophecy.
+'We ought not therefore,' writes Machiavelli, 'to let this occasion
+pass whereby, after so long waiting, Italy may behold the coming of a
+saviour. Nor can I express with what love he would be received in all
+those provinces which have suffered from the foreign inundations; with
+what thirst of vengeance, with what obstinate faith, with what
+worship, with what tears! What doors would be closed against him? What
+people would deny him obedience? What jealousy would oppose him? What
+Italian would not do him honour? The barbarous dominion of the
+stranger stinks in the nostrils of all.'
+
+Another man of genius, an Italian whom a fortuitous circumstance made
+the citizen and the master of a country not his own, grasped both the
+vital necessity of unity from an Italian point of view, and the
+certainty of its ultimate achievement. Napoleon's notes on the
+subject, written at St Helena, sum up the whole question without
+rhetoric but with unanswerable logic:--'Italy is surrounded by the
+Alps and the sea. Her natural limits are defined with as much
+exactitude as if she were an island. Italy is only united to the
+Continent by 150 leagues of frontier, and these 150 leagues are
+fortified by the highest barrier that can be opposed to man. Italy,
+isolated between her natural limits, is destined to form a great and
+powerful nation. Italy is one nation; unity of customs, language and
+literature must, within a period more or less distant, unite her
+inhabitants under one sole government. And Rome will, without the
+slightest doubt, be chosen by the Italians as their capital.'
+
+Unlike Dante and Machiavelli, who could only sow the seed, not gather
+the fruit, the man who wrote these lines might have made them a
+reality. Had Napoleon wished to unite Italy--had he had the greatness
+of mind to proclaim Rome the capital of a free and independent
+state instead of turning it into the chief town of a French
+department--there was a time when he could plainly have done it.
+Whether redemption too easily won would have proved a gain or a loss
+in the long run to the populations welded together, not after their
+own long and laborious efforts, but by the sudden exercise of the will
+of a conqueror, is, of course, a different matter. The experiment was
+not tried. Napoleon, whom the simple splendour of such a scheme ought
+to have fascinated, did a very poor thing instead of a very great one:
+he divided Italy among his relations, keeping the lion's share for
+himself.
+
+Napoleon's policy in Italy was permanently compromised by the
+abominable sale of Venice, with her two thousand years of freedom, to
+the empire which, as no one knew better than he did, was the pivot of
+European despotism. After that transaction he could never again come
+before the Italians with clean hands; they might for a season make him
+their idol, carried away by the intoxication of his fame; they could
+never trust him in their inmost conscience. The ruinous consequences
+of the Treaty of Campo Formio only; ceased in 1866. The Venetians have
+been severely blamed, most of all by Italian historians, for making
+Campo Formio possible by opening the door to the French six months
+before. Napoleon could not have bartered away Venice if it had not
+belonged to him. The reason that it belonged to him was that, on the
+12th of May 1797, the Grand Council committed political suicide by
+dissolving the old aristocratic form of government, in compliance with
+a mere rumour, conveyed to them through the ignoble medium of a petty
+shopkeeper, that such was the wish of General Buonaparte. In
+extenuation of their fatal supineness, it may be urged that they felt
+the inherent weakness of an oligarchy out of date; and in the second
+place, that the victor of Lodi, the deliverer of Lombardy, then in the
+first flush of his scarcely tarnished glory, was a dazzling figure,
+calculated indeed to turn men's heads. But, after all, the only really
+valid excuse for them would have been that Venice lacked the means of
+defence, and this was not the case. She had 14,000 regular troops,
+8000 marines, a good stock of guns--how well she might have resisted
+the French, had they, which was probable, attacked her, was to be
+proved in 1849. Her people, moreover, that _basso popolo_ which
+nowhere in the world is more free from crime, more patient in
+suffering, more intelligent and public-spirited than in Venice, was
+anxious and ready to resist; when the nobles offered themselves a
+sacrifice on the Gallic altar by welcoming the proposed democratic
+institutions, the populace, neither hoodwinked nor scared into
+hysterics, rose to the old cry of San Marco, and attempted a righteous
+reaction, which was only smothered when the treacherous introduction
+of French troops by night on board Venetian vessels settled the doom
+of Venice's independence.
+
+'Under all circumstances,' Napoleon wrote to the Venetian Municipality,
+'I shall do what lies in my power to prove to you my desire to see your
+liberty consolidated, and miserable Italy assume, at last, a glorious
+place, free and independent of strangers.' On the 10th of the following
+October he made over Venice to Austria, sending as a parting word the
+cynical message to the Venetians 'that they were little fitted for
+liberty: if they were capable of appreciating it, and had the virtue
+necessary for acquiring it well and good; existing circumstances gave
+them an excellent opportunity of proving it.' At the time, the act of
+betrayal was generally regarded as part of a well-considered plot laid
+by the French Directory, but it seems certain that it was not made known
+to that body before it was carried out, and that with Napoleon himself
+it was a sort of after-thought, sprung from the desire to patch up an
+immediate peace with Austria on account of the appointment of Hoche to
+the chief command of the army in Germany. The god to which he immolated
+Venice was the selfish fear lest another general should reap his German
+laurels.
+
+Venice remained for eight years under the Austrians, who thereby
+obtained what, in flagrant perversion of the principles on which the
+Congress of Vienna professed to act, was accepted in 1815 as their
+title-deeds to its possession. Meanwhile, after the battle of
+Austerlitz, the city of the sea was tossed back to Napoleon, who
+incorporated it in the newly-created kingdom of Italy, which no more
+corresponded to its name than did the Gothic kingdom of which he
+arrogated to himself the heirship, when, placing the Iron Crown of
+Theodolinda upon his brow, he uttered the celebrated phrase: 'Dieu me
+l'a donnee, gare a qui la touche.'
+
+This is not the place to write a history of French supremacy in Italy,
+but several points connected with it must be glanced at, because,
+without bearing them in mind, it is impossible to understand the
+events which followed. The viceroyalty of Eugene Beauharnais in North
+Italy, and the government of Joseph Buonaparte, and afterwards of
+Joachim Murat, in the South, brought much that was an improvement on
+what had gone before: there were better laws, a better administration,
+a quickening of intelligence. 'The French have done much for the
+regeneration of Italy,' wrote an English observer in 1810; 'they have
+destroyed the prejudices of the inhabitants of the small states of
+Upper Italy by uniting them; they have done away with the Pope; they
+have made them soldiers.' But there was the reverse side of the medal:
+the absence everywhere of the national spirit which alone could have
+consolidated the new _regime_ on a firm basis; the danger which the
+language ran of losing its purity by the introduction of Gallicisms;
+the shameless robbery of pictures, statues, and national heirlooms of
+every kind for the replenishment of French museums; the bad impression
+left in the country districts by the abuses committed by the French
+soldiery on their first descent, and kept alive by the blood-tax
+levied in the persons of thousands of Italian conscripts sent to die,
+nobody knew where or why; the fields untilled, and Rachel weeping for
+her children: all these elements combined in rendering it difficult
+for the governments established under French auspices to survive the
+downfall of the man to whose sword they owed their existence. Their
+dissolution was precipitated, however, by the discordant action of
+Murat and Eugene Beauharnais. Had these two pulled together, whatever
+the issue was it would have differed in much from what actually
+happened. Murat was jealous of Eugene, and did not love his
+brother-in-law, who had annoyed and thwarted him through his whole
+reign; he was uneasy about his Neapolitan throne, and, in all
+likelihood, was already dreaming of acquiring the crown of an
+independent Italy. Throwing off his allegiance to Napoleon, he
+imagined the vain thing that he might gain his object by taking sides
+with the Austrians. It must be remembered that there was a time when
+the Allied Powers had distinctly contemplated Italian independence as
+a dyke to France, and there were people foolish enough to think that
+Austria, now she felt herself as strong as she had then felt weak,
+would consent to such a plan. Liberators, self-called, were absolutely
+swarming in Italy; Lord William Bentinck was promising entire
+emancipation from Leghorn; the Austrian and English allies in Romagna
+ransacked the dictionary for expressions in praise of liberty; an
+English officer was made the mouthpiece for the lying assurance of the
+Austrian Emperor Francis, that he had no intention of re-asserting any
+claims to the possession of Lombardy or Venetia.
+
+In 1814, Napoleon empowered Prince Eugene to adopt whatever attitude
+he thought best fitted to make head against Austria; for himself, he
+resigned the Iron Crown, and his Italian soldiers were freed from
+their oaths. It was not, therefore, Eugene's loyal scruples which
+prevented him from throwing down a grand stake when he led his 60,000
+men to the attack. It was want of genius, or of what would have done
+instead, a flash of genuine enthusiasm for the Italian idea. In place
+of appealing to all Italians to unite in winning a country, he
+appealed to one sentiment only, fidelity to Napoleon, which no longer
+woke any echo in the hearts of a population that had grown more and
+more to associate the name of the Emperor with exactions which never
+came to an end, and with wars which had not now even the merit of
+being successful. It is estimated that although the Italian troops
+amply proved the truth of Alfieri's maxim, that 'the plant man is more
+vigorous in Italy than elsewhere,' by bearing the hardships and
+resisting the cold in Russia better than the soldiers of any other
+nationality, nevertheless 26,000 Italians were lost in the retreat
+from Moscow. That happened a year ago. Exhausted patience got the
+better of judgment; in April 1814, the Milanese committed the
+irremediable error of revolting against their Viceroy, who commanded
+the only army which could still save Italy: the pent-up passions of a
+long period broke loose, the peasants from the country, who had always
+hated the French, flooded the streets of Milan, and allying themselves
+unimpeded with the dregs of the townsfolk, they murdered with great
+brutality General Prina, the Minister of Finance, whose remarkable
+abilities had been devoted towards raising funds for the Imperial
+Exchequer. Personally incorruptible, Prina was looked upon as the
+general representative of French voracity; he met his death with the
+utmost calmness, only praying that he might be the last victim. No one
+else was, in fact, killed, and next day quiet was resumed, but the
+affair had another victim--Italy. You cannot change horses when you
+are crossing a stream. Prince Eugene was in Mantua with a fine army,
+practically intact, though it had suffered some slight reverses; the
+fortress was believed to be impregnable; by merely waiting, Eugene
+might, if nothing else, have exacted favourable terms. But the news of
+Prina's murder, and the blow dealt at his own authority in Milan,
+caused him to give over the fortress and the army to the Austrians
+without more ado; an act which looked like revenge, but it was most
+likely prompted by moral cowardice. The capitulation signed with
+Field-Marshal Bellegarde on the 23rd of April, so exasperated the army
+that the officers in command of the garrison decided to arrest Eugene,
+but it was found that he was already on his way to Germany, taking
+with him his treasure, in accordance with a secret agreement entered
+into with the Austrian Field-Marshal. Such was the end to the Italian
+career of Eugene Beauharnais.
+
+For the _Beau Sabreur_ another ending was in store. Back on Napoleon's
+side in 1815, his Austrian allies having given him plenty of reason
+for suspecting their sincerity, he issued from Rimini, on the 30th of
+March, the proclamation of an independent Italy from the Alps to
+Sicily. There was no popular reply to his call. Italy, prostrate and
+impoverished, was unequal to a great resolve. The Napoleonic legend
+was not only dead, but buried; Napoleon had literally no friends left
+in Italy except those of his old soldiers who had managed to get back
+to their homes, many of them deprived of an arm or a leg, but so
+toughened that they lived to great ages. These cherished to their last
+hour the worship of their Captain, which it was his highest gift to be
+able to inspire. 'I have that feeling for him still, that if he were
+to rise from the dead I should go to him, if I could, wherever he
+was,' said the old conscript Emmanuele Gaminara of Genoa, who died at
+nearly a hundred in a Norfolk village in 1892: the last, perhaps, of
+the Italian veterans, and the type of them all.
+
+But a few scattered invalids do not make a nation, and the Italian
+nation in 1815 had not the least wish to support any one who came in
+the name of Napoleon. So Murat failed without even raising a strong
+current of sympathy. Beaten by the Austrians at Tolentino on the 3rd
+of May, he retreated with his shattered army. In the last desperate
+moment, he issued the constitution which he ought to have granted
+years before. Nothing could be of any avail now; his admirable Queen,
+the best of all the House of Buonaparte, surrendered Naples to the
+English admiral; and Murat, harried by a crushing Austrian force,
+renounced his kingdom on the 30th of May. After Waterloo, when a price
+was set on his head in France, he meditated one more forlorn hope;
+but, deserted by the treachery of his few followers, and driven out of
+his course by the violence of the waves, he was thrown on the coast of
+Calabria with only twenty-six men, and was shot by order of Ferdinand
+of Naples, who especially directed that he should be only allowed
+half-an-hour for his religious duties after sentence had been
+delivered by the mock court-martial. His dauntless courage did not
+desert him: he died like a soldier. It was a better end for an Italian
+prince than escaping with money-bags to Germany. Great as were Murat's
+faults, an Italian should remember that it was he who first took up
+arms to the cry which was later to redeem Italy: independence from
+Alps to sea; and if he stand on the ill-omened shore of Pizzo, he
+need not refuse to uncover his head in silence.
+
+When Mantua surrendered, the Milanese sent a deputation to Paris with
+a view of securing for Lombardy the position of an independent kingdom
+under an Austrian prince. They hoped to obtain the first by
+acquiescing in the second. They were aroused from their unheroic
+illusions with startling rapidity. Lord Castlereagh, to whom they went
+first (for they fancied that the English were interested in liberty),
+referred them 'to their master, the Austrian Emperor.' The Emperor
+Francis replied to their memorial that Lombardy was his by right of
+conquest; they would hear soon enough at Milan what orders he had to
+give them. Even after that, the distracted Lombards hoped that the
+English at Genoa would befriend them. All uncertainty ceased on the
+23rd of May 1814, when Field-Marshal Bellegarde formally took
+possession of Lombardy on behalf of his Sovereign, dissolved the
+Electoral Colleges, and proclaimed himself Regent. There was no
+question of reviving the conditions under which Austria ruled Lombardy
+while there was still a German Empire: conditions which, though
+despotic in theory, were comparatively easy-going in practice, and did
+not exclude the native element from the administration. Henceforth the
+despotism was pure and simple; for Italians to even think of politics
+was an act of high treason.
+
+It is not generally known that a British army ultimately sent to Spain
+was intended for Italy,[1] but its destination was changed because the
+Italians showed so little disposition to rise against Napoleon. The
+English Government was continually advised by its agents in Italy to
+make Sicily, which was wholly in its power, the _point d'appui_ for a
+really great intervention in the destinies of the peninsula. 'The
+grand end of all the operations in the Mediterranean,' wrote one of
+Lord Castlereagh's correspondents, 'is the emancipation of Italy, and
+its union in one great state.' Lord William Bentinck urged that if
+Sicily were reunited to Naples under the Bourbons, liberty,
+established there by his own incredible efforts, would be crushed, and
+the King would wreck vengeance on the Constitution and its supporters.
+Universal terror, he said, was felt at 'the unforgiving temper of
+their Majesties.' He strongly supported a course proposed for her own
+reasons by Queen Caroline: the purchase of Sicily by the English
+Government which could make it 'not only the model but the instrument
+of Italian independence.'
+
+This way of talking was not confined to private despatches, and it was
+no wonder if the Italians were disappointed when they found that
+England declined to plead their cause with the Allies in Paris, and
+afterwards at Vienna. When charged directly with breach of faith
+before the House of Commons, Lord Castlereagh said that Austria, being
+'in truth the great hinge on which the fate of mankind must ultimately
+depend,' had to be paid (this was exactly the sense, though not the
+form, of his defence) by letting her do what she liked with Italy.
+There is a certain brutal straightforwardness in the line of argument.
+Lord Castlereagh did not say that independence was not a good thing.
+He had tried to obtain it for Poland and had failed; he had not tried
+to obtain it for Italy, because he was afraid of offending Austria. At
+least he had the courage to tell the truth, and did not prate about
+the felicity of being subjects of the Austrian Emperor, as many
+English partisans of Austria prated in days to come.
+
+The political map of Italy in the summer of 1814 showed the Pope (Pius
+VII.) reinstated in Rome, Victor Emmanuel I. at Turin, Ferdinand III.
+of Hapsburg-Lorraine in Tuscany, the Genoese Republic for the moment
+restored by the English, Parma and Piacenza assigned to the Empress
+Marie-Louise, and Modena to the Austrian Archduke Francis, who was
+heir through the female line to the last of the Estes. Murat was still
+at Naples, Ferdinand IV. in Sicily, Austria acknowledged supreme in
+Lombardy and Venetia, and the island of Elba ironically handed over to
+Napoleon. These were the chief features, so far as Italy was
+concerned, of the Treaty of Paris, signed on the 30th of May 1814.
+Next year the Congress of Vienna modified the arrangement by providing
+that the Spanish Infanta Maria Louisa, on whom had been bestowed the
+ex-republic of Lucca, should have the reversion of Parma and Piacenza,
+while Lucca was to go in the end to Tuscany. Murat having been
+destroyed, the Neapolitan Bourbons recovered all their old
+possessions. San Marino and Monaco were graciously recognised as
+independent, which brought the number of Italian states up to ten. The
+Sardinian monarchy received back the part of Savoy which by the Treaty
+of Paris had been reserved to France. It was also offered a splendid
+and unexpected gift--Genoa.
+
+Lord William Bentinck entered Genoa by a convention concluded with the
+authorities on the 18th of April 1814. A naval demonstration following
+an ably-conducted operation, by which Bentinck's hybrid force of
+Greeks and Calabrese, with a handful of English, became master of the
+two principal forts, hastened this conclusion, but the Genoese had no
+reluctance to open their gates to the English commander, who inspired
+them with the fullest confidence. He came invested with the halo of a
+constitution-maker-under-difficulties; it was known that he had
+stopped at nothing in carrying out his mission in Sicily; not even at
+getting rid of the Queen, who found in Bentinck the Nemesis for having
+led a greater Englishman to stain his fame in the roads of Naples.
+Driven rather than persuaded to leave Sicily, Marie Antoinette's
+sister encountered so frightful a sea voyage that she died soon after
+joining her relations at Vienna. Lord William had acquired the art of
+writing the finest appeals to the love of freedom; a collection of his
+manifestoes would serve as handy-book to anyone instructed to stir up
+an oppressed nationality. He immediately gave the Genoese some
+specimens of his skill as a writer, and by granting them at once a
+provisional constitution, he dispelled all doubts about the future
+recognition of their republic. What was not, therefore, their dismay,
+when they were suddenly informed of the decision of the Holy Alliance
+to make a present of them to the people whom, of all others, they
+probably disliked the most. Italians had not ceased yet from reserving
+their best aversion for their nearest neighbours.
+
+Bentinck did not mean to deceive; perhaps he thought that by going
+beyond the letter of his instructions he should draw his government
+after him. That he did, in effect, deceive, cannot be denied; even
+Lord Castlereagh, while necessarily refusing to admit that definite
+promises had been made, yet allowed that, 'Of course he would have
+been glad if the proclamation issued to the Genoese had been more
+precisely worded.' The motive of the determination to sacrifice the
+republic was, he said, 'a sincere conviction of the necessity of a
+barrier between France and Italy, which ought to be made effectual on
+the side of Piedmont. The object was to commit the defence of the Alps
+and of the great road leading round them by the Gulf of Genoa, between
+France and Italy, to the same power to which it had formerly been
+entrusted. On that principle, the question relating to Genoa had been
+entertained and decided upon by the allied sovereigns. It was not
+resolved upon because any particular state had unworthy or sordid
+views, or from any interest or feeling in favour of the King of
+Sardinia, but solely to make him, as far as was necessary, the
+instrument of the general policy of Europe.'
+
+A better defence might have been made. Piedmont was destined to serve
+as a bulwark, not so much against France, which for the time was not
+to be feared, as against Austria, absolute except for the subalpine
+kingdom in all Italy. But this belongs to the shaping of rough-hewn
+ends, which is in higher hands than those of English ministers. The
+ends then looked very rough-hewn.
+
+Piedmont was a hotbed of reaction and bigotry. True, she had a history
+differing vastly from that of the other Italian states, but the facts
+of the hour presented her in a most unattractive light. The Genoese
+felt the keenest heart-burnings in submitting to a decision in which
+they had no voice, and which came to them as a mandate of political
+extinction from the same powers that confirmed the sentence of death
+on Genoa's ancient and glorious rival. The seeds were laid of
+disaffection, always smouldering among the Genoese, till Piedmont's
+king became King of Italy. It might almost be said that the
+reconciliation was not consummated till the day when the heir and
+namesake of Humbert of the White Hands received the squadrons of
+Europe in the harbour of Genoa, and the proud republican city showed
+what a welcome she had prepared for her sovereign of the Savoy race.
+
+After the Congress of Vienna finished its labours, there were, as has
+been remarked, ten states in Italy, but out of Sardinia (whose
+subjugation Prince Metternich esteemed a mere matter of time) there
+was one master. The authority of the Emperor Francis was practically
+as undisputed from Venice to the Bay of Naples as it was in the Grand
+Duchy of Austria. The Austrians garrisoned Piacenza, Ferrara and
+Commacchio; Austrian princes reigned in Tuscany, Parma, Modena and
+Lucca; the King of Naples, who paid Austria twenty-six million francs
+for getting back his throne, thankfully agreed to support a German
+army to protect him against his subjects. In the secret treaty
+concluded between himself and the Emperor of Austria, it was
+stipulated that the King of the Two Sicilies should not introduce into
+his government any principles irreconcilable with those adopted by His
+Imperial Majesty in the government of his Italian provinces. As for
+the Roman States, Austria reckoned on her influence in always
+securing the election of a Pope who would give her no trouble. Seeing
+herself without rivals and all-powerful, she deemed her position
+unassailable. She forgot that, by giving Italy an unity of misery, she
+was preparing the way for another unity. Common hatred engendered
+common love; common sufferings led on to a common effort. If some
+prejudices passed away under the Napoleonic rule, many more still
+remained, and possibly, to eradicate so old an evil, no cure less
+drastic than universal servitude would have sufficed. Italians felt
+for the first time what before only the greatest among them had
+felt--that they were brothers in one household, children of one mother
+whom they were bound to redeem. Jealousies and millennial feuds died
+out; the intense municipal spirit which, imperfect as it was, had yet
+in it precious political germs, widened into patriotism. Italy was
+re-born.
+
+Black, however, was the present outlook. Total commercial stagnation
+and famine increased the sentiment of unmitigated hopelessness which
+spread through the land. The poet Monti, who, alas! sang for bread the
+festival songs of the Austrians as he had sung those of Napoleon, said
+in private to an Englishman who asked him why he did not give his
+voice to the liberties of his country which he desired, though he did
+not expect to see them: 'It would be _vox clamantis in deserto_;
+besides, how can the grievances of Italy be made known? No one dares
+to write--scarcely to think--politics; if truth is to be told, it must
+be told by the English; England is the only tribunal yet open to the
+complaints of Europe.' A greater poet and nobler man, Ugo Foscolo, had
+but lately uttered a wail still more despondent: 'Italy will soon be
+nothing but a lifeless carcass, and her generous sons should only
+weep in silence without the impotent complaints and mutual
+recriminations of slaves.' That as patriotic a heart as ever beat
+should have been afflicted to this point by the canker of despair
+tells of the quagmire--not only political but spiritual--into which
+Italy was sunk. The first thing needful was to restore the people to
+consciousness, to animation of some sort, it did not matter what, so
+it were a sign of life. Foscolo himself, who impressed on what he
+wrote his own proud and scornful temperament, almost savage in its
+independence, fired his countrymen to better things than the
+despairing inertia which he preached. Few works have had more effect
+than his _Letters of Jacobo Ortis_. As often happens with books which
+strongly move contemporaries, the reader may wonder now what was the
+secret of its power, but if the form and sentiment of the Italian
+_Werther_ strike us as antiquated, the intense, though melancholy
+patriotism that pervades it explains the excitement it caused when
+patriotism was a statutory offence. Such mutilated copies as were
+allowed to pass by the censor were eagerly sought; the young read it,
+women read it--who so rarely read--the mothers of the fighters of
+to-morrow. Foscolo's life gave force to his words: when all were
+flattering Napoleon, he had reminded him that no man can be rightly
+praised till he is dead, and that his one sure way of winning the
+praise of posterity was to establish the independence of Italy. The
+warning was contained in a 'discourse' which Foscolo afterwards
+printed with the motto from Sophocles: 'My soul groans for my country,
+for myself and for thee.' Sooner than live under the Austrians, he
+went into voluntary exile, and finally took refuge in England, where
+he was the _feted_ lion of a season, and then forgotten, and left
+almost without the necessaries of life. No one was much to blame;
+Foscolo was born to misunderstand and to be misunderstood; he hid
+himself to hide his poverty, which, had it been known, might have been
+alleviated. His individual tragedy seemed a part of the universal
+tragedy.
+
+With Foscolo, his literary predecessor Alfieri must be mentioned as
+having helped in rekindling the embers, of patriotic feeling, because,
+though dead, he spoke; and his plays, one of which was prophetically
+dedicated _al libero Popolo Italiano_, had never been so much read.
+The _Misogallo_, published for the first time after the fall of
+Napoleon, though aimed at the French, served equally well as an
+onslaught on every foreign dominion or even moral or intellectual
+influence. 'Shall _we_ learn liberty of the Gauls, _we_ who taught
+every lofty thing to others?' was a healthy remonstrance to a race
+that had lost faith in itself; and the Austrians were wise in
+discountenancing the sale of a work that contained the line which gave
+a watchword to the future:--
+
+      _Schiavi or siam si; ma schiavi almen frementi_.
+
+Like Foscolo's, Alfieri's life was a lesson in independence: angry at
+the scant measure of freedom in Piedmont, he could never be induced to
+go near his sovereign till Charles Emmanuel was staying at Florence as
+a proscript. Then the poet went to pay his respects to him, and was
+received with the good-humoured banter: 'Well, Signor Conte, here am
+I, a king, in the condition you would like to see them all.'
+
+Against the classical, not to say pagan, leanings of these two poets,
+a reaction set in with Alessandro Manzoni, the founder of Italian
+Romanticism, to which he gave an aspect differing from that which the
+same movement wore in France, because he was an ardent Catholic at a
+time when Christianity had almost the charm of novelty. His religious
+outpourings combine the fervour of the Middle Ages with modern
+expansion, and he freed the Italian language from pedantic
+restrictions without impairing its dignity. It was once the fashion to
+inveigh against Manzoni for, as it was said, inculcating resignation;
+but he did nothing of the kind. As a young man he had sung of the
+Italians as 'Figli tutti d'un solo Riscatto,' and though he was not of
+those who fight either with the sword or the pen, yet that 'Riscatto'
+was the dream of his youth and manhood, and the joy of his old age.
+His gentleness was never contaminated by servility, and the love for
+his country, profound if placid, which appears in every line of his
+writings, appealed to a class that could not be reached by fiery
+turbulence of thought.
+
+In an age when newspapers have taken the place of books, it may seem
+strange to ascribe any serious effect to the works of poets and
+romancists; but in the Italy of that date there were no newspapers to
+speak of; the ordinary channels of opinion were blocked up. Books were
+still not only read, but discussed and thought over, and every slight
+allusion to the times was instantly applied. In the prevailing
+listlessness, the mere fact of increased mental activity was of
+importance. A spark of genius does much to raise a nation. It is in
+itself the incontrovertible proof that the race lives: a dead people
+does not produce men of genius. Whatever awakes one part of the
+intelligence reacts on all its parts. You cannot lift, any more than
+you can degrade, the heart of man piecemeal. In this sense not
+literature only but also music helped, who can say how effectually, to
+bring Italy back to life. The land was refreshed by a flood of purely
+national song, full of the laughter and the tears of Italian
+character, of the sunshine and the storms of Italian nature. Music,
+the only art uncageable as the human soul, descended as a gift from
+heaven upon the people whose articulate utterance was stifled. And
+
+   ... No speech may evince
+  Feeling like music.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE WORK OF THE CARBONARI
+
+1815-1821
+
+Revolutions in the Kingdom of Naples and in Piedmont--The Conspiracy
+against Charles Albert.
+
+
+Considering what the state of the country was after 1815, and how
+apparently inexhaustible were the resources of the Empire of which the
+petty princes of the peninsula were but puppets, it is remarkable that
+political agitation, with a view to reversing the decisions of Vienna,
+should have begun so soon, and on so large a scale. Not that the
+nation, as a whole, was yet prepared to move; every revolution, till
+1848, was partial in the sense that the mass of the people stood
+aloof, because unconvinced of the possibility of loosening their
+chains. But, during that long succession of years, the number of
+Italians ready to embark on enterprises of the most desperate
+character, accounting as nothing the smallness of the chance of
+success, seems enormous when the risks they ran and the difficulties
+they faced are fully recognised. Among the means which were effective
+in first rousing Italy from her lethargy, and in fostering the will to
+acquire her independence at all costs, the secret society of the
+Carbonari undoubtedly occupies the front rank. The Carbonari acted in
+two ways; by what they did and by what they caused to be done by
+others who were outside their society, and perhaps unfavourable to it,
+but who were none the less sensible of the pressure it exercised. The
+origin of Carbonarism has been sought in vain; as a specimen of the
+childish fables that once passed for its history may be noticed the
+legend that Francis I. of France once stumbled on a charcoal burner's
+hut when hunting 'on the frontiers of his kingdom next to Scotland,'
+and was initiated into the rites similar to those in use among the
+sectaries of the nineteenth century. Those rites referred to vengeance
+which was to be taken on the wolf that slew the lamb; the wolf
+standing for tyrants and oppressors, and the lamb for Jesus Christ,
+the sinless victim, by whom all the oppressed were represented. The
+Carbonari themselves generally believed that they were heirs to an
+organisation started in Germany before the eleventh century, under the
+name of the Faith of the Kohlen-Brenners, of which Theobald de Brie,
+who was afterwards canonised, was a member. Theobald was adopted as
+patron saint of the modern society, and his fancied portrait figured
+in all the lodges. That any weight should have been attached to these
+pretensions to antiquity may appear strange to us, as it certainly did
+not matter whether an association bent on the liberation of Italy had
+or had not existed in German forests eight hundred years before; age
+and mystery, however, have a great popular attraction, the first as an
+object of reverence, the second as food for curiosity with the
+profane, and a bond of union among the initiated. The religious
+symbolism of the Carbonari, their oaths and ceremonies, and the axes,
+blocks and other furniture of the initiatory chamber, were well
+calculated to impress the poorer and more ignorant and excitable of
+the brethren. The Vatican affected to believe that Carbonarism was an
+offshoot of Freemasonry, but, in spite of sundry points of
+resemblance, such as the engagements of mutual help assumed by
+members, there seems to have been no real connection between the two.
+Political Freemasonry remained somewhat of an exotic in Italy, and was
+inclined to regard France as its centre. As far as can be ascertained,
+it gave a general support to Napoleon, while Carbonarism rejected
+every foreign yoke. The practical aims of the Carbonari may be summed
+up in two words: freedom and independence. From the first they had the
+penetration to grasp the fact that independence, even if obtained,
+could not be preserved without freedom; but though their predilections
+were theoretically republican, they did not make a particular form of
+government a matter of principle. Nor were they agreed in a definite
+advocacy of the unity of Italy.
+
+A Genoese of the name of Malghella, who was Murat's Minister of
+Police, was the first person to give a powerful impetus to
+Carbonarism, of which he has even been called the inventor, but the
+inference goes too far. Malghella ended miserably; after the fall of
+Murat he was arrested by the Austrians, who consigned him as a new
+subject to the Sardinian Government, which immediately put him in
+prison. His name is hardly known, but no Italian of his time worked
+more assiduously, or in some respects more intelligently, for the
+emancipation of Italy. Whatever was truly Italian in Murat's policy
+must be mainly attributed to him. As early as 1813 he urged the King
+to declare himself frankly for independence, and to grant a
+constitution to his Neapolitan subjects. But Malghella did not find
+the destined saviour of Italy in Murat; his one lasting work was to
+establish Carbonarism on so strong a basis that, when the Bourbons
+returned, there were thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of
+Carbonari in all parts of the realm. The discovery was not a pleasant
+one to the restored rulers, and the Prince of Canosa, the new Minister
+of Police, thought to counteract the evil done by his predecessor by
+setting up an abominable secret society called the Calderai del
+Contrapeso (Braziers of the Counterpoise), principally recruited from
+the refuse of the people, lazzaroni, bandits and let-out convicts, who
+were provided by Government with 20,000 muskets, and were sworn to
+exterminate all enemies of the Church of Rome, whether Jansenists,
+Freemasons or Carbonari. This association committed some horrible
+excesses, but otherwise it had no results. The Carbonari closed in
+their ranks, and learnt to observe more strictly their rules of
+secrecy. From the kingdom of Naples, Carbonarism spread to the Roman
+states, and found a congenial soil in Romagna, which became the focus
+whence it spread over the rest of Italy. It was natural that it should
+take the colour, more or less, of the places where it grew. In
+Romagna, where political assassination is in the blood of the people,
+a dagger was substituted for the symbolical woodman's axe in the
+initiatory rites. It was probably only in Romagna that the
+conventional threat against informers was often carried out. The
+Romagnols invested Carbonarism with the wild intensity of their own
+temperament, resolute even to crime, but capable of supreme impersonal
+enthusiasm. The ferment of expectancy that prevailed in Romagna is
+reflected in the Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, whom young Count
+Pietro Gamba made a Carbonaro, and who looked forward to seeing the
+Italians send the barbarians of all nations back to their own dens, as
+to the most interesting spectacle and moment in existence. His lower
+apartments, he writes, were full of the bayonets, fusils and
+cartridges of his Carbonari cronies; 'I suppose that they consider me
+as a depot, to be sacrificed in case of accidents. It is no great
+matter, supposing that Italy could be liberated, who or what is
+sacrificed. It is a grand object--the very poetry of politics. Only
+think--free Italy!!! Why, there has been nothing like it since the
+days of Augustus.'
+
+The movement on which such great hopes were set was to begin in the
+kingdom of Naples in the spring of 1820. The concession of the
+hard-won Spanish Constitution in the month of March encouraged the
+Neapolitans to believe that they might get a like boon from their own
+King if they directed all the forces at their command to this single
+end. To avoid being compromised, they sought rather to dissociate
+themselves from the patriots of other parts of Italy than to
+co-operate with them in an united effort. The Carbonari of the
+Neapolitan kingdom, who were the entire authors of the revolution,
+which, after many unfortunate delays, broke out on the 1st of July,
+had good cause for thinking that they were in a position to dictate
+terms; the mistake they made was to suppose that a charter conceded by
+a Bourbon of Naples could ever be worth the paper on which it was
+written. Not only among the people, but in the army the Carbonari had
+thousands of followers on whom they could rely, and several whole
+regiments were only waiting their orders to rise in open revolt. The
+scheme was to take possession of the persons of the King and the royal
+family, and retain them as hostages till the Constitution was granted.
+Such extreme measures were not necessary. The standard of rebellion
+was raised at Monteforte by two officers named Morelli and Silvati,
+who had brought over a troop of cavalry from Nola, and by the priest
+Menechini. In all Neapolitan insurrections there was sure to be a
+priest; the Neapolitan Church, much though there is to be laid to its
+account, must be admitted to have frequently shown sympathy with the
+popular side. Menechini enjoyed an immense, if brief, popularity which
+he used to allay the anger of the mob and to procure the safety of
+obnoxious persons. The King sent two generals and a body of troops
+against the Chartists, but when the Carbonari symbols were recognised
+on the insurgent flags, the troops showed such clear signs of wishing
+to go over to the enemy that they were quietly taken back to Naples.
+The cry of 'God, the King, and the Constitution,' was taken up through
+the land; General Pepe, who had long been a Carbonaro in secret, was
+enthusiastically hailed as commander of the Chartist forces, which
+practically comprised the whole army. The King was powerless; besides
+which, when pushed up into any corner people who do not mind breaking
+their word have a facility for hard swearing. On the 13th of July,
+Ferdinand standing at the altar of the royal chapel, with his hand on
+the Bible, swore to defend and maintain the Constitution which he had
+just granted. If he failed to do so, he called upon his subjects to
+disobey him, and God to call him to account. These words he read from
+a written form; as if they were not enough, he added, with his eyes on
+the cross, and his face turned towards heaven: 'Omnipotent God, who
+with Thine infinite power canst read the soul of man and the future,
+do Thou, if I speak falsely, or intend to break my oath, at this
+moment direct the thunder of Thy vengeance on my head.'
+
+The Neapolitans had got their liberties, but they soon found
+themselves face to face with perplexities which would have taxed the
+powers of men both wiser and more experienced in free government than
+they were. In the first place, although a revolution may be made by a
+sect, a government cannot be carried on by one. The Carbonari who had
+won the day were blind to this self-evident truth; and, to make
+matters worse, there was a split in their party, some of them being
+disposed to throw off the Bourbon yoke altogether; a natural desire,
+but as it was only felt by a minority, it added to the general
+confusion. Then came, as it was sure to come, the cry for separation
+from Sicily. The Sicilians wanted back the violated constitution
+obtained for them by the English in 1812, and would have nothing to do
+with that offered them from Naples. In every one of the struggles
+between Sicily and Naples, it is impossible to refuse sympathy to the
+islanders, who, in the pride of their splendid independent history,
+deemed themselves the victims of an inferior race; but it is equally
+impossible to ignore that, politically, they were in the wrong. In
+union, and in union alone, lay the only chance of resisting the
+international plot to keep the South Italian populations in perpetual
+bondage. The Sicilian revolt was put down at first mildly, and
+finally, as mildness had no effect, with the usual violence by the
+Neapolitan Constitutional Government, which could not avoid losing
+credit and popularity in the operation. Meanwhile, the three persons
+who traded under the name of Europe met at Troppau, and came readily
+to the conclusion that 'the sovereigns of the Holy Alliance exercised
+an incontestable right in taking common measures of security against
+states which the overthrow of authority by revolt placed in a hostile
+attitude towards every legitimate government.' The assumption was too
+broadly stated, even for Lord Castlereagh's acceptance; but he was
+contented to make a gentle protest, which he further nullified by
+allowing that, in the present case, intervention was very likely
+justified. France expressed no disapproval. Only the Netherlands,
+Switzerland, Sweden and Spain gave the Constitutional _regime_ tacit
+support by recognising it. The Emperor of Russia was very anxious to
+take part in the business, and would have sent off an army instantly
+had not his royal brother of Prussia hesitated to consent to the
+inconvenience of a Cossack march through his territory. The work was
+left, therefore, to the Emperor of Austria. Before entering upon it,
+it occurred to these three to invite the King of Naples to meet them
+at Laybach. They knew his character.
+
+Ferdinand assured his Parliament that he was going to Laybach solely
+to induce the Holy Alliance to think better of its opposition, and to
+agree, at least, to all the principal features of the new state of
+things. Most foolishly the Parliament, which, according to the
+Constitution, might have vetoed his leaving the country, let him go.
+Before starting he wrote an open letter to his dear son, the Duke of
+Calabria, who was appointed Regent, in which he said: 'I shall defend
+the events of the past July before the Congress. I firmly desire the
+Spanish Constitution for my kingdom; and although I rely on the
+justice of the assembled sovereigns, and on their old friendship,
+still it is well to tell you that, in whatever circumstance it may
+please God to place me, my course will be what I have manifested on
+this sheet, strong and unchangeable either by force or by the flattery
+of others.'
+
+Brave words! News came in due time of the sequel. On the 9th of
+February 1821, the Regent received a letter from the King, in which he
+gave the one piece of advice that the people should submit to their
+fate quietly. He was coming back with 50,000 Austrians, and a Russian
+army was ready to start if wanted. Nevertheless, to prevent a sudden
+outbreak before the foreign troops arrived, the Regent carried on a
+game of duplicity to the last, and pretended to second, whilst he
+really baulked, the preparations for resistance decreed by Parliament.
+Baron Poerio, the father of two patriot martyrs of the future,
+sustained the national dignity by urging Parliament to yield only to
+force, and to defy the barbarous horde which was bearing down on the
+country. The closing scene is soon told. On the 7th of March, in the
+mountains near Rieti, General Guglielmo Pepe, with 8000 regular troops
+and a handful of militia, encountered an overwhelmingly superior force
+of Austrians. The Neapolitans stood out well for six hours, but on the
+Austrian reserves coming up, they were completely routed, and obliged
+to fly in all directions.
+
+'Order reigned' in the kingdom of Naples. In Sicily, a gallant attempt
+at insurrection was begun, but there was not the spirit to go on with
+it, and General Rossaroll, its initiator, had to fly to Spain. The
+afterpiece is what might have been expected; an insensate desire for
+vengeance got hold of Ferdinand, and the last years of his life were
+spent in hunting down his enemies, real or imaginary. Morelli and
+Silvati were hung, the fugitives, Pepe and Rossaroll, were condemned
+to death, but this was only the beginning. The Austrian commander
+counselled mercy, but in this respect the King showed an independent
+mind. A court-martial was instituted to examine the conduct of
+ecclesiastics, public functionaries and soldiers, from the year 1793
+downwards. No one was safe who had expressed a dislike of absolutism
+within the last thirty years. A blameless gentleman who was a
+Carbonaro, was conducted through Naples on the back of an ass, and
+beaten with a whip, to which nails were attached. Eight hundred
+persons are said to have perished at the hands of the state in one
+year. Ferdinand himself expired on the 3rd of January 1825, after
+misgoverning for sixty-five years.
+
+The Neapolitan revolution had just collapsed, when another broke out
+in Piedmont, which, though short in duration, was to have far-reaching
+consequences.
+
+At that time, the King of Sardinia was Victor Emmanuel I., who
+succeeded his brother Charles Emmanuel in 1802, when the latter
+abdicated and retired to Rome, where he joined the Society of Jesus.
+Victor Emmanuel's only son was dead, and the throne would devolve on
+his youngest brother, Charles Felix, Duke of Genoa, whom reasons of
+state led to abandon the wish to become a monk, which he had formed as
+a boy of eleven, on being taken to visit a convent near Turin. But
+Charles Felix, though married, was without children, and the
+legitimate heir-presumptive was Charles Albert, Prince of Carignano,
+who represented the younger branch of the family, which divided from
+the main line in the early part of the seventeenth century. Charles
+Albert's father was the luckless Prince Charles of Carignano, who,
+alone of his house, came to terms with Napoleon, who promised him a
+pension, which was not paid. His mother, a Saxon Princess, paraded the
+streets of Turin, dressed in the last republican fashion, with her
+infant son in her arms. Afterwards, she gave him a miscellaneous
+education, that included a large dose of Rousseau from a Swiss
+professor. The boy was shifted from place to place, happier when his
+mother forgot him, than when, in temporary recollection of his
+existence, she called him to her. Once when he was travelling with the
+Princess and her second husband, M. de Montleart, Charles Albert was
+made to sit on the box of the carriage, in a temperature many degrees
+below zero.
+
+His uncles (as the King and Charles Felix called themselves, though
+they were his cousins) heard with natural horror of the vagaries of
+the Princess of Carignano, and they extended their antipathy from the
+mother to the son, even when he was a child. In Victor Emmanuel, this
+antipathy was moderated by the easy good-nature of his character; in
+Charles Felix, it degenerated into an intense hatred.
+
+It is a singular thing that Prince Metternich, from the very first,
+had an instinctive feeling that the unfortunate boy, who seemed the
+most hopeless and helpless of human creatures, would prove the evil
+genius of the Austrian power. He therefore set to work to deprive him
+of his eventual rights. He was confident of success, as fortune had
+arranged matters in a manner that offered a ready-made plan for
+carrying out the design. Victor Emmanuel had four daughters, precluded
+from reigning by the Salic law, which was in force in Piedmont. His
+wife, the Queen Maria Teresa, a woman of great beauty and insatiable
+ambition, was sister to the Austrian Archduke Francis d'Este, Duke of
+Modena. Francis had never married, having been robbed of his intended
+bride, the Archduchess Marie-Louise, by her betrothal to Napoleon.
+What simpler than to marry the eldest of the Sardinian princesses to
+her uncle, abrogate the Salic law, and calmly await the desired
+consummation of an Austrian prince, by right of his wife, occupying
+the Sardinian throne?
+
+The first step was soon taken; princesses came into the world to be
+sacrificed. The plot ran on for some time, the Queen, who was in the
+habit of calling Charles Albert 'that little vagrant,' giving it her
+indefatigable support. Victor Emmanuel was weak, and stood in
+considerable awe of his wife, who had obtained a great ascendancy over
+him in the miserable days of their residence in the island of
+Sardinia. His nephew, who was almost or wholly unknown to him, partook
+of the nature of a disagreeable myth. Nevertheless he had a sense of
+justice, as well as Savoy blood, in his veins--he resisted; but the
+day came when his surrender seemed probable. Just at that moment,
+however, the Duke of Modena prematurely revealed the project by asking
+through his representative at the Congress of Vienna for the port of
+Spezia, in order that he might conveniently connect his own state with
+his prospective possession, the island of Sardinia. Prince Talleyrand
+was alarmed by the vision of Austria supreme in the Mediterranean, and
+through his opposition the conspiracy, for the time, was upset, and
+the rights of Charles Albert were recognised.
+
+Curiously enough, Prince Metternich had insisted on the young Prince,
+then seventeen, visiting the headquarters of the Allies. Charles Felix
+(who was unconnected with the Modena scheme) wrote a letter to the
+King on this subject, in which he stated it as his belief that the
+Austrian plan was to get Charles Albert accidentally killed, or to
+plunge him in vice, or to make him contract a discreditable marriage.
+This was why they had invited him to their camp. He adds the
+characteristic remark that their nephew would be in no less danger at
+the headquarters of the Duke of Wellington 'a cause de la religion.'
+Have him home and have him married, is his advice. 'We are well
+treated, because there is the expectation of soon devouring our
+remains by extinguishing the House of Savoy. It is the habit of the
+cabinet of Vienna; it was thus they made an end of the House of Este.'
+
+These counsels were the more likely to impress Victor Emmanuel from
+his knowledge that they were inspired by no shadow of personal
+interest in 'the little vagrant,' but by the race-feeling alone. The
+Queen contrived to prevent the immediate recall of the Prince of
+Carignano, but she was obliged to give way, and he was definitely
+established in Piedmont. In 1818 he was married at Florence to the
+Archduchess Maria Teresa of Tuscany, who, on the 14th of March 1820,
+gave birth to the child that was to become the first King of Italy.
+
+Very soon after his return to his country, the hopes of the Liberal
+party began to centre in the young Prince, whom some of their more
+ardent spirits already saluted as the rising sun. Those who made his
+acquaintance were fascinated by the charm of manner which he could
+always exert when he chose, and were confirmed in their hopes by his
+evident susceptibility to the magnetism of new ideas and fatalistic
+ambitions. What they did not perceive was, that in his nature lay
+that ingrained tendency to drift before the wind, which is the most
+dangerous thing in politics. In the mid-sea of events he might
+change his course without conscious insincerity, but with the
+self-abandonment of a mind which, under pressure, loses the sense of
+personal responsibility.
+
+In Piedmont, Carbonarism had made great way among the upper classes
+and among the younger officers; the flower of the country was enrolled
+in its ranks, and the impatience to take some action towards procuring
+free institutions for themselves, and doing something for their
+Lombard brothers, had reached fever heat in the spring of 1821, when
+the affairs of Naples were creating much excitement. The principal
+conspirators, noble young men, full of unselfish ardour, were the
+chosen friends and companions of the Prince of Carignano. It was
+formerly the opinion that they made him the confidant of their plans
+from the first, that he was one of them, in short--a Carbonaro bound
+by all the oaths and obligations of the society. The judgment of his
+conduct afterwards is, of course, much affected by this point; were
+the assumption correct, the invectives launched against him, not by
+any means only by republican writers, would hardly seem excessive. But
+by the light of documents issued in recent times, it appears more just
+as well as more charitable to suppose that Charles Albert's complicity
+was of a much less precise character. A little encouragement from a
+prince goes a long way.
+
+According to his own account, he was taken by surprise when, on the
+and or 3rd of March, his friends Carail, Collegno, Santa Rosa and
+Lisio came to tell him in secret that they belonged to societies
+which had been long working for the independence of Italy, and that
+they reckoned on him, knowing well his affection for his country, to
+aid them in obtaining from the King some few first concessions, which
+would be the prelude of a glorious future. It is clear that he ought
+either to have broken with them altogether from that moment or to have
+cast his lot with them for good or evil. He tried a middle course. He
+induced the conspirators to put off the revolution by which they
+intended to enforce their demands, and he conveyed to the King
+information of what had happened, asking at the same time that no
+measures should be taken against incriminated persons.
+
+In fact, no precautions of any kind seem to have been taken. Victor
+Emmanuel, frightened at first, was soon reassured. The revolution, which
+was to have begun on the 8th, actually broke out on the 10th of March at
+Alessandria, where the counter orders issued at Charles. Albert's
+request, after the interview just described, were not obeyed. The
+garrison 'pronounced' in favour of the Spanish Constitution. It was now
+impossible to draw back. From Alessandria the revolution spread to the
+capital. The bulk of the army sympathised with the movement, and relied
+on the support of the people. The greatest ladies mixed with the crowds
+which gathered under the Carbonaro flag--black, blue and red. On the
+other hand, there were a few devoted servants of the House of Savoy who
+beheld these novelties with the sensations of a quiet person who sees
+from his window the breaking loose of a menagerie. Invincibly ignorant
+of all that was really inspiring in this first breath of freedom, they
+saw nothing in it but an unwarrantable attack on the authority of their
+amiable, if weak, old King, for whom they would gladly have shed every
+drop of their blood--not from the rational esteem which the people of
+Italy, like the people of England, now feel for their sovereign, but
+from the pure passion of loyalty which made the cavalier stand blindly
+by his prince, whether he was good or bad, in the right or in the wrong.
+Men of their type watched the evolution of Piedmont into Italy from
+first to last with the same presentiment of evil, the same moral
+incapacity of appreciation. A handful of these loyal servitors hurried
+to Victor Emmanuel to offer their assistance. They marshalled their
+troop in battle-array in the courtyard of the palace. Their arms were
+antiquated pistols and rapiers, and they themselves were veterans, some
+of them of eighty years, mounted on steeds as ancient. The King thanked
+them, but declined their services; nor would he give _carte blanche_ to
+Captain Raimondi, who assured him that with his one company he could
+suppress the insurrection if invested with full powers. Soon after this
+refusal, a firing of guns announced that the citadel was in the hands
+of the insurgents. The troops within and without fraternised; it was a
+fine moment for those who knew history and who were bent in their hearts
+on driving the foreigner out of Italy. Here at the citadel of Turin,
+during the siege of 1706, occurred the memorable deed of Pietro Micca,
+the peasant-soldier, who, when he heard the enemy thundering at the door
+of the gallery, thought life and the welcome of wife and child and the
+happy return to his village of less account than duty, and fired the
+mine which sent him and three companies of French Grenadiers to their
+final reckoning.
+
+After vacillating for two or three days, Victor Emmanuel abdicated on
+the 13th of March. The Queen desired to be appointed regent, but, to
+her intense vexation, the appointment was given to Charles Albert. A
+more unenviable honour never fell to the lot of man.
+
+Deserted by the ministers of the crown, who resigned in a body, alone
+in the midst of a triumphant revolution, appealed to in the name of
+those sentiments of patriotism which he could never hear invoked
+unmoved, the young Prince uttered the words which were as good as a
+surrender: 'I, too, am an Italian!' That evening he allowed the
+Spanish Constitution to be proclaimed subject to the arrival of the
+orders of the new King.
+
+The new King! No one remembered that there existed such a person. Nor
+had anyone recollected that the Spanish Constitution abrogated the
+Salic law, and that hence, instead of a new King, they had a new
+Queen--the wife of the Duke of Modena! An eminent Turinese
+jurisconsulist, who was probably the only possessor of a copy of the
+charter in the town which was screaming itself hoarse for it, divulged
+this awkward discovery.--Several hours were spent in anxious
+discussion, when the brilliant suggestion was made that the article
+should be cancelled. The article was cancelled.
+
+But Charles Felix could not be disposed of so easily. The news of the
+late events reached him at Modena of all places in the world, the
+rallying-point of the Prince of Carignano's bitterest foes. He was not
+long in sending his orders. He repudiated everything that had been
+done, and commanded Charles Albert, 'if he had a drop of our royal
+blood left in his veins,' to leave the capital instantly for Novara,
+where he was to await his further instructions.
+
+Charles Albert obeyed. He was accompanied on his journey--or, as it
+may be called, his flight--by such of the troops as remained loyal.
+At Novara he found a sentence of exile, in a fresh order, to quit
+Piedmontese territory. Tuscany was indicated as the state where he was
+to reside.
+
+The Austrians crossed the frontier with the consent of the King.
+Charles Felix's opinion of Austria has been already given; another
+time he said: 'Austria is a sort of bird-lime which, if you get it on
+your fingers, you can never rub off.' If anything was needed to
+increase his loathing for the revolution, it was the necessity in
+which it placed him, as he thought, of calling in this unloved ally.
+But Charles Felix was not the man to hesitate. Not caring a straw for
+the privilege of wearing a crown himself, his belief in the divine
+right of kings, and the obligation to defend it, amounted to
+monomania. The Austrian offer was therefore accepted. On her part
+Austria declined the obliging proposal of the Czar of a loan of
+100,000 men. She felt that she could do the work unaided, nor was she
+mistaken.
+
+On the 8th of April the Constitutionalist troops which marched towards
+Novara, sanguine that the loyal regiments there quartered would end by
+joining them, were met by an armed resistance, in which the
+newly-arrived Austrians assisted. Their defeat was complete, and it
+was the signal of the downfall of the revolution. The leaders retired
+from Turin to Alessandria, and thence to Genoa, that had risen last
+and was last to submit. Thus most of them escaped by sea, which was
+fortunate, as Charles Felix had the will to establish a White Terror,
+and was only prevented by the circumstance that nearly all the
+proposed victims were outside his kingdom. Capital sentences were sent
+after them by the folio: there was hardly a noble family which had not
+one of its members condemned to death. When his brother, Victor
+Emmanuel, recommended mercy, he told him that he was entirely ready
+to give him back the crown, but that, while he reigned, he should
+reign after his own ideas. He seems to have had thoughts of hanging
+the Prince of Carignano, and for a long time he seriously meant to
+devise the kingdom to his son, the infant Prince Victor. Thus a new
+set of obstacles arose between Charles Albert and the throne.
+
+Of the personal friends of that ill-starred Prince all escaped. One of
+them, the noble-minded Count Santorre di Santa Rosa, died fighting for
+liberty in Greece. In the miseries of exile and poverty he had never
+lost faith in his country, but fearlessly maintained that 'the
+emancipation of Italy was an event of the nineteenth century.' To
+another, Giacinta di Collegno, it was reserved to receive the dying
+breath of Charles Albert, when as an exiled and crownless king he
+found rest, at last, at Oporto.
+
+There were deeper reasons than any which appear on the surface for the
+failure of the revolutionary movements of this period. North and
+south, though the populations exhibited a childish delight at the
+overthrow of the old, despotic form of government, their effervescence
+ended as rapidly as it began. They did not really understand what was
+going on. 'By-the-bye, what _is_ this same constitution they are
+making such a noise about?' asked a lazzarone who had been shouting
+'Viva la Costituzione' all the day. Within a few weeks of the
+breakdown at Novara, Count Confalonieri wrote wisely to Gino Capponi
+that revolutions are not made by high intelligences, but by the masses
+which are moved by enthusiasm, and for a possibility of success, the
+word Constitution, the least magical of words, should have been
+replaced by the more comprehensible and stirring call: 'War to the
+stranger.' But this, instead of sounding from every housetop, was
+purposely stifled at Naples, and kept a mysterious secret in
+Piedmont.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PRISON AND SCAFFOLD
+
+1821-1831
+
+Political Trials in Venetia and Lombardy--Risings in the South and
+Centre--Ciro Menotti.
+
+
+The Austrians fully expected a rising in Lombardy in the middle of
+March, and that they were not without serious fears as to its
+consequences is proved by the preparations which they quietly made to
+abandon Milan, if necessary. The Court travelling-carriages were got
+ready, and the younger princes were sent away. Carbonarism had been
+introduced into Lombardy the year before by two Romagnols, Count
+Laderchi and Pietro Maroncelli. It was their propaganda that put the
+Austrian Government on the alert, and was the cause of the Imperial
+decree which denounced the society as a subversive conspiracy, aiming
+at the destruction of all constituted authority, and pointed to death
+and confiscation of property as the penalty for joining it. There was
+the additional clause, destined to bear terrible fruit, which declared
+accomplices, punishable with life-imprisonment, all who knew of the
+existence of lodges (_Vendite_, as they were called) or the names of
+associates, without informing the police. In the autumn of 1820,
+Maroncelli and many others, including Silvio Pellico, the young
+Piedmontese poet, were arrested as Carbonari, while the arrest of the
+so-called accomplices began with Count Giovanni Arrivabene of Mantua,
+who had no connection with the society, but was charged with having
+heard from Pellico that he was a member. Pellico and his companions
+were still lying untried in the horrible Venetian prisons, called,
+from their leaden roofs, the 'Piombi,' when the events of 1821 gave
+rise to a wholesale batch of new arrests. As soon as they knew of a
+movement in Piedmont, the Lombard patriots prepared to co-operate in
+it; that they were actually able to do nothing, was because it broke
+out prematurely, and also, to some extent, because their head, Count
+Confalonieri, was incapacitated by severe illness. But though their
+activity profited not at all to the cause, it was fatal to
+themselves. The Austrian Government had, as has been stated, a
+correct general notion of what was going on, but at the beginning it
+almost entirely lacked proofs which could inculpate individuals. In
+the matter of arrests, however, there was one sovereign rule which all
+the despotic Governments in Italy could and did follow in every
+emergency: it was to lay hands on the most intelligent, distinguished
+and upright members of the community. This plan never failed; these
+were the patriots, the conspirators of those days. The second thing
+which the Austrians made a rule of doing, was to extort from the
+prisoners some incautious word, some shadow of an assent or admission
+which would place them on the track of other compromised persons, and
+furnish them with such scraps of evidence as they deemed sufficient,
+in order to proceed against those already in their power. In their
+secret examination of prisoners, they had reduced the system of
+provocative interrogation to a science. They made use of every
+subterfuge, and, above all, of fabricated confessions fathered on
+friends of the prisoner, to extract the exclamation, the nod of the
+head, the confused answer, which served their purpose. The prisoners,
+men of good faith, and inexperienced in the arts of deception, were
+but children in their hands, and scarcely one of them was not doomed
+to be the involuntary cause of some other person's ruin--generally
+that of a dear and intimate friend.
+
+The first to be arrested was Gaetano De-Castillia, who went with the
+Marquis Giorgio Pallavicini on a mission to Piedmont while the
+revolution there was at its height. They even had an interview with
+the Prince of Carignano, 'a pale and tall young man, with a charming
+expression' (so Pallavicini describes him), but had obtained from him
+no assurance, except the characteristic parting word: 'Let us hope in
+the future.' When De-Castillia was arrested, Pallavicini, then a youth
+of twenty, and full of noble sentiments, rushed to the director of the
+police with the avowal: 'It was I who induced De-Castillia to go to
+Piedmont; if the journey was a crime, the fault is mine; punish me!'
+No error could have proved more calamitous; till that moment the
+Austrians were in ignorance of the Piedmontese mission; De-Castillia
+was arrested on some far more trifling charge. Pallavicini's generous
+folly was rewarded by fourteen years' imprisonment, and its first
+consequence was the arrest of Count Confalonieri, at whose instance
+the visit to Turin had been made. For months the Austrians had desired
+to have a clue against him; the opportunity was come at last.
+
+Federico Confalonieri, brilliant, handsome, persuasive, of great
+wealth and ancient lineage, innately aristocratic, but in the best
+sense, was morally at the head of Lombardy, by the selection of the
+fittest, which at certain junctures makes one man pre-appointed leader
+while he is still untried. When in England, the Duke of Sussex
+prevailed upon him to become a Freemason, but he was not a Carbonaro
+in the technical sense, though both friends and foes believed him to
+be one. He knew, however, more about this and the other secret
+societies then existing in Italy--even those of the reactionary
+party--than did most of the initiated. In an amusing passage in his
+memoirs he relates how, when once forcibly detained in a miserable
+hostelry in the Calabrian Mountains, a den of brigands, of whom the
+chief was the landlord, he guessed that this man was a Calderaio, and
+it occurred to him to make the sign of that bloodthirsty sect. Things
+changed in a second; the brigand innkeeper was at his feet, the
+complete household was set in motion to serve him. In 1821, he
+founded at Milan, not a secret society, but an association in which
+all the best patriots were enrolled, and of which the sole engagement
+was the formula, repeated on entering its ranks: 'I swear to God, and
+on my honour, to exert myself to the utmost of my power, and even at
+the sacrifice of my life, to redeem Italy from foreign dominion.'
+
+Knowing to what extent he was a marked man, Confalonieri would have
+only exercised common prudence in leaving the country, but he could
+not reconcile himself to the idea of flight. Anonymous warnings rained
+upon him: most likely they all came from the same quarter, from Count
+Bubna, the Austrian Field-Marshal, with whom Confalonieri was
+personally on friendly terms. On the 12th of December the Countess
+Bubna made a last effort to save him; her carriage was ready, she
+implored him to take it and escape across the frontier. He refused,
+and next day he was arrested.
+
+Austrian legal procedure was slow; the trial of the first Carbonari,
+Silvio Pellico and his companions, did not take place till 1822. On
+the 22nd of February the sentence of death was read to Silvio Pellico
+in his Venetian prison, to be commuted to one of fifteen years'
+imprisonment at Spielberg, a fortress converted into a convict prison
+in a bleak position in Moravia. To that rock of sorrow, consecrated
+for ever by the sufferings of some of the purest of men, Silvio
+Pellico and Pietro Maroncelli, with nine or ten companions, condemned
+at the same time, were the first Italians to take the road. Here they
+remained for the eight years described by the author of _Francesca da
+Rimini_, in _Le Mie Prigioni_, a book that served the Italian cause
+throughout the world. Even now some Italians are indignant at the
+spirit of saintly resignation which breathes upon Silvio Pellico's
+pages, at the veil which is drawn over many shocking features in the
+treatment of the prisoners; they do not know the tremendous force
+which such reticence gave his narrative. _Le Mie Prigioni_ has the
+reserve strength of a Greek tragedy.
+
+Maroncelli contracted a disease of the leg through the hardships
+endured; amputation became necessary, but could not be performed till
+permission was received from Vienna--a detail showing the red-tapism
+which governed all branches of the Austrian administration. This
+patriot went, after his release, to America, where he died, poor,
+blind and mad. Pellico, crushed in soul, devoted his latter years
+entirely to religion. Only men of iron fibre could come out as they
+went in. The Spielberg prisoners wore chains, and their food was so
+bad and scanty that they suffered from continual hunger, with its
+attendant diseases. Unlike the thieves and assassins confined in the
+same fortress, the State prisoners were given no news of their
+families. Such was Spielberg, 'a sepulchre without the peace of the
+dead.'
+
+The State trials of the Lombard patriots in 1823 resulted in seven
+capital sentences on the Milanese, thirteen on the Brescians, and four
+on the Mantuans. The fate of the other prisoners depended on that of
+Count Confalonieri. If the sentence on him were not carried out, the
+lives at least of the others might be regarded as safe, since he was
+looked upon as the head. It is certain that the authorities, and the
+Emperor himself, had the most firm intention of having him executed;
+the more merciful decision was solely due to the Countess
+Confalonieri's journey to Vienna. Accompanied by the prisoner's aged
+father, this beautiful and heroic woman, a daughter of the noble
+Milanese house of Casati, went to Vienna before the conclusion of the
+trial, to be ready for any eventuality. When the sentence of death was
+passed, it was announced by the Emperor to old Count Confalonieri,
+whom he advised to return with the Countess Teresa as fast as possible
+if they wished to see the condemned man alive. Undaunted by the news,
+the brave wife sought an interview with the Empress, in whom she found
+a warm advocate, but who was obliged to own, after several attempts to
+obtain a reprieve, that she despaired of success. Teresa Confalonieri
+hurried back to Milan through the bitter winter weather, in doubt
+whether she should arrive before the execution had taken place. But
+the unceasing efforts of the Empress won the day. The respite was
+granted on the 13th of January; life-imprisonment was substituted for
+death. The countess sent her husband the pillow which she had bathed
+with her tears during her terrible journey; needless to say that it
+was not given to him. She died broken-hearted with waiting before he
+was set at liberty in the year 1836.
+
+When Count Confalonieri reached Vienna on his way to Spielberg, he was
+surprised to find himself installed in a luxurious apartment, with
+three servants to wait upon him. Though too ill to touch solid food, a
+sumptuous breakfast and dinner were daily set before him; and but for
+the constant jingle of his chains, he would have thought himself in a
+first-class hotel on a journey of pleasure. The object of these
+attentions was clear when one evening Prince Metternich came to see
+him, and stayed for three hours, endeavouring by every exquisite
+flattery, by every promise and persuasion, to worm out of him the
+secrets of which he alone was believed to be the depositary. The
+Austrian Government had spent L60,000 on the Milan Commission, and,
+practically, they were no wiser than when it began. Would Confalonieri
+enlighten them? Whatever scruples he might have felt during the trial
+could be now laid aside; there was no question of new arrests. It was
+from pure, abstract love of knowledge that the Government, or, rather,
+the Emperor, desired to get at the truth. If he preferred to open his
+mind to the Emperor in person, His Majesty would grant him a secret
+audience. Above all, what was the real truth about the Prince of
+Carignano?
+
+All the rest was a blind; it was the wish to have some damnatory
+evidence against Charles Albert, such as would for ever exclude him
+from the throne, that had induced the Emperor and his astute minister
+to make this final attempt.
+
+'Confalonieri need never go to Spielberg,' said the Prince; 'let him
+think of his family, of his adored wife, of his own talents, of his
+future career, which was on the brink of being blotted out as
+completely as if he were dead!' Confalonieri was worthy of his race,
+of his class, of himself; he stood firm, and next morning, almost with
+a sense of relief, he started for the living grave.
+
+'The struggle was decided,' Prince Metternich had said in the course
+of the interview, 'and decided not only for our own, but for many
+generations. Those who still hoped to the contrary were madmen.'
+
+Some years of outward quiet doubtless confirmed him in the first
+opinion, while the second was not likely to be shaken by the next
+attempt that was made to take up arms for freedom. On the 28th of June
+1828, several villages in the province of Salerno rose in obedience to
+the harangues of two patriotic ecclesiastics, Canon de Luca and Carlo
+da Celle, superior of a capuchin convent. This was meant to develop
+into a general insurrection, but it was nowhere followed up, and the
+sword of vengeance fell speedily on the wretched villagers. Surrounded
+by the royal troops, they were forced into submission, many were shot
+on the spot, others were dragged in chains to Salerno, not even a drop
+of water being allowed them during the journey under the scorching
+sun. The village of Bosco was rased to the ground. The priest, the
+monk, and twenty-two insurgents were shot after the repression. The
+heads of the victims were cut off and placed in iron cages where their
+wives or mothers were likely to see them. A woman went to Naples to
+beg for the pardon of her two grandsons, by name Diego and Emilio. The
+King, with barbarous clemency, told her to choose one. In vain she
+entreated that if both could not be saved the choice should be left to
+chance, or decided by someone else. But no; unless she chose they
+would both be shot. At last she chose Diego. Afterwards she went mad,
+and was constantly heard wailing: 'I have killed my grandson Emilio.'
+This anecdote gives a fair notion of Francis I., whose short reign
+was, however, less signalised by acts of cruelty, though there were
+enough of these, than by a venality never surpassed. The
+grooms-in-waiting and ladies-of-the-bedchamber sold the public offices
+in the daylight; and the King, who was aware of it, thought it a
+subject for vulgar jokes with his intimates. Francis died in 1830 of
+bad humour at the Paris revolution, and was succeeded by Ferdinand
+II., to be known hereafter as Bomba--then a clownish youth, one of
+whose first kingly cares was to create St Ignatius Loyola a
+Field-Marshal.
+
+The revolution which upset the throne of Charles X., and ushered in
+the eighteen years' reign of the Citizen King, seemed likely to have
+momentous consequences for Italy. The principle of non-intervention
+proclaimed by French politicians would, if logically enforced, sound
+the death-knell of the Austrian power in Italy. Dupin, the Minister of
+War, enlarged on the theme in a speech which appeared to remove all
+doubt as to the real intentions of the Government. 'One phrase,' he
+remarked, 'has made a general impression; it expresses the true
+position of a loyal and generous Government. Not only has the
+President of the Council laid down the principle that France should
+abstain from intervention; he has declared that she would not tolerate
+intervention on the part of others. France might have shut herself up
+in a cold egotism, and simply said that she would not intervene; this
+would have been contemptible, but the proclamation of not suffering
+the interventions of others is the noblest attitude a strong and
+magnanimous people can assume; it amounts to saying: Not only will I
+not attack or disturb other nations, but I, France, whose voice is
+respected by Europe and by the whole world, will never permit others
+to do so. This is the language held by the ministry and by the
+ambassadors of Louis Philippe; and it is this which the army, the
+National Guard, France entire, is ready to maintain.'
+
+Truly language was invented to travesty the truth, and when French
+politicians say they are going to the right it is an almost sure sign
+that they are going to the left; nevertheless, is it possible to blame
+the Italians who read in these assurances a positive promise affecting
+their own case?
+
+The same assurances were repeated again and again through the winter
+of 1830-31; they were repeated authoritatively as late as March in the
+latter year. Well may a French writer inquire: 'Was it insanity or
+treachery?'
+
+The good tidings were published by the Italian exiles, who, living
+close to the great centres of European politics, were the first to
+intoxicate themselves with the great delusion. From London, Gabriele
+Rossetti sent the exultant summons:
+
+  Cingi l'elmo, la mitra deponi,
+    O vetusta Signora del mondo:
+    Sorgi, sorgi dal sonno profondo,
+    Io son l'alba del nuovo tuo di.
+
+  Saran rotte le vostre catene,
+    O Fratelli che in ceppi languite;
+    O Fratelli che il giogo soffrite
+    Calcherete quel giogo col pie.
+
+The child beside whose cradle the ode was written, was to grow to
+manhood while Italy still remained 'the weeping, desolate mother.' The
+cry of the poet was not, however, without an echo. In 1831, Romagna,
+Parma and Modena rose in rebellion.
+
+Things had been going, without much variation, from bad to worse in
+the Roman states, ever since 1815. Pius VII. (Chiaramonti), who died
+in 1823, was succeeded by Leo XII. (Genga), an old man who was in such
+enfeebled health that his death was expected at the time of his
+election, but, like a more famous pontiff, he made a sudden recovery,
+which was attributed to the act of a prelate, who, in prayer, offered
+his own life for the Pope's, and who died a few days after resolving
+on the sacrifice. During this Pope's reign, the smallpox was rife in
+Rome, in consequence of the suppression of public vaccination. The
+next conclave, held in 1829, resulted in the election of Pius VIII.
+(Castiglioni da Cingoli), who died on the 30th of November 1830, and
+was followed by Gregory XVI. (Cappellari). In each conclave, Austria
+had secured the choice of a 'Zealot,' as the party afterwards called
+Ultramontane was then designated. The last traces of reforms
+introduced by the French disappeared; criminal justice was again
+administered in secret; the police were arbitrary and irresponsible.
+All over the Roman states, but especially in Romagna, the secret
+society of the Sanfedesti flourished exceedingly; whether, as is
+probable, an offshoot of the Calderai or of indigenous growth, its
+aims were the same. The affiliated swore to spill the last drop of the
+blood of the Liberals, without regard to sex or rank, and to spare
+neither children nor old men. Many Romagnols had left their country
+after the abortive agitation of 1821, and amongst these were the
+Gambas. Count Pietro died in Greece, where he had gone on the service
+of freedom. Had he lived, this young man would have been sure to win a
+fair name in the annals of Italian patriotism; he should not, as it
+is, be quite forgotten, as it was chiefly due to him that Byron's life
+took the redeeming direction which led to Missolonghi.
+
+In February 1831, Romagna and the Marches of Ancona threw off the
+Papal Government with an ease which must have surprised the most
+sanguine. The white, red and green tricolor was hoisted at Bologna,
+where, as far as is known, this combination of colours first became a
+political badge. Thirty-six years before Luigi Zamboni and Gian
+Battista De Rolandis of Bologna had distributed rosettes of white, red
+and green ribbon; Zamboni was arrested, and strangled himself, afraid
+of betraying his friends; De Rolandis was hung on the 23rd of April
+1796. Such was the origin of the flag, but, until 1831, the Carbonaro
+red, blue and black was the common standard of the revolution. From
+that year forth, the destinies of Italy were accomplished under the
+colours of better augury, so fit to recall her fiery volcanoes, her
+wooded Apennines, her snow-crowned Alps; colours which in one sense
+she receives from Dante, who clothes in them the vision of the
+glorified Beatrice.
+
+The rising at Parma requires but little comment. The Empress
+Marie-Louise neither hated her subjects, nor was hated by them, but
+her engagements with Austria prevented her from granting the demanded
+concessions, and she abandoned her state, to return to it, indeed,
+under Austrian protection, but without the odious corollary of
+vindictive measures which was generally meant by a restoration.
+
+Much more important is the history of the Modenese revolution.
+Apologists have been found for the Bourbons of Naples, but, if anyone
+ever said a good word for Francesco d'Este, it has escaped the notice
+of the present writer. Under a despotism without laws (for the edicts
+of the Prince daily overrode the Este statute book which was supposed
+to be in force), Modena was far more in the power of the priests, or
+rather of the Jesuits, than any portion of the states of the Church.
+Squint-eyed, crooked in mind and bloodthirsty, Francis was as ideal a
+bogey-tyrant as can be discovered outside fiction. In 1822, he hung
+the priest Giuseppe Andreoli on the charge of Carbonarism; and his
+theory of justice is amusingly illustrated by the story of his sending
+in a bill to Sir Anthony Panizzi--who had escaped to England--for the
+expenses of hanging him in effigy.
+
+Francis felt deeply annoyed by the narrow limits of his dominions, and
+his annoyance did not decrease with the decreasing chances of his
+ousting the Prince of Carignano from the Sardinian throne. He was
+intensely ambitious, and one of his subjects, a man, in other
+respects, of high intelligence, thought that his ambition could be
+turned to account for Italy. It was the mistake over again that
+Machiavelli had made with Cesare Borgia.
+
+Ciro Menotti, who conceived the plan of uniting Italy under the Duke
+of Modena, was a Modenese landed proprietor who had exerted himself to
+promote the industry of straw-plaiting, and the other branches of
+commerce likely to be of advantage to an agricultural population. He
+was known as a sound philanthropist, an excellent husband and father,
+a model member of society. Francis professed to take an interest in
+industrial matters; Menotti, therefore, easily gained access to his
+person. In all the negotiations that followed, the Modenese patriot
+was supported and encouraged by a certain Dr Misley, who was of
+English extraction, with whom the Duke seems to have been on familiar
+terms. It appears not doubtful that Menotti was led to believe that
+his political views were regarded with favour, and that he also
+received the royal promise that, whatever happened, his life would be
+safe. This promise was given because he had the opportunity of saving
+the Duke from some great peril--probably from assassination, though
+the particulars were never divulged.
+
+Misley went to Paris to concert with the Italian committee which had
+its seat there; the movement in Modena was fixed for the first days of
+February. But spies got information of the preparations, and on the
+evening of the 3rd, before anything had been done, Menotti's house was
+surrounded by troops, and after defending it, with the help of his
+friends, for two hours, he was wounded and captured. Next day the Duke
+despatched the following note to the Governor of Reggio-Emilia: 'A
+terrible conspiracy against me has broken out. The conspirators are in
+my hands. Send me the hangman.--Francis.'
+
+Not all, however, of the conspirators were in his hands; the movement
+matured, in spite of the seizure of Menotti, and Francis, 'the first
+captain in the world,' as he made his troops call him, was so overcome
+with fright that on the 5th of February he left Modena with his
+family, under a strong military escort, dragging after him Giro
+Menotti, who, when Mantua was reached, was consigned to an Austrian
+fortress.
+
+Meanwhile, the revolution triumphed. Modena chose one of her citizens
+as dictator, Biagio Nardi, who issued a proclamation in which the
+words 'Italy is one; the Italian nation is one sole nation,' testified
+that the great lesson which Menotti had sought to teach had not fallen
+on unfruitful ground. Wild as were the methods by which, for a moment,
+he sought to gain his end, his insistance on unity nevertheless gives
+Menotti the right to be considered the true precursor of Mazzini in
+the Italian Revolution.
+
+Now that the testing-time was come, France threw to the winds the
+principle announced in her name with such solemn emphasis. 'Precious
+French blood should never be shed except on behalf of French
+interests,' said Casimir Perier, the new President of the Council. A
+month after the flight of the Duke of Modena, the inevitable Austrians
+marched into his state to win it back for him. The hastily-organised
+little army of the new government was commanded by General Zucchi, an
+old general of Napoleon, who, when Lombardy passed to Austria, had
+entered the Austrian service. He now offered his sword to the Dictator
+of Modena, who accepted it, but there was little to be done save to
+retire with honour before the 6000 Austrians. Zucchi capitulated at
+Ancona to Cardinal Benvenuti, the Papal delegate. Those of the
+volunteers who desired it were furnished with regular passports, and
+authorised to take ship for any foreign port. The most compromised
+availed themselves of this arrangement, but the vessel which was to
+bear Zucchi and 103 others to Marseilles, was captured by the Austrian
+Admiral Bandiera, by whom its passengers were kidnapped and thrown
+into Venetian prisons, where they were kept till the end of May 1832.
+This act of piracy was chiefly performed with a view to getting
+possession of General Zucchi, who was tried as a deserter, and
+condemned to twenty years' imprisonment. Among the prisoners was the
+young wife of Captain Silvestro Castiglioni of Modena. 'Go, do your
+duty as a citizen,' she had said, when her husband left her to join
+the insurrection. 'Do not betray it for me, as perhaps it would make
+me love you less.' She shared his imprisonment, but just at the moment
+of the release, she died from the hardships endured.
+
+By the end of the month of March, the Austrians had restored Romagna
+to the Pope, and Modena to Francis IV. In Romagna the amnesty
+published by Cardinal Benvenuti was revoked, but there were no
+executions; this was not the case in Modena. The Duke brought back
+Ciro Menotti attached to his triumphal car, and when he felt that all
+danger was past, and that the presence of the Austrians was a
+guarantee against a popular expression of anger, he had him hung.
+
+'When my children are grown up, let them know how well I loved my
+country,' Menotti wrote to his wife on the morning of his execution.
+The letter was intercepted, and only delivered to his family in 1848.
+The revolutionists found it in the archives of Modena. On the
+scaffold he recalled how he was once the means of saving the Duke's
+life, and added that he pardoned his murderer, and prayed that his
+blood might not fall upon his head.
+
+During the insurrection in Romagna, an event occurred which was not
+without importance to Europe, though it passed almost unnoticed at the
+time. The eldest son of Queen Hortense died in her arms at Forli, of a
+neglected attack of measles; some said of poison, but the report was
+unfounded. He and his brother Louis, who had been closely mixed up
+with Italian conspiracies for more than a year, went to Romagna to
+offer their services as volunteers in the national army. By the death
+of the elder of the two, Louis Napoleon became heir to what seemed
+then the shadowy sovereignty of the Buonapartes.
+
+No sooner had the Austrians retired from the Legations in July 1831,
+than the revolution broke out again. Many things had been promised,
+nothing performed; disaffection was universal, anarchy became chronic,
+and was increased by the indiscipline of the Papal troops that were
+sent to put it down. The Austrians returned and the French occupied
+Ancona, much to the Pope's displeasure, and not one whit to the
+advantage of the Liberals. This dual foreign occupation of the Papal
+states lasted till the winter of 1838.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+'YOUNG ITALY' 1831-1844
+
+Accession of Charles Albert--Mazzini's Unitarian Propaganda--The
+Brothers Bandiera.
+
+
+On 27 April 1831, Charles Albert came to the throne he had so nearly
+lost. His reconciliation with his uncle, Charles Felix, had been
+effected after long and melancholy preliminaries. To wash off the
+Liberal sins of his youth, or possibly with a vague hope of finding an
+escape from his false position in a soldier's death, he joined the Duc
+d'Angouleme's expedition against the Spanish Constitutionalists. His
+extraordinary daring in the assault of the Trocadero caused him to be
+the hero of the hour when he returned with the army to Paris; but the
+King of Sardinia still refused to receive him with favour--a
+sufficiently icy favour when it was granted--until he signed an
+engagement, which remained secret, to preserve intact during his reign
+the laws and principles of government which he found in force at his
+accession. If there had been an Order of the Millstone, Charles Felix
+would doubtless have conferred it upon his dutiful nephew; failing
+that, he presented to him for signature this wonderful document, the
+invention of which he owed to Prince Metternich. At the Congress of
+Verona in 1822, Charles Albert's claims to the succession were
+recognised, thanks chiefly to the Duke of Wellington, who represented
+England in place of Lord Londonderry (Castlereagh), that statesman
+having committed suicide just as he was starting for Verona. Prince
+Metternich then proposed that the Prince of Carignano should be called
+upon to enter into an agreement identical with the compact he was
+brought to sign a couple of years later. In communicating the proposal
+to Canning, the Duke of Wellington wrote that he had demonstrated to
+Prince Metternich 'the fatality of such an arrangement,' but that he
+did not think that he had made the slightest impression on him. So the
+event proved; baffled for the moment, the Prince managed to put his
+plan in execution through a surer channel.
+
+With the accession of Charles Albert appears upon the political scene
+a great actor in the Liberation of Italy, Giuseppe Mazzini. Young and
+unknown, except for a vague reputation for restlessness and for talent
+which caused the government of Charles Felix to imprison him for six
+or seven months at Savona, Mazzini proposed to the new King the terms
+on which he might keep his throne, as calmly as Metternich had
+proposed to him the terms on which he might ascend it. The contrast is
+striking; on the one side the statesman, who still commanded the armed
+force of three-fourths of Europe, doing battle for the holy alliance
+of autocrats, for the international law of repression, for all the
+traditions of the old diplomacy; on the other, the young student with
+little money and few friends, already an exile, having no allies but
+his brain and his pen, who set himself, certain of success, to
+dissolve that mighty array of power and pomp. All his life Charles
+Albert was a Faust for the possession of whose soul two irreconcilable
+forces contended; the struggle was never more dramatically represented
+than at this moment in the person of these two champions.
+
+Mazzini's letter to Charles Albert, which was read by the King, and
+widely, though secretly, circulated in Piedmont, began by telling him
+that his fellow-countrymen were ready to believe his line of conduct
+in 1821 to have been forced on him by circumstances, and that there
+was not a heart in Italy that did not quicken at his accession, nor an
+eye in Europe that was not turned to watch his first steps in the
+career that now unfolded before him. Then he went on to show, with the
+logical strength in developing an argument which, joined to a novel
+and eloquent style, caused his writings to attract notice from the
+first, that the King could take no middle course. He would be one of
+the first of men, or the last of Italian tyrants; let him choose. Had
+he never looked upon Italy, radiant with the smile of nature, crowned
+with twenty centuries of sublime memories, the mother of genius,
+possessing infinite means, to which only union was lacking, girt round
+with such defences that a strong will and a few courageous breasts
+would suffice to defend her? Had it never struck him that she was
+created for a glorious destiny? Did he not contemplate her people,
+splendid still, in spite of the shadow of servitude, the vigour of
+whose intellect, the energy of whose passions, even when turned to
+evil, showed that the making of a nation was there? Did not the
+thought come to him: 'Draw a world out of these dispersed elements
+like a god from chaos; unite into one whole the scattered members, and
+pronounce the words, "It is mine, and it is happy"?'
+
+Mazzini in 1831 was twenty-six years of age. His father was a Genoese
+physician, his mother a native of Chiavari. She was a superior woman,
+and devoted more than a mother's care to the excitable and delicate
+child, who seemed to her (mothers have sometimes the gift of prophecy)
+to be meant for an uncommon lot. One of the few personal reminiscences
+that Mazzini left recorded, relates to the time and manner in which
+the idea first came to him of the possibility of Italians doing
+something for their country. He was walking with his mother in the
+Strada Nuova at Genoa one Sunday in April 1821, when a tall,
+black-bearded man with a fiery glance held towards them a white
+handkerchief, saying: 'For the refugees of Italy.' Mazzini's mother,
+gave him some money, and he passed on. In the streets were many
+unfamiliar faces; the fugitives from Turin and Alessandria were
+gathered at Genoa before they departed by sea into exile. The
+impression which that scene made on the mind of the boy of sixteen was
+never effaced.
+
+Owing to his delicate health, Mazzini's early education was carried on
+at home, where the social atmosphere was that of one of those little
+centres in a provincial capital which are composed of a few people,
+mostly kindred, of similar tastes, who lead useful and refined lives,
+content with moderate ease. The real exclusiveness of such centres
+exceeds any that exists in the most aristocratic sphere in the world.
+The Mazzinis were, moreover, Genoese to the core; and this was another
+reason for exclusiveness, and for holding aloof from the governing
+class. Mazzini was born a few days after Napoleon entered Genoa as its
+lord. He had not, therefore, breathed the air of the ancient Republic;
+but there was the unadulterated republicanism of a thousand years in
+his veins.
+
+When he grew to manhood his appearance was striking. The black,
+flowing hair, the pale, olive complexion, the finely-cut features and
+lofty brow, the deep-set eyes, which could smile as only Italian eyes
+can smile, but which could also flash astral infinitudes of scorn, the
+fragile figure, even the long, delicate, tapering fingers, marked him
+for a man apart--though whether a poet or an apostle, a seer or a
+saint, it was not easy to decide. Yet this could be said at once: if
+this man concentrated all his being on a single point, he would wield
+the power, call it what we will, which in every age has worked
+miracles and moved mountains.
+
+Mazzini became a Carbonaro, though the want of clear, guiding
+principles in Carbonarism made him misdoubt its efficacy, and its
+hierarchical mysteries and initiatory ordeals repelled him by their
+childishness. Then followed his arrest, and his detention in the
+fortress of Savona, which was the turning-point in his mental life.
+Before that date he learnt, after it he taught. From his high-perched
+cell he saw the sea and the sky--with the Alps, the sublimest things
+in Nature. The voices of the fishermen reached his ears, though he
+could not see them. A tame goldfinch was his companion. Here, in a
+solitude and peace which he remembered with regret in the stormy and
+sorrowful years that were to come, he conceived his message and the
+mission, in which he believed to the last day of his life.
+
+He resolved to found a new association on broader and simpler lines than
+the secret societies of the past, which should aim not only at the
+material freeing of Italy from her present bondage, but at her moral and
+religious regeneration. To aim at material progress of any kind, without
+at the same time aiming at a higher moral progress, seemed to Mazzini
+absurd; to attempt to pull down without attempting to build up seemed to
+him criminal. Thus he accused the Socialists of substituting the
+progress of humanity's kitchen for the progress of humanity. He believed
+that Italy, united and redeemed, was destined to shed through the world
+the light of a new moral unity, which should end the reign of
+Scepticism, triumphant among discordant creeds. Mazzini's religious
+belief was the motor of his whole being. The Catholicism in which he was
+outwardly brought up never seems to have touched his inner nature; he
+went through no spiritual wrench in leaving a faith that was never a
+reality to him. The same is true of innumerable young Italians, who,
+when they begin to read and study, drift out of their childhood's
+religion without a struggle or a regret. But thought and study brought
+Mazzini what it rarely brings to these young men--the necessity to find
+something in which he could believe. He had not long to seek for a basis
+to his creed, because he was one of the men from the prophets of old to
+Spinoza, from Spinoza to Gordon, to whom the existence of God is a
+matter of experience rather than an object of faith. Starting from this
+point, he formed his religion out of what he regarded as its inevitable
+deductions. If God existed, his creatures must be intended for
+perfection; if this were the Divine scheme, man's one business was to
+carry it out. He considered the idea of duty separated from the idea of
+God to be illogical. Either the development of human things depended on
+a providential law, or it was left to chance and passing circumstance,
+and to the dexterity of the man who turned these to most account. God
+was the sole source of duty; duty the sole law of life. Mazzini did not
+denounce Catholicism or any other religion as false. He saw in it a
+stepping-stone to purer comprehension, which would be reached when man's
+intellect was sufficiently developed for him to be able to do without
+symbols.
+
+[Illustration: GIUSEPPE MAZZINI]
+
+The conscience of humanity is the last tribunal. Ideas, as well as
+institutions, change and expand, but certain fundamental principles
+are fixed. The family would always exist; property would always exist.
+The first, 'the heart's fatherland,' was the source of the only true
+happiness, the only joys untainted by grief, which were given to man.
+Those who wished to abolish the second were like the savage who cut
+down the tree in order to gather the fruit. In the future, free
+association would be the great agent of moral and material progress.
+The authority which once rested in popes and emperors now devolved on
+the people. Instead of 'God and the King,' Mazzini proposed the new
+formula 'God and the People.' By the people he understood no caste or
+class, whether high or low, but the universality of men composing the
+nation. The nation is the sole sovereign; its will, expressed by
+delegates, must be law to all its citizens.
+
+By degrees certain words acquired more and more a mystical
+significance in Mazzini's mind; the very name of Rome, for instance,
+had for him a sort of talismanic fascination, not unlike that
+possessed by Jerusalem for the mediaeval Christian. When he spoke of
+the people or the republic he frequently used those terms in an ideal
+and visionary sense (as theologians use the Church) rather than in one
+strictly corresponding with the case of any existing nation, or any
+hitherto tried form of government. This does not alter the fact that
+his theories, which have been briefly summarised, are not hard to
+comprehend, as has been said by those who did not know in what they
+consisted, nor, taken one by one, are they novel. What was new in the
+nineteenth century was the appearance of a revolutionary leader, who
+was before all things a religious and ethical teacher. And though
+Mazzini never founded the Church of Precursors, of which he dreamt,
+his influence was as surely due to his belief in his religious
+mission, as was the influence of Savonarola. The Italians are not a
+mystical people, but they have always followed mystical leaders. The
+less men are prone to ideal enthusiasm the more attracted are they by
+it; Don Quixote, as Heine remarked, always draws Sancho Panza after
+him.
+
+Mazzini had a natural capacity for organisation, and the Association
+of Young Italy which he founded at Marseilles, the first nucleus being
+a group of young, penniless refugees, soon obtained an astonishing
+development. Up to the time of his 'Letter to Charles Albert,' his
+exile had been so far voluntary that he might have remained in
+Piedmont had he agreed to live in one of the smaller towns under the
+watchful care of the police, but he declined the terms, and the first
+effect of the 'Letter' was a stringent order to arrest him if he
+recrossed the frontier. He was not surprised at that result. Mazzini's
+attitude towards the Sardinian monarchy was perfectly well defined.
+Republican himself, even to fanaticism, he placed the question of
+unity, which for him meant national existence, above the question of
+the republic. He did not believe that the House of Savoy would unite
+Italy, but if unity could only be had under what he looked upon as the
+inauspicious form of monarchy, he would not reject it. He was like the
+real mother in the judgment of Solomon, who, because she loved her
+child, was ready to give it up sooner than see it cut in two.
+
+Apart from personal hereditary instincts and predilections, Mazzini
+thought that he saw in the glorious memories of the Italian republics
+a clear indication that the commonwealth was the form of government
+which ought and would be adopted by the Italy of the future. But,
+unlike most politicians, he laid down the principle that, after all,
+when free, the nation must decide for itself. 'To what purpose,' he
+asks, 'do we constantly speak of the sovereignty of the people, and of
+our reverence for the national will, if we are to disregard it as soon
+as it pronounces in contradiction to our wishes?'
+
+He did not succeed in making the majority of his countrymen
+republicans, but he contributed more than any other man towards
+inspiring the whole country with the desire for unity. Herein lies his
+great work. Without Mazzini, when would the Italians have got beyond
+the fallacies of federal republics, leagues of princes, provincial
+autonomy, insular home-rule, and all the other dreams of independence
+reft of its only safeguard which possessed the minds of patriots of
+every party in Italy and of nearly every well-wisher to Italian
+freedom abroad?
+
+In 1831, most educated Italians did not even wish for unity, and this
+is still truer of the republicans than of the monarchists. Some, like
+Manzoni, did wish for it, but, like him, said nothing about it, for
+fear of being thought madmen. A flash of the true light illuminated
+the mind of Giro Menotti, but that was extinguished on the scaffold.
+Then it was that Mazzini came forward with the news that Italy could
+_only_ be made free and independent by being united; unity was the
+ruling tendency of the century, and, as far as Italy went, no Utopia,
+but a certain conclusion. This was repeated over and over again,
+wherever there were Italians, over the inhabited globe. By means of
+sailors, 'Young Italy' spread like lightning. Giuseppe Garibaldi was
+made a member by a sailor on the shores of the Black Sea.
+
+With the masses, unity proved the wonder-working word which
+Confalonieri had said was the one thing needful--a word yet fitter to
+work wonders than 'War to the Stranger.' Among the cultivated classes,
+it was much slower in gaining ground, and particularly among statesmen
+and diplomatists. But in the end it was to convert them all.
+
+'"Young Italy,"' writes Mazzini, 'closed the period of political
+sects, and initiated that of educational associations.' 'Great
+revolutions,' he says again, 'are the work of principles rather than
+of bayonets.' It was by the diffusion of ideas that 'Young Italy'
+became a commanding factor in the events of the next thirty years.
+The insurrectional attempts planned under its guidance did not
+succeed, nor was it likely that they should succeed. Devised by
+exiles, at a distance, they lacked the first elements of success. The
+earliest of these attempts aimed at an invasion of Savoy; it was hoped
+that the Sardinian army and people would join the little band of
+exiles in a movement for the liberation of Lombardy. The revolution of
+1821 had evidently suggested this plan to Mazzini, but it was
+foredoomed to misfortune. The Piedmontese authorities got wind of it,
+and a hunt followed for the members of 'Young Italy'; most severe
+measures were taken; there were eleven executions, and numberless
+sentences to long terms of imprisonment. Jacobo Ruffini, the younger
+brother of the author of _Dr Antonio_, and Mazzini's most beloved
+friend, committed suicide in prison, fearing to reveal the names of
+his associates. The apologists for Charles Albert say that if he had
+not shown the will and ability to deal severely with the conspirators,
+Austria would have insisted on a military occupation. Whatever were
+his motives, this is the saddest page of his unhappy reign.
+
+Checked in 1833, the descent on Savoy was actually attempted in 1834,
+with Mazzini's consent, though not by his wish. An officer who had won
+some celebrity in the Polish revolution, General Ramorino, a Savoyard
+by origin, was given the command. Ramorino was a gambler, who could
+not be trusted with money, but Mazzini's suspicion that on this
+occasion he played the part of traitor is not proved. However that may
+be, the expedition ended almost as soon as it began. Ramorino crossed
+the frontier of Savoy at the head of the column, but when he heard
+that a Polish reinforcement had been stopped on the Lake of Geneva, he
+retreated into Switzerland, and advised the band to follow him.
+
+After these events, Mazzini could no longer carry on his propaganda in
+France. He took refuge in England, where a great part of his life was
+to be passed, and of which he spoke, to the last, as his second
+country. The first period of his residence in England was darkened by
+the deep distress and discouragement into which the recent events had
+plunged him; but his faith in the future prevailed, and he went on
+with his work. His endeavours to help his fellow-exiles reduced him to
+the last stage of poverty; the day came when he was obliged to pawn a
+coat and an old pair of boots. These money difficulties did not
+afflict him, and by degrees his writings in English periodicals
+brought some addition to the small quarterly allowance which he
+received from his mother. It seems strange, though it is easily
+explained, that it was in London that he first got to know the Italian
+working classes. He was surprised and gladdened by the abundance of
+good elements which he found in them. No country, indeed, has more
+reason to hope in her working men than the land whose sons have
+tunnelled the Alps, cut the most arduous railway lines in America and
+India, brought up English ships from the deep, laid the caissons (a
+task of extreme danger) which support the great structure of the
+Bridge of the Firth of Forth, and left their bones to whiten at
+Panama. 'It is the universal testimony,' writes a high American
+authority, 'that no more faithful men have come among us.' What was
+the cause of the slaughter of the Aigues Mortes? That the Italians
+worked too well.
+
+Mazzini wrote for his humble friends the treatise on _The Duties of
+Man_, in which he told them that he loved them too well to flatter
+them. Another work that occupied him and consoled him was the rescue
+and moral improvement of the children employed by organ-grinders, and
+he was the first to call attention to the white slavery to which many
+of them were subjected. He opened a school in Hatton Garden, in which
+he taught, and which he mainly supported for the seven years from 1841
+to 1848.
+
+The enterprise of the Brothers Bandiera belongs to the history of
+'Young Italy,' though Mazzini himself had tried to prevent it,
+believing that it could only end in the sacrifice of all concerned.
+Nor, at the last, did the actors in it expect anything else. They had
+hoped for better things; for a general movement in the South of Italy,
+or at least for an undertaking on a larger and less irrational basis.
+But promises failed, money was not forthcoming, and it was a choice
+between doing nothing or a piece of heroic folly. Contrary to
+Mazzini's entreaties, they chose the second alternative.
+
+Attilio and Emilio Bandiera were sons of the Austrian admiral who, in
+1831, arrested Italian fugitives at sea. Placed by their father in the
+Austrian navy, they renounced every prospect of a brilliant career to
+enter the service of their down-trodden country. When they deserted,
+strong efforts were made by the Archduke Rainieri, through their
+mother, to win them back, but neither the offers of pardon nor the
+poor woman's tears and reproaches turned them from their purpose.
+Another deserter was with them, Lieutenant Domenico Moro, a youth of
+great charm of person and disposition, who had been employed with a
+mixed force of Englishmen and Austrians in the Lebanon, where he
+formed a warm friendship with Lieutenant, now Admiral, Sir George
+Wellesley, who still preserves an affectionate remembrance of him.
+Nicola Ricciotti, a Roman subject who had devoted all his life to
+Italy, and Anacarsi Nardi, son of the dictator of Modena, were also
+of the band, which counted about twenty.
+
+The Bandieras and their companions sailed from Corfu for the coast of
+Calabria on the 11th of June 1844. 'If we fall,' they wrote to
+Mazzini, 'tell our countrymen to imitate our example, for life was
+given to us to be nobly and usefully employed, and the cause for which
+we shall have fought and died is the purest and holiest that ever
+warmed the heart of man.' It was their last letter. After they landed
+in Calabria one of their number disappeared; there is every reason to
+suppose that he went to betray them. They wandered for a few days in
+the mountains, looking for the insurgent band which they had been
+falsely told was waiting for them, and then fell into an ambush
+prepared by the Neapolitan troops. Some died fighting; nine were shot
+at Cosenza, including the Bandieras, Mori, Ricciotti and Nardi.
+Boccheciampi the Corsican, whom they suspected of treason, was brought
+up to be confronted with them during the trial; when asked if he knew
+who he was, Nardi replied: 'I know no word in my divine Italian
+language that can fitly describe that man.' Boccheciampi was condemned
+to a nominal imprisonment; when he came out of prison he wrote to a
+Greek girl of Corfu, to whom he was engaged, to join him at Naples,
+that they might be married. The girl had been deeply in love with him,
+and had already given him part of her dowry, but she answered: 'A
+traitor cannot wed a Greek maiden; I bear with me the blessing of my
+parents; upon you rests the curse of God.'
+
+The martyrdom of the Bandieras made a great impression, especially in
+England, where the circumstance came to light that their
+correspondence with Mazzini had been tampered with in the English
+Post Office, and that information as to their plans had reached the
+Austrian and Neapolitan Governments through the British Foreign
+Office. The affair was brought before the House of Commons by Thomas
+Duncombe. The Home Secretary repeated a calumny which had appeared
+many years before in a French newspaper, to the effect that the murder
+of an Italian in Rodez by two of his fellow-countrymen was the result
+of an order from the Association of Young Italy. Sir James Graham had
+to apologise afterwards for 'the injury inflicted on Mr Mazzini' by
+this statement, which he was obliged to admit was supported by no
+evidence, and was contrary to the opinion of the Judge who tried the
+case.
+
+The _Times_ having observed in a leading article that the gravity of
+the fact in question, the violation of private correspondence in the
+Post Office, was not affected by the merits or demerits of Mr Mazzini,
+of whom it professed to 'know nothing,' Thomas Carlyle wrote next day
+a letter containing words which may be quoted as some of the best and
+truest ever written about the great Italian: 'I have had the honour to
+know Mr Mazzini for a series of years, and, whatever I may think of
+his practical insight and skill in worldly affairs, I can with great
+freedom testify that he, if I have ever seen one such, is a man of
+genius and virtue, one of those rare men, numerable unfortunately but
+as units in this world, who are worthy to be called martyr souls; who
+in silence, piously in their daily life, understand and practise what
+is meant by that.' [2]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE POPE LIBERATOR
+
+1844-1847
+
+Events leading to the Election of Pius IX.--The Petty Princes--Charles
+Albert, Leopold and Ferdinand.
+
+
+The day is drawing near when the century which witnessed the
+liberation of Italy will have passed away. Already a generation has
+grown up which can but faintly realise the passionate hopes and fears
+with which the steps that led through defeat to the ultimate victory
+were watched, not only by Italians, but by thousands who had never set
+foot in Italy. Never did a series of political events evoke a sympathy
+so wide and so disinterested, and it may be foretold with confidence
+that it never will again. Italy rising from the grave was the living
+romance of myriads of young hearts that were lifted from the common
+level of trivial interests and selfish ends, from the routine of work
+or pleasure, both deadening without some diviner spark, by a sustained
+enthusiasm that can hardly be imagined now. There were, indeed, some
+who asked what was all this to them? What were the 'extraneous
+Austrian Emperor,' or the 'old chimera of a Pope' (Carlyle's
+designations) to the British taxpayer? Some there were in England who
+were deeply attached still to the 'Great Hinge on which Europe
+depended,' and even to the most clement Spanish Bourbons of Naples,
+about whom strangely beautiful things are to be read in old numbers of
+the _Quarterly Review_. But on the whole, English men and women--in
+mind half Italian, whether they will it or not, from the day they
+begin to read their own literature from Chaucer to Shakespeare, from
+Shakespeare to Shelley, from Shelley to Rossetti and Swinburne--were
+united at that time in warmth of feeling towards struggling Italy as
+they have been united in no political sentiment relating to another
+nation, and in few concerning their own country.
+
+It would be vain to expect that the record of Italian vicissitudes
+during the years when the fate of Italy hung in the balance can awake
+or renew the spellbound interest caused by the events themselves. The
+reader of recent history is like the novel reader who begins at the
+last chapter--he is too familiar with how it all ended to be keenly
+affected by the development of the plot. Yet it is plain that we are
+in a better position to appreciate the process of development than was
+the case when the issue remained uncertain. We can estimate more
+accurately the difficulties which stood in the way, and judge more
+impartially the means that were taken to remove them. One outcome of
+this fuller knowledge is the conviction that patriotism was the
+monopoly of no single Italian party. The leaders, and still more their
+henchmen, were in the habit of saying very hard things about each
+other. It was natural and unavoidable; but there is no excuse now for
+failing to recognise that there were pure and devoted patriots on the
+one side as well as on the other--men whose only desire was the
+salvation of Italy, to effect which no sacrifice seemed too great. Nor
+were their labours unfruitful, for there was work for all of them to
+do; and the very diversity of opinion, though unfortunate under some
+aspects, was not so under all. If no one had raised the question of
+unity before all things, Italy might be still a geographical
+expression. If no one had tried to wring concessions from the old
+governments, their inherent and irremediable vices would never have
+been proved; and though they might have been overturned, they would
+have left behind a lasting possibility of ignorant reaction.
+
+The Great Powers had presented to the Court of Rome in 1831 a
+memorandum, in which various moderate reforms and improvements were
+proposed as urgently necessary to put an end to the intolerable abuses
+which were rife in the states of the Church, and, most of all, in
+Romagna. The abolition of the tribunal of the Holy Office, the
+institution of a Council of State, lay education, and the
+secularisation of the administration were among the measures
+recommended. In 1845 a certain Pietro Renzi collected a body of
+spirited young men at San Marino, and made a dash on Rimini, where he
+disarmed the small garrison. The other towns were not prepared, and
+Renzi and his companions were obliged to retire into Tuscany; but the
+revolution, partial as it had been, raised discussion in consequence
+of the manifesto issued by its promoters, in which a demand was made
+for the identical reforms vainly advocated by European diplomacy
+fourteen years before. If these were granted, the insurgents engaged
+to lay down their arms. The manifesto was written by Luigi Carlo
+Farini, who was destined to play a large part in future affairs. It
+proved to Europe that even the most conservative elements in the
+nation were driven to revolution by the sheer hopelessness of the
+dead-lock which the Italian rulers sought by every means to prolong.
+Massimo d'Azeglio, who was then known only as a painter of talent and
+a writer of historical novels, first made his mark as a politician by
+the pamphlet entitled _Gli ultimi casi di Romagna_, in which his
+arguments derived force from the fact that, when travelling in the
+district, he had done all in his power to induce the Liberals to keep
+within the bounds of legality. But he confessed that, when someone
+says: 'I suffer too much,' it is an unsatisfactory answer to retort:
+'You have not suffered enough.' Massimo d'Azeglio had lived for many
+years an artist's life in Rome and the country round, where his
+aristocratic birth and handsome face made him popular with all
+classes. The transparent integrity of his nature overcame the
+diffidence usually inspired by strangers among a somewhat suspicious
+people, and he got to know more thoroughly than any other North
+Italian the real aspirations of the Pope's subjects. He listened to
+their complaints and their plans, and if they asked his advice, he
+invariably replied: 'Let us speak clearly. What is it that you wish
+and I with you? You wish to have done with priestly rule, and to send
+the Teutons out of Italy? If you invite them to decamp, they will
+probably say, "No, thank you!" Therefore you must use force; and where
+is it to be had? If you have not got it, you must find somebody who
+has. In Italy who has it, or, to speak more precisely, who has a
+little of it? Piedmont, because it, at least, enjoys an independent
+life, and possesses an army and a surplus in the treasury.' His
+friends answered: 'What of Charles Albert, of 1821, of 1832?' Now,
+there was no one who felt less trust in Charles Albert than Massimo
+d'Azeglio; he admitted it with something like remorse in later years.
+But he believed in his ambition, and he thought it madness to throw
+away what he regarded as the sole chance of freeing Italy on account
+of private doubts of the King of Sardinia's sincerity.
+
+Charles Albert had reigned for fourteen years, and still the mystery
+which surrounded his character formed as impenetrable a veil as ever.
+The popular nickname of _Re Tentenna_ (King Waverer) seemed, in a
+sense, accepted by him when he said to the Duke d'Aumale in 1843: 'I
+am between the dagger of the Carbonari and the chocolate of the
+Jesuits.' He chose, as bride for his eldest son, an Austrian princess,
+who, however, had known no country but Italy. His internal policy was
+not simply stationary, it was retrograde. If his consent was obtained
+to some progressive measure, he withdrew it at the last moment, or
+insisted on the introduction of modifications which nullified the
+whole. His want of stability drove one of his ministers to jump out of
+a window. In spite of the candid reference to the Jesuit's cup of
+chocolate, he allowed the Society of Jesus to dictate its will in
+Piedmont. Victor Amadeus, the first King of Sardinia, took public
+education out of the hands of the Jesuits, after receiving the
+following deathbed communication from one of the Order who was his own
+confessor: 'Deeply sensible of your many favours, I can only show my
+gratitude by a final piece of advice, but of such importance that
+perhaps it may suffice to discharge my debt. Never have a Jesuit for
+confessor. Do not ask me the grounds of this advice, I should not be
+at liberty to tell them to you.' The lesson was forgotten now. Charles
+Albert was not content to wear a hair-shirt himself; he would have
+liked to see all his subjects furnished with the same garment. The
+result was, that Piedmont was not a comfortable place for Liberals to
+live in, nor a lively place for anyone. Yet there is hardly anything
+more certain than that all this time the King was constantly dreaming
+of turning the Austrians out of Italy. His government kept its
+attention fixed on two points: the improvement of the army, and the
+accumulation of a reserve fund to be available in case of war. Drill
+and thrift, which made the German Empire out of Prussia, if they did
+not lead straight to equally splendid results south of the Alps, were
+still what rendered it possible for Piedmont to defy Austria when the
+time came. In 1840, Charles Albert wrote to his Minister of War: 'It
+is a fine thing to win twenty battles; as for me, I should be content
+to win ten on behalf of a cause I know of, and to fall in the
+tenth--then, indeed, I would die blessing the Lord.' A year or two
+later, he unearthed and reassumed the ancient motto of the House of
+Savoy: 'J'attends mon astre.' Nevertheless, to the outward world his
+intentions remained enigmatical, and it was therefore with extreme
+surprise that Massimo d'Azeglio (who, on his return from the Roman
+states, asked permission to inform the King of the impressions made on
+him by his travels) received the injunction to tell his Liberal
+friends 'that when the occasion presented itself, his life, the life
+of his sons, his treasure, and his army would all be spent for the
+Italian cause.'
+
+The fifteen years' pontificate of Gregory XVI. ended on the 1st June
+of 1846. In spite of the care taken by those around him to keep the
+aged pontiff in a fool's paradise with regard to the real state of his
+dominions, a copy of _The Late Events in Romagna_ fell into his hands,
+and considerably disturbed his peace of mind. He sent two prelates to
+look into the condition of the congested provinces, and their tour,
+though it resulted in nothing else, called forth new protests and
+supplications from the inhabitants, of which the most noteworthy was
+an address written by Count Aurelio Saffi, who was destined to pass
+many honourable years of exile in England. This address attacked the
+root of the evil in a passage which exposed the unbearable vexations
+of a government based on espionage. The acknowledged power of an
+irresponsible police was backed by the secret force of an army of
+private spies and informers. The sentiment of legality was being
+stamped out of the public conscience, and with it religion and
+morality. 'Bishops have been heard to preach civil war--a crusade
+against the Liberals; priests seem to mix themselves in wretched party
+strife, egging on the mob to vent its worst passions. There is not a
+Catholic country in which the really Christian priest is so rarely
+found as in the States of the Church.'
+
+If Gregory XVI. was not without reasons for disquietude in his last
+hours, he could take comfort in the fact that he had succeeded in
+keeping railways out of all parts of his dominions. Gas and suspension
+bridges were also classed as works of the Evil One, and vigorously
+tabooed. Among the Pope's subjects there was a young prelate who had
+never been able to make out what there was subversive to theology in a
+steam-engine, or why the safety of the Papal government should depend
+on its opposing every form of material improvement, although in
+discussing these subjects he generally ended by saying: 'After all I
+am no politician, and I may be mistaken.' This prelate was Cardinal
+Mastai-Ferretti, Bishop of Imola. Born in 1792 at Sinigaglia, of a
+good though rather needy family, Count Giovanni Maria Mastai was
+piously brought up by his mother, who dedicated him at an early age to
+the Virgin, to whom she believed that she owed his recovery from an
+illness which had been pronounced fatal. Roman Catholic writers
+connect the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception
+with this incident of childhood. After entering the priesthood, young
+Mastai devoted most of his energies to active charity, and remained,
+as he said, 'no politician,' being singularly ignorant of the world
+and of public affairs, though full of amiable wishes that everyone
+should be happy. Some years spent in missionary work in South America
+failed to enlarge his practical knowledge, the limits of which he was
+the first to recognise--a fact that tended to make him all his life
+the instrument, not of his own will, but of the wills of men whom he
+honestly thought cleverer and more experienced than himself. His chief
+friends in his Romagnol diocese, friends on the intimate basis of
+social equality and common provincial interests, were sound patriots,
+though not revolutionists, and the future Pio Nono involuntarily
+adopted their ideas and sympathies. He saw with his eyes certain
+abuses so glaring that they admitted of no two opinions, and these
+helped to convince him of the truth of his friends' arguments in
+favour of a completely new order of things. One such abuse was the
+encouragement given by government to the Society of the Centurioni,
+the latest evolution of the Calderai; the Centurions, recruited among
+roughs and peasants, were set upon the respectable middle classes,
+over which they tyrannised by secret accusations or open violence: it
+was well understood that anyone called a Liberal, or Freemason, or
+Carbonaro could be beaten or killed without inquiries being made.
+
+The Bishop of Imola was frequently in the house of the Count and
+Countess Pasolini, who kept their friend well supplied with the new
+books on Italian affairs; thus he read not only D'Azeglio's _Cast di
+Romagna_, but also Cesare Balbo's _Le Speranze d'Italia,_ which
+propounded a plan for an Italian federation, and Gioberti's _Primato
+morale e civile degli Italiani_, in which this plan was elaborately
+developed. Gioberti indicated the Supreme Pontiff as the natural head
+of the Italian Union, and the King of Sardinia as Italy's natural
+deliverer from foreign domination. The eternal fitness of things, and
+the history of many centuries, proved the Pope to be the proper
+paramount civil authority in Italy, 'which is the capital of Europe,
+because Rome is the religious metropolis of the world.' An ex-member
+of 'Young Italy,' a Piedmontese by birth, a priest by ordination,
+Gioberti's profession of faith was derived from these three sources,
+and it attracted thousands of Italians by its apparent reconciliation
+of the interests of the papacy, and of the Sardinian monarchy, with
+the most advanced views of the newest school. History, to which
+Gioberti appealed, might have told him that a reversal of the law of
+gravity was as likely to happen as the performance by the papacy of
+the mission he proposed to it; but men believe what they wish to
+believe, and his work found, as has been said, thousands of admirers,
+among whom none was more sincere than Cardinal Mastai. The day on
+which Count Pasolini gave him a copy of _Il Primato_ he created that
+great, and under some aspects pathetic illusion, the reforming Pope.
+
+The Conclave opened on the 14th of June 1846. During the Bishop of
+Imola's journey to Rome a white pigeon had perched several times on
+his carriage. The story became known; people said the same thing had
+occurred to a coming Pope on former occasions, and the augury was
+accepted with joy and satisfaction. He was, in fact, elected after the
+Conclave had lasted only two days, while the Conclave which elected
+his predecessor lasted sixty-four. The brevity of that to which Pius
+IX. owed the tiara was looked upon by the populace as something
+miraculous, but it was the result of the well-considered determination
+of the Italian Cardinals not to allow time for Austrian intrigues to
+obtain the election of a Pope who would be ruled from Vienna. When the
+new Pope appeared on the balcony of the Quirinal to give his first
+benediction, the people, carried away by his youthful yet majestic
+bearing, and by the hopes which already centred in him, broke into
+frantic cries of: 'We have a Pope! He loves us! He is our Father!' If
+they had cried: 'We have a new heaven and a new earth,' they would but
+have expressed the delirium which, starting from Rome, spread
+throughout Italy.
+
+On the night of the 6th of December 1846, the whole line of the
+Apennines from Liguria to Calabria was illuminated. A hundred years
+before, a stone thrown by the child Balilla had given the signal for
+the expulsion of the Austrians from Genoa: this was the memory
+flashed from height to height by countless beacons, but while
+celebrating the past, they were the fiery heralds of a greater
+revolution.
+
+The upheaval of Europe did not become a fact, however, for another
+year. Meantime, the Roman States attracted more attention than any
+other part of the peninsula, from the curiosity awakened by the
+progress of the experiment of which they were the scene. It is not
+doubtful that at the first moment Pius IX. was under the impression
+that the problem he had taken in hand was eminently simple. A little
+goodwill on the part of everybody, an amnesty to heal old sores, and a
+few administrative reforms, ought, he thought, to set everything
+right. Such was not the opinion of intelligent onlookers who were
+students of politics--especially if they were foreigners, and could
+therefore keep their heads moderately cool in the prevailing
+excitement. The wave of a wand may seem to effect marvels, but long
+and silent causes prepare the way for each event. Now what had been
+going on for years in the Roman States was not the process of gradual
+growth, but the process of rapid disintegration. The Temporal Power of
+the Popes had died without anyone noticing it, and there was nothing
+left but a body in the course of dissolution. Every foreigner in Rome
+during the reign of Gregory XVI. bore witness that his government
+depended for its existence absolutely on the Swiss Guards. In 1845,
+Count Rossi told Guizot that without the Swiss regiments the
+government in the Legations and the Marches 'would be overthrown in
+the twinkling of an eye.' The British agent in Rome, writing during
+the Conclave, bore this out by the statement, which applied not to one
+portion of the Roman states, but to all, that 'the government could
+not stand without the protection of Austria and the immediate
+presence of the Swiss.' On the accession of Pius IX., the props, such
+as they were, which had prevented an earlier collapse of the Temporal
+Power, were either removed or rendered useless. The Swiss might as
+well have been disbanded at once as retained merely to be a bone of
+contention between the new government and the people, since it was
+understood that a vigorous use of their services would never be
+resorted to; while Austrian protection was transferred from the Pope
+to the disaffected party in the Church, which consisted in a large
+proportion of the cardinals and of the inferior clergy who were afraid
+that, with the reform of abuses, they would lose their influence over
+the lower class of their flocks. The English diplomatic agents in
+Italy also firmly believed that Austria coupled with her support of
+the ultramontane malcontents the direct encouragement of the
+disorderly elements of the population. To resist all these contrary
+forces, Pius IX. had only a popularity which, though for the time
+immense, was founded almost completely on imagination. 'It was,' said
+Mr Petre, 'the name and known views of Pius, rather than his acts,
+which aroused so much interest.' If for 'known views' be substituted
+'supposed views,' the remark exactly describes the situation.
+
+Popularity is very well, but a government cannot long subsist on the
+single fact of the popularity of the sovereign. When the Roman mob
+began to cry: 'Viva Pio Nono _solo_,' the fate of the experiment was
+sealed. Real control slipped from the hands that nominally wielded it.
+'The influence,' Mr Petre wrote to Sir George Hamilton, 'of one
+individual of the lower class, Angelo Brunetti, hardly known but by
+his nickname of Ciceruacchio, has for the last month kept the peace of
+the city more than any power possessed by the authorities, from the
+command which he exerts over the populace.' It was Ciceruacchio who
+preserved order when in July 1847 the air was full of rumours of a
+vast reactionary plot, which aimed at carrying off the Pope, and
+putting things back as they were under Gregory. That such a plot was
+ever conceived, or, at anyrate, that it received the sanction of the
+high personages whose names were mentioned in connection with it, is
+generally doubted now; but it was believed in by many of the
+representatives of foreign Powers then in Italy. The public mind in
+Rome was violently disturbed. Austria made the excitement the excuse
+for occupying the town of Ferrara, where, by the accepted
+interpretation of the Treaty of Vienna, she had only the right to
+garrison the fortress. This aggression called forth a strong
+remonstrance from the Pope's Secretary of State, Cardinal Ferretti;
+and though a compromise was arrived at through the mediation of Lord
+Palmerston, the feeling against Austria grew more and more exasperated
+in the Roman states, and the Pope consented, not, it seemed, much
+against the grain, to preparations being taken in hand with a view to
+the possible eventuality of war.
+
+At this date the Italian question was better apprehended at Vienna
+than in any other part of Europe. A man of Prince Metternich's talents
+does not devote a long life to statecraft without learning to
+distinguish the real drift of political currents. While Lord
+Palmerston still felt sure that reforms, and nothing but reforms, were
+what Italy wanted, Prince Metternich saw that two real forces were at
+work from the Alps to the Straits of Messina, and two only: desire for
+union, hatred of Austria. Nor was it his fault if the English Cabinet
+or the rest of the world remained unenlightened. Besides enlarging on
+this truth in frequent diplomatic communications, he caused it to be
+continually dwelt upon in the Vienna _Observer_, the organ of the
+Austrian Government, which printed illustrative quotations from the
+writings of Mazzini, of whom it said that 'he has the one merit of
+despising hypocrisy, and proceeding firmly and directly to his true
+end. Persons who are versed in history will know that this is exactly
+the same end as that at which Arnold of Brescia and Cola di Rienzi
+formerly aimed. The only difference is, that the revolutionary dream
+has in the course of centuries gained in self-reliance and
+confidence.' It may truly be affirmed after this that Metternich 'had
+the one merit of despising hypocrisy.' Exactly the same end as Arnold
+of Brescia and Cola di Rienzi--who better could have described the
+scheme of Italian redemption?
+
+In the course of the summer of 1847, the Prince said more than once to
+the British Ambassador: 'The Emperor is determined not to lose his
+Italian dominions.' It was no idle boast, the speaker felt confident,
+that the troops in Lombardy and Venetia could keep those provinces
+from taking an active part in the 'revolution' which he declared to be
+already complete over all central Italy, though the word revolution
+had never yet been mentioned. Nor was it only in the Austrian army
+that he trusted; Metternich was persuaded that neither in Lombardy nor
+in Venetia was there any fear of a really popular and, therefore,
+formidable movement. He believed that Austria's only enemy was the
+aristocracy. He even threw out hints that if the Austrian Government
+condescended to do so, it could raise a social or peasants' war of the
+country people against their masters. This is the policy which has
+been elaborately followed by the Russians in Poland. The Austrians
+pointed to their virtue in not resorting to it; but some tentative
+experiments in such a direction had not given results of a kind to
+encourage them to go on. The Italian peasant, though ignorant, had a
+far quicker innate intelligence than his unfortunate Polish brother.
+He did not dislike his masters, who treated him at least with easy
+familiarity, and he detested foreigners--those foreigners, no matter
+of what nation, who for two thousand years had brought the everlasting
+curse of war upon his fields. The conscription, which carried off his
+sons for eight years into distant lands, of which he could not
+pronounce the name, was alone enough to alienate him from the Austrian
+Government. In hoping to find a friend in the Italian peasant,
+Metternich reckoned without his host. On the other hand, he was
+strictly correct in his estimate of the patriotism of the aristocracy.
+The fact always seemed to the Prince a violation of eternal laws.
+According to him, the fore-ordained disaffected in every country were
+drawn from the middle classes. What business had noblemen with ancient
+names and fine estates to prefer Spielberg to their beautiful palaces
+and fairy-like villas on the Lombard lakes? Was it on purpose to spite
+the best of governments, and the one most favourable to the
+aristocratic principle, which had always held out paternal hands to
+them? Could anything be imagined more aggravating?
+
+This feature in Italian liberation has been kept mostly in the
+background. Democratic chroniclers were satisfied to ignore it, and to
+the men themselves their enormous sacrifices seemed so natural that
+they were very willing to let them pass out of mind. It is in the
+works of those who, while sympathising with Italy, are not Italians,
+that the best record of it is to be found; nowhere better than in a
+recent book by a French writer, M. Paul Bourget, in which occurs the
+following just and eloquent tribute: 'We must say in praise of the
+aristocracy on this side of the Alps that the best soldiers of
+independence were nobles. If Italy owes the final success to the
+superior capabilities of Victor Emmanuel and Cavour, and to the
+agitating power of the General of the Thousand, it is well not to
+forget the struggles sustained for years by gentlemen whose example
+did so much to raise partisans among the humble. These aristocrats,
+passionate for liberty, have (like our own of the eighteenth century)
+done more for the people than the people itself. The veritable history
+of this _Risorgimento_ would be in great part that of the Italian
+nobility in which the heroic blood of feudal chiefs revolted against
+the oppressions and, above all, the perpetual humiliation, born of the
+presence of the stranger.'
+
+When Prince Metternich looked beyond the borders of those provinces
+which he said that his Sovereign did not intend to lose, he saw sooner
+than most people that a ball was set rolling which would not stop half
+way down the hill. The one element in the situation which came as a
+surprise to him, was that introduced by Pius IX. 'A liberal Pope is an
+impossible being!' he exclaimed. Nevertheless this impossible being was
+a reality which had to be dealt with. He hoped all along, however, that
+Pius would fall a victim to the Frankenstein he had called into
+existence, and his only real anxiety lay where it had always lain--on
+the side of Piedmont. 'Charles Albert ought to let us know,' he wrote to
+the Austrian Minister at Turin, 'whether his reign has been only a mask
+under which was hidden the Prince of Carignano, who ascended the throne
+through the order of succession re-established in his favour by the
+Emperor Francis.' Considering all things, the endeavour to make it
+appear that the King was indebted for his crown to Austria was somewhat
+venturesome. Charles Albert, Metternich went on to say, had to choose
+between two systems, the system now in force, or 'the crassest
+revolution.' He wrote again: 'The King is sliding back upon the path
+which he enters for the second time in his life, _and which he will
+never really quit_.' Words of a bitter enemy, but juster than the
+'Esecrato o Carignano,' hurled for a quarter of a century at Charles
+Albert by those who only saw in him a traitor.
+
+The constant invocation of the revolutionary spectre by the Austrian
+statesman convinced the King that the wish was father to the thought,
+and, afraid of introducing the thin end of the wedge, he showed
+himself more than ever averse to reforming the antiquated machinery of
+the Sardinian Government. Instead of being the first of Italian
+princes to yield to popular demands, he was almost the last. He
+believed that the question of nationality, of independence, could be
+separated from the question of free institutions. Of all the
+chimerical ideas then afloat, this was the most chimerical. Even the
+example of the Pope, for whom Charles Albert felt a romantic devotion,
+was not enough to induce him to open the road to reforms. The person
+who seems first to have impressed him with their absolute necessity
+was Lord Minto, whose visit to Turin, in October 1847, coincided with
+the dismissal of Count della Margherita, the minister most closely
+associated with the absolutist and Jesuitical _regime_. Lord Minto was
+sent to Italy to encourage in the ways of political virtue those
+Italian princes who were not entirely incorrigible. His mission
+excited exaggerated hopes on the part of the Liberals, and exaggerated
+wrath in the retrograde party--both failing to understand its
+limitations. The hopes died a natural death, but long afterwards,
+reactionary writers attributed all the 'troubles' in Italy to this
+estimable British diplomatist. What is not doubtful is, that,
+accustomed as they were to being lectured and bullied by foreign
+courts, the Italians derived the greatest encouragement from the
+openly expressed sympathy of well-known English visitors, whether they
+came in an official capacity like Lord Minto, or unofficially like Mr
+Cobden, who travelled as a missionary of Free Trade, and was received
+with rapture--with which, it is to be feared, Free Trade had little to
+do--by the leading Liberals in Italy: Massimo d'Azeglio at Genoa,
+Mancini at Naples Cavour and Scialoja at Turin, Minghetti at Bologna,
+Ridolfi at Florence, and Manin and Tommaseo at Venice.
+
+Towards the end of 1847, there was a curious shuffling of the cards in
+the small states of Lucca and Parma, resulting in much irritation,
+which, in an atmosphere so charged with revolutionary electricity, was
+not without importance. The dissolute Bourbon prince who reigned in
+Lucca, Charles Ludovico, had but one desire, which was to increase his
+civil list. He hit upon an English jockey named Ward, who came to
+Italy in the service of a German count, and this person he made his
+Chancellor of the Exchequer. By various luminous strokes, Ward
+furthered his Sovereign's object without much increasing the taxation,
+and when matters began to grow complicated, and here, too, a cry was
+raised for a Constitution (which had been solemnly guaranteed to the
+people of Lucca at the Congress of Vienna, but had never been heard of
+since), he proposed the sale of the Duchy off-hand to Tuscany, with
+which it would, in any case, be united, when, on the death of the
+ex-Empress Marie-Louise, the Duchy of Parma devolved on the Duke of
+Lucca. At the same time, by a prior agreement, a district of Tuscany
+called the Lunigiana was consigned, one-half to the Duchess of Parma,
+and the other to the Duke of Modena. The indignation of the
+population, which was made, by force, subject to the Duke of Modena,
+was intense, and the whole transaction of handing about Italians to
+suit the pleasure of princes, or to obey the articles of forgotten
+treaties, reminded the least sensitive of the everyday opprobrium of
+their lot.
+
+The bargain with Tuscany had been struck only eight days when
+Marie-Louise died--unlamented, since the latter years of her reign
+formed a sad contrast to the earlier. Marie-Louise had not a bad
+disposition, but she always let her husband of the hour govern as he
+chose; of the four or five of these husbands, the last two, and
+particularly the hated Count de Bombelles, undid all the good done by
+their more humane predecessors. The Parmese petitioned their new Duke
+to send the man away, and to grant them some measure of freedom. The
+answer he gave was the confirmation of Bombelles in all his honours,
+and the conclusion of a treaty with Austria, securing the assistance
+of her arms. A military force had been sent to Parma to escort the
+body of the late Duchess to Vienna; but on the principle that the
+living are of more consequence than the dead, it remained there to
+protect the new Duke from his subjects. Marie-Louise and her lovers,
+Charles Ludovico and his jockey-minister, are instructive
+illustrations of the scandalous point things had reached in the small
+states of Italy.
+
+There was, indeed, one state in which, though the dynasty was
+Austrian, the government was conducted without ferocity and without
+scandal. This was Tuscany. The branch of the Hapsburg-Lorraine family
+established in Tuscany produced a series of rulers who, if they
+exhibited no magnificent qualities, were respectable as individuals,
+and mild as rulers. Giusti dubbed Leopold II. 'the Tuscan Morpheus,
+crowned with poppies and lettuce leaves,' and the clear intelligence
+of Ricasoli was angered by the languid, let-be policy of the
+Grand-Ducal government, but, compared with the other populations of
+Italy, the Tuscans might well deem themselves fortunate. Only on one
+occasion had the Grand Duke given up a fugitive from the more favoured
+provinces, and the presence of distinguished exiles lent brilliancy to
+his capital. Leopold II. hesitated between the desire to please his
+subjects and the fear of his Viennese relations, who sent him through
+Metternich the ominous reminder, 'that the Italian Governments had
+only subsisted for the last ten years by the support they received
+from Austria'--an assertion at which Charles Albert took umbrage, but
+he was curtly told that he was not intended. In spite of his fears,
+however, the Grand Duke instituted a National Guard on the 4th of
+September, which was correctly judged the augury of further
+concessions. In August, the Austrian Minister had distinctly
+threatened to occupy Tuscany, or any other of the Italian duchies
+where a National Guard was granted; its institution was therefore
+interpreted as a decisive act of rebellion against the Imperial
+dictatorship. The red, white and green tricolor, not yet permitted in
+Piedmont, floated already from all the towers of the city on the Arno.
+
+Where there were no signs of improvement was in the government of the
+Two Sicilies. King Ferdinand undertook a journey through several parts
+of the country, but as Lord Napier, the British Minister, expressed
+it: 'Exactly where the grace of the royal countenance was principally
+conferred, the rebels sprung up most thickly.' A revolution was
+planned to break out in all the cities of the kingdom, but the project
+only took effect at Messina and at Reggio, and in both places the
+movement was stifled with prompt and barbarous severity. When the
+leader of the Calabrian attempt, Domenico Romeo, a landed proprietor,
+was caught on the heights of Aspromonte, his captors, after cutting
+off his head, carried it to his young nephew, whom they ordered to
+take it to Reggio with the cry of 'Long live the King.' The youth
+refused, and was immediately killed. In the capital, Carlo Poerio and
+many patriots were thrown into prison on suspicion. Settembrini had
+just time to escape to Malta.
+
+The year 1847 closed amid outward appearances of quiet.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE YEAR OF REVOLUTION
+
+1848
+
+Insurrection in Sicily--The Austrians expelled from Milan and
+Venice--Charles Albert takes the Field--Withdrawal of the Pope and King
+of Naples--Piedmont defeated--The Retreat.
+
+
+On the 12th of January, the birthday of the King of the Two Sicilies,
+another insurrection broke out in Sicily; this time it was serious
+indeed. The City of the Vespers lit the torch which set Europe on
+fire.
+
+So began the year of revolution which was to see the kings of the
+earth flying, with or without umbrellas, and the principle of monarchy
+more shaken by the royal see-saw of submission and vengeance than ever
+it was by the block of Whitehall or the guillotine of the Place Louis
+XV.
+
+In Italy, the errors and follies of that year were not confined to
+princes and governments, but it will remain memorable as the time when
+the Italian nation, not a dreamer here or there, or a handful of
+heroic madmen, or an isolated city, but the nation as a whole, with an
+unanimity new in history, asserted its right and its resolve to exist.
+
+King Ferdinand sent 5000 soldiers to 'make a garden,' as he described
+it, of Palermo, if the offers sent at the same time failed to pacify
+the inhabitants. These offers were refused with the comment: 'Too
+late,' and the Palermitans prepared to resist to the death under the
+guidance of the veteran patriot Ruggiero Settimo, Prince of Fitalia.
+'Separation,' they said, 'or our English Constitution of 1812.'
+Increased irritation was awakened by the discovery in the head office
+of the police at Palermo of a secret room full of skeletons, which
+were supposed to belong to persons privately murdered. The Neapolitans
+were compelled to withdraw with a loss of 3000 men, but before they
+went, the general in command let out 4000 convicts, who had been kept
+without food for forty-eight hours. The convicts, however, did not
+fulfil the intentions of their liberator, and did but little mischief.
+Not so the Neapolitan troops, who committed horrors on the peasantry
+as they retreated, which provoked acts of retaliation almost as
+barbarous. In a short time all Sicily was in its own hands except the
+citadel of Messina.
+
+It is not possible to follow the Sicilians in their long struggle for
+their autonomy. They stood out for some fourteen months. An English
+Blue-book is full of the interminable negotiations conducted by Lord
+Napier and the Earl of Minto in the hope of bringing the strife to an
+end. When the parliament summoned by the revolutionary government
+declared the downfall of the House of Bourbon, all the stray princes
+in Europe, including Louis Napoleon, were reviewed as candidates for
+the throne. The choice fell on the Duke of Genoa; it was well received
+in England, and the British men-of-war were immediately ordered to
+salute the Sicilian flag. But the Duke's reign never became a reality.
+After an heroic struggle, the islanders were subjugated in the spring
+of 1849.
+
+So stout a fight for independence must win admiration, if not
+approval. The political reasons against the course taken by the
+Sicilians have been suggested in a former chapter. In separating their
+lot from that of Naples, in rejecting even freedom unless it was
+accompanied by disruption, they hastened the ruin of the Neapolitans
+and of themselves, and surely played into the hands of the crafty
+tyrant who desired nothing better than to fish in the troubled waters
+of his subjects' dissensions.
+
+In the gathering storm of January 1848, the first idea that occurred
+to Ferdinand II. was the good old plan of calling in Austrian
+assistance. But the Austrians were told by Pius IX. that he would not
+allow their troops to pass through his territory. Had they attempted
+to pass in spite of his warning, events would have taken a different
+turn, as the Pope would have been driven into a war with Austria then
+and there; perhaps he would have been glad, as weak people commonly
+are, of the compulsion to do what he dared not do without compulsion.
+The Austrian Government was too wise to force a quarrel; it was easy
+to lock up Austrian subjects for crying 'Viva Pio Nono,' but the
+enormous importance of keeping the Head of the Church, if possible, in
+a neutral attitude could not be overlooked. All thoughts of going to
+Ferdinand's help were politely abandoned, and he, seeing himself in a
+defenceless position, and pondering deeply on the upsetting of Louis
+Philippe's throne, which was just then the latest news, decided on
+that device, dear to all political conjurors, which is known as taking
+the wind out of your enemy's sails. The Pope, the Grand Duke of
+Tuscany and the King of Sardinia, had worried him for six months with
+admonitions. 'Very well,' he now said; 'they urge me forward, I will
+precipitate them.' Constitution, representative government, unbridled
+liberty of the press, a civic guard, the expulsion of the Jesuits;
+what mattered a trifle more or less when everything could be revoked
+at the small expense of perjury? Ferdinand posed to perfection in the
+character of Citizen King. He reassured those who ventured to show the
+least signs of apprehension by saying: 'If I had not intended to carry
+out the Statute, I should not have granted it.'
+
+Not many days later, the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the King of
+Sardinia each promulgated a Charter. In the case of Charles Albert, it
+had been formally promised on the 8th of February, after sleepless
+nights, severe fasts, much searching of the heart--contrasting
+strangely with the gay transformation scene at Naples; but promises
+have a more serious meaning to some persons than to others. Nor did
+Charles Albert take any pleasure in the shouts of a grateful people.
+'Born in revolution,' he once wrote, 'I have traversed all its phases,
+and I know well enough what popularity is worth--_viva_ to-day,
+_morte_ to-morrow.'
+
+In the Lombardo-Venetian provinces all seemed still quiet, but the
+brooding discontent of the masses increased with the increasing
+aggressiveness of the Austrian soldiers, while the refusal to grant
+the studiously moderate demands of men like Nazari of Bergamo and
+Manin and Tommasco of Venice, who were engaged in a campaign of legal
+agitation, brought conviction to the most cautious that no measure of
+political liberty was obtainable under Austrian rule.
+
+At the Scala Theatre some of the audience had raised cries of 'Viva
+Pio Nono' during a performance of _I Lombardi._[3] This was the excuse
+for prohibiting every direct or indirect public reference to the
+reigning Pontiff. Nevertheless, a few young men were caught singing
+the Pope's hymn, upon which the military charged the crowd. On the 3rd
+of January the soldiers fell on the people in the Piazza San Carlo,
+killing six and wounding fifty-three. The parish priest of the Duomo
+said that he had seen Russians, French and Austrians enter Milan as
+invaders; but a scene like that of the 3rd of January he had never
+witnessed; 'they simply murdered in the streets.'
+
+The _Judicium Statuarium_, equivalent to martial law, was proclaimed
+in February; but the Viennese revolution of the 8th of March, and
+Prince Metternich's flight to England, were followed by promises to
+abolish the censure, and to convoke the central congregations of the
+Lombardo-Venetian kingdom. The utmost privilege of these assemblies
+was consultative. In 1815 they were invested with the right to 'make
+known grievances,' but they had only once managed to perform this
+modest function. It was hardly worth while to talk about them on the
+18th of March 1848.
+
+On the morning of that day, Count O'Donnel, the Vice-Governor of
+Milan, announced the Emperor's concessions. Before night he was the
+hostage of the revolution, signing whatever decrees were demanded of
+him till in a few hours even his signature was dispensed with. The
+Milanese had begun their historic struggle.
+
+Taking refuge in the Citadel, Radetsky wrote to the Podesta, Count
+Gabrio Casati (brother of Teresa Confalonieri), that he acknowledged
+no authority at Milan except his own and that of his soldiers. Those
+who resisted would be guilty of high treason. If arguments did not
+avail, he would make use of all the means placed in his hands by an
+army of 100,000 men to bring the rebel city to obedience. Unhappily
+for Radetsky, there were not any such 100,000 men in Italy, though
+long before this he had told Metternich that he could not guarantee
+the safety of Lombardy with less than 150,000. In spite of partial
+reinforcements, the number did not amount to more than from 72,000 to
+75,000, while at Milan it stood at between 15,000 and 20,000. But if
+we take the lower estimate, 15,000 regular troops under such a
+commander, who, most rare in similar emergencies, knew his own mind,
+and had no thought except the recovery of the town for his Sovereign,
+constituted a formidable force against a civilian population, which
+began the fight with only a few hundred fowling-pieces. The odds on
+the side of Austria were tremendous.
+
+If the Milan revolt had been one of the customary revolutions,
+arranged with the help of pen and paper, its first day would have been
+certainly its last. But even more than the Sicilian Vespers, it was
+the unpremeditated, irresistible act of a people sick of being slaves.
+At the beginning Casati tried to restrain it; so, with equal or still
+stronger endeavours, did the republican Carlo Cattaneo, whose
+influence was great. 'You have no arms,' he said again and again. Not
+a single man of weight took upon himself the awful responsibility of
+urging the unarmed masses upon so desperate an enterprise; but when
+the die was cast none held back. Initiated by the populace, the revolt
+was led to its victorious close by the nerve and ability of the
+influential men who directed its course.
+
+Towards nightfall on the 18th, during which day there had been only
+scuffles between the soldiers and the people, Radetsky took the
+Broletto, where the Municipality sat, after a two hours' siege, and
+sent forthwith a special messenger to the Emperor with the news that
+the revolution was on a fair way to being completely crushed.
+Meanwhile, he massed his troops at all the entrances to the city, so
+that at dawn he might strangle the insurrection by a concentric
+movement, as in a noose. The plan was good; but to-morrow does not
+belong even to the most experienced of Field-Marshals.
+
+In all quarters of the city barricades sprang up like mushrooms.
+Everything went, freely given, to their construction; the benches of
+the Scala, the beds of the young seminarists, the court carriages,
+found hidden in a disused church, building materials of the
+half-finished Palazzo d'Adda, grand pianofortes, valuable pieces of
+artistic furniture, and the old kitchen table of the artisan. Before
+the end of the fight the barricades numbered 1523. Young nobles,
+dressed in the velvet suits then in vogue, cooks in their white
+aprons, even women and children, rushed to the defence of the
+improvised fortifications. Luciano Manara and other heroes, who
+afterwards fell at Rome, were there to lead. In the first straits for
+want of arms the museums of the Uboldi and Poldi-Pozzoli families were
+emptied of their rare treasures by permission of the owners; the crowd
+brandished priceless old swords and specimens of early firearms. More
+serviceable weapons were obtained by degrees from the Austrian killed
+and wounded, and from the public offices which fell into their hands.
+Bolza, long the hated agent of the Austrian police, was discovered by
+the people, but they did not harm him. Throughout the five days, the
+Milanese showed a forbearance which was the more admirable, because
+there can be no doubt that when the Austrians found they were getting
+the worst of it, they vented their rage in deplorable outrages on
+non-combatants. That Radetsky was personally to blame for these
+excesses has never been alleged, and it was perhaps beyond the power
+of the officers to keep discipline among soldiers who, towards the
+end, were wild with panic.
+
+'The very foundations of the city were torn up,' wrote the
+Field-Marshal in his official report; 'not hundreds, but thousands of
+barricades crossed the streets. Such circumspection and audacity were
+displayed that it was evident military leaders were at the head of the
+people. The character of the Milanese had become quite changed.
+Fanaticism had seized every rank and age and both sexes.'
+
+As always happens with street-fighting, the number of the slain has
+never been really known; the loss of the citizens was small compared
+with that of the Austrians, who, according to some authorities, lost
+5000, between killed and wounded.
+
+Radetsky ordered the evacuation of the town and citadel on the night
+of Wednesday, the 22nd of March. The Milanese had won much more than
+freedom--they had won the right to it. And what they had done they had
+done alone. When the news that the capital was up in arms spread
+through Lombardy, there was but one gallant impulse, to fly to its
+aid. But the earliest to arrive, Giuseppe Martinengo Cesaresco, with
+his troop of Brescian peasants, found when he reached Milan that they
+were a few hours too late to share in the last shots fired upon the
+retreating Austrians.
+
+Nowhere, except in Milan, did the revolution meet with a Radetsky. The
+Austrian authorities became convinced that their position was
+untenable, and they desired to avoid a useless sacrifice of life.
+This, rather than cowardly fears, was the motive which induced Count
+Palffy and Count Zichy, the civil and military governors of Venice, to
+yield the city without deluging it in blood. The latter had been
+guilty of negligence in leaving the Venetian arsenal in charge of
+troops so untrustworthy that Manin could take it on the 22nd of March
+by a simple display of his own courage, and without striking a blow,
+but after this first success on the side of the revolution, which
+supplied the people with an unlimited stock of arms and ammunition,
+the Austrians did well to give way even from their own point of view.
+At seven o'clock on the evening of the 22nd of March, the famous
+capitulation was signed. Manin's prediction of the previous day,
+'To-morrow the city will be in my power, or I shall be dead,' had been
+realised in the first alternative.
+
+Daniel Manin, who was now forty-four years of age, was by profession a
+lawyer, by race a Jew. His father became a Christian, and, according
+to custom, took the surname of his godfather, who belonged to the
+family of the last Doge of Venice. Manin and the Dalmatian scholar,
+Niccolo Tommaseo, had been engaged in patiently adducing proof after
+proof that Austria did not even abide by her own laws when the
+expression of political opinion was concerned. At the beginning of the
+revolution they were in prison, and Palffy's first act of surrender
+was to set them free. Henceforth Manin was undisputed lord of the
+city. It is strange how, all at once, a man who was only slightly
+known to the world should have been chosen as spokesman and ruler. It
+did not, however, happen by chance. The people in Italy are observant;
+the Venetians had observed Manin, and they trusted him. The power of
+inspiring trust was what gave this Jewish lawyer his ascendancy, not
+the talents which usually appeal to the masses. He had not the
+advantage of an imposing presence, for he was short, slight, with blue
+eyes and bushy hair; in all things he was the opposite to a demagogue;
+he never beguiled, or flattered, or told others what he did not
+believe himself. But, on his side, he _knew_ the people, whom most
+revolutionary leaders know not at all. 'That is my sole merit,' he
+used to say. It was that which enabled him to cleanse Venice from the
+stain of having bartered her freedom for the smile of a conqueror, and
+give her back the name and inheritance of 'eldest child of liberty.'
+
+It was a matter of course that emancipated Venice should assume a
+republican form of government. Here the republic was a restoration. At
+Milan the case was different; there were two parties, that of
+Cattaneo, which was strongly republican, that of Casati, which was
+strongly monarchical. There was a third party, which thought of
+nothing except of never again seeing a soldier with a white coat. By
+mutual agreement, the Provisional Government declared that the
+decision as to the form of government should be left to calmer days.
+For a time this compromise produced satisfactory results.
+
+The revolution gained ground. Francis of Modena executed a rapid flight,
+and the Duke of Parma presently followed him. By the end of March,
+Lombardy and Venetia were free, saving the fortresses of the
+Quadrilateral. The exception was of far greater moment than, in the
+enchantment of the hour, anyone dreamt of confessing. Mantua, Legnano,
+Peschiera and Verona were so many cities of refuge to the flying
+Austrian troops, where they could rest in safety and nurse their
+strength. Still, the results achieved were great, almost incredible;
+with the expectation that Rome, Naples, Tuscany and Piedmont would send
+their armies to consolidate the work already done, it was natural to
+think that, whatever else might happen, Austrian dominion was a thing of
+the past. Alessandro Bixio (brother of the General), who was a
+naturalised Frenchman, wrote to the French Government on the 7th of
+April from Turin: 'In the ministries, in meetings, in the streets, you
+only see and hear people to whom the question of Italian independence
+seems to be one of those historical questions about which the time is
+past for talking. According to the general opinion, Austria is nothing
+but a phantom, and the army of Radetsky a shadow.' Such were the hopes
+that prevailed. They were vain, but they did not appear so then.
+
+Pius IX. seemed to throw in his lot definitely with the revolution
+when, on the 19th of March, he too granted a Constitution, having
+previously formed a lay ministry, which included Marco Minghetti and
+Count Pasolini, under the presidency of Cardinal Antonelli, who thus
+makes his first appearance as Liberal Premier. That the Roman
+Constitution was an unworkable attempt to reconcile lay and
+ecclesiastical pretensions, that the proposed Chamber of Deputies,
+which was not to make laws affecting education, religious
+corporations, the registration of births and marriages; or to confer
+civil rights on non-catholics, or to touch the privileges and
+immunities of the clergy, might have suited Cloud-cuckoo-town, but
+would not suit the solid earth, were facts easy to recognise, but no
+one had time to pause and consider. It was sufficient to hear Pius
+proclaim that in the wind which was uprooting oaks and cedars might be
+clearly distinguished the Voice of the Lord. Such utterances, mingled
+with blessings on Italy, brought balm to patriotic souls. The Liberals
+had no fear that the Pope would veto the participation of his troops
+in the national war, for they were blind to the complications with
+which a fighting Pope would find himself embarrassed in the middle of
+the nineteenth century. But the other party discerned these
+complications from the first, and knew what use to make of them.
+
+The powers of reaction had only to catch hold of a perfectly modern
+sentiment, the doctrine that ecclesiastics should be men of peace, in
+order to dissipate the myth of a Pope liberator. It was beside the
+question that, from the moment he accepted such a doctrine, the Pope
+condemned the institution of prince-bishoprics, of which he
+represented the last survival. Nor was it material that, if he adopted
+it, consistency should have made him carry it to its logical
+consequence of non-resistance. By aid of this theory of a peaceful
+Pontiff, with the threat, in reserve, of a schism, Austria felt
+confident that she could avoid the enormous moral inconvenience of a
+Pope in arms against her.
+
+Either, however, the full force of the influence which caused Pius IX.
+to draw back was not brought to bear till somewhat late in the day, or
+the part acted by him during the months of March and April can be
+hardly acquitted of dissimulation. War preparations were continued,
+with the warm co-operation of the Cardinal President of the Council,
+and when General Durando started for the frontier with 17,000 men, he
+would have been a bold man who had said openly in Rome that they were
+intended not to fight.
+
+While the Pope was still supposed to favour the war, Ferdinand of
+Naples did not dare to oppose the enthusiasm of his subjects, and the
+demand that a Neapolitan contingent should be sent to Lombardy. The
+first relay of troops actually started, but the generals had secret
+orders to take the longest route, and to lose as much time as
+possible.
+
+Tuscany had a very small army, but such assistance as she could give
+was both promised and given. The fate of the Tuscan corps of 6000 men
+will be related hereafter. The Grand Duke Leopold identified himself
+with the Italian cause with more sincerity than was to be found at
+Rome or Naples; still, the material aid that he could offer counted as
+next to nothing.
+
+There remained Piedmont and Charles Albert. Now was the time for the
+army which he had created (for Charles Felix left no army worthy of
+the name) to assert upon the Lombard fields the reason of its
+existence. War with Austria was declared on the 23rd of March. It was
+midnight; a vast crowd waited in silence in Piazza Castello. At last
+the windows of the palace were opened, a sudden flood of light from
+within illuminating the scene. Charles Albert stepped upon the balcony
+between his two sons. He was even paler than usual, but a smile such
+as no one had seen before was on his lips. He waved the long
+proscribed tricolor slowly over the heads of the people.
+
+The King said in his proclamation that 'God had placed Italy in a
+position to provide for herself ('in grado di fare da se'). Hence the
+often repeated phrase: 'L'Italia fara da se.' He told the Lombard
+delegates, who met him at Pavia that he would not enter their capital,
+which had shown such signal valour, till after he had won a victory.
+He declared to all that his only aim was to complete the splendid work
+of liberation so happily begun; questions of government would be
+reserved for the conclusion of the war. Joy was the order of the day,
+but the fatal mistakes of the campaign had already commenced; there
+had been inexcusable delay in declaring war; if it was pardonable to
+wait for the Milanese initiative, it was as inexpedient as it seemed
+ungenerous to wait till the issue of the struggle at Milan was
+decided. Then, after the declaration of war, considering that the
+Sardinian Government must have seen its imminence for weeks, and
+indeed for months, there was more time lost than ought to have been
+the case in getting the troops under weigh. Still, at the opening of
+the campaign, two grand possibilities were left. The first was
+obviously to cut Radetsky off in his painful retreat, largely
+performed along country by-roads, as he had to avoid the principal
+cities which were already free. Had Charles Albert caught him up while
+he was far from the Quadrilateral, the decisive blow would have been
+struck, and the only man who could save Austria in Italy would have
+been taken prisoner. Radetsky chose the route of Lodi and the lower
+Brescian plains to Montechiaro, where the encampments were ready for
+the Austrian spring manoeuvres: from this point an easy march carried
+him under the walls of Verona. Here he met General d'Aspre, who had
+just arrived with the garrison of Padua. D'Aspre, by skill and
+resolution, had brought his men from Padua without losing one, having
+refused the Paduans arms for a national guard, though ordered from
+Milan to grant them. 'You come to tell me all is lost,' said the
+Field-Marshal when they met 'No,' rejoined the younger general, 'I
+come to tell you all is saved.'
+
+This great chance missed, there was another which could have been
+seized. Mantua, extraordinary to relate, was defended by only three
+hundred artillerymen and a handful of hussars. It would have fallen
+into the hands of its own citizens but for the presence of mind of its
+commandant, the Polish General Gorzhowsky, who told them that to no
+one on earth would he deliver the keys of the fortress except to his
+Emperor, and that the moment he could no longer defend it he would
+blow it into the air, with himself and half Mantua. He showed them the
+flint and the steel with which he intended to do the deed. Enemy
+though he was, that incident ought to be recorded in letters of gold
+on the gates of Mantua, as a perpetual lesson of that most difficult
+thing for a country founded in revolution to learn: the meaning of a
+soldier's duty.
+
+It is easy to see that, if Charles Albert had made an immediate dash
+on Mantua, the fortress, or its ruins, would have been his, to the
+enormous detriment of the Austrian position. But this chance too was
+missed. On the 31st of March, the 9000 men sent with all speed by
+Radetsky to the defenceless fortress arrived, and henceforth Mantua
+was safe. Charles Albert only got within fifteen or sixteen miles of
+it five days later, to find that all hope of its capture was gone.
+
+The campaign began with political as well as with military mistakes.
+At the same time that the King of Sardinia was declaring in the
+Proclamation addressed to the Lombards that, full of admiration of the
+glorious feats performed in their capital, he came to their aid as
+brother to brother, friend to friend, his ambassadors were trying to
+persuade the foreign Powers, and especially Austria, Prussia and
+Russia, that the only object of the war was to avoid a revolution in
+Piedmont, and to prevent the establishment of a republic in Lombardy.
+No one was convinced or placated by these assurances; far better as
+policy than so ignominious an attempt at hedging would have been the
+acknowledgment to all the world of the noble crime of patriotism. But,
+as Massimo d'Azeglio once observed, Charles Albert had the incurable
+defect of thinking himself cunning. It was, moreover, only too true
+that, although in these diplomatic communications the King allowed the
+case against him to be stated with glaring exaggeration, yet they
+contained an element of fact. He _was_ afraid of revolution at home;
+he _was_ afraid of a Lombard republic; these were not the only, nor
+were they the strongest, motives which drove him into the war, but
+they were motives which, associated with deeper causes, contributed
+to the disasters of the future.
+
+The Piedmontese force was composed of two _corps d'armee,_ the first
+under General Bava and the second under General Sonnaz: each amounted
+to 24,000 men. The reserves, under the Duke of Savoy, numbered 12,000.
+Radetsky, at first (after strengthening the garrisons in the
+fortresses), could not put into the field more than 40,000 men. As has
+been stated, the King assumed the supreme command, which led to a
+constant wavering between the original plan of General Bava, a capable
+officer, and the criticisms and suggestions of the staff. The greatest
+mistake of all, that of never bringing into the field at once more
+than about half the army, was not without connection with the supposed
+necessity, based on political reasons, of garrisoning places in the
+rear which might have been safely left to the care of their national
+guards.
+
+Besides the royal army, there were in the field 17,000 Romans, 3000
+Modenese and Parmese, and 6000 Tuscans. There were also several
+companies of Lombard volunteers, Free Corps, as they were called,
+which might have been increased to almost any extent had they not been
+discouraged by the King, who was believed to look coldly on all these
+extraneous allies, either from doubt of their efficiency, or from the
+wish to keep the whole glory of the campaign for his Piedmontese army.
+
+The first engagements were on the line of the Mincio. On the 8th of
+April the Sardinians carried the bridge of Goito after a fight of four
+hours. The burning of the village of Castelnuovo on the 12th, as a
+punishment for its having received Manara's band of volunteers,
+excited great exasperation; many of the unfortunate villagers perished
+in the flames, and this and other incidents of the same kind did much
+towards awakening a more vivid hatred of the Austrians among the
+peasants.
+
+After easily gaining possession of the left (Venetian) bank of the
+Mincio, Charles Albert employed himself in losing time over chimerical
+operations with a view to taking the fortresses of Peschiera and
+Mantua, now strongly garrisoned, and impregnable while their
+provisions lasted. This object governed the conduct of the campaign,
+and caused the waste of precious months during every day of which
+General Nugent, with his 30,000 men, was approaching one step nearer
+from the mountains of Friuli, and General Welden, with his 10,000,
+down the passes of Tyrol. If, instead of playing at sieges, Charles
+Albert had cut off these reinforcements, Radetsky would have been
+rendered powerless, and the campaign would have had another
+termination. Never was there a war in which the adoption of Napoleon's
+system of crushing his opponents one by one, when he could not
+outnumber them if united, was more clearly indicated.
+
+General Durando crossed the Po on the 21st of April with 17,000 men,
+partly Pontifical troops and partly volunteers, to which weak corps
+fell the task of opposing Nugent's advance in Venetia. The colours of
+the Pontifical troops were solemnly blessed before they left Rome, but
+as the order was only given to go to the frontier, and nothing was
+said, though everything was understood, about crossing it, the Pope
+was technically able to assert that the war was none of his making.
+His ministry ventured to suggest to him that the situation was
+peculiar. Now it was that Catholic Austria and Russia, herself
+schismatic, flourished in the face of the Pope the portentous scare of
+a new schism. It is said that the Pope's confessor, a firm Liberal,
+died just at this time, not without suspicion of poison. Thoroughly
+alarmed in his spiritual capacity, the Pope issued his Encyclical
+Letter of the 29th of April--when his ministers and the whole country
+still hoped from day to day that he would formally declare war--in
+which he protested that his sacred office obliged him to embrace all
+nations in an equal paternal love. If his subjects, he added, followed
+the example of the other Italians, he could not help it: a
+half-hearted admission which could not mitigate the indignation which
+the document called forth. With regard to Durando's corps, the Pope
+did what was the best thing under the altered circumstances; he sent
+L.C. Farini as envoy to the King of Sardinia, with the request that he
+would take the Roman troops under his supreme command, the Papal
+Government agreeing to continue the pay of such of them as belonged to
+the regular army. Pius IX. made one last effort to help his
+fellow-countrymen which people hardly noticed, so futile did it
+appear, but which was probably made in profound seriousness. He wrote
+a letter to the Emperor of Austria begging him to make all things
+right and pleasant by voluntarily withdrawing from his Italian
+dominions. Popes had dictated to sovereigns before now; was there not
+Canossa? Besides, if a miracle was sought, why should not a miracle
+happen? Pope and Emperor shaking hands over a free Italy and a world
+reconciled--how delightful the prospect! Who can doubt that when the
+Pope wrote that letter all the beautiful dreams of Cardinal Mastai
+carried him once more away (it was the last time) in an ecstasy of
+blissful hopes? 'Let not your Majesty take offence,' ran the appeal,
+'if we turn to your pity and religion, exhorting you with fatherly
+affection to desist from a war which, powerless to re-conquer the
+hearts of the Lombards and Venetians, can only lead to a dark series
+of calamities. Nor let the generous Germanic nation take offence if
+we invite it to abandon old hatreds, and convert into useful relations
+of friendly neighbourhood a dominion which can be neither noble nor
+happy if it depend only on the sword. Thus we trust in the nation
+itself, honestly proud of its own nationality, to no longer make a
+point of honour of sanguinary attempts against the Italian nation, but
+rather to perceive that its true honour lies in recognising Italy as a
+sister.'
+
+The Emperor received the bearer of the letter with coldness, and
+referred him to his ministers, who simply called his attention to the
+fact that the Pope owed the Temporal Power to the same treaties as
+those which gave Austria the possession of Lombardy and Venetia.
+
+The day after the publication of the Encyclical, that is to say, the
+30th of April, the Piedmontese obtained their first important success
+in the battle of Pastrengo, near Peschiera. Fighting from daybreak to
+sundown, they drove the enemy back into Verona, with a loss of 1200
+killed and wounded. The Austrians were in rather inferior numbers; but
+the victory was highly creditable to the hitherto untried army of
+Piedmont, and showed that it contained excellent fighting material. It
+was not followed up, and might nearly as well have never been fought.
+
+The Neapolitan troops, of whom 41,000 were promised, 17,000 being on
+the way already, were intended to reinforce Durando's corps in
+Venetia. With the two or three battalions which Manin could spare from
+the little army of Venice, the Italian forces opposed to Nugent's
+advance would have been brought up to 60,000 men; in which case not
+even Charles Albert's 'masterly inactivity' could have given Austria
+the victory.
+
+The Neapolitan Parliament convoked under the new Constitution was to
+meet on the 15th of May. A dispute had been going on for several days
+between the Sovereign and the deputies about the form of the
+parliamentary oath, the deputies wishing that the Chambers should be
+left free to amend or alter the Statute, while the King desired that
+they should be bound by oath to maintain it as it was presented to
+them. It was unwise to provoke a disagreement which was sure to
+irritate the King. However, late on the 14th, he appeared to yield,
+and consented that the wording of the oath should be referred to the
+discussion of Parliament itself. It seems that, at the same time, he
+ordered the troops of the garrison to take up certain positions in the
+city. A colonel of the National Guard raised the cry of royal treason,
+calling upon the people to rise, which a portion of them did, and
+barricades were constructed in the Toledo and other of the principal
+streets. A more insane and culpable thing than this attempt at
+revolution was never put in practice. It was worse even than that 20th
+of May at Milan, which threw Eugene into the arms of Austria. Its
+consequences were those which everyone could have foreseen--a two
+days' massacre in the streets of Naples, begun by the troops and
+continued by the lazzaroni, who were allowed to pillage to their
+hearts' content; the deputies dispersed with threats of violence,
+Parliament dissolved before it had sat, the original Statute torn up,
+and (by far the most important) the Neapolitan troops, now at Bologna,
+recalled to Naples. This was the pretty work of the few hundred
+reckless rioters on the 15th of May.
+
+Had not Pius IX. by this time repudiated all part in the war, the King
+of the Two Sicilies would have thought twice before he recalled his
+contingent, though the counsels of neutrality which he received from
+another quarter--from Lord Palmerston in the name of the English
+Government--strengthened his hand not a little in carrying out a
+defection which was the direct ruin of the Italian cause. When the
+order to return reached Bologna, the veteran patriot, General Pepe,
+who had been summoned from exile to take the chief command, resolved
+to disobey, and invited the rest to follow him. Nearly the whole of
+the troops were, however, faithful to their military oath. The
+situation was horrible. The choice lay between the country in danger
+and the King, who, false and perjured though he might be, was still
+the head of the State, to whom each soldier had sworn obedience. One
+gallant officer escaped from the dilemma by shooting himself. Pepe,
+with a single battalion of the line, a company of engineers, and two
+battalions of volunteers, went to Venice, where they fought like
+heroes to the end.
+
+On the 27th of May, Radetsky, taking the offensive with about 40,000
+men, marched towards Mantua, near which was stationed the small Tuscan
+corps, whose commander only received when too late General Bava's
+order to retire from an untenable position. On the 29th the Austrians,
+in overwhelming numbers, bore down upon the 6000 Tuscans at Montanara
+and Curtatone, and defeated them after a resistance of six hours. The
+Tuscan professor, Giuseppe Montanelli, fell severely wounded while
+holding the dead body of his favourite pupil, but he recovered to show
+less discretion in politics than he had shown valour in the field.
+
+Peschiera, where the supplies were exhausted, capitulated on the 30th,
+and the day after found 22,000 Piedmontese ready to give Radetsky
+battle at Goito, whence, after a severe contest, they drove him back
+to Mantua. The Austrians lost 3000 out of 25,000 men. The honours of
+the day fell to the Savoy brigade, which was worthy of its own fame
+and of the future King of Italy, who was slightly wounded while
+leading it. Outwardly this seemed the most fortunate period of the war
+for Charles Albert, but that had already happened which was to cause
+the turning of the tide. Nugent, with his 30,000 men, had joined
+Radetsky. His march across Venetia was harassed by the inhabitants,
+who left him no peace, especially in the mountain districts, but the
+poor little force of Romans and volunteers under Durando and Ferrari
+was unable to seriously check his progress in the open country, though
+he failed in the attempt to take the towns of Treviso and Vicenza in
+his passage. The repulse of the Austrians, 18,000 strong, from Vicenza
+on the 23rd of May, did great credit to Durando, who only had 10,000
+men, most of them _Crociati_, as the volunteers were called, whose
+ideas about fighting were original. It is hard to see how this General
+could have done more than he did with the materials at his disposal,
+or in what way he merited the abuse which was heaped upon him. The
+case would have been very different if his hybrid force had been
+supported by the Neapolitan army.
+
+Nugent was ordered by Radetsky to let the intermediate places alone,
+and to come on to him as fast as circumstances would admit. The
+junction of their troops was, the Field-Marshal saw, of vital
+necessity, but when this was achieved, and when Welden had also
+brought his 15,000 fresh men from Tyrol, he turned his attention to
+Vicenza, since, as long as that town remained in Durando's hands,
+Venetia would still be free. He conceived the bold plan of making an
+excursion to Vicenza with his complete army, while Charles Albert
+enjoyed the pleasant illusion that the Austrians were in full retreat
+owing to his success at Goito. The result of Radetsky's attack was not
+doubtful, but the defence of the town on the 10th of June could not
+have been more gallant; the 3500 Swiss, the Pontifical Carabineers,
+and the few other troops belonging to the regular army of the Pope did
+wonders. Cialdini, the future general, and Massimo d'Azeglio, the
+future prime minister, fought in this action, and the latter was
+severely wounded. After several hours' resistance there was nothing to
+be done but to hoist the white flag; Radetsky's object was
+accomplished, the Venetian _terra firma_ was practically once more in
+the power of Austria. On the 14th he was back again at Verona without
+the least harm having happened in his absence.
+
+Only military genius of the first order could now have saved the
+Piedmontese, and what prevailed was the usual infatuation. Charles
+Albert's lines were extended across forty miles of country, from
+Peschiera to Goito. On the 23rd of July the Austrians fell upon their
+weakest point, and obliged Sonnaz' division to cross over to the right
+bank of the Mincio. On the 24th, the King succeeded in dislodging the
+Austrians from Custozza after four hours' struggle; but next day,
+which was spent entirely in fighting, Radetsky retook Custozza, and
+obliged the King to fall back on Villafranca. Now began the terrible
+retreat on Milan, performed under the ceaseless fire of the pursuers,
+who attacked and defeated the retreating army for the last time, close
+to Milan, on the 4th of August. Radetsky had with him 45,000 men;
+Charles Albert's forces were reduced to 25,000. He had lost 5000 since
+he recrossed the Mincio. He begged for a truce, and, defeated and
+undone, he entered the city which he had vowed should only receive him
+victorious.
+
+To suppose that anything could have been gained by subjecting Milan to
+the horrors of a siege seems at this date the veriest madness;
+whatever Charles Albert's sins were, the capitulation of Milan was not
+among them. The members of a wild faction, however, demanded
+resistance to the death, or the death of the King if he refused. It is
+their severest censure to say that their pitiless fury is not excused
+even by the tragic fate of a population which, having gained freedom
+unaided less than six months before, saw itself given back to its
+ancestral foe by the man in whom it had hoped as a saviour. They saw
+crimes where there were only blunders, which had brought the King to a
+pass only one degree less wretched than their own. Crushed,
+humiliated, his army half destroyed, his personal ambition--to rate no
+higher the motive of his actions--trodden in the dust; and now the
+name of traitor was hissed in his ears by those for whom he had made
+these sacrifices.
+
+Stung to the heart, the King instructed General Bava to tell the
+Milanese that if they were ready to bury themselves under the ruins of
+the city, he and his sons were ready to do the same. But the
+Municipality, convinced of the desperateness of the situation, had
+already entered into negotiations with Radetsky, by which the
+capitulation was ratified. On this becoming known, the Palazzo Greppi,
+where Charles Albert lodged, was the object of a new display of rage;
+an attempt was even made to set it on fire. During the night, the King
+succeeded in leaving the palace on foot, guarded by a company of
+Bersaglieri and accompanied by his son, the Duke of Genoa, who, on
+hearing of his father's critical position, disobeyed the order to stay
+with his regiment, and came into the city to share his danger.
+
+The next day, the 6th of August, the Austrians reentered Milan. They
+themselves said that the Milanese seemed distraught. The Municipality
+was to blame for having concealed from the people the real state of
+things, by publishing reports of imaginary victories. Had the
+unthinking fury of the mob ended, as it so nearly ended, in an
+irreparable crime, the authors of these falsehoods would have been,
+more than anyone else, responsible for the catastrophe.
+
+The campaign of 1848 was finished. From the frontier, Charles Albert
+issued a proclamation to his people, calling upon the Piedmontese to
+render the common misfortunes less difficult to bear by giving his
+army a brotherly reception. 'In its ranks,' he concluded, 'are my sons
+and I, ready, as we all are, for new sacrifices, new hardships, or for
+death itself for our beloved fatherland.'
+
+The political and diplomatic transactions connected with the war in
+Lombardy were the subject after it closed of much discussion, and of
+some violent recriminations. Even from the short account given in
+these pages, it ought to be apparent that the supreme cause of
+disaster was simply bad generalship. Contemporaries, however, judged
+otherwise; if they were monarchists, they attributed the failure to
+the want of whole-hearted co-operation of the Provisional Governments
+of Lombardy with the liberating King; if they were republicans, they
+attributed it to the King's want of trust in the popular element, and
+anxiety lest, instead of receiving an increase of territory, he should
+find himself confronted with a new republic at his door. Both parties
+were so far correct that the strain of double purposes, or, at least,
+of incompatible aspirations which ran through the conduct of affairs,
+militated against a fortunate ending. The Piedmontese Government,
+even had it wished, would have found it difficult to adhere strictly
+to the programme of leaving all political matters for discussion after
+the war. What actually happened was that the union, under the not
+altogether attractive form of Fusion with Piedmont (instead of in the
+shape of the formation of an Italian kingdom), was effected at the end
+of June and beginning of July over the whole of Lombardy and Venetia,
+including Venice, where, perhaps alone, the feeling against it was not
+that of a party, but of the bulk of the population. Manin shared that
+feeling, but his true patriotism induced him to push on the Fusion in
+order to avoid the risk of civil war. He retired into private life the
+day it was accomplished, only to become again by acclamation Head of
+the State when the reverses of Sardinia obliged the King's Government
+to renounce the whole of his scarcely--acquired possessions, not
+excepting Modena, which had been the first, by a spontaneous
+plebiscite, to elect him Sovereign.
+
+The diplomatic history of the war is chiefly the history of the
+efforts of the English Cabinet to pull up a runaway horse. Lord Minto
+had been sent to urge the Italian princes to grant those concessions
+which Austria always said (and she was perfectly right) would lead to
+a general attack upon her power, but when the attack began, the
+British Government strained every nerve to limit its extension and
+diminish its force. That Lord Palmerston in his own mind disliked
+Austria, and would have been glad to see North Italy free, does not
+alter the fact that he played the Austrian game, and played it with
+success. He strongly advised every Italian prince to abstain from the
+conflict, and it is further as certain as anything can well be, that
+his influence, exercised through Lord Normanby, alone averted French
+intervention in August 1848, when the desperate state of things made
+the Italians willing to accept foreign aid. What would have happened
+if the French had intervened it is interesting to speculate, but
+impossible to decide. Their help was not desired, except as a last
+resource, by any party in Italy, nor by any man of note except Manin.
+The republicans wished Italy to owe her liberation to herself; Charles
+Albert wished her to owe it to him. The King also feared a republican
+propaganda, and was uneasy, not without reason, about Savoy and Nice.
+Lamartine would probably have been satisfied with the former, but it
+is doubtful if Charles Albert, though capable of giving up his crown
+for Italy, would have been capable of renouncing the cradle of his
+race. When Lamartine was succeeded by Cavaignac, perhaps Nice would
+have been demanded as well as Savoy. That both the King and Mazzini
+were right in mistrusting the sentiments of the French Government, is
+amply testified by a letter written by Jules Bastide to the French
+representative at Turin, in which the Minister of Foreign Affairs
+speaks of the danger to France of the formation of a strong monarchy
+at the foot of the Alps, that would tend to assimilate the rest of
+Italy, adding the significant words: 'We could admit the unity of
+Italy on the principle and in the form of a federation of independent
+states, each balancing the other, but never a unity which placed the
+whole of Italy under the dominion of one of these states.'
+
+Whether, in spite of all this, a political mistake was not made in not
+accepting French aid when it was first offered (in the spring of 1848)
+must remain an open question. When the French came eleven years later,
+they were actuated by no purer motives, but who would say that Cavour,
+instead of seeking, should have refused the French alliance?
+
+One other point has still to be noticed: the proposal made by Austria
+in the month of May to give up Lombardy unconditionally if she might
+keep Venetia, which was promised a separate administration and a
+national army. Nothing shows the state of mind then prevailing in a
+more distinct light than the scorn with which this offer was
+everywhere treated. Lord Palmerston declined to mediate on such a
+basis 'because there was no chance of the proposal being entertained,'
+which proved correct, as when it was submitted to the Provisional
+Government of Milan, it was not even thought worth taking into
+consideration. No one would contemplate the sacrifice of Venice by a
+new Campo Formio.
+
+Far, indeed, was Austria the victorious in August from Austria the
+humiliated in May. On the 9th of August, Hess and Salasco signed the
+armistice between the lately contending Powers. The next day the
+Emperor Ferdinand returned to his capital, from which he had been
+chased in the spring. He might well congratulate himself upon the
+marvellous recovery of his empire; but the revolution in Hungary was
+yet to be quelled, and another rising at Vienna in October tried his
+nerves, which were never of the strongest. On the 2nd of December he
+abdicated in favour of his young nephew, the Archduke Francis Joseph,
+who had been brought face to face more than once on the Mincio with
+the Duke of Savoy, whom he rivalled in personal courage.
+
+On the 10th of December, another event occurred which placed a new
+piece on the European chess-board: Louis Napoleon was elected to the
+Presidency of the French Republic.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE DOWNFALL OF THRONES
+
+1848-1849
+
+Garibaldi Arrives--Venice under Manin--The Dissolution of the Temporal
+Power--Republics at Rome and Florence.
+
+
+While the remnant of the Piedmontese army recrossed the bridge over
+the Ticino at Pavia, crushed, though not though want of valour,
+outraged in the person of its King, surely the saddest vanquished host
+that ever retraced in sorrow the path it had traced in the wildest
+joy, a few thousand volunteers in Lombardy still refused to lay down
+their arms or to recognise that, after the capitulation of Milan, all
+was lost. Valueless as a fact, their defiance of Austria had value as
+a prophecy, and its prophetic aspect comes more clearly into view when
+it is seen that the leader of the little band was Garibaldi, while its
+standard-bearer was Mazzini. These two had lately met for the first
+time since 1833, when Garibaldi, or 'Borel,' as he was called in the
+ranks of 'Young Italy,' went to Marseilles to make the acquaintance of
+the head and brain of the society which he had joined, as has been
+mentioned, on the banks of the Black Sea.
+
+'When I was young and had only aspirations,' said Garibaldi in London
+in April 1864, 'I sought out a man who could give me counsel and guide
+my youthful years; I sought him as the thirsty man seeks water. This
+man I found; he alone kept alive the sacred fire, he alone watched
+while all the world slept; he has always remained my friend, full of
+love for his country, full of devotion for the cause of freedom: this
+man is Joseph Mazzini.'
+
+The words spoken then--when the younger patriot was the chosen hero of
+the greatest of free nations, while the elder, still misunderstood by
+almost all, was shunned and calumniated, and even called 'the worst
+enemy of Italy'--gave one fresh proof, had one been wanting, that,
+though there have been more flawless characters than Garibaldi, never
+in a human breast beat a more generous heart. Politically, there was
+nearly as much divergence between Mazzini and Garibaldi as between
+Mazzini and Cavour; the master thought the pupil lacked ideality, the
+pupil thought the master lacked practicalness; but they were at one in
+the love of their land and in the desire to serve her.
+
+On parting with Mazzini in 1833, Garibaldi, then captain of a sailing
+vessel, went to Genoa and enrolled himself as a common sailor in the
+Royal Piedmontese Navy. The step, strange in appearance, was certainly
+taken on Mazzini's advice, and the immediate purpose was doubtless to
+make converts for 'Young Italy' among the marines. Had Garibaldi been
+caught when the ruthless persecution of all connected with 'Young
+Italy' set in, he would have been shot offhand, as were all those who
+were found dabbling with politics in the army and navy. He escaped
+just in time, and sailed for South America.
+
+The _Gazzetta Piemontese_ of the 17th of June 1834 published the
+sentence of death passed upon him, with the rider which declared him
+exposed to public vengeance 'as an enemy of the State, and liable to
+all the penalties of a brigand of the first category.' He saw the
+paper; and it was the first time that he or anyone else had seen the
+name of Giuseppe Garibaldi in print; a name of which Victor Emmanuel
+would one day say that 'it filled the furthest ends of the earth.'
+
+Profitable to Italy, over nearly every page of whose recent history
+might be written 'out of evil cometh forth good,' was the banishment
+which threw Garibaldi into his romantic career of the next twelve
+years between the Amazon and the Plata. Soldier of fortune who did not
+seek to enrich himself; soldier of freedom who never aimed at power,
+he always meant to turn to account for his own country the experience
+gained in the art of war in that distant land, where he rapidly became
+the centre of a legend, almost the origin of a myth. Antique in
+simplicity, singleness, superabundance of life, and in a sort of
+naturalism which is not of to-day; unselfconscious, trustful in
+others, forgiving, incapable of fear, abounding in compassion,
+Garibaldi's true place is not in the aggregation of facts which we
+call history, but in the apotheosis of character which we call the
+_Iliad_, the _Mahabharata_, the _Edda_, the cycles of Arthur and of
+Roland, and the _Romancero del Cid_.
+
+In childhood he rescued a drowning washerwoman; in youth he nursed men
+dying of cholera; as a veteran soldier he passed the night among the
+rocks of Caprera hunting for a lamb that was lost. No amount of habit
+could remove the repugnance he felt at uttering the word 'fire.' Yet
+this gentle warrior, when his career was closed and he lay chained to
+his bed of pain, endorsed his memoirs with the Spanish motto: 'La
+guerra es la verdadera vida del hombre.' War was the veritable life of
+Garibaldi; war, not conspiracy; war, not politics; war, not, alas!
+model farming, for which the old chief fancied in his later years that
+he had discovered in himself a vocation.
+
+Riding the wild horses and chasing the wild cattle of the Pampas, his
+eyes covering the immense spaces untrodden by man, this corsair of
+five-and-twenty drank deep of the innocent pleasures of untamed
+nature, when not occupied in fighting by land or sea, with equal
+fortune; or rather, perhaps, with greater fortune and greater proof of
+inborn genius as commander of the naval campaign of the Paran[=a] than
+as defender of Monte Video. No adventures were wanting to him; he was
+even imprisoned and tortured. In South America he found the one woman
+worthy to bear his name, the lion-hearted Anita, whom he carried off,
+she consenting, from her father and the man to whom her father had
+betrothed her. Garibaldi in after years expressed such deep contrition
+for the act which bore Anita away from the quiet life in store for
+her, and plunged her into hardships which only ended when she died,
+that, misinterpreting his remorse, many supposed the man from whom he
+took her to have been already her husband. It was not so. Shortly
+before the Church of San Francisco at Monte Video was burnt down (some
+twenty years ago), the marriage register of Garibaldi and Anita was
+found in its archives, and a legal copy was made. In it she is
+described as 'Dona Ana Maria de Jesus, unmarried daughter of Don
+Benito Rivevio de Silva, of Laguna, in Brazil.' The bridegroom, who
+during all his American career had scarcely clothes to cover him,
+parted with his only possession, an old silver watch, to pay the
+priest's fees. Head of the Italian Legion, he only took the rations of
+a common soldier, and as candles were not included in the rations, he
+sat in the dark. Someone reported this to the Government, who sent him
+a present of L20, half of which he gave to a poor widow.
+
+When the first rumours that something was preparing in Italy reached
+Monte Video, Garibaldi wrote a letter offering his services to the
+Pope, still hailed as Champion of Freedom, and soon embarked himself
+for the Old World, with eighty-five of his best soldiers, among whom
+was his beloved friend, Francesco Anzani. Giacomo Medici had been
+despatched a little in advance to confer with Mazzini. At starting,
+the Legion knew nothing of the revolution in Milan and Venice, or of
+Charles Albert having taken the field. Great was their wonder,
+therefore, on reaching Gibraltar, to see hoisted on a Sardinian ship a
+perfectly new flag, never beheld by them out of dreams--the Italian
+tricolor.
+
+So Garibaldi returned at forty-one years of age to the country where
+the sentence of death passed upon him had never been revoked. Before
+the law he was still 'a brigand of the first category.' Nor was he
+quite sure that he would not be arrested, and, as a precaution, when
+he cast anchor in the harbour of his native Nice, he ran up the Monte
+Videan colours. It was needless. Throngs of people crowded the quays
+to welcome home the Ligurian captain, who had done great things over
+sea. Anita was there; she had preceded him to Europe with their three
+children, Teresita, Menotti and Ricciotti. There, also, was his old
+mother, who never ceased to be beautiful, the 'Signora Rosa,' as the
+Nizzards called her. She was almost a woman of the people, but the
+simple dignity of her life made all treat her as a superior being. To
+her prayers, while she lived, Garibaldi believed that he owed his
+safety in so many perils, and after her death the soldiers used to say
+that on the eve of battles he walked apart communing with her spirit.
+
+From Nice, Garibaldi went to Genoa, where he took a last leave of his
+friend Anzani, who returned from exile not to fight, as he had hoped,
+but to die. The day before he expired, Medici arrived at Genoa; he was
+very angry with the Chief, in consequence of some disagreement as to
+the place of landing. Anzani said to him entreatingly: 'Do not be
+hard, Medici, on Garibaldi; he is a predestined man: a great part of
+the future of Italy is in his hands.' The counsel from dying lips sank
+deep into Medici's heart; he often disagreed with Garibaldi, but to
+his last day he never quarrelled with him again. Long years after, if
+friction arose between Garibaldi and his King, it was Medici's part to
+throw oil on the waters.
+
+Garibaldi sought an interview with Charles Albert, and offered him his
+arms and the arms of his Legion, 'not unused to war.' Pope or prince,
+little it mattered to him who the saviour of Italy should be. But
+Charles Albert, though he was polite, merely referred his visitor to
+his ministers, and the inestimable sword of the hero went begging for
+a month or more, till the Provisional Government of Milan gave him the
+command of the few thousand volunteers with whom we saw him at the
+conclusion of the campaign. The war was over before he had a chance of
+striking a blow. His indignant cry of defiance could not be long
+sustained, for Garibaldi never drove men to certain and useless
+slaughter; when the real position of things became known to him, he
+led his band over the Swiss confines, and bid them wait for a better
+and not distant day.
+
+Under Manin's wise rule, which was directed solely to the preservation
+of peace within the city, and resistance to the enemy at its gates,
+Venice remained undaunted by the catastrophes in Lombardy, after all
+the Venetian _terra firma_ had been restored to Austria. (Even the
+heroic little mountain fort of Osopo in the Friuli was compelled to
+capitulate on the 12th of October.) The blockade of the city on the
+lagunes did not prevent Venice from acting not only on the defensive
+but on the offensive; in the sortie of the 27th of October, 2500
+Venetians drove the Austrians from Mestre with severe losses, carrying
+back six captured guns, which the people dragged in triumph to the
+Doge's palace. A cabin-boy named Zorzi was borne on the shoulders of
+the soldiers enveloped in the Italian flag; his story was this: the
+national colours, floating from the mast of the pinnace on which he
+served, were detached by a ball and dropped into the water; the child
+sprang in after them, and with a shout of _Viva l'Italia,_ fixed them
+again at the masthead under a sharp fire. Zorzi was, of course, the
+small hero of the hour, especially among the women. General Pepe
+commanded the sortie, with Ulloa, Fontana and Cosenz as his
+lieutenants; Ugo Bassi, the patriot monk of Bologna, marched at the
+head of a battalion with the crucifix, the only arms he ever carried,
+in his hand. The success cost Italy dear, as Alessandro Poerio, poet
+and patriot, the brother of Baron Carlo Poerio of Naples, lost his
+life by a wound received at Mestre. But the confidence of Venice in
+her little army was increased a hundredfold.
+
+The most important event of the autumn of 1848 was the gradual but
+continuous break-up of the Papal authority in Rome. The meeting of the
+new Parliament only served to accentuate the want of harmony between
+the Pope and his ministers; assassinations were frequent; what law
+there was was administered by the political clubs. In Count Terenzio
+Mamiani, Pius IX. found a Prime Minister who, for eloquence and
+patriotism, could hardly be rivalled, but hampered as he was by the
+opposition he encountered from the Sovereign, and by the absence of
+any real or solid moderate constitutional party in the Chamber of
+Deputies, Mamiani could carry out very few of the improvements he
+desired to effect, and in August he retired from an impracticable
+task, to be replaced by men of less note and talent than himself.
+
+Wishing to create fresh complications for the Pope, the Austrians
+invaded the Legations, regardless of his protests, and after the fall
+of Milan, General Welden advanced on Bologna, where, however, his
+forces were so furiously attacked by the inhabitants and the few
+carabineers who were all the troops in the town, that they were
+dislodged from the strong position they had taken up on the
+Montagnola, the hill which forms the public park, and obliged to fly
+beyond the city walls. Radetsky disapproved of Welden's movements on
+Bologna, and ordered him not to return to the assault.
+
+Had the Austrians returned and massacred half the population of
+Bologna, the Pope might have been saved. When Rome heard that the
+stormy capital of Romagna was up in arms, once more, for a moment,
+there were united counsels. 'His Holiness,' ran the official
+proclamation, 'was firmly resolved to repel the Austrian invasion with
+all the means which his State and the well-regulated enthusiasm of his
+people could supply.' The Chamber confirmed the ministerial proposal
+to demand French help against Austria. But all this brave show of
+energy vanished with the pressing danger, and Bologna, which, by its
+manly courage, had galvanised the whole bloodless body-politic, now
+hastened the hour of dissolution by lapsing into a state of deplorable
+anarchy, the populace using the arms with which they had driven out
+the Austrians, to establish a reign of murder and pillage. L.C. Farini
+restored something like order, but the general weakness of the power
+of government became every day more apparent.
+
+The Pope made a last endeavour to avert the catastrophe by calling to
+his counsels Count Pellegrino Rossi, a man of unyielding will, who was
+as much opposed to demagogic as to theocratic government. Rossi,
+having been compromised when very young in Murat's enterprises, lived
+long abroad, and attained the highest offices under Louis Philippe,
+who sent him to Rome to arrange with the Pope the delicate question of
+the expulsion of the Jesuits from France, which he conducted to an
+amicable settlement, though one not pleasing to the great Society.
+Not being one of those who change masters as they change their boots
+according to the state of the roads, the ambassador retired from the
+French service when Louis Philippe was dethroned. As minister to the
+Pope, he made his influence instantly felt; measures were taken to
+restore order in the finances, discipline in the army, public security
+in the streets, and method and activity in the Government offices. The
+tax on ecclesiastical property was enforced; fomenters of anarchy,
+even though they wore the garb of patriots, and perhaps honestly
+believed themselves to be such, were vigorously dealt with. If anyone
+could have given the Temporal Power a new lease of life, it would have
+been a man so gifted and so devoted as Pellegrino Rossi, but the
+entire forces, both of subversion and of reaction, were against him,
+and most of all was against him the fatality of dates. Not at human
+bidding do the dead arise and walk. The most deeply to be regretted
+event that happened in the course of the Italian revolution gave his
+inevitable failure the appearance of a fortuitous accident.
+
+Parliament, which had been prorogued on the 26th of August, was to
+open on the 15th of November. Anarchy, black and red, was in the air.
+Though disorders were expected, Rossi made no provision for keeping
+the space clear round the palace where Parliament met; knots of men,
+with sinister faces, gathered in all parts of the square. Rossi was
+warned in the morning that an attempt would be made to assassinate
+him; he was entreated not to go to the Chamber, to which he replied
+that it was his duty to be present, and that if people wanted his
+blood they would have it sooner or later, whether he took precautions
+or not. Two policemen to keep the passage free when he reached the
+Chamber would, nevertheless, have saved his life. As he walked from
+his carriage to the stairs, an unknown individual pushed against him
+on the right side, and when he turned to see who it was, the assassin
+plunged a dagger in his throat. He fell, bathed in blood, to expire
+without uttering a word.
+
+In the Chamber, the deputies proceeded to business; not one raised an
+indignant protest against a crime which violated the independence of
+the representatives of the nation. The mere understanding of what
+liberty means is absolutely wanting in most populations when they
+first emerge from servitude.
+
+After the craven conduct of the deputies, it is no wonder if the dregs
+of the people went further, and paraded the streets singing songs in
+praise of the assassin. The Pope summoned the Presidents of the two
+Chambers and Marco Minghetti, whom he requested to form a new
+ministry. But the time for regular proceeding was past; the city was
+in the hands of the mob, which imposed on the Pope the acceptance of a
+ministry of nonentities nominated by it. The Swiss Guard fired on the
+crowd which attempted to gain access to the Quirinal; the crowd,
+reinforced by the Civic Guard, returned to the attack and fired
+against the walls, a stray shot killing Monsignor Palma, who was in
+one of the rooms. The Pope decided on flight. He left Rome in disguise
+during the evening of the 25th of November. After gaining the
+Neapolitan frontier, he took the road to Gaeta. The illusion of the
+Pope Liberator ended with the Encyclical; the illusion of the
+Constitutional Pope ended with the flight to Gaeta. Pius IX. was only
+in a limited degree responsible for his want of success, because the
+task he had set before him was the quadrature of the circle in
+politics.
+
+The weight of a less qualified responsibility rests upon him for his
+subsequent actions. On the 3rd of December Parliament voted a proposal
+to send a deputation to the Pope, praying him to return to his States.
+To give the deputation greater authority, the Municipality of Rome
+proposed that the Syndic, the octogenarian Prince Corsini, should
+accompany it. It also comprised two ecclesiastics, and thus
+constituted, it left Rome for Gaeta on the 5th of December. On the
+borders of the Neapolitan kingdom its passage was barred by the
+police, and it was obliged to retrace its steps to Terracina. Here the
+deputation drew up a letter to Cardinal Antonelli (no longer the
+patriotic minister of the spring), in which an audience with the
+Sovereign Pontiff was respectfully requested. The answer came that the
+Pope would not receive the deputation. It was an answer that he was at
+liberty to make, but it should have meant abdication. If, called back
+by the will of the Parliament of his own making, the Sovereign deigned
+not even to receive the bearers of the invitation, in what way did he
+contemplate resuming the throne? It was only too easy to guess. The
+Head of Christendom had become a convert of King Ferdinand of Naples,
+otherwise Bomba. By a path strewn with the sinister flowers of war did
+Pius IX. meditate returning to his subjects--by that path and no
+other.
+
+The Galetti-Sterbini ministry, appointed by the Pope under popular
+pressure a few days before his departure, remained in charge of
+affairs, somewhat strengthened by the adhesion of Terenzio Mamiani as
+Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mamiani at first declined to form part of
+the ministry, but joined it afterwards with self-sacrificing
+patriotism, in the hope of saving things from going to complete rack
+and ruin during the interregnum caused by the withdrawal of the Head
+of the State. He only retired from the ungrateful office when he saw
+the imminence of a radical change in the form of government, which was
+not desired by him any more than it had been by Rossi.
+
+The mass of the population of the Roman States had desired such a
+change ever since the days of Gregory; the temporary enthusiasm for
+Pius, if it arrested the flow of the stream, did not prevent the
+waters from accumulating beyond the dyke. One day the dyke would
+burst, and the waters sweep all before them.
+
+A Constituent Assembly was convoked for the 5th of February 1849. The
+elections, which took place on the 21st of January, were on this
+basis: every citizen of more than twenty-one years was allowed to
+vote; every citizen over twenty-five could become a deputy; the number
+of deputies was fixed at two hundred; a candidate who received less
+than 500 votes would not be elected. On the 9th of February, the
+Constituent Assembly voted the downfall of the Temporal Power (free
+exercise of his spiritual functions being, at the same time, assured
+to the Supreme Pontiff), and the establishment of a republican form of
+government. The Roman Republic was proclaimed from the Capitol.
+
+Ten votes were given against the republic. No government ever came
+into existence in a more strictly legal manner. Had it not represented
+the true will of the people, the last Roman Commonwealth could not
+have left behind so glorious, albeit brief, a record.
+
+A youthful poet, descendant of the Doges of Genoa, Goffredo Mameli,
+whose 'Fratelli d'Italia' was the battle-hymn to which Italy marched,
+wrote these three words to Mazzini: 'Roma, Repubblica, Venite.' So
+Mazzini came to Rome, which confided her destinies to him, as she had
+once confided them to the Brescian Arnold and to Cola di Rienzi. Not
+Arnold--not Rienzi in his nobler days--dreamed a more sublime dream of
+Roman liberty than did Giuseppe Mazzini, or more nearly wrote down
+that dream in facts.
+
+Originally the executive power was delegated to a committee, but this
+was changed to a Triumvirate, the Triumvirs being Armellini, Saffi and
+Mazzini. Mazzini's mind and will directed the whole.
+
+On the 18th of February, Cardinal Antonelli demanded in the Pope's
+name the armed intervention of France, Austria, Spain and Naples, 'as
+in this way alone can order be restored in the States of the Church,
+and the Holy Father re-established in the exercise of his supreme
+authority, in compliance with the imperious exigencies of his august
+and sacred character, the interests of the universal Church, and the
+peace of nations. In this way he will be enabled to retain the
+patrimony which he received at his accession, and transmit it in its
+integrity to his successors.'
+
+The Pope, who could not bring himself to stain his white robes with
+the blood of the enemies of Italy, called in four armies to shoot down
+his subjects, because in no other way could he recover his lost
+throne.
+
+Pius IX. was the twenty-sixth Pontiff who called the foreigner into
+Italy.
+
+The final conquest of the Pope by the party of universal reaction
+could only be effected by his isolation from all but one set of
+influences; this is precisely what happened at Gaeta. There are
+reasons for thinking that his choice of the hospitality of the King of
+the Two Sicilies, rather than that of France or Spain or Sardinia, was
+the result of an intrigue in which Count Spaur, the Bavarian minister
+who represented the interests of Austria in Rome after that power
+withdrew her ambassador, played a principal part. Even after Pius
+arrived at Gaeta, it is said that he talked of it as the first stage
+of a longer journey. He had never shown any liking for the Neapolitan
+Bourbons, and the willingness which he expressed to Gioberti to crown
+Charles Albert King of Italy if his arms were successful, was probably
+duly appreciated by Ferdinand II. To save the Pope from absorption by
+the retrograde party, and to avoid the certainty of a foreign
+invasion, Gioberti, who became Prime Minister of Piedmont in November
+1848, was anxious to occupy the Roman states with Sardinian troops
+immediately after the Pope's flight, when his subjects still
+recognised his sovereignty. Gioberti resigned because this policy was
+opposed by Rattazzi and other of his colleagues in the ministry. It
+would have been a difficult _role_ to play; Sardinia, while
+endeavouring to checkmate the reaction, might have become its
+instrument. The failure of Gioberti's plan cannot be regretted, but
+his forecast of what would happen if it were not attempted proved to
+be correct.
+
+Soon after the arrival of his exalted guest, King Ferdinand with his
+family, a great number of priests, and a strong escort, moved his
+residence from the capital to Gaeta. The modified Constitution,
+substituted for the first charter after the events of the 15th of May,
+was still nominally in force; Parliament had met during the summer,
+but the King solved the riddle of governing through his ministers, on
+purely retrograde principles, without paying more heed to the
+representatives of the nations than to the benches on which they sat.
+Prorogued on the 5th of September, Parliament was to have met on the
+30th of November, but when that date approached, it was prorogued
+again to the 1st of February. 'Our misery has reached such a climax,'
+wrote Baron Carlo Poerio, 'that it is enough to drive us mad. Every
+faculty of the soul revolts against the ferocious reactionary
+movement, the more disgraceful from its execrable hypocrisy. We are
+governed by an oligarchy; the only article maintained is that
+respecting the taxes. The laws have ceased to exist; the Statute is
+buried; a licentious soldiery rules over everything, and the press is
+constantly employed to asperse honest men. The lives of the deputies
+are menaced. Another night of St Bartholomew is threatened to all who
+will not sell body and soul.' Ferdinand only waited till he had
+recovered substantial hold over Sicily to do away with even the
+fiction of parliamentary government. Messina had fallen in September,
+though not till half the city was in flames, the barbarous cruelties
+practised on the inhabitants after the surrender exciting the
+indignation of the English and French admirals who witnessed the
+bombardment. This was the first step to the subjection of Sicily, but
+not till after Syracuse and Catania fell did the King feel that there
+was no further cause for anxiety--the taking of the capital becoming a
+mere question of time. He was so much pleased at the fall of Catania
+that he had a mock representation of the siege performed at Gaeta in
+presence of the Pope and of half the sacred college.
+
+On the 13th of March Prince Torelli handed the President of the
+Neapolitan Chamber of Deputies a sealed packet which contained a royal
+decree dissolving Parliament. Naples was once more under an
+irresponsible despotism. The lazzaroni of both the lower and higher
+classes, if by lazzaroni may be understood the born allies of
+ignorance, idleness and bigotry, rejoiced and were glad. Nor were they
+few. Unlike the Austrians in the north, Ferdinand had his party; the
+'fidelity of his subjects' of which he boasted, was not purely
+mythical. Whether, considering its basis, it was much to boast of,
+need not be discussed.
+
+In March, the happy family at Gaeta was increased by a new arrival.
+Had he been better advised, Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, would have
+never gone to breathe that malarious atmosphere. He had played no
+conjuror's tricks with his promises to his people; Austrian though he
+was, he had really acted the part of an Italian prince, and there was
+nothing to show that he had not acted it sincerely. But a persistent
+bad luck attended his efforts. Though the ministers appointed by him
+included men as distinguished as the Marquis Gino Capponi, Baron
+Ricasoli and Prince Corsini, they failed in winning a strong popular
+support. Leghorn, where the population, unlike that of the rest of
+Tuscany, is by nature turbulent, broke into open revolution. In the
+last crisis, the Grand Duke entrusted the government to the extreme
+Liberals, Montanelli the professor, and Guerrazzi the novelist; both
+were honourable men, and Guerrazzi was thought by many to be a man of
+genius. The vigorous rhetoric of his _Assedio di Firenze_ had warmed
+the patriotism of many young hearts. But, as statesmen, the only
+talent they showed was for upsetting any _regime_ with which they were
+connected.
+
+The Grand Duke was asked to convoke a Constituent Assembly, following
+the example of Rome. If every part of Italy were to do the same, the
+constitution and form of government of the whole country could be
+settled by a convention of the various assemblies. The idea was worthy
+of respect because it pointed to unity; but in view of the existing
+situation, Tuscany's solitary adhesion would hardly have helped the
+nation, while it was accompanied by serious risks to the state. The
+Grand Duke seemed about to yield to the proposal, but, on receiving a
+strong protest from the Pope, he refused to do so on the ground that
+it would expose himself and his subjects to the terrors of
+ecclesiastical censure. He still remained in Tuscany, near Viareggio,
+till he was informed that a band of Leghornese had set out with the
+intention of capturing his person. Then he left for Gaeta on board the
+English ship _Bull Dog._ The republic had been already proclaimed at
+Florence, with Montanelli and Guerrazzi as its chief administrators.
+It succeeded in pleasing no one. Civil war was more than once at the
+threshhold of Florence, for the peasants rose in armed resistance to
+the new government. In less than two months the restoration of the
+Grand. Ducal authority was accomplished almost of itself.
+Unfortunately, the Grand Duke who was to come back was not the same
+man as he who went away. The air of Gaeta did its work.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+AT BAY
+
+1849
+
+Novara--Abdication of Charles Albert--Brescia crushed--French
+Intervention--The Fall of Rome--The Fall of Venice.
+
+
+In the spring of 1848, a date might be found when every Italian ruler
+except the Duke of Modena wore the appearance of a friend to freedom
+and independence. In the spring of 1849 no Italian prince preserved
+that appearance except the King of Sardinia. Many causes contributed
+to the elimination, but most of all the logic of events. It was a case
+of the survival of the fittest. What seemed a calamity was a step in
+advance.
+
+Early in March, the Marquis Pallavicini, prisoner of Spielberg, had a
+long interview with Charles Albert. They sat face to face talking over
+Italian matters, and the King said confidently that the army was now
+flourishing; if the die were cast anew, they would win. At parting he
+embraced the Lombard patriot with the words: 'Dear Pallavicini, how
+glad I am to have seen you again! You and I had always the same
+thought; the independence of Italy was the first dream of my youth; it
+is my dream still, it will be till I die.'
+
+Some characters grow small in misfortune, others grow great. The
+terrible scene at the Palazzo Greppi, the charge of treason, the
+shouts of 'death,' had left only one trace on Charles Albert's mind:
+the burning desire to deliver his accusers.
+
+The armistice was denounced on the 12th of March, a truce of eight
+days being allowed before the recommencement of hostilities. There is
+such a thing in politics as necessary madness, and it may be doubted
+if the Sardinian war of 1849 was not this thing. The programme of
+_fare da se_ had now to be carried out in stern earnest. Sardinia
+stood alone, neither from south of the Apennines nor from north of the
+Alps could help be hoped for. France, which was meditating quite
+another sort of intervention, refused the loan even of a general.
+'They were not going to offend Austria to please Piedmont,' said the
+French Cabinet. Worse than this, the army was not in the flourishing
+state of which the King had spoken. The miseries of the retreat, but
+infinitely more, the incidents of Milan, though wiped out by the King
+from his own memory, were vividly recollected by all ranks. Affection
+was not the feeling with which the Piedmontese soldiers regarded the
+'fratelli Lombardi.' Did anyone beside the King believe that this
+army, which had lost faith in its cause, in its leaders and in itself,
+was going to beat Radetsky? The old Field-Marshal might well show the
+wildest joy when the denunciation of the armistice was communicated to
+him. And yet the higher expediency demanded that the sacrifice of
+Piedmont and of her King for Italy should be consummated.
+
+Rattazzi announced the coming campaign to the Chambers on the 14th of
+March; the news was well received; there was a general feeling that,
+whatever happened, the present situation could not be prolonged. With
+regard to the numbers they could put in the field, Austria and
+Sardinia were evenly balanced, each having about 80,000 disposable
+men. The request for a French marshal having been refused, the chief
+command was given to Chrzanowski, a Pole, who did not know Italian,
+had not studied the theatre of the war, and was so little favoured by
+nature that, to the impressionable Italians, his appearance seemed
+ludicrous. This deplorable appointment was made to satisfy the outcry
+against Piedmontese generalship; as if it was not enough, the other
+Polish general, Ramorino, accused of treachery by the revolutionists
+in 1832, but now praised to the skies by the democratic party, was
+placed in command of the fifth or Lombard division.
+
+Though Radetsky openly gave the word 'To Turin!' Chrzanowski seems to
+have failed to realise that the Austrians intended to invade Piedmont.
+He ordered Ramorino, however, with his 8000 Lombards, to occupy the
+fork formed by the Po and the Ticino, so as to defend the bridge at
+Pavia, if, by chance, any fraction of the enemy tried to cross it.
+What Ramorino did was to place his division on the right bank of the
+Po, and to destroy the bridge of boats at Mezzana Corte _between_
+himself and the enemy. The Austrians crossed the Ticino in the night
+of the 20th of April, not with a fraction, but with a complete army.
+Ramorino was deprived of his command, and was afterwards tried by
+court-martial and shot. Whether his treason was intentional or
+involuntary, it is certain that, had he stemmed the Austrian advance
+even for half a day, the future disasters, if not averted, would not
+have come so rapidly, because the Piedmontese would have been
+forewarned. On the evening of the 21st, General D'Aspre, with 15,000
+men, took a portion of the Sardinian army unawares near Mortara, and,
+owing to the scattered distribution of the Piedmontese, who would have
+outnumbered him had they been concentrated, he succeeded in forcing his
+way into Mortara by nightfall. The moral effect of this first reverse
+was bad, but Chrzanowski rashly decided staking the whole fate of the
+campaign in a field-day, for which purpose he gathered what troops he
+could collect at La Biccocca, a hill capped with a village about a
+mile and a half from Novara. Not more than 50,000 men were collected;
+some had already deserted, and 20,000 were doing nothing on the other
+side of the Po.
+
+Towards eleven o'clock D'Aspre arrived, and lost no time in beginning
+the attack. He sent post-haste to Radetsky, Appel and Thurn to bring
+all the reinforcements in their power as fast as possible. D'Aspre's
+daring was rewarded by his carrying La Biccocca at about mid-day, but
+the Duke of Genoa retook the position with the aid of the valorous
+'Piemonte' brigade, and by two p.m. D'Aspre's brave soldiers were so
+thoroughly beaten, that nothing could have saved his division from
+destruction, as he afterwards admitted, had Chrzanowski joined in the
+pursuit instead of staying behind with more than half the army, in
+accordance with a preconceived plan of remaining on the defensive.
+
+At two o'clock on the 23rd of March, the news started on the wings of
+the wind, and, as great news will do, swiftly reached every part of
+the waiting country, that the Sardinians were getting the best of it,
+that the cause was saved. Men who are not very old remember this as
+the first strong sensation of their lives--this, and its sequel.
+
+Appel and Thurn, and Wratislaw and the old Field-Marshal were on the
+march, and by four o'clock they were pouring their fresh troops upon
+the Piedmontese, who had not known how to profit by their success.
+Heroism such as few battlefields have seen, disorder such as has
+rarely disgraced a beaten army, were displayed side by side in Charles
+Albert's ranks. At eight in the evening, the whole Sardinian army
+retired into Novara; the Austrians bivouacked on La Biccocca. The
+Sardinians had lost 4000 in dead and wounded; the losses of the
+victors were a thousand less.
+
+All the day long the King courted death, pressing forward where the
+balls fell like hail and the confusion was at its height, with the
+answer of despair to the devoted officers who sought to hold him
+back: 'Let me die, this is my last day.' But death shuns the seeker.
+Men fell close beside him, but no charitable ball struck his breast.
+In the evening he said to his generals: 'We have still 40,000 men,
+cannot we fall back on Alessandria and still make an honourable
+stand?' They told him that it could not be done. Radetsky was asked on
+what terms he would grant an armistice; he replied: 'The occupation of
+a large district in Piedmont, and the heir to the throne as a
+hostage.' Then Charles Albert knew what he must do. 'For eighteen
+years,' he said, 'I have made every effort for the good of the people;
+I grieve to see that my hopes have failed, not so much for myself as
+for the country. I have not found death on the field of battle as I
+ardently desired; perhaps my person is the only obstacle to obtaining
+juster terms. I abdicate the crown in favour of my son, Victor
+Emmanuel.' And turning to the Duke of Savoy he said: 'There is your
+King.'
+
+In the night he left Novara alone for Nice. As he passed through the
+Austrian lines, the sentinels were nearly firing upon his carriage;
+General Thurn, before whom he was brought, asked for some proof that
+he was in fact the 'Count de Barge' in whose name his passport was
+made out. A Bersagliere prisoner who recognised the King, at a sign
+from him gave the required testimony, and he was allowed to pass. At
+Nice he was received by the governor, a son of Santorre di Santa Rosa,
+and to him he addressed the last words spoken by him on Italian
+ground: 'In whatever time, in whatever place, a regular government
+raises the flag of war with Austria, the Austrians will find me among
+their enemies as a simple soldier.' Then he continued his journey to
+Oporto.
+
+The principal side-issue of the campaign of 1849 was the revolution at
+Brescia. Had the original plan been carried out, which was to throw
+the Sardinian army into Lombardy (and it is doubtful whether, even
+after Radetsky's invasion of Piedmont, it would not have been better
+to adhere to it), a corresponding movement on the part of the
+inhabitants would have become of the greatest importance. To Brescia,
+which was the one Lombard town where the Piedmontese had been received
+in 1848 with real effusion, the Sardinian Minister of War despatched
+Count Giuseppe Martinengo Cesaresco with arms and ammunition, and
+orders to reassume the colonelcy of the National Guard which he held
+in the previous year, and to take the general control of the movement
+as far as Brescia was concerned. Martinengo succeeded in transporting
+the arms through the enemy's country from the Piedmontese frontier to
+Iseo, and thence to his native city. When he reached Brescia, he found
+that the Austrians had evacuated the town, though they still occupied
+the castle which frowns down upon it. This was the 23rd of March:
+Novara was fought and lost, Piedmont was powerless to come to the
+assistance of the people she had commanded to rise. What was to be
+done? Plainly common sense suggested an honourable compromise with the
+Austrian commandant, by which he should be allowed to reoccupy the
+city on condition that no hair of the citizens' heads was touched.
+This is what Bergamo and the other towns did, nor are they to be
+blamed.
+
+Not so Brescia. Here, where love of liberty was an hereditary instinct
+from the long connection of Brescia with free Venice, where hatred of
+the stranger, planted by the ruthless soldiery of Gaston de Foix, had
+but gone on maturing through three centuries, where the historical
+title of 'Valiant,' coming down from a remote antiquity, was still no
+fable; here, with a single mind, the inhabitants resolved upon as
+desperate a resistance as was ever offered by one little town to a
+great army.
+
+The Austrian bombardment was begun by the Irish General,
+Nugent-Lavall, who, dying in the midst of it, left all his fortune to
+the heroic city which he was attacking. The Austrians, flushed with
+their victory over Charles Albert's army of 80,000, were seized with
+rage at the sight of their power defied by a town of less than half
+that number of souls. But with that rage was mingled, even in the mind
+of Haynau, an admiration not to be repressed.
+
+Haynau who was sent to replace Nugent, was already known at Brescia,
+where he had been appointed military governor after the resumption of
+Austrian authority in 1848. In order to punish the 'persistent
+opposition manifested to the legitimate Imperial and Royal
+Government,' and as an example to the other towns, he had imposed on
+the Brescian householders and the landed proprietors of the province a
+fine of half a million francs.
+
+He now returned, and what he did may be best read in his own report on
+the operations. 'It was then,' he wrote, 'that began the most murderous
+fight; a fight prolonged by the insurgents from barricade to barricade,
+from house to house, with extraordinary obstinacy. I should never have
+believed that so bad a cause could have been sustained with such
+perseverance. In spite of this desperate defence, and although the
+assault could only be effected in part, and with the help of cannons of
+heavy calibre, our brave troops with heroic courage, but at the cost of
+great losses, occupied a first line of houses; but as all my columns
+could not penetrate into the town at the same time, I ordered the
+suspension of the attack at nightfall, limiting myself to holding the
+ground conquered. In spite of that, the combat continued late into the
+night. On the 1st of April, in the earliest morning light, the tocsin
+was heard ringing with more fury than ever, and the insurgents reopened
+fire with an entirely new desperation. Considering the gravity of our
+losses, as well as the obstinacy and fury of the enemy, it was
+necessary to adopt a most rigorous measure. I ordered that no prisoners
+should be taken, but that every person seized with arms in his hand
+should be immediately put to death, and that the houses from which shots
+came should be burnt. It is thus that conflagrations, partly caused by
+the troops, partly by the bombardment, broke out in various parts of the
+town.'
+
+During the ten days' struggle, the citizens did not flinch for a
+moment. Count Martinengo was the guiding spirit of the defence, and
+scarcely left the most exposed of the barricades night or day. From
+the nobles to the poorest of the people, all did their duty. A youth
+named Tito Speri led and animated the populace. The horrors of the
+repression make one think of the fall of Khartoum. Not even in
+Hungary, where he went from Brescia to continue his 'system,' did
+Haynau so blacken his own and his country's name as here. In a boys'
+school kept by a certain Guidi, the master's wife, his mother and ten
+of his pupils were slaughtered. A little hunchback tailor was carried
+to the barracks to be slowly burnt alive. But stray details do not
+give the faintest idea of the whole. And for all this, Haynau was in a
+far higher degree responsible than the actual executants of the
+vengeance to which he hounded on his ignorant soldiers, maddened with
+the lust of blood.
+
+Such was General Haynau, 'whose brave devotion to his master's service
+was the veteran's sole crime,' said the _Quarterly Review_ (June
+1853), but who was judged otherwise by some in England. Wherefore was
+he soundly beaten by the brewers in the employment of Messrs Barclay &
+Perkins; and the nice words of the _Quarterly_ could not undo that
+beating, redress for which Lord Palmerston blandly advised the
+complainant to seek 'before the common tribunals.' He thought it best
+to neglect the advice, and to leave the country.
+
+Among the curious taxes levied at Brescia during the six months after
+its fall was one of L500 for 'the expenses of the hangman.' Count
+Martinengo escaped after the Austrians were in possession of the town
+through the courageous assistance given to him by a few young men of
+the working class. Camozzi's band of Bergamasques, which started for
+the relief of the sister city, was driven back with loss.
+
+The end was come, but woe to the victors.
+
+Following the Italian flag to where it still floated, we pass from
+Brescia in the dust to Rome still inviolate, though soon to be
+assailed by the bearers of another tricolor. A few days after Novara,
+the Triumvirate issued a proclamation, in which they said: 'The
+Republic in Rome has to prove to Italy and to Europe that our work is
+eminently religious, a work of education and of morality; that the
+accusations of intolerance, anarchy and violent upturning of things
+are false; that, thanks to the republican principle, united as one
+family of good men under the eye of God, and following the impulse of
+those who are first among us in genius and virtue, we march to the
+attainment of true order, law and power united.' Englishmen who were
+in Rome at the time attest how well the pledge was kept. Peace and
+true freedom prevailed under the republican banner as no man
+remembered them to have prevailed before in Rome. The bitter
+provocation of the quadruple attack was not followed by revengeful
+acts on the parts of the government against those who were politically
+and religiously associated with him at whose bidding that attack was
+made. Nothing like a national party was terrorised or kept under by
+fear of violence. 'That at such a time,' writes Henry Lushington, who
+was not favourable to Mazzini, 'not one lawless or evil deed was done
+would have been rather a miracle than a merit, but on much concurrent
+testimony it is clear that the efforts of the government to preserve
+order were incessant, and to a remarkable degree successful.' He adds
+that the streets were far safer for ordinary passengers under the
+Triumvirs than under the Papacy.
+
+Of great help in quieting the passions of the lower orders was the
+people's tribune, Ciceruacchio, who had not put on black cloth
+clothes, or asked for the ministry of war, or of fine arts, according
+to the usual wont of successful tribunes. Ciceruacchio had the sense
+of humour of the genuine Roman _popolano_, and it never came into his
+head to make himself ridiculous. His influence had been first acquired
+by works of charity in the Tiber floods. Being a strong swimmer, he
+ventured where no one else would go, and had saved many lives. At
+first a wine-carrier, he made money by letting out conveyances and
+dealing in forage, but he gave away most of what he made. He opposed
+the whole force of his popularity to a war of classes. 'Viva chi c'ia
+e chi non c'ia quattrini!'[4] was his favourite cry. Once when a young
+poet read him a sonnet in his honour he stopped him at the line 'Thou
+art greater than all patricians,' saying that he would not have that
+published: 'I respect the nobility, and never dream of being higher
+than they. I am a poor man of the people, and such I will always
+remain.'
+
+When the siege came, Ciceruacchio was invaluable in providing the
+troops with forage, horses, and even victuals, which he procured by
+making private sorties on his own account during the night; his
+intimate knowledge of every path enabling him to go unobserved. He
+planned the earthworks, at which he laboured with his hands, and when
+fighting was going on, he shouldered a musket and ran with his two
+sons, one of them a mere child, to wherever the noise of guns directed
+him. No picture of Rome in 1849 would be complete without the burly
+figure and jocund face of Angelo Brunetti.
+
+The republican government found Rome with a mere shadow of an army;
+the efforts to create one had been too spasmodic to do anything but
+make confusion worse confounded by changes and experiments soon
+abandoned. Perseverance and intelligence now had a different result,
+and the little army, called into existence by the republic, proved
+admirable in discipline, various and fantastic as were its components.
+
+Towards the end of April, Garibaldi, who had been stationed at Rieti,
+was ordered to bring his legion to Rome. Those who witnessed the
+arrival saw one of the strangest scenes ever beheld in the Eternal
+City. The men wore pointed hats with black, waving plumes; thin and
+gaunt, their faces dark as copper, with naked legs, long beards and
+wild dark hair hanging down their backs, they looked like a company of
+Salvator Rosa's brigands. Beautiful as a statue amidst his
+extraordinary host rode the Chief, mounted on a white horse, which he
+sat like a centaur. 'He was quite a show, everyone stopping to look at
+him,' adds the sculptor Gibson, to whom these details are owed.
+'Probably,' writes another Englishman, 'a human face so like a lion,
+and still retaining the humanity nearest the image of its Maker, was
+never seen.' Garibaldi wore the historic red shirt, and a small cap
+ornamented with gold.
+
+The origin of the red shirt might have remained in poetic uncertainty
+had it not been mentioned a few years ago in a volume of reminiscences
+published by an English naval officer. The men employed in the
+Saladeros or great slaughtering and salting establishments for cattle
+in the Argentine provinces wore scarlet woollen shirts; owing to the
+blockade of Buenos Ayres, a merchant at Monte Video had a quantity of
+these on his hands, and as economy was a great object to the
+government, they bought the lot cheap for their Italian legion, little
+thinking that they were making the 'Camicia Rossa' immortal in song
+and story.
+
+The coming to Rome of the 1200 legionaries aroused private fears in
+the hearts of the more timid inhabitants, but Garibaldi knew how to
+keep his wild followers in hand, and gallant was the service they
+rendered to Roman liberty.
+
+That liberty was now on the eve of its peril. The preliminaries of the
+French intervention in Rome are tolerably well known; here it suffices
+to say that every new contribution to a more precise knowledge of the
+facts only serves to confirm the charge of dissimulation, or, to use a
+plainer and far better adapted word, of dishonesty, brought against
+the French government for their part in the matter. White, indeed, do
+Austria, Spain and Naples appear--the avowed upholders of priestly
+despotism--beside the ruler of republican France and his ministers,
+whose plan it was not to fight the Roman republic: fighting was far
+from their counsels, but to betray it. It is proved that the
+restoration of the Temporal Power was the aim of the expedition from
+the first; it is equally proved that the French sought to get inside
+Rome by distinct disclaimers of any such intention. 'We do not go to
+Italy,' they said, 'to impose with our arms a system of government,
+but to assure the rights of liberty, and to preserve a legitimate
+interference in the affairs of the peninsula.' They adopted a curious
+method of assuring the rights of liberty.
+
+The Pope would not have anything to do with the affair. 'If you say
+openly that you are going to give me back my Temporal Power, well and
+good; if not, I prefer the aid of Austria.' So he replied to the
+flattering tales whispered in his ear, while tales no less flattering
+were being whispered in the ear of Mazzini. He declined to give the
+French any guarantees as to his future mode of governing; it cannot be
+said, therefore, that they were under the delusion that they were
+restoring a constitutional sovereign.
+
+Efforts have been made to cast the responsibility of the Roman
+intervention entirely on Louis Napoleon. Even Mazzini favoured that
+view, but it is impossible to separate the President of the Republic
+from the 325 deputies who voted the supplies for the expedition on the
+2nd of April. Does anyone pretend that they were hoodwinked any more
+than Ledru Rollin was hoodwinked, or the minority, which, roused by
+his vigorous speech, voted against the grant? Louis Napoleon was far
+less Papal in his sentiments than were most of the assenting deputies;
+his own opinion was more truly represented by the letter which, as a
+private citizen, he wrote to the 'Constitutionnel' in December 1848
+than by his subsequent course as President. In this letter he declared
+that a military demonstration would be perilous even to the interests
+which it was intended to safeguard. He had but one fixed purpose: to
+please France, so as to get himself made Emperor. France must be held
+answerable for the means taken to please her.
+
+General Oudinot landed at Civitavecchia on the 25th of April, his
+friendly assurances having persuaded the local authorities to oppose
+no resistance, an unfortunate error, but the last. The correct
+judgment formed by the Roman Government of the designs of the invaders
+was considerably assisted by a French officer, Colonel Leblanc, who
+was sent to Rome by Oudinot to come to an agreement with Mazzini for
+the amicable reception of the French, and who, losing his temper,
+revealed more than he was meant to reveal. His last words, 'Les
+Italiens ne se battent pas,' unquestionably expressed the belief of
+the whole French force, from the general-in-chief to the youngest
+drummer. They were soon going to have a chance of testing its
+accuracy.
+
+The Roman Assembly passed a vote that 'force should be repelled by
+force.' Well-warned, therefore, but with the proverbial _coeur leger_,
+Oudinot advanced on Rome with 8000 men early on the 30th of April. At
+eleven o'clock the two columns came in sight of St Peter's, and soon
+after, the first which moved towards Porta Angelica was attacked by
+Colonel Masi. Garibaldi attacked the second column a mile out of Porta
+San Pancrazio. At the first moment the superior numbers of the French
+told, and the Italians fell back on Villa Pamphilli, but Colonel
+Galetti arrived with reinforcements, and before long Garibaldi drove
+the French from the Pamphilli Gardens and had them in full retreat
+along the Civitavecchia road. Oudinot was beaten, Rome was victorious.
+'This does not surprise us Romans; but it will astonish Paris!' ran a
+manifesto of the hour; the words are a little childish, but men are
+apt to be childish when they are deeply moved. And as to the
+astonishment of Paris, all the words in the world would fail to paint
+its proportions. Paris was indeed astonished.
+
+Garibaldi had not the chief command of the Roman army, or he would
+have done more; there was nothing to prevent the Italians from driving
+Oudinot into the sea. The Triumvirate, when appealed to directly by
+Garibaldi, refused their sanction, either fearing to leave the capital
+exposed to the Neapolitans who were advancing, or (and this seems to
+have been the real reason) still hoping that France would repudiate
+Oudinot and come to terms. Garibaldi was right on this occasion, and
+Mazzini was wrong. When you are at war, nothing is so ruinous as to be
+afraid of damaging the enemy.
+
+The French ministers, bombarded with reproaches by friends and foes,
+and most uneasy lest their troops in Italy should be destroyed before
+they could send reinforcements, did disown Oudinot's march on Rome,
+and Ferdinand de Lesseps was despatched nominally 'to arrange matters
+in a pacific sense,' but actually to gain time.
+
+In a sitting in the French Assembly, a member of the opposition said
+to the President of the Council: 'You are going to reinstate the
+Pope!' 'No, no,' ejaculated Odilon Barrot. 'You are going to do the
+same as Austria,' cried Lamoriciere. 'We should be culpable if we
+did,' was the answer. Lesseps' instructions, very vague, for the rest,
+were given to him in this spirit. That Lesseps acted in good faith has
+been generally admitted, and was always believed by Mazzini. It was to
+the interest of the French Government to choose a tool who did not
+see how far he was a tool. But if Lesseps had no suspicions, if he had
+not strong suspicions of the real object of his employers, then he was
+already at this date a man singularly easy to deceive.
+
+The French envoy was commissioned to treat, not with the Triumvirate,
+but with the Roman Assembly: a piece of insolence which the former
+would have done well to reply to by sending him about his business.
+Lesseps, however, thought that he would gain by speaking in person to
+Mazzini, and in order that the interview should remain a secret, he
+decided to go to him alone in the dead of the night and unannounced.
+Having made the needful inquiries, he proceeded to the palace of the
+Consulta, the doors of which seem to have been left open all night;
+there were guards, but they were asleep, and the French diplomatist
+traversed the long suite of splendid apartments, opening one into the
+other without corridors. At last he reached the simply-furnished room
+where, upon an iron bedstead, Mazzini slept. Lesseps watched him
+sleeping, fascinated by the beauty of his magnificent head as it lay
+in repose. He still looked very young, though there was hardly a state
+in Europe where he was not proscribed. When Lesseps had gazed his
+full, he called 'Mazzini, Mazzini!' The Triumvir awoke, sat up and
+asked if he had come to assassinate him? Lesseps told him his name,
+and a long conversation followed. One thing, at least, that Lesseps
+said in this interview was strictly true, namely, that Mazzini must
+not count on the French republican soldiers objecting to fire on
+republicans: 'The French soldier would burn down the cottage of his
+mother if ordered by his superiors to do so.' The discipline of a
+great army is proof against politics.
+
+Lesseps was himself in much fear of being assassinated. He believed
+that his footsteps were dogged by three individuals, one of whom was
+an ex-French convict. He complained to Mazzini, who said that he could
+do nothing, which probably shows that he gave no credence to the
+story. Then Lesseps had recourse to Ciceruacchio, 'a man of the people
+who had great influence on the population, and who had organised the
+revolution.' The tribune seems to have quieted his fears and
+guaranteed his safety.
+
+The French envoy could not help being struck by the tender care taken
+of his wounded fellow-countrymen by the Princess Belgiojoso and other
+noble ladies who attended the hospitals. Of prisoners who were not
+wounded there were none, as they had been sent back scot-free to their
+general a few days after the 30th of April. He was struck also by the
+firm resolve of all classes not to restore the Pope. Some liked the
+existing government, some did not, but all prayed heaven to be
+henceforth delivered from the rule of an infallible sovereign.
+
+Whatever was the measure of confidence which Mazzini felt in Lesseps,
+he was firm as iron on the main point--the non-admittance of the
+'friendly' French troops into Rome. Lesseps dragged on the
+negotiations till his government had finished the preparations for
+sending to Rome a force which should not be much less than twice in
+number the whole military resources of the republic. Then they
+recalled him, and, in order not to be bound by anything that he might
+have said, they set about the rumour that he was mad. Indignant at
+such treatment, Lesseps left the diplomatic service, and turned his
+attention to engineering. This was the origin of the Suez Canal.
+
+While all these things were going on, the Austrians moved from Ferrara
+and Modena towards Bologna, the Spaniards landed at Fiumicino, and
+16,000 Neapolitans, commanded by Ferdinand II., encamped near Albano.
+Garibaldi was attacked on the 9th of May by the Neapolitan vanguard,
+which he obliged to fall back. On the 18th, he completely defeated
+King Ferdinand's army near Velletri, and the King ordered a general
+retreat into his own dominions, which was accomplished in haste and
+confusion.
+
+By the end of May, Oudinot's forces were increased to over 35,000 men.
+The defenders of Rome, under the chief command of General Rosselli,
+were about 20,000, of whom half were volunteers. Colonel Marnara's
+Lombard Legion of Bersaglieri was, in smartness of appearance and
+perfect discipline, equal to any regular troops; in its ranks were the
+sons of the best and richest Lombard families, such as Dandolo,
+Morosini and many others. Medici's legion was also composed of
+educated and well-to-do young men. The Bolognese, under the Marquis
+Melara, had the impetuous daring of their race, and Count Angelo
+Masina did wonders with his forty lancers. Wherever Garibaldi was--it
+was always in the hottest places--there were to be seen, at no great
+distance, the patriot monk, Ugo Bassi, riding upon a fiery horse, and
+the young poet of Free Italy, Goffredo Mameli, with his slight, boyish
+figure, and his fair hair floating in the breeze. Nor must we omit
+from the list of Garibaldi's bodyguard Forbes, the Englishman, and
+Anghiar, the devoted negro, who followed his master like a dog.
+
+Oudinot formally disavowed all Lesseps' proceedings from first to
+last, and announced, on the 1st of June, that he had orders to take
+Rome as soon as possible. Out of regard, however, for the French
+residents, he would not begin the attack 'till the morning of Monday
+the 4th.' Now, though no one knew it but the French general, that
+Monday morning began with Sunday's dawn, when the French attacked
+Melara's sleeping battalion at the Roman outposts. It was easy for the
+French to drive back these 300 men, and to occupy the Villa Corsini
+('Villa,' in the Roman sense, means a garden) and the position
+dominating Porta San Pancrazio; but Galetti came up and retook them
+all, to lose them again by nine o'clock. Then Garibaldi, who was ill,
+hurried to the scene from his sick-bed, and thrice that day he retook
+and thrice he lost the contested positions--a brief statement, which
+represents prodigies of valour, and the oblation of as noble blood as
+ever watered the earth of Rome. Melara, Masina, Daverio, Dandolo,
+Mameli: every schoolboy would know these names if they belonged to
+ancient, not to modern, history. Bright careers, full of promise, cut
+short; lives renounced, not only voluntarily, but with joy, and to
+what end? Not for interest or fame--not even in the hope of winning;
+but that, erect and crowned with the roses of martyrdom, Rome might
+send her dying salutation to the world.
+
+At sunset the French had established their possession of all the
+points outside the Gate of San Pancrazio, except the Vascello, a villa
+which had been seized from their very teeth by Medici, who held it
+against all comers. Monte Mario was also in their hands.
+
+Mazzini, whose judgment was obscured by his attribution of the Italian
+policy of France to Louis Napoleon alone, hoped for a revolution in
+Paris, but Ledru Rollin's attempt at agitation completely failed, and
+the country applauded its government now that the mask was thrown
+away. The reasons for revolutions in Paris have always been the same;
+they have to do with something else than the garrotting of
+sister-republics.
+
+Oudinot tightened his cordon; on the 12th of June he invited the city
+to capitulate. The answer was a refusal; so, with the aid of his
+excellent artillery, he crept on, his passage contested at each step,
+but not arrested, till, on the 27th, the Villa Savorelli, Garibaldi's
+headquarters, fell into the hands of the enemy, and, on the night of
+the 29th, the French were within the city walls. St Peter's day is the
+great feast of Rome, and this time, as usual, the cupola of St Peter's
+was illuminated, the Italian flag flying from the highest point. The
+thunderstorm, which proverbially accompanies the feast, raged during
+the night; the French shells flew in all directions; the fight raged
+fiercer than the storm; Medici held out among the crumbling walls of
+the Vascello, which had been bombarded for a week; the heroic Manara
+fell fighting at Villa Spada; Garibaldi, descending into the _melee_,
+dealt blows right and left: he seemed possessed by some supernatural
+power. Those around him say that it is impossible that he would have
+much longer escaped death, but suddenly a message came summoning him
+to the Assembly--it saved his life. When he appeared at the door of
+the Chamber, the deputies rose and burst into wild applause. He seemed
+puzzled, but, looking down upon himself, he read the explanation; he
+was covered with blood, his clothes were honeycombed by balls and
+bayonet thrusts, his sabre was so bent with striking that it would not
+go more than half into its sheath.
+
+What the Assembly wanted to know was whether the defence could be
+prolonged; Garibaldi had only to say that it could not. They voted,
+therefore, the following decree: 'In the name of God and of the
+People: the Roman Constituent Assembly discontinues a defence which
+has become impossible, and remains at its post.' At its post it
+remained till the French soldiers invaded the Capitol, where it sat,
+when, yielding to brute force, the deputies dispersed.
+
+Mazzini, who would have resisted still, when all resistance was
+impossible, wandered openly about the city like a man in a dream. He
+felt as though he were looking on at the funeral of his best-beloved.
+How it was that he was not killed or arrested is a mystery. At the end
+of a week his friends induced him to leave Rome with an English
+passport.
+
+On the 2nd of July, before the French made their official entry,
+Garibaldi called his soldiers together in the square of the Vatican,
+and told them that he was going to seek some field where the foreigner
+could still be fought. Who would might follow him; 'I cannot offer you
+honours or pay; I offer you hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles,
+death.'
+
+Three thousand followed him. Beside her husband rode Anita; not even
+for the sake of the child soon to come would she stay behind in
+safety. Ugo Bassi was there; Anghiar was dead, Mameli was dying in a
+hospital, but there was 'the partisan or brigand Forbes,' as he was
+described in a letter of the Austrian general D'Aspre to the French
+general Oudinot, with a good handful of Garibaldi's best surviving
+officers. Ciceruacchio came with his two sons, and offered himself as
+guide. No one knew what the plan was, or if there was one. Like
+knights of old in search of adventures, they set out in search of
+their country's foes. It was the last desperate venture of men who did
+not know how to yield.
+
+After wandering hither and thither, and suffering severe hardships,
+the column reached the republic of San Marino. The brave hospitality
+of that Rock of freedom prevented Garibaldi from falling into the
+clutches of the Austrians, who surrounded the republic. He treated
+with the Regent for the immunity of his followers, who had laid down
+their arms; and, in the night, he himself escaped with Anita, Ugo
+Bassi, Forbes, Ciceruacchio and a few others. They hoped to take their
+swords to Venice, but a storm arose, and the boats on which they
+embarked were driven out of their course. Some of them were stranded
+on the shore which bounds the pine-forest of Ravenna, and here, hope
+being indeed gone, the Chief separated from his companions. Of these,
+Ugo Bassi, and an officer named Livraghi, were soon captured by the
+Austrians, who conveyed them to Bologna, where they were shot.
+Ciceruacchio and his sons were taken in another place, and shot as
+soon as taken. The boat which contained Colonel Forbes was caught at
+sea by an Austrian cruiser: he was kept in Austrian prisons for two
+months, and was constantly reminded that he would be either shot or
+hung; but the English Government succeeded in getting him liberated,
+and he lived to take part in more fortunate fights under Garibaldi's
+standard.
+
+Meanwhile, Anita was dying in a peasant's cottage, to which Garibaldi
+carried her when the strong will and dauntless heart could no longer
+stand in place of the strength that was finished. This was the 4th of
+August. Scarcely had she breathed her last breath when Garibaldi,
+broken down with grief as he was, had to fly from the spot. The
+Austrians were hunting for him in all directions. All the Roman
+fugitives were proclaimed outlaws, and the population was forbidden to
+give them even bread or water. Nevertheless--aided in secret by
+peasants, priests and all whose help he was obliged to seek--Garibaldi
+made good his flight from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean, the whole
+route being overrun by Austrians. When once the western coast was
+reached, he was able, partly by sea and partly by land, to reach the
+Piedmontese territory, where his life was safe. Not even there,
+however, could he rest; he was told, politely but firmly, that his
+presence was embarrassing, and for the second time he left
+Europe--first for Tunis and then for the United States.
+
+While the French besieged Rome, the Austrians had not been idle. They
+took Bologna in May, after eight days' resistance; and in June, after
+twenty days' attack by sea and land, Ancona fell into their hands. In
+these towns they pursued means of 'pacification' resembling those
+employed at Brescia. All who possessed what by a fiction could be
+called arms were summarily slaughtered. At Ancona, a woman of bad
+character hid a rusty nail in the bed of her husband, whom she wished
+to get rid of; she then denounced him to the military tribunal, and
+two hours later an English family, whose house was near the barracks,
+heard the ring of the volley of musketry which despatched him. Austria
+had also occupied the Grand Duchy of Tuscany; and when, in July,
+Leopold II. returned to his state, which had restored him by general
+consent and without any foreign intervention, he entered Florence
+between two files of Austrian soldiery, in violation of the article of
+the Statute to which he had sworn, which stipulated that no foreign
+occupation should be invited or tolerated. The Grand Duke wrote to the
+Emperor of Austria, from Gaeta, humbly begging the loan of his arms.
+Francis Joseph replied with supreme contempt, that it would have been
+a better thing if Leopold had never forgotten to whose family he
+belonged, but he granted the prayer. Such was the way in which the
+House of Hapsburg-Lorraine, that had done much in Tuscany to win
+respect if not love, destroyed all its rights to the goodwill of the
+Tuscan people, and removed what might have been a serious obstacle to
+Italian unity.
+
+Austria, unable alone to cope with Hungary, committed the immeasurable
+blunder of calling in the 200,000 Russians who made conquest certain,
+but the price of whose aid she may still have to pay. Venice, and
+Venice only, continued to defy her power. Since Novara, the first
+result of which was the withdrawal of the Sardinian Commissioners, who
+had taken over the government after the Fusion, Venice had been ruled
+by Manin on the terms which he himself proposed: 'Are you ready,' he
+asked the Venetian Assembly, 'to invest the Government with unlimited
+powers in order to direct the defence and maintain order?' He warned
+them that he should be obliged to impose upon them enormous
+sacrifices, but they replied by voting the order of the day: 'Venice
+resists the Austrians at all costs; to this end the President Manin is
+invested with plenary powers.' All the deputies then raised their
+right hand, and swore to defend the city to the last extremity. They
+kept their word.
+
+It is hard to say which was the most admirable: Manin's fidelity to
+his trust, or the people's fidelity to him. To keep up the spirits, to
+maintain the decorum of a besieged city even for a few weeks or a few
+months, is a task not without difficulty; but when the months run into
+a second year, when the real pinch of privations has been felt by
+everyone, not as a sudden twinge, but as a long-drawn-out pain, when
+the bare necessities of life fail, and a horrible disease, cholera,
+enters as auxiliary under the enemy's black-and-yellow,
+death-and-pestilence flag; then, indeed, the task becomes one which
+only a born leader of men could perform.
+
+The financial administration of the republic was a model of order and
+economy. Generous voluntary assistance was afforded by all classes,
+from the wealthy patrician and the Jewish merchant to the poorest
+gondolier. Mazzini once said bitterly that it was easier to get his
+countrymen to give their blood than their money; here they gave both.
+The capable manner in which Manin conducted the foreign policy of the
+republic is also a point that deserves mention, as it won the esteem
+even of statesmen of the old school, though it was powerless to obtain
+their help.
+
+The time was gone when France was disposed to do anything for Venice;
+no one except the Archbishop of Paris, who was afterwards to die by
+the hand of an assassin, said a word for her.
+
+In the past year, Lord Palmerston, though he tried to localise the
+war, and to prevent the co-operation of the south, abounded in good
+advice to Austria. He repeated till he was tired of repeating, that
+she would do well to retire from her Italian possessions of her own
+accord. If the French did not come now, he said, they would come some
+day, and then her friends and allies would give her scanty support. As
+for Lombardy, it was notorious that a considerable Austrian party was
+in favour of giving it up, including the Archduke Ranieri, who was
+strongly attached to Italy, which was the land of his birth. As for
+Venice, Austria had against her both the principle of nationality, now
+the rallying cry of Germany, and the principle of ancient prescription
+which could be energetically invoked against her by a state to which
+her title went back no farther than the transfer effected by
+Buonaparte in the treaty of Campo Formio. These were his arguments;
+but he was convinced, by this time, that arguments unsupported by big
+battalions might as well be bestowed on the winds as on the Cabinet of
+Vienna. From the moment that Radetsky recovered Lombardy for his
+master, the Italian policy of the Austrian Government was entirely
+inspired by him, and he was determined that while he lived, what
+Austria had got she should keep. It was thus that, in reply to Manin's
+appeal to Lord Palmerston, he only received the cold comfort of the
+recommendation that Venice should come to terms with her enemy.
+
+The Venetian army of 20,000 men was reduced by casualties and sickness
+to 18,000 or less. It always did its duty. The defence of Fort
+Malghera, the great fort which commanded the road to Padua and the
+bridge of the Venice railway, would have done credit to the most
+experienced troops in the world. The garrison numbered 2500; the
+besiegers, under Haynau, 30,000. Radetsky, with three archdukes, came
+to see the siege, but, tired with waiting, they went away before it
+was ended. The bombardment began on the 4th of May; in the three days
+and nights ending with the 25th over 60,000 projectiles fell on the
+fort. During the night of the 25th the Commandant, Ulloa, by order of
+Government, quietly evacuated the place, and withdrew his troops; only
+the next morning the Austrians found out that Malghera was abandoned,
+and proceeded to take possession of the heap of ruins, which was all
+that remained.
+
+After the beginning of July, an incessant bombardment was directed
+against the city itself. Women and children lived in the cellars; fever
+stalked through the place, but the war feeling was as strong as
+ever--nay, stronger. Moreover, the provisions became daily scarcer, the
+day came when hunger was already acutely felt, when the time might be
+reckoned by hours before the famished defenders must let drop their
+weapons, and Venice, her works of art and her population, must fall a
+prey to the savage vengeance of the Austrians, who would enter by force
+and without conditions.
+
+And this is what Manin prevented. The cry was still for resistance;
+for the first time bitter words were spoken against the man who had
+served his country so well. But he, who had never sacrificed one iota
+to popularity, did not swerve. His great influence prevailed. The
+capitulation was arranged on the 22nd, and signed on the 24th of July.
+Manin had calculated correctly; on that day there was literally
+nothing left to eat in Venice.
+
+In the last sad hours that Manin spent in Venice all the love of his
+people, clouded for an instant, burst forth anew. Not, indeed, in
+shouts and acclamations, but in tears and sobs; 'Our poor father, how
+much he has suffered!' they were heard saying. He embarked on a French
+vessel bound for Marseilles, poor, worn out and exiled for ever from
+the city which he had guided for eighteen months; if, indeed, no spark
+of his spirit animated the dust which it was the first care of
+liberated Venice to welcome home. The Austrians broke up his doorstep
+on which, according to a Venetian custom, his name was engraved.
+Another martyr, Ugo Bassi, had kissed the stone, exclaiming:
+
+'Next to God and Italy--before the Pope--Manin!' The people gathered
+up the broken fragments and kept them as relics, even as in their
+hearts they kept his memory, till the arrival of that day of
+redemption which, in the darkest hour, he foretold.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+'J'ATTENDS MON ASTRE'
+
+1849-1850
+
+The House of Savoy--A King who keeps his Word--Sufferings of the
+Lombards--Charles Albert's Death.
+
+
+Circumstances more gloomy than those under which Victor Emmanuel II.
+ascended the throne of his ancestors it would be hard to imagine.
+
+An army twice beaten, a bankrupt exchequer, a triumphant invader
+waiting to dictate terms; this was but the beginning of the inventory
+of the royal inheritance. The internal condition of the kingdom, even
+apart from the financial ruin which had succeeded to the handsome
+surplus of two years before, was full of embarrassments of the gravest
+kind. There was a party representing the darkest-dyed clericalism and
+reaction whose machinations had not been absent in the disaster of
+Novara. Who was it that disseminated among the troops engaged in the
+battle broadsides printed with the words: 'Soldiers, for whom do you
+think you are fighting? The King is betrayed; at Turin they have
+proclaimed the republic'? There were other broadsides in which Austria
+was called the supporter of thrones and altars. The dreadful
+indiscipline witnessed towards the end of, and after the conflict was
+due more to the demoralising doctrines that had been introduced into
+the army than to the insubordination of panic. There was another party
+strengthened by the recent misfortunes and recruited by exiles from
+all parts of Italy, which was democratic to the verge of republicanism
+in Piedmont and over that verge at Genoa, where a revolution broke out
+before the new King's reign was a week old. Constitutional government
+stood between the fires of these two parties, both fanned by Austrian
+bellows, the first openly, the second in secret.
+
+Victor Emmanuel was not popular. The indifference to danger which he
+had shown conspicuously during the war would have awakened enthusiasm
+in most countries, but in Piedmont it was so thoroughly taken for
+granted that the Princes of the House of Savoy did not know fear, that
+it was looked on as an ordinary fact. The Austrian origin of the
+Duchess of Savoy formed a peg on which to hang unfriendly theories. It
+is impossible not to compassionate the poor young wife who now found
+herself Queen of a people which hated her race, after having lived
+since her marriage the most dreary of lives at the dismallest court in
+Europe. At first, as a bride, she seemed to have a desire to break
+through the frozen etiquette which surrounded her; it is told how she
+once begged and prayed her husband to take her for a walk under the
+Porticoes of Turin, which she had looked at only from the outside. The
+young couple enjoyed their airing, but when it reached Charles
+Albert's ears, he ordered his son to be immediately placed under
+military arrest. The chilling formalism which invaded even the private
+life of these royal personages, shutting the door to 'good
+comradeship' even between husband and wife, may have had much to do
+with driving Victor Emmanuel from the side of the Princess, whom,
+nevertheless, he loved and venerated, to unworthy pleasures, the habit
+of indulgence in which is far easier to contract than to cure.
+
+[Illustration: VICTOR IMMANUEL]
+
+The King's address at this time was not conciliatory, and, indeed, it
+never lost a bluntness which later harmonised well enough with the
+reputation he gained for soldierly integrity, but which then passed
+for aristocratic haughtiness. His personal friends were said to belong
+to the aristocratic or even the reactionary party. In the perplexities
+which encompassed him, he could not reckon on the encouragement of any
+consensus of good opinion or confidence. He was simply an unknown man,
+against whom there was a good deal of prejudice.
+
+Radetsky did not refuse to treat with Charles Albert, as has been
+sometimes said, but the intolerably onerous terms first proposed by
+him showed that he wished to force the abdication which Charles Albert
+had always contemplated in the event of new reverses of fortune.
+Radetsky was favourably disposed to the young Duke of Savoy, as far as
+his personal feeling was concerned, a fact which was made out in
+certain quarters to be almost a crime to be marked to the account of
+Victor Emmanuel. The Field-Marshal did not forget that he was the
+son-in-law of the Austrian Archduke Ranieri; it is probable, if not
+proved, that he expected to find him pliable; but Radetsky, besides
+being a politician of the purest blood-and-iron type, was an old
+soldier with not a bad heart, and some of his sympathy is to be
+ascribed to a veteran's natural admiration for a daring young officer.
+
+On the 24th of March, Victor Emmanuel, with the manliness that was
+born with him, decided to go and treat himself for the conditions of
+the armistice. It was the first act of his reign, and it was an act of
+abnegation; but of how much less humiliation than that performed by
+his father twenty-eight years before, when almost on the same day, by
+order of King Charles Felix, the Prince of Carignano betook himself to
+the Austrian camp at Novara, to be greeted with the derisive shout of:
+'Behold the King of Italy!' Little did Radetsky think that the words,
+addressed then in scorn to the father, might to-day have been
+addressed in truthful anticipation to the son.
+
+The Field-Marshal took good care, however, that nothing but respect
+should be paid to his visitor, whom he received half-way, surrounded
+by his superb staff, all mounted on fine horses and clad in splendid
+accoutrements. As soon as the King saw him coming, he sprang from his
+saddle, and Radetsky would have done the same had not he required,
+owing to his great age, the aid of two officers to help him to the
+ground. After he had laboriously dismounted, he made a military
+salute, and then embraced Victor Emmanuel with the greatest
+cordiality. The King was accompanied by very few officers, but the
+presence of one of these was significant, namely, of the Lombard Count
+Vimercati, whom he particularly pointed out to Radetsky.
+
+While observing the most courteous forms, the Field-Marshal was not
+long in coming to the point. The negotiations would be greatly
+facilitated, nay, more, instead of beginning his reign with a large
+slice of territory occupied by a foreign enemy for an indefinite
+period, the King might open it with an actual enlargement of his
+frontier, if he would only give the easy assurance of ruling on the
+good old system, and of re-hoisting the blue banner of Piedmont
+instead of the revolutionary tricolor. The moment was opportune;
+Victor Emmanuel had not yet sworn to maintain the Constitution. But he
+replied, without hesitation, that though he was ready, if needs be, to
+accept the full penalties of defeat, he was determined to observe the
+engagements entered into by his father towards the people over whom he
+was called to reign.
+
+One person had already received from his lips the same declaration,
+with another of wider meaning. During the previous night, speaking to
+the Lombard officer above mentioned, the King said: 'I shall preserve
+intact the institutions given by my father; I shall uphold the
+tricolor flag, symbol of Italian nationality, which is vanquished
+to-day, but which one day will triumph. This triumph will be,
+henceforth, the aim of all my efforts.' In 1874, on the twenty-fifth
+anniversary of Novara, Count Vimercati wrote to the King of Italy from
+Paris to remind him of the words he had then spoken.
+
+When the King started for his capital, Radetsky offered to draw up his
+troops as a guard of honour over the whole extent of occupied
+territory between Novara and Turin. The offer was declined, and Victor
+Emmanuel took a circuitous route to avoid observation. His journey was
+marked throughout by a complete absence of state. Before he arrived, a
+trusty hand consigned to him a note written in haste and in much
+anguish by the Queen, in which she warned him to enter by night, as he
+was likely to have a very bad reception. On the 27th of March he
+reviewed the National Guard in the Piazza Castello on the occasion of
+its taking the oath of allegiance. The ceremony was attended by Queen
+Maria Adelaide in a carriage with her two little boys, the Princes
+Umberto and Amedeo. There was no hostile demonstration, but there was
+a most general and icy coldness.
+
+That evening, the terms of the armistice were communicated to the
+Chamber. As was natural, they evoked the wildest indignation, a part
+of which fell undeservedly on the King. Twenty thousand Austrians were
+to occupy the district between the Po, Sesia and Ticino and half the
+citadel of Alessandria. The excitement rose to its height when it was
+announced that the Sardinian Fleet must be recalled from Venetian
+waters, depriving that struggling city of the last visible sign of
+support from without. The Chamber sent a deputation to the King, who
+succeeded in persuading its members that, hard though the terms were,
+there was no avoiding their acceptance, and that the original
+stipulations were harder still.
+
+On the 29th, Victor Emmanuel took the oath to observe the Statute, to
+exercise the royal authority only in virtue of the laws, to cause
+justice to be fairly and fearlessly administered, and to conduct
+himself in all things with the sole view to the interest, honour and
+prosperity of the nation.
+
+A trifling accident occurred which might have been far from trifling;
+one of the ornaments of the ceiling of the Palazzo Madama, where the
+Parliament assembled, fell close to the King. As it was of great
+weight, it would have killed anyone on whom it had fallen. 'Never mind
+that,' said the King in Piedmontese dialect to Colonel Menabrea, who
+was near him, 'it will not be the last!'
+
+The ministry which held office under the late King resigned; a new
+one was formed, in which General Delaunay was President of the
+Council, and Gioberti minister without a portfolio. The King was
+advised to dissolve the Chamber, which had been elected as a war
+parliament, and was ill-constituted to perform the work now required.
+General La Marmora had orders to quell the insurrection at Genoa, the
+motive of which was not nominally a change of government, but the
+continuance of the war at all costs. Its deeper cause lay in the old
+irreconcilability of republican Genoa with her Piedmontese masters,
+breaking out now afresh under the strain of patriotic disappointment.
+Like the 15th of May at Naples, the Genoese revolution was a folly
+which can hardly be otherwise described than as a crime; it happened,
+however, that in Piedmont there was a King who had not the slightest
+intention of turning it into an excuse for a royal hark-back. Austria
+and France offered Victor Emmanuel their arms to put down the
+revolution, but, declining the not exactly disinterested attention, he
+made a wise choice in La Marmora, who accomplished the ungrateful
+task with expedition and humanity. An amnesty was granted to all but a
+very few participators in the revolt. On the brief black list when it
+was submitted to the King was the name of the Marquis Lorenzo Pareto,
+who at one time had held the Foreign Office under Charles Albert. As
+Colonel of the Genoese National Guard, his responsibility in joining
+the insurrection was judged to be particularly heavy; but the King
+refused to confirm his exclusion from the amnesty. 'I would not have
+it said,' he objected, 'that I was harsh to one of my father's old
+ministers.'
+
+The conception of Victor Emmanuel as a bluff, easy-going monarch is
+mistaken. Very few princes have had a keener sense of the royal
+dignity, or a more deeply-rooted family pride, or, when he thought fit
+to resort to it, a more decisive method of preventing people from
+taking liberties with him. But he knew that, in nearly all cases,
+pardon is the best of a king's prerogatives.
+
+An instance to the point happened when he came to the throne. Two
+officers of the royal household had caused him annoyance while he was
+Duke of Savoy by telling tales of his unconventionality to his
+easily-scandalised father. To them, perhaps, he owed the condign
+punishment he had undergone for the famous promenade under the
+Porticoes. At anyrate, they had procured for the Duke many bad
+quarters-of-an-hour, but the King, when he became King, chose to be
+completely oblivious of their conduct, and they remained undisturbed
+at their posts. To those who pointed to King Leopold of the Belgians,
+or to any other foreign example of a loyal sovereign who understood
+the needs of his people as a model for Victor Emmanuel to imitate, he
+was in the habit of replying: 'I remember the history of my fathers,
+and it is enough.'
+
+'The Persians,' says the Greek historian, 'taught their children to
+ride and to speak the truth.' In a land that had seen as much of
+enthroned effeminacy and mendacity as Italy had seen, a prince fond of
+manly exercise and observant of his word was more valuable than a
+heaven-sent genius, and more welcome than a calendar saint. Piedmont
+only could give such a prince to Italy. Its kings were not Spaniards
+who, by way of improvement, became lazzaroni, nor were they Austrians
+condemned by a fatal law to revert to their original type; they were
+children of the ice and snow, the fellow-countrymen of their subjects.
+All their traditions told of obstinacy and hardihood. They brought
+their useful if scarcely amiable moral qualities from Maurienne in the
+eleventh century. The second Count of Savoy, known as Amadeus with the
+Tail, son of Humbert of the White Hands, founder of the House, went to
+the Holy Roman Emperor with such a body of retainers that the guards
+refused them entrance to the Council Chamber. 'Either I shall go in
+with my Tail or not at all,' said Humbert, and with his Tail he went
+in. This was the metal of the race. Even at the time when they were
+vassals of the Empire, they expected to dictate rather than to obey.
+They studiously married into all the great royal houses of Europe.
+Though they persecuted their Vaudois subjects, who were only in 1848
+rewarded by emancipation for centuries of unmerited sufferings and
+splendid fidelity, yet the Princes of Savoy had from the first, from
+the White-Handed Humbert himself, held their heads high in all
+transactions with the Holy See, between which and them there was an
+ever-returning antagonism. Not to the early part of the nineteenth
+century, when the rebound from revolutionary chaos did not suffice to
+denationalise the Kings of Sardinia, but sufficed to ally them with
+reaction, ought we to turn if we would seize the true bearings of the
+development of the Counts of Maurienne into Kings of Italy. At that
+moment the mission of Piedmont, though not lost, was obscured. What
+has rather to be contemplated is the historic tendency, viewed as a
+whole, of both reigning house and people. No one has pointed out that
+tendency more clearly than the anonymous author of a pamphlet entitled
+_Le Testament politique du Chevalier Walpole_ (published at Amsterdam
+in 1769), who was able to draw the horoscope of the House of Savoy
+with a correctness which seems almost startling. He was not helped by
+either sympathy or poetic imagination, but simply by political logic.
+Sardinia, he said, was the best governed state in Europe. Instead of
+yielding to the indolent apathy in which other reigning families were
+sunk, its princes sought to improve its laws and develop its resources
+according to the wants of the population and the exigences of the
+climate. Finance, police, the administration of justice, military
+discipline, presented the picture of order. From the nature of the
+situation, a King of Sardinia must be ambitious, and to satisfy his
+ambition he had only to bide his time. Placed between two great Powers
+he could choose for his ally whichever would give him the most, and by
+playing this mute _role_, it was impossible that he would not
+hereafter be called upon to play one of the most important parts in
+Europe. Italy was the oyster disputed by Austria and France; might it
+not happen that the King of Sardinia, becoming judge and party, would
+devour the oyster and leave the shells to the rival aspirants? It was
+unlikely, added this far-seeing observer, that the Italian populations
+should have got so innured to their chains as to prefer the harsh,
+vexatious government of Austria to the happy lot which Sardinian
+domination would secure to them, but even if they had become
+demoralised to this extent, they could not resist the providential
+advance of a temperate, robust and warlike nation like Piedmont, led
+by a prince as enlightened as the King (Charles Emmanuel) who then
+reigned over it.
+
+The metaphor of the oyster recalls another, that of Italy being an
+artichoke which the House of Savoy was to devour, a leaf at a time.
+Whether or not a Duke of Savoy really invented this often-quoted
+comparison, it is certain that power was what the rulers of Piedmont
+cared for. They were no more a race of scholars and art patrons than
+their people was a people of artists and poets. There is a story to
+the effect that one Duke of Savoy could never make out what poetry
+was, except that it was written in half lines, which caused a great
+waste of paper. The only poet born in Piedmont found the country
+unlivable. Recent research among the archives at Turin revealed facts
+which were thought to be not creditable to certain princely persons,
+and a gleaning was therefore made of documents to which the historical
+student will no longer have access. The step was ill advised; what can
+documents tell us on the subject that we do not know? Did anyone
+suppose that the Savoy princes were commonly saints? Sainthood has
+been the privilege of the women of the family, and they have kept it
+mostly to themselves. But peccable and rough though the members of
+this royal house may have been, very few of them were without the
+governing faculty. 'C'est bien le souverain le plus fin que j'ai connu
+en Europe,' said Thiers of Victor Emmanuel, whose acquaintance he made
+in 1870, and in whom he found an able politician instead of the common
+soldier he had expected. The remark might be extended back to all the
+race. They understood the business of kings. A word not unlike the 'Tu
+regere imperio populos, Romane, memento' of Virgil was breathed over
+the cradle at Maurienne. If it did not send forth sons to rule the
+world, its children were, at least, to be enthroned in the capital of
+the Caesars, and to make Italy one for the first time since Augustus.
+
+From April to August 1849, the peace negotiations dragged on. The
+pretensions of Austria were still exorbitant, and she resisted the
+demand which Piedmont, weak and reduced though she was, did not fear
+to make, that she should amnesty her Italian subjects who had taken
+part in the revolution. Unequal to cope with the difficulties of the
+situation, the Delaunay ministry fell, and Massimo d'Azeglio was
+appointed President of the Council. This was a good augury for
+Piedmont; D'Azeglio's patriotism had received a seal in the wound
+which he carried away from the defence of Vicenza. Honour was safe in
+his hands, whatever were the sacrifices to which he might be obliged
+to consent.
+
+Some pressure having been put on Austria by France and England, she
+agreed in July to evacuate Alessandria, and to reduce the war
+indemnity from 230,000,000 francs to 75,000,000, which Piedmont
+undertook to pay, onerous though the charge was in her deplorable
+financial condition. But the amnesty question was the last to be
+settled, and in this Piedmont stood alone. France and her. The
+Piedmontese special envoy at Milan, Count Pralormo, wrote to Prince
+Schwarzenberg on the 2nd of July that his Government could not give up
+this point. It was a conscientious duty so universally and strongly
+felt, that they were readier to submit to the consequences, whatever
+they might be, than to dishonour themselves by renouncing it. In other
+words, they were ready to face a new war, abandoned to their fate by
+all Europe, to undergo a new invasion, which meant the utter
+destruction of their country, rather than leave their Lombard and
+Venetian fellow-countrymen to the revenge of Austria. Count Pralormo
+added that he was speaking not only in the name of the ministry, but
+of the King and the whole nation. The risk was no imaginary one; there
+were many in Austria who desired an excuse for crushing the life out
+of the small state which was the eternal thorn in the side of that
+great Empire. Few remember now the sufferings of Piedmont for Italy,
+or the perils, only too real, which she braved again and again, not
+from selfish motives--for the Piedmontese of the old, narrow school,
+who said that their orderly little country had nothing to gain from
+being merged in a state of 25,000,000 were by no means in error--but
+from genuine Italian fellow-feeling for their less happy compatriots
+beyond their confines.
+
+At last, when the armistice concluded on the morrow of Novara had been
+prolonged for five months, the treaty of peace was signed. Prince
+Schwarzenberg offered to further reduce the indemnity, 75,000,000 to
+71,000,000, but D'Azeglio having agreed to the former figure,
+preferred to abide by his agreement. He thought, probably, that he
+would thus gain some concession as to the amnesty, and, in fact,
+Austria finally consented to pardon all but a small number of the
+persons compromised in the late events. D'Azeglio still stood out, but
+finding that there was no shadow of a chance of obtaining more than
+this, he reluctantly accepted it. The great mass, the hundred thousand
+and more fugitives who had left their homes in Lombardy and Venetia,
+were, at any rate, promised a safe return. The city of Venice, as yet
+undominated, though on the brink of her fall, was totally excluded.
+The list of those whose banishment from Lombardy was confirmed,
+comprises the noblest names in the province; with the exception of a
+few who were excluded from the amnesty on the score that, before the
+revolution, they were Austrian functionaries, nearly every unpardoned
+Lombard was noble: Casati, Arese, Borromeo, Litta, Greppi,
+Pallavicini, and the Princess Cristina Belgiojoso of Milan, the two
+Camozzis of Bergamo, and G. Martinengo Cesaresco of Brescia.
+
+It must not be imagined that this amnesty ushered in a reign of
+oblivion and mildness. It seemed, rather, that Austria, afraid of the
+moral consequences of the return of so many unloving subjects,
+redoubled her severity. The day following the promulgation of the
+amnesty was the 18th of August, the Emperor of Austria's birthday. In
+the morning, placards dissuading the citizens from taking part in the
+official rejoicings were to be seen on the walls of Milan. The persons
+who put these up were not caught, but in the course of the day a
+crowd, consisting of all classes, made what the official report called
+'a scandalous and anti-politic demonstration,' raising revolutionary
+cries, and even saying uncomplimentary things of His Majesty, and
+worse still, of the Austrian soldiers. During this 'shameful scene,'
+of which the above is the Austrian and hence the most highly-coloured
+description, the military arrested at hazard some of the crowd, who,
+by a 'superior order,' were condemned to the following pains and
+penalties:--
+
+     1. Angelo Negroni, of Padua, aged thirty, proprietor, forty
+      strokes;
+
+     2. Carlo Bossi, watchmaker, aged twenty-two, forty strokes;
+
+     3. Paolo Lodi, of Monza, student, aged twenty-one, thirty strokes;
+
+     4. Giovanni Mazzuchetti, Milanese, barrister, aged twenty-four,
+     thirty strokes;
+
+     5. Bonnetti, Milanese, lithographer, aged thirty-one, fifty
+     strokes;
+
+     6. Moretti, Milanese, domestic servant, aged twenty-six, fifty
+     strokes;
+
+     7. Cesana, artist, aged thirty-two, forty strokes;
+
+     8. Scotti, shopkeeper, of Monza, fifty strokes;
+
+     9. Vigorelli, Milanese, proprietor, fifty strokes;
+
+     10. Garavaglia, of Novara, aged thirty-nine, thirty strokes;
+
+     11. Giuseppe Tandea, Milanese, aged forty, twenty-five strokes;
+
+     12. Rossi, Milanese, student, thirty strokes;
+
+     13. Carabelli, workman, forty strokes;
+
+     14. Giuseppe Berlusconi, fifty strokes;
+
+     15. Ferrandi, bookseller, thirty strokes;
+
+     16. Ernestina Galli, of Cremona, operatic singer, aged twenty,
+     forty strokes;
+
+     17. Maria Conti, of Florence, operatic singer, aged eighteen,
+     thirty strokes.
+
+There were other sentences of imprisonment in irons and on bread and
+water, but the roll of the bastinado, extracted from the official
+_Gazzetta di Milano_ may be left to speak for all the rest, and to
+tell, with a laconicism more eloquent than the finest rhetoric, what
+the Austrian yoke in Italy really meant.
+
+A few days after, the military commandant sent the Milanese
+Municipality a bill for thirty-nine florins, the cost of rods broken
+or worn-out, and of ice used to prevent gangrene, in the punishment
+administered to the persons arrested on the 18th of August. Sixty
+strokes with the Austrian stick were generally enough to prove fatal.
+Women were flogged half-naked, together with the men, and in the
+presence of the Austrian officers, who came to see the spectacle.
+
+When the treaty of peace with Austria was signed, there arose a new
+difficulty; the Sardinian Chamber of Deputies refused to approve it.
+Some of the deputies asked why they should be called upon either to
+accept or reject it, on which they were reminded of the 75,000,000
+francs indemnity, funds for the discharge of which could not be
+legally raised without a parliamentary vote. The reluctance to share
+in an odious though necessary responsibility made these novices in
+representative government anxious to throw away the greatest, if not
+the sole guarantee of constitutional freedom. Brofferio, by far the
+ablest man of the extreme radical party, who had opposed all peace
+proposals as long as Rome and Venice still resisted, now advised his
+friends to bow before the inevitable. But they did not comply, and the
+ministers had no other alternative than to resort to a fresh appeal to
+the country.
+
+The crisis was serious, because no amount of loyalty on the part of
+the head of the state can save liberty when the representatives of a
+nation, taking the bit between their teeth, set themselves
+deliberately to work to make government impossible. People are too
+fond of talking of liberty as if it were something locked up in a box
+which remains safe as long as the guardian of the box does not steal
+it or sell it. Liberty is in the charge of all and at the mercy of
+all. There were not wanting persons who blamed the new dissolution as
+unconstitutional, and who called the proclamation of Moncalieri which
+announced it an act of despotism and of improper interference with the
+independence of the electors. It is hardly too much to say that it was
+this royal proclamation that saved Piedmont. The King appealed to
+Italy and to Europe for judgment on the conduct of the late Chamber.
+Having signed, he said, a 'not ruinous' treaty with Austria, which the
+honour of the country and the sanctity of his word required to be
+faithfully executed, the majority sought to make that execution
+legally impracticable. He continued: 'I have promised to save the
+nation from the tyranny of parties, whatever be the name, scope and
+position of the men who constitute them. These promises I fulfil by
+dissolving a Chamber which had become impossible, and by convoking the
+immediate assemblage of another parliament; but if the electors of the
+country deny me their help, not on me will fall henceforth the
+responsibility of the future; and if disorders follow, let them
+complain, not of me, but of themselves. Never, up till now, has the
+House of Savoy had recourse in vain to the faithfulness, wisdom and
+honour of its peoples. I have therefore the right to trust in them on
+the present occasion, and to hold for certain that, united together,
+we shall save the constitution and the country from the dangers by
+which they are menaced.'
+
+The Proclamation produced a great effect, and the parliament which met
+on the 20th of December contained a working majority of men who were
+not only patriotic, but who were also endowed with common sense. When
+the ratification of the peace came on for discussion, there was,
+indeed, one deputy who spoke in favour of immediate war, which, in a
+fortnight, was to effect the liberation, not only of Lombardy and
+Venetia, but also of Hungary, a speech worth recalling, as it shows
+how far madness will go. The debate concluded with a vote authorising
+the King's government to fully carry out the treaty of peace which was
+concluded at Milan on the 6th of August 1849, the ayes being 137
+against 17 noes. Piedmont had learnt the bitter but useful lesson,
+that if you play and lose, you must pay the cost.
+
+He who had played and lost his crown had already paid the last fee to
+fortune. Charles Albert was now a denizen of the Superga--of all
+kings' burial places, the most inspiring in its history, the most
+sublime in its situation. Here Victor Amadeus, as he looked down on
+the great French army which, for three months, had besieged his
+capital, vowed to erect a temple if it should please the Lord of Hosts
+to grant him and his people deliverance from the hands of the enemy.
+Five days later the French were in flight. All the Alps, from Mon Viso
+to the Simplon, all Piedmont, and beyond Piedmont, Italy to the
+Apennines, can be scanned from the church which fulfilled the royal
+vow.
+
+To the Superga the body of Charles Albert was brought from the place
+of exile. Before the coffin, his sword was carried; after it, they led
+the war-horse he had ridden in all the battles. After the war-horse
+followed a great multitude. He had said truly that it was an opportune
+time for him to die. The pathos of his end rekindled the affections of
+the people for the dynasty.
+
+As in the Mosque of dead Sultans in Stamboul, so in the Mausoleum of
+the Superga, each sovereign occupied the post of honour only till the
+next one came to join him. But the post of honour remains, and will
+remain, to Charles Albert. His son lies elsewhere.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE REVIVAL OF PIEDMONT
+
+1850-1856
+
+Restoration of the Pope and Grand Duke of Tuscany--Misrule at
+Naples--The Struggle with the Church in Piedmont--The Crimean War.
+
+
+The decade from 1849 to 1859 may seem, at first sight, to resemble an
+interregnum, but it was an evolution. There is no pause in the life of
+nations any more than in the life of individuals: they go forward or
+they go backward. In these ten years Piedmont went forward; the other
+Italian governments did not stand still, they went backward. The
+diseases from which they suffered gained daily upon the whole
+body-politic, and even those clever foreign doctors who had been the
+most convinced that this or that remedy would set them on their feet,
+were in the end persuaded that there was only one place for them--the
+Hospital for Incurables. After the fall of Rome, Pius IX. issued a
+sort of canticle from Gaeta, in which he thanked the Lord at whose
+bidding the stormy ocean had been arrested, but he did not even so
+much as say thank you to the French, without whom, nevertheless, the
+stormy ocean would have proceeded on its way. To all suggestions from
+Paris that now that victory had been won by force the time was come
+for the Sovereign to give some guarantee that it would not be abused,
+the Pope turned a completely deaf ear. 'The Pope,' said M. Drouyn
+de Lhuys, 'prefers to return to Rome upon the dead bodies of his
+subjects rather than amidst the applause which would have greeted him
+had he taken our advice.' That advice referred in particular to the
+secularisation of the public administration, and this was exactly what
+the Pope and the ex-Liberal Cardinal Antonelli, now and henceforth his
+most influential counsellor, were determined not to concede. They had
+grown wise in their generation, for a priest whose ministers are
+laymen is as much an anomaly as a layman whose ministers are priests.
+The French government desired that the Statute should be maintained,
+and demanded judicial reforms and an amnesty for political offenders.
+None of these points was accepted except the last, and that only
+nominally, as the amnesty of the 18th of September did not put a stop
+to proscriptions and vindictive measures. Count Mamiani, whose
+stainless character was venerated in all Italy, and who had devoted
+all his energies to the attempt to save the Papal government after the
+Pope's flight, was ruthlessly excluded, and so were many other persons
+who, though liberal-minded, had shown signal devotion to the Holy See.
+All sorts of means were used to serve the ends of vengeance; for
+instance, Alessandro Calandrelli, a Roman of high reputation, who held
+office under the republic, was condemned to death for high treason,
+and to twenty years at the galleys, on a trumped-up charge of theft,
+which was palpably absurd; but the Pope, while quashing the first
+sentence, confirmed the second, and Calandrelli would have remained in
+prison till the year of grace 1870, as many others did, but for the
+chance circumstance that his father had been a friend of the King of
+Prussia, who took up his cause so warmly that after two years he was
+let out and sent to Berlin, where the King and A. von Humboldt
+received him with open arms.
+
+These were the auspices under which Pius IX. returned to Rome after
+seventeen months' absence. A four-fold invasion restored the Temporal
+Power, which Fenelon said was the root of all evil to the Church, but
+which, according to Pius IX., was necessary to the preservation of the
+Catholic religion. The re-established _regime_ was characterised by
+Lord Clarendon at the Congress of Paris as 'the opprobrium of Europe.'
+The Pope tried to compensate for his real want of independence (for a
+prince who could not stand a day without foreign bayonets, whatever
+else he was, was not independent) by laughing at the entreaties of
+France to relieve that advanced nation from the annoyance of having
+set up a government fit for the Middle Ages. He rated at its correct
+value the support of Napoleon, and believing it to be purely
+interested, he believed in its permanence. The President had thought
+of nothing in the world but votes, and he thought of them still. The
+Roman Expedition secured him the services of M. de Falloux as
+minister, and won over to him the entire Clerical Party, including
+Montalembert and the so-called Liberal Catholics. Thus, and thus only,
+was the leap from the Presidential chair to the Imperial throne made
+possible. The result was flattering, but still there are reasons to
+think (apart from Prince Jerome Napoleon's express statement to that
+effect) that Napoleon III. hated the whole business from the bottom of
+his soul, and that of his not few questionable acts, this was the only
+one of which he felt lastingly ashamed. Seeing that the communications
+of his ministers failed in their object, he tried the expedient of
+writing a private letter to his friend Edgar Ney, couched in the
+strongest terms of disapproval of the recalcitrant attitude of the
+Papal Government. This letter was published as it was intended to be,
+but in the Roman States, except that its circulation was forbidden, no
+notice was taken of it. Though the incident may be regarded as a
+stroke of facing-both-ways policy, the anger expressed was probably as
+sincere as any of Napoleon's sentiments could be, and the letter had
+the effect of awakening the idea in many minds that something of the
+former Italian conspirator still existed in the ruler of France. The
+question arose, What sort of pressure would be needed to turn that
+germ to account for Italy?
+
+In the kingdom of Naples, where the laws, to look at them on paper,
+were incomparably better than those in force in the Roman States, the
+administration was such as would have disgraced a remote province of
+the Turkish Empire. The King's naturally suspicious temperament was
+worked upon by his courtiers and priests till he came to detect in
+every Liberal a personal antagonist, whose immunity from harm was
+incompatible with his own, and in Liberalism a plague dangerous to
+society, which must be stamped out at all costs. Over 800 Liberals
+were sent to the galleys. The convictions were obtained, in a great
+proportion of cases, by false testimony. Bribes and secret protection
+in high quarters were the only means by which an innocent man could
+hope to escape; 50,000 persons were under police supervision, to be
+imprisoned at will. The police often refused to set at liberty those
+whom the judges had acquitted. The government had a Turkish or Russian
+fear of printed matter. A wretched barber was fined 1000 ducats for
+having in his possession a volume of Leopardi's poems, which was
+described as 'contrary to religion and morals.'
+
+What was meant by being an inmate of a Neapolitan prison was told by
+Mr Gladstone in his two 'Letters to the Earl of Aberdeen,' which the
+latter sent to Prince Schwarzenberg, the Austrian Prime Minister, with
+a strong appeal to him to make known their contents to the King of the
+Two Sicilies, and to use his influence in procuring a mitigation of
+the abuses complained of. Prince Schwarzenberg did nothing, and it was
+then that the 'Letters' were published. The impression created on
+public opinion was almost without a parallel. The celebrated phrase,
+'The negation of God erected into a system of government,' passing
+into currency as a short history of Bourbon rule at Naples, kept
+alive the wrathful feelings which the 'Letters' aroused, even when
+these ceased to be read. Some small errors of fact (such as that of
+stating that all the prisoners were chained, whereas an exception was
+made of those undergoing life sentences) were magnified by the
+partisans of Ferdinand II.; but the truth of the picture as a whole
+was amply confirmed from independent sources. Baron Carlo Poerio
+(condemned to nineteen years' imprisonment) _was_ chained to a common
+malefactor, the chain never being undone, and producing in the end a
+disease of the bone from which he never recovered. His case was that
+of all the political prisoners in the same category with himself.
+Luigi Settembrini and the others on whom sentence of death had been
+passed, but commuted into one of life imprisonment, were not chained,
+but they were put to associate with the worst thieves and assassins,
+while their material surroundings accorded with the moral atmosphere
+they were forced to breathe.
+
+The Neapolitan prisoners did more than suffer for freedom; they
+delivered the name of their country from being a reproach among the
+nations. They showed what men the South of Italy can produce. Those
+who wish to know what types of probity, honour and ideal patriotism
+may grow out of that soil, which is sometimes charged with yielding
+only the rank weeds planted by despotism, may read the letters and
+memoirs of the noble Poerios, of Settembrini, gentlest but most
+fearless of human souls, of the Calabrian Morellis, all patriots and
+martyrs; of the Duke of Castromediano, who lately, in his old age, has
+set down a few recollections of the years he spent at the Neapolitan
+galleys. He records in these notes what he calls the most perilous
+moment in his life. It was when he was summoned, with six
+fellow-prisoners who had asked for and obtained freedom, to hear, as
+he feared, his own pardon pronounced. For pardon was equivalent to
+dishonour; it was granted either in consequence of real submission and
+retraction, or in order to be able to blacken the character of the
+pardoned man by falsely asserting that such submission had been made.
+His fear was groundless. He had been led out, perhaps, in the hope
+that the example of the others would prove contagious. He was not
+pardoned. As he returned to his prison, he thanked Divine Providence
+for the chains which left him pure.
+
+Strange to tell, Ferdinand II. rendered one considerable service to
+the national cause; not that he saw it in that light, but the service
+was none the less real because its motive was a narrow one. Austria
+proposed a defensive league between the Italian Sovereigns: defensive
+not only with the view to outward attack, but also and chiefly against
+'internal disorder.' Piedmont was to be invited to join as soon as she
+had renounced her constitutional sins, which it was sanguinely
+expected she would do before very long. Meanwhile Parma, Modena,
+Tuscany and Rome embraced the idea with enthusiasm, but the King of
+the Two Sicilies, who dimly saw in it an opening for interference in
+his own peculiar governmental ways, boldly declined to have anything
+to do with it. And so, to Prince Schwarzenberg's serious
+disappointment, the scheme by which he had hoped to create an
+absolutist Italian federation, came to an untimely end.
+
+The Grand Duke of Tuscany timidly inquired of the Austrian premier if
+he might renew the constitutional _regime_ in his state. Schwarzenberg
+replied with the artful suggestion that he should hear what the Dukes
+of Modena and Parma, the Pope, and King Ferdinand had to say on the
+subject. Their advice was unanimously negative: Cardinal Antonelli
+going so far as to declare that Constitutionalism in Tuscany would be
+regarded as a constant menace and danger to the States of the Church.
+The different counsels of Piedmont, conveyed by Count Balbo, weighed
+little against so imposing an array of opinion, backed as it was by
+the Power which still stabled its horses in the Convent of San Marco.
+The Tuscan Statute was formally suspended in September 1850.
+
+From that day forth, Tuscany sank lower and lower in the slough. To
+please the Pope, havoc was made of the Leopoldine laws--named after
+the son of Maria Theresa, the wise Grand Duke Leopold I.--laws by
+which a bridle was put on the power and extension of the Church. The
+prosecution and imprisonment of a Protestant couple who were accused
+of wishing to make proselytes, proclaimed the depth of intolerance
+into which what was once the freest and best-ordered government in
+Italy had descended.
+
+The ecclesiastical question became the true test question in Piedmont
+as well as in Tuscany, but there it had another issue.
+
+It had also a different basis. In Piedmont there were no Leopoldine
+laws to destroy; what was necessary was to create them. To privileges
+dating from the Middle Ages which in the kingdom of Sardinia almost
+alone had been restored without curtailment after the storm of the
+French Revolution, were added the favours, the vast wealth, the
+preponderating influence acquired during Charles Felix' reign, and the
+first seventeen years of that of Charles Albert. Theoretically, the
+Statute swept away all privileges of classes and sects, and made
+citizens equal before the law, but to put this theory into practice
+further legislation was needed, because, as a matter of fact, the
+clergy preserved their immunities untouched and showed not the
+slightest disposition to yield one jot of them. The Piedmontese
+clergy, more numerous in proportion to the population than in any
+state except Rome, were more intransigent than any ecclesiastical body
+in the world. The Italian priest of old days, whatever else might be
+said about him, was rarely a fanatic. The very nickname 'Ultramontane'
+given by Italians to the religious extremists north of the Alps, shows
+how foreign such excesses were to their own temperaments. But the
+Ultramontane spirit had already invaded Piedmont, and was embraced by
+its clergy with all the zeal of converts. There was still a _Foro
+Ecclesiastico_ for the arraignment of religious offenders, and this
+was one of the first privileges against which Massimo d'Azeglio lifted
+his 'sacrilegious' hand. To go through all the list would be tedious,
+and would demand more explanation regarding the local modes of
+acquisition and tenure of religious property than would be interesting
+now. The object of the Siccardi laws, as they were named after the
+Minister of Grace and Justice who introduced them, and of the stronger
+measures to which they led up, was to make the priest amenable to the
+common law of the land in all except that which referred to his
+spiritual functions; to put a limit on the amassment of wealth by
+religious corporations; to check the multiplication of convents and
+the multiplication of feast days, both of which encouraged the people
+in sloth and idleness; to withdraw education from the sole control of
+ecclesiastics; and finally, to authorise civil marriage, but without
+making it compulsory. The programme was large, and it took years to
+carry it out. The Vatican contended that it was contrary to the
+Concordat which existed between the Holy See and the Court of
+Sardinia. Massimo d'Azeglio replied that the maintenance of the
+Concordat, in all its parts, meant the ruin of the state; that he had
+tried every means of conciliation, made every effort towards arriving
+at a compromise, and that since his endeavours had failed in
+consequence of the refusal of the Vatican to abate pretensions which
+it neither could nor did enforce in Austria, Naples or Spain, heaven
+and the world must judge between Rome and Piedmont, between Cardinal
+Antonelli and himself.
+
+The struggle throughout was bitter in the extreme, but its most
+striking incident was the denial of the last Sacraments to a member of
+the Government, the Minister of Agriculture, Santa Rosa, who happened
+to die soon after the passing of the Act abolishing the _Foro
+Ecclesiastico_. Santa Rosa was a sincerely religious man, but he
+resisted all the attempts of the priest to extort a retractation, and
+died unabsolved rather than leave a dishonoured name to his children.
+
+The popular indignation excited by this incident was in proportion
+with the importance attached to outward observances of religion in
+Catholic countries; the government had to protect the Archbishop of
+Turin from violence, while, at the same time, they sent him for a
+month to the Citadel for having forbidden his clergy to obey the law
+on the _Foro Ecclesiastico_. He and one or two of the other bishops
+were afterwards expelled from the kingdom. An unwelcome necessity, but
+whose was the fault? In other countries, where the privileges claimed
+by the Piedmontese clergy had been abolished for centuries, did the
+bishops dictate revolt against the law? If not, why should they do so
+in Piedmont?
+
+The successor of Santa Rosa in the ministry was Count Cavour, who
+thus in 1850 for the first time became an official servant of the
+state. When D'Azeglio submitted the appointment to the King, Victor
+Emmanuel remarked that, though he did not object to it in the least,
+they had better take care, as this man would turn them all out before
+long. This man was, in fact, to stand at the helm of Piedmont, with
+short intervals, till he died, and was to carve out from the block of
+formless marble, not the Italy of sublime dreams, which, owing her
+deliverance to her sons alone, should arise immaculate from the grave
+a Messiah among the nations, but the actual Italy which has been
+accomplished; imperfect and peccable as human things mostly are,
+belonging rather to prose than to poetry, to matter than to spirit,
+but, for all that, an Italy which is one and is free.
+
+Fifty years ago a great English writer pointed out what the real Italy
+would be, if it were to be; 'The prosperity of nations as of
+individuals,' wrote Mr Ruskin in one of his earliest papers, 'is cold
+and hard-hearted and forgetful. The dead lie, indeed, trampled down by
+the living; the place thereof shall know them no more, for that place is
+not in the hearts of the survivors, for whose interest they have made
+way. But adversity and ruin point to the sepulchre, and it is not
+trodden on; to the chronicle, and it does not decay. Who would
+substitute the rush of a new nation, the struggle of an awakening power,
+for the dreamy sleep of Italy's desolation, for the sweet silence of
+melancholy thought, her twilight time of everlasting memories?'
+
+[Illustration: COUNT CAVOUR]
+
+There is the case, stated with beautiful lucidity, of the somewhat
+ghoulish dilettantism which, enjoying tombs, would condemn all
+mankind to breathe their atmosphere. It is not, however, in order to
+discuss that view that the passage is quoted, but because of its
+relevancy to what Cavour attempted and what he did. Never was there a
+mind which cherished fewer illusions. He believed that the pursuit of
+the unattainable was still more a political crime than a political
+blunder. He was, in this, what is now called an opportunist, and he
+was also an opportunist in believing that though in politics you can
+choose your aim, you can very rarely choose your means. He held (and
+this was the reason that he was so profoundly hated by men of very
+different parties) that to accomplish great changes you have to make
+sacrifices, not only of the higher sort, but, in a certain sense, also
+of the lower. As he thought that the Austrians could not be expelled
+from Italy for good and all without foreign help, he contemplated from
+the first securing that foreign help, though no one would have been
+more glad than he to do without it. He thought that Italian freedom
+could not be won without a closer alliance with the democratic party
+than politicians like D'Azeglio, who had the fear of the ermine, of
+tarnishing its whiteness, would have ever brought themselves to
+acquiesce in, and he therefore immediately took steps to establish
+that alliance. Cavour had no faith in the creation of ideally perfect
+states, such as the Monarchy of Dante or the Republic of Mazzini, but
+he did think that a living land was better than a dead one, that the
+struggle of an awakening power, the rush of a new nation, was
+infinitely to be preferred to the desolation of dreamy sleeps, sweet
+silences, and everlasting memories that spelt regrets.
+
+It may be possible now to see clearly that if no one had tried for the
+unattainable, Cavour would not have found the ground prepared for his
+work. The appreciation of his rank among Italian liberators rests on a
+different point, and it is this: without a man of his positive mould,
+of his practical genius, of his force of will and force of patience,
+would the era of splendid endeavours have passed into the era of
+accomplished facts? If the answer to this is 'No,' then nothing can
+take from Cavour the glory of having conferred an incalculable boon on
+the country which he loved with a love that was not the less strong
+because it lacked the divinising qualities of imagination.
+
+An aristocrat by birth and the inheritor of considerable wealth,
+Cavour was singularly free from prejudices; his favourite study was
+political economy, and in quiet times he would probably have given all
+his energies to the interests of commerce and agriculture. He was an
+advocate of free trade, and was, perhaps, the only one of the many
+Italians who _feted_ Mr Cobden on his visit to Italy who cared in the
+least for the motive of his campaign. Cavour understood English
+politics better than they have ever been understood by a foreign
+statesman; his article on Ireland, written in 1843, may still be read
+with profit. Before parliamentary life existed in Piedmont, he took
+the only way open of influencing public opinion by founding a
+newspaper, the _Risorgimento,_ in which he continued to write for
+several years. In the Chamber of Deputies he soon made his power
+felt--power is the word, for he was no orator in the ordinary sense;
+his speeches read well, as hard hitting and logical expositions, but
+they were not well delivered. Cavour never spoke Italian with true
+grace and ease though he selected it for his speeches, and not French,
+which was also allowed and which he spoke admirably. His presence,
+too, did not lend itself to oratory; short and thickset, and careless
+in his dress, he formed a contrast to the romantic figure of
+D'Azeglio. Yet his prosaic face, when animated, gave an impressive
+sense of that attribute which seemed to emanate from the whole man:
+power.
+
+It needed a more wary hand than D'Azeglio's to steer out of the
+troubled waters caused by the ecclesiastical bills, and to put the
+final touches to the legislation which he, to his lasting honour be it
+said, had courageously and successfully initiated. In the autumn of
+1852 D'Azeglio resigned, and Cavour was requested by the King to form
+a ministry. He was to remain, with short breaks, at the head of public
+affairs for the nine following years.
+
+At this time the government of Lombardy and Venetia was vested in
+Field-Marshal Radetsky, with two lieutenant-governors under him, who
+only executed his orders. Radetsky resided at Verona. Politically and
+economically the two provinces were then undergoing an extremity of
+misery; the diseases of the vines and the silkworms had reached the
+point of causing absolute ruin to the great mass of proprietors who,
+reckoning on having always enough to live on, had not laid by. Many
+noble families sank to the condition of peasants. The taxation was
+heavier than in any other part of the Austrian Empire; in proof of
+which it may be mentioned that Lombardy paid 80,000,000 francs into
+the Austrian treasury, which, had the Empire been taxed equally, would
+have given an annual total of 1,100,000,000, whereas the revenue
+amounted to only 736,000,000. The landtax was almost double what it
+was in the German provinces. Italians, however, have a great capacity
+for supporting such burdens with patience, and it is doubtful whether
+the material aspect of the case did much to increase their hatred of
+foreign dominion. Its moral aspect grew daily worse; the terror became
+chronic. The possession of a sheet of printed paper issued by the
+revolutionary press at Capolago, on the lake of Lugano, was enough to
+send a man to the gallows. These old, badly printed leaflets, with no
+name of author or publisher attached, but chiefly written in the
+unmistakable style of Mazzini, can still be picked up in the little
+booksellers' shops in Canton Ticino, and it is difficult to look at
+them without emotion. What hopes were carried by them. What risks were
+run in passing them from hand to hand. Of what tragedies were they not
+the cause! In August 1851, Antonio Sciesa, of Milan, was shot for
+having one such leaflet on his person. The gendarmes led him past his
+own house, hoping that the sight of it would weaken his nerve, and
+make him accept the clemency which was eagerly proffered if he would
+reveal the names of others engaged in the patriotic propaganda.
+'Tiremm innanz!' ('come along') he said, in his rough Milanese
+dialect, and marched incorruptible to death. On a similar charge,
+Dottesio and Grioli, the latter a priest, suffered in the same year,
+and early in 1852 the long trial was begun at Mantua of about fifty
+patriots whose names had been obtained by the aid of the bastinado
+from one or two unhappy wretches who had not the fortitude to endure.
+Of these fifty, nine were executed, among whom were the priests
+Grazioli and Tazzoli, Count Montanari of Verona, and Tito Speri, the
+young hero of the defence of Brescia. Speri had a trifling part in the
+propaganda, but the remembrance of his conduct in 1849 ensured his
+condemnation. He was deeply attached to the religion in which he was
+born, and his last letters show the fervour of a Christian joined to
+the calmness of a stoic. If he had a regret, it was that he had been
+unable to do more for his country; but here too his simple faith
+sustained him. Surely the Giver of all good would not refuse to listen
+to the prayers of the soul which passed to Him through martyrdom.
+'To-morrow they lead me forth,' he wrote. 'I have done with this
+world, but, in the bosom of God, I promise you I will do what I can.'
+So did this clear and childlike spirit carry its cause from the
+Austrian Assizes to a higher tribunal.
+
+In the spring of 1853 there was an attempt at a rising in Milan from
+which the mass of the citizens stood aloof, if they even knew of it
+till it was over; an attempt ill-considered and not easily justified
+from any point of view, the blame for which has been generally cast on
+Mazzini; but though he knew of it, he was unwilling that its authors
+should choose the time and mode of action which they chose. He was,
+moreover, misinformed as to the extent of the preparations, since no
+Milanese of any standing gave his support to the plan.
+
+On the plea that the Lombard emigration was concerned in the abortive
+movement, which was by no means consistent with facts, the Austrian
+Government sequestered the landed property of the exiles and voluntary
+emigrants, reducing them and their families (which in most instances
+remained behind) to complete beggary. Nine hundred and seventy-eight
+estates were placed under sequestration. The Court of Sardinia held
+the measure to be a violation of the amnesty, which was one of the
+conditions of the peace of 1850. The Sardinian Minister was recalled
+from Vienna, and the relations between the two governments were once
+more on a footing of open rupture.
+
+Not less important was the moral effect of the sequestrations in
+France and England, but particularly in England. They acted as the
+last straw, coming as they did on the top of the flogging system which
+had already enraged the English public mind to the highest degree. The
+Prince Consort wrote in March to his brother: 'To give you a
+conception of the maxims of justice and policy which Austria has been
+lately developing, I enclose an extract of a report from Turin which
+treats of the decrees of confiscation in Italy. People here will be
+very indignant.' He goes on to say (somewhat too broadly) that the
+English upper classes were till then thoroughly Austrian, but that she
+had succeeded in turning the whole of England against her, and there
+was now no one left to defend her.
+
+Austria, through Count Buol, complained that she was 'dying of
+legality,' but England took the Sardinian view that the sequestrations
+directly violated the treaty between the two Powers. In the Austrian
+Note of the 9th of March, it was distinctly declared that Piedmont
+would be crushed if she did not perform the part of police-agent to
+Austria. Cavour's uncowed attitude at this crisis was what first fixed
+upon him the eyes of European diplomacy.
+
+In the course of the summer, the Duke of Genoa, Victor Emmanuel's
+brother, paid a visit to the English Court, where the Duke of
+Saxe-Coburg was also staying, by whom he was described as 'one of the
+cleverest and most amiable men of our time.' Sunny Italy, adds Duke
+Ernest, seemed to have sent him to England so that by his mere
+presence alone, in the prime of his age, he might make propaganda for
+the cause of his country. The Queen presented her guest with a
+handsome riding-horse, and when he thanked her in warm and feeling
+terms, she spoke the memorable words, the effect of which spoken at
+that date by the Queen of England can hardly be imagined: 'I hope you
+will ride this horse when the battles are fought for the liberation of
+Italy.'
+
+The battle-day was indeed to come, but when it came the sword which
+the young Duke wielded with such gallantry in the siege of Peschiera
+would be sheathed for ever. The Prince Charming of Casa Savoia died in
+February 1855, leaving a daughter to Italy, the beloved Queen
+Margaret.
+
+In the space of a few weeks, Victor Emmanuel lost his brother, his
+mother, and his wife. The King, who felt keenly when he did feel, was
+driven distraught with grief; no circumstance was wanting which could
+sharpen the edge of his sorrow. The two Queens, both Austrian
+princesses, had never interfered in foreign politics; what they
+suffered they suffered in silence. But they were greatly influenced by
+the ministers of the religion which had been a comfort of their not
+too happy lives, and they had frequently told Victor Emmanuel that
+they would die of grief if the anti-papal policy of his government
+were persisted in. Now that they were dead, every partisan of the
+Church declared, without a shadow of reticence, that the mourning in
+which the House of Savoy was plunged was a clear manifestation of
+Divine wrath. Victor Emmanuel had been brought up in superstitious
+surroundings; it was hardly possible that he should listen to these
+things altogether unmoved. But on this as on the other occasions in
+his life when he was to be threatened with ghostly terrors, he did not
+belie the name of 'Re Galantuomo,' which he had written down as his
+profession when filling up the papers of the first census taken after
+his accession--a jest that gave him the title he will ever be known
+by. Harassed and tormented as the King was, when the law on religious
+corporations had been voted by the Senate and the Chamber, and was
+presented to him by Cavour for signature, he did his duty and signed
+it. The commentary which came from the Vatican was the decree of
+major excommunication promulgated in the Consistory of the 27th of
+July against all who had approved or sanctioned the measure, or who
+were concerned in putting it into execution.
+
+The law was known as the 'Rattazziana,' from Urbano Rattazzi, whom
+Cavour appointed Minister of Grace and Justice, thereby effecting a
+coalition between the Right Centre, which he led himself, and the Left
+Centre, which was led by Rattazzi; an alliance not pleasing to the
+Pure Right or to the Advanced Left, but necessary to give the Prime
+Minister sufficient strength to command the respect, both at home and
+abroad, which can only be won by a statesman who is not afraid of
+being overturned by every whiff of the parliamentary wind. The 'Legge
+Rattazziana' certainly aimed at asserting the supremacy of the state,
+but in substance it was an arrangement for raising the stipend of the
+poorer clergy at the expense of the richer benefices and corporations,
+and save for the bitter animosity of Rome, it would not have excited
+the degree of anger that descended upon its promoters. In a country
+where the Church had a rental of 15,000,000 francs, there were many
+parish priests who had not an income of L20; a state of things seen to
+be anomalous by the best ecclesiastics themselves, but their efforts
+at conciliation failed because the Holy See would not recognise the
+right of the civil authority to interfere in any question affecting
+the status or property of the clergy, and this right was the real
+point at issue.
+
+In these days, Cavour came to an understanding with a friendly monk in
+order that when his last hour arrived, he should not, like Santa Rosa,
+go unshriven to his account. In 1861, Fra Giacomo performed his part
+in the agreement, and was duly punished for having saved his Church
+from a scandal which, from the position of the great minister, would
+have reached European dimensions.
+
+Cavour's work of bringing into order the Sardinian finances, which,
+from the flourishing state they had attained prior to 1848, had fallen
+into what appeared the hopeless confusion of a large and steadily
+increasing deficit, is not to the ordinary observer his most brilliant
+achievement, but it is possibly the one for which he deserves most
+praise. It could not have been carried through except by a statesman
+who was completely indifferent to the applause of the hour. During all
+the earlier years that he held office, Cavour was extraordinarily
+unpopular. The nickname of 'la bestia neira' conferred on him by
+Victor Emmanuel referred to the opinion entertained of him by the
+Clerical party, but he was almost as much a 'bestia neira' to a large
+portion of the Liberals as to the Clericals or to the old Piedmontese
+party. His house was attacked by the mob in 1853, and had not his
+servants barred the entrance, something serious might have occurred.
+Happily the King and the majority in the Chamber and in the country
+had, if not much love for Cavour, a profound conviction that he could
+not be done without, and that, consequently, he must be allowed to do
+what he liked. Thus the large sacrifices he demanded of the taxpayers
+were regularly voted, and Cavour could afford to despise the abuse
+heaped upon himself since he saw his policy advancing to maturity
+along a steady line of success.
+
+When, in 1854, Cavour resolved that Piedmont should join France and
+England in the coming war with Russia, it seemed to a large number of
+his countrymen that he had taken leave of his senses, but the firm
+support which in this instance he found in the King enabled him next
+year to equip and despatch the contingent, 15,000 strong, commanded
+by General La Marmora, which not only won the respect of friends and
+foes in the field, but offered an example of efficiency in all
+departments that compared favourably with the faulty organisation of
+the great armies beside which it fought. Its gallant conduct at the
+battle of the Tchernaja flattered the native pride, and when, in due
+time, 12,000 returned of the 15,000 that had gone forth, the increased
+credit of Piedmont in Europe was already felt to compensate for the
+heavy cost of the expedition.
+
+Among the Italians living abroad, Cavour's motives in taking part in
+the Crimean War were, from the first, better understood than they were
+at home. Piedmont, by qualifying for the part of Italian advocate in
+the Councils of Europe, gave a guarantee of good faith which patriots
+like Daniel Manin and Giorgio Pallavicini accepted as a happy promise
+for the future. It was then that a large section of the republican
+party frankly embraced the programme of Italian unity under Victor
+Emmanuel. They foresaw that a repetition of the discordant action of
+1848 would end in the same way. Manin wrote to Lorenzo Valerio in
+September 1855: 'I, who am a republican, plant the banner of
+unification; let all who desire that Italy should exist, rally round
+it, and Italy will exist.' The ex-dictator of Venice was eking out a
+scanty livelihood by giving lessons in Paris; he had only three years
+left to live, and was not destined to see his words verified. But,
+poor and sick and obscure though he was, his support was worth
+legions.
+
+It was not the first time that Italian republicans had said to the
+House of Savoy: If you will free Italy we are with you; but the
+circumstances of the case were completely changed since Mazzini wrote
+in somewhat the same language to Charles Albert a quarter of a
+century before. Both times the proposal contained an ultimatum as well
+as an offer, but Manin made it without second thoughts in the
+strongest hope that the pact would be accepted and full of
+anticipatory joy at the prospect of its success; while by the Genoese
+republican it was made in mistrust and in the knowledge that were it
+accepted (which he did not believe), its acceptance, though bringing
+with it for Italy a state of things which he recognised as preferable
+to that which prevailed, would bring to him personally nothing but
+disappointment and the forfeiture of his dearest wishes.
+
+It is difficult to say what were at this date Cavour's own private
+sentiments about Italian unity. Though he once confessed that as a
+young man he had fancied himself Prime Minister of Italy, whenever the
+subject was now discussed he disclaimed any belief in the feasibility
+of uniting all parts of the peninsula in one whole. He even called
+Manin 'a very good man, but mad about Italian unification.' It wanted,
+in truth, the prescience of the seer rather than the acumen of the
+politician to discern the unity of Italy in 1855. All outward facts
+seemed more adverse to its accomplishment than at any period since
+1815. Yet it was for Italy that Cavour always pleaded; Italy, and not
+Piedmont or even Lombardy and Venetia. He invariably asserted the
+right of his King to uphold the cause of all the populations from the
+Alps to the Straits of Messina. If he adopted the proverb 'Chi va
+piano va sano,' he kept in view the end of it, 'Chi va sano va
+lontano.' In short, if he did not believe in Italian unity, he acted
+in the same way as he would have acted had he believed in it.
+
+It is evident that one thing he could not do. Whatever was in his
+thoughts, unless he was prepared to retire into private life then and
+there, he could not proclaim from the house-tops that he espoused the
+artichoke theory attributed to Victor Amadeus. There were only too
+many old diplomatists as it was, who sought to cripple Cavour's
+resources by reviving that story. The time was not come when, without
+manifest damage to the cause, he could plead guilty to the charge of
+preparing an Italian crown for his Sovereign. 'The rule in politics,'
+Cavour once observed, 'is to be as moderate in language as you are
+resolute in act.'
+
+At the end of 1855, Victor Emmanuel, with Cavour and Massimo
+d'Azeglio, paid a visit to the French and English Courts. He was
+received with more marked cordiality at the English Court than at the
+French. No Prince Charming, indeed, but the ideal of a bluff and burly
+Longobard chief, he managed to win the good graces of his
+entertainers, even if they thought him a trifle barbaric. The Duchess
+of Sutherland declared that of all the knights of St George whom she
+had ever seen, he was the only one who would have had the best of it
+in the fight with the dragon. The Queen rose at four o'clock in the
+morning to take leave of him. Cavour was so much struck by the
+interest which Her Majesty evinced in the efforts of Piedmont for
+constitutional freedom, that he did not hesitate to call her the best
+friend his country possessed in England.
+
+It is not generally known, but it is quite true, that Victor Emmanuel
+wished to contract a matrimonial alliance with the English royal
+family. He did not take Cavour into his confidence, but a high English
+personage was sounded on the matter, a hint being given to him to say
+nothing about it to the Count. The lady who might have become Queen of
+Italy was the Princess Mary of Cambridge. The negotiations were
+broken off because the young Princess would not hear of any marriage
+which would have required her living out of England.
+
+The Congress which met in Paris in February 1856 for the conclusion of
+the peace between the Allies and Russia was to have far more momentous
+results for Italy than for the countries more immediately concerned in
+its discussions, but, contrary to the general impression, it does not
+appear that these results were anticipated by Cavour. He even said
+that it was idle for Sardinia to send delegates to a congress in which
+they would be treated like children. Cavour feared, perhaps, to lose
+the ground he had gained in the previous year with Napoleon III., when
+the Emperor's rather surprising question: 'Que peut-on faire pour
+l'Italie?' had suggested to the Piedmontese statesman that definite
+scheme of a French alliance, which henceforth he never let go. In any
+case, when D'Azeglio, who was appointed Sardinian representative,
+refused at the last moment to undertake a charge for which he knew he
+was not fitted, it was only at the urgent request of the King that
+Cavour consented to take his place. When once in Paris, however, he
+warmed to the work, finding an unexpectedly strong ally in Lord
+Clarendon. He won what was considered in all Europe a great diplomatic
+triumph, by getting a special sitting assigned to the examination of
+Italian affairs, which had as little to do with the natural work of
+the Congress as the affairs of China. The chief points discussed at
+the secret sitting of the 8th of April were the foreign occupations in
+Central Italy, and the state of the Roman and Neapolitian governments,
+which was stigmatised by Lord Clarendon in terms much more severe than
+Cavour himself thought it prudent to use. Count Buol, the chief
+Austrian representative, grew very angry, and his opposition was
+successful in reducing the sitting to a mere conversation; but what
+had been said had been said, and Cavour prepared the way for his
+future policy by remarking to everyone: 'You see that diplomacy can do
+nothing for us; the question needs another solution.' Lord Clarendon's
+vigorous support made him think for a moment that England might take
+an active part in that other solution, and with this idea in his mind
+he hurried over the Channel to see Lord Palmerston, but he left
+England convinced that nothing more than moral assistance was ever to
+be expected from that quarter. The Marquis Emmanuel d'Azeglio, who for
+many years represented Sardinia, and afterwards Italy, at the Court of
+St James, has placed it on record that the English Premier repeatedly
+assured him that an armed intervention on behalf of Italian freedom
+would have been much to his taste, but that the country would not have
+been with him. It is certain that Cavour would have preferred an
+English to a French alliance; as it was not to be had, he reposed his
+sole hopes in the Emperor Napoleon, who had not the French people
+really more with him in this matter than Lord Palmerston had the
+English--nay, he had them less with him, for in England there would
+have been a party of Italian sympathisers favourable to the war, and
+in France, there was no one except Prince Napoleon and the workmen of
+Paris. But the French Emperor was a despotic sovereign, and not the
+Prime Minister of a self-governing country. After all, some good may
+come out of despotism.
+
+Upon Cavour's return to Turin, he received not only the approval of
+the King and Parliament, but also congratulations from all parts of
+Italy. His position had gained immensely in strength, both at home and
+abroad. Yet the power of the Clerical party in Piedmont was still such
+that, in the elections of 1857--the first that had taken place since
+the legislation affecting the Church--they obtained seventy seats out
+of a total of two hundred. Cavour did not conceal his alarm. What if
+eight years' labour were thrown away, and the movement of the State
+turned backward? 'Never,' he said, 'would he advise a _coup d'etat,_
+nor would his master resort to one; but if the King abdicated, what
+then?' Victor Emmanuel said to his Prime Minister: 'Let us do our
+duty; stand firm, and we shall see!' He often declared that, sooner
+than beat a retreat from the path he had entered on, he would go to
+America and become plain _Monsu Savoia_; but he never lost faith in
+the predominating patriotism and good sense of his subjects; and at
+this time, as at others, he proved to be right. The crisis was
+surmounted. On the one hand, some elections were invalidated where the
+priests had exercised undue influence; and, on the other, Rattazzi,
+who was especially obnoxious to the Clerical party, retired from
+office. Cavour thus found himself still able to command the Chamber.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+PREMONITIONS OF THE STORM
+
+1857-1858
+
+Pisacane's Landing--Orsini's Attempt--The Compact of
+Plombieres--Cavour's Triumph.
+
+
+In spite of the accusation of favouring political assassination which
+was frequently launched against the Italian secret societies, only one
+of the faithless Italian princes came to a violent death, and his
+murder had no connection with politics. Charles III., Duke of Parma,
+was mortally stabbed in March 1854; some said that the assassin was a
+groom whom he had struck with a riding-whip; others, that he was the
+father or brother of one of the victims of the Duke's dissolute
+habits. The Duchess, a daughter of the Duke de Berry, assumed the
+Regency on behalf of her son, who was a child. She began by initiating
+many reforms; but a street disturbance in July gave Austria the
+desired excuse for meddling in the government, when all progress was,
+of course, arrested.
+
+In December 1856, a soldier named Ageslao Milano attempted to
+assassinate the King of the Two Sicilies at a review. He belonged to
+no sect, but he had long premeditated the act. A few days later an
+earthquake occurred in the kingdom of Naples, by which over ten
+thousand persons lost their lives. Ferdinand II. grew morose, and shut
+himself up in the royal palace of Caserta. The constant lectures of
+France and England annoyed him without persuading him to take the
+means to put a stop to them. Not till 1859 did he open the doors of
+the prisons in which Poerio, Settembrini and their companions were
+confined. Many plans were made, meanwhile, for their liberation, and
+English friends even provided a ship by which they were to escape; but
+the ship foundered: perhaps fortunately, as Garibaldi, with
+characteristic disinterestedness, had agreed to direct the enterprise,
+which could not have been otherwise than perilous, and was not
+unlikely to end in the loss of all concerned.
+
+Disaster attended Baron Bentivegna's attempt at a rising at Taormina
+in 1856, and Carlo Pisacane's landing at Sapri in the summer of the
+following year had no better result. Pisacane, a son of the Duke
+Gennaro di San Giovanni of Naples, had fought in the defence of Rome
+and was a firm adherent of Mazzini, in conjunction with whom he
+planned his unlucky venture. Pisacane watched the growing ascendency
+of Piedmont with sorrow; he was one of the few, if not the only one of
+his party to say that he would as soon have the dominion of Austria as
+that of the House of Savoy. But if he was an extremist in politics,
+none the less he was a patriot, who took his life in his hands and
+offered it up to his country in the spirit of the noblest devotion. He
+had the slenderest hope of success, but he believed that only by such
+failures could the people be roused from their apathy. 'For me,' he
+wrote, 'it will be victory even if I die on the scaffold. This is all
+I can do, and this I do; the rest depends on the country, not on me. I
+have only my affections and my life to give, and I give them without
+hesitation.'
+
+With the young Baron Nicotera and twenty-three others, Pisacane
+embarked on the _Cagliari_, a steamer belonging to a Sardinian
+mercantile line, which was bound for Tunis. When at sea, the captain
+was frightened into obedience, and the ship's course was directed to
+the isle of Ponza, where several hundred prisoners, mostly political,
+were undergoing their sentences. The guards made little resistance,
+and Pisacane opened the prisons, inviting who would to follow him. The
+first plan had been to make a descent on San Stefano, the island where
+Settembrini was imprisoned, but that good citizen had refused to admit
+the liberation of the non-political prisoners, which was an
+unavoidable feature in the scheme. With the addition of about three
+hundred men, Pisacane left Ponza for the mainland and disembarked near
+the village of Sapri, in the province of Salerno. From information
+received, he imagined that a revolutionary movement was on the point
+of breaking out in that district. Nothing could be further from the
+fact. The country people did all the harm they could to the band,
+which, after making a brave stand against the local militia, was cut
+to pieces by the royal troops. Pisacane fell fighting; those who were
+not killed were taken, and amongst these was Nicotera, who was kept in
+prison till set free by Garibaldi.
+
+The _Cagliari_ was captured and detained with its crew. As two of the
+seamen were British subjects, the English Government joined Sardinia
+in demanding its restitution, which, after long delays, was conceded.
+
+In 1857, the Emperor of Austria relieved Field-Marshal Radetsky, then
+in his ninety-third year, of the burden of office. He was given the
+right of living in any of the royal palaces, even in the Emperor's own
+residence at Vienna, but he preferred to spend the one remaining year
+of his life in Italy. At the same time, the Archduke Maximilian was
+appointed Viceroy of Lombardy and Venetia. A more naturally amiable
+and cultivated Prince never had the evil fate forced upon him of
+attempting impossible tasks. Just married to the lovely Princess
+Charlotte of Belgium, he came to Italy radiant with happiness, and
+wishing to make everyone as happy as he was himself. Not even the
+chilling welcome he received damped his enthusiasm, for he thought the
+aversion of the population depended on undoubted wrongs, which it was
+his full intention to redress. He was to learn two things; firstly,
+that the day of reconciliation was past: there were too many ghosts
+between the Lombards and Venetians, and the House of Hapsburg.
+Secondly, that an unseen hand beyond the Brenner would diligently
+thwart each one of his benevolent designs. The system was, and was to
+remain, unchanged. It was not carried out quite as it was carried out
+in the first years after 1849. The exiles were allowed to return and
+the sequestrations were revoked. It should be said, because it shows
+the one white spot in Austrian despotism, its civil administration,
+that on resuming their rights of ownership the proprietors found that
+their estates had not been badly managed. But the depressing and
+deadening influence of an anti-national rule continued unabated.
+Lombardy and Venetia were governed not from Milan, but from Vienna.
+Very small were the crumbs which the Viceroy obtained, though he went
+on a journey to Austria expressly to plead for concessions. It is sad
+to think what an enlightened heir to the great Austrian empire was
+lost, when Napoleon III. and his own family sent Maximilian of
+Hapsburg to Queretaro.
+
+While Cavour had come to the conclusion that the aid which he believed
+essential for the expulsion of the Austrians could only come from the
+French Emperor, this sovereign was regarded by a not inconsiderable
+party of Italians as the greatest, if not the sole, obstacle to their
+liberation. All those, in particular, who came in contact with the
+French exiles, were impressed by them with the notion that France, the
+real France, was only waiting for the disappearance of the Man of
+December to throw herself into their arms. Among the Italians who held
+these opinions, there were a few with whom it became a fixed idea that
+the greatest service they could render their country was the removal
+of Napoleon from the political scene. They conceived and nourished
+the thought independently of one another; they belonged to no league,
+but for that reason they were the more dangerous; somewhere or other
+there was always someone planning to put an end to the Emperor's life.
+It is not worth while to pause to discuss the ethics of political
+assassination; civilisation has decided against it, and history proves
+its usual failure to promote the desired object. What benefit did the
+Confederate cause derive from the assassination of the good President
+Lincoln, or the cause of Russian liberty from that of Alexander II.?
+What will Anarchy gain by the murder of Carnot? It is certain,
+however, that never were men more convinced that they were executing a
+wild kind of justice than were the men who plotted against Napoleon
+III. They looked upon him as one of themselves who had turned traitor.
+There is a great probability that, in his early days when he was
+playing at conspiracy in Italy, he was actually enrolled as a
+Carbonaro. At all events, he had conspired for Italian freedom, and
+afterwards, to serve his own selfish interests, he extinguished it in
+Rome. The temporal power of the Pope was kept alive through him.
+
+A true account of the attempts on Napoleon's life will never be written,
+because the only persons who were able and willing to throw light on the
+subject, ex-police agents and their kind, are authorities whose word is
+worth a very limited acceptance. It is pretty sure that there were more
+plots than the public ever knew of, and that in some cases the plotters
+were disposed of summarily. Most of them were poor, ignorant creatures,
+but in January 1858 an attempt was made by a man of an entirely
+different stamp, Felice Orsini.
+
+Born at Meldola in Romagna in 1819, he was of the true Romagnol type
+in mind and body; daring, resourceful, intolerant of control. From his
+earliest youth all his actions had but one object, the liberation of
+his country. His youthful brain was enflamed by Alfieri and Foscolo,
+who remained his favourite authors. He hated Austria well, and he
+hated the Papal government as no one but one of its own subjects could
+hate it. 'When the French landed in Italy' (he told his judges) 'it
+was hoped that they were come as friends, but they proved the worst of
+enemies. For a time they were repulsed, then they resumed the cloak of
+friendship, but only to wait for reinforcements. When these arrived
+they returned to the assault, a thousand against ten, and we were
+judicially assassinated.' A succinct and true narrative.
+
+During the republic Orsini was sent to Ancona, where anarchy had
+broken out; by vigorous measures he restored perfect order. In 1854 he
+was arrested in Hungary and condemned to death, but he escaped from
+Mantua under romantic circumstances and reached England, where the
+story of his audacious flight won for him many sympathisers. He was
+often seen in society. On one occasion he was asked to meet Prince
+Lucien Buonaparte. Orsini knew Mazzini, but he was impatient of his
+mystical leanings, and he disapproved of such enterprises as
+Pisacane's, by which, as he thought, twenty or thirty men were
+sacrificed here or there without anything coming of it. He finally
+repudiated Mazzini's leadership, and in March 1857 he wrote to Cavour,
+asking him for a passport to return to Italy, and placing at the
+disposal of the Sardinian government 'the courage and energy which it
+had pleased God to give him,' provided that government left wavering
+behind, and showed its unmistakable will to achieve the independence
+of Italy. Cavour sent no reply, 'because,' he said later, 'the letter
+was noble and energetic, and I should have had to pay Orsini
+compliments which I did not deem fitting. 'Unlike Victor Emmanuel, who
+in after years carried on regular negotiations with Mazzini, Cavour,
+while ready to make an alliance with the Radicals in the Chamber, was
+extremely loth to have anything to do with actual revolutionists. His
+not answering Orsini's letter certainly led up to the attempt of the
+14th of January 1858.
+
+Having quarrelled with Mazzini, and receiving no encouragement from
+Cavour, Orsini evolved the plan which on that day he endeavoured to
+put into execution. He would have preferred to act alone, but since
+that was impossible, he sought and found without much difficulty two
+or three accomplices. One of these, Pieri, a teacher of languages, was
+arrested by the police, who recognised him as an old conspirator,
+before he threw the bomb which he was carrying. The other bombs were
+thrown just as the carriage containing the Imperial party drove up to
+the opera house. A number of people in the street were killed or
+injured, but the Emperor and Empress escaped unhurt. When they entered
+the theatre the Rutli scene of the conspirators in _Guillaume Tell_
+was being performed. Not a breath of applause greeted them, though
+everyone knew what had happened. Napoleon III. had a striking proof of
+how little hold he possessed on the affections of his subjects.
+
+When at his trial Orsini was asked what he expected would happen if he
+had succeeded in killing the Emperor he answered: 'We were convinced
+that the surest way of making a revolution in Italy was to excite one
+in France, and that the surest way of making a revolution in France
+was to kill the Emperor.' There is a good deal of curious evidence to
+show that very elaborate preparations had been made for a revolution
+in Paris. The French police had orders, however, to keep all this
+aspect of the affair out of sight. It was to be made to appear the
+isolated act of a misguided Italian patriot. 'The world possesses an
+Orsini legend,' writes the late Duke of Saxe-Coburg, who was present
+at the event, having been invited to join the Emperor at the opera,
+'which is quite at variance with facts.' The duke clearly thinks that
+the conviction of the instability of his throne which was brought home
+to the Emperor on this occasion, was one of the causes which decided
+him to try the diversion of public opinion into other channels by
+means of a foreign war.
+
+Everything was done to make Orsini a hero in the eyes of the French
+public, and to excite sympathy in his cause. Jules Favre by his
+eloquent defence in which he pleaded not for the life, but for the
+honour of his client, and still more Orsini's own letter to the
+Emperor, produced a powerful impression; there was a dramatic interest
+in the man who, disdaining to crave clemency for himself, tried a last
+supreme effort in the service of the country he had loved too well.
+'Deliver my fatherland, and the blessings of twenty-five million
+citizens will be with you.' So concluded the letter in which Orsini
+told Napoleon, that till Italy was free there would be no peace for
+Europe--nor for him. It was whispered that the Emperor had a secret
+interview with the condemned man at the Mazas prison; at any rate,
+when Orsini mounted the scaffold, he was borne up, not only by his
+invincible courage, but by the strongest hope, if not the certainty
+that his last prayer would have only a short time to wait for
+fulfilment.
+
+Though persons who were able to read the signs of the times no longer
+doubted that Napoleon had resolved to solve the Italian question by
+force of arms, it suited his purpose to occupy the public mind for the
+moment with the furious agitation against England and Piedmont as
+'dens of assassins,' which led to the fall of the Palmerston
+administration on the Conspiracy Bill, and seemed to almost place in
+jeopardy the throne of Victor Emmanuel. Napoleon sent the King of
+Sardinia demands so sweeping in language so threatening, that the old
+Savoy blood was fired, and Victor Emmanuel returned the answer: 'Tell
+the Emperor in whatever terms you think best that this is not the way
+to treat a faithful ally; that I have never tolerated violence from
+anyone; that I follow the path of unstained honour, and for that
+honour I am only answerable to God and to my people. That we have
+carried our head high for 850 years, and no one will make me lower it;
+and that, nevertheless, I desire nothing better than to remain his
+friend.' This reply was benevolently received; Cavour passed through
+the Chambers a bill which, though not corresponding to the extravagant
+pretensions of the French Government, gave reasonable security against
+the concoction of plots of a criminal nature; Napoleon expressed
+himself satisfied, and three months after, despatched Dr Conneau to
+Turin, to mention, quite by the way, to the Piedmontese minister, that
+he would be glad to have a conversation with him on Italian affairs.
+This was the preliminary of the interview of Plombieres.
+
+Plombieres is a watering-place in the Vosges, which became famous on
+the 20th of July 1858, the day on which Napoleon III. and Cavour
+entered into the compact that laid down the conditions of the Italian
+war. The Emperor was to bring 200,000 men into Italy, and the King of
+Sardinia undertook to furnish 100,000. The Austrians were to be
+expelled from Italy. The kingdom of Upper Italy would embrace the
+Legations and the Marches then under the Pope. Savoy would be ceded
+to France. The marriage of the Emperor's cousin with the Princess
+Clotilde was not made a condition of the war, and only in case it had
+been made a condition, was Cavour empowered to agree to it. He,
+therefore, left it uncertain; but he came away from Plombieres
+convinced that nearly everything depended upon its happening. Napoleon
+was beyond measure anxious for a marriage which would ally him with
+one of the oldest reigning families in Europe. It would be a fatal
+mistake, Cavour thought, to join the Emperor, and at the same time, to
+offend him in a way which he would never forget. Directly after the
+interview, he wrote a long letter to the King to persuade him to yield
+the point. After all, where would the Princess find a more promising
+match? Was it easy to provide husbands for princesses? Were not they
+generally extremely unhappy in marriage? What had happened to the
+King's four aunts, all charming princesses, who had married the Duke
+of Modena, the Duke of Lucca, the Emperor Ferdinand of Austria, and
+the King of Naples? Had they been happy? Prince Napoleon could not be
+so very bad, as he was known to have hurried to Cannes to pay a last
+visit to a woman whom he had loved, a great actress, then upon her
+deathbed. This reminiscence was a singular one to evoke under the
+circumstances, but Cavour was not an Englishman, and he was not
+impressed by the propriety of drawing a veil over facts which everyone
+knew.
+
+The King's instinct told him that his young daughter, pious and simple
+and destitute even of that seasoning of vanity which is so good and
+necessary a thing in a woman, but proud at heart like all her race,
+would derive no compensation from the outward brilliancy of the
+Imperial Court for the absence of domestic joy which would be her
+wedded lot unless a surprising change came over the bridegroom. When,
+however, he was persuaded of the importance, or rather, of the
+essential character of the concession, he said to Cavour: 'I am making
+a great sacrifice, but I yield to your arguments. Still my consent is
+subordinate to the freely given consent of my daughter.' The matter
+was referred to the Princess, who answered: 'It is the wish of my
+father; therefore this marriage will be useful to my family and my
+country, and I accept.' An answer worthy of one who, twelve years
+later, when the members of the Imperial House were flying, remained
+quietly in Paris, saying: 'Savoy and fear are not acquainted.'
+
+The marriage was celebrated at Turin in January. The King made a
+present to Cavour, as a souvenir of the event, of a ring representing
+two heartseases. In thanking him, the minister said: 'Your Majesty
+knows that I shall never marry.' 'I know,' replied the King; 'your
+bride is the country.'
+
+Though warlike rumours circulated off and on, the secret of the
+understanding arrived at in the Plombieres interview was well
+preserved, and the words spoken by Napoleon to the Austrian Ambassador
+at the New Year's Day reception fell on Europe with the effect of a
+bombshell. Turning to Baron Hubner, he said: 'Je regrette que les
+relations entre nous soient si mauvaises; dites cependant a votre
+souverain que mes sentiments pour lui ne sont pas changes.'
+
+Even Cavour was startled. Probably till that moment he had never felt
+sure that Napoleon would not after all throw the Italian cause to the
+winds. The Emperor's invariable method in dealing with men was to
+mystify them. He was pleased to pose as a faithful ally, but human
+intellect was insufficient to fathom what he meant. On this system,
+skilfully pursued, was reared the whole fabric of Louis Napoleon's
+reputation for being a profound politician. Bearing the fact in mind,
+we can easily see why that reputation crumbled away almost entirely
+when the present became the past. There are few cases in which there
+is more disagreement between the judgment of contemporaries and that
+of immediate posterity than the case of the French Emperor.
+
+The least surprised, and, among Italians, the most dissatisfied at the
+New Year's Day pronouncement was Mazzini, who when he read it in the
+_Times_ next morning felt that the Napoleonic war closed the heroic
+period of Italian Liberation. To men like Mazzini failure is apt to
+seem more heroic than success, and the war of 1859 did close the
+period of failure. The justification for calling in foreign arms could
+only be in necessity, and Mazzini denied the necessity. Charles Albert
+denied it in 1848 with no less confident a voice. Then, indeed, there
+did appear a chance of Italy making herself, but was there the
+slightest prospect, eleven years later, of that chance being repeated?
+Each student of history may answer for himself. What is plain is, that
+France and Sardinia _together_ were to find it an exceedingly hard
+task even to drive the Austrians out of Lombardy.
+
+The unconquerable dislike of men of principle, like Mazzini, to
+joining hands with the author of the _coup d'etat_ was perfectly
+explicable. There were doubtless some sincere Bulgarian patriots who
+disliked joining hands with the Autocrat of all the Russias. The gift
+of freedom from a despot means a long list of evils. Mazzini grasped
+the maleficent influence which Napoleon III. would be in a position to
+exercise over the young state; he knew, moreover, when only two or
+three other persons in Europe knew it, that the bargain of Plombieres
+was on the principle of give-and-take. How Mazzini was for many years
+better informed than any cabinet in Europe, remains a secret. 'I know
+positively,' he wrote on the 4th of January 1859, 'that the idea of
+the war is only to hand over a zone of Lombardy to Piedmont, and the
+cession of Savoy and Nice to France: the peace, upon the offer of
+which they count, would abandon the whole of Venetia to Austria.' A
+month before this he had disclosed what was certainly true, namely,
+that Napoleon wanted to place a Murat on the throne of Naples, and to
+substitute Prince Napoleon for the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The point
+that is doubtful in the above revelation is the statement that the
+Emperor never meant to emancipate Venetia. The probabilities are
+against this. He may, however, have questioned all along whether his
+troops, with those of the King of Sardinia, would display a
+superiority over the Austrian forces sufficiently incontestable for
+him to risk taking them into the mouse-trap of the Quadrilateral. In
+this one thing Napoleon was amply justified--in having no sort of
+desire to take a beaten army back to Paris.
+
+Mazzini, with the more extreme members of the Party of Action
+(including Crispi), issued a protest against the Napoleonic war, with
+the advice to have nothing to do with it or its authors. But Italy
+thought otherwise, and Garibaldi, the man who of all others most
+nearly represented the heart of Italy, rejoiced and was glad. He did
+not believe a word about the proposed cession of Savoy and Nice; no
+one did, except Mazzini and his few disciples. What he saw was, that a
+great step towards independence was about to be taken. In 1856, he not
+only adhered to Manin's call to all Italians to rally round the house
+of Savoy, but went further than Manin in accepting unconditionally
+what he called the 'Savoy Dictatorship,' to which he left full liberty
+of choice in the matter of ways and means. He did justice then to
+Cavour's patriotism: it was only after the sacrifice of Nice that a
+feeling of bitter antagonism grew up in him for the man who he thought
+had deceived Italy and himself. In December 1858, on a summons from
+Cavour, he left Caprera (the island which he had bought with a little
+inheritance falling to him on the death of his brother) and proceeded
+to Turin, where he was informed of a plan for a rising in Massa and
+Carrara, which was originally intended to be the signal of the war.
+The plan was given up, but in March 1859, Garibaldi was told by Victor
+Emmanuel in person of the imminence of war, and was invited to take
+part in it as commander of an auxiliary corps of volunteers which took
+the name of 'Cacciatori delle Alpi.' In this way, all his own
+followers, not only those in arms, but the great mass of the people
+which was obedient to his lead, became enrolled in the service of the
+Sardinian monarchy; a fact of capital importance in the future
+development of affairs. Without it, the Italian kingdom could not have
+been formed. And this fact was due to Cavour, who had to fight the
+arrayed strength of the old, narrow, military caste at Turin, which
+had succeeded in getting Garibaldi's sword refused in 1848, and wished
+for nothing in the world more than to get it refused in 1859. Near the
+end of his life, Cavour said in the Chamber that the difficulties he
+encountered in inducing the Sardinian War Office to sanction the
+appointment were all but insurmountable. Unfortunately, the jealousy
+of the heads of the regular army for the revolutionary captain never
+ceased. As for Cavour, even when he opposed Garibaldi politically, he
+always strove to have the highest personal honour paid to the man of
+whom he once wrote 'that he had rendered Italy the greatest service
+it was possible to render her.'
+
+True to his _role_ of mystification, one week after the shot fired on
+the 1st of January, Napoleon inserted an official statement in the
+_Moniteur_ to the effect that, although public opinion had been
+agitated by alarming rumours, there was nothing in the foreign
+relations of France to justify the fears these rumours tended to
+create. He continued on this tack, with more or less consistency, to
+the very verge of the outbreak of hostilities. 'The Empire was peace,'
+as it was always announced to be in the intervals when it was not war;
+there was no more harmless dove in Europe than the person enthroned in
+the Tuileries. These assurances were given more credence than they
+deserved by the Conservative Cabinet then in power in England, and the
+British ministers believed to the last that war would be averted, to
+which end they strained every nerve. Besides the wish felt by every
+English government to preserve European peace, there was at this
+juncture, not only in the Cabinet, but in the country, so much fear of
+Napoleon's ambition and restlessness, that for the time being,
+sympathy with Italy was relegated to a second place.
+
+Meanwhile there was no want of plainness in the language employed in
+Piedmont. In opening the second session of the sixth Sardinian
+Parliament, Victor Emmanuel pronounced, on 10th January, the historic
+phrase declaring that he could not remain insensible to the cry of
+grief, _il grido di dolore_, that reached him from all parts of Italy.
+Every corner of the fair country where the _Si_ sounds was electrified.
+The words, as has since become known, were introduced into the speech by
+the King himself. As Cavour had foreseen, Austria played into his hands.
+To Lord Malmesbury's appeal to evacuate the Roman Legations, and to use
+Austrian influence with the Italian princes in procuring the concession
+of necessary reforms, Count Buol replied in terms that were the reverse
+of obliging: 'We do not mean to abdicate our right of intervention, and
+if we are called upon to help the Italian sovereigns with our arms, we
+shall do so. We shall not recommend their governments to undertake any
+reforms. France plays the part of protectress of nationalities; we are,
+and shall be, protectors of dynastic rights.' Finally, England proposed
+a congress with a view to general disarmament. Piedmont, counting on the
+madness of her adversary, risked agreement with this plan. Austria gave
+a peremptory refusal to have anything to do with it.
+
+Cavour now asked Parliament to vote a war loan of L2,000,000, which
+was passed by a majority of 81 out of 151 votes. No foreign banker
+would undertake to negotiate the loan, but it was twice covered by
+Italian buyers, nearly all small capitalists, who put their money into
+it as a patriotic duty. Amongst the few deputies who opposed the loan
+was the old apostle of retrogression, Count Solaro della Margherita,
+who raised his solitary voice against the tide of revolution; and the
+Savoyard the Marquis Costa de Beauregard whose speech was pathetic
+from the melancholy foreboding which pervaded it that the making
+of Italy meant the unmaking of Savoy. Speaking in the name of his
+fellow-countrymen, the Marquis reconfirmed the profound love of
+Savoy for her Royal House and her total lack of solidarity with the
+aspirations of Italy. With time the Savoyards might have learnt to be
+Italians as their king had learnt to be an Italian king. Or they might
+not. Possibly the best solution would have been to join Savoy to the
+Swiss Confederation, though the martial instincts of the race were not
+favourable to their Conversion into peaceful Helvetic citizens. From
+one point of view, that of military defence, the retention of the
+province was of infinitely more moment to the future Italy than to
+little Piedmont. Sardinia could keep the peace with France for an
+indefinite period; Italy cannot. What is true of Savoy is far more
+true of Nice. To have it in foreign keeping is to have a very
+partially reformed burglar inside your house.
+
+'Notre roi,' said an old ragged fisherman of the Lac de Bourget to the
+writer of this book,--'Notre roi nous a vendus.' Not willingly did
+Victor Emmanuel incur that charge, in which the rebound from love to
+hate was so clearly heard; not willingly did he give up Maurienne,
+cradle of his race, Hautecombe, grave of his fathers. It was the
+greatest sacrifice, he said, that Italy could have asked of him. Nor
+is there any reason to doubt his word. But it is incorrect to suppose,
+as many have supposed, that Cavour promised at Plombieres to give up
+Savoy (Nice he did not promise) without the King's knowledge. Before
+he went there, he had brought Victor Emmanuel over to his own belief,
+justified or not, that without a bait Napoleon could not be got to
+move. Directly after the interview, he wrote a full account of it to
+the King, in which he said: 'When the future fate of Italy was
+arranged, the Emperor asked me what France would have, and if your
+Majesty would cede Savoy and the county of Nice?' To which Cavour
+answered 'Yes' as to Savoy, but objected that Nice was essentially
+Italian. The Emperor twirled his moustache several times, and only
+said that these were secondary questions, about which there would be
+time to think later.
+
+Austria was always appealing to the right of treaties and the right
+of nations; not, as it happened, with much reason, for she had ridden
+or tried to ride rough-shod through as many treaties and through quite
+as many rights as most European Powers. In 1816 she was so determined
+to possess herself of Alessandria and the Upper Novarese that Lord
+Castlereagh advised Piedmont to join the Austrian Confederation, as
+then and only then the Emperor might withdraw his pretensions to this
+large slice of territory of a Prince with whom he was at peace. If he
+did withdraw them, it was not from respect for the treaties which, a
+year before, had confirmed the King of Sardinia's rights as an
+independent sovereign, but from respect for the untoward results to
+himself which he was afraid, on reflection, might arise from enforcing
+his claims with the bayonet. But people forget; and it was of vital
+consequence that virtuous Austria should figure in the coming conflict
+not as the victim of aggression but as the aggressor. On all sides it
+was said that the Austrian Government would never commit an error of
+such magnitude; only Cavour thought the contrary. 'I shall _force_ her
+to declare war against us,' he told Mr Odo Russell in December 1858.
+When asked by the incredulous diplomatist at what date he expected to
+perform so great a feat, Cavour quietly answered: 'In the first week
+of May.' War was actually declared a few days sooner.
+
+For months Austria had been pouring troops into Italy, a large portion
+of which were massed on the frontier line of the Ticino. Who shall
+count the number of the men brought to fight and die in the Italian
+plains between 1848 and 1866 to sustain for that short time the weight
+of a condemned despotism? The supply was inexhaustible; they came from
+the Hungarian steppes, from the green valleys of Styria, from the
+mountains of Tyrol, from the woodlands of the Banat and of Bohemia; a
+blind million battling for a chimera. They came, and how many did not
+return?
+
+Austria's final refusal to adhere to the Congress scheme meant, of
+course, war, and Cavour called the Chamber and demanded a vote
+conferring upon Government the power to take such prompt measures as
+the situation required. 'We trust,' he said, 'that the Chamber will
+not hesitate to sanction the proposal to invest the King with plenary
+powers. Who could be a better guardian of our liberty? Who more worthy
+of the faith of the nation? He it is whose name a ten years' reign had
+made synonymous with honour and loyalty; who has always held high the
+tricolor standard of Italy, who now prepares to unsheath his sword for
+freedom and independence.'
+
+When Cavour walked out of the Chamber after the vote had been taken,
+he said: 'I am leaving the last sitting of the Piedmontese Parliament,
+the next will be that of the Kingdom of Italy.' At that moment, if
+ever in his career, the great minister who had fought so long a fight
+against incalculable obstacles learnt what it is to taste the
+sweetness of triumph.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE WAR FOR LOMBARDY
+
+1859
+
+Austria declares War--Montebello--Garibaldi's
+Campaign--Palestro--Magenta--The Allies enter Milan--Ricasoli saves
+Italian Unity--Accession of Francis II.--Solferino--The Armistice of
+Villafranca.
+
+
+Baron von Kellersperg reached Turin on the 23rd of April, bringing
+with him the Austrian ultimatum: 'Disarmament within three days, or
+war.' Cavour read the document, and then drew his watch out of his
+pocket. It was half-past five in the afternoon. At the same hour on
+the 26th, he gave Baron von Kellersperg the answer: 'Sardinia having
+accepted the principle of a general disarmament, as formulated by
+England, with the adhesion of France, Prussia and Russia, the
+Sardinian Government has no other explanation to make.' The retort was
+justified. Austria, which now required Sardinia to disarm, had refused
+to disarm herself. She must take the consequences.
+
+The British Government made a last desperate effort to maintain peace,
+and the Austrians always said that this was their ruin, as it delayed
+the invasion of Piedmont for a week. On the 29th appeared the Emperor
+Francis Joseph's Declaration of War, and on the same day the first
+Austrian columns crossed the Ticino. The Austrian commander-in-chief
+was Count Gyulai, who was in high favour with the aristocratic party,
+by which his appointment was suggested to, if not forced upon, the
+Emperor. The latter, not altogether easy in his mind about Gyulai's
+capabilities, commissioned General Hess, in whom he placed full
+confidence, to keep his eye on him. Hess could not, however, do much
+more than take notes of one of the most remarkable and providential
+series of blunders ever committed by the commander of an army.
+
+In spite of the delay which the Austrians ascribed to the English
+peace negotiations, there was time for them to destroy the Sardinian
+army before the French came up. Gyulai had 100,000 men in the theatre
+of war, a number increased up to 200,000 during the campaign. Both
+Sardinia and her ally mustered much fewer men than were spoken of at
+Plombieres. The Piedmontese could dispose of 56,000 infantry, formed
+in five divisions, one division of cavalry numbering 4,000, and one
+brigade of volunteers, to which the name was given of 'Cacciatori
+delle Alpi.' The enrolment of these was stopped when it had reached
+the small figure of 4,500 men, a figure that looks out of all
+proportion with the brilliant part they played. The same influences
+which cut short the enrolment prevented Cavour from keeping his
+distinct promise to give Garibaldi, now invested with the official
+rank of major-general, 10,000 regulars, with a battery and a troop of
+horse.
+
+The French army consisted of 128,000 men, including about 10,000
+cavalry. The Emperor's Government had notified beforehand to Vienna
+that the passage of the Ticino by the Austrian troops would be
+considered equivalent to a declaration of war, and accordingly, on the
+29th of April, diplomatic relations between the two Powers were broken
+off. The French forces had been really on the move for more than a
+week--ever since, in fact, by what the Marquis of Normanby called 'an
+unpardonable breach of confidence,' the intention of Austria to invade
+Sardinia was communicated to Paris. The mobilisation was conducted
+with rapidity; in spite of the snow, which lay deep on the Mont Cenis,
+the first corps, under Marshal Baraguay d'Hilliers, made a swift march
+over the Alps, and the foremost division entered Turin on the 30th of
+April. The troops of Canrobert and Niel, who commanded the third and
+fourth corps, were sent by Toulon and Marseilles, while the generals
+themselves went on to Turin in advance. MacMahon's corps, which was
+the second, was on its way from Algiers. The fifth corps, under the
+command of Prince Napoleon, was despatched at a later date to Tuscany,
+where it was kept in a state of inactivity, which suggested rather a
+political than a military mission. General Regnault de Saint-Jean
+d'Angely commanded the Imperial Guard. Napoleon III assumed the
+supreme command of the allied armies, with General Vaillant as head of
+the staff.
+
+The condition of neither French nor Austrian army was satisfactory.
+The former had more modern arms and a greater proportion of old
+soldiers, but it was generally thought that the French cavalry, so far
+superior to the Prussian in the war of 1870, was inferior to the
+Austrian in 1859. The commissariat and ambulance arrangements of the
+French were disgraceful, though they had this advantage, that when
+there was food to be had the soldiers were allowed to eat it, while
+the Austrians were limited to half-a-pound of beef a day, and were
+only allowed to cook once in the twenty-four hours, which led to their
+having constantly to fight fasting. In point of discipline, they were
+probably superior to the French, who fought, however, and this should
+always be remembered of them in Italy, with the best will in the
+world. They carried about their pet monkeys and dogs, and were always
+good-humoured and in good spirits, even when wounded. What would have
+been the effect on them of even a single defeat is a question which it
+is useless to discuss.
+
+In Napoleon's proclamation to the French people it was stated that the
+scope of the war was to give Italy to herself, not to make her change
+masters; the recompense of France would be to have upon her frontiers
+a friendly people which owed its independence to her. As things stood
+there were but two alternatives: Austria supreme as far as the Alps,
+or Italy free to the Adriatic. On the 12th of May, the Imperial yacht,
+the _Reine Hortense_, steamed into the harbour of Genoa with the
+Emperor on board. A splendid reception awaited him, and amongst the
+first to greet him was Cavour. 'You may well rejoice,' said Napoleon,
+as he embraced the Sardinian statesman, 'for your plans are being
+realised.'
+
+Gyulai, who had insisted on invading Piedmont, contrary to the opinion
+of Hess (who counselled waiting for reinforcements on the left bank of
+the Mincio), wasted his time after crossing the Ticino in making plans
+and changing them while he could unquestionably have thrown himself on
+Turin had he possessed more resolution, and this was the only
+operation that could have justified the initial folly of the invasion.
+The taking of the capital might not have altered the fortunes of the
+war, but it would have had all the appearance of a triumph, and would
+have raised the _moral_ of the Austrian soldiers. The allies had time
+to concentrate their forces near Tortona, and it was left to them to
+assume the offensive. The Austrians retired towards the Apennines, but
+made a forward movement on the 20th of May with the object of seizing
+the heights of Casteggio which command the road to Piacenza; they were
+met by the allies at the village of Montebello where Marshal Lannes
+obtained a victory in 1800. The allies were completely successful in
+this first battle, the honours of the day falling to the Sardinian
+cavalry, which showed great gallantry. The Austrian forces were
+considerably superior in strength.
+
+Almost at the same time as the engagement of Montebello, Garibaldi
+with his diminutive army (which through the weeding-out of men unfit
+for service was reduced to about 3,500 before it took the field),
+crossed the Lago Maggiore, and advanced boldly into the heart of the
+enemy's country. The volunteers had no artillery, and by way of
+cavalry only some forty or fifty were mounted on their own horses and
+dignified with the name of 'guides.' They were badly armed and worse
+equipped; the only good thing they had was an excellent ambulance
+organised by Dr Bertani, Garibaldi's surgeon-general from Roman days
+downwards. But they formed a picturesque sight as they marched along
+gaily to the everlasting song, 'Addio, mia bella, addio'; and a
+physiognomist would have been struck by their intelligent and often
+distinguished faces: nobles and poets, budding doctors and lawyers,
+bristled in the ranks, while the officers were the still young
+veterans of 1848-1849: Cosenz, hero of Venice; Medici, the defender of
+the Vascello; Bixio, Sirtori, Cairoli--all the Knights of the Legend.
+
+Moving swiftly from place to place, and appearing where and when he
+was least expected, Garibaldi took the entire country of the Lombard
+lakes. Gyulai, who at first looked upon the Garibaldian march as a
+simple diversion intended to draw off his attention, now became
+concerned, and dispatched Urban with 10,000 men to destroy the
+volunteers, and stem the insurrection which everywhere followed in
+their wake. On the 27th of May Garibaldi drove Urban from his position
+near San Fermo, and that commander had his mission still unfulfilled
+when he received the order to retreat after the battle of Magenta. The
+volunteers were free to pursue their way to Brescia and the
+Valtellina, where they performed many feats in the latter period of
+the war, winning the admiration of Hayn, the Austrian general opposed
+to them, which he was generous enough to express in no measured terms.
+
+The great war was meanwhile approaching its climax. After Montebello
+the whole French army executed a secret flank movement, changing its
+position from Voghera, where Gyulai believed it to be, and whence he
+expected it to move on to Piacenza, to the line of the Sesia, between
+Cameriano and Casale. To mask the main operations, the Sardinian
+forces were sent to Palestro, on the other side of the Sesia. On the
+30th of May, they drove in the outposts of the enemy, and on the 31st
+fought the important engagement by which the Austrian attempt to
+retake Palestro was repelled, and great damage caused to Zobel's
+corps, which was obliged to leave eight guns sticking in the mud. The
+French Zouaves of the 3rd regiment fought with the Piedmontese, and
+made the battle famous by the reckless valour of their bayonet
+charges. Victor Emmanuel, deaf to all remonstrances, placed himself at
+their head, in consequence of which they elected him their corporal,
+an honour once paid to the first Napoleon.
+
+There is reason to think that after Palestro, Gyulai, having at last
+realised what Napoleon was about, wished to evacuate Lombardy, but was
+prevented from doing so by strong protests sent by the Emperor Francis
+Joseph, who was at Verona. The Austrian army was in full retreat when
+it was pulled up near Magenta, with the object of checking the advance
+of the French, who had already begun to cross the Ticino by the
+bridges of San Martino and Buffalora, which the Austrians had tried to
+blow up, but had not succeeded from want of proper powder. In the
+great battle of the 4th of June, Austrians and French numbered
+respectively about 60,000 men; no Piedmontese were engaged till the
+evening, when a battalion of Bersaglieri arrived. The Imperial Guard,
+with which was Napoleon, had to bear the brunt of the fight for four
+hours, and ran a good chance of being annihilated; not a brilliant
+proof of French generalship, but happily the Austrians also committed
+grave mistakes. MacMahon's arrival at five in the afternoon prevented
+a catastrophe, and the fighting, which continued far into the night,
+was from this moment attended by results on the whole advantageous to
+the French. Not much more can be said. Magenta was very like a drawn
+battle. The Austrians are calculated to have lost 10,000 men, the
+French between 4,000 and 5,000. It was expected that the Austrians
+would renew the attack, but on the 5th, Gyulai ordered the retreat,
+which was the last order he had the opportunity of giving, as he was
+deprived of his command immediately after.
+
+At mid-day on the 5th, Milan, which was trembling on the verge of
+revolution, made the pleasurable discovery that there were no
+Austrians left in the town. The municipality sent out delegates with
+the keys of the city to Victor Emmanuel. At ten a.m. on the 7th,
+MacMahon's corps began to file down the streets. Words cannot describe
+the welcome given to them. How MacMahon lifted to his saddle-bow a
+child that was in danger of being crushed by the crowd will be
+remembered from the pretty incident having passed into English poetry.
+On the 8th, the King and the Emperor made their entry amidst a new
+paroxysm of enthusiasm. Napoleon is reported to have exclaimed: 'How
+this people must have suffered!' In his proclamation 'to the Italian
+people,' which bears the same date as his entry into Milan, he renewed
+the assurance of the disinterested motives which had brought him to
+Italy: 'Your enemies, who are also mine, have endeavoured to diminish
+the universal sympathy felt in Europe for your cause, by causing it to
+be believed that I am making war for personal ambition, or to
+increase French territory. If there are men who fail to comprehend
+their epoch, I am not one of them. In the enlightened state of public
+opinion now prevailing, true greatness lies in the moral influence
+which we exercise rather than in sterile conquests.' The proclamation
+ended with the words: 'To-morrow you will be the citizens of a great
+country.' Not the least effusive demonstrations were reserved for
+Cavour, who joined his Sovereign a few days after the battle of
+Magenta.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Leaving the Milanese to put their faith in princes while yet there was
+time, a glance must be taken at what had been going on in the rest of
+Italy, which was becoming a great nation far more rapidly, and in a
+much fuller sense than Napoleon III. expected or wished. When Austria
+sent her ultimatum to Turin, the Sardinian minister at the Court of
+Tuscany invited the Grand Duke's Government to take part in the war of
+liberation. This they refused to do. On perceiving, however, that he
+could not depend on his troops, the Grand Duke promised to co-operate
+with Piedmont, but his advisers did not now think it possible to save
+the grand ducal throne, unless Leopold II. abdicated in favour of his
+son, who was not burdened with the fatal associations of the reaction
+of ten years before. Leopold probably thought that even his abdication
+would not keep out the deluge, and he took the more dignified course
+of declining to yield to force. On the 27th of April, accompanied by
+the Corps Diplomatique as far as the frontier, he left Tuscany. A
+Provisional Government was formed with Peruzzi at its head, which
+hastily raised 8000 men for immediate service under the command of
+General Ulloa. Before long Prince Napoleon, with the fifth corps of
+the French army, landed, for no reason that could be avowed, at
+Leghorn. The real motive was to prepare the way for the fabrication
+of a new kingdom of Etruria, which existed already in Napoleon's
+brain. This masterpiece of folly had but a lukewarm supporter in
+Prince Napoleon, who was the only Napoleon and about the only
+Frenchman (if he could be called one) who grasped the idea of the
+unity of Italy and sincerely applauded it. Had Jerome Napoleon been
+born with the least comprehension of self-respect and personal
+dignity, his strong political intelligence and clear logical
+discernment must have produced something better than the most
+ineffectual career of the century.
+
+On the 8th of May, Baron Ricasoli took office under the Provisional
+Government as Minister of the Interior, and for nearly twelve months
+he was the real ruler of Tuscany. He had an ally of great strength,
+though of humble origin, in Giuseppe Dolfi, the baker, of whom it was
+currently said that any day he could summon 10,000 men to the Piazza
+della Signoria, who would obey him to the death. To Dolfi it was due
+that there were no disorders after the Grand Duke left. What Italy
+owes to the Lord of Brolio, history will never adequately state,
+because it is well-nigh impossible fully to realise how critical was
+her position during all that year, from causes external and internal,
+and how disastrous would have been the slightest mistake or wavering
+in the direction of Tuscan affairs, which formed the central hinge of
+the whole complicated situation. Fortunate, indeed, was it that there
+was a man like the Iron Baron, who, by simple force of will, outwitted
+the enemies of Italy more thoroughly than even Cavour could do with
+all his astuteness. Austere, aristocratic, immovable from his purpose,
+indifferent to praise or blame, Ricasoli aimed at one point--the
+unity of the whole country; and neither Cavour's impatience for
+annexation to Piedmont, nor the scheme of Farini and Minghetti for
+averting the wrath of the French Emperor by a temporary and
+preparatory union of the central states, drew him one inch from the
+straight road, which was the only one he had ever learnt to walk in.
+
+In June, the Duke of Modena and the Duchess-Regent of Parma found it
+impossible to remain in their states, now that Austrian protection was
+withdrawn. The latter had done what she could to preserve the duchy
+for her young son, but the tide was too strong. These revolutions were
+accomplished quietly; but, some months after, on the incautious return
+to Parma of a man deeply implicated in the abuses of Charles III.'s
+government--Colonel Anviti--he was cruelly murdered; an act of
+vengeance which happily remained alone.
+
+After the battle of Magenta, when the Austrian troops were recalled
+from the Marches and Romagna, those districts rose and demanded the
+dictatorship of Piedmont. Napoleon foresaw that this would happen as
+far back as the Plombieres interview, and at that date it did not
+appear that he meant to oppose it. But now, in Paris, the Clerical
+party were seized with panic, and the Empress-Regent, then, as always,
+completely under their control, did all in her power to arouse the
+Emperor's opposition. The Pope, on his part, knowing that he was
+secure in Rome--thanks to the French garrison, which, though it hated
+its office, as the French writer Ampere and others bore witness, was
+sure to perform it faithfully--had the idea of sending his Swiss
+troops to put down the growing revolution. With these, and a few Roman
+troops of the line, Colonel Schmidt marched against Perugia, where, in
+restoring the Papal authority, he used a ferocity which, though denied
+by clerical writers, was attested by all contemporary accounts, and
+was called 'atrocious' by Sir James Hudson in a despatch to Lord John
+Russell. The significance of such facts, wrote the English minister at
+Turin, could only be the coming fall of the Pope's Temporal Power.
+
+L.C. Farini was sent by Victor Emmanuel to administer the provinces of
+Modena and Parma, and Massimo d'Azeglio was charged with the same
+mission in Romagna. The Marches of Ancona had been recovered by the
+Papal troops, which were concentrated in the district called La
+Cattolica, near Rimini. A volunteer corps, under the Piedmontese
+General Mezzacapo, was entrusted with the task of preventing them from
+crossing into the Legations.
+
+In the month of May, when the allies were reaping their first
+successes, an event occurred at Caserta which precipitated crisis in
+the South Italy. Ferdinand II. died at forty-eight years of age of a
+terrible complaint which had attacked him a few months earlier, when
+he went to meet his son's bride, the Princess Maria Sofia of Bavaria,
+sister of the Empress of Austria. The news from Upper Italy hastened
+his end; he is said to have exclaimed not long before he died: 'They
+have won the cause!'
+
+The accession of a youth, of whom nothing bad was known, to a throne
+that had been occupied by a sovereign so out of place in modern
+civilisation as Ferdinand, would appear at first sight a fortunate
+circumstance for the chances of the dynasty; but it was not so. In an
+eastern country it matters little whether the best of the inhabitants
+loathe and detest their ruler; but it matters much whether he knows
+how to cajole and frighten the masses, and especially the army, into
+obedience. Naples, more Oriental than western, possessed in Ferdinand
+a monarch consummately expert in this side of the art of government.
+Though without the higher military virtues, his army was his favourite
+plaything; he always wore uniform, never forgot a face he had once
+seen, and treated the officers with a rather vulgar familiarity,
+guessing at their weaknesses and making use of them on occasion. The
+rank and file regarded him as a sort of supernatural being. Francis
+II., who succeeded him, could scarcely appear in this light even to
+the most ignorant. Popular opinion considered him not quite sound in
+his mind. Probably his timorous, awkward ways and his seeming
+stupidity were simply the result of an education conducted by bigoted
+priests in a home that was no home: populated as it was by the
+offspring of a stepmother who hated him. His own mother, the charming
+Princess Cristina of Savoy, died while the city was rejoicing at his
+birth. The story is well known of how, shortly after the marriage,
+Ferdinand thought it diverting to draw a music-stool from under his
+wife, causing her to fall heavily. It gives a sample of the sufferings
+of her brief married life. An inheritance of sorrow descended from her
+to her child.
+
+If Francis II. was not popular, neither was the new queen. Far more
+virile in character and in tastes than her husband, her high spirit
+was not what the Neapolitans admire in women, and those who were
+devoted to the late King accused her of having shown impatience during
+his illness for the moment when the crown would fall to Francis.
+Malicious gossip of this kind, however false, serves its end. Thus,
+from one cause or another, the young King exercised a power sensibly
+weaker than that of his father, while, besides other enemies, he had
+an inveterate one in his stepmother, who began weaving a conspiracy to
+oust him from the throne and place on it the eldest of his
+half-brothers. This plot received, however, very little popular
+support.
+
+The Sardinian Government sought to persuade Francis to join in the
+war against Austria; disinterested counsel, as in taking it lay his
+only hope, but it was opposed by England, Russia and France. In July
+two of the Swiss regiments at Naples mutinied. The Swiss Government,
+becoming alive to the discredit cast on the country by mercenary
+service, had decided that Swiss subjects serving abroad should lose
+their rights as citizens of the Confederation whilst so employed, and
+that they should no longer introduce the arms of their respective
+cantons into their regimental colours. This was the immediate cause of
+their insubordination. The mutineers, most of whom were unarmed, were
+ruthlessly shot down in the Campo di Marte to the terror of the
+population, and the two Swiss regiments which remained quiet were
+dissolved; by which the monarchy lost the troops that were chiefly to
+be depended on in emergencies. The Austrians and Bavarians imported in
+their stead did not form separate regiments, but were incorporated
+among the native troops, though the regiments that contained them were
+commonly called 'Bavarian.' They only partially filled the place of
+the Swiss.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Between the 4th and the 24th of June, no engagement of any magnitude
+was fought in Lombardy except the attack on Benedek at Melegnano, a
+battle in which the French lost most men, and gained no strategical
+advantage. It was supposed to have been fought because Napoleon I. had
+gained a victory in the same neighbourhood. The Austrians retreated to
+the Mincio, destroying the bridges over the Adda, Serio, Oglio and
+Mella as they went; these rivers the allies had to make repassable,
+which is the excuse given for the dilatory nature of their pursuit of
+the enemy. The Emperor Francis Joseph had now assumed the command,
+with Hess as his principle adviser, and Wimpffen and Schlick, famous
+as the 'One-eyed,' as heads of the two great corps into which the army
+was divided.
+
+On the 22nd of June, the Austrians were ranged along the left bank of
+the Mincio from Peschiera to Mantua, and the French were massed near
+Montechiaro, on the Brescia road, which Napoleon had made his
+headquarters. In withdrawing all their men from the right bank of the
+river, the Austrians desired to create the impression that they had
+finally abandoned it. It was their plan, which did not lack boldness,
+to throw the whole army back upon the right bank, and to perform a
+concentric movement on Montechiaro, where they hoped to fall unawares
+on the French and destroy them. They were confident of success, for
+they knew what a good stand they had made at Magenta, and now that
+Gyulai was got rid of, and the young Emperor had taken the field, they
+did not doubt that fortune would turn her wheel. To these men of many
+nations, the presence of their Emperor was the one inspiration that
+could rouse them, for if they were fighting for anything, it was for
+him in the most personal sense; it was to secure his mastery of the
+splendid land over which he looked from the castle of Valleggio, on
+the 23rd of June, whilst his brilliant staff stood round, waiting for
+the signal to mount and clatter down the steep road to the Mincio
+bridge. The army now advanced along all its line.
+
+Even the soberest writers have not resisted making some reference to
+the magnificent scene of to-morrow's battle. On one side, the mountain
+bulwarks rising tier on tier, gorgeous with the trancendent beauty of
+colour and light of the Italian summer; on the other, the vine-clad
+hillocks which fall gently away from the blue lake of Garda till they
+are lost in the
+
+  ............harvest shining plain
+  Where the peasant heaps his grain
+  In the garner of his foe.
+
+The 24th of June was to decide how much longer the Lombard peasant
+should labour to fill a stranger's treasury.
+
+The calculations of the Austrians were founded on the slowness which
+had hitherto characterised Napoleon's movements. Hess thought that two
+days might be safely allowed for the Austrian advance, and that the
+enemy would remain passive on the west bank of the river Chiese,
+waiting to be attacked on the 25th. If the operation could have been
+performed in one day, and it is thought that it could, there would
+have been more prospect of success. But even then, the original plan
+of attacking the allies west of the Chiese could not have been carried
+out, as on the 23rd the whole allied army moved forward, the French
+occupying Castiglione and Lonato, and the Sardinians Rezzato and
+Desenzano, on the lake of Garda. It is not clear how far the allies
+believed in the Austrian advance; that they had warning of it from
+several quarters is certain. For instance, a gentleman living at
+Desenzano heard from the country people, who, for marketing or other
+purposes, constantly go to and fro between that place and Peschiera,
+that the Austrians had ordered a quantity of country carts and
+transport waggons to be in readiness on the 23rd, and he hastened with
+the intelligence to the Piedmontese General Delia Rocca, who, in a
+fine spirit of red-tapism, pooh-poohed the information. The French
+encountered several Austrian patrols in the course of the day, but
+they were inclined to think that the Austrians were only executing a
+reconnaissance. On the whole, it seems that the conflict came as a
+surprise to both sides.
+
+The Emperor of Austria, after accompanying the advance for a short
+distance, returned with Hess to Valleggio for the night. Napoleon
+slept at Montechiaro. The Austrian forces bivouacked on the little
+hills between Solferino and Cavriana. They rested well, still
+confident that no fighting would be done next day. At two in the
+morning, the French began to move in the direction of Solferino, and
+the Sardinians in that of Peschiera. There is a legend, that in the
+grey mists of dawn an advance party of French cavalry espied a huge
+and gaunt hussar standing by the roadside. For a moment the figure was
+lost sight of, but it reappeared, and after running across the road in
+front of the French, it turned and dealt the officer who led the party
+so tremendous a blow that he fell off his horse. Then the adventurous
+Austrian fled, followed by a volley from the French troopers; the
+sound vibrating through the dawn stillness gave the call to arms to
+the contrasted hosts. The battle of Solferino had begun.
+
+The news flew to Montechiaro and to Valleggio. Napoleon started for
+the scene of action with the Imperial Guard; Francis Joseph's staff
+was sent forward at six a.m., but the Emperor and Hess did not start
+till later. At near nine, the staff was looking for the Emperor, and
+the Emperor was looking for the staff in the open country about Volta;
+the sixty or seventy staff-officers dashed across ploughed fields and
+over hedges and ditches, in a style which would have done credit to an
+English fox-hunt. This remarkable incident was in keeping with the
+general management of the battle on the part of the Austrians, who had
+been fighting for many hours before the commander-in-chief arrived.
+After his arrival, they continued fighting without any visible plan,
+according to the expedients of the divisional generals. The particular
+expedient adopted by General Zedwitz was to withdraw 15,000 men,
+including six regiments of cavalry, from the field. At a critical
+moment, Count Clam Gallas had the misfortune to lose his artillery
+reserve, and sent everywhere to ask if anyone had seen it. The Prince
+of Hesse, acting without orders, or against orders, separated his
+division from Schwarzenberg's and brought it up at the nick of time to
+save the Austrians, when they were threatened with actual destruction,
+at two o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+At that hour the French were in possession of the Spia d'Italia, and
+of all the heights of Solferino. They had been engaged in attacking
+them since eight in the morning, Napoleon having seen at once that
+they were the key to the position, and must be taken, cost what it
+might. The cost was great; if there is any episode in French military
+history in which soldiers and officers earned all the praise that can
+be given to brave men, it is the taking of these Solferino hills.
+Again and again Forey's division and Bazaine's brigade returned to the
+charge; the cemetery and streets of Solferino were piled up with their
+dead, mingled with the dead of the defenders, who contested every inch
+of ground. The individual valour of the French soldiers in that six
+hours' struggle made it possible to win the battle.
+
+The Austrians, however, after their desperate straits at two o'clock
+recovered to so great an extent that, had Zedwitz returned with his
+cavalry, as the Emperor was hoping that he would, the day might still
+have been theirs. Even as it was, MacMahon's corps swerved under
+Zobel's repulse of his attack on San Cassiano, and Niel, in the plain,
+was dangerously hard pressed by Schwarzenberg. But, by degrees, the
+French recommenced gaining and the Austrians losing ground, and at six
+p.m., the latter were retreating in good order, defending each step
+before they yielded it.
+
+In the last stage of the battle the French limbered up their guns in
+the belief that a vast reserve of Austrian cavalry was galloping into
+action. What made them think so was a dense yellowish wall advancing
+through the air. Had they been natives, they would have recognised the
+approach of one of those frightful storms which bring devastation in
+their train, and which, as they move forward in what appears a solid
+mass, look to the inexperienced eye exactly like the clouds of dust
+raised by innumerable horsemen. The bursting of the storm hastened the
+end of the fight.
+
+All the day another fight, separate from this, had been going on
+between Benedek and the Sardinian army near the knoll of San Martino,
+overlooking the lake of Garda. The battle, which began in the early
+morning among the cypresses that crown the hillock, raged till seven
+p.m. with a fury which cost the Piedmontese over 4,000 in dead and
+wounded. It consisted largely in hand-to-hand fighting, which now gave
+an advantage to the Austrians, now to the Italians; many of the
+positions were lost and re-taken more than half-a-dozen times; the
+issue seemed long doubtful, and when Benedek, who commanded his side
+with unquestionable ability, received orders from the field of
+Solferino to begin a retreat, each combatant was firmly convinced that
+he was getting the best of it. Austrian writers allege that this order
+saved the Sardinians from defeat, while in both Italian and French
+narratives, the Piedmontese are represented as having been already
+sure of success. The courage shown alike by Piedmontese and Austrians
+could not be surpassed. Victor Emmanuel, as usual, set an example to
+his men.
+
+An incident in the battle brings into striking relief what it was this
+bloody strife was meant to end. An Austrian corporal fell, mortally
+wounded by a Bersagliere whom he conjured, in Italian, to listen to
+what he had got to say. It was this: Forced into the Austrian army, he
+had been obliged to serve through the war, but had never fired his
+rifle on his fellow-countrymen; now he preferred to die rather than
+defend himself. So he yielded up his breath with his hand clasped in
+the hand which had slain him.
+
+The Austrians lost, on the 24th of June, 13,000 men in killed and
+wounded; the French, 10,000. It was said that the frightful scene of
+carnage on the battlefield after Solferino influenced Napoleon III. in
+his desire to stop the war. Had that scene vanished from his
+recollection in June 1870?
+
+Even a field of battle, with its unburied dead, speaks only of a small
+part of the miseries of a great war. Those who were at that time at
+Brescia, to which town the greater portion of the French wounded and
+all the worst cases were brought, still shudder as they recall the
+dreadful human suffering which no skill or devotion could do more than
+a very little to assuage. The noble Brescian ladies who had once
+nursed Bayard, turned, with one accord, into sisters of charity; every
+house, every church, became a hospital, all that gratitude and pity
+could do was done; but many were to leave their bones in Italy, and
+how many more to go home maimed for life, or bearing with them the
+seeds of death.
+
+Other reasons than those of sentiment in reality decided Napoleon's
+course. Though these can only be guessed at, the guess, at the present
+date, amounts to certainty. In the first place, the skin-deep
+rejoicings in Paris at the news of the victories did not hide the fact
+that French public opinion, never genuinely favourable to the war, was
+becoming more and more hostile to it. Then there was the military
+question. It is true that the Fifth Corps, estimated at 30,000 men,
+had, at last, emerged from its crepuscular doings in Tuscany, and was
+available for future operations. Moreover, Kossuth paid a visit to the
+Imperial headquarters, and held out hopes of a revolution in Hungary
+which would oblige the Austrian Emperor to remove part of his troops
+from the scene of the war. Nevertheless, Napoleon was by no means
+convinced that his army was sufficient to take the Quadrilateral. He
+realised the bad organisation and numerous shortcomings of the forces
+under him so vividly that it seems incredible that, in the eleven
+following years, he should have done nothing to remedy them. He
+attributed his success mainly to chance, though in a less degree to a
+certain lack of energy in the Austrians, joined with the exaggerated
+fear of responsibility felt by their leaders. He never could
+thoroughly understand why the Austrians had not won Solferino.
+Naturally, he did not express these opinions to his marshals, but
+there is ample proof that he held them; and if the fact stood alone,
+it ought not to be difficult to explain why he was not anxious for a
+continuance of the war.
+
+But it does not stand alone. Napoleon feared being defeated on the
+Rhine as well as in the Quadrilateral. Prussia had six army corps
+ready, and she was about to move them. That, after her long
+hesitations, she resolved to intervene was long doubted, but it
+cannot be so after the evidence which recent years have produced.
+
+At the time things wore a different complexion. Europe was never more
+amazed than when, on the 6th of July, Napoleon the victor sent General
+Fleury to Francis Joseph the vanquished with a request for an
+armistice. One point only was plain; an armistice meant peace without
+Venetia, and never did profound sorrow so quickly succeed national joy
+than when this, to contemporaries astonishing intelligence, went
+forth. But the blow fell on no Italian with such tremendous force as
+on Cavour.
+
+There are natives of Italy who appear to be more cool, more
+calculating, more completely masters of themselves, than the men of
+any other nationality. Cavour was one of these. But there comes,
+sooner or later, the assertion of southern blood, the explosion of
+feeling the more violent because long contained, and the cool, quiet
+Italian of yesterday is not to be recognised except by those who know
+the race intimately well, and who know the volcano that underlies its
+ice and snow as well as its luxuriant vegetation.
+
+On Wednesday, the 6th of June, the French army was spread out in
+battle array along the left bank of the Mincio, and everything led to
+the supposition that a new and immediate battle was in contemplation.
+The Piedmontese were engaged in making preparations to invest
+Peschiera. Napoleon's headquarters were at Valleggio, those of the
+King at Monzambano. By the evening a very few persons had picked up
+the information that Napoleon had sent a messenger to Verona. Victor
+Emmanuel knew nothing of it, nor did any of the French generals except
+Marshal Vaillant, but such things leak out, and two or three
+individuals were aware of the journey to Verona, and spent that night
+in racking their brains as to what it might mean. Next day at eleven
+o'clock General Fleury returned; the Austrian Emperor had accepted the
+armistice. Further secrecy was impossible, and like lightning the news
+flashed through the world.
+
+Cavour rushed from Turin to Desenzano, where he arrived the day before
+the final meeting between Napoleon and Francis Joseph. He waited for a
+carnage in the little _cafe_ in the piazza; no one guessed who it was,
+and conversation went on undisturbed: it was full of curses on the
+French Emperor. Mazzini, someone said, was right; this is the way the
+war was sure to end. When a shabby conveyance had at length been
+found, the great statesman drove to Monzambano. There, of course, his
+arrival did not escape notice, and all who saw him were horrified by
+the change that had come over his face. Instead of the jovial, witty
+smile, there was a look of frantic rage and desperation. What passed
+between him and his Sovereign is partly a matter of conjecture; the
+exact sense of the violent words into which his grief betrayed him is
+lost, in spite of the categorical versions of the interview which have
+been printed. Even in a fit of madness he can hardly have spoken some
+of the words attributed to him. That he advised the King to withdraw
+his army or to abdicate rather than agree to the peace which was being
+plotted behind his back, seems past doubting. It is said that after
+attempting in vain to calm him, Victor Emmanuel brought the interview
+to a sudden close. Cavour came out of the house flushed and exhausted,
+and drove back to Desenzano. He had resigned office.
+
+The King showed extraordinary self-control. Bitter as the draught was,
+he saw that it must be drunk, and he was determined to drink it with
+dignity. Probably no other Italian grasped as clearly as he did the
+real reason which actuated Napoleon; at any rate his chivalrous
+appreciation of the benefits already received, closed his lips to
+reproaches. 'Whatever may be the decision of your Majesty,' he said to
+the Emperor on the eve of Villafranca, 'I shall feel an eternal
+gratitude for what you have done for the independence of Italy, and I
+beg you to believe that under all circumstances you may reckon on my
+complete fidelity.'
+
+If there was sadness in the Sardinian camp, so there was in that of
+Austria. The Austrians by no means thought that the game was up for
+them. It would be interesting to know by what arguments Napoleon
+persuaded the young Emperor to renounce the hope of retrieving his
+disasters, whilst he slowly pulled to pieces some flowers which were
+on the table before which he and Francis Joseph sat. When they left
+the house, the heir to all the Hapsburgs looked pale and sad. Did he
+remember the dying counsels of 'Father' Radetsky--not to yield if he
+was beaten on the Mincio, on the Tagliamento, on the Isonzo, before
+the gates of Vienna.
+
+When, on the evening of the same day, the Emperor of Austria signed
+the preliminaries of peace, he said to Prince Napoleon, who took the
+document to Verona for his signature: 'I pray God that if you are ever
+a sovereign He may spare you the hour of grief I have just passed.'
+Yet the defeat of Solferino and the loss of Lombardy were the first
+steps in the transformation of Radetsky's pupil from a despot, who
+hourly feared revolution in every land under his sceptre, to a wise
+and constitutional monarch ruling over a contented Empire. To some
+individuals and to some states, misfortune is fortune.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+WHAT UNITY COST
+
+1859-1860
+
+Napoleon III. and Cavour--The Cession of Savoy and Nice--Annexations
+in Central Italy.
+
+
+Napoleon's hurried journey to Turin on his way back to France was
+almost a flight. Everywhere his reception was cold in the extreme. He
+was surprised, he said, at the ingratitude of the Italians. It was
+still possible to ask for gratitude, as the services rendered had not
+been paid for; no one spoke yet of the barter of Savoy and Nice. But
+Napoleon, when he said these words to the Governor of Milan, forgot
+how the Lombards, in June 1848, absolutely refused to take their
+freedom at the cost of resigning Venice to Austria. And if Venice was
+dear to them and to Italy then, how much dearer had she not become
+since the heroic struggle in which she was the last to yield. The
+bones of Manin cried aloud for Venetian liberty from his grave of
+exile.
+
+Venice was the one absorbing thought of the moment; yet there were
+clauses in the brief preliminaries of peace more fraught with
+insidious danger than the abandonment of Venice. If the rest of Italy
+became one and free, it needed no prophet to tell that not the might
+of twenty Austrias could keep Venetia permanently outside the fold.
+But if Italy was to remain divided and enslaved, then, indeed, the
+indignant question went up to heaven, To what end had so much blood
+been shed?
+
+When he resolved to cut short the war, Napoleon still had it in his
+power to go down to history as the supreme benefactor of Italy. He
+chose instead to become her worst and by far her most dangerous enemy.
+The preliminaries of peace opened with the words: 'The Emperor of
+Austria and the Emperor of the French will favour the creation of an
+Italian Confederation under the honorary presidency of the Holy
+Father.' Further, it was stated that the Grand Duke of Tuscany and
+the Duke of Modena would return to their states. Though Napoleon
+proposed at first to add, 'without foreign armed intervention,' he
+waived the point (Rome was in his mind) and no such guarantee was
+inserted. Here, then, was the federative programme which all the
+personal influence and ingenuity of the French Emperor, all the arts
+of French diplomacy, were concentrated on maintaining, and which was
+only defeated by the true patriotism and strong good sense of the
+Italian populations, and of the men who led them through this, the
+most critical period in their history.
+
+In England Lord Derby's administration had fallen and the Liberals
+were again in power. Napoleon was so strangely deluded as to expect to
+find support in that quarter for his anti-unionist conspiracy. His
+earliest scheme was that the federative plan should be presented to
+Europe by Great Britain. Lord John Russell answered: 'We are asked to
+propose a partition (_morcellement_) of the peoples of Italy, as if we
+had the right to dispose of them.' It was a happy circumstance for
+Italy that her unity had no better friends than in the English
+Government during those difficult years. Cavour's words soon after
+Villafranca, 'It is England's turn now,' were not belied.
+
+One thing should have made Napoleon uneasy; a man like Cavour, when
+his blood is roused, when his nature is fired by the strongest
+passions that move the human heart, is an awkward adversary. If there
+was an instant in which the great statesman thought that all was lost,
+it was but an instant. With the quick rebound of virile characters he
+recovered his balance and understood his part. It was to fight and
+conquer.
+
+'Your Emperor has dishonoured me,' he said to M. Pietri in the
+presence of Kossuth (the interview taking place at Turin on the 15th
+of July). 'Yes, sir, he has dishonoured me,' and he set forth how,
+after promising to hunt the last Austrian out of Italy, after secretly
+exacting the price of his assistance to which Cavour had induced his
+good and honest King to consent, he now left them solemnly in the
+lurch; Lombardy might suffice! And, for nothing to be wanting, the
+King was to be forced into a confederation with Austria and the
+Italian princes under the presidency of the Pope. After painting the
+situation with all the irony and scorn of which he was master, he gave
+his note of warning: 'If needs be, I will become a conspirator, I will
+become a revolutionist, but this treaty shall never be executed; a
+thousand times no--never!'
+
+The routine business of the Prime Minister still fell to Cavour, as
+Rattazzi, who succeeded him, had not yet formed his cabinet. He was
+obliged, therefore, to write officially to the Royal Commissioners at
+Modena, Bologna and Florence to abandon their posts. But in the
+character of Cavour, the private citizen, he telegraphed to them at
+the same time to remain and do their duty. And they remained.
+
+On one point there was a temporary lull of anxiety. Almost the last
+words spoken by Napoleon to Victor Emmanuel before he left Turin were:
+'We shall think no more about Nice and Savoy.' The mention of Nice
+shows that though it had not been promised, Napoleon was all along set
+upon its acquisition. It is impossible to say how far, at the moment,
+he was sincere in the renunciation. That, very soon after his return
+to Paris, he was diligently weaving plans for getting both provinces
+into his net, is evident from the tenor of the articles and notes
+published in the 'inspired' French newspapers.
+
+Two chief motives can be divined for Napoleon's determined opposition
+to Italian unity which never ceased till Sedan. The first was his
+wish, shared by all French politicians, that Italy should be weak. The
+second was his regard for the Temporal Power which proceeded from his
+still being convinced that he could not reign without the Clerical
+vote. The French prelates were perpetually giving him reminders that
+this vote depended on his keeping the Pope on his throne. For
+instance, Cardinal Donnet told him at Bordeaux in October 1859, that
+he could not choose a better way of showing his appreciation of the
+Blessed Virgin than 'en menageant un triomphe a son Fils dans la
+personne de son Vicaire.' It would be a triumph which the Catholic
+world would salute with transport. Hints of this sort, the sense of
+which was not hard to read, in spite of their recondite phraseology,
+reached him from every quarter. He feared to set them aside. The
+origins of his power were too much tainted for him to advance boldly
+on an independent policy. Thus it was that bit by bit he deliberately
+forfeited all title to the help of Italy when the same whirlwind that
+dashed him to earth, cleared the way for the final accomplishment of
+her national destinies.
+
+Whilst Victor Emmanuel was more alive than Cavour to the military
+arguments in favour of stopping hostilities when the tide of success
+was at its height, he was not one whit more disposed to stultify his
+past by becoming the vassal at once of Paris and Vienna. In a letter
+written to the Emperor of the French in October, in answer to a very
+long one in which Napoleon sought to convert him to the plan of an
+Austro-Italian Confederation, he wound up by saying: 'For the
+considerations above stated, and for many others, I cannot, Sire,
+second your Majesty's policy in Italy. If your Majesty is bound by
+treaties and cannot revoke your engagements in the (proposed)
+congress, I, Sire, am bound on my side, by honour in the face of
+Europe, by right and duty, by the interests of my house, of my people
+and of Italy. My fate is joined to that of the Italian people. We can
+succumb, but never betray. Solferino and San Martino may sometimes
+redeem Novara and Waterloo, but the apostasies of princes are always
+irreparable. I am moved to the bottom of my soul by the faith and love
+which this noble and unfortunate people has reposed in me, and rather
+than be unworthy of it, I will break my sword and throw the crown away
+as did my august father. Personal interest does not guide me in
+defending the annexations; the Sword and Time have borne my house from
+the summit of the Alps to the banks of the Mincio, and those two
+guardian angels of the Savoy race will bear it further still, when it
+pleases God.'
+
+The events in Central Italy to which the King alludes were of the
+highest importance. L.C. Farini, the Sardinian Royal Commissioner at
+Modena, when relieved of his office, assumed the dictatorship by the
+will of the people. L. Cipriani became Governor of Romagna, and at
+Florence Ricasoli continued at the head of affairs, undismayed and
+unshaken in his resolve to defeat the combined machinations of France
+and Austria. In August the populations of Modena, Reggio, Parma and
+Piacenza declared their union with Piedmont by an all but unanimous
+popular vote, the two last provinces placing themselves for temporary
+convenience under the Dictator Farini. A few days later, Tuscany and
+Romagna voted a like act of union through their Constituent
+Assemblies. The representatives of the four States, Modena, Parma,
+Romagna and Tuscany, formally announced to the great Powers their
+choice of Victor Emmanuel, in whose rule they recognised the sole hope
+of preserving their liberties and avoiding disorder. Delegates were
+sent to Turin with the offer of the crown.
+
+Peace, of which the preliminaries only were signed at Villafranca, was
+not yet definitely concluded, and a large French army was still in
+Italy. The King's government feared therefore to adopt the bold course
+of accepting the annexations outright, and facing the responsibilities
+which might arise. Victor Emmanuel thanked the delegates, expressing
+his confidence that Europe would not undo the great work that had been
+done in Central Italy. The state of things, however, in these
+provinces, whose elected King could not yet govern them, was
+anomalous, most of all in what related to defence; they being menaced
+on the Austrian side by the Duke of Modena, and on the South by the
+Papal troops in the Cattolica. An armed force of 25,000 men was
+organised, of which the Tuscan contingent was under the command of
+Garibaldi, and the rest under that of the Sardinian General Fanti,
+'lent' for the purpose. Garibaldi hoped not merely to defend the
+provinces already emancipated, but to carry war into the enemy's camp
+and make revolution possible throughout the States of the Church. To
+the Party of Action the chance seemed an unique one of hastening the
+progress of events. Unaccustomed as they were to weigh diplomatic
+difficulties, they saw the advantages but not the perils of a daring
+course. Meanwhile Napoleon threatened to occupy Piacenza with 30,000
+men on the first forward step of Garibaldi, who, on his side, seemed
+by no means inclined to yield either to the orders of the Dictator
+Farini, or to the somewhat violent measures taken to stop him by
+General Fanti, who instructed the officers under his command to
+disobey him. It was then that Victor Emmanuel tried his personal
+influence, rarely tried without success, over the revolutionary chief,
+who reposed absolute faith in the King's patriotism, and who was
+therefore amenable to his arguments when all others failed. The
+general was summoned to Turin, and in an audience given on the 16th of
+November, Victor Emmanuel persuaded him that the proposed enterprise
+would retard rather than advance the cause of Italian freedom.
+Garibaldi left for Caprera, only insisting that his 'weak services'
+should be called into requisition whenever there was an opportunity to
+act.
+
+Before quitting the Adriatic coast the hero of Rome went one evening
+with his two children, Menotti and Teresita, to the Chapel in the Pine
+Forest, where their mother was buried. Within a mile was the farmhouse
+where he had embraced her lifeless form before undertaking his
+perilous flight from sea to sea. In 1850, at Staten Island, when he
+was earning his bread as a factory hand, he wrote the prophetic words:
+'Anita, a land of slavery holds your precious dust; Italy will make
+your grave free, but what can restore to your children their
+incomparable mother?' Garibaldi's visit to Anita's grave closes the
+story of the brave and tender woman who sacrificed all to the love she
+bore him.
+
+After sitting for three months, the Conference which met at Zurich to
+establish the definite treaty of peace finished its labours on the
+10th of November. The compact was substantially the same as that
+arranged at Villafranca. Victor Emmanuel, who had signed the
+Preliminaries with the reservation implied in the note: 'In so far as
+I am concerned,' preserved the same liberty of action in the Treaty of
+Zurich. He still hesitated, however, in assuming the government of the
+central provinces, and even the plan of sending the Prince of
+Carignano as governor fell through in consequence of Napoleon's
+opposition. His hesitations sprang from the general apprehension that
+a hint from Paris might any day be followed by a new eruption of
+Austrians in Modena and Tuscany for the purpose of replacing the
+former rulers of those states on their thrones. Such a fear existed at
+the time, and Rattazzi's timid policy was the result; it is impossible
+not to ask now whether it was not exaggerated? 'What statesman,' wrote
+the Prince Consort in June 1859, 'could adopt measures to force
+Austrian rule again upon delighted, free Italy?' If this was true
+in June was it less true in November? For the rest, would not the
+supreme ridicule that would have fallen on the French Emperor if he
+encouraged the Austrians to return to Central Italy after driving
+them out of Lombardy, have obliged him to support the principle of
+non-intervention, whether he wished it or not? England was prepared to
+back up the government of Piedmont, in which lay a great moral force.
+It is plain that the long wavering about what ought to be done with
+the central provinces is what cost the country Savoy and Nice, or at
+any rate, Nice. Napoleon did all in his power to prevent and to retard
+the annexations, especially that of Tuscany, which, as he said, 'would
+make Italian unity a mere question of time,' but when he found that
+neither threats nor blandishments could move the population from their
+resolve to have Victor Emmanuel for their king, he decided to sell his
+adhesion for a good price. Compelled for the sake of appearances to
+withdraw his claim after the abrupt termination of the war, he now saw
+an excellent excuse for reviving it, and he was not likely to let the
+opportunity slip.
+
+At this period there was continual talk, which may or may not have
+been intended to end in talk, of a Congress to which the affairs of
+Italy were to be referred. It gave an opening to Napoleon for
+publishing one of the anonymous pamphlets by means of which he was in
+the habit of throwing out tentative ideas, and watching their effect.
+The chief idea broached in _Le Pape et le Congres_ was the voluntary
+renunciation by the Pope of all but a small zone of territory round
+Rome; it being pointed out that his position as an independent
+sovereign would remain unaffected by such an act, which would smooth
+the way to his assuming the hegemony of the Italian Confederation. The
+Pope, however, let it be clearly known that he had no intention of
+ceding a rood of his possessions, or of recognising the separation of
+the part which had already escaped from him. Anyone acquainted with
+the long strife and millennial manoeuvres by which the Church had
+acquired the States called by her name, will understand the
+unwillingness there was to yield them. To do Pius IX. justice, an
+objection which merits more respect weighed then and always upon his
+mind. He thought that he was personally debarred by the oath taken on
+assuming the tiara from giving up the smallest part of the territory
+he received from his predecessor. The Ultramontane party knew that
+they had only to remind him of this oath to provoke a fresh assertion
+of _Non possumus._ The attitude of the Pope was one reason why the
+Congress was abandoned; but there was a deeper reason. A European
+Congress would certainly not have approved the cession of Nice and
+Savoy, and to that object the French Emperor was now turning all his
+attention.
+
+At Turin there was an ignoble cabal, supported not so much, perhaps,
+by Rattazzi himself as by followers, the design of which was to
+prevent Cavour from returning to power. Abroad, the Empress Eugenie,
+who looked on Cavour as the Pope's worst foe, did what she could to
+further the scheme, and its promoters counted much on the soreness
+left in Victor Emmanuel's mind by the scene after Villafranca. That
+soreness did, in fact, still exist; but when in January the Rattazzi
+ministry fell, the King saw that it was his duty to recall Cavour to
+his counsels, and he at once charged him to form a cabinet.
+
+That Cavour accepted the task is the highest proof of his abnegation
+as a statesman. He was on the point of getting into his carriage to
+catch the train for Leri when the messenger reached the Palazzo Cavour
+with the royal command to go to the castle. If he had refused office
+and returned to the congenial activity of his life as a country
+gentleman, his name would not be attached to the melancholy sacrifice
+which Napoleon was now determined to exact from Italy. The French
+envoy, Baron de Talleyrand, whose business it was to communicate the
+unwelcome intelligence, arrived at Turin before the collapse of
+Rattazzi; but, on finding that a ministerial crisis was imminent, he
+deferred carrying out his mission till a more opportune moment.
+
+On the 18th of January 1860, the Emperor admitted to Lord Cowley
+that, though there was as yet no arrangement between himself and
+Victor Emmanuel on the subject, he intended to have Savoy. After the
+long series of denials of any such design, the admission caused the
+most indignant feeling in the English ministers and in the Queen, who
+wrote to Lord John Russell: 'We have been made regular dupes.' She
+went on to say that the revival of the English Alliance, and the hymns
+of universal peace chanted in Paris on the occasion of the Commercial
+Treaty, had been simply so many blinds, 'to hide from Europe a policy
+of spoliation.' Cavour came in for a part of the blame, as, during the
+war, he denied cognisance of the proposal to give up Savoy. The best
+that can be said of that denial is, that it was diplomatically
+impracticable for one party in the understanding of Plombieres to make
+a clean breast of the truth, whilst the other party was assuring the
+whole universe that he was fighting for an idea.
+
+When the war was broken off, Cavour fully expected that Napoleon, of
+whom he had the worst opinion, would then and there demand whole pay
+for his half service; and this had much to do with his furious anger
+at Villafranca; but later, in common with the best-informed persons,
+he believed that the claim was finally withdrawn. When, however,
+Napoleon asked again for the provinces--not as the price of the war,
+but of the annexations in Central Italy--Cavour instantly came to the
+conclusion that, cost what it might (and he thought that, amongst
+other things, it would cost his own reputation and popularity), the
+demand must be granted. Otherwise Italian unity would never be
+accomplished.
+
+In considering whether he was mistaken, it must not be forgotten that
+the French troops were still in Italy. Not to speak of those in Rome,
+Marshal Vaillant had five divisions of infantry and two brigades of
+cavalry in Lombardy up to the 20th of March 1860. The engagement had
+been to send this army home as soon as the definite peace was
+concluded; why, then, was it still south of the Alps four months
+after?
+
+In spite of this, however, and in spite of the difficulty of judging
+an act, all the reasons for which may not, even now, be in possession
+of the world, it is very hard indeed to pardon Cavour for having
+yielded Nice as well as Savoy to France. The Nizzards were Italians as
+the lower class of the population is Italian still; they had always
+shown warm sympathy with the hopes of Italy, which could not be said
+of the Savoyards; and Nice was the birthplace of Garibaldi!
+
+England would have supported and applauded resistance to the claim for
+Nice on general grounds, though her particular interest was in Savoy,
+or rather in that part of the Savoy Alps which was neutralised by
+treaty in 1814. It was the refusal of Napoleon to adopt the compromise
+of ceding this district to Switzerland which caused the breach between
+him and the British ministry. From that moment, also, Prussia began to
+increase her army, and resolved, when she was ready, to check the
+imperial ambition by force of arms. 'The loss of Alsace and Lorraine,'
+writes an able publicist, M.E. Tallichet, 'was the direct consequence
+of the annexation of Nice and Savoy.'
+
+If anything could have rendered more galling to Italy the deprivation
+of these two provinces, it was the tone adopted in France when
+speaking of the transaction. What were Savoy and Nice? A barren rock
+and an insignificant strip of coast! The French of thirty-four years
+ago travelled so little that they may have believed in the
+description. The vast military importance of the ceded districts has
+been already referred to. Some scraps on the Nice frontier were saved
+in a curious way: They were spots which formed part of the favourite
+playground of the Royal Hunter of the Alps, and it was pointed out to
+Napoleon that it would be a graceful act to leave these particular
+'barren rocks' to his Sardinian Majesty. The zig-zags in the line of
+demarcation which were thus introduced are said to be of great
+strategic advantage to Italy. So far, so good; but it remains true
+that France is _inside_ the Italian front-door.
+
+At the elections for the new Chamber in March 1860, the Nizzards chose
+Garibaldi; and this was their real plebiscite--not that which followed
+at a short interval, and presented the phenomenon of a population
+which appeared to change its mind as to its nationality in the course
+of a few weeks. In voting for Garibaldi, they voted for Italy.
+
+The Nizzard hero made some desperate efforts on behalf of his
+fellow-citizens in the Chamber, not his natural sphere, and was on the
+brink of making other efforts in a sphere in which he might have
+succeeded better. He had the idea of going to Nice with about 200
+followers, and exciting just enough of a revolution to let the real
+will of the people be known, and to frustrate the wiles of French
+emissaries and the pressure of government in the official plebiscite
+of the 15th of April. The story of the conspiracy, which is unknown in
+Italy, has been told by one of the conspirators, the late Lawrence
+Oliphant. The English writer, who reached Turin full of wrath at the
+proposed cession, was introduced to Garibaldi, from whom he received
+the news of the proposed enterprise. Oliphant offered his services,
+which were accepted, and he accompanied the general to Genoa, where he
+engaged a diligence which was to carry the vanguard to Nice. But, on
+going to Garibaldi for the last orders, he found him supping with
+twenty or thirty young men; 'All Sicilians!' said the chief. 'We must
+give up the Nice programme; the general opinion is that we shall lose
+all if we try for too much.' He added that he had hoped to carry out
+the Nice plan first, but now everything must be sacrificed to freeing
+Sicily. And he asked Oliphant to join the Thousand, an offer which the
+adventurous Englishman never ceased to regret that he did not accept.
+As it was, he elected to go all the same to Nice, where he was the
+spectator and became the historian of the arts which brought about the
+semblance of an unanimous vote in favour of annexation to France.
+
+The ratification of the treaty--which, by straining the constitution,
+was concluded without consulting Parliament--was reluctantly given by
+the Piedmontese Chambers, the majority of members fearing the
+responsibility of upsetting an accomplished fact. Cavour, when he laid
+down the pen after signing the deed of cession, turned to Baron de
+Talleyrand with the remark: 'Now we are accomplices!' His face, which
+had been depressed, resumed its cheerful air. In fact, though
+Napoleon's dislike of the central annexations was unabated, he could
+no longer oppose them. Victor Emmanuel accepted the four crowns of
+Central Italy, the people of which, during the long months of waiting,
+and under circumstances that applied the most crucial test to their
+resolution, had never swerved from the desire to form part of the
+Italian monarchy under the sceptre of the _Re Galantuomo_. The King of
+Sardinia, as he was still called, had eleven million subjects, and on
+his head rested one excommunication the more. The Bull fulminated
+against all who had, directly or indirectly, participated in the
+events which caused Romagna to change hands, was published a day or
+two before the opening of the new Parliament at Turin.
+
+Addressing for the first time the representatives of his widened
+realm, Victor Emmanuel said: 'True to the creed of my fathers, and,
+like them, constant in my homage to the Supreme Head of the Church,
+whenever it happens that the ecclesiastical authority employs
+spiritual arms in support of temporal interests, I shall find in my
+steadfast conscience and in the very traditions of my ancestors, the
+power to maintain civil liberty in its integrity, and my own
+authority, for which I hold myself accountable to God alone and to my
+people.'
+
+The words: 'Della quale debbo ragione a Dio solo ed ai miei popoli,'
+were added by the King to the speech prepared by his ministers; it was
+noticed that he pronounced them with remarkable energy. The speech
+concluded: 'Our country is no more the Italy of the Romans, nor the
+Italy of the Middle Ages; no longer the field for every foreign
+ambition, it becomes, henceforth, the Italy of the Italians.'
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE MARCH OF THE THOUSAND
+
+1860
+
+Origin of the Expedition--Garibaldi at Marsala--Calatafimi--The
+Taking of Palermo--Milazzo--The Bourbons evacuate Sicily.
+
+
+During the journey from Turin to Genoa, Garibaldi was occupied in
+opening, reading and tearing up into small pieces an enormous mass of
+letters, while his English companion spent the time in vainly
+speculating as to what this vast correspondence was about. When they
+approached Genoa, the floor of the railway carriage resembled a
+gigantic wastepaper basket. It was only afterwards that Lawrence
+Oliphant guessed the letters to be responses to a call for volunteers
+for Sicily.
+
+The origin of the Sicilian expedition has been related in various
+ways; there is the version which attributes it entirely to Cavour, and
+the version which attributes it to not irresponsible personages in
+England. The former was the French and Clerical official account; the
+latter has always obtained credence in Germany and Russia. For
+instance, the late Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg said that 'the mystery
+of how 150,000 men were vanquished by a thousand Red-shirts was
+wrapped in English bank-notes!' Of this theory, it need only be said
+that the notion of Lord Palmerston (for it comes to that) supporting a
+foreign revolution out of the British exchequer is not one that
+commends itself to the belief of the average Englishman. With regard
+to the other theory--namely, that Cavour 'got up' the Sicilian
+expedition, it has been favoured to a certain degree, both by his
+friends and foes; but it will not bear careful examination. As far as
+Sicily goes (Naples is another thing), the most that can be brought
+home to Cavour is a complicity of toleration; and even this statement
+should be qualified by the addition, 'after the act.' It is true that,
+in the early days after Villafranca, he had exclaimed: 'They have cut
+me off from making Italy from the north, by diplomacy; very well, I
+will make her from the south, by revolution!' True, also, that
+earlier still, in 1856, he expressed the opinion, shared by every man
+of common sense, that while the Bourbons ruled over the Two Sicilies
+there would be no real peace for Italy. Nevertheless, in April 1860,
+he neither thought the time ripe for the venture nor the means
+employed adequate for its accomplishment. He was afraid that Garibaldi
+would meet with the death of the Bandieras and Pisacane. No one was
+more convinced than Cavour of the importance of Garibaldi's life to
+Italy; and it is a sign of his true superiority of mind that this
+conviction was never entertained more strongly than at the moment when
+the general was passionately inveighing against him for the cession of
+Nice. To Cavour such invectives seemed natural, and even justified
+from one point of view; they excited in him no bitterness, and he was
+only too happy that they fell upon himself and not upon the King,
+since it was his fixed idea that, without the maintenance of a good
+understanding between Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi, Italy would not
+be made. Few men under the sting of personal attacks have shown such
+complete self-control.
+
+As has been stated, when Francis II. ascended the Neapolitan throne,
+he was invited to join in the war with Austria, and he refused. Since
+then, the same negative result had attended the reiterated counsels of
+reform which the Piedmontese Government sent to that of Naples--the
+young King showing, by repeated acts, that not Sardinia but Rome was
+his monitress and chosen ally in Italy. The Pope had lately induced
+the French General Lamoriciere to take the command of the Pontifical
+troops, and he and the King of Naples were organising their armies,
+with a view to co-operating at an early date against the common enemy
+at Turin. In January 1860, Lord Russell wrote to Mr Elliot, the
+English Minister at Naples: 'You will tell the King and his Ministers
+that the Government of her Majesty the Queen does not intend to accept
+any part in the responsibility nor to guarantee the certain
+consequences of a misgovernment which has scarcely a parallel in
+Europe.' Mr Elliot replied, early in March: 'I have used all
+imaginable arguments to convince this Government of the necessity of
+stopping short on the fatal path which it has entered. I finished by
+saying that I was persuaded of the inevitable fall of his Majesty and
+the dynasty if wiser counsels did not obtain a hearing, and requested
+an audience with the King; since, when the catastrophe occurs, I do
+not wish my conscience to reproach me with not having tried all means
+of saving an inexperienced Sovereign from the ruin which threatens
+him. The Ministers of France and Spain have spoken to the same
+effect.' Even Russia advised Francis to make common cause with
+Piedmont. In April, Victor Emmanuel wrote to his cousin, 'as a near
+relative and an Italian Prince,' urging him to listen while there was
+yet time to save something, if not everything. 'If you will not hear
+me,' he said, 'the day may come when I shall be obliged to be the
+instrument of your ruin!'
+
+It has been said that the Sardinian Government, in tendering similar
+advice, hoped for its refusal and contemplated the eventuality hinted
+at with the reverse of apprehension. Of course this is true. Yet the
+responsibility of declining to take the only course which might by any
+possibility have saved him must rest with the King of Naples and not
+with Victor Emmanuel and his Ministers. The attempt to make Francis
+appear the innocent victim of a diabolical conspiracy will never
+succeed, however ingenious are the writers who devote their abilities
+to so unfruitful a task.
+
+To trace the real beginning of the expedition we must go back to the
+summer of 1859. When the war ended in the manner which he alone had
+foreseen, Mazzini projected a revolutionary enterprise in the south
+which should restore to the Italian movement its purely national
+character and defeat in advance Napoleon's plans for gathering the
+Bourbon succession for his cousin, Prince Murat. He sent agents to
+Sicily, and notably Francesco Crispi, who, as a native of the island
+and a man of resource and quick intelligence, was well qualified to
+execute the work of propaganda and to elude the Bourbon police. Crispi
+travelled in all parts of Sicily for several months, and in September
+he was able to report to Mazzini that the insurrection might be
+expected in a few weeks--which proved incorrect, but only as to date.
+Mazzini forbade his agents to agitate in favour of a republic; unity
+was the sole object to be aimed at; unity in whatever form and at
+whatever cost.
+
+In March 1860 he had an interview in London with the man who was to
+become the actual initiator of the revolutionary movement in South
+Italy. This was Rosalino Pilo, son of the Count di Capaci, and
+descended through his mother from the royal house of Anjou, whose
+name, Italianised into Gioeni, is still borne by several noble
+families in Sicily. Rosalino Pilo, who was now in his fortieth year,
+had devoted all his life to his country's liberties. After 1849, when
+he was obliged to leave Sicily, he sold his ancestral acres to supply
+the wants of his fellow exiles, and help the work of revolutionary
+propaganda. Handsome in person, cultivated in mind, ready to give his
+life, as he had already given most of what makes life tolerable, to
+the Italian cause, he won the affection of all with whom he was
+brought in contact, and especially of Mazzini, from whom he parted
+after that last interview radiant with hope, and yet with a touch of
+sadness in his smile, as if in prevision that the place allotted to
+him in the ranks of men was among the sowers, not among the reapers.
+
+Rosalino Pilo believed, as Mazzini believed, that Sicily was ripe for
+revolution, but he realised the fact that under existing circumstances
+there was an exceeding probability of a Sicilian revolution being
+rapidly crushed. It was the tendency of Mazzini's mind to think the
+contrary; to put more faith in the people themselves than in any
+leader or leaders; to imagine that the blast of the trumpet of an
+angered population was sufficient to bring down the walls of all the
+citadels of despotism, however well furnished with heavy artillery.
+Pilo saw that there was only one man who could give a real chance of
+success to a rising in his native island, and that man was Garibaldi.
+As early as February he began to write to Caprera, urging the general
+to give his co-operation to the projected movement. It is notorious
+that the scheme, until almost the last moment, did not find favour
+with Garibaldi. In spite of his perilous enterprises, the chief had
+never been a courtier of failure, and he understood more clearly than
+his correspondent what failure at that particular juncture would have
+meant. The ventures of the Bandieras and of Pisacane, similar in their
+general plan to the one now in view (though on a smaller scale). ended
+in disasters, but disasters that were useful to Italy. A disaster now
+would have been ruinous to Italy. Garibaldi's hesitations do not, as
+some writers of the extreme party have foolishly assumed, detract from
+his merit as victorious leader of the expedition; they only show him
+to have been more amenable to political prudence than most people
+have supposed.
+
+Rosalino Pilo wrote, finally, that in any case he was determined to go
+to Sicily himself to complete the preparations, and he added: 'The
+insurrection in Sicily, consider it well, will carry with it that of
+the whole south of the peninsula,' by which means not only would the
+Muratist plots be frustrated, but also a new army and fleet would
+become available for the conquest of independence and the liberation
+of Venetia. The writer concluded by wishing the general 'new glories
+in Sicily in the accomplishment of our country's redemption.'
+
+True to his word Rosalino Pilo embarked at Genoa on the 24th of March,
+on a crazy old coasting vessel, manned by five friendly sailors. He
+had with him a single companion, and carried such arms and ammunition
+as he had been able to get together. Terrible weather and the
+deplorable condition of their craft kept them at sea for fifteen days,
+during which time something of great importance happened at Palermo.
+On the 4th of April the authorities became aware that arms and
+conspirators were concealed in the convent of La Gancia, which was to
+have been the focus of the revolution. Troops were sent to besiege the
+convent, which they only succeeded in taking after four hours'
+resistance; its fall was the signal for a general slaughter of the
+inmates, both monks and laymen. The insurrection was thus stifled in
+its birth in the capital, but from this time it began to spread in the
+country, and when, at last, Rosalino Pilo landed near Messina on the
+10th of April, he found that several armed bands were already roving
+the mountains, as yet almost unperceived by the Government, which had
+gone to sleep again after its exhibition of energy on the 4th. Events
+were, however, to awake it from its slumbers, and to cause it to renew
+its vigilance. It required all Rosalino Pilo's skill and courage to
+sustain the revolution of which he became henceforth the responsible
+head, till the fated deliverer arrived.
+
+Pilo's letters, brought back to Genoa by the pilot who guided him to
+Sicilian waters, were what decided Garibaldi to go to the rescue.
+Some, like Bixio and Bertani, warmly and persistently urged him to
+accept the charge; others, like Sirtori, were convinced that the
+undertaking was foredoomed, and that its only result would be the
+death of their beloved captain: but this conviction did not lessen
+their eagerness to share his perils when once he was resolved to go.
+
+Like all born men of action, Garibaldi did not know what doubt was
+after he came to a decision. From that moment his mental atmosphere
+cleared; he saw the goal and went straight for it. In a surprisingly
+short time the expedition was organised and ready to leave. 'Few and
+good,' had been the rule laid down by Garibaldi for the enrolments; if
+he had chosen he could have taken with him a much more numerous host.
+When it was the day to start few they were (according to the most
+recent computation the exact number was 1072 men), and they were
+certainly good. The force was divided into seven companies, the first
+entrusted to the ardent Nino Bixio, who acted in a general way as
+second-in-command through both the Sicilian and Neapolitan campaigns,
+and the seventh to Benedetto Cairoli, whose mother contributed a large
+sum of money as well as three of her sons to the freeing of Southern
+Italy. Sirtori, about whom there always clung something of the
+priestly vocation for which he had been designed, was the head of the
+staff; Tuerr (the Hungarian) was adjutant-general. The organisation was
+identical with that of the Italian army 'to which we belong,' said
+Garibaldi in his first order of the day.
+
+One name is missing, that of Medici, who was left behind to take the
+command of a projected movement in the Papal States. By whom this plan
+was invented is not clear, but simultaneous operations in different
+parts of the peninsula had been always a favourite design of the more
+extreme members of the Party of Action, and Garibaldi probably yielded
+to their advice. All that came of it was the entry into Umbria of
+Zambianchi's small band of volunteers, which was promptly repulsed
+over the frontier. Medici, therefore, remained inactive till after the
+fall of Palermo; he headed the second expedition of 4,000 volunteers
+which arrived in time to take part in the final Sicilian battles.
+
+Garibaldi's political programme was the cry of the Hunters of the Alps
+in 1859: _Italy and Victor Emmanuel._ Those who were strict
+republicans at heart, while abstaining from preaching the republic
+till the struggle was over, would have stopped short at the first word
+_Italy_. But Garibaldi told Rosalino Pilo, who was of this way of
+thinking, that either he marched in the King's name or he did not
+march at all. This was the condition of his acceptance, because he
+esteemed it the condition on which hung the success of the enterprise,
+nay more, the existence of an united Italy.
+
+The Thousand embarked at Quarto, near Genoa, during the night of the
+5th of May on the two merchant vessels, the _Piemonte_ and _Lombardo_,
+which, with the complicity of their patriotic owner, R. Rubattino, had
+been sequestered for the use of the expedition. On hearing of
+Garibaldi's departure, Cavour ordered Admiral Persano, whose squadron
+lay in the gulf of Cagliari, to arrest the expedition if the steamers
+entered any Sardinian port, but to let it go free if they were
+encountered on the high seas. Persano asked Cavour what he was to do
+if by stress of storms Garibaldi were forced to come into port? The
+answer was that 'the Ministry' decided for his arrest, which Persano
+rightly interpreted to mean that Cavour had decided the contrary. He
+resolved, therefore, not to stop him under any circumstances, but the
+case did not occur, for the fairest of May weather favoured the
+voyage, and six days after the start the men were quietly landed at
+Marsala without let or hindrance from the two Neapolitan warships
+which arrived almost at the same time as the _Piemonte_ and
+_Lombardo_, an inconceivable stroke of good fortune which, like the
+eventful march that was to follow, seems to belong far more to romance
+than to history.
+
+On the day before, the British gunboat _Intrepid_ (Captain Marryat),
+and the steam vessel _Argus_, had cast anchor in the harbour of
+Marsala. Their presence was again and again spoken of by Garibaldi as
+the key to the mystery of why he was not attacked. No matter how it
+was done--it may have been a mere accident--but it can hardly be
+doubted that the English men-of-war did practically cover the landing
+of the Thousand. Lord John Russell denied emphatically to the House of
+Commons that they were sent there for the purpose, as to this day is
+believed by some grateful Italians, and by every Clerical writer who
+handles the subject. The British Government had early information of
+Italian revolutionary doings, just then, through Sir James Hudson, who
+was in communication with men of all shades of opinion, and it is
+credible that orders which must necessarily have been secret, were
+given to afford a refuge on board English ships to the flying patriots
+in the anticipated catastrophe. More than this is not credible, but
+the energy shown by Captain Marryat in safeguarding the interests of
+the British residents at Marsala caused the Neapolitan ships to delay
+opening fire till the very last Red-shirt was out of harm's way on dry
+land. Then and then only did they direct their guns on the _Piemonte_
+and _Lombardo_, and fire a few shots into the city, which caused no
+other damage than the destruction of two casks of wine.
+
+On the 12th, Garibaldi left Marsala for Salemi, a mountain city
+approached by a steep, winding ascent, where he was sure of a warm
+reception, as it had already taken arms against the Bourbon king.
+Hence he promulgated the decree by which he assumed the dictatorship
+of Sicily in the name of Victor Emmanuel.
+
+The Neapolitan army numbered from 120,000 to 130,000 men; of these
+30,000 were actually in Sicily at the time the Thousand landed at
+Marsala, 18,000 being in and about Palermo, and the rest distributed
+over the island. At Salemi, Garibaldi reviewed his united forces: he
+had been joined by 200 fresh volunteers, and by a fluctuating mass of
+Sicilian irregulars, which might be estimated to consist of 2,000 men,
+but it increased or decreased along the road, because it was formed of
+peasants of the districts traversed, who did not go far from their
+homes. These undisciplined bands were not useless, as they gave the
+Bourbon generals the idea that Garibaldi had more men than he could
+ever really count upon, and also the peasants knew the country well.
+When they came under fire they behaved better than anyone would have
+expected. The first batch joined the Thousand half-way between Marsala
+and Salemi. There might have been fifty of them, dressed in
+goat-skins, and armed with the old flint muskets and rusty pistols
+dear to the Sicilian heart, which he would not for the world leave
+behind were he going no farther than to buy a lamb at the fair. The
+feudal lord marched at the head of his uncouth retainers--a company
+of bandits in an opera--yet, to Garibaldi, they seemed the blessed
+assurance that this people whom he was come to save was ready and
+willing to be saved. He received the poor little band with as much
+rapture as if it had been a powerful army, and, in their turn, the
+impressionable islanders were enraptured by the affability of the man
+whom the population of Sicily soon came seriously to consider as a new
+Messiah. It is a fact that the people of Southern Italy did believe
+that Garibaldi had in him something superhuman, only the Bourbon
+troops looked rather below than above for the source of it. The
+picturesque incidents of the historic march were many; one other may
+be mentioned. While the chief watered his horse at a spring a
+Franciscan friar threw himself on his knees, and implored to be
+allowed to follow him. Some of the volunteers thought the friar a
+traitor in disguise, but larger in faith, Garibaldi said: 'Come with
+us, you will be our Ugo Bassi.' Fra Pantaleo proved of no small use to
+the expedition.
+
+A glance at the map makes clear the military situation. Garibaldi's
+objective was Palermo, and if anything shows his genius as a
+Condottiere it is this immediate determination to make straight for
+the capital where the largest number of the enemy's troops was massed,
+instead of seeking an illusionary safety for his weak army in the open
+country. As the crow flies the distance from Marsala to Palermo is not
+more than sixty or seventy miles, but the routes being mountainous,
+the actual ground to be covered is much longer. About midway lies
+Calatafimi, where all the roads leading from the eastern coast to
+Palermo converge, and above it towers the immensely strong position
+called Pianto dei Romani, from a battle in which the Romans were
+defeated. These heights command a vast prospect, and here General
+Landi, with 3,000 men and four pieces of artillery, prepared to
+intercept the Garibaldians with every probability of driving them back
+into the sea.
+
+The royal troops took the offensive towards ten o'clock on the 15th of
+May. They met the Red-shirts half way down the mountain, but were
+driven up it again, inch by inch, till, at about three o'clock, they
+were back at Pianto dei Romani. A final vigorous assault dislodged
+them from this position, and they retreated in disorder to Calatafimi.
+Not wishing to tempt fortune further for that day, Garibaldi
+bivouacqued on the field of battle. In a letter written to Bertani, on
+the spur of the moment, he bore witness with a sort of fatherly pride
+to the courage displayed by the Neapolitans: 'It was the old
+misfortune,' he said, 'a fight between Italians; but it proved to me
+what can be done with this family when united. The Neapolitan
+soldiers, when their cartridges were exhausted, threw stones at us in
+desperation.' How then, with much superior numbers and a seemingly
+impregnable position, did they end in ignominious flight? The answer
+may be found in the reply given to Bixio, bravest of the brave, who
+yet feared, at one hotly-contested point, that retreat was inevitable.
+'Here,' retorted the chief,'we _die_.' Men who really mean to conquer
+or die can do miracles.
+
+The moral effect of the victory was tremendous. The world at large had
+made absolutely sure of the destruction of the expedition. 'Garibaldi
+has chosen to go his own way,' said Victor Emmanuel; 'but if you only
+knew the fright I was in about him and the brave lads with him!' In
+Sicily, where the insurrectionary activity of April was almost totally
+spent, the news sent an electric shock of revolution through the
+whole island. In the mountains Rosalino Pilo still resisted, weary of
+waiting for the help that came not, discouraged or hopeless, but
+unyielding. Food and ammunition were almost gone; his ragged band,
+held together only by the magnetism of his personal influence, began
+to feel the pangs of hunger. A price was set on his head, and he was
+harassed on all sides by the Neapolitan troops, whose attacks became
+more frequent now that the Government realised that there was danger.
+He knew nothing of Garibaldi's movements; but he was resolved to keep
+his promise as long as he could: to hold out till the chief came. At
+the hour when everything looked most desperate, a messenger arrived in
+his camp with a letter in Garibaldi's handwriting, which bore the date
+of the 16th of May. 'Yesterday,' it ran, we fought and conquered.'
+Never was unexpected news more welcome. Filled with a joy such as few
+men have tasted, Rosalino read the glad tidings to his men. 'The cause
+is won,' he said. 'In a few days, if the enemy's balls respect me, we
+shall be in Palermo.'
+
+Meanwhile Garibaldi had occupied Calatafimi, and was proceeding
+towards Monreale, from which side he contemplated a descent on the
+capital. On the high tableland of Renda he met Rosalino Pilo with his
+reanimated band. That day the Garibaldian army, all told, amounted to
+5,000 men. On the 21st of May, Rosalino was ordered to make a
+reconnaissance in the direction of Monreale; while carrying out this
+order a Neapolitan bullet struck his forehead, causing almost
+instantaneous death. 'I am happy to be able to give my blood to Italy,
+but may heaven be propitious once for all,' he had written when he
+first landed, words realised to the letter.
+
+The Neapolitans were put in high spirits by Rosalino Pilo's death; the
+discomfiture of Calatafimi was forgotten; they represented Garibaldi
+as a mouse that was obligingly walking into a well-laid trap. In fact,
+his position could not have been more critical, but he had recourse to
+a stratagem which saved him. He succeeded in placing the enemy upon a
+completely false scent. Abandoning the idea of reaching Palermo from
+the east (Monreale), he decided to attempt the assault from the south
+(Piana de' Greci and Misilmeri), but, all the while, he continued to
+throw the Sicilian _Picciotti_ on the Monreale route, and gave them
+orders to fire stray shots in every direction and to light innumerable
+camp-fires. These troops frequently came in contact with the
+Neapolitans in trifling skirmishes, and kept their attention so well
+occupied that General Colonna, in command of the force sent in search
+of the 'Filibuster,' did not doubt that the whole Garibaldian army was
+concentrated over Monreale. Garibaldi rapidly moved his own column by
+night to its new base of operations. The ground was steep and
+difficult, and a storm raged all the night; fifteen years later he
+declared that none of his marches in the virgin forests of America was
+so arduous as this. While the Neapolitans remained in ignorance of
+these changes, three English naval officers, guided by a sort of
+sporting dog's instinct, happened to be driving through the village of
+Misilmeri just after Garibaldi established his headquarters in that
+neighbourhood. Of course it was by chance; still, Misilmeri is an odd
+place to go for an afternoon drive, and the escapade ended in the
+issue of a severe warning to Her Majesty's officers and marines to
+keep in future 'within the bounds of the sentinels of the royal
+troops.' Luckily record exists of the experiences of Lieutenant Wilmot
+and his two companions at Misilmeri. Garibaldi, on hearing that three
+English naval officers were in the village, sent to invite them to the
+vineyard where he was taking his dinner. They found him standing in a
+large enclosure in the midst of a group of followers who all, like
+himself, wore the legendary red flannel shirt and grey trousers. Fra
+Pantaleo's brown habit formed the only exception. Several Hungarian
+officers were present, and by his father stood Menotti, then a stout
+youth of nineteen, with his arm in a sling from the severe wound he
+received at Calatafimi. Around were soldiers who looked like mere
+boys. They gazed with delight on the English uniforms. Garibaldi
+requested his guests to be seated and to partake of some
+freshly-gathered strawberries. He spoke of his affection and respect
+for England, and said it was his hope soon to make the acquaintance of
+the British admiral. He mentioned how he had seen and admired from the
+heights the beautiful effect of the salutes fired in honour of the
+Queen's birthday, two days before. He then retired into his tent, made
+of an old blanket stretched over pikes; a child, under the name of a
+sentry, paced before it to keep off the crowd.
+
+To complete the deception of the enemy the Garibaldian artillery,
+under Colonel Orsini, was ordered to make a retrograde march on
+Corleone previous to joining the main force at Misilmeri. Orsini
+narrowly escaped getting caught while executing this movement, and for
+the sake of celerity was obliged to throw his five cannon (including
+one taken at Calatafimi) down deep water courses. He returned to pull
+them out again when the immediate danger was past. General Colonna,
+who followed him closely, was convinced that the whole of the
+Garibaldians were in disorderly retreat as witnessed by the mules and
+waggons purposely abandoned by Orsini along the route. For four days
+Colonna believed that he had Garibaldi flying before him, and sent
+intelligence to that effect to Naples, whence it was published through
+the world. On the fifth day he was immeasurably surprised by hearing
+that Garibaldi had entered Palermo!
+
+It was at early dawn on Whitsunday, the 27th of May, that Garibaldi
+reached the threshold of the capital, and after overcoming the guard
+at Ponte dell' Ammiraglio, pushed on to Porta Termini, the strategic
+key to the city. The royalists, though taken by surprise in the first
+instance, had time to dispose a strong force behind walls and
+barricades before Garibaldi could reach the gate, and it required two
+hours of severe fighting to take the position. Many Red-shirts were
+killed, and Benedetto Cairoli received the severe wound from which he
+never wholly recovered. Success, however, was complete, and the
+Palermitans got up to find, to their frantic joy, the Liberator within
+their gates. According to the old usage their first impulse was to run
+to the belfries in order to sound the tocsin, but they found that the
+royalists had removed the clappers of the bells. Nothing daunted, they
+beat the bells all day with hammers and other implements, and so
+produced an indescribable noise which had a material influence on the
+nerves of the terrified Neapolitan troops. Being disarmed, the only
+other help which the inhabitants could render to their deliverers was
+the erection of barricades.
+
+Even after Garibaldi's entry, it is thought that General Lanza could
+have crushed him in the streets by sheer force of superiority in
+numbers and artillery had he made proper use of his means. However, at
+about three p.m., he chose the less heroic plan of ordering the castle
+and the Neapolitan fleet to bombard the city. Most of his staff
+opposed the decision, and one officer broke his sword, but Lanza was
+inexorable. The measure so exasperated the Palermitans that even had
+it achieved its end for the moment, never after would they have proved
+governable from Naples. Thirteen hundred shells were thrown into the
+city. Lord Palmerston denounced the bombardment and its attendant
+horrors as 'unworthy of our time and of our civilisation.' The
+soldiers helped the work by setting fire to some quarters of the city.
+Among the spots where the shells fell in most abundance was the
+convent of the Sette Angeli. The Garibaldians escorted the nuns to a
+place of safety and carried their more valuable possessions after
+them. The good sisters were charmed by the courtesy with which the
+young Italians performed these duties.
+
+Fighting in the streets went on more or less continuously, and the
+liberators kept their ground, but every hour brought fresh perils. A
+Bavarian regiment arrived to reinforce General Lanza, and the return
+of the Neapolitan column from Corleone was momentarily expected. The
+Garibaldians, and this was the gravest fact of all, had used almost
+their last cartridge. The issue of the struggle was awaited with
+varying sentiments on board the English, French, Austrian, Spanish and
+Sardinian warships at anchor in the bay. Admiral Mundy had placed his
+squadron so close to the land that the ships were in danger of
+suffering from the bombardment, a course attributed to the humane
+desire to afford a refuge for non-combatants, and in fact, the
+officers were soon engaged in entertaining a frightened crowd of
+ladies and children. The _Intrepid_ in particular, was so near the
+Marina that a fair swimmer could have reached it in a few minutes;
+nobody guessed, least of all Garibaldi, that her mission in the mind
+of the British admiral was to save the chiefs own life in what seemed
+the likely case of its being placed in peril.
+
+Admiral Mundy begged the authorities to stop the bombardment before
+the city was destroyed, but Lanza appeared to have no intention of
+yielding to his counsels, and it is still uncertain what at last
+induced him on the 30th of May to sue the Filibuster, hastily
+transformed into his Excellency, for an armistice of twenty-four
+hours. 'God knows,' writes Garibaldi, 'if we had want of it!' The
+royalists had lost nearly the whole city except the palace and its
+surroundings, and, cut off from the sea, they began to feel a scarcity
+of food, but not to a severe extent. It seems most probable that with
+his men panic-stricken and constantly driven back in spite of the
+bombardment, Lanza looked upon the game as lost, when had he known the
+straits to which the Garibaldians were reduced for ammunition, he
+might have considered it as won.
+
+An unforeseen incident now occurred; the royalist column, recalled
+from Corleone, which was largely composed of Bavarians, reached Porta
+Termini and opened a furious fire on the weak Garibaldian detachment
+stationed there. Was it ignorance or bad faith? Lieutenant Wilmot, who
+happened to be passing by, energetically waved his handkerchief and
+shouted that a truce was concluded; the assailants continued the
+attack till an officer of the Neapolitan staff who was in conference
+with Garibaldi at the time hurried to the spot, at his indignant
+request, and ordered them to desist. A few minutes later, Garibaldi
+himself rode up in a wrathful mood, and while he was renewing his
+protests, a shell fell close by him, thrown from a ship which
+re-opened the bombardment on its own account. Lieutenant Wilmot, who
+witnessed the whole affair, was convinced that there was a deliberate
+plan to surprise and capture the Italian chief after he had granted
+the armistice.
+
+At a quarter past two on this eventful day, the 30th of May 1860,
+Garibaldi and the Neapolitan generals, Letizia and Chretien, stepped
+on board the flag-ship _Hannibal_ which Admiral Mundy offered as
+neutral ground for their meeting. Curiously enough, both parties,
+reaching the mole simultaneously, were rowed out in the same ship's
+boat, which was waiting in readiness. The Neapolitans insisted that
+Garibaldi should go on board first, either from courtesy or, as the
+admiral suspected, out of desire to find out whether he would be
+received with military honours. With instinctive tact he had donned
+his old and rather shabby uniform of a major-general in the Sardinian
+army; the admiral's course was, therefore, marked out, and Garibaldi
+received the same salute as the two generals who followed him. After a
+foolish attempt on the part of the Neapolitan officers to make
+themselves disagreeable, which was repressed with dignified decision
+by Admiral Mundy, business began, and things went smoothly till the
+fifth article of the proposed convention came under discussion: 'That
+the municipality should direct a humble petition to his Majesty the
+King expressing the real wants of the city.' 'No,' cried Garibaldi,
+starting to his feet, 'the time for humble petitions to the King, or
+to anyone else, is past; I am the municipality, and I refuse.' General
+Letizia grew excited at this declaration, but afterwards he agreed to
+submit the question of quashing the fifth article to his chief,
+General Lanza. The armistice was prolonged till nine the next morning.
+
+As soon as he was back on shore, Garibaldi issued a manifesto, in
+which he announced that he had refused a proposal dishonouring the
+city, and that to-morrow, at the close of the armistice, he should
+renew hostilities. There was a splendid audacity in the threat; his
+powder was literally exhausted; nothing was left for him to do but to
+die with all his men, and to do this he and they were unquestionably
+ready. The conduct of the citizens was on a level with the occasion.
+As soon as the manifesto came to be known, the inhabitants rushed to
+the Palazzo Pretorio, where the man who had so proudly answered in
+their name, addressed them in these terms: 'People of Palermo; the
+enemy has made me propositions which I judged humiliating to you, and
+knowing that you are ready to bury yourselves under the ruins of your
+city, I refused.' Those who were present say that never did Garibaldi
+seem so great as at that moment. The answer was one deafening shout,
+in which the women and children joined, of 'War! war!' In the evening
+the city was illuminated as on a feast-day.
+
+Once more in history, the game of greatly daring succeeded. Appalled
+by the reports of the dreadful threats emanating from a population
+without arms, and a handful of volunteers without powder, distrustful
+henceforth of the courage of his soldiers, and, if the truth must
+be told, of the fidelity of his fleet, Lanza sent General Letizia
+to Garibaldi betimes, on the 31st of May, with an unconditional
+demand for the continuance of the armistice. A convention was drawn up,
+which conceded the fullest liberty to the royalists to supply their
+material wants, succour the wounded, and, if they desired, embark
+them on board ships with their families for Naples. Garibaldi, always
+humane, had a special tenderness for the victims of that civil strife
+which his soul abhorred, and he never forgot that the enemy was his
+fellow-countryman. His influence sufficed to secure to the royal
+troops an immunity from reprisals which was the more creditable
+because some horrid crimes had been done by miscreants in their ranks
+when they found that they were getting the worst of it in the
+street-fighting. Unfortunately the same mercy was not extended to some
+of the secret agents of Maniscalco, head of the Sicilian police, who,
+discovered in hiding-places by the mob, were murdered before any
+protection could be given them. At the time the act of barbarity was
+judged, even by English observers, with more leniency than it deserved
+(because cruelty can have _no_ excuse), so great was the disgust
+excited by the most odious system of espionage ever put in practice.
+
+The convention bore the signatures of 'Ferdinando Lanza,
+General-in-Chief,' and of 'Francesco Crispi, Secretary of State to the
+Provisional Government of Sicily.' One article provided for the
+consignment of the Royal Mint to the victors; a large sum was stored
+in its coffers, and Garibaldi found himself in the novel position of
+being able to pay his men and the Sicilian _squadre_, and to send
+large orders for arms and ammunition to the Continent.
+
+General Letizia made two journeys to Naples, and on his return from
+the second he came invested with full powers to treat with Garibaldi
+for the evacuation of the city. On the 7th of June, 15,000 royal
+troops marched down to the Marina to the ships that were to take them
+away. At the entrance of the Toledo, the great main street of Palermo,
+Menotti Garibaldi was on guard, on a prancing black charger, with a
+few other Red-shirts of his own age around him, and before this group
+of boys defiled the might and pomp of the disciplined army to which
+King Bomba had given the thoughtful care of a life-time.
+
+The closing formalities which wound up these events at Palermo formed a
+fitting ending to the dramatic scenes which have been briefly narrated.
+On the 19th, General Lanza went on board the _Hannibal_ to take leave of
+the British admiral. He was covered with decorations and attended by his
+brilliant personal staff. There, in the beautiful bay, lay the ship on
+board which he was to sail at sunset, and twenty-four steam transports
+were also there, each filled with Neapolitan troops. The defeated
+general was deeply moved as he walked on to the quarter-deck. 'We have
+been unfortunate,' he said--words never spoken by one officer of
+unquestioned personal courage to another without striking a responsive
+chord. When he quitted the _Hannibal_, the English admiral ordered the
+White Flag of the King of the Two Sicilies to be hoisted at the
+foretop-gallant masthead for the last time in Sicilian waters; and a
+salute of nineteen guns, the salute due to the direct representative or
+_alter ego_ of a sovereign, speeded the parting guest. Thus, wrapped in
+the dignity of misfortune, vanished the last semblance of the graceless
+and treacherous thraldom of the Spanish Bourbons in the capital of
+Sicily. The flag of Italy was run up on the tower of the Semaphore.
+Everywhere the revolution triumphed except at Messina, Milazzo and
+Syracuse. Even Catania, where a rising had been put down after a
+sanguinary struggle, was now evacuated and left to itself.
+
+So the 20th of June dawned, and the Queen's ships in the harbour put
+forth all their bravery of flags in commemoration of her accession,
+which display was naturally interpreted by the Palermitans as a
+compliment to the Dictator, who had fixed that day for calling on the
+British, French and Sardinian admirals and on the captain of the
+United States frigate _Iroquois_. With what honours the American
+captain received him is not recorded; for certain it was with cordial
+goodwill; of the others, Admiral Mundy treated him as on the previous
+occasion; the French admiral affected to consider him a 'simple
+monsieur' who had unexpectedly come to call, whilst Admiral Persano,
+on board the _Maria Adelaide_, gave him a salute of nineteen guns,
+which formed a virtual recognition on the part of Piedmont of his
+assumption of the dictatorship. Cavour had ordered Persano to act on
+his own responsibility as the exigencies of the hour demanded, and the
+admiral knew that these vague instructions assigned him a more
+vigorous policy than the other ministers would have agreed to
+officially. His bold initiative was therefore justified. As some
+severe words will have to be said of Persano in a later chapter, it is
+well to remark here that during his Sicilian command he behaved like a
+thorough patriot, although it was not in his power to render such
+great moral services to freedom as were undoubtedly rendered by
+Admiral Mundy, who at the same time acted with so much tact that his
+neutrality was not impugned, and he even won the equal personal
+gratitude of both parties. On the other hand, the Austrian commodore,
+Baron von Wuellersdorf, succeeded in pleasing no one and no one pleased
+him. He did not expect that the Garibaldians would lose much love to
+him, but he took it unkindly that the royalists fired at his boat with
+himself in it, and the Austrian flag at the stern. In high dudgeon he
+related this grievance to his British colleague, who gently suggested
+that since Austria had always supported the Bourbon system of
+Government, it was hardly strange if the royalists were hurt at
+receiving neither assistance nor even sympathy from the Austrian
+squadron which witnessed their destruction. The remark was acute; even
+Austria was, in fact, tired of the Bourbons of Naples; a portent of
+their not distant doom. But it was not likely that the royalists
+should appreciate the phlegmatic attitude of their erewhile
+protectors.
+
+The concluding military operations in Sicily presented a more arduous
+task than, in the first flush of success, might have been anticipated.
+In the general panic, one, if one only, royalist officer, Colonel Del
+Bosco, turned round and stood at bay. His spirited course was not far
+from undoing all that had been done. Fortunately Garibaldi had
+received important reinforcements. General Medici touched the Sicilian
+shores three days after the evacuation of Palermo with 3500
+volunteers, well-armed and equipped out of the so-called 'Million
+Rifle Fund,' which was formed by popular subscription in the north of
+Italy. The Dictator went as far as Alcamo to meet the hero of the last
+glorious fight of Rome, whom he greeted with delight and affection.
+Later, arrived the third and last expedition, consisting of 1500 men
+under Cosenz, till recently commander-in-chief of the Italian army.
+The Sicilian _squadre_ had been brought into something like military
+organisation; and an Englishman, Colonel Dunne, had raised a picked
+corps of 400 Palermitans which contained, besides its commander,
+between thirty and forty of his countrymen, and was hence called the
+English Regiment. This battalion was ready to do anything and go
+anywhere; it performed excellent work both in Sicily and on the
+mainland.[5]
+
+Garibaldi arranged his forces in three divisions; one, under Tuerr, was
+sent to Catania; the second, under Bixio, to Girgenti; the third,
+under Medici, was to follow the northern sea-coast towards Messina,
+the strongest position still in the enemy's hands. All three were
+ultimately to converge with a view to the grand object of crossing
+over to the mainland. Medici had 2500 men; the royalists in and about
+Messina could dispose of 15,000. The Garibaldians did not expect much
+opposition till they got near Messina, but when they reached
+Barcelona they heard that the garrison of Milazzo had been reinforced
+by Del Bosco with 4000 men, with the evident design of cutting off
+their passage to Messina. It is said that this move was made in
+consequence of direct communications between that officer and Francis
+II., whose ministers had already decided to abandon the whole island.
+But Del Bosco secretly assured his King that such a measure was not
+necessary, and that he would undertake not only to bar Medici's
+advance, but to march over the dead bodies of the Garibaldians to
+Palermo. Milazzo is a small hilly peninsula, on which stands a fort
+and a little walled city. The spot was well chosen. On the 17th of
+July, Del Bosco attacked the Garibaldian right, and it was not without
+difficulty that Medici retained his positions. Some further
+reinforcements were sent to Del Bosco from Messina, though not so
+numerous as they ought to have been, but they would have almost
+ensured him the victory had not Medici also received help; Cosenz'
+column, and, yet more important, Garibaldi himself with the 1000 men
+he had kept in Palermo, hastening at full speed to the rescue. The
+belligerents were, for once, about equally balanced in numbers when on
+the 20th of July Garibaldi attacked Del Bosco with the purpose of
+driving him on to the tongue of the peninsula, thus cutting him off
+from Messina and leaving the road open. A desperate engagement
+followed. The Neapolitans showed that they could fight if they were
+properly led, and inflicted a loss of 800 in killed and wounded (heavy
+out of a total of 5000) on their gallant opponents. Garibaldi's own
+life was nearly sacrificed. He was standing in a field of prickly
+pears in conversation with Major Missori when a party of the enemy's
+cavalry rode up, the captain of which dealt a violent blow at him with
+his sword, without knowing who it was. Garibaldi coolly parried the
+blow, and struck down his assailant, while Missori shot the three
+nearest dragoons with his revolver. Hearing the noise, other
+Garibaldians hurried up, and the chief was saved. For a long time the
+issue of the battle remained uncertain, and it was only after hours of
+severe fighting that Del Bosco was compelled to recognise his defeat,
+and to take refuge on the projecting strip of land as Garibaldi had
+meant that he should do.
+
+A few days later, four transports arrived in the bay of Milazzo to
+carry Del Bosco and his men to Naples. The ministry had prevailed, and
+the complete abandonment of the island was decreed. General Clary,
+commandant of Messina, informed Garibaldi that he had orders to
+evacuate the town and its outlying forts; the citadel would be also
+handed over if the Dictator would engage not to cross to the mainland,
+but this conditional offer was declined. The citadel of Messina
+therefore remained in the power of the royalists, but on agreement
+that it should not resume hostilities unless attacked. It only
+capitulated in March 1861. Garibaldi reigned over the rest of the
+island. The convention was signed on the 28th of July by Marshal
+Tommaso de Clary for the King of Naples, and Major-General Giacomo
+Medici for the Dictator.
+
+Before following Garibaldi across the Straits, some allusion is called
+for to the general political situation both in Sicily and in Italy.
+And first as regards Sicily. When a government is pulled down another
+must be set up, and the last task is often not the easiest. Garibaldi
+appointed a ministry in which the ruling spirit was Francesco Crispi.
+A Sicilian patriot from his youth, and one of the Thousand, he has
+been judged the man best fitted to direct the helm of United Italy in
+days of unexampled difficulty. This is enough to prove that he was not
+the first-come ignoramus or madman that some people then liked to
+think him. But Crispi had the art of making enemies, nor has he lost
+it. Though volumes have been written on the civil administration under
+the dictatorship, the writers' judgments are so warped by their
+political leanings that it is not easy to get at the truth. It would
+have been strange had no confusion existed, had no false steps been
+made; yet some of the old English residents in Sicily say that the
+island made more real progress during the few months of Garibaldi's
+reign than in all the years that have followed. Towards the end of
+June, Garibaldi appointed Agostino Depretis as Pro-Dictator. Of the
+many decrees formulated and measures adopted at this period,
+Garibaldi, who had many other things to think of, was personally
+responsible only for those of a philanthropic nature. Busy as he was,
+he found time to inquire minutely into the State of the population of
+Palermo, and he was horrified at the ignorance and misery in which the
+poorer classes were plunged. Forthwith, out came a bushel-basket of
+edicts and appeals on behalf of these poor children of the sun. He
+visited the orphan asylum and found that eighty per cent. of the
+inmates died of starvation. One nurse had to provide for the wants of
+four infants. Garibaldi wrote off an address to the ladies of Palermo,
+in which he implored them to interest themselves in the wretched
+little beings created in the image of God, at the sight of whose
+wasted and puny bodies he, an old soldier, had wept. He had money and
+food distributed every morning to the most destitute, at the gates of
+the royal palace, where he lived with a frugality that scandalised the
+aged servants of royalty whom he kept, out of kindness, at their
+posts. Theoretically, he disapproved of indiscriminate almsgiving, but
+in the misery caused by the recent bombardment, such theories could
+not be strictly applied, or, at any rate, Garibaldi was not the man to
+so apply them; whence it happened that though, as _de facto_ head of
+the State, he allowed himself a civil list of eight francs a day, the
+morning had never far advanced before his pockets were empty, and he
+had to borrow small sums from his friends, which next morning were
+faithfully repaid.
+
+When he walked about the town, the women pressed forward to touch the
+hem of his _poncho_, and made their children kneel to receive his
+blessing. On one occasion a convent of nuns, from the youngest novice
+to the elderly abbess, insisted on giving him the kiss of peace. An
+idolatry which would have made anyone else ridiculous; but Garibaldi,
+being altogether simple and unselfconscious, was above ridicule. One
+of the good works that he initiated was the transformation of the
+Foundling Hospital, of which the large funds were turned to little
+account, into a Military School under the direction of his best
+officers. In less than a month the school could turn out two smart
+battalions, and there were few mornings that the Dictator did not go
+to watch the boys at their drill. He encouraged them with the promise
+that before long he would lead them himself to the wars.
+
+Such actions smell sweeter from the dust, than the old story of the
+antagonism that sprang up in those days between Garibaldi and Cavour,
+between Crispi and La Farina. This dualism, as it was called, was the
+fruit of a mutual distrust, which, however much to be deplored, was
+not to be avoided. Although Cavour had a far juster idea of Garibaldi
+than that entertained by his _entourage_, he was nevertheless haunted
+by the fear that the general's revolutionary friends would persuade
+him to depart from his programme of 'Italy and Victor Emmanuel,' and
+embark upon some adventure of a republican complexion. He was also
+afraid that the Government of the Dictator would, by its
+unconventional methods, discredit the Italian cause in the eyes of
+European statesmen. These reasons caused him to desire and to
+endeavour to bring about the immediate annexation of Sicily to the
+Sardinian kingdom. On the other hand, Garibaldi's faith in Cavour had
+ceased with the cession of Nice, and he believed him to be even now
+contemplating the cession of the island of Sardinia as a further sop
+to Cerberus--a project which, if it existed nowhere else, did exist in
+the mind of Napoleon III. With regard to immediate annexation, he had
+no intention of agreeing to it, and for one sufficing reason: had he
+consented he could not have carried the war of liberation across the
+Straits of Messina. His Sicilian army must have laid down their arms
+at a command from Turin were it given. And it would have been given.
+
+La Farina, like Crispi, a Sicilian by birth, arrived suddenly at
+Palermo, representing Cavour, as everyone thought, but in reality he
+represented himself. Strong-willed and prejudiced, he was, in his own
+way, a perfectly good patriot, and he had done all that was in his
+power (though not quite so much as in later years he fancied that he
+had done) to aid and further the expedition of the Thousand. But he
+tried to force the annexation scheme by means so openly hostile to the
+government of the day, that Garibaldi at length sent him on board
+Persano's flag-ship with a request that the admiral would forward him
+to Turin.
+
+After the evacuation of Messina by the royal troops, Garibaldi
+received persuasions of all sorts to let the kingdom of Naples alone.
+On the part of King Francis an offer was made to him of 50,000,000
+francs and the Neapolitan navy in aid of a war for the liberation of
+Venice. Almost simultaneously he received a letter from Victor
+Emmanuel sent by the hand of Count Giulio Litta, in which the writer
+said that in the event of the King of Naples giving up Sicily 'I think
+that our most reasonable course would be to renounce all ulterior
+undertakings against the Neapolitan kingdom.' This was the first
+direct communication between the King and Garibaldi since the latter's
+landing at Marsala; it is to be surmised that of indirect
+communications there had been several, and that they took the form of
+substantial assistance, sent, probably without Cavour being aware of
+it, for Victor Emmanuel carried on his own little conspiracies with a
+remarkable amount of secrecy. What induced him now to address words of
+restraint to Garibaldi in the midway of his work, was the arrival of a
+letter from Napoleon III. in which the Emperor urged him in the
+strongest manner to use his well-known personal influence with the
+general to hold him back. It was not easy for Victor Emmanuel to
+refuse point blank to make the last effort on behalf of his cousin.
+Francis had appointed a constitutional ministry, promised a statute,
+granted an amnesty and engaged to place himself in accord with the
+King of Sardinia, adopted even the tricolor flag with the royal arms
+of Bourbon in the centre. Concessions idle as desperate on the 25th of
+June 1860, the date which they bore. Their only consequence then was
+to facilitate the fall of the dynasty, the usual result of similar
+inspirations of the eleventh hour. Had all this been done on the day
+of the King's accession it might have imperilled Italian unity--not
+now. But the fatal words, 'Too late,' would have fallen with ill grace
+from Victor Emmanuel's lips. Garibaldi answered his royal
+correspondent that when he had made him King of Italy he would be only
+too happy to obey him for the rest of his life.
+
+The King's letter, though delivered after the battle of Milazzo, was
+written before it. That event convinced Cavour, and doubtless the King
+with him, that it was utterly impossible to arrest the tide at Cape
+Faro. It convinced him of a great deal more. He saw that if Piedmont
+continued much longer a passive spectator of the march of events, she
+would lose the lead forever And he prepared to act.
+
+Meanwhile counsels reached Garibaldi from quite a different quarter
+not to abandon Naples, but to go there from Rome instead of by
+Calabria. This daring scheme was favoured by Mazzini, Nicotera,
+Bertani; indeed, by all the republicans. A corps of about 8000
+volunteers was ready to start for a descent on the coast of the Papal
+States. At present it was in the island of Sardinia, awaiting the
+arrival of Garibaldi to assume the command. And now occurred
+Garibaldi's mysterious disappearance from Cape Faro, which at the time
+excited endless curiosity. The truth was, that he actually went to
+Sardinia, but instead of taking command of the volunteers bound for
+Rome, he induced them to alter their plans and to join his Sicilian
+army in the arduous undertaking before it of overthrowing the Bourbons
+in the Neapolitan kingdom. Thus he gained a reinforcement of which he
+knew the enormous need, for though he was willing to face
+difficulties, he was not blind to them, as were many men of the
+extreme party. He also prevented what would have been a step of
+exceeding danger to the national cause, as it would have obliged the
+Sardinian Government to break off all relations with Garibaldi and to
+use force against the patriots in suppressing a movement which, if
+successful, would have brought a hostile French army into Italy.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE MEETING OF THE WATERS
+
+1860
+
+Garibaldi's March on Naples--The Piedmontese in Umbria and the
+Marches--The Volturno--Victor Emmanuel enters Naples.
+
+
+The Italian kingdom is the fruit of the alliance between the strong
+monarchical principles of Piedmont and the dissolvent forces of
+revolution. Whenever either one side or the other, yielding to the
+influence of its individual sympathies or prejudices, failed to
+recognise that thus only, by the essential logic of events, could the
+unity of the country be achieved, the entire edifice was placed in
+danger of falling to the ground before it was completed.
+
+When Garibaldi stood on Cape Faro, conqueror and liberator, clothed in
+a glory not that of Wellington or Moltke, but that of Arthur or Roland
+or the Cid Campeador; the subject of the gossip of the Arabs in their
+tents, of the wild horsemen of the Pampas, of the fishers in ice-bound
+seas; a solar myth, nevertheless certified to be alive in the
+nineteenth century--Cavour understood that if he were left much longer
+single occupant of the field, either he would rush to disaster, which
+would be fatal to Italy, or he would become so powerful that, in the
+event of his being plunged, willingly or unwillingly, by the more
+ardent apostles of revolution into opposition with the King of
+Sardinia, the issue of the contest would be by no means sure. To guard
+against both possibilities, Cavour decided to act, and to act at once.
+He said of the conjuncture in which he was placed that it was not one
+of the most difficult, but the most difficult of his political life.
+But he proved equal to the task, which does the more honour to his
+statesmanship because his first plan failed completely. This plan was,
+that the Neapolitan population should overthrow Francis II., and
+proclaim Victor Emmanuel their King before Garibaldi crossed the
+Straits. But the Neapolitans would not move hand or foot till
+Garibaldi was among them. The fact that when Cavour was convinced
+that the Bourbon dynasty at Naples was about to fall, he tried to
+hasten its collapse by a few weeks or days, was made the most of by
+his enemies as an example of base duplicity. At this distance of time,
+it need only be said that whether his conduct of affairs was
+scrupulous or unscrupulous, it deceived no one, for the Neapolitan
+King and his friends were well convinced that the Filibuster of
+Caprera was their less deadly foe than the Prime Minister of Piedmont.
+
+But of all the foes of Franceschiello, to use the diminutive by which,
+half in pity, half in contempt, the people of Naples remember him, the
+most irrevocably fatal was himself. Two courses were open to him when,
+after losing Sicily, he saw the loss of his other kingdom and of his
+throne staring him in the face. One was to go forth like a man at the
+head of his troops to meet the storm. There had been such a thing as
+loyalty in the Kingdom of Naples; not loyalty of the highest sort, but
+still the sentiment had existed. Who knows what might not have been
+the effect of the presence of their young Sovereign on the broken
+_moral_ of the Neapolitan soldiers? 'Sire, place yourself at the head
+of the 40,000 who remain, and risk a last stake, or, at least, fall
+gloriously after an honourable battle,' was the advice given him by
+his minister of war, Pianell. But his stepmother or somebody
+(certainly not his wife) said that the sacred life of a king ought to
+be kept in cotton wool, like other curiosities. Meanwhile his uncle,
+the Count of Syracuse, proposed the other course which, though not
+heroic, would have been intelligible and even patriotic. This was to
+absolve his subjects from their obedience, and embark on the first
+available ship for foreign parts. Fitting the action to the word, the
+Count himself started for Turin. Francis awaited the doom of those
+who only know how to take half measures.
+
+The demoralisation, not only of the troops but of every branch of the
+public administration in the kingdom of Naples, was not yet a
+certified fact; and the enterprise which Garibaldi at Cape Faro had
+before him, of invading the dominions of a monarch who still had a
+large army, and whose subjects showed not the slightest visible sign
+of being disposed to strike a blow for their own freedom, looked
+rather fabulous than difficult. The only part of the _Regno_ where the
+people were taking action was in the furthermost region of Calabria; a
+fortunate circumstance, since it was the first point to be attacked.
+Calabria, which had contributed its quota to the Thousand, contained
+more patriotic energy than the rest of the _Regno_ put together. On
+the 8th of August, Garibaldi sent over a small vanguard of 200 men
+under a Calabrian officer, with the order to join the Calabrian band
+of insurgents which was hiding in the woods and gorges of Aspromonte,
+and to spread the news that his own coming would not be long delayed.
+The Neapolitan generals had acquired the idea that, instead of these
+few men, a large force had already disembarked, and so turned their
+attention to the mountains; while Garibaldi, after throwing the
+war-ships in the Straits on an equally false scent by various
+intentionally abortive operations, crossed in the night of the 19th
+and effected a landing not far from Reggio, of which, for both moral
+and strategic reasons, it was of vital importance to gain possession
+as soon as possible. He took with him 4500 men, and had between 14,000
+and 15,000 more in readiness to follow. The royalist army in Calabria
+numbered about 27,000, including the garrison of Reggio, 2000 men,
+under the command of General Galotti. On the 20th, Bixio attacked the
+outposts; and on the 21st, Garibaldi fought his way into the
+city--not, however, without meeting a strong resistance on the part of
+the garrison, which might have been continued longer, and even with a
+different result, had not the Calabrian insurgents hurried down from
+Aspromonte on hearing the sound of guns, their sudden appearance
+making the Royalists think that they were being attacked on all sides.
+Next day the castle surrendered, and thus a quantity of valuable war
+material fell into Garibaldi's hands. His luck had not deserted him.
+
+Cosenz and Medici landed their divisions in the night of the 21st of
+August, near Scilla, in the neighbourhood of which General Briganti
+had massed his Neapolitans, 7000 strong. On the 23rd, Briganti found
+himself attacked on the south and north--from Scilla by Cosenz, and
+from Reggio by Garibaldi. His position was critical but not desperate
+had he been able to depend upon his men, who were more numerous than
+their combined opponents; but he saw at once that fighting was the
+last thing they meant to do, and he had no choice but to surrender at
+discretion, almost without firing a shot. Unfortunately, Garibaldi had
+no power to keep prisoners of war, even if he wished to do so. Who was
+to feed and guard them? Now, as subsequently, he bade the disbanded
+troops go where they listed, undertaking to send to Naples by sea as
+many as desired to go there. About a thousand accepted; the rest
+dispersed, forming the first nucleus of the semi-political and wholly
+dastardly brigandage which was later to become the scourge of Southern
+Italy. Their earliest exploit was the savage murder of General
+Briganti, whom they called a traitor, after the fashion of cowards.
+This happened at Mileto on the 25th of August, when Briganti was on
+his way to join General Ghio, who had concentrated 12,000 men on the
+town of Monteleone. Garibaldi, whose sound principle it was to dispose
+of his enemies one by one as they cropped up, prepared to attack Ghio
+with his whole available forces, but he was spared the trouble. He
+came, he saw, and he had no need of conquering, for the soldiers of
+that bad thing that had been Bourbon despotism in the Italian south
+vanished before his path more quickly than the mists of the morning
+before the sun. No grounds that will bear scrutiny have ever been
+adduced for the reactionary explanation of the marvel: to wit, that
+the Neapolitan generals were bribed. By Cavour? The game would have
+been too risky. By 'English bank-notes,' that useful factor in
+European politics that has every pleasing quality except reality? It
+is not apparent how the corruptibility of the generals gives a better
+complexion to the matter, but the writers on the subject who are
+favourable to Francis II. seem to think that it does. Panic-stricken
+these helpless Neapolitan officers may deserve to be called, but they
+were not bought. And they had cause for panic with troops of whose
+untrustworthiness they held the clearest proofs, and with the country
+up in arms against them; for a few days after the taking of Reggio
+this was the case, and this was by far the greatest miracle operated
+by Garibaldi. The populations shook off their apathy, and not in
+Calabria only but in the Puglie, the Basilicata, the Abruzzi, there
+was a sudden awakening as from a too long sleep. When Garibaldi got to
+Monteleone he found that Ghio had evacuated the town. He pursued him
+to Soveria, where, on the 30th of August, the 12,000 men laid down
+their arms. A few days later, another officer, General Caldarelli,
+capitulated with 4000 men. Garibaldi's onward march was a perpetual
+_fete_; everywhere he was received with frantic demonstrations of
+delight. Still there was one point between himself and the capital
+which might reasonably cause him some anxiety. There were 30,000 men
+massed near Salerno, in positions of immense natural strength, where
+they ought to have been able to stop the advance of an army twice the
+size of Garibaldi's. How this obstacle was removed is far more
+suggestive of a scene in a comic opera than of a page in history.
+Colonel Peard, 'Garibaldi's Englishman,' went in advance of the army
+to Eboli, where he was mistaken, as commonly happened, for his chief.
+He was past middle age; very tall, with a magnificent beard and a
+stern, dictatorial air, which answered admirably to the popular idea
+of what the conqueror of Sicily ought to be like, although there was
+no resemblance to the real person. It happened that Eboli was a
+royalist town and beyond the pale of declared revolution--a placid and
+antiquated little city with a forgotten air, where life had been
+probably too easy for its inhabitants to wish for a change. But the
+supposed arrival of the Terrible Man turned everything upside-down.
+Peard, with Commander Forbes, who was following the campaign as a
+non-combatant, rode up to the house of the old Syndic, who instantly
+became their devoted servant. Like wildfire spread the news--the whole
+population besieged the house, brass bands resounded, chinese lanterns
+were hung out; the Church, led by the bishop, hurried to the spot, the
+Law, headed by a judge, closely following, while the wives of the
+local officials appeared in perfectly new bonnets. They all craved an
+audience, and the same answer was given to all: that General
+Garibaldi was much fatigued and was asleep--so he was, but ninety
+miles away. He would be pleased to receive the deputations if they
+would return punctually at half-past three a.m. In the meantime, Peard
+was in an inner room, engaged in cannonading Naples with telegrams. He
+had sent for the telegraph master, who came trembling like an aspen,
+and from whom it was elicited that he had already telegraphed to the
+Home Office at Naples, and to the general commanding at Salerno, that
+Garibaldi was in the town. Peard remarked casually that he supposed he
+knew his life was in jeopardy, and then handed him the following
+message: 'Eboli, 11.30 p.m.--Garibaldi has arrived with 5000 of his
+own men, and 5000 Calabrese are momentarily expected. Disembarkations
+are expected in the bay of Naples and the gulf of Salerno to-night. I
+strongly advise your withdrawing the garrison from the latter place
+without delay, or they will be cut off.' This was despatched to
+General Ulloa, whom rumour reported to have been just made minister of
+war, and was signed in the name of one of his personal friends. The
+rumour was false; but the telegram, of course, reached the desired
+quarter, and the name attached removed all doubt of its genuineness.
+It was hardly sent off when a despatch came from the real war
+minister, asking the telegraph clerk if news had been received of the
+division Caldarelli? To this Peard answered that General Caldarelli
+and his division had gone over to Garibaldi yesterday, and now formed
+part of the national army. Similar information was sent to General
+Scotti at Salerno. Finally, the Syndic of Salerno was asked if he had
+seen anything of the Garibaldian expeditions by sea?
+
+Satisfied with his work, Colonel Peard, who knew that there were
+Neapolitan troops within four miles of Eboli, and who did not think
+that things looked entirely reassuring, decided to beat a somewhat
+precipitous retreat. He told the Syndic that he was going to
+reconnoitre in the direction of Salerno, and that his departure must
+be kept a dead secret, but as soon as he was out of the town he turned
+the horses' heads backwards towards the Garibaldian lines. He was
+still accompanied by Commander Forbes, to whom, during their midnight
+drive, he related his performance on the telegraph wires. 'What on
+earth is the good of all this?' said Forbes; 'you don't imagine they
+will be fools enough to believe it?' 'You will see,' answered the
+colonel, 'it will frighten them to death, and to-morrow they will
+evacuate Salerno.' And, in fact, at four o'clock in the morning the
+evacuation was begun in obedience to telegraphic orders from Naples.
+
+The 30,000 men recalled from Salerno and the adjacent districts
+marched towards Capua. The river Volturno, which runs by that
+fortified town, was now chosen as the line of defence of the Bourbon
+monarchy.
+
+On the 5th of September the King and Queen with the Austrian,
+Prussian, Bavarian and Spanish ministers, left Naples for Gaeta on
+board a Spanish man-of-war. The King issued a proclamation of which
+the language was dignified and even pathetic: it is believed to have
+been written by Liborio Romano, the Prime Minister, who was at the
+same moment betraying his master. Be that as it may, the King's
+farewell to his subjects and fellow-citizens might have touched hearts
+of stone could they but have forgotten the record of the hundred and
+twenty-six years of rule to which he fondly alluded. As it was, in the
+vast crowds that watched him go, there was not found a man who said,
+'God bless him;' not a woman who shed a tear. Had any one of the
+bullets aimed at Ferdinand II. taken fatal effect, it would have been
+a less striking punishment for his political sins than this leaden
+weight of indifference which descended on his son.
+
+In the Royal Proclamation Francis II. stated that he had adhered to
+the great principles of Italian nationality, and had irrevocably
+surrounded his throne with free institutions; nevertheless it is
+alleged on what seems good authority that in those last days he veered
+round to the party of the Queen Dowager, who was doing all she could
+to provoke the lazzaroni to reaction. It was also believed at Naples
+that he left orders for Castel Sant' Elmo to bombard the town if
+Garibaldi entered.
+
+The Dictator was so much pleased with Colonel Peard's telegraphic
+feats at Eboli, that he sent him on to Salerno to repeat the farce.
+Peard's despatches determined the departure of the Court, and it was
+to him (in the belief that he was Garibaldi) that Liborio Romano,
+three hours before the King embarked, addressed the celebrated
+telegram invoking the 'most desired presence' of the Dictator in
+Naples. With this document in his hand, Peard went out with the
+National Guard to meet the real Garibaldi who was on his way from
+Auletta. The Dictator hailed his double with the cry of 'Viva
+Garibaldi,' in which Cosenz and the other officers cordially joined.
+The entry of the Liberator into Salerno was greeted with the wildest
+enthusiasm, the wonderful beauty of the surroundings seeming a fitting
+setting for a scene like the vision of some freedom-loving poet.
+
+Next morning at half-past nine, Garibaldi, with thirteen of his staff,
+started by special train for the capital.
+
+It must be remembered that though the army of Salerno was recalled to
+the Volturno, no troops had been withdrawn from Naples. The sentries
+still paced before the palaces and public offices, the barracks held
+their full complement, Castel Sant' Elmo had all its guns in position.
+These troops quartered in the capital, where everything contributed to
+stimulate their fidelity, were of different stuff from Ghio's or
+Caldarelli's frightened sheep; a White Terror, a repetition of the
+15th of May 1848, would have been much to their mind. There had been
+no actual revolution; nothing officially proved that Naples had thrown
+off the royal allegiance. Such were the strange circumstances under
+which Garibaldi, without a single battalion, came to take possession
+of a city of 300,000 inhabitants.
+
+Courage of this sort either does not exist, or it is supremely
+unconscious. It is likely, therefore, that the Dictator gave no
+thought to the enormous risk he ran, but his passage from the station
+to the palace of the Foresteria, where he descended, was a bad
+quarter-of-an-hour to the friends who followed him, and to whom his
+life seemed the point on which Italian regeneration yet hung. A chance
+shot fired by some Royalist fanatic, and who could measure the result?
+As he passed under the muzzle of the guns at the opening of the
+Toledo, he gave the order: 'Drive slower, slower--more slowly still.'
+And he rose and stood up for a moment in the carriage with his arms
+crossed. The artillerymen, who had begun to make a kind of hostile
+demonstration, changed their minds and saluted. The sullen looks of
+the royal soldiers was the only jarring note in the display of
+intoxicating joy with which the Neapolitans welcomed the bringer of
+their freedom; freedom all too easily had, for if anything could have
+purified the Neapolitans from the evil influences of servitude, it
+would have been the necessity of paying dearly for their liberties.
+The delirium in the streets lasted for several days and nights; what
+the consequences would have been of such a state of madness under a
+paler sky, it is not pleasant to reflect; here, at least, there were
+no robberies, no drunken person was seen; if there were some murders,
+a careful inquiry made by an Englishman showed that the number was the
+same as the average number of street-murders through the year. At
+night, when the word passed 'Il Dittatore dorme,' it was enough to
+clear the streets as if by magic near the palace (a private one) where
+in a sixth floor room the idol of the hour slept. The National Guard,
+who were the sole guardians of order, behaved admirably.
+
+For a few days such of the townsfolk as had not completely lost their
+heads, underwent acute anxiety as they gazed at the frowning pile of
+Sant' Elmo; but finally the officers in command of the garrison
+decided to capitulate, contrary, in this instance, to the wishes of
+the soldiery. The royal troops marched out of the city towards Capua
+on the 11th of September.
+
+Garibaldi's first act had been to hand over the Neapolitan fleet in
+the bay to Admiral Persano, a solemn reassertion of his loyalty to
+Victor Emmanuel, whom, in his every utterance, he held up to the
+people as the best of kings and the father of his country. He
+instructed his Neapolitan officer, Cosenz, to form a ministry, and
+wrote to the Marquis Pallavicini, the prisoner of Spielberg, inviting
+him to become Pro-Dictator. Had a man of authority like Pallavicini,
+who also entirely possessed the Dictator's confidence, at once assumed
+that office, much of the friction which followed might have been
+spared. But he did not enter into his functions till October, and in
+the meanwhile the 'dualism' of Sicily broke out in an exaggerated
+form, each side sincerely believing the other to be on the verge of
+ruining the country to which they were both sincerely attached. The
+appointment of Dr Bertani as Secretary of the Dictatorship gave rise
+to controversies which even now, when the grave has closed over the
+actors, are hardly at rest. It is time that they should be. Apart from
+the war about persons, some of them not very wise persons, and apart
+from the fears entertained at Turin, that the freeing of the Two
+Sicilies would drift into a republican movement: fears which were
+invincible, though, as far as they regarded Garibaldi, they were
+neither just nor generous, the question resolved itself, as was the
+case in Sicily, into whether the unification of Italy was to go on or
+whether it was to halt? Garibaldi refused to give up Sicily to the
+King's government because he intended making it the base for the
+liberation of Naples. Events had justified him. He now refused to hand
+over Naples because he intended making it the base for the liberation
+of Rome. It has been seen that he and he alone prevented an attempt at
+a landing in the Papal states from being made in the month of August.
+In deciding, however, that it was expedient to finish one enterprise
+before beginning another, he did not give up Rome: he merely chose
+what he thought a safer road to go there. And he now declared without
+the least concealment that he intended to proclaim Victor Emmanuel
+King of Italy from the Quirinal.
+
+Would events have justified him again? There was a French garrison in
+Rome; this, to Cavour, seemed a conclusive answer.
+
+Cavour was engaged on a series of measures, unscrupulous manoeuvres as
+some have called them, masterpieces of statesmanship as they have been
+described by others, by which he got back the reins of the Italian
+team into his own hands. The plan of an annexionist revolution in
+Naples before Garibaldi arrived had failed. So much discontent was
+felt at the apparent indifference, or, at least, 'masterly inactivity'
+of the Sardinian government in presence of the great struggle in the
+south that Cavour began to be afraid of a revolution breaking out in
+quite a different quarter, in Victor Emmanuel's own kingdom. It was at
+this critical juncture that he resolved to invade the Papal states,
+and take possession of the Province of Umbria and the Marches of
+Ancona.
+
+The decision was one of extreme boldness. For three months Cavour had
+been stormed at by all the Foreign Ministers in Turin, excepting Sir
+James Hudson, but, as he wrote to the Marquis E. D'Azeglio: 'I shall
+not draw back save before fleets and armies.'
+
+Austria, France, Spain, Russia and Prussia now broke off diplomatic
+relations with Sardinia. What would be their next act? The danger of
+Austria intervening was smaller than it then appeared; Austria was too
+much embarrassed in her own house, and especially in Hungary, for her
+to covet adventures in Italy. But the French Government did, in the
+plainest terms, threaten to intervene, and this notwithstanding that
+the Emperor himself appeared to be convinced by Cavour's argument,
+that the proposed scheme was the only means of checking the march of
+revolution, which from Rome might spread to Paris. By announcing one
+line of policy in public and another in private, Napoleon left the
+door open to adopt either one or the other, according to the
+development of events. In the sequel, the Papal party had a right to
+say that he lured them to their destruction, as their plan of
+operations, and in particular the defence of Ancona, was undertaken in
+the distinct expectation of being supported by the French fleet.
+
+As early as April 1860, the Pope invited the Orleanist General
+Lamoriciere to organise and command the forces for the defence of the
+Temporal Power, which he had summoned from the four quarters of the
+Catholic world. 5000 men, more or less, answered the call; they came
+chiefly from France, Belgium and Ireland. Of his own subjects the Pope
+had 10,000 under arms. In a proclamation, issued on assuming the
+command, Lamoriciere compared the Italian movement with Islamism, a
+comparison which aroused intense exasperation in Italy, where the
+rally of a foreign crusade against the object which was nearest to
+Italian hearts, and for which so many of the best Italians had
+suffered and died, could not but call up feelings which in their turn
+were expressed in no moderate language. It was a fresh illustration of
+the old truth--that the Papal throne existed only by force of foreign
+arms, foreign influence. Lamoriciere's 'mercenaries' did much harm to
+the Pope's cause by bringing home this truth once more to the minds of
+all. That the corps contained some of the bluest blood of France, that
+there were good young men in it, who thought heaven the sure reward
+for death in defence of dominions painfully added in the course of
+centuries by devices not heavenly to the original patrimony of Peter,
+did not and could not reconcile the Italians to the defiance thrown
+down to them by a band of strangers in their own country.
+
+Before the opening of hostilities, Victor Emmanuel offered Pius IX. to
+assume the administration of the Papal states (barring Rome) while
+leaving the nominal sovereignty to the Pope. Nothing came of the
+proposal, which was followed by a formal demand for the dissolution of
+Lamoriciere's army, and an intimation that the Sardinian troops would
+intervene were force used to put down risings within the Papal border.
+On the 11th of September, symptoms of revolution having meanwhile
+broken out in the Marches, General Fanti in command of 35,000 men
+crossed the frontier. Half these forces under Fanti himself were
+directed on Perugia; the other half under Cialdini marched towards
+Ancona. The garrisons of Perugia and Spoleto were compelled to
+surrender, and Lamoriciere found his communications cut off, so that
+he could only reach the last fortress in the power of the Papal
+troops, Ancona, by fighting his way through Cialdini's division, which
+by rapid marches had reached the heights of Castelfidardo. His men
+passed the day of the 17th in religious exercises, and in going to
+confession; the vicinity of the Holy House of Loreto, brought hither
+by angels from Bethlehem, filled the young Breton soldiers with
+transports of religious fervour. Lamoriciere had taken from the Santa
+Casa some of the flags of the victors of Lepanto to wave over his
+columns. In the battle of the next day the French fought with the
+gallantry of the Vendeans whose descendants they were, and the Irish
+behaved as Irishmen generally behave under fire, but the Swiss and
+Romans mostly fought ill or not at all. Lamoriciere excused the
+conduct of the latter on the ground that they were young troops; it is
+likely that they had but little eagerness to fire on their
+fellow-countrymen. Being Italians, and above all being Romans, they
+assuredly were not sustained by one scrap of the mystical enthusiasm
+of the French: such a state of mind would have been incomprehensible
+to them. They knew that so far as dogmas went Victor Emmanuel was as
+good a Catholic as the Pope. It is surprising that with part of his
+force demoralised Lamoriciere was still able to hold his own for three
+or four hours. General Pimodan and many of the French officers were
+killed; Lamoriciere could say truly: 'All the best names of France are
+left on the battlefield.'
+
+After the victory of Castelfidardo, the Sardinian attack was
+concentrated on Ancona. Admiral Persano brought the squadron from
+Naples to co-operate with Fanti's land forces, and the fortress
+capitulated on the 29th of September. The campaign had lasted eighteen
+days. The Piedmontese held Umbria and the Marches, and a road was thus
+opened for the army of Victor Emmanuel to march to Naples. During the
+progress of these events Garibaldi was preparing for the final
+struggle on the Volturno. He had not yet given up the hope of carrying
+his victorious arms to the Capitol, and from the Capitol to the Square
+of St Mark. The whole republican party, and Mazzini himself, who had
+arrived in Naples, ardently adhered to this programme. Their argument
+was not without force, risk or no risk, when would there be another
+opportunity as good as the present? It was very well for Cavour to
+look forward, as he did to the day of his death, to a pacific solution
+of the Roman question; Mazzini saw--in which he was far more
+clear-sighted than Cavour--that such a solution would never take
+place. His arrival at Naples caused alarm at Turin, both on account of
+his presumed influence over Garibaldi, the extent of which was much
+exaggerated, and from the terror his name spread among European
+diplomatists. The Dictator was asked to proscribe the man whose latest
+act had been to give the last 30,000 francs he possessed in the world
+to the expenses of the Calabrian campaign. He refused to do this. 'How
+could I have insisted upon sending Mazzini into exile when he has done
+so much for Italian unity?' he said afterwards to Victor Emmanuel, who
+agreed that he was right. However, he allowed the Pro-Dictator
+Pallavicini to write a letter to Mazzini, inviting him to show his
+generosity by spontaneously leaving Naples in order to remove the
+unjust fears occasioned by his presence. Mazzini replied, as he had a
+perfect right to do, that every citizen is entitled to remain in a
+free country as long as he does not break the laws. And so the
+incident closed.
+
+While the Party of Action urged Garibaldi not to give up Rome, other
+influences were brought to bear on him in the opposite sense, and
+especially that of the English Government, which instructed Admiral
+Mundy to arrange a 'chance' meeting between the Dictator and the
+English Minister at Naples, Mr. Elliot, on board the flagship
+_Hannibal_. Mr. Elliot pointed out the likelihood of a European war
+arising from an attack on Venice, and the certainty of French
+intervention in case of a revolutionary dash on Rome. Garibaldi
+replied that Rome was an Italian city, and that neither the Emperor
+nor anyone else had a right to keep him out of it. 'He was evidently,'
+writes Admiral Mundy in reporting the interview, 'not to be swayed by
+any dictates of prudence.'
+
+In Sicily, the rival factions were bringing about a state approaching
+anarchy, but a flying visit from Garibaldi in the middle of September
+averted the storm. At this time, Garibaldi's headquarters were at
+Caserta, in the vast palace where Ferdinand II. breathed his last. The
+Garibaldian and the Royal armies lay face to face with one another,
+and each was engaged in completing its preparations. It might have
+been expected, and for a moment it seems that Garibaldi did expect,
+that after the solemn collapse of the Neapolitan army south of Naples,
+the comedy was now only awaiting its final act and the fall of the
+curtain. But it soon became apparent that, instead of the last act of
+a comedy, the next might be the first of a tragedy. The troops
+concentrated on the right bank of the Volturno amounted to 35,000,
+with 6000 garrisoning Capua. About 15,000 more formed the reserves and
+the garrison of Gaeta. The position on the Volturno was favourable to
+the Royalists; the fortress of Capua on the left bank gave them a free
+passage to and fro, while the Volturno, which is rather wide and very
+deep, formed a grave impediment to the advance of their opponents. But
+the chief reason why there was a serious possibility of the fortunes
+of war being reversed, lay in the fact that the _moral_ of these
+troops was good. All the picked regiments of the army were here,
+including 2500 cavalry. The men were ashamed of the stampede from the
+south, and were sincerely anxious to take their revenge. Thus the
+Neapolitan plan of a pitched battle and a victorious march on Naples
+was by no means foredoomed, on the face of things, to failure.
+
+In Garibaldi's short absence at Palermo, the Southern Army (as he now
+called his forces) was left under the command of the Hungarian General
+Tuerr, as brave an officer as ever lived, and a fast friend to Italy,
+but his merits do not undo the fact that as soon as the Dictator's
+back was turned, everything got into a muddle. Pontoon bridges had
+been thrown across the river at four points; availing himself of one
+of these, Tuerr crossed the Volturno with a view to taking up a
+position on the right bank at a place called Caiazzo, a step which, if
+attempted at all, ought to have been supported by a very strong force.
+On the 19th of September, Caiazzo was actually taken, but on the 21st
+the Royalists came out of Capua with 3000 men and defeated with great
+loss the thousand or fewer Garibaldians charged with its defence, only
+a small number of whom were able to recross the bridges and join their
+companions. The saddest part of this adventure was the slaughter of
+nearly the whole of the boys' company--lads under fifteen, who had run
+away from home or school to fight with Garibaldi. Fight they did for
+five mortal hours, with the heroism of veterans or of children. Only
+about twenty were left.
+
+When Garibaldi returned from Sicily, this was the first news he heard,
+and it was not cheering. The Royalists, who thought they had won
+another Waterloo, were in the wildest spirits, and the march on Naples
+was talked of in their camp as being as good as accomplished.
+
+Garibaldi's lines were spread in the shape of a semi-circle, of which
+the two ends started from Santa Maria on the left, and Maddaloni on
+the right, with Castel Morone at the apex. The country is hilly, and
+this fact, together with the great distance covered, divided the
+20,000 men into a number of practically distinct bodies, each of
+which, in the decisive battle, had to fight its own fight. Here and
+there improvised fortifications were thrown up. Garibaldi was aware
+that his line of battle was perilously extended, but the necessity of
+blocking all the roads and by-ways which led to Naples, dictated
+tactics which he was the last to defend.
+
+The best policy for the Royalists would have been to bring
+overwhelming numbers to bear on a single point, and, breaking the
+line, to march straight on the capital. They were doubtless afraid of
+an advance which would have left a portion of the Garibaldian army
+unbeaten in their rear. Nevertheless, of the chances that remained to
+them, this was the best. At Naples there were no Garibaldian troops to
+speak of, and the powers of reaction had been working night and day to
+procure for the rightful King the reception due to a saviour of
+society. Perhaps they would not have completely failed. There were
+nobles who were sulking, shopkeepers who were frightened,
+professional beggars with whom the Dictator had opened a fierce but
+unequal contest, for no blue-bottle fly is more difficult to tackle
+than a genuine Neapolitan mendicant; there were priests who, though
+not by any means all unpatriotic, were beginning to be scared by
+Garibaldi's gift of a piece of land for the erection of an English
+church, and by the sale of Diodati's Bible in the streets. And
+finally, there was the Carrozzella driver whom a Garibaldian officer
+had struck because he beat his horse. These individuals formed a
+nucleus respectably numerous, if not otherwise respectable, of anxious
+watchers for the Happy Return.
+
+If anyone question the fairness of this catalogue of the partisans of
+the fallen dynasty, the answer is, that had their ranks contained
+worthier elements, they would not have carefully reserved the
+demonstration of their allegiance till the King should prove that he
+had the right of the strongest.
+
+Towards five o'clock in the morning of the 1st of October, the
+royalists, who crossed the river in three columns, fired the first
+shots, and the fight soon became general. King Francis had come from
+Gaeta to Capua to witness what was meant to be an auspicious
+celebration of his birthday. General Ritucci held the chief command.
+Of the Garibaldians, Milbitz and Medici commanded the left wing (Santa
+Maria and Sant' Angelo), and Bixio the right (Maddaloni), while Castel
+Morone, through which a road led to Caserta, was entrusted to Colonel
+Pilade Bronzetti and three hundred picked volunteers. Garibaldi's own
+headquarters was with the reserves at Caserta, but he appeared, as if
+by magic, at all parts of the line during the day, sometimes bringing
+up reinforcements, sometimes almost alone, always arriving at the
+nick of time whenever things looked serious, to help, direct and
+reanimate the men. A dozen times in these journeys by the rugged
+mountain paths he narrowly escaped falling into the enemy's hands. No
+trace of uneasiness was visible on his placid face; there was,
+however, more than enough to make a man uneasy. In the early part of
+the battle, both Medici and Bixio were pushed back from their
+positions. Only Pilade Bronzetti with his handful of Lombard
+Bersaglieri never swerved, and held in check an entire Neapolitan
+column, whose commander (Perrone) has been blamed for wasting so much
+time in trying to take that position instead of joining his 2000 men
+to the troops attacking Bixio, but his object was to march on Caserta,
+where his appearance might have caused very serious embarrassment.
+
+Up to midday the Royalists advanced, not fast, indeed, but surely.
+They fired all the buildings on their path, and amongst others one in
+which there were thirty wounded Garibaldians who were burned to death.
+It was said to be an accident, but such accidents had better not
+happen. Victory seemed assured to them. It is not disputed that on
+this occasion they fought well, and they had all the advantages of
+ground, numbers and artillery. But the volunteers, also, were at their
+best; they surpassed themselves. If every man of them had not shown
+the best military qualities, skill, resource, the power of recovery,
+Francis II. would have slept that night at Naples.
+
+Medici acted with splendid firmness, but at the most critical moment
+he had Garibaldi by his side. Bixio was left to fight his separate
+battle unaided (so great was the chief's confidence in him), and
+consummately well he fought it. After the middle of the day, the
+Garibaldians began to retake their positions, and at some points to
+assume the offensive; still it was five o'clock before Garibaldi could
+send his famous despatch to Naples: 'Victory along all the line.' The
+battle had lasted ten hours.
+
+The Sicilians and Calabrese under Dunne, who stemmed the first onset
+at Casa Brucciata, and under Eber, whose desperate charge at Porta
+Capua ushered in the changing fortunes of the day, rivalled the North
+Italians in steadiness and in dash. The French company and the
+Hungarian Legion covered themselves with glory; it was a pity there
+was not the English brigade, 600 strong, which mismanaged to arrive at
+Naples the day after the fair. Had they been in time for the fight,
+they would doubtless have left a brighter record than the only one
+which they did leave: that of being out of place in a country where
+wine was cheap.
+
+Putting aside Dunne and a few other English officers, England was
+represented on the Volturno by three or four Royal Marines who had
+slipped away from their ship, the _Renown_, and were come over to see
+the 'fun.' It seems that they did ask for rifles, but they did not get
+them, their martial deeds consisting in the help they gave in dragging
+off two captured field-pieces. Never did an exploit cause so much
+discussion in proportion with its importance; the Neapolitan Minister
+in London informed Lord John Russell that a body of armed men from the
+British fleet had been sent by Admiral Mundy to serve pieces of
+Garibaldian artillery.
+
+Of all the striking incidents of the day, that which should be
+remembered while Italy endures, was the defence of the hillock of
+Castel Morone by Bronzetti and his Lombards. Their invincible courage
+contributed in no small degree to the final result. One man to eight,
+they held their own for ten hours; when summoned to yield by the
+Neapolitan officer, who could not help admiring his courage, Pilade
+Bronzetti replied: 'Soldiers of liberty never surrender!' It was only
+in the moment of victory that Perrone passed over their dead bodies
+and uselessly advanced--which cost him dear on the morrow.
+
+The Garibaldian losses were 2000 killed and wounded and 150 prisoners;
+the Neapolitans had the same number placed _hors de combat_, and lost
+3000 prisoners.
+
+Garibaldi had none but his own men; the report that the battle had
+been won by soldiers of the Sardinian army who arrived in the
+afternoon was false, because they did not arrive till next day, when a
+battalion of Piedmontese Bersaglieri took part in defeating Perrone's
+column, which (it is hard to say with what idea) descended nearly to
+Caserta, as its commander wished to do on the first. Did Perrone not
+know of the defeat of yesterday? His column was surrounded and all the
+men were taken prisoners.
+
+After the battle of the Volturno the belligerents re-occupied the
+positions on the right and left banks of that river which they held
+before. Military critics speculate as to why Garibaldi did not follow
+up his advantage, and the opinion seems general that he did not feel
+himself strong enough to do so. The fortress of Capua was a serious
+obstacle, but Garibaldi was not accustomed to attach much weight to
+obstacles whatever they were, and it is pretty certain that he would
+have gone in pursuit had he not received a letter from Victor
+Emmanuel, who bade him wait till he came.
+
+By this time he had abandoned all thoughts of marching on Rome. From
+the moment that the King's army started for Naples he understood that
+persistence in the Roman programme would lead to something graver than
+a war of words with the authorities at Turin. Always positive, he
+gathered some consolation from the gain to Italy of two Roman
+provinces, Umbria and the Marches, and trusted the future with the
+larger hope.
+
+Constitutional government triumphed over the old absolutism and over
+the new dictatorship. And here it may be noted which Constitutional
+government, which never had a more sincere and faithful votary than
+Cavour, found no favour with Garibaldi at any period of his life. Its
+hampering restrictions, its slow processes, irritated his mind,
+intolerant of constraint, and he failed to see that this cumbersome
+mechanism still gives the best, if not the only, guarantee for the
+maintenance of freedom. The sudden transition of Southern Italy from a
+corrupt despotism to free institutions brought with it a train of
+evils, but there was no alternative. If Italy was to be one, all parts
+of it must be placed under the same laws, and that at once.
+
+On the 11th of October the Sardinian parliament sitting at Turin
+passed all but unanimously the motion authorising the King's
+Government to accept the annexation of those Italian provinces which
+manifested, by universal suffrage, their desire to form part of the
+Constitutional Monarchy. Cavour's speech on this occasion was
+memorable: 'Rome,' he said, 'would inevitably become the splendid
+capital of the Italian kingdom, but that great result would be reached
+by means of moral force; it was impossible that enlightened Catholics
+should not end by recognising that the Head of Catholicism would
+exercise his high office with truer freedom and independence guarded
+by the love and respect of 22,000,000 Italians than entrenched behind
+25,000 bayonets.' Of Venice, the martyr-city, he said 'that public
+opinion was rapidly turning against its retention by Austria, and that
+when the great majority of Germans refused to be any longer
+accomplices in its subjection, that subjection would be brought to a
+close either by force of arms or by pacific negotiations.'
+
+The words were strangely prescient at a time when the Prince Regent of
+Prussia was making most melancholy wails over the fall of the
+Neapolitan King. The Prussian Government issued a formal protest,
+which Cavour met by observing that Prussia, of all Powers, had the
+least reason to object, as Piedmont was simply setting her an example
+which she ought to follow and would follow, the mission of the two
+nations being identical. He already thought of Prussia as an ally:
+'Never more French alliances,' he was once heard to say.
+
+On the same day, the 11th of October, Victor Emmanuel crossed the
+Neapolitan frontier at the head of the army which Cialdini led to
+victory at Castelfidardo. The King published a proclamation, in which
+he said that he closed the era of revolution in Italy. Other bodies of
+Piedmontese troops had been despatched by sea to Naples and
+Manfredonia. The passage of the Piedmontese troops over the Abruzzi
+mountains was opposed both by a division of the Bourbon army and by
+armed peasants, who burnt a man alive at a place called Isernia; but
+their advance was not long delayed.
+
+The Neapolitans now began to retire from the right bank of the
+Volturno, and retreat towards the Garigliano, their last line of
+defence. Garibaldi crossed the river with 5000 men, and moved in the
+direction by which the vanguard of the Piedmontese was expected to
+arrive. At daybreak on the 26th of October, near Teano, the
+Piedmontese came in sight. Garibaldi, who had dismounted, walked up
+to Victor Emmanuel and said: 'Hail, King of Italy!'
+
+Once before the title was given to a prince of the House of Savoy--to
+Charles Albert, in the bitterest irony by the Austrian officers who
+saw him flying from his friends and country by order of his implacable
+uncle. A change had come since then.
+
+Victor Emmanuel answered simply: 'Thanks,' and remained talking for a
+quarter of an hour in the particularly kind and affectionate manner he
+used with Garibaldi, but at the end of the interview, when the leader
+of the volunteers asked that in the imminent battle on the Garigliano
+they might have the honour of occupying the front line, he received
+the reply: 'Your troops are tired, mine are fresh, it is my turn now.'
+
+Garibaldi said sadly that evening to an English friend: 'They have
+sent us to the rear.' It was the first sign of the ungenerous
+treatment meted out to the Garibaldian array to which the King lent
+himself more than he ought to have done. He promised to be present on
+the 6th of November, when Garibaldi reviewed his volunteers, but after
+keeping them waiting, sent a message to say that he could not come.
+The last meeting of all between the chief and his faithful followers
+was at Naples, on the occasion of the distribution of medals to as
+many as were left of the Thousand--less than half. In all his farewell
+addresses the same note sounded: 'We have done much in a short
+time.... I thank you in the name of our country.... We shall meet
+again.'
+
+The plebiscites in Umbria and the Marches and in the kingdoms of
+Naples and Sicily took place in October. The formula adopted at Naples
+was more broadly framed than in the previous plebiscites; it ran:
+'The people desire an united Italy under the sceptre of the House of
+Savoy.' The vote was almost unanimous.
+
+On the 7th of November, Victor Emmanuel made his entry into Naples,
+with Garibaldi at his side. Next day, in the great throne-room of the
+palace, the king-maker delivered to the King the plebiscites of the
+Two Sicilies.
+
+Garibaldi had nothing more to do except to pay a last visit to Admiral
+Mundy, whose flagship still lay at anchor in the bay. This duty was
+performed in the grey dawn of the 9th of November. 'There is the ship
+which is to carry me away to my island home,' he said, pointing to an
+American merchant vessel, 'but, Admiral, I could not depart without
+paying you a farewell visit. Your conduct to me since our first
+meeting at Palermo has been so kind, so generous, that it can never be
+erased from my memory; it is engraven there indelibly--it will last my
+life.'
+
+On leaving the flagship he rowed straight to the American vessel,
+which soon afterwards steamed out of the bay. The parting salute fired
+by the guns of the _Hannibal_ was all the pomp that attended his
+departure. Several hours later the people of Naples knew that their
+liberator had gone to dig up the potatoes which he had planted in the
+spring.
+
+By Cavour's advice, Victor Emmanuel offered Garibaldi a dukedom and
+the Collar of the Annunziata, which confers the rank of cousin to the
+King, besides riches to support these honours. He refused everything,
+and returned to Caprera poorer than when he left it.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+BEGINNINGS OF THE ITALIAN KINGDOM
+
+1860-1861
+
+Beginnings of the Italian Kingdom--The Fall of Gaeta--Political
+Brigandage--The Proclamation of the Italian Kingdom--Cavour's Death.
+
+
+The Neapolitan army retreated, as has been already stated, beyond the
+Garigliano. Capua, isolated and surrounded, could render no material
+service to the royal cause; it capitulated on the 2nd of November,
+though not until the town had been bombarded for forty-eight hours.
+The siege was witnessed by Victor Emmanuel, who said to General Delia
+Rocca: 'It breaks my heart to think that we are sending death and
+destruction into an Italian town.' Two days after the surrender of
+Capua, Cialdini threw a bridge over the Garigliano near its mouth, an
+operation covered by the guns of Admiral Persano's squadron. His first
+attempt on the 29th of October had met with a decided repulse, another
+proof that this last remnant of the Neapolitan army was not an enemy
+to be despised. The second attempt, however, was successful; part of
+the Neapolitans fell back upon Gaeta, and the other part fled over the
+Papal frontier.
+
+Gaeta, the refuge of the Pope and the fugitive Princes in 1848, now
+became the ultimate rock of defence of the Bourbon dynasty. The
+position of the fortress is extremely strong and not unlike Gibraltar
+in its main features. A headland running out into the sea and rising
+to a height of three or four hundred feet, it is divided by a strip of
+sand from the shore-line. The principal defences were then composed of
+a triple semi-circle of ditches and ramparts one higher than the
+other. Had the country been flat the difficulties of the siege would
+have been much increased; its hilly character allowed Cialdini to fix
+his batteries on heights which commanded the top of the Gaeta hill.
+But to profit by this, the Piedmontese were obliged to make fourteen
+miles of roads by which to bring up their artillery. For a month,
+10,000 out of the 20,000 besiegers were at work with the spade. The
+defending force amounted to 11,000 men, and was commanded by General
+Ritucci. From the first, it was certain that the obstinate stand made
+at Gaeta could only result in what Lord John Russell called a useless
+effusion of blood; nevertheless it seems to have been prompted by a
+real belief that Francis would still recover his kingdom. The
+precedent of his father's return from Gaeta may have strengthened the
+King's illusion; every day he received highly-coloured reports of a
+gathering reaction, and as the French fleet in the bay prevented
+Admiral Persano from attacking from the sea, he believed that the time
+which he could hold out was indefinite. This policy of the French
+Government need not have greatly cheered him, as its motive was less
+to help Francis than to prepare the way, by hampering the Piedmontese,
+for a little fishing in troubled waters. Prince Murat, descendant of
+the _Beau Sabreur_, was busy writing proclamations to remind the world
+that if Francis were impossible and Victor Emmanuel 'wanted finish,'
+there was an eligible young man ready to sacrifice the charms of the
+Boulevards for the cares of kingship.
+
+On the representations of the British Government the Emperor withdrew
+his fleet in January, advising Francis II. to renounce a hopeless
+resistance. But at this eleventh hour the King had adopted the
+principle of 'no surrender,' and he meant to stick to it. It is
+difficult to blame him; at anyrate, much more serious is the blame due
+to the methods of warfare which he was to adopt or to approve
+thereafter. His young Queen, who was frequently seen on the ramparts
+encouraging the artillerymen at their guns, had probably much to do
+with his virile resolution. The fortress was now attacked by land and
+by sea, and the bursting of a powder-magazine inside the walls
+hastened its doom. On the 15th of January the Neapolitans laid down
+their arms, the King having left his dominions by sea. The first act
+of the conquerors in the half-ruined town was to attend a mass for the
+repose of the souls of the brave men, friends and foes, who had fallen
+during the siege. Noisy rejoicings would have been unseemly, for the
+vanquished were fellow-countrymen.
+
+The telegram announcing the fall of Gaeta went to Caprera; Garibaldi
+read it, and a weight was taken off his mind. 'Civil war is at an
+end,' he announced to the little party round the supper-table;
+'Cialdini with our army is in Gaeta; now the Italians will not cut one
+another's throats any more.' Later in the evening he seemed so
+depressed that they thought him ill; Colonel Vecchj went to his
+bedside to discover what was the matter. He found him reading the
+_Times_, and inquired why he had become so suddenly sad. After a
+pause, Garibaldi said: 'Poor boy! Born at the foot of a throne and
+perhaps not by his own fault, hurled from it. He too will have to feel
+the bitterness of exile without preparation.' 'Is that all?' asked
+Vecchj. 'Do you think it nothing?' was the answer. 'Why then,'
+persisted Vecchj, half in jest, 'did you go to Marsala?' 'It was the
+duty of us all to go,' Garibaldi said quickly, 'else how could there
+have been one Italy?'
+
+Francis II. would have been happy had he found counsellors to persuade
+him to keep pure such titles to sympathy as he then possessed.
+Decorum, if not humanity, should have urged him to retire, surrounded
+by the solitary flash of glory cast on his fallen cause by the brave
+defence of Gaeta. But the revolution, the new Islam, if it could not
+be conquered must be made to suffer for its triumph. Hence the exiled
+King was advised to call in murder, pillage and rapine as
+accomplices. The political brigandage which followed the downfall of
+the King of the Two Sicilies began after the battle of the Volturno
+and extended over five years. Its effect on the general situation was
+nil; it harassed and distracted the Italian Government and created the
+odious necessity of using severe repressive measures, but it never
+placed the crown in danger. One effect it did have, and that was to
+raise all over Italy a feeling of reprobation for the late dynasty,
+which not all the crimes and follies of the two Ferdinands and the
+first Francis had succeeded in evoking. How many bright lives, full of
+promise, were lost in that warfare which even the sacred name of duty
+could not save from being ungrateful and inglorious! Italians who have
+lost their children in their country's battles have never been heard
+to complain; nowhere was the seemliness of death for native land
+better understood than it has been in the Italy of this century, but
+to lose son or brother in a brigand ambush by the hand of an escaped
+galley-slave--this was hard. The thrust was sharpened by the knowledge
+that the fomenter of the mischief was dwelling securely in the heart
+of Italy, the guest of the Head of the Church. From Rome came money
+and instructions; from Rome, whether with or without the cognizance of
+the authorities, came recruits. The Roman frontier afforded a means of
+escape for all who could reach it, however red their hands were with
+blood. What further evidence was needed of the impossibility of an
+indefinite duration of this state within a state?
+
+King Francis held back at first, but his uncle, the Count of Trapani,
+who openly abetted the brigand partisans, drew him more and more into
+collusion with them and their works. The Belgian ecclesiastic, Mgr. de
+Merode, who had then an influence at the Vatican not possessed even
+by Antonelli, looked, unless he was much belied, with a very kind eye
+upon the new defenders of throne and altar. Efforts have been made to
+represent the war as one carried on by loyal peasants. No one denies
+that every peasants' war must assume, more or less, an aspect of
+brigandage; nevertheless there have been righteous and patriotic
+peasants' wars, such as that of the Klephts in Greece. The question
+is, Whether the political brigandage in South Italy had any real
+affinity with the wars of the Klephts, or even of the Carlists? And
+the answer must be a negative.
+
+The partisan chiefs in the kingdom of Naples were brigands, pure and
+simple, most of whom had either been long wanted by the police, or had
+already suffered in prison for their crimes. They organised their
+troops on the strict principles of brigand bands, and proposed to them
+the same object: pillage. 'Lieut-General' Chiavone who had a mania for
+imitating Garibaldi, was the least bad among them; unlike his
+prototype, he did not like being under fire, but neither did he care
+to spill innocent blood. What, however, can be said for Pilone,
+'commander of His Majesty's forces' on Vesuvius; for Ninco Nanco,
+Bianco dei Bianchi, Tardio, Palma; for Carusso, who cut the throats of
+thirteen out of fourteen labourers and told the one left to go and
+tell the tale; for the brothers La Gala, who roasted and ate a priest?
+It was said that no horror committed during the Indian Mutiny was here
+without a parallel.
+
+Of respectable Neapolitans who held responsible posts under the late
+_regime_ not one joined the bands, but they contained French, Austrian
+and Belgian officers, and one Prussian. A nephew of Mgr. de Merode,
+the young Marquis de Trazegnies, was with Chiavone; the Carlist, Jose
+Borjes, was with a scoundrel named Crocco. Borjes' case is a hard one.
+He had been made to believe in the genuine character of the
+insurrection and thought that he was giving his sword to an honourable
+cause. The melancholy disillusion can be traced in the pages of a
+note-book which he kept from day to day, and which fell into the hands
+of the Italians when he was captured. The brief entries show a poetic
+mind; he observes the fertile soil, deploring, only, that it is not
+better cultivated; he admires the smiling valleys and the magnificent
+woods whose kings of the forest show no mark of the centuries that
+passed over their fresh verdure. At first Borjes was pleased with the
+peasants who came to him, but as they were few, he was obliged to join
+Crocco's large band, and he now began to see, with horror, what kind
+of associates he had fallen amongst. He had no authority; the brigands
+laughed at his rebukes; never in his life, he writes, had he come
+across such thieves. Before the enemy they ran away like a flock of
+sheep, but when it was safe to do so, they murdered both men and
+women. In desperation, Borjes resolved to try and get to Rome, that he
+might lay the whole truth before the King, but after suffering many
+hardships, he was taken with a few others close to the Papal frontier
+and was immediately shot. He died bravely, chanting a Spanish litany.
+
+Borjes' journal notes the opposition of all classes, except the very
+poorest and most ignorant. Was it to be believed, therefore, that this
+mountain warfare, however long drawn out, could alter one iota the
+course of events? If Francis II. supposed the insurrection to be the
+work of a virtuous peasantry, why did he allow them to rush to their
+destruction?
+
+The task of restoring order was assigned to General Cialdini. He
+found the whole country, from the Abruzzi to Calabria, terrorised by
+the league of native assassins and foreign noblemen. The Modenese
+general was a severe officer who had learnt war in Spain, not a gentle
+school. If he exceeded the bounds of dire necessity he merits blame;
+but no one then hoped in the efficacy of half measures.
+
+One element in the epidemic of brigandage, and looking forward, the
+most serious of all, was an unconscious but profoundly real socialism.
+If half-a-dozen socialistic emissaries had assumed the office of
+guides and instructors, it is even odds that the red flag of communism
+would have displaced the white one of Bourbon. This feature became
+more accentuated as the struggle wore on, and after experience had
+been made of the new political state. The economic condition of a
+great part of the southern population was deplorable, but liberty, so
+many thought, would exercise an instantaneous effect, filling the
+mouths of the hungry, clothing the naked, providing firing in winter,
+sending rain or sunshine as it was wanted. But liberty does none of
+these things. The disappointment of the discovery did not count for
+nothing in the difficulties of that period; it counts for everything
+in the difficulties of this.
+
+The reorganisation of the southern provinces proceeded very slowly. The
+post of Lieutenant-Governor was successively conferred on L.C. Farini,
+Prince Eugene of Carignano, and Count Ponza di San Martino; for a short
+time Cialdini was invested with the supreme civil as well as military
+power. None of these changes met with entire success. The government was
+sometimes too weak, sometimes too arbitrary; of the great number of
+Piedmontese officials distributed through the south, a few won general
+approval, but the majority betrayed want of knowledge and tact, and were
+judged accordingly. It was a misfortune for the new administration that
+it was not assisted by the steam power of moral enthusiasm which
+appeared and disappeared with Garibaldi. There is a great amount of
+certainty that the vast bulk of the population desired union with Italy;
+but it is equally certain that the new Government, though not without
+good intentions, began by failing to please anybody, and the seeds of
+much future trouble were planted.
+
+On the 18th of February 1861, the first Italian legislature assembled
+at Turin in the old Chamber, where, by long years of patient work and
+self-sacrificing fidelity to principle, the possibility of
+establishing an Italian constitutional monarchy had been laboriously
+tested and established. Only the deputies of Rome and Venice were
+still missing. The first act of the new parliament was to pass an
+unanimous vote to the effect that Victor Emmanuel and his heirs should
+assume the title of King of Italy. The Italian kingdom thus
+constituted was recognised by England in a fortnight, by France in
+three months, by Prussia in a year, by Spain in four years, by the
+Pope never.
+
+After the merging of Naples in the Italian body-politic, one of the
+thorniest questions that arose was the disposal of the Garibaldian
+forces. The chief implored Victor Emmanuel to receive his comrades
+into his own army, a prayer which the King had not the power, even if
+he had the will, to grant, as in the constitutional course of things
+the decision was referred to the ministers, who, again, were crippled
+in their action by the military authorities at Turin. Though it is
+natural to sympathise with Garibaldi in his eagerness to obtain
+generous terms for his old companions-in-arms, it may be true that his
+demand was not one that could be satisfied in its full extent. The
+volunteers were not inferior to the ordinary soldier; about half of
+them were decidedly his superior, but they were a political body
+improvised for a special purpose, and it is easy to see how many were
+the reasons against their forming a division of a conventional army
+like that of Piedmont. Nevertheless, the means ought to have been
+found of convincing them that their King and country were proud of
+them, that their great, their incalculable services were appreciated.
+That such means were not found was supposed to be the fault of Cavour.
+It was only in 1885, on the publication of the fourth volume of the
+Count's letters, that it became known how strenuously he had fought
+for justice. Military prejudice was what was really to blame; General
+Fanti, the Minister of War, even provoked Cavour into telling him
+'that they were not in Spain, and that in Italy the army obeyed.' 'A
+cry of reprobation would be raised,' he wrote, 'if, while the Bourbon
+officers who ran away disgracefully were confirmed in their rank, the
+Garibaldians who beat them were coolly sent about their business.
+Rather than bear the responsibility of such an act of black
+ingratitude, I would go and bury myself at Leri. I despise the
+ungrateful to the point of not feeling angered by them, and I forgive
+their abuse. But, by Heaven, I could not bear the merited blot of
+having failed to recognise services such as the conquest of a kingdom
+of 9,000,000 inhabitants.'
+
+Cavour, in fact, did obtain something; much more than the army
+authorities wished to give, but much less than Garibaldi asked or than
+the Count would doubtless have given had not his hands been tied. And,
+doubtless, he would have given it with more grace.
+
+As it was, the volunteers were deeply offended and sent their griefs
+by every post to Caprera. Garibaldi, who refused every favour and
+honour for himself, was worked up into a state of fury by what he
+deemed the wrongs of his faithful followers, and in April he arrived
+unexpectedly at Turin to plead their cause before the Chamber of
+Deputies. Perhaps by a wise presentiment he had refused to stand for
+any constituency; but when Naples elected him her representative,
+almost without opposition, he submitted to the popular will. At Turin
+he fell ill with rheumatic fever, but on the day of the debate on the
+Southern Army he rose from his bed to take his seat in the Chamber.
+The case for the volunteers was opened, and this is worthy of note, by
+Baron Ricasoli, aristocrat and conservative. Afterwards Garibaldi got
+up--at first he tried to make out the statistics and particulars which
+he had on paper, but blinded by passion and by fever, he threw down
+his notes and launched into a fierce invective against 'the man who
+had made him a foreigner in his own birthplace and the government
+which was driving the country straight into civil war.' At the words
+'civil war' Cavour sprang to his feet, unwontedly moved, and uttered
+some expressions of protest, which were lost in the general uproar.
+When this was quieted, Garibaldi finished his speech in a moderate
+tone, and then General Bixio rose to make that noble appeal to concord
+which, had he done nothing else for Italy, should be a lasting title
+to her gratitude. 'I am one of those,' he said, 'who believe in the
+sacredness of the thoughts which have guided General Garibaldi, but
+I am also one of those who have faith in the patriotism of Count
+Cavour. In God's holy name let us make an Italy superior to the
+strife of parties.' He might not be making a parliamentary speech,
+he added, but he would give his children and his life to see peace
+established--words flowing so plainly from his honest heart that
+savage indeed would have been the enmity which, for the time, at
+least, was not quelled. Cavour grasped the olive branch at once; all
+his momentary ire vanished. He made excuses for his adversary; from
+the grief which he had felt himself when he advised the King to cede
+Savoy and Nice, he could understand the general's resentment. He had
+always been, he said in general terms, a friend to the volunteers.
+What he did not even remotely suggest was the dissension which existed
+between himself and his military colleague on the subject of the
+Garibaldians. The least hint would have gained for Cavour any amount
+of applause and popularity; but he preferred to bear all the blame
+rather than bring the national army into disfavour. Garibaldi replied
+'that he had never doubted the Count's patriotism;' but at the end of
+the three days' debate he declared himself dissatisfied with the
+Ministerial assurances touching the volunteers in particular and the
+country's armaments as a whole. As Cavour left the Chamber after the
+final night's sitting, he remarked to a friend--all his fine
+equanimity returned: 'And yet, and yet, when the time comes for war, I
+shall take General Garibaldi under my arm and say: "Let's go and see
+what they are about inside Verona!"'
+
+Cialdini tried to stir up the quarrel anew by a letter full of foolish
+personalities; but to this sort of attack Garibaldi was impervious. It
+mattered nothing to him that a man should make rude remarks about his
+wearing a red shirt. He admired the victor of Castelfidardo as one of
+Italy's best soldiers. He was, therefore, perfectly ready to embrace
+Cialdini at the King's request before he left Turin for Caprera. It
+cost him more to consent to an interview of reconciliation with the
+Prime Minister in the royal presence, because his disagreement with
+Cavour was purely political and impersonal, and was rooted more deeply
+in his heart than any private irritation could be; but he did consent,
+and the interview took place on the 23rd of April. Probably Victor
+Emmanuel in after days was never gladder of anything he had done than
+of having caused his two great subjects--both his subjects born--to
+part for the last time in this mortal life in peace.
+
+On one other memorable occasion the man who, at twenty-two, said that
+he meant to be Prime Minister of Italy, and who now, at fifty-one, was
+keeping his word, filled with his presence the Chamber of which he
+seemed to incarnate the life and history--which may be said to have
+been his only home, for Cavour hardly had a private life. Very soon
+the familiar figure was to vacate the accustomed place for ever.
+
+An obscure deputy put a question on the 25th of May, which gave Cavour
+the opportunity of expounding his views about Rome still more
+explicitly than in the previous autumn. It was impossible, he said, to
+conceive Italian unity without Rome as capital. Were there any other
+solution to the problem he would be willing to give it due
+consideration, but there was not. The position of a capital was not
+decided by climatic or topographical reasons: a glance at capitals of
+Europe was sufficient to certify the fact; it was decided by moral
+reasons. Now Rome, alone out of the Italian cities, had an undisputed
+moral claim to primacy. 'As far as I am personally concerned,' he
+said, 'I shall go to Rome with sorrow; not caring for art, I am sure
+that among the most splendid monuments of ancient and modern Rome I
+shall regret the sedate and unpoetic streets of my native town.' It
+grieved him to think that Turin must resign her most cherished
+privilege, but he knew his fellow-citizens, and he knew them to be
+ready to make this last sacrifice to their country. Might Italy not
+forget the cradle of her liberties when her seat of government was
+firmly established in the Eternal City!
+
+He went on to say that he had not lost the hope that France and the
+Head of the Church would yield to the inexorable logic of the
+situation, and that the same generation which had resuscitated Italy
+would accomplish the still grander task of concluding a peace between
+the State and the Church, liberty and religion. These were no formal
+words; Cavour's whole heart was set on their realisation. He did not
+doubt that the knot, if not untied, would be cut by the sword sooner
+or later. He felt as sure as Mazzini felt that this would happen; but
+more than any man of any party he had reckoned the cost of ranging the
+Church with its vast potential powers for good, for order, for public
+morality, among the implacable enemies of the nascent kingdom. And,
+therefore, his last public utterance was a cry for religious peace.
+
+Always an immense worker, in these latter months Cavour had been
+possessed by a feverish activity. 'I must make haste to finish my
+work,' he said; 'I feel that this miserable body of mine is giving way
+beneath the mind and will which still urge it on. Some fine day you
+will see me break down upon the road.' On the 6th of June, after two
+or three days of so-called sudden illness, he broke down upon the
+road.
+
+Fra Giacomo, faithful to his old promise, administered the sacraments
+to the dying minister, who told Farini 'to tell the good people of
+Turin that he died a Christian.' After this his mind rambled, but
+always upon the themes that had so completely absorbed it: Rome,
+Venice, Naples--'no state of siege,' was one of his broken sayings
+that referred to Naples. It was his farewell protest against brute
+force in which he had never believed. 'Cleanse them, cleanse them,' he
+repeated; cleanse the people of the South of their moral contagion;
+that, not force, was the remedy. He was able to recognise the King,
+but unable to collect the ideas which he wished to express to him.
+
+Cavour's death caused a profound sensation in Europe, and in Italy and
+in England awakened great sorrow. Hardly any public man has received
+so splendid a tribute as that rendered to his memory in the British
+Houses of Parliament. The same words were on the lips of all: What
+would Italy do without him? Death is commonly the great reminder that
+no man is necessary. Nations fulfil their destinies even though their
+greatest sons be laid under the turf. And Italy has fulfilled her
+destinies, but there are Italians who believe that had Cavour lived to
+complete his task, although his dream of an Eirenicon might never have
+been realised, their country would not have passed through the _selva
+selvaggia_ of mistakes and humiliations into which she now entered.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+ROME OR DEATH
+
+1861-1864
+
+Cavour's Successors--Aspromonte--The September Convention--Garibaldi's
+Visit to England.
+
+
+There were two possible successors to Cavour, the Tuscan, Bettino
+Ricasoli, and Urban Rattazzi, a Piedmontese barrister. The first
+belonged to the right, the second to the left centre in the
+Parliamentary combinations. Cavour had no very close personal
+relations with either, but he knew their characters. Rattazzi formerly
+held ministerial office under him, and the long Tuscan crisis of 1859,
+looked at, as he looked at it, from the inside, gave him opportunities
+of judging the Iron Baron who opposed even his own will on more than
+one occasion in that great emergency. Ricasoli was rigid, frigid, a
+frequenter of the straightest possible roads; Rattazzi, supple,
+accommodating, with an incorrigible partiality for umbrageous by-ways.
+He was already an 'old parliamentary hand,' and in the future, through
+a series of ministerial lapses, any one of which would have condemned
+most men to seclusion, he preserved his talent for manufacturing
+majorities and holding his party together. Choosing between these two
+candidates, Cavour before he died gave his preference to Ricasoli, who
+was charged by the King with the formation of a ministry in which he
+took the Treasury and the Foreign Office.
+
+Ricasoli was without ambition, and he rather under than over-rated his
+abilities, but he went to work with considerable confidence in his power
+of setting everything right. A perfectly open and honest statesman
+ought to be able, he imagined, to solve the most difficult problems. Why
+not, except that the world is not what it ought to be? In home politics
+he offended the Party of Action by telling them plainly that if they
+broke the law they would have to pay the cost, and he offended his own
+party by refusing to interfere with the right of meeting or any other
+constitutional right of citizens, whether they were followers of Mazzini
+or of anybody else, as long as they kept within legal bounds. He wrote
+an elaborate letter to Pius IX., in which he sought to persuade the
+Pontiff of the sweet reasonableness of renouncing claims which, for a
+very long spell, had cast nothing but discredit on religion. Ricasoli's
+attitude towards the Temporal Power was unique in this century. Like
+Dante's, his hatred of it was religious. He was a Catholic, not because
+he had never thought or studied, but because, having thought and
+studied, he assented, and from this standpoint he ascribed most of the
+wounds of the Church to her subordination of her spiritual mission to
+material interests. He encouraged Padre Passaglia to collect the
+signatures of priests for a petition praying the Pope to cease opposing
+the desires of all Italy; 8943 names were affixed in a short time. The
+only result of these transactions was that Cardinal Antonelli remarked
+to the French Government that the Holy See would never come to terms
+with robbers, and that, although at war with the Turin Cabinet, 'the
+Pope's relations with Italy were excellent.' More harmful to Ricasoli
+than the fulminations of the Vatican was the veiled but determined
+hostility of Napoleon III. Cavour succeeded in more or less keeping the
+Emperor in ignorance of the degree to which their long partnership
+resembled a duel. He made him think that he was leading while he was
+being led. With Ricasoli there could be no such illusions. Napoleon
+understood him to be a man whom he might break, not bend. He thought it
+desirable to break him, and Imperial desires had many channels, at that
+time, towards fulfilment.
+
+The Ricasoli ministry fell in February 1862, and, as a matter of
+course, Rattazzi was called to power. The new premier soon
+ingratiated himself with the King, who found him easier to get on with
+than the Florentine _grand seigneur_; with Garibaldi, whom he
+persuaded that some great step in the national redemption was on the
+eve of accomplishment; with Napoleon, who divined in him an
+instrument. Meanwhile, in his own mind, he proposed to eclipse Cavour,
+out-manoeuvre all parties, and make his name immortal. This remains
+the most probable, as it is the most lenient interpretation to which
+his strange policy is open.
+
+Garibaldi was encouraged to visit the principal towns of North Italy
+in order to institute the _Tiro Nazionale_ or Rifle Association, which
+was said to be meant to form the basis of a permanent volunteer force
+on the English pattern. For many reasons, such a scheme was not likely
+to succeed in Italy, but most people supposed the object to be
+different--namely, the preparation of the youth of the nation for an
+immediate war. The idea was strengthened when it was observed that
+Trescorre, in the province of Bergamo, where Garibaldi stopped to take
+a course of sulphur baths, became the centre of a gathering which
+included the greater part of his old Sicilian staff. There was no
+concealment in what was done, and the Government manifested no alarm.
+The air was full of rumours, and in particular much was said about a
+Garibaldian expedition to Greece, for which, it was stated and
+re-stated, Rattazzi had promised L40,000. That Garibaldi meant to cast
+his lot in any struggle not bearing directly on Italian affairs, as
+long as the questions of Rome and Venice still hung in the balance, is
+not to be believed. A little earlier than this date, President Lincoln
+invited him to take the supreme command of the Federal army in the war
+for the Union, and he declined the offer, attractive though it must
+have been to him, both as a soldier and an abhorrer of slavery,
+because he did not think that Italy could spare him. But the 'Greek
+Expedition,' though a misleading name, was not altogether a blind.
+Before Cavour's death, there had been frequent discussion of a project
+for revolutionising the east of Europe on a grand scale; Hungary and
+the southern provinces of the Austrian Empire were to co-operate with
+the Slavs and other populations under Turkey in a movement which, even
+if only partially successful, would go far to facilitate the
+liberation of Venice. It cannot be doubted that Rattazzi's brain was
+at work on something of this sort, but the mobilisation, so to speak,
+of the Garibaldians suggested proceedings nearer home. Trescorre was
+very far from the sea, very near the Austrian frontier.
+
+In spite of contradictions, a plan for invading the Trentino, or South
+Tyrol, almost certainly did exist. Whether Garibaldi was alone
+answerable for it cannot be determined. The Government became suddenly
+alive to the enormous peril such an attack would involve, and arrested
+several of the Garibaldian officers at Sarnico. They were conveyed to
+Brescia, where a popular attempt was made to liberate them; the troops
+fired on the crowd, and some blood was shed. Garibaldi wrote an
+indignant protest and retired, first to the villa of Signora Cairoli
+at Belgirate, and then to Caprera. He did not, however, remain there
+long.
+
+After this point, the thread of events becomes tangled beyond the hope
+of unravelment. What were the causes which led Garibaldi into the
+desperate venture that ended at Aspromonte? Recollecting his
+hesitation before assuming the leadership of the Sicilian expedition,
+it seemed the more unintelligible that he should now undertake an
+enterprise which, unless he could rely on the complicity of
+Government, had not a single possibility of success. His own old
+comrades were opposed to it, and it was notorious that Mazzini, to
+whom the counsels of despair were generally either rightly or wrongly
+attributed, had nothing to do with inspiring this attempt. In justice
+to Rattazzi, it must be allowed that, after the arrests at Sarnico,
+Garibaldi went into open opposition to the ministry, which he
+denounced as subservient to Napoleon. Nevertheless, with the
+remembrance of past circumstances in his mind, he may have felt
+convinced that the Prime Minister did not mean or that he would not
+dare to oppose him by force. One thing is certain; from beginning to
+end he never contemplated civil war. His disobedience to the King of
+Italy had only one purpose--to give him Rome. He was no more a rebel
+to Victor Emmanuel than when he marched through Sicily in 1860.
+
+The earlier stages of the affair were not calculated to weaken a
+belief in the effective non-intervention of Government. Garibaldi went
+to Palermo, where he arrived in the evening of the 28th of June. The
+young Princes Umberto and Amedeo were on a visit to the Prefect, the
+Marquis Pallavicini, and happened to be that night at the opera. All
+at once they perceived the spectators leave the house in a body, and
+they were left alone; on asking the reason, they heard that Garibaldi
+had just landed--all were gone to greet him! Before the departure of
+the Princes next day, the chief and his future King had an
+affectionate meeting, while the population renewed the scenes of wild
+enthusiasm of two years ago. Some of Garibaldi's intimate friends
+assert that when he reached Palermo he had still no intention of
+taking up arms. He soon began, however, to speak in a warlike tone,
+and at a review of the National Guard in presence of the Prefect, the
+Syndic, and all the authorities, he told the 'People of the Vespers'
+that if another Vespers were wanted to do it, Napoleon III., head of
+the brigands, must be ejected from Rome. The epithet was not bestowed
+at random; Lord Palmerston confirmed it when he said from his place in
+the House of Commons: 'In Rome there is a French garrison; under its
+shelter there exists a committee of 200, whose practice is to organise
+a band of murderers, the scum and dross of every nation, and send them
+into the Neapolitan territory to commit every atrocity!' As a
+criticism the words are not less strong; but the public defiance of
+Napoleon, and the threat with which it was accompanied, dictated one
+plain duty to the Italian Government if they meant to keep the
+peace--the arrest of Garibaldi and his embarkation for Caprera.
+
+This they did not do; confining themselves to the recall of the
+Marquis Pallavicini. Garibaldi went over the ground made glorious by
+his former exploits--past Calatafimi to Marsala. It was at Marsala
+that, while he harangued his followers in a church, a voice in the
+crowd raised a cry of '_Rome or death!_' 'Yes; Rome or death!'
+repeated Garibaldi; and thus the watchword originated which will
+endure written in blood on the Bitter Mount and on the Plain of
+Nomentum. Who raised it first? Perhaps some humble Sicilian fisherman.
+Its haunting music coming he knew not whence, sounding in his ear like
+an omen, was what wedded Garibaldi irrevocably to the undertaking. It
+was the casting interposition of chance, or, shall it be said, of
+Providence? Like all men of his mould, Garibaldi was governed by
+poetry, by romance. Besides the general patriotic sentiment, he had a
+peculiar personal feeling about Rome, 'which for me,' he once wrote,
+'is Italy.' In 1849, the Assembly in its last moments invested him
+with plenary powers for the defence of the Eternal City, and this
+vote, never revoked, imposed on his imagination a permanent mandate.
+'Rome or death' suggested an idea to him which he had never before
+entertained, prodigal though he had been of his person in a hundred
+fights: What if his own death were the one thing needful to
+precipitate the solution of the problem?
+
+From Marsala he returned to Palermo, where, in the broad light of day,
+he summoned the Faithful, who came, as usual, at his bidding, without
+asking why or where?--the happy few who followed him in 1859 and 1860;
+who would follow him in 1867, and even in 1870, when they gave their
+lives for a people that did not thank them, because he willed it so.
+He sent out also a call to the Sicilian _Picciotti_, the _Squadre_ of
+last year; and it is much to their credit that they too who cared
+possibly remarkably little for _Roma Capitale_, obeyed the man who had
+freed them. And Rattazzi knew of all this, and did nothing.
+
+On the 1st of August, Garibaldi took command of 3000 volunteers in the
+woods of Ficuzza. Then, indeed, the Government wasted much paper on
+proclamations, and closed the door of the stable when the horse was
+gone. General Cugia was sent to Palermo to repress the movement.
+Nevertheless Garibaldi, with his constantly increasing band, made a
+triumphant progress across the island, and a more than royal entry
+into Catania. At Mezzojuso he was present at a _Te Deum_ chanted in
+his honour. On the 22nd, when the royal troops were, it seems, really
+ordered to march on Catania, Garibaldi took possession of a couple of
+merchant vessels that had just reached the port, and sailed away by
+night for the Calabrian coast with about 1000 of his men.
+
+By this time the Italian Government, whether by spontaneous conviction
+or by pressure from without, had resolved that the band should never
+get as far as the Papal frontier. If Garibaldi knew or realised their
+resolution, it is a mystery why he did not attempt to effect a landing
+nearer that frontier, if not actually within it. The deserted shore of
+the Pontine marshes would, one would think, have offered attractions
+to men who were as little afraid of fever as of bullets. A sort of
+superstition may have ruled the choice of the path, which was that
+which led to victory in 1860. It was not practicable, however, to
+follow it exactly. The tactics were different. Then the desire was to
+meet the enemy anywhere and everywhere; now the pursuer had to be
+eluded, because Garibaldi was determined not to fight him. Thus,
+instead of marching straight on Reggio, the volunteers sought
+concealment in the great mountain mass which forms the southernmost
+bulwark of the Apennines. The dense and trackless forests could have
+given cover for a long while to a native brigand troop, with intimate
+knowledge of the country and ways and means of obtaining
+provisions--not to a band like this of Garibaldi. They wandered about
+for three days, suffering from almost total want of food, and from the
+great fatigue of climbing the dried-up watercourses which serve as
+paths. On the 28th of August they reached the heights of Aspromonte--a
+strong position, from which only a large force could have dislodged
+them had they defended it.
+
+General La Marmora, then Prefect of Naples, and commander-in-chief of
+the army in the south, reinforced the troops in Calabria to prevent
+Garibaldi's advance, but the direction of the decisive operation fell
+by accident to Cialdini, whom the Government despatched to Sicily
+when they tardily made up their minds to take energetic measures. On
+his voyage to Messina, Cialdini heard that the volunteers had already
+crossed the Straits; he therefore changed his course, and hastening to
+Reggio, invested himself with the command on the mainland. At Reggio
+he met Colonel Pallavicini, whom he ordered in terms that might have
+been more suitable had he been engaged in hunting brigands, 'to crush
+Garibaldi completely, and only accept from him unconditional
+surrender.' Pallavicini started with six or seven battalions of
+Bersaglieri. It was the 29th of August. Garibaldi saw them coming when
+they were still three miles off. He could have dispersed his men in
+the forest and himself escaped, for the time, and perhaps altogether,
+for the sea which had so often befriended him was not far off. But
+although he did not mean to resist, a dogged instinct drove away the
+thought of flight. In the official account it was stated that an
+officer was sent in advance of the royal troops to demand surrender.
+No such officer was seen in the Garibaldian encampment till after the
+attack. The troops rapidly ascended an eminence, facing that on which
+the Garibaldians were posted, and opened a violent fusillade, which,
+to Garibaldi's dismay, was returned for a few minutes by his right,
+consisting of young Sicilians who were not sufficiently disciplined to
+stand being made targets of without replying. The contention, however,
+that they were the first to fire, has the testimony of every
+eye-witness on the side of the volunteers against it. All the
+Garibaldian bugles sounded 'Cease firing,' and Garibaldi walked down
+in front of the ranks conjuring the men to obey. While he was thus
+employed, a spent ball struck his thigh, and a bullet entered his
+right foot. At first he remained standing, and repeated, 'Do not
+fire,' but he was obliged to sit down, and some of his officers
+carried him under a tree. The whole 'feat of arms,' as General
+Cialdini described it, did not last more than a quarter of an hour.
+
+Pallavicini approached the wounded hero bareheaded, and said that he
+made his acquaintance on the most unfortunate day of his own life. He
+was received with nothing but kind praise for doing his duty. The
+first night was passed by the prisoner in a shepherd's hut. The few
+devoted followers who were with him were strangely impressed by that
+midnight watch; the moon shining on the forest, the shepherds' dogs
+howling in the mountain silence, and their chief lying wounded, it
+might be to death, in the name of the King to whom he had given this
+land.
+
+Next day, in a litter sheltered from the sun with branches of wild
+laurel, Garibaldi was carried down the steep rocks to Scilla, whence
+he was conveyed by sea to the fort of Varignano. It was not till after
+months of acute suffering, borne with a gentleness that made the
+doctors say: 'This man is not a soldier, but a saint,' that, through
+the skill of the French surgeon, Nelaton, the position of the ball was
+determined, and its extraction rendered possible.
+
+A general amnesty issued on the occasion of the marriage of the King's
+second daughter with the King of Portugal relieved the Government of
+having to decide whether Garibaldi was to be tried, and if so, what
+for; but the unpopularity into which the ministry had fallen could not
+be so easily dissipated. The Minister of Foreign Affairs (Durando)
+published a note in which it was stated that Garibaldi had only
+attempted to realise, in an irregular way, the desire of the whole
+nation, and that, although he had been checked, the tension of the
+situation was such that it could not be indefinitely prolonged. This
+was true, but it hardly improved the case for the Government. In Latin
+countries, ministers do not cling to power; as soon as the wind blows
+against them, they resign to give the public time to forget their
+faults, and to become dissatisfied with their political rivals.
+Usually a very short time is required. Therefore, forestalling a vote
+of censure in the Chambers, where he had never yet had a real
+majority, Rattazzi resigned office with a parting homily in which he
+claimed to have saved the national institutions.
+
+The administration which followed contained the well-known names of
+Farini, Minghetti, Pasolini, Peruzzi, Delia Rovere, Menabrea. When
+Farini's fatal illness set in, Minghetti replaced him as Prime
+Minister, and Visconti Venosta took the Foreign Office. They found the
+country in a lamentable state, embittered by Aspromonte, still
+infected with brigandage, and suffering from an increasing deficit,
+coupled with a diminishing revenue. The administrative and financial
+unification of Italy, still far from complete, presented the gravest
+difficulties. The political aspect of affairs, and especially the
+presence of the French in Rome, provoked a general sense of
+instability which was contrary to the organisation of the new state
+and the development of its resources. The ministers sought remedies or
+palliatives for these several evils, and to meet the last they opened
+negotiations with France, which resulted in the compromise known as
+the September Convention. It was long before the treaty was concluded,
+as for more than a year the French Government refused to remove the
+garrison on any terms; but in the autumn of 1864 the following
+arrangement was signed by both parties: that Italy should protect the
+Papal frontier from all attack from the outside; that France should
+gradually withdraw her troops, the complete evacuation to take place
+within two years; that Italy should waive the right of protest against
+the internal organisation of the Papal army unless its proportions
+became such as to be a manifest threat to the Italian kingdom; that
+the Italian capital should be moved to Florence within six months of
+the approval of the Convention by Parliament.
+
+These terms were in part the same as those proposed by Prince Napoleon
+to Cavour shortly before the death of that statesman, who had promised
+to support them as a temporary makeshift, and in order to get the
+French out of Italy. But they were in part different, and they
+contained two new provisions which it is morally certain that Cavour
+would never have agreed to--the prolongation of the French occupation
+for two years (Cavour had insisted that it should cease in a
+fortnight), and the transfer of the capital, which was now made a
+_sine qua non_ by Napoleon, for evident reasons. While it was clear
+that Turin could not be the permanent capital of a kingdom that
+stretched to AEtna, if once the seat of government were removed to
+Florence a thousand arguments and interests would spring up in favour
+of keeping it there. So, at least, it was sure to seem to a foreigner.
+As a matter of fact, the solution was no solution; the Italians could
+not be reconciled to the loss of Rome either by the beauty and
+historic splendour of the city on the Arno, or by its immunity from
+malaria, which was then feared as a serious drawback, though Rome has
+become, under its present rulers, the healthiest capital in Europe.
+But Napoleon thought that he was playing a trump card when he dictated
+the sacrifice of Turin.
+
+The patriotic Turinese were unprepared for the blow. They had been
+told again and again that till the seat of government was established
+on the Tiber, it should abide under the shadow of the Alps--white
+guardian angels of Italy--in the custody of the hardy population which
+had shown itself so well worthy of the trust. The ministry foresaw the
+effect which the convention would have on the minds of the Turinese,
+and they resorted to the weak subterfuge of keeping its terms secret
+as long as they could. Rumours, however, leaked out, and these, as
+usual, exaggerated the evil. It was said that Rome was categorically
+abandoned. On the 20th of September crowds began to fill the streets,
+crying: 'Rome or Turin!' and on the two following days there were
+encounters between the populace and the military, in which the latter
+resorted to unnecessary and almost provocative violence. Amidst the
+chorus of censure aroused by these events, the Minghetti cabinet
+resigned, and General La Marmora, who, as a Piedmontese, was fitted to
+soothe the excited feelings of his fellow-citizens, was called upon to
+form a ministry.
+
+The change of capital received the sanction of Parliament on the 19th
+of November. Outside Piedmont it was not unpopular; people felt that,
+after all, it rested with themselves to make Florence no final
+halting-place, but a step towards Rome. The Papal Government, which
+had been a stranger to the late negotiations, expressed a supreme
+indifference to the whole affair, even to the contemplated departure
+of the French troops, 'which concerned the Imperial Government, not
+the Pope,' said Cardinal Antonelli, 'since the occupation had been
+determined by French interests.' It cannot be asserted that the Pope
+ever assumed a gratitude which he did not feel towards the monarch who
+kept him on his throne for twenty years.
+
+This year, 1864, was marked by an incident which, though not a
+political event, should never be forgotten in the history of Italian
+liberation--Garibaldi's visit to England. He came, the prisoner of
+Aspromonte, not the conqueror of Sicily: a distinction that might have
+made a difference elsewhere, but the English sometimes worship
+misfortune as other peoples worship success. No sovereign from oversea
+was ever received by them as they received the Italian hero; a
+reception showing the sympathies of a century rather than the caprice
+or curiosity of an hour. Half a million throats shouted London's
+welcome; the soldier of two worlds knew the roar of battle, and the
+roar of the sea was familiar to the Nizzard sailor, but it is said
+that when Garibaldi heard the stupendous and almost awful British roar
+which greeted him as he came out of the Nine Elms station, and took
+his seat in the carriage that was to convey him to Stafford House, he
+looked completely disconcerted. From the heir to the throne to the
+crossing-sweeper, all combined to do him honour; where Garibaldi was
+not, through the breadth of the land the very poor bought his portrait
+and pasted it on their whitewashed cottage walls. London made him its
+citizen. The greatest living English poet invited him to plant a tree
+in his garden: a memory he recalled nearly at the close of his own
+honoured life:--
+
+  Or watch the waving pine which here
+    The warrior of Caprera set,
+    A name that earth shall not forget
+  Till earth has rolled her latest year.
+
+Garibaldi showed himself mindful of old friends; at the opera he
+recognised Admiral Mundy in a box, and immediately rose and went to
+offer him his respects. At Portsmouth, he not only went to see the
+mother of Signora White-Mario (the providence of his wounded in many a
+campaign), but also paid an unrecorded visit to two maiden sisters in
+humble circumstances, who had shown him kindness when he was an exile
+in England; they related ever afterwards the sensation caused by his
+appearance in their narrow courtyard, where it was difficult to turn
+the big carriage which the authorities had placed at his disposal. He
+twice met the great Italian whom he addressed as Master: transferring,
+as it were, to Mazzini's brows the crown of glory that surrounded his
+own. Another exile, Louis Blanc, used to tell how, when he went to
+call on Garibaldi, he found him seated on a sofa, receiving the homage
+of the fairest and most illustrious members of the English
+aristocracy; when the Friend of the People was announced (a title
+deserved by Louis Blanc, if not for his possibly fallacious theories,
+still for the rare sincerity of his life), the hero started to his
+feet and most earnestly begged him to sit beside him. 'Which I could
+not do!' the narrator of the scene would add with a look of comical
+alarm for his threatened modesty.
+
+These friendly passages with the proscripts in London, as well as the
+stirring appeal spoken by Garibaldi on behalf of the Poles, did not
+please foreign Powers. The Austrian ambassador shut himself up in his
+house; it was remarked that the only members of the diplomatic body
+who were seen at the Garibaldi _fetes_ were the representatives of the
+United States and of the Sublime Porte. The Emperor Napoleon was said
+to be angry. Lord Palmerston assured the House of Commons that no
+remonstrance had been received from France or from any foreign
+government, and that if it had been received, it would not have been
+heeded. Yet the English Government took the course of hinting to the
+guest of England that his visit had lasted long enough. In some
+quarters it was reported that they feared disturbances among the Irish
+operatives in the manufacturing towns, had he gone, as he intended,
+to the north. Whatever were the motives that inspired it, their action
+in the matter cannot be remembered with complacency, but it was
+powerless to undo the significance of the great current of enthusiasm
+which had passed through the English land.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE WAR FOR VENICE
+
+1864-1866
+
+The Prussian Alliance--Custoza--Lissa--The Volunteers--Acquisition of
+Venetia.
+
+
+The change of capital was carried out in 1865, and the lull which
+followed gave an appearance of correctness to the surmise that if the
+September Convention had not solved the Roman question, it had,
+anyhow, reduced it to a state of quiescence. But there were other
+reasons why Rome was kept, for the moment, not indeed out of mind, but
+out of sight. The opinion grew that the emancipation of Venice, too
+long delayed, ought to take precedence of every other political
+object. On this point there was no disagreement among the 22,000,000
+free Italians, who felt the servitude of Venice to be an hourly
+disgrace and reproach; no one even ventured to preach patience. A
+curious chapter might be written on the schemes woven between the
+Peace of Villafranca and the year 1866, for the realisation of the
+unfulfilled promise of freedom from Alps to sea. Foremost among the
+schemers was Victor Emmanuel, and if some persons may be shocked by
+the idea of a royal conspirator, more will admire the patriotism which
+made the King hold out his hand to Mazzini, whose sentiments about
+monarchy, and especially about the Savoy dynasty, were a secret to no
+one, least of all to him. But as Mazzini placed those sentiments on
+second rank to the grand end of Italian unity, so the King, to serve
+the same end, showed himself superior to prejudices which in most men
+would have proved insuperable. The fact that Victor Emmanuel opened
+negotiations with Mazzini, and maintained them, off and on, for years,
+proves amongst other things, that he knew the exiled patriot better
+than the world yet knew him. He may have understood that by turning
+republican sympathies into the groove of unity (not their necessary or
+even their most natural groove), Mazzini made an Italian kingdom
+possible. There is reason to think that the King's ministers were
+kept entirely ignorant of his correspondence with the Agitator. The
+letters were impersonal drafts carried to and fro by means of trusted
+emissaries; each party freely expounded his views, and stated the
+terms on which his support could be given. Victor Emmanuel's favourite
+idea was a revolution in Galicia. When Garibaldi returned from England
+he was nearly commissioned to start for Constantinople, whence he was
+to lead an expedition through Roumania into Galicia. It seems to have
+been due to Garibaldi's own good sense that so extremely unpromising a
+project was abandoned. General Klapka was another of Victor Emmanuel's
+secret revolutionary correspondents. The very wildness of the plans
+that floated in the air betokened the feverish anxiety to do something
+which had taken hold of all minds.
+
+In 1865 a scheme of a different sort, and of momentous consequences,
+grew into shape. It was a scheme of which Cavour first guessed the
+possibility, as well as the far-reaching results. In August 1865 Count
+Bismarck asked General La Marmora whether Italy would join Prussia in
+the contingency of a war with Austria? Only a year before he was still
+thinking of carrying out his policy with the aid of Austria, and he
+had offered to help her to wrench Lombardy from Italy (and from France
+if she intervened), in payment for her consent to his designs. But
+now, though the Austrians did not even remotely suspect it, his
+thoughts were resolutely turned to the Italian alliance. Without this
+alliance Italy might, indeed, have acquired Venice, but would the
+German Empire have been founded?
+
+For a time the proposal was suspended, owing to the temporary
+understanding concluded between Prussia and Austria at Gastein; and
+in the interim, General La Marmora urged the Viennese Government to
+cede Venetia in return for a compensation of five hundred million
+francs. But those whom the gods would destroy they make mad. Austria
+preserved her infatuated sense of security almost till the rude
+awakening caused by the rifle-shots that ushered in the campaign of
+Sadowa.
+
+One thing which contributed to keeping Europe in the dark as to the
+impending cataclysm was the character and known tendencies of King
+William I. of Prussia, whose conservative, not to say retrograde
+sentiments made it difficult to picture him at the head of what was
+really a great revolutionary movement, in spite of the militarism that
+surrounded it. With consummate art, Count Bismarck little by little
+concentrated all his master's ideas about royal divinity in general
+into one overwhelming belief in his own divine right to be German
+Emperor, and so transformed an obstacle into the corner-stone of the
+edifice he wished to build. But this could hardly be foreseen. At the
+New Year's Day reception of 1866, Napoleon announced an era of
+universal peace; henceforth all nations were to arrange their
+differences amicably, as had been done at Gastein If the illusion was
+complete, it was destined to be of short duration.
+
+In the spring the Prussian proposal to Italy was formally renewed, and
+this time it was accepted. The secret treaty of an offensive and
+defensive alliance for three months was signed on the 8th of April.
+Less than three weeks later, Austria, which was slowly beginning to
+feel some uneasiness, proposed to Napoleon the cession of Venetia,
+while exacting from Italy only a simple promise of neutrality in case
+of war. General La Marmora held the honour of the country and his own
+to compel fidelity to the prior arrangement with Prussia, and he
+refused the tempting offer. His choice has been variously
+characterised as one of common honesty and of uncommon magnanimity; at
+all events, it was of incalculable advantage to Prussia, which already
+gave signs of not being a particularly delicate-minded ally. When La
+Marmora asked Bismarck whether, in case Austria took the initiative of
+attacking Italy, Prussia would intervene, the answer was 'No.'
+
+The three countries now pushed on their war preparations: Austria with
+less ardour than the others, as she still failed to more than faintly
+realise her danger. The Italian army, which the opening of the year
+found in a deplorably unserviceable condition, was rapidly placed on a
+war-footing, and, considering the shortness of the time allowed for
+the work, and the secrecy with which, at the outset, it had to be
+conducted, it is generally agreed that La Marmora produced surprising
+results. As was natural in an army which, except for the old
+Piedmontese nucleus, might almost be called improvised, the weakest
+points were the cavalry and the artillery. The infantry was good; not
+only the picked corps of Bersaglieri, but also the line regiments were
+equal to any troops likely to be opposed to them. No one can see the
+fine appearance of a line regiment marching down the streets of an
+Italian town without receiving the impression that, however much the
+other branches of the service may have improved since the Sixties, the
+fondest hopes of Italy in case of war still lie in that common soldier
+who best supported the rigours of the Russian snows.
+
+Unfortunately, the attention paid to the army was not extended to the
+fleet, which continued totally unready; nor was the organisation of
+the volunteers carried out in an efficient manner. The excuse
+afterwards advanced was that not more than 15,000 enrolments were
+expected, while the actual figure reached 35,000. Besides being from
+its very bulk less manageable than the 'few and good' of 1859, this
+mass of men was ill-provided with officers who could inspire and keep
+discipline. Garibaldi's own generals, Bixio, Medici, Cosenz and
+Sirtori, were now all in the regular army, and therefore not free to
+join him. He begged for the loan of a few regular officers, indicating
+amongst other names that of Colonel Pallavicini, who commanded against
+him at Aspromonte: a trait characteristic of the man. But this
+assistance, though promised, was not granted, and the same was the
+case with the guns which were vainly asked for. Without charging La
+Marmora with a deliberate intention of neglecting the volunteers, it
+must be owned that under the influence of the prejudice which holds
+irregular troops in small esteem, he did not do for them what ought to
+have been done if their services were accepted at all.
+
+The Austrian Southern Army, excellent in discipline and equipment
+though weak in numbers, was commanded up to the outbreak of the war by
+Field-Marshal Benedek, but he was called to Vienna to take command of
+the unfortunate army of operation against Prussia, and was succeeded
+in Italy by the Archduke Albrecht, with General Von John, an officer
+of the first capacity, as chief of the staff.
+
+The numerical strength of the forces which could be put in the field
+has been stated with startling divergence by different military
+writers on the war, but every calculation gives the Italian side
+(exclusive of the volunteers) a superiority of not less than two to
+one. The Austrian mobilised army has been reckoned at as low a figure
+as 63,000, certainly an understatement, as it appears that the
+Archduke mustered not less than 70,000 at the battle of Custoza. That
+he mustered on that day every man he could produce is probably a fact.
+Had the Italian generals followed the same rule, however enormous
+their other errors might have been, they would have won. Of all
+conceivable faults in a military commander that which is the least
+pardonable is the neglect to crush his antagonist by force of superior
+numbers when he has them at his disposal. How many great military
+reputations have been built up, and justly built up, on the care never
+to meet an enemy without the odds being largely in your favour!
+
+For obvious political reasons the King of Italy assumed the supreme
+command of the army, with General La Marmora as chief of the staff.
+Cialdini had been offered the latter post, but he declined it,
+objecting, it is said, to the arrangement by which the real head of
+the army has no guarantee against the possible interference of its
+nominal head. When La Marmora went to the front, Baron Ricasoli took
+his place as Prime Minister; Visconti-Venosta became Minister of
+Foreign Affairs; and the Ministry of the Marine was offered to
+Quintino Sella, who refused it on the ground that he knew nothing of
+naval matters. It was then offered to and accepted by a man who knew
+still less, because he did not even know his own ignorance, Agostino
+Depretis, a Piedmontese advocate.
+
+Before the commencement of hostilities a secret treaty was concluded
+between Napoleon III. and the Austrian Government, according to which
+Venetia was to be ceded to the Emperor for Italy, even if Austrian
+arms were victorious both on the Mincio and on the Maine. Napoleon's
+real purpose in this singular transaction is not perfectly clear; but
+he was probably acting under a semi-romantic desire to have the
+appearance of completing his programme of freeing Italy from the Alps
+to the Adriatic which had been interrupted at Villafranca. In spite of
+his enmity towards Italian unity, there is no reason to doubt that he
+was in very few things as sincere as in the wish to see the Austrians
+out of Italy. His reckonings at this time were all founded on the
+assumption that Prussia would be defeated; he even seems to have had
+some hopes of getting the Rhine bank in return for his good offices on
+behalf of that Power with triumphant Austria. Be this as it may, he
+inspired the Italian Government (or rather La Marmora, for there were
+then two Italian Governments, and the real one was on the Mincio) with
+his own expectation of Prussian disasters, and it is possible that
+this expectation had a material and unfavourable influence on the
+manner of conducting the war in Italy.
+
+Through the Prussian Minister at Florence, General La Marmora received
+the draft of a plan of campaign which is known to have been prepared
+by Count Moltke; in it the great feature was a descent on the
+Dalmatian coast. From an independent quarter he received another plan
+in which a descent on the east coast of the Adriatic was contemplated,
+the main difference being that Istria, instead of Dalmatia, was
+proposed for the landing-point. This second plan was modestly
+submitted to him by Garibaldi, who was thus in substantial accord with
+the Prussian strategist. The prospect which either of these plans
+opened was one of great fascination. What Italian can look across the
+sea to where the sun rises and forget that along that horizon lies a
+land colonised by Rome and guarded for four hundred years by Venice?
+
+Istria was marked out by Dante as the frontier province of Italy:
+
+  Si come a Pola presso del Quarnero
+  Che Italia chiude e i suoi termini bagna.
+
+It forms, with the Trentino, what is called _Italia Irredenta_.
+Although the feeling of Italians for unredeemed Italy is not what
+their feeling was for Lombardy or Venetia, it is a mistake to imagine
+that they have renounced all aspirations in that direction. Only
+fanatics of the worst kind would be disposed to attempt, in the
+present situation, to win those provinces by force, but that has
+nothing to do with the matter. The aspiration exists and cannot help
+existing. It has always been shared by patriots of all denominations.
+An English statesman who called on Pius IX. was somewhat surprised by
+the Pope saying that Italian unity was very well, but it was a pity it
+did not include Trento and Trieste.
+
+The case of Dalmatia is different; there the mass of the population is
+unquestionably of a non-Italian race, though that race is one which,
+whenever left to itself, seems created to amalgamate with the Italian.
+Slav and Teuton are racially antagonistic, but the Slav falls into
+Italian ways, speaks the Italian language and mixes his blood with
+Italian blood: with what results Venice can tell. For more than two
+thousand years the civilisation of Dalmatia has been exclusively
+Latin; the Roman column points to the Venetian Campanile; all the
+proudest memories are gathered round the Lion of St Mark, which in
+every town, almost in every village, recalls the splendid though not
+blameless suzerainty of the Serene Republic. The sky, the
+olive-groves, the wild pomegranates make us think of Salerno; by the
+spoken tongue we are often reminded of Tuscany, for few Italian
+dialects are so pure. The political subjection of the country to Italy
+dates from Augustus; its political subjection to Austria dates from
+Napoleon. Dalmatia, with the glorious little commonwealth of Ragusa,
+and the free city of Cattaro, was bartered away with Venice at Campo
+Formio; and as with Venice, so with Dalmatia, the Holy Alliance
+violated its own principle of restoring the proe-Napoleonic state of
+things and confirmed the sale.
+
+At the beginning of the war, Austria did not ignore that her loss of
+territory might exceed Venetia. The Archduke Albrecht, in his
+proclamation to his soldiers, appealed to them to protect their
+mothers, wives and sisters from being ruled by a foreign race.
+
+Even a successful raid upon Dalmatia or Istria need not have given
+those districts to Italy, but it would have brought such an event
+within the range of a moderately strong political telescope. The Slavs
+(erected since into a party hostile to their Italian fellow-citizens
+by a fostering of Panslavism which may not, in the long run, prove
+sound policy for Austria) were then ready to make friends with anyone
+opposed to their actual rulers. They would not have been easy to
+govern after an Italian invasion; still less easy to govern would the
+Latin element have been, which was and is _Italianissimo_. Since
+Prussia became the German Empire, she has set her face against Italian
+extension eastward, but in 1866, had her advice been intelligently
+acted upon, it might have generated facts the logic of which none
+would have had the power to stay.
+
+Moltke's plan more than hinted at a march on Vienna by the Semmering,
+and this is what is supposed to have induced La Marmora to treat it with
+scorn. With the bogey of Prussia vanquished before his eyes, he
+doubtless asked what the Italians would do at Vienna if they got there?
+He put the plan in his pocket, and showed it neither to his staff nor to
+the King, who would certainly have been attracted by it, as he had set
+his heart on the volunteers, at least, crossing the Adriatic. With
+regard to the campaign at home, both Moltke and Garibaldi counselled
+turning the Quadrilateral in preference to a direct attack upon
+fortresses which had been proved impregnable except with the assistance
+of hunger, and at present they were better provisioned than in 1848. The
+turning of the Quadrilateral meant the adoption of a route into Venetia
+across the Po below Mantua. An objection not without gravity to that
+route was the unfavourable nature of the ground which, being marshy, is
+liable after heavy rains to become impassable. But against this
+disadvantage had to be weighed the advantage of keeping out of the
+mouse-trap, the fatality of which needed no new demonstration.
+
+In Italy it is common to hear it said that it was necessary to station
+a large army on the Mincio to bar the Archduke's path to Milan. But
+apart from the rumoured existence of a promise to the French Emperor
+not to invade Lombardy, it was unlikely that so good a general as the
+Archduke would have taken his small army far from the security it
+enjoyed among the four fortresses which, if the worst came to the
+worst, assured him a safe line of retreat.
+
+The plan adopted by La Marmora is vaguely said to have been that which
+was prepared by the French and Sardinian staffs for use in 1859, had
+the war been continued. But in what it really consisted is not to this
+day placed beyond dispute. The army, roughly speaking, was divided
+into halves; one (the larger) half under the King and La Marmora was
+to operate on the Mincio; the other, under Cialdini, was to operate on
+the lower Po. It is supposed that one of these portions was intended
+to act as a blind to deceive the enemy as to the movements of the
+other portion; the undecided question is, which was meant to be the
+principal and which the accessory?
+
+The volunteers were thrown against the precipices of the Tridentine
+mountains, where a detachment of the regular army, well-armed and
+properly supplied with artillery, would have been better suited for
+the work. The Garibaldian headquarters was at Salo on the Lake of
+Garda. Less than half of the 35,000 volunteers who appear upon paper,
+were ever ready to be sent to the front. It was widely said that only
+patriotism prevented Garibaldi from throwing up his command, so
+dissatisfied was he with the conduct of affairs.
+
+Prussia invaded Hanover and Saxony on the 16th of June, and declared
+war with Austria on the 21st, one day after the Italian declaration of
+war had been delivered to the Archduke Albrecht. On the 23rd La
+Marmora's army began to cross the Mincio. It consisted of three _corps
+d'armee_ under the command of Generals Durando, Cucchiari and Delia
+Rocca, each corps containing four divisions. The force under Cialdini
+was composed of eight divisions forming one _corps d'armee._ An
+Italian military writer rates the numbers at 133,000 and 82,000
+respectively. La Marmora acquired the belief that the Archduke's
+attention was absorbed by Cialdini's movements on the Po, and that his
+own operations on the Mincio would pass unobserved.
+
+While the Italian commander had no information of what was going on in
+the enemy's camp, the Archduke's intelligence department was so
+efficient that he knew quite well the disposition of both Italian
+armies. Cialdini's advance, if he meant to advance, was checked by
+floods. On the night of the 23rd most of La Marmora's force bivouacked
+on the left (Venetian) bank of the Mincio. No reconnaissances were made;
+everyone supposed that the Austrians were still beyond the Adige, and
+that they intended to stay there. The King slept at Goito.
+
+Before the early dawn next morning the whole Italian army of the
+Mincio had orders to advance. The soldiers marched with heavy
+knapsacks and empty stomachs, and with no more precautions than in
+time of peace. The Austrian Archduke was in the saddle at four a.m.,
+and watched from an eminence the moving clouds of dust which announced
+the approach of his unsuspecting foe.
+
+La Marmora's intention had been to occupy the heights of Santa
+Giustina, Sona and Somma Campagna, but the Archduke anticipated his
+design, and while the Italians were moving from the Mincio, the
+Austrians were ranging themselves in those positions. At half-past
+five on the midsummer Sunday morning, the Austrian advance guard led
+by Colonel Pulz came up with Prince Humbert's division near
+Villafranca. The battle began dramatically, with a charge of the
+splendid Polish and Hungarian Hussars, who dashed their horses against
+the Italian squares, in one of which, opportunely formed for his
+shelter, was the gallant heir to the throne. Bixio's division was also
+engaged in this prelude, which augured not ill for the Italians, since
+at about eight o'clock Pulz received the Archduke's orders to retire.
+
+The first hours of the battle were spent in fortuitous encounters
+along the extensive chain of hillocks which La Marmora had intended to
+occupy. As the Italians approached each position they found it in the
+possession of a strong force of the enemy. On the right, however,
+Custoza and the heights between it and Somma Campagna had not been
+occupied by the Austrians. Here La Marmora placed the flower of his
+army, the Sardinian and Lombard Grenadiers, the latter commanded by
+Prince Amedeo. The fighting continued through the day over very
+widely distributed ground, but from about nine in the morning the
+supreme interest was concentrated at and near Custoza, in which the
+Archduke promptly detected the turning-point of the battle. To wrest
+Custoza from the hold of the Italians was to the Austrians on the 24th
+of June 1866, what the taking of the crest of Solferino had been to
+the French on the 24th of June 1859. La Marmora in person led the
+Grenadiers into action; they proved worthy of their reputation, but
+after losing a great many men, Prince Amedeo being among the wounded,
+they were obliged to retreat. At about midday, however, the Italian
+prospects improved so much that in the opinion of Austrian military
+writers, with moderate reinforcements they would have had a strong
+probability of winning the battle. La Marmora saw the importance of
+getting fresh troops into the field, but, instead of sending for the
+divisions under Bixio and Prince Humbert, which since eight a.m. had
+been fretting in inaction close by, at Villafranca, he rode himself to
+Goito, a great distance away, to look after the reserves belonging to
+the 2nd _corps d'armee_; a task which any staff officer could have
+performed as well. This inexplicable proceeding left the army without
+a commander-in-chief. The generals of division followed their
+individual inspirations, Govone, Pianel and Cugia especially
+distinguishing themselves: it is sad to think that death has removed
+these three officers from the Italian ranks. But the Austrians fatally
+gained ground, and as the afternoon closed in the Archduke began to
+feel sure that the Italian reinforcements whose arrival he had so much
+feared, were never coming. He therefore prepared for the final effort
+which was to give him the well-deserved honours of the day. Towards
+seven o'clock in the evening, his soldiers succeeded in storming the
+heights of Custoza, and Austria could write a second battle of that
+name among her victories.
+
+The Italians lost 720 killed, 3112 wounded and 3608 prisoners. The
+Austrian loss was 960 killed, 3690 wounded and 1000 prisoners. Both
+sides were much tried by the scorching midsummer sun, but the Italians
+laboured under the additional drawback of having to fight fasting. In
+his report, the Archduke Albrecht mentioned that the prisoners said
+they had not tasted food for twenty-four hours. In the same report, he
+did ample justice to the courage of the Italian soldiers.
+
+As has been stated, the Archduke fought Custoza with not less,
+probably with rather more, than 70,000 men. The force which La Marmora
+placed in the field was actually inferior in number. The divisions of
+Bixio and Prince Humbert were kept doing nothing all day at a stone's
+throw from the scene of action. Of the whole 2nd _corps d'armee_ only
+a trifling detachment ever reached the ground. Inexplicably little use
+was made of the Italian cavalry.
+
+This bungling had lost the battle, but the fact that on the morrow,
+six divisions of the army of the Mincio were practically fresh, might
+have suggested to a general of enterprise to try again, since it was
+known that the Archduke had not a single new man to fall back on. And
+there was Cialdini on the Po with his eight divisions that had not
+been engaged at all. But, instead of adopting a spirited course, the
+Italian authorities gave way to unreasoning panic. It appears,
+unfortunately, that the King was the first to be overcome by this
+moral vertigo. The long and fiercely discussed question of who
+telegraphed to Cialdini: 'Irreparable disaster; cover the capital,'
+seems to have been settled since that general's death in 1892. It is
+now alleged that the telegram, the authorship of which was disowned by
+La Marmora, was signed by the King's adjutant, Count Verasio di
+Castiglione. Cialdini obeyed the order and fell back on Modena.
+Whether he was bound to obey an almost anonymous communication signed
+by an irresponsible officer is a moot point; it is reported that he
+repented having done so to the last day of his life.
+
+A great event now happened across the Alps; one of the decisive
+battles of the world was lost and won on the 5th of July at Sadowa
+near Koeniggraetz in Bohemia. The fate of Europe was shaped on that day
+for decades, if not for centuries. Of the immediate results, the first
+was the scattering to the wind of all calculations based upon a long
+continuance of the war, the issue of which, as far as Prussia was
+concerned, could not be regarded as doubtful. In respect to Italy,
+Austria's first thought was to prevent her from taking a revenge for
+Custoza. She attempted to compass this by ceding Venetia to Napoleon
+two days after Sadowa. It was making a virtue of necessity, as she was
+bound in any case to cede it at the conclusion of the war; but as the
+secret of the treaty had been well kept, the step caused great
+surprise, and in Italy, where the public mind had leapt from profound
+discouragement to buoyant hope, the impression was one of
+embarrassment and mortification. Italy was distinctly precluded by her
+engagement with Prussia from accepting Napoleon's invitation to
+conclude a separate peace. Meanwhile, Austria gained by the move, as
+it set her at liberty to recall the larger part of her troops from
+Venetia for the defence of Vienna. Her honour did not require her to
+contest the ground in a province which she had already given away.
+When Cialdini, at the head of the reorganised Italian army of which he
+now held the chief command, advanced across the Po to Padua, he found
+the path practically open.
+
+It was still possible for Italy to accomplish two things which would
+have in a great measure retrieved her _prestige_. The first was to
+occupy the Trentino; the second was to destroy the Austrian fleet.
+With the means at her disposal she ought to have been able to do both.
+
+In the earlier phases of Italian liberation, no one disputed that if
+Lombardy and Venetia were lost to the Empire the Tridentine province,
+wedged in as it is between them, would follow suit. When, in 1848,
+Lord Palmerston offered his services as mediator between Austria and
+revolted Italy, it was on a minimum basis of a frontier north of
+Trento. The arguments for the retention of Trieste--that Austria had
+made it what it was; that Germany needed it as a seaport, etc.--were
+inapplicable here; and even after the defeat of Custoza, an occupation
+of the Trentino, had it happened in conjunction with a naval victory,
+would have opened a fair prospect to possession. But there was no time
+to lose, and much time was lost by ordering Garibaldi to descend to
+the southern extremity of the lake of Garda to 'cover Brescia' from an
+imaginary attack. When the fear of an Austrian invasion subsided, and
+Garibaldi returned to the mountains, he endeavoured to re-take the
+position of Monte Suello which he had previously held, but the attempt
+failed. The volunteers were forced to retire with great loss, and the
+chief himself was wounded. On the 16th of July the volunteers renewed
+their advance up the mountain ravines, and, after taking Fort Ampola,
+reached the village of Bezzecca, where they were attacked by the
+Austrians early on the 21st. Each side claimed that sanguinary day as
+a victory; the Garibaldians remained masters of the ground, but the
+Austrians, in retiring, took with them a large number of prisoners.
+The losses of the volunteers on this and other occasions when they
+were engaged were disproportionately heavy. They were spendthrift of
+their lives, but in war, and especially in mountain warfare, caution
+is as needful as courage, and in caution they were so deficient that
+they were always being surprised. General Kuhn's numerically inferior
+force of tried marksmen, supported by good artillery and favoured by
+ground which may be described as one great natural fortification, had
+succeeded up till now in holding the Trentino, but his position was
+becoming critical, because while Garibaldi sought to approach Trento
+from the west, Medici with 10,000 men detached from the main army at
+Padua, was ascending the Venetian valleys that lead to the same
+destination from the east. Kuhn was therefore on the point of being
+taken between two fires when the armistice saved him.
+
+These operations on the Tridentine frontier, though not without a real
+importance, passed almost unnoticed in the excitement which attended
+the first calamitous appearance of United Italy as a naval power.
+
+When invited to assume the command of the Italian fleet, Admiral
+Persano twice refused; it was only when the King pressed upon him a
+third invitation that he weakly accepted a charge to which he felt
+himself unequal. He had been living in retirement for some years, and
+neither knew nor was known by most of the officers and men whom he was
+now to command. The fleet under his orders comprised thirty-three
+vessels, of which twelve were ironclads. The Austrian fleet numbered
+twenty-seven ships, including seven ironclads. When the war broke out,
+both fleets were far from ready for active service; but, while the
+Austrian Admiral Tegethoff said nothing, but worked night and day at
+Pola to make his ships and his men serviceable, Persano despatched
+hourly lamentable reports to the Minister of Marine, without finding
+the way to bring about a change for the better. He wasted time in
+minutiae, and took into his head to paint all the Italian ships a
+light grey, which was of the greatest use to the Austrians in the
+battle of Lissa, as it enabled them to distinguish between them and
+their own dark-coloured ships.
+
+After long delaying at Taranto, Persano brought his fleet to Ancona;
+and, two days later, Tegethoff appeared in front of that town--not
+knowing, it seems, that the Italian squadrons had arrived. Tegethoff
+was bound on a simple reconnaissance, and, after firing a few shots,
+he sailed away. On this occasion, Persano issued orders so hesitating
+and confused that the Austrian admiral must have correctly gauged the
+capacity of the man opposed to him, while the superior officers of the
+Italian fleet were filled with little less than dismay. A strong
+effort was made to induce Depretis to supersede Persano then and
+there; he promised to do so, but it is said that the fear of offending
+the King prevented him. Instead, he set about showering instructions
+on the admiral, the worth of which may be easily imagined. The
+mistrust felt by the fleet in its commander invaded all ranks; and if
+it did not break out in open insubordination, it deprived officers and
+men of all confidence in the issue of the campaign.
+
+Left to himself, Persano would have stayed quietly at Ancona, but the
+imperative orders of a cabinet council, presided over by the King,
+forced him to take some action. Against the advice of Admiral Albini,
+but in agreement with another admiral, Vacca, Persano decided to
+attack the fortified island of Lissa, on the Dalmatian coast. Though
+Lissa is a strong position, the usual comparison of it with Gibraltar
+is exaggerated. It ought to have been possible to land the Italian
+troops which Persano had with him under cover of his guns, and to take
+the island before Tegethoff came up. The surf caused by the rough
+weather, to which he chiefly attributed his failure, would not have
+proved an insuperable obstacle had the ships' crews been exercised in
+landing troops under similar circumstances.
+
+Persano reached Lissa on the morning of the 18th of July, and began a
+tremendous bombardment of the forts, which, though answered with the
+highest spirit by the Austrians, did most deadly damage to their
+batteries. In fact, by the evening, except one or two at a high
+elevation, they were practically silenced. At six o'clock Captain
+Saint Bon took the _Formidabile_ into the narrow harbour to silence
+the inner works: a murderous fire rained on the corvette from Fort
+Wellington, which was too high for the Italian guns to get it into
+range. Though Saint Bon's attempt was not successful, the Italians had
+effected most of what they aimed at, and might have effected the rest
+had they continued the bombardment through the night, and so given the
+Austrians no time to repair their batteries, but at sunset Persano
+withdrew his fleet to a distance of eight miles. The Austrians worked
+all night at mending the batteries that could still be used, and hoped
+in the coming of Tegethoff.
+
+The telegraph cable connecting the neighbouring island of Lesina with
+the coast, and so with Pola, had been cut by Persano's orders; but
+either (as the writer was told on the spot last year) there was another
+line that was not noticed, or before the cable was destroyed the
+official in charge got off a message to Tegethoff, informing him of the
+arrival of the Italian fleet. An answer, to the effect that Tegethoff
+would come to the rescue as soon as possible, fell into the hands of the
+Italians, but Persano appears not to have believed in it.
+
+The 19th was spent in attempts at landing, which the surf and the
+energetic play of the repaired batteries rendered fruitless. The
+bombardment was renewed, but it was not well conducted. Saint Bon, who
+made another plucky entry into the harbour, was unsupported, and,
+after an hour's fighting, he was obliged to retire, his ship having
+suffered severely.
+
+Next morning there was a blinding summer storm, but at about eight
+o'clock the _Esploratore_ distinguished the forms of ironclads through
+the rain, and signalled to Persano: 'Suspicious vessels in sight.'
+Persano answered: 'No doubt they are fishing-boats.' When obliged to
+admit the truth he gave the order to unite, his ships being scattered
+in all directions with everything on board at sixes and sevens. The
+troops which had again been attempting to land, were in boats, tossed
+about by the heavy sea. The surprise was complete.
+
+Persano fought the battle of Lissa with nine ironclads, most of which
+had received some injuries during the bombardment. He ordered his
+wooden ships to keep out of the action altogether. Tegethoff had seven
+ironclads and fourteen wooden vessels, all of which he turned to the
+best account.
+
+Just before the battle Persano left his flagship, the _Re_ _d'Italia_,
+and went on board the _Affondatore_. By somebody's mistake it was a
+long time before the _Affondatore_ hoisted the admiral's flag, and
+the fleet continued to look to the _Re d'Italia_ for signals when he
+was no longer on board.
+
+Contrary to a well-known rule in naval science, Persano formed his
+squadron in single file, and quite at the beginning of the battle
+Tegethoff managed to break the line by dashing in between the first
+and second division whilst they were going at full speed, and under a
+furious cannonade from their guns. This daring operation placed him
+in the middle of the Italian ironclads, which, well directed, could
+have closed round him and destroyed him, but they were not directed
+either well nor ill--they were not directed at all. Persano put up
+contradictory signals, most of which were not seen, and those which
+were seen meant nothing. The plan followed by Admiral Tegethoff may be
+best described in his own words: 'It was hard to make out friend from
+foe, so I just rammed away at anything I saw painted grey.' Two
+Italian vessels had been already damaged, but not vitally injured, by
+the _Ferdinand Max_, when in the dense smoke a vast wall of grey
+appeared close to the bows of the Austrian flagship, which, to the cry
+of 'Ram her!' put on full steam and crashed into the enemy's flank.
+The shock was so great that the crew of the _Max_ were thrown about in
+indescribable confusion. The Italian ship was the _Re d'Italia,_ the
+flagship which did not carry the admiral. She quivered for one, two,
+some say for three minutes in her death agony, and then went down in
+two hundred fathoms of water.
+
+After the _Re d'Italia_ was struck, one of her seamen, thinking to
+assert a claim to pity, began to lower her flag, but a young officer
+pushed him aside and hoisted it again; so the great ship sank with her
+colours flying. The incident was noticed by the Austrians, who spoke
+of it in feeling terms. Willing enough were they to help, for after
+the first cheer of triumph they felt sick with horror at their own
+work, the fearful work of modern naval warfare. There were 550 men on
+board the doomed ship. Tegethoff shouted for the boats to be lowered,
+and signalled to the despatch boat _Elisabeth_ to pick up all she
+could, but two Italian ironclads were bearing down upon him, and
+little could be done to save the drowning multitude either by the
+Austrians or by their own people. Persano did not know of the
+disaster till some hours after it happened.
+
+The sea had scarcely closed over the _Re d'Italia_ when another
+misfortune occurred; the gunboat _Palestro_ took fire. Her captain,
+Alfredo Cappellini, disembarked the sick and wounded, but remained
+himself with the rest of the crew, endeavouring to put out the fire.
+The ship blew up at 2.30 p.m., and over two hundred perished with her.
+
+Persano, still on the _Affondatore_, now led his fleet out of action,
+and it was the first time he had led it during the day. Tegethoff
+gazed after the vanishing squadron with anxiety, as had Persano turned
+and renewed the battle from a distance, he could have revenged his
+defeat at close quarters without receiving a shot, owing to the longer
+range of his guns. But for such an operation skilful manoeuvring was
+wanted, and also, perhaps, more precision in firing than the Italian
+gunners possessed. At any rate, Persano had no mind for new
+adventures. He took what remained of his fleet straight back to
+Ancona, where the _Affondatore_ sank in the harbour from injuries
+received during the battle. For three days the Italian people were
+told that they had won a victory, then the bitter truth was known. The
+admiral, tried before the Senate, was deprived of his rank and command
+in the Italian navy. The politician who, when convinced of his
+unfitness, yet had not the nerve to remove him from his post, died,
+full of years and honours, Prime Minister of Italy.
+
+Lissa was fought on the 20th of July. On the 25th, Prussia signed the
+preliminaries of peace with Austria without consulting her ally, who,
+if unfortunate, had been eminently loyal to her. Thus the whole forces
+of the Empire, not less than 350,000 men, were let loose to fall upon
+Italy. Such was the wrathful disappointment of the Italians at their
+defeats by land and sea, that if a vote had been taken they would
+possibly have decided for a renewal of the struggle. Ricasoli was
+inclined to risk war rather than bow to the Austrian demand that the
+evacuation of the Trentino should precede the conclusion of an
+armistice. At this crisis, La Marmora acted as a true patriot in
+forcing the hand of the Ministry by ordering the recall of the troops
+and sending General Petitti to treat directly with the Austrian
+military authorities. 'They will say that we have betrayed the
+country,' said the King in the interview in which these measures were
+concerted; to which La Marmora answered: 'Come what may, I take the
+whole responsibility upon myself.' 'This is too much,' replied Victor
+Emmanuel with tears in his eyes; 'I, also, will have my part in it.'
+In which brief dialogue the character of the two men stands revealed;
+men who might fall short in talent or in judgment, not in honour.
+
+The volunteers, so many of whose comrades lay dead along the mountain
+gorges--who believed, too, that they were in sight of the reward of
+their sacrifices--were thrown into a ferment, almost into a revolt by
+the order to retreat. They had expected in a day or two to shake hands
+with Medici, who, after some hard fighting, was within a march of
+Trento. The order was explicit: instant evacuation of the enemy's
+territory. Garibaldi, to whom from first to last had fallen an
+ungrateful part, took up his pen and wrote the laconic telegram:
+'Obbedisco.' 'I have obeyed,' he said to the would-be mutineers, 'do
+you obey likewise.' Someone murmured 'Rome.' 'Yes,' said the chief,
+'we will march on Rome.'
+
+The armistice was signed at Cormons on the 12th of August, and the
+treaty of peace on the 3rd of October at Vienna. Italy received Venice
+from the hands of the French Emperor, whose interference since the
+beginning of the campaign had incensed Prussia against her ally
+without benefiting the Power which he affected and, perhaps, really
+meant to serve. Italy would have received Venetia without his
+interposition, for besides the Prussian obligation to claim it for
+her, Austria had no further wish to keep it. Despite the fact that
+Italian populations still remained under the rule of the Empire, the
+melancholy book of Austrian dominion in Italy might be fairly said to
+be closed forever. A new era was dawning for the House of Hapsburg,
+which was to show that, unlike the Bourbons, it could learn and
+unlearn.
+
+The comedy of the cession of Venice to Napoleon was enacted between
+General Le Boeuf and General Alemann, the Austrian military
+commandant. Among other formalities, the French delegate went the
+round of the museums and galleries to see that everything was in its
+place. Suddenly he came upon a most suspicious blank. 'A picture is
+missing here,' he said. 'It is, blandly assented the Austrian officer.
+'Well, but it must be sent back immediately--where is it?' 'In the
+Louvre.'
+
+At last Austrians and French departed, and Italy shook off her
+mourning, for however it had come about, the great object which had
+cost so much blood, so many tears, was attained; the stranger was
+gone!
+
+Out of 642,000 votes, only 69 were recorded against the union of
+Venetia with the Italian kingdom. When the plebiscite was presented
+to the King, he said: 'This is the greatest day of my life: Italy is
+made, though not complete.' On the 7th of November he entered Venice,
+and of all the pageants that greeted him in the hundred cities of
+Italy, the welcome of the Bride of the Adriatic was, if not the most
+imposing, certainly the fairest to see. More touching, however, than
+the glorious beauty of the Piazza San Marco and the Grand Canal in
+their rich adornment, was the universal decoration of the poorest
+quarters, which were all flagged and festooned so thickly that little
+could be seen of the stones of Venice. One poor cobbler, however,
+living at the end of a blind alley, had no flag, no garland to deck
+his abode: he had therefore pasted three strips of coloured paper,
+red, white and green, over his door, inscribing on the middle strip
+these words, which in their sublime simplicity merit to be rescued
+from oblivion: 'O mia cara Italia, voglio ma non posso fare piu per
+te.'
+
+The Iron Crown of the Lombard Kings of Italy, which the Austrians had
+taken away in 1859, was brought back and restored to the Cathedral of
+Monza. Less presumptuous than Napoleon, Victor Emmanuel never placed
+the mystical fillet upon his head, but it was carried after his coffin
+to the Pantheon.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE LAST CRUSADE
+
+1867
+
+The French leave Rome--Garibaldi's Arrest and Escape--The Second
+French Intervention--Monte Rotondo--Mentana.
+
+
+The words of Victor Emmanuel to the Venetian Deputation contained a
+riddle easy to solve: what was meant by the 'completion' of Italy was
+the establishment of her capital on the Tiber. In most minds there was
+an intense belief in the inevitability of the union of Rome with the
+rest of Italy, but no one saw how it was to be brought about. What
+soothsayer foretold Sedan?
+
+In the first period after the war, domestic difficulties fixed the
+attention of the Italian Government on the present rather than on the
+future. An insurrection at Palermo assumed threatening proportions
+owing to the smallness of the garrison, and might have had still more
+serious consequences but for the courage and presence of mind shown by
+the Syndic, the young Marquis di Rudini. Crime and poverty, republican
+hankerings, the irritation of the priesthood at recent legislation,
+and most of all, the feeling that little had been done since 1860 to
+realise the millennium then promised, contributed to the outbreak
+which was quelled when troops arrived from the mainland, but the
+ministers were blamed for not having taken better precautions against
+its occurrence. Another stumbling-block lay in the path of Ricasoli,
+namely, the application of the law for the suppression of religious
+houses, and the expropriation of ecclesiastical property. After an
+unsuccessful endeavour to cope with it, he dissolved the Chamber, but
+the new Parliament proved no more willing to support his measures,
+which were of the nature of a compromise, than the old one, and he
+finally resigned office. He was succeeded by Urban Rattazzi, under
+whose administration a measure was passed which, though drastic in
+appearance, has not prevented the re-establishment of a great many
+convents of which the property was bought in under the name of
+private individuals. Every Catholic country has seen the necessity
+sooner or later of putting a check to the increase of monasticism, but
+it may be a matter of regret that in Italy, the toleration granted to
+the learned community of Monte Cassino was not extended to more of the
+historic monasteries. The abstention of the Clerical party from the
+voting urns deprived them of an influence which, on such points as
+these, they might have exercised legitimately and perhaps
+beneficially. To that abstention, the disequilibrium of Italian
+political life, from first to last, is largely due.
+
+The time allowed to the French under the September Convention for the
+evacuation of Rome expired in December 1866, and at the opening of the
+new year, for the first time since 1849, the Eternal City was without
+a garrison in the service of a foreign Power. While executing their
+engagement, the French Government took occasion to say that they kept
+their hands perfectly free as concerned future action. The anomalous
+obligations of the September Convention now came into force, and it
+was not long before their inconvenience was felt. Had Ricasoli
+remained at the head of affairs the _status quo_ might have lasted for
+a time; because, although he was an unflinching opponent of the
+Temporal Power, he would have made it clear that since the Convention
+existed he meant to respect it, and to make others respect it. He had
+shown that he could dare, but that was when he bore himself the whole
+responsibility of his daring. He was not the man to tolerate heroic
+imprudence in others with the mental reservation of owning or
+disowning the results, as might prove convenient. Rattazzi, on the
+other hand, was believed to answer very closely to this description;
+and patriots who were willing to bear all the blame in case of
+failure and yield all the praise in case of success, began once more
+to speculate on the profit to the national cause which might be
+extracted from the peculiarities of his character. Aspromonte, that
+should have placed them on their guard, had the contrary effect, for
+it was supposed that the Prime Minister was very anxious to wipe that
+stain from his reputation.
+
+Nevertheless, the Party of Action considered that, for the present,
+the wisest course was to wait and watch the development of events.
+This was Mazzini's personal view, but Garibaldi, almost alone in his
+dissent, did not share it. Impelled partly, no doubt, by the
+impatience of a man who sees the years going by and his own life
+ebbing away without the realisation of its dearest dream, but partly
+also by the deliberate belief that the political situation offered
+some favourable features which might not soon be repeated, Garibaldi
+decided to take the field in the autumn of 1867. His friends, who one
+and all tried to dissuade him, found him immovable. It is too much to
+say that he expected assistance from the Government, but that he hoped
+to draw Rattazzi after him is scarcely doubtful, and he had good
+reason for the hope.
+
+In Rattazzi's own version and defence of his policy, it is set forth
+that before the die was cast he did all that was humanly possible to
+prevent the expedition, but that having failed, he intended sending the
+Italian army over the frontier in the wake of the broken-loose
+condottiere. Though this gives a colour of consistency to his conduct,
+it is not satisfactory as an explanation, and still less as an apology.
+
+General La Marmora, who had always opposed the Convention, though he
+belonged to the party which made it, once declared that 200,000 men
+would not be sufficient to hold the Papal frontier against a guerilla
+invasion. True as this may be, it is impossible to resist the
+conclusion that a minister who had resolutely made up his mind to
+prevent any attempt from being made would not have acted as Rattazzi
+acted. The Prime Minister thought that he was imitating Cavour, but in
+reality he simply imitated the pendulum of a clock.
+
+Rattazzi's taste was for intrigue rather than for adventure in the
+grand sense. An adventurous minister would have accelerated the
+enterprise to the utmost, in secret or not in secret, and would then
+have preceded Garibaldi to Rome before the Clerical party in France
+had time to force Napoleon to act. The rest could have been left to
+the Roman people. What they did in 1870 they would have done in 1867;
+they were ready to acclaim any conquering liberator; they were not
+ready to make a revolution on their own account, and with all their
+leaders in prison or in exile, they are hardly to be blamed for it.
+For such a policy Italy might have pleaded that necessity which knows
+no law. Everybody allowed that if Garibaldi went to Rome the Italians
+must go there too: the very security of the Pope demanded it--at
+least, he said so. As to the first part of the programme, complicity
+in the preparation of the movement, it would have been an infringement
+of the Convention, but had France kept the Convention? French bishops
+recruited soldiers for the Pope in every province of France, and the
+Antibes Legion was drawn, officers and men, from the French army. When
+some of the men deserted, the French War Office sent General Dumont to
+Rome to look to the discipline of the regiment. Those who argued that
+the spirit, if not the letter, of the agreement had been already
+evaded, could make out a good case for their position.
+
+It has been suggested that this is what Rattazzi's policy would have
+been, but for the opposition of the King. Were it so, the minister
+ought to have resigned at the beginning of the proceedings instead of
+at the end. That in the ultimate crisis it was the King who prevented
+the troops from moving is a fact, but the propitious moment was then
+past and gone. 'Do as you like, but do it quickly,' Napoleon said to
+Cavour when Cialdini was to be sent to the Cattolica. And it was done
+quickly.
+
+After letting Garibaldi make what arrangements and issue what
+manifestoes he chose for six weeks, Rattazzi suddenly had him arrested
+at Sinalunga on the 23rd of September. The only consequence was fatal
+delay; not knowing what to do with their prisoner, the Government
+shipped him to Caprera. Personally he was perfectly free; no
+conditions were imposed; but nine men-of-war were despatched to the
+island to sweep the seas of erratic heroes. In spite of which,
+Garibaldi escaped in a canoe on the 14th of October.
+
+That night, between sundown and moonrise, there was only one hour's
+dark, but it sufficed the fugitive to make good his passage from
+Caprera to the island of Maddalena. A strong south-east breeze was
+blowing; the waves, however, were rather favourable to the venture, as
+they hid the frail bark from any eyes that might be peering through
+the night. Garibaldi did not fear; he had often put out on this
+terrible sea when lashed to fury to succour sailors in their peril. On
+reaching Maddalena he scrambled over the rocks to the house of an
+English lady who was delighted to give him hospitality. Next evening
+he proceeded to Sardinia, from which, after several adventures, he
+sailed for the Tuscan coast in a boat held in readiness by his
+son-in-law, Canzio. And so, to the amazement of friends and foes, he
+arrived in Florence, where, before many hours were past, he was
+haranguing the enthusiastic crowd from a balcony.
+
+Garibaldi had escaped, but the mischief done to the movement by the
+loss of nearly a month could not be remedied. Although large armed
+bands under Acerbi, Nicotera and Menotti Garibaldi were gathered near
+Viterbo, as usually happened in the absence of the chief, nothing
+effectual was done. But it was in Paris that the delay brought the
+most ruinous results.
+
+The history of the second French expedition to Rome will never be
+satisfactorily told, because, while the outward circumstances point
+one way, the inward probabilities point another. Napoleon had said
+that if the Convention were not observed he would intervene, and he
+did intervene; nothing could seem simpler. Yet it is not doubtful
+that, in his inmost heart, he was wishing day and night that something
+would turn up to extricate him from the Roman dilemma once for all.
+While he hesitated, the Clerical party in France did not hesitate. Not
+a moment was thrown away by them. Towards the middle of October, it
+was reported that 'half royalist and half Catholic France will be in
+Rome in the course of the week. Men with names belonging to the
+proudest French nobility--the De Lusignans, De Clissons, De Lumleys,
+De Bourbon-Chalens, etc., are chartering vessels, arriving in Rome by
+scores and hundreds, and hence hurrying to the front to take their
+places as privates in the Zouaves.' That, however, does not describe
+the most important sphere of their activity which was the
+ante-chamber, nay, the boudoir of St Cloud. In that palace, three
+years later to be rased to the ground by the Germans, the net was
+woven which every day closed tighter and tighter round Napoleon, till
+he was enveloped in its meshes past escape. Ever since De Morny's
+death, the influence nearest the throne had been increasing in
+strength; it is needless to say in which direction it was exercised.
+Napoleon was ill; Maximilian's ghost floated over him; he felt his
+power slipping from his hands in spite of the noise and show of the
+Exhibition, which was supposed to mark its zenith. The words of the
+old pact with the Royalists buzzed in his ears: 'Do you keep the Pope
+on his throne, and we will keep you on yours.' And he yielded.
+
+The 'principle' of French intervention was adopted by the council of
+ministers on the 17th of October. Then, and not till then, Rattazzi
+decided to send the Italian troops over the frontier. On finding that
+neither the King nor several of his colleagues in the ministry would
+support him, he resigned office on the 19th of the month.
+
+It was on the day after that Garibaldi appeared in Florence. As there
+was no ministry, no one thought it his business to interfere with him.
+Cialdini, whom the King had requested to form a cabinet, did go and
+ask him to keep quiet till there was some properly qualified person to
+arrest him; but this, not unnaturally, he declined to do. He left
+Florence by special train for Terni, whence he crossed the frontier
+and joined the insurgent bands near Rome.
+
+From the 19th to the 26th, Napoleon again and again ordered and
+countermanded the departure of the transports from Toulon. On the last
+date the final order was given and the ships started. The news must
+have just reached Paris that the King had called upon General Menabrea
+to undertake the task which had been abandoned by Cialdini, whose name
+recalled Castelfidardo too strongly to have a sound welcome either in
+the Vatican or at St Cloud. When Napoleon heard that Menabrea was to
+be Rattazzi's successor, he knew that there was no fear that the new
+Government, carried away by the popular current which was manifestly
+having its effect on the King, should, after all, order the Italian
+army to the front. Menabrea, the Savoyard who in 1860 chose the
+Italian nationality which his son has lately cast away, was the old
+opponent of Cavour in the Turinese chamber, and of all Italian
+politicians he was the most lukewarm on the Roman question. All chance
+of a collision between the French and Italian armies was removed.
+Menabrea did occupy some positions over the Papal frontier, it would
+be hard to say with what intention, unless it were to appear to fulfil
+a sort of promise given by the King during the ministerial
+interregnum. The troops were ordered on no account to attack the
+French, and as soon as the Garibaldian campaign was at an end, they
+were brought home. It was not worth while to send them with their
+hands tied to almost within earshot of where other Italians were
+fighting and falling. Menabrea's attitude towards the volunteers was
+immediately revealed by the issue of a royal proclamation, in which
+they were declared rebels. The French were free to act.
+
+All this time the revolution in Rome, which it was admitted on all
+sides would have gone far towards cutting the knot, did not begin.
+Besides the cause already assigned, the absence of the heads, there was
+another, the almost total lack of arms. To remedy this, Enrico and
+Giovanni Cairoli, with some seventy followers, tried to take a supply of
+arms up the Tiber to Rome. Only the immense importance of the object
+could have justified so desperate an attempt. Obliged to abandon their
+boats near Ponte Molle, they struck off into the Monti Parioli, where
+they were attacked, within sight of the promised land, at a spot called
+Villa Gloria. Their assailants were three times their number, and those
+who were not killed were carried prisoners to Rome. Among the killed was
+the captain of the band, who fell in the arms of his young brother. As
+Enrico Cairoli lay dying, the French Zouaves (was this the chivalry of
+France?) charged the two brothers with their bayonets, piercing Giovanni
+with ten wounds, from injuries arising from one of which he expired a
+year later, after long torments. 'Dastardly French!' cried Enrico with
+his last breath. They were the third and fourth sons of Adelaide Cairoli
+who died for their country. One only of her five children remained to
+stand by her own death-bed--Benedetto, the future Prime Minister, and
+saviour of King Humbert from the knife of an assassin.
+
+The Papal army was composed of 13,000 men, General de Courten
+commanding the portion of it which could be spared out of Rome. The
+Breton, Colonel Charette, had charge of the Zouaves. Since the French
+garrison left, much trouble had been taken to make this force
+efficient. Under Garibaldi's own orders there were between 7000 and
+8000 volunteers. Those who have made a higher estimate have included
+other bands which, either from the difficulty of provisioning a larger
+number, or from want of time for concentration, remained at a
+distance.
+
+The chief's arrival soon infused new life into the camp. On the 24th
+he moved towards Monte Rotondo, one of the castellated heights near
+Rome, which commands the Nomentane and Tiburtine ways to the south,
+and the railway and Via Salara to the west. It was generally
+considered the most important military position in the Papal states.
+The garrison was small, but, perched as they were on a hill crest
+which looks inaccessible, the defenders might well hope to hold out
+till help came from Rome. They had artillery, of which the volunteers
+had none, and the old castle of the Orsini, where they made their
+principal stand, was well adapted for defence. From the morning of the
+25th till midnight, the Garibaldians hurled themselves against the
+walls of the rock town without making much way; but at last the
+resistance grew weak, and when the morning light came, the white flag
+was seen flying. At four in the afternoon of the 26th a Papal column
+tardily arrived upon the scene, but they perceived that all was over
+at Monte Rotondo, and, after firing a few musket shots, they fled to
+Rome in disorder.
+
+Garibaldi rode into the cathedral, where he fixed his quarters for the
+night. In Italy churches have ever been applied to such uses. After
+the reduction of Milan, Francesco Sforza rode into the Duomo, and when
+King Ladislaus of Naples conquered Rome, he rode into the basilica of
+St John Lateran. The guerilla chief bivouacked in a confessional,
+while his Red-shirts slept where they could on the cathedral floor.
+Four hundred of them had been killed or wounded in the assault.
+
+The prisoners of war were brought before Garibaldi, who praised their
+valour and sent them under an escort to the Italian frontier. Two or
+three were retained for the following reason. Garibaldi had heard of
+the Cairolis' heroic failure, and after his victory his first thought
+was of them and of their sorrowing mother. He asked Signora Mario if
+there were any notabilities among the Papal prisoners. She mentioned
+Captain Quatrebras and others, and he sent her into Rome on a mission
+to the Papal commander with a view to exchanging these prisoners for
+the wounded Giovanni and for his brother's body. The proposal was
+accepted, and the compact kept after Mentana had changed the aspect of
+affairs.
+
+'Garibaldi at the gates!' was the news that spread like wildfire
+through Rome on the evening of the 26th of October. Terror, real
+terror, and no less real joy filled all hearts; but the sides were
+soon to be reversed. Another piece of news was not long in coming:
+'The French at Civita Vecchia!'
+
+The French arrived on the 29th, and on the same day Garibaldi advanced
+almost to the walls of Rome, still hoping for a revolutionary movement
+to break out within the city; but the information which he then
+received deprived him finally of this hope, and he gave the order to
+return to Monte Rotondo. Volunteers have the defect of being soldiers
+who _think_; on this occasion they thought that the backward march was
+the beginning of the end--that, in short, the game was up. A third of
+the whole number deserted, and took the road towards the Italian
+frontier. Garibaldi himself seems to have had a first idea of crossing
+into the Abruzzi, and there waiting to see what turn events would
+take; but he did not long entertain it, and, when he again left Monte
+Rotondo, it was with the fixed design of fighting a battle. He
+expected, however, to fight the Papal troops alone, and not the
+French.
+
+This was very nearly being the case. On the 1st of November, the Papal
+General Kanzler called on General De Failly at Civita Vecchia, and
+found him, to his concern, by no means anxious to rush into the fray.
+Even when sending the troops, Napoleon seems to have hoped to escape
+from being seriously compromised. He probably thought that the moral
+effect of their landing would cause Garibaldi to retire, and that thus
+the whole affair would collapse. But the Papal authorities did not
+want it to collapse; they wanted more bloodshed, and if the words
+which express the ungarnished truth as acknowledged by their own
+writers and apologists, sound indecent when describing the government
+of the Vicar of Christ, it only shows once more the irreconcilability
+of the offices of priest and king in the nineteenth century. Kanzler
+insisted that a crushing blow must be inflicted on the volunteers
+before they had time to retreat. He argued so long and so well that De
+Failly promised him a brigade under General Polhes to aid in the
+attack which he proposed to make on Monte Rotondo.
+
+The Papal forces left Rome by Porta Pia, and took the Via Nomentana,
+which leads to Monte Rotondo by Mentana. They were on the march at
+four o'clock a.m. Garibaldi had ordered his men to be ready at dawn on
+the same day (it was the 3rd of November); but Menotti suggested that,
+before they started, there should be a distribution of shoes, a
+consignment of which had just reached the camp. Many of the volunteers
+were barefoot, which gives a notion of their general equipment.
+Garibaldi, who rarely took advice, yielded to his son. Had he not done
+so, before the Papal army reached Mentana, he would have been at
+Tivoli. One delay brings another, and it was midday when the march
+began. Garibaldi looked sad, and spoke to no one, but hummed some bars
+of Riego's hymn, the Spanish song of freedom, full of a wild, sweet
+pathos, to which his tanned-faced legionaries had marched under the
+Monte Videan sun. Could he but have had with him those strong warriors
+now! He mounted his horse, put it to a gallop, which he rarely did,
+and, riding down the ranks of the column, took his place at its head.
+When he arrived at the village of Mentana, he heard that the
+Pontificals were close by, and he waited to give them battle.
+
+Mentana lies in a depression commanded by the neighbouring mounds,
+not a good configuration for defence. This village in the Roman
+Campagna sprang into history on a November day one thousand and
+sixty-seven years before, as the meeting-place of Charlemagne and Leo
+III. Here they shook hands over their bargain: that the Pope should
+crown the great Charles Emperor, and that the Emperor should assure to
+the Pope his temporal power. And now the ragged band of Italian youths
+was come to say that of bargains between Popes and Emperors there had
+been enough.
+
+They numbered less than 5000. General De Failly reckoned the Papal
+troops engaged at 3000 and the French at 2000, but Italian authorities
+compute the former at a higher figure. The most experienced of the
+Garibaldian officers thought that the attackers were twice as numerous
+as they were. At the first onslaught great confusion prevailed among
+the volunteers. Mentana seemed lost, but the sound of the guns they
+had captured at Monte Rotondo restored their _moral_, and making a
+gallant rush forward they retook the principal positions with the
+bayonet. As they saw the Pontificals swerve back they uttered cries of
+joy. It was two o'clock. The enemy's fire slackened; something was
+going on which the volunteers could not make out. All at once there
+was a sharp unfamiliar detonation, resembling the whirring sound of a
+machine. The French had come into action.
+
+A hailstorm of bullets mowed down the Garibaldian ranks. Their two
+guns were useless, for the ammunition, seventy rounds in all, was
+exhausted. They fought till four o'clock--till nearly their last
+cartridge was gone; then they slowly retreated. Very few of them
+guessed what that peculiar sound meant, or imagined that they had been
+engaged with the French, but next morning Europe knew from General De
+Failly's report that 'the Chassepots had done wonders.'
+
+Garibaldi left the field, haggard and aged, unable to reconcile
+himself to a defeat which he thought that more discipline, more
+steadiness in his rank and file, would have turned into a victory. He
+had always demanded the impossible of his men; till now they had given
+it to him. In time he judged more justly. Those miserably-armed lads
+who lately had been glad to eat the herbs of the field, if haply they
+found any, stood out for four hours against the pick of two regular
+armies, one of which was supposed to be the finest in the world. They
+had done well.
+
+Mentana remained that night in the hands of 1500 Garibaldians, who
+still occupied the castle and most of the houses when the general
+retreat was ordered. In the morning the Garibaldian officer who held
+the castle capitulated, on condition that the volunteers 'shut up in
+Mentana' should be reconducted across the frontier; terms which the
+French and Papal generals interpreted to embrace only the defenders of
+the castle. Eight hundred of the others were taken in triumph to Rome.
+It would have been wiser to let them go. The Romans had been told that
+the Garibaldians were cut-throats, incendiaries, human bloodhounds
+waiting to fly at them. What did they behold? 'The beast is gentle,'
+as Euripides makes his captors say of Dionysius. The stalwart Romans
+saw a host of boys, with pale, wistful, very young-looking faces. If
+anything was wanting to seal the fate of the Temporal Power it was the
+sight of that procession of famished and wounded Italians brought to
+Rome by the foreigner.
+
+The victors, however, were jubilant. Their inharmonious shouts of
+_Vive Pie Neuf_ vexed the delicate Roman ears. It was the battle-cry
+of the day of Mentana. Begun by the masked, finished by the unmasked
+soldiers of France, Mentana was a French victory, and it was the last.
+
+The Garibaldian retreat continued through the night to Passo Corese on
+the Italian frontier. The silence of the Campagna was only broken by
+little gusts of a chilly wind off the Tiber; it seemed as if a
+spectral army moved without sound. Garibaldi rode with his hat pressed
+down over his eyes; only once he spoke: 'It is the first time they
+make me turn my back like this,' he said to an old comrade, 'it would
+have been better ...' He stopped, but it was easy to supply the words:
+'to die.'
+
+As he was getting into the train at Figline, with the intention of
+going straight to Caprera, he was placed under arrest by order of the
+Italian Government. His officers had their hands on their swords, but
+he forbade their using force. The arrest seemed an unnecessary slight
+on the beaten man, who had loved Italy too well. But General Menabrea,
+who ordered it, believes that he thereby saved Italian unity.
+According to an account given by him many years after to the
+correspondent of an English newspaper, Napoleon wrote at this juncture
+to King Victor Emmanuel, that as he was not strong enough to govern
+his kingdom, he, Napoleon, was about to help him by relieving him of
+all parts of it except Piedmont, Lombardy and Venetia. The arrest of
+Garibaldi, by showing that the King 'could govern,' averted the
+impending danger. In communicating it to Napoleon, the King is said to
+have added 'that Italians would lose their last drop of blood before
+consenting to disruption,' a warning which he was not unlikely to
+give, but the whole story lacks verisimilitude. It appears more
+credible that an old man's memory is at fault than that a letter, so
+colossally insolent, was actually written. Menabrea, and even the
+King, may have feared that something of the kind was in the mind of
+the Emperor.
+
+As after Aspromonte so after Mentana; Garibaldi was confined in the
+fortress of Varignano, on the bay of Spezia. A few weeks later he was
+released and sent to Caprera. As he left the fortress-prison he wrote
+the words: 'Farewell, Rome; farewell, Capitol; who knows who will
+think of thee, and when?'
+
+The last crusade was over; destiny would do the rest.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+ROME, THE CAPITAL
+
+1867-1870
+
+M. Rouher's 'Never'--Papal Infallibility--Sedan--The Breach in Porta
+Pia--The King of Italy in Rome.
+
+
+Mentana had its epilogue in the debate in the French Corps Legislatif,
+which lasted from the 2nd to the 5th of December. Jules Favre proposed
+a vote of censure on the Ministry for their Roman policy. The most
+distinguished speaker who followed him was Thiers, who said that
+though in opposition, he would support the Government tooth and nail
+in their defence of French interests at Rome. The debate was wound up
+by the memorable declaration of the Prime Minister, Rouher, that
+'never' should Italy get possession of Rome. 'Is that clear?' he
+asked. It was quite clear. The word escaped him, he afterwards said,
+in 'the heat of improvisation.' The French Chamber confirmed it by
+throwing out Favre's motion by 237 votes against 17.
+
+Now, indeed, the Ultramontanes were jubilant throughout the world.
+Napoleon was compromised, enmeshed beyond extrication.
+
+Of all these events, Prussia, or rather the great man who was the
+brain of Prussia, took attentive note. He was convinced that the
+wonders accomplished by the Chassepot at Mentana would soon lead
+France to try the effect of the new rifle on larger game. Among the
+measures which he took with a view to that contingency, his
+correspondence with Mazzini is not the least remarkable. It began in
+November 1867, and was continued for a year. The object of both
+Bismarck and Mazzini was to prevent Italy from taking sides with
+France. The negotiations were carried on partly through Count
+d'Usedom, Prussian Minister at Florence, and partly through other
+intermediaries. Mazzini began by saying, that although the
+Chancellor's methods of unification had not his sympathy, he admired
+his energy, tenacity and independence; that he believed in German
+unity and opposed the supremacy which France arrogated to herself in
+Europe. He engaged to use his influence in Italy to make it difficult
+for an Italian Government to take up arms for the victors of Mentana.
+Bismarck was well aware that in speaking of his influence the writer
+used no idle phrase, but possibly one of his reasons for continuing
+the correspondence was to find out what Mazzini knew of the hidden
+plots and counter plots then in manufacture both in Paris and at
+Florence, because the Italian was more conversant with diplomatic
+secrets than any man living, except, perhaps, Cardinal Antonelli. In
+April 1868, Mazzini received through the Prussian Embassy at Florence,
+a document which even now possesses real interest on the relative
+advantages to Italy of a French or German Alliance. The whole question
+turned, observed the Prussian Chancellor, on the mastery of the
+Mediterranean: here France and Italy must find themselves at variance
+whether they willed it or not. 'The configuration of the terrestrial
+globe not being amenable to change, they will be always rivals and
+often enemies.' Nature has thrown between them an apple of discord,
+the possession of which they will not cease to contest. The
+Mediterranean ought to become an Italian lake. 'It is impossible for
+Italy to put up with the perpetual threats of France to obtain the
+mastery over Tunis, which would be for her the first stage to arriving
+in Sardinia.'
+
+At the Berlin Congress eight years later, Prince Bismarck pressed the
+same views upon Count Corti, the Italian delegate. He would have been
+glad to see the Italians go to Tunis, but Count Corti ingenuously
+replied: 'You want to make us quarrel with France.' Meanwhile the
+Englishman who represented France and the Englishman who represented
+England were discussing the same subject, and out of their discussion
+arose the French occupation of Tunis. Disquieting rumours got about at
+once, but they were dispelled. 'No French Government would be so
+rash,' said Gambetta, 'as to make Italy the _irreconcilable_ foe of
+France.' M. Waddington declared that he was personally opposed to the
+acquisition of Tunis, and gave his word of honour that nothing would
+be done without the full consent of Italy. What was done and how it
+was done is known to all. And so it happens that a great French naval
+station is in course of construction almost within sight of Sicily
+_and of Malta._
+
+In the document communicated by Bismarck to Mazzini, there is a
+curious inclusion of Trieste among Italian seaports which seems to
+indicate that he was still not averse from a rectification of the
+Italian north-east frontier. Whence it may be supposed that he
+expected to find Austria ranged on the part of France in the struggle
+for the Rhine bank. To explain how it was that this did not happen, we
+must leave the Chancellor and the Revolutionist, and see what at the
+same time was going on between Napoleon on the one side and Austria
+and Italy on the other.
+
+The French Emperor was not so infatuated as to court the risk of
+making war on Prussia single-handed if he could avoid it. He hoped for
+a triple alliance of France, Austria and Italy, or, if that could not
+be compassed, a dual alliance of France with either of these Powers.
+Now, wisely or unwisely, both the Italian and Austrian Governments
+were far from rejecting these proposals off-hand. The secret
+negotiations lasted from 1868 till June 1869. They took the shape of
+informal letters between the King of Italy and Napoleon, and of
+private communications with Count Beust through Prince Metternich, the
+Austrian Ambassador in Paris, who was the intimate friend and
+confidant of the Emperor and Empress. General Menabrea was not let
+into the secret till later. With regard to Victor Emmanuel, there is
+no doubt that he wished with all his heart to be able to do a good
+turn to his Imperial ally of 1859 if the occasion presented itself.
+Some men see their wives even to old age as they saw them when they
+were young and fair. The first print on the retina of the mental
+vision was so strong that no later impression can change or efface it.
+This hallucination is not confined to the marital relationship, and
+Victor Emmanuel never left off seeing Napoleon in one sole light: as
+the friend of Solferino. It may be that he perceived what the Italians
+did not perceive: that the obligation was owed to Napoleon alone,
+while all France had a part in the subsequent injuries. At any rate
+the idea of refusing the Emperor's appeal was repugnant in the extreme
+to the Italian King, who personally would have strained any point
+rather than give that refusal.
+
+The King, however, and General Menabrea, who was finally admitted into
+the conspiracy, could not be blind to the fact that an unpopular war
+might create so great an agitation in the country that the dynasty
+itself would be in danger. A war for France while the French were in
+Rome would have raised one storm of indignation from Palermo to Turin.
+So their ultimatum was this: Rome capital of Italy, or no alliance.
+
+There remained Austria, but if Napoleon ever hoped to conclude a
+separate treaty with her, he was to discover his mistake. From the
+moment that Austria resigned the Iron Crown, the symbol of her Italian
+power, she acted towards Italy with a loyalty that has few parallels
+in history. And she, too, replied to Napoleon: Rome capital of Italy,
+or no alliance.
+
+The Vatican has never forgiven this to Austria. At the present hour,
+while republican France with her open antagonism to all religion, is
+the favoured daughter of the Church, Austria, the only country in
+Europe except Spain where the Roman Catholic cultus retains all its
+original pomp and almost all its mediaeval privileges, meets from the
+Vatican a studied plan of opposition, the object of which can only be
+to bring her Government to a deadlock. From France the Pope still
+hopes for aid in the recovery of his temporalities; from Austria he
+knows that he will never receive it. So much have politics and so
+little has religion to do now, as in all ages, with the motives that
+govern the Holy See.
+
+  Ahi, Costantin, di quanto mal fu matre
+    Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote
+  Che da te prese il primo ricco patre!
+
+The years 1868 and 1869 passed uneventfully for Italy. In the former
+year Prince Humbert married his cousin Margherita of Savoy. He was
+previously engaged to the Archduchess Matilda, the only daughter of
+the Victor of Custoza, but the young Princess met with a terrible
+death just when the betrothal was about to be announced. No one
+worthier to receive from Adelaide of Burgundy the lovely title of
+Queen of Italy could have been found than the Princess Margaret, who
+inherited the sunny charm which had endeared her father, the Duke of
+Genoa, to all who knew him.
+
+In the autumn of 1869 another domestic event, the severe illness of
+Victor Emmanuel, gave rise to an incident which made a deep impression
+in Italy, and attached the nation by one link more to the King of its
+choice. The illness which seized Victor Emmanuel at his hunting-box
+of San Rossore, in a malarious part of Tuscany, proved so serious
+that his life was despaired of. A priest was called to hear the King's
+last confession, and to administer the Sacraments for the dying. After
+hearing the confession, the priest said he could not give absolution
+unless Victor Emmanuel signed a solemn retractation of all the acts
+performed during his reign that were contrary to the interests of the
+Church. The King answered, without a moment's hesitation, that he died
+a Christian and a Catholic, and that if he had wronged anyone he
+sincerely repented and asked pardon of God, but the signature demanded
+was a political act, and if the priest wished to talk politics his
+ministers were in the next room. Thither the ecclesiastic retired, but
+he very soon returned, and administered the rite without more ado.
+What had passed was this: General Menabrea, with a decision for which
+he cannot be too much praised, threatened the priest with instant
+arrest unless he surrendered his pretensions. Only those who know the
+extraordinary terror inspired in an Italian Catholic by the prospect
+of dying unshriven can appreciate the merit of the King, whose faith
+was childlike, in standing as firm in the presence of supernatural
+arms as he stood before the Austrian guns.
+
+Menabrea's administration was then upon the eve of falling. The cause
+was one of those financial crises that were symptomatic of a mischief
+which has been growing from then till now, when some critics think
+they see in it the fatal upas tree of Italy. The process of
+transforming a country where everything was wanting--roads, railways,
+lines of navigation, schools, water, lighting, sanitary provisions,
+and the other hundred thousand requirements of modern life--into the
+Italy of to-day, where all these things have made leaps almost
+incredible to those who knew her in her former state, has proved
+costly without example. During the whole period it has been necessary
+to spend in ever-increasing ratio on the army and navy, and this
+expenditure, though emphatically not the chief, has yet been a
+concomitant cause of financial trouble. The point cannot be inquired
+into here of how far greater wisdom and higher character in Italian
+public servants might have limited the evil and reconciled progress
+with economy; but it may be said that if the path entered upon by the
+man who took charge of the exchequer after Menabrea's fall, Quintino
+Sella, had been rigorously followed by his successors, the present
+situation would not be what it is.
+
+Giovanni Lanza assumed the premiership in the government in which
+Sella was Minister of Finance. Both these politicians were
+Piedmontese, and both were known as men of conspicuous integrity, but
+Lanza's rigid conservatism made it seem unlikely that the Roman
+question would take a fresh turn under his administration. In
+politics, however, the unlikely is what generally happens; events are
+stronger than men.
+
+On the 8th of December the twenty-first Ecumenical Council assembled
+in Rome. From the day of its meeting, in spite of the strenuous
+opposition of its most learned and illustrious members, there was no
+more doubt that the dogma under consideration would be voted by the
+partly astute and partly complaisant majority than that it would have
+been rejected in the twenty preceding Councils. On the 18th of July
+1870, the Pope was proclaimed Infallible.
+
+That was a moment of excitement such as has not often thrilled Europe,
+but the cause was not the Infallibility of Pius IX. On the 16th,
+Napoleon declared war with Prussia. War, like death, comes as a shock,
+however plainly it has been foreseen; besides, it was only the
+well-informed who knew how near the match had been to the
+powder-magazine for two years and more. Whether the explosion, at the
+last, was timed by Napoleon or by Bismarck is not of great importance;
+it could have been but little delayed. Napoleon was beset alike by the
+revolutionary spectre and by the gaunt King of Terrors; he knew the
+throw was desperate, but with the gambler's instinct, which had always
+been so strong in him, he was magnetised by it because it was
+desperate. Pitiful egotist though he was, history may forgive him
+sooner than it forgives the selfish Chauvinism of Thiers, who had been
+goading his countrymen to war ever since Sadowa, or the insane bigotry
+of the party which, having triumphed over revolution at Mentana, now
+sought to triumph over heresy in what the Empress called 'Ma guerre.'
+
+Napoleon had the remaining sagacity to see the extreme danger of
+leaving a few thousand men isolated in Rome at a time when, happen
+what might, it would be impossible to reinforce them. Directly after
+declaring war, notwithstanding the cries of the Ultramontanes, he
+decided on recalling the French troops. He induced the Italian
+Government to resume the obligations of the September Convention, by
+which the inviolability of the Papal frontier was guaranteed. Lanza is
+open to grave criticism for entering into a contract which it was
+morally certain that he would not be able to keep. Perhaps he hoped
+that Napoleon would himself release Italy from her bond. But the
+'Jamais' of Rouher stood in the way. Could the Emperor, after such
+boasting, coolly throw the Pope overboard the first time it suited his
+convenience? Moreover, his present Prime Minister, M. Emile Olivier,
+when the question was put to him, did not hesitate to renew the
+declaration that the Italians must not be allowed to go to Rome.
+
+Napoleon made some last frantic efforts to get Austria and Italy to
+befriend him unconditionally. How far he knew the real state of his
+army before he declared war may be doubtful, but that he possessed
+overwhelming proof of it, even before the first defeats, cannot be
+doubted at all. His heart was not so light as his Prime Minister's. At
+the end of July he sent General Tuerr on a secret mission to try and
+obtain the help of Austria and Italy. The Hungarian general wrote from
+Florence, that unless something could be done to assure Italy that the
+national question would be settled in accordance with the wishes of
+her people, the Italian alliance was not possible. The Convention, he
+pointed out, was a bane instead of a boon to Italy. This letter was
+answered by a telegram through the French Ambassador at Vienna: 'Can't
+do anything for Rome; if Italy will not march, let her stand still.
+
+As in the former negotiations, Austria took her stand on precisely the
+same ground as Italy. And thus it was that France plunged into the
+campaign of 1870 single-handed.
+
+After Woerth, and once more after Gravelotte, the endeavour to draw
+Italy into the struggle was renewed. Napoleon was aware that Victor
+Emmanuel was wildly anxious to come to the rescue, and on this
+personal goodwill his last hope was built. Prince Napoleon was
+despatched from the camp at Chalons to see what he could do. At this
+eleventh hour (19th August) Napoleon was ready to yield about Rome. At
+the camp, the influence which guided him in Paris was less felt, or it
+is probable that he would not have yielded even now. Prince Napoleon
+carried a sheet of white paper with the Emperor's signature at the
+foot. He showed it to Lanza when he reached Florence, and told him to
+fill it up as he chose. Whatever he asked for was already granted. A
+month before, such terms would have won both Italy and Austria--not
+now.
+
+The Prince found his father-in-law eager to give the 50,000 men that
+were asked for, but the ministers protested that the Italian army was
+unprepared for war. Still, to satisfy the King, who signified his
+irritation so clearly to Lanza that this good servant was on the point
+of resigning, they agreed to submit the case to Austria; if Austria
+would co-operate, they would re-consider their decision. Austria
+replied: 'Too late.'
+
+When, in 1873, Victor Emmanuel paid a visit to Berlin, he caused some
+sensation at a grand State banquet by saying to his host: 'But for
+these gentlemen' (and he waved his hand towards the ministers who
+accompanied him) 'I should have gone to war with you.' Courtiers did
+not know which way to look, but the aged Emperor was not displeased by
+the soldierly bluntness of the avowal.
+
+Prince Napoleon remained in Florence, throwing away his eloquence,
+till the 2nd of September cut short the argument. When he had left his
+cousin, the Emperor was resolved to fall back on Paris according to
+MacMahon's plan, but the ministers and the Empress Regent forced him
+to his doom. On the 2nd of September Sedan was lost; on the 4th the
+Empire fell.
+
+'And to think,' exclaimed Victor Emmanuel when he heard the news,
+'that this good man was always wanting to give me advice!'
+
+From the date of the declaration of war, and still more since the
+evacuation of Rome by the French troops (begun on the 29th of July,
+ended on the 19th of August), Italy had been too deeply agitated for
+any sane person to suppose that the prescriptive right of the nation
+to seize the opportunity which offered itself of completing its unity
+could be resisted by the artificial dyke of a compromise which made
+the Government the instrument of France. Lanza was determined to
+maintain order; he had Mazzini arrested at Palermo, and suppressed
+disorders where they occurred, but the rising tide of the will of the
+people could not be suppressed, and had the ministry resisted it,
+something more than the ministry would have fallen.
+
+In justification of Lanza's slowness to move, and of the apparent, if
+not real, unwillingness with which he took every forward step, it is
+contended that more precipitate action would have caused what most
+people will agree would have been a misfortune for Italy, the
+departure of the Pope from Rome. It was only on the 20th of August
+that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Visconti-Venosta, sent a
+memorandum to the European Powers which announced that the Government
+had decided on occupying Rome at once. A week after, the fall of the
+Empire came as a godsend to the ministry which had possibly hardly
+deserved such a stroke of luck. They were no longer hampered by the
+September Convention, because the September Convention was dead. This
+was amply admitted by Jules Favre, though he declined to denounce the
+treaty formally; even a French Radical, in the hour of setting up the
+Republic, was afraid to proclaim aloud that France renounced all claim
+to interfere in her neighbour's concerns.
+
+Of the other Powers, Switzerland signified her approval, and the rest
+engaged to abstain from any opposition.
+
+The King addressed a letter to the Pope, in which, with the affection
+of a son and the faith of a Catholic, he appealed to his spirit of
+benevolence and his Italian patriotism to speak the word of peace in
+the midst of the storm of war that was distracting Europe, and to
+accept the love and protection of the people of Italy in lieu of a
+sovereignty which could not stand without the support of foreign arms.
+Pius IX. merely answered by saying that the letter was not worthy of
+an affectionate son, and that he prayed God to bestow upon His Majesty
+the mercy of which he had much need. To the bearer of the royal
+appeal, Count Ponza di San Martino, he said that he might yield to
+violence, but would never sanction injustice.
+
+This was about the time that the Pope, on his side, wrote an appeal
+not, be it observed, to any Catholic monarch, but to King William of
+Prussia, who would certainly not have read unmoved the complaint of
+one who, like himself, was crowned with white hairs, but Count
+Bismarck took the precaution of causing the letter not to reach his
+master's hands till the Italians were in Rome.
+
+The day following the Pope's interview with Count Ponza, the 11th of
+September, the Italian troops received the order to enter the Papal
+states. For several weeks five divisions under General Cadorna had
+been in course of concentration along the frontier; this force now
+marched on Rome. Bixio was sent to Civita Vecchia where resistance was
+expected, and had been ordered by Kanzler, but the native element
+prevailed over the foreign in the garrison, and the Spanish
+commandant, Colonel Serra, interpreting the wishes of the Roman
+troops, surrendered without firing a shot.
+
+Great was the indignation of the French and Belgian Zouaves. They were
+resolved that the same thing should not happen in Rome. That there was
+a chance of avoiding bloodshed may be inferred, from Count Arnim's
+numerous journeys between the Vatican and General Cadorna's
+headquarters outside Porta Salara; the Prussian representative hoping
+till the last moment to arrange matters in a pacific sense. Cardinal
+Antonelli is said to have been nearly persuaded, when he received a
+message from Colonel Charette in these terms: 'You had better go and
+say mass while we look after defending you.' The war party so far
+carried the day that the Pope adhered to his plan of 'sufficient
+resistance to show that he yielded only to force.'
+
+At half-past five on the morning of the 20th of September, all
+attempts at conciliation having failed, the Italian attack was opened
+upon five different points, Porta San Pancrazio, Porta San Giovanni
+Laterano, Porta San Lorenzo, Porta del Popolo and Porta Pia. General
+Maze de la Roche's division attacked the latter gate, and the wall
+near it, in which a breach was rapidly effected by the steady fire of
+the Italian batteries, though it was not till past eight o'clock that
+it seemed large enough to admit of an assault. Then the 41st of the
+line, and the 12th and 34th Bersaglieri were ordered up, and dashed
+into the breach with the cry of 'Savoia! Savoia!' The challenge was
+returned by the Zouaves with their 'Vive Pie Neuf.' They had been
+already ordered to desist, as the Pope's instructions were clear, 'to
+stop when a breach was made;' but on the plea that the order was sent
+to them verbally they continued firing. When the written order came,
+they displayed a white handkerchief fastened to a bayonet, and at this
+point the fight was over. Hundreds of Roman exiles poured through the
+breach after the soldiers; 15,000 of them had arrived or were arriving
+at the gates of the city.
+
+At the same time the white flag was hoisted on Porta Pia, but on the
+advance of the 40th Regiment and a battalion of Bersaglieri, shots
+were fired which killed and wounded several officers and men; when
+they saw their companions falling, the troops could not be restrained
+from scaling the barricade which had been formed to defend the gate,
+and surrounding and capturing the Zouaves who were behind it. The
+whole Diplomatic Corps now came out in full uniform to urge General
+Cadorna to effect the occupation as quickly as possible, that order
+might be maintained. By midday, the Italian troops had penetrated into
+most parts of the city left of the Tiber; as yet there was no formal
+capitulation on the part of the Zouaves, and their attitude was not
+exactly reassuring. This did not prevent the population, both men and
+women, from filling the streets and greeting the Italians with every
+sign of rejoicing. They cheered, they wept, they kissed the national
+flag, and the cry of _Roma Capitale_ drowned all other cries, even as
+the fact it saluted closed the discords and the factions of ages.
+
+In the afternoon all the Papal troops were persuaded to lay down their
+arms, which, in the case of the foreigners, were given back to them.
+Next day they were reviewed by General Cadorna. As the Italians
+presented arms to the retiring host, some of the Antibes Legion
+shouted at them: 'We are French, we shall meet you again.' The Roman
+troops were sent to their homes; the foreigners conducted to the
+frontier, Charette and other of the French officers went to the
+battlefields of their prostrate country, and thus it came to pass that
+the Pope's defenders were found fighting side by side with Garibaldi;
+they, indeed, only doing their simple duty, but he, acting on an
+impulse of Quixotic generosity which was repaid--the world knows how!
+
+Cadorna received three pressing requests from the Pope to occupy the
+Leonine City, and the third he granted. The idea of leaving the part
+of Rome on which the Vatican stands under the Pope's jurisdiction had
+been long favoured by a certain class of politicians, and Lanza made
+a last effort to give it effect by excluding the Leonine City from the
+plebiscite which was ordered to take place in Rome and in the Roman
+province on the 2nd of October. It was in vain. The first voting urn
+to arrive at the Capitol on the appointed day was a glass receptacle
+borne by a huge Trasteverino, and preceded by a banner inscribed:
+'Citta Leonina Si.' As the Government had not supplied the inhabitants
+with an official urn, it occurred to them to provide themselves with
+an unofficial one in which they duly deposited their votes. The Roman
+plebiscite yielded the results of 133,681 affirmative and 1507
+negative votes.
+
+In December the Italian Parliament met for the last time in the Hall
+of the Five Hundred. 'Italy,' said the King in the speech from the
+throne, 'is free and united; it depends on us to make her great and
+happy.' Of this last session at Florence the principal labour was the
+Act embodying the Papal guarantees which was intended to safeguard the
+legitimate independence and decorum of the Holy See on the lines
+formerly advocated by Cavour. Neither extreme party was satisfied, but
+it seemed at first not unlikely that the Pope would tacitly acquiesce
+in the arrangement. The first monthly payment of the national
+dotation, calculated to correspond with his civil list, was accepted.
+But though the influence of Cardinal Antonelli and the Italian
+prelates had been sufficient to keep the Pope in Rome, the influence
+of those who wished him to leave it was strong enough to establish at
+the Vatican the intransigent policy which has been pursued till now.
+
+During the flood of the Tiber which devastated the city that winter,
+the King of Italy paid a first informal visit to his capital,
+accompanied only by a few attendants, and bent on bringing help to
+the suffering population. In July 1872, he made his solemn entry, and
+at the same time the seat of Government was transferred to the Eternal
+City.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Victor Emmanuel could say what few men have been able to say of so
+large a promise: 'I have kept my word.' He gathered up the Italian
+flag from the dust of Novara, and carried it to the Capitol. In spite
+of the grandeur of republican tradition in Italy, and the lofty
+character of the men who represented it during the struggle for unity,
+a study of these events leaves on the mind the conviction that, at
+least in our time, the country could neither have been freed from the
+stranger nor welded into a single body-politic without a symbol which
+appealed to the imagination, and a centre of gravity which kept the
+diverse elements together by giving the whole its proper balance. The
+Liberating Prince whom Machiavelli sought was found in the Savoyard
+King. 'Quali porte se gli serrerebbono? Quali popoli gli negherebbono
+la obbedienza? Quale invidia se gli opporrebbe? Quale Italiano gli
+negherebbe l'ossequio?' To fill the appointed part Victor Emmanuel
+possessed the supreme qualification, which was patriotism. Though he
+came of an ambitious race, not even his enemies could with any
+seriousness bring to his charge personal ambition, since every step
+which took him further from the Alps, his fathers' cradle, involved a
+sacrifice of tastes and habits, and of most that made life congenial.
+When his work was finished, though he was not old, he had the
+presentiment that he should not long survive its completion. And so it
+proved.
+
+In the first days of January 1878, the King was seized with one of
+those attacks on the lungs which his vigorous constitution had
+hitherto enabled him to throw off. But in Rome this kind of illness is
+more fatal than elsewhere, and the doctors were soon obliged to tell
+him that there was no hope. 'Are we come to that?' he asked; and then
+directed that the chaplain should be summoned. There was no repetition
+of the scene at San Rossore; the highest authority had already
+sanctioned the administration of the Sacraments to the dying King, nay,
+it is said that the Pope's first impulse was to be himself the bearer
+of them. At that hour the man got the better of the priest; Francis
+drove out Dominic. The heart that had been made to pity and the lips
+that had been formed to bless returned to their natural functions.
+When the aged Pius heard that all was over, exclaimed: 'He died like a
+Christian, a Sovereign and an honest man (galantuomo).' Very soon the
+Pope followed the King to the grave, and so, almost together, these
+two historical figures disappear.
+
+Six years before, solitary and unsatisfied, Mazzini died at Pisa, his
+heart gnawed with the desire of the extreme, as the hearts have been
+of all those who aspired less to change what men do, or even what they
+believe, than what they are. More deep than political regrets was the
+pain with which he watched the absorption of human energies, in the
+race for wealth, for ease, for material happiness; he discerned that
+if the egotism of capital led to oppression, the egotism of labour
+would lead to anarchy. To the end he preached the moral law of which
+he had been the apostle through life. His last message to his
+countrymen, written when the pen was falling from his hand, was a
+warning to Italian workingmen to beware of the false gods of the new
+socialism. When others saw darkness he saw light; now, Cassandra-like,
+he saw darkness when others saw light; yet he did not doubt the
+ultimate triumph of the light, but he no longer thought that his eyes
+would see it, and he was glad to close them.
+
+Less sad, notwithstanding his physical martyrdom, were Garibaldi's
+last years. Italy showed him an unforgetting love; when he came to the
+continent, the same multitudes waited for him as of old, but instead
+of cheers there was a not less impressive silence now, lest the
+invalid should be disturbed. Soon after the transfer of the capital he
+went to Rome to speak in favour of the works by which it was proposed
+to control the inundations of the Tiber, and it was curious to hear it
+said on all sides that, of course, the Tiber works must be taken in
+hand as Garibaldi wished it. Pius IX. summed up the situation wittily
+in the remark: 'Lately we were two here; now we are three.' The old
+hero invoked the day when bayonets might be turned into pruning-hooks,
+but he by no means thought that it had arrived, and in the meanwhile
+he urged the Italians to look to their defences, and above all, 'to be
+strong on the sea, like England.' In the matter of government he
+remained the impenitent advocate of the rule of one honest man--call
+him Dictator or what you please, so he be one! Garibaldi died at
+Caprera on the 2nd of June 1882. The play was ended, the actors
+vanished:
+
+  [Greek: Dote kroton, kai pantes hymeis meta charas ktypesate.]
+
+A new epoch has begun which need not detain the chronicler of Italian
+Liberation. The prose of possession succeeds the poetry of desire.
+Nothing, however, can lessen the greatness of the achievement. With
+regard to the future, it may be allowable to recall the superstition
+which, like so many other seemingly meaningless beliefs, becomes full
+of meaning when read according to the spirit: that a house stands long
+if its foundations be watered with the blood of sacrifice. No work of
+man was ever watered with a purer blood than the restoration of Italy
+to the ranks of living nations. And the last word of this book shall
+be Hope.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Colston and Company, Printers, Edinburgh.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  Albrecht, Archduke, 364, 369.
+
+  Alessandria, 225.
+
+  Alfieri, 8, 18.
+
+  Alemann, General, 379.
+
+  Amedeo, Prince, 169, 344, 368.
+
+  Amadeus, Victor, 73.
+
+  Amadeus with the Tail, 172.
+
+  Ampere, 237.
+
+  Andreoli, Giuseppe, 51.
+
+  Antonelli, Cardinal, 101, 130, 184, 189, 191, 398, 409.
+
+  Anzani, Francesco, 124.
+
+  Appel, General, 140.
+
+  Arnim, Count, 409.
+
+  Aspre, d', General, 104, 139, 140.
+
+  Aspromonte, 300, 348, 350.
+
+  Austerlitz, 5.
+
+  Azeglio, Massimo d', 73, 74, 113, 175, 190, 195, 206.
+
+
+  Bandiera, 67-69.
+
+  Bassi, Ugo, 154. 163.
+
+  Bastide, Jules, 117.
+
+  Bava, General, 106, 114.
+
+  Bazaine, Marshal, 243
+
+  Beauharnais, Eugene, 6-9.
+
+  Beauregard, Costa de, 224.
+
+  Bellegarde, Marshal, 9-11.
+
+  Benedek, 240, 244, 245.
+
+  Bentinck, Lord William, 7, 11, 13, 14.
+
+  Bentivegna, Count, 209.
+
+  Berlin, Congress of, 399.
+
+  Bertani, Dr, 231, 297, 309.
+
+  Beust, Count, 400.
+
+  Bianchi, B. dei, 330.
+
+  Bismarck, 358, 397-8, 408.
+
+  Bixio, 101, 272, 301, 318, 360, 368, 408.
+
+  Boccheciampi, 68.
+
+  Borjes, Jose, 331.
+
+  Brescia, Revolution at, 142, 232, 245, 343.
+
+  Briganti, General, 301, 302,
+
+  Brofferio, 179.
+
+  Bronzetta, Pilade, 318, 320.
+
+  Bubna, Count, 43.
+
+  Brunetti, Angelo, 82.
+
+  Buol, Count, 223.
+
+  Buonaparte, Joseph, 6.
+
+  Buonaparte, Lucien, 213.
+
+
+  Cadorna, Gen., 408-9, 410-11.
+
+  Caiazzo, 316.
+
+  Cairoli, Benedetto, 281, 380, 391.
+
+  Calabria helps Garibaldi, 300.
+
+  Calandrelli, 184.
+
+  Calatafimi, 278.
+
+  Calderai del Contrapeso, 24.
+
+  Campo Formio, Treaty of, 4.
+
+  Canrobert, General, 229.
+
+  Capponi, 39, 135.
+
+  Caprera, 221, 325, 328, 337, 385, 396.
+
+  Capua, War around, 305, 318;
+    capitulation, 326.
+
+  Carignano, Prince of, 30, 32, 37.
+
+  Carignano. Eugene de, 333.
+
+  Carlyle, Thomas, 69.
+
+  Caroline, Queen, 13.
+
+  Casati, 100.
+
+  Caserta, 314, 318.
+
+  Carusso, 331.
+
+  Castelfidardo, 322, 337.
+
+  Castelnuovo, burning of village, 107.
+
+  Castel Sant Elmo, 306, 307.
+
+  Castiglione, Count, 370.
+
+  Castlereagh, Lord, 11, 12, 14, 27.
+
+  Cattaneo, 100; party of,
+
+  Cavour, Count, 85;
+    becomes minister, 192;
+    resolves Piedmont shall join Allies in Crimean War, 202;
+    visits England, 204;
+    meets Napoleon at Plombieres, 247;
+    resigns office, 249;
+    recalled, 260;
+    resolves to invade Papal States, 310;
+    Garibaldi's veterans, 335;
+    Rome to be capital, 337;
+    death, 339.
+
+  Centurioni, Society of, 78.
+
+  Charette, General, 389.
+
+  Charles III, 208, 236.
+
+  Charles Albert, 30, 31, 34, 36, 38, 46;
+    accession 56;
+    Re Tentenna, 74;
+    promulgates Charter, 94;
+    retreat to Milan, 114;
+    abdicates, 141;
+    burial, 181.
+
+  Charles Emmanuel. 19, 30.
+
+  Charles Felix, Duke of Genoa, 30, 31, 36, 56.
+
+  Charles Ludovico, 87.
+
+  Chiavone, General, 330.
+
+  Chretien, General, 284, 286.
+
+  Chrzanowski, 139, 140.
+
+  Cialdini, General, 322, 328, 332, 348, 366, 370, 337.
+
+  Cipriani, L., 255.
+
+  Civita Vecchia, the French at, 391-408.
+
+  Clam Gallas, Count, 243.
+
+  Clarendon, Lord, 185, 206.
+
+  Clary, General, 292.
+
+  Clotilde, Princess, 217, 218.
+
+  Colonna, General, 281.
+
+  Commacchio, 16.
+
+  Confalonieri, Count, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45, 64.
+
+  Conneau, 216.
+
+  Corsini, Prince, 130, 135.
+
+  Corti, Count, 399.
+
+  Cosenz, 301, 308, 360.
+
+  Cowley, Lord, 260.
+
+  Crispi, Francesco, 269, 292, 294.
+
+  Cristina, Princess, 238.
+
+  Crocco, 331.
+
+  Custozza, 114, 370.
+
+
+  Dalmatia, sold with Venice, 364.
+
+  Dante, 1-3, 341, 363.
+
+  De Castillia, 42.
+
+  Del Bosco, 290, 291.
+
+  Depretis, Agostino, 293.
+
+  D'Este, Francis. 31, 51.
+
+  Dolfi, Giuseppe, 235.
+
+  Drouyn de Lhuys, 184.
+
+  Dunne, Colonel, 289, 319.
+
+  Durando, General. 102, 107, 112.
+
+
+  Eboli. 303.
+
+  Elliot, Mr, 314.
+
+  Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg, 199, 266.
+
+
+  Falloux, de, 185.
+
+  Fanti, General, 257, 312, 334.
+
+  Farini, L.C., 73, 127, 237, 255, 257, 333, 339.
+
+  Faro, Cape of, 297, 298, 300.
+
+  Favre, Jules. 215, 397.
+
+  Ferdinand II., 48, 90, 92, 93, 102, 188, 237.
+
+  Ferdinand III., 12, 26, 28.
+
+  Ferdinand, Emperor of Austria, 118.
+
+  Ferrara, Austrians in, 16.
+
+  Ferretti, Cardinal, 82.
+
+  Fleury, General, 247.
+
+  Florence, capital of Italy, 352-411.
+
+  Forbes, Commander, 304, 305.
+
+  Foscolo, Ugo, 17, 18.
+
+  Fra Giacomo. 201, 339.
+
+  Francis I., 47.
+
+  Francis II., 238, 267, 295, 299, 306, 327, 330.
+
+  Francis Joseph, Emperor, 119, 160, 227, 240, 242, 249.
+
+
+  Gaeta, Fall of, 317-326.
+
+  Gamba, Pietro, 24, 50.
+
+  Gambetta, 399.
+
+  Gaminara, Emmanuele, 9.
+
+  Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 64, 120;
+    declared enemy of the State, 121;
+    in South America, 123;
+    marries Anita, 123;
+    in Rome, 148;
+    death of Anita, 158;
+    leaves Caprera, 221, 256-263;
+    Sicilian expedition, 256;
+    march on Naples, 298;
+    Battle of Solferino, 319;
+    of Garigliano, 323;
+    returns to Caprera, 325, 334, 347;
+    wounded, 349; arrested, 383; in Rome, 391;
+    defeat at Mentana, 394; death, 414.
+
+  Garibaldi, Menotti, 257, 280, 286, 386, 392.
+
+  Garigliano, Battle of, 323.
+
+  Genoa, ceded to Sardinia, 13-15.
+
+  Genoa, Charles Felix, Duke of, 30-32.
+
+  Ghio, General, 302, 303.
+
+  Giacinta di Collegno, 38.
+
+  Gioberti, 78, 133.
+
+  Gladstone, W.E., 187.
+
+  Goito, Battle of, 112.
+
+  Gravelotte, Battle of, 405.
+
+  Gregory XVI., 50, 76, 77.
+
+  Guerrazzi, 135, 136.
+
+  Gyulai, Count, 227, 230, 231, 240.
+
+
+  Haynau, General, 145, 162.
+
+  Hess, General, 228, 230, 242.
+
+  Hilliers, Baraguay d', 229.
+
+  Hoche, 5.
+
+  Hortense, Queen, 55.
+
+  Humbert of the White Hands, 172.
+
+
+  Immaculate Conception, Doctrine of, 77.
+
+
+  Jesuits, 51, 75, 128, 379.
+
+
+  Kanzler, General, 392.
+
+  Kellersperg, Baron von, 227.
+
+  Klapka, General, 357.
+
+  Kohlen-Brenners, 22.
+
+  Kossuth, 246, 253.
+
+  Kuhn, General, 372.
+
+
+  Laderchi, Count, 40.
+
+  La Farina, 295.
+
+  La Gala, 331.
+
+  Lamartine, 117
+
+  La Marmora, General, 170, 171, 202. 348, 352,
+    357, 359, 361-366
+
+  Lamoriciere, General, 311, 313.
+
+  Lannes, Marshal, 231.
+
+  Lanza, General, 282, 283, 286, 403, 406, 407.
+
+  Le Boeuf, General, 379.
+
+  Leo XII., 49.
+
+  Leopardi, 186.
+
+  Leopold II., 89, 159, 234.
+
+  Lesseps, Ferdinand, 151, 154.
+
+  Letizia, General, 284, 286.
+
+  Liborio Romano, 306.
+
+  Lincoln, President, 343.
+
+  Lissa, Battle of, 374.
+
+  Lodi, 4.
+
+  Lombardy, trials in, 40; Revolution, 100, 162.
+
+  Louis Philippe, 128.
+
+  Lucca, 16.
+
+
+  Machiavelli, 2, 3, 52, 412.
+
+  MacMahon, Marshal, 229, 233, 244, 406.
+
+  Magenta, Battle of, 232, 234, 236.
+
+  Malghella, 23.
+
+  Malmesbury, Lord, 223.
+
+  Mamelli, Goffredo, 154, 155.
+
+  Manin, Daniel, 99, 116, 160, 168, 203.
+
+  Mantua, Prince Eugene in, 8-10;
+    gallant defence, 105.
+
+  Manzoni, Alessandro, 19.
+
+  Margaret, Queen, 199, 401.
+
+  Maria Adelaide, Queen, 169.
+
+  Maria Teresa, Queen, 31.
+
+  Marie Louise, Empress, 12, 31;
+    death, 88.
+
+  Marie Sofia, Princess, 237.
+
+  Mamiani, Terenzio, 126, 131.
+
+  Maroncelli, Pietro, 44.
+
+  Marryat, Captain, 274.
+
+  Marsala, 274, 276, 345.
+
+  Martinengo, Count, 145.
+
+  Mary, Princess, of Cambridge, 205
+
+  Mastai Ferretti, Cardinal, 77.
+
+  Matilda, Archduchess, 401.
+
+  Maximilian, Archduke, 211.
+
+  Mazzini, Giuseppe, 53, 57, 58;
+    early life, 59;
+    becomes a Carbonaro, 60;
+    Association of Young Italy, 63;
+    takes refuge in England, 66;
+    writes 'Duties of Man,' 67;
+    meets Garibaldi, 120;
+    at Rome, 132, 157;
+    letters from Orsini, 214;
+    protests against Napoleonic war, 220;
+    in Naples, 313, 354-357;
+    corresponds with the king, 398;
+    arrested, 407;
+    death, 413.
+
+  Medici, Giacomo, 124, 125, 155, 231, 273, 289,
+    292, 301, 318, 360.
+
+  Melegnano, Battle of, 240.
+
+  Menabrea, General, 388-395, 400-402.
+
+  Menechini, 25.
+
+  Menotti, Ciro, 52, 55, 64.
+
+  Mentana, Battle of, 392-397, 404.
+
+  Merode, Marquis de, 330.
+
+  Messina, held by Royal troops, 290;
+    evacuated, 295.
+
+  Metternich, Prince, 15, 32, 46, 56, 83, 84, 86,
+    95, 400.
+
+  Mezzacapo, 237.
+
+  Micca, Pietro, 36.
+
+  Milan, revolt, 8-10;
+    fighting in the city, 95;
+    Austrians depart, 233.
+
+  Milano, Ageslao, 208.
+
+  Milazzo, Battle of, 290.
+
+  Mincio, Battle of. 107, 241, 365, 366, 369.
+
+  Minghetti, Marco, 101, 129.
+
+  Minto, Lord, 87, 116
+
+  Misilmeri, 280.
+
+  Misley, Dr, 52.
+
+  Missori, Major. 291.
+
+  Modena, revolution in, 53.
+
+  Monreale, 278.
+
+  Montalembert, 185.
+
+  Montanelli, Giuseppe, 112, 135, 136.
+
+  Monti, 16.
+
+  Montebello, Battle of, 231.
+
+  Morelli. 25, 29.
+
+  Moro, Domenico, 68.
+
+  Moscow, retreat from, 8.
+
+  Mundy, Admiral, 282, 283, 287, 288, 314, 320,
+    324, 354.
+
+  Murat, Joachim, 6, 7, 10, 13, 23.
+
+
+  Napier, Lord, 90, 92.
+
+  Naples, 25-29, 101;
+    massacre, 110;
+    misrule in, 186-187;
+    Garibaldi's march on, 299;
+    King enters, 324.
+
+  Napoleon Buonaparte, 2-10, 240.
+
+  Napoleon III., 55;
+    elected President of French Republic, 119, 149;
+    letter to Ney, 185;
+    attempt on his life, 212;
+    compact at Plombieres, 217, 253;
+    demands Nice and Savoy, 260-262;
+    era of peace, 358.
+
+  Napoleon, Prince, 185, 229, 235, 351, 406.
+
+  Nelaton, Dr, 349.
+
+  Ney, Edgar, 185.
+
+  Nice, cession of. 221, 224, 258, 262
+
+  Nicotera, 209, 297.
+
+  Niel, 229, 244.
+
+  Ninco-Nanco, 330.
+
+  Normanby, Lord, 117, 228.
+
+  Novara, 37-39;
+    battle of, 141, 412.
+
+  Nugent, General, 107, 112, 113, 143.
+
+
+  O'Donnel, Count, 95.
+
+  Oliphant, Laurence, 263, 266.
+
+  Olivier, Emile, 405.
+
+  Orsini, Colonel, 280.
+
+  Orsini, Felice, 213, 216.
+
+  Oudinot, General, 150, 156.
+
+
+  Palermo, strange discovery, 92;
+    Sicilian expedition, 271-290;
+    insurrection, 381.
+
+  Pallavicini, Giorgio, 42, 137, 309, 314, 344, 348, 360.
+
+  Palma, 330.
+
+  Palmerston, Lord, 83, 111, 117: 161, 266, 282, 355, 371.
+
+  Panizzi, Anthony, 52.
+
+  Paris, Treaty of, 13;
+    Congress of, 185.
+
+  Parma, 12-16.
+
+  Passaglia, 341.
+
+  Pastrengo, Battle of, 109.
+
+  Peard, Colonel, 303-306.
+
+  Pellico, Silvio, 40, 43.
+
+  Pepe, Guglielmo, 29, 111, 126.
+
+  Perier, Casimir, 53.
+
+  Persano, Admiral, 274, 288, 308, 372, 377.
+
+  Peschiera, 112, 240, 242, 248.
+
+  Petitti. General, 378.
+
+  Petre, 81, 82.
+
+  Piacenza, garrisoned by Austrians, 16.
+
+  Piedmont, Revolution in, 33;
+    struggle within the Church, 189-192.
+
+  Pietri, 253.
+
+  Pilone, 330.
+
+  Pilo, Rosalino, 170, 278.
+
+  Pisacane, Carlo, 209
+
+  Pius VII., 12, 49.
+
+  Pius VIII., 50
+
+  Pius IX., 78;
+    election, 79, 93;
+    grants constitution, 101;
+    encyclical letter, 108;
+    flight to Gaeta, 130;
+    calls foreign aid to support temporal power, 132;
+    thanksgiving, 183, 259;
+    character, 311;
+    calls to arms, 363, 408;
+    death, 413.
+
+  Plombieres, 217;
+    meeting between Napoleon and Cavour.
+
+  Poerio, Carlo, 90, 126, 134.
+
+  Pralormo, Count, 176.
+
+  Prina, General, 8.
+
+  Prince Consort, 198, 258.
+
+
+  Radetsky, 96, 104, 111, 139, 162, 167, 195, 249.
+
+  Raimondi, Captain, 35
+
+  Rattazzi, 138, 200, 207, 252, 260, 340, 342, 350, 382, 384.
+
+  Reggio, 301, 347.
+
+  Renzi, Pietro, 73.
+
+  Ricasoli, Baron, 135, 235, 236, 255, 335, 340, 361.
+
+  Rienzi, Cola di, 132.
+
+  Rimini, 9.
+
+  Risorgimento, 194.
+
+  Rolandis, de, 51.
+
+  Romagna, Carbonarism in the, 24, 50.
+
+  Rome, Entry of French, 157;
+    French depart from, 382;
+    declared capital, 412
+
+  Romeo, Domenico, 90.
+
+  Rossaroll, General, 29.
+
+  Rossetti, Gabriele, 49.
+
+  Rossi, 81, 128.
+
+  Rouher, 397, 405.
+
+  Ruffini, Jacobo, 65.
+
+  Ruskin, J., 192.
+
+  Russell, Lord John, 252, 268, 274. 327.
+
+  Russell, Odo, 225.
+
+
+  Sadowa, Battle of, 370.
+
+  Salemi, 275.
+
+  Salerno, 305.
+
+  San Bon, 374.
+
+  Sanfedesti, Secret Society of, 50.
+
+  San Marino, 13, 73.
+
+  San Martino, Count, 408.
+
+  Santa Rosa, 191.
+
+  Santorre di Santa Rosa, 38.
+
+  Sardinia--War with Austria, 137.
+
+  Savoy, 13;
+    cession of, 221, 224, 258, 259, 262.
+
+  Schmidt, Colonel, 237.
+
+  Schwarzenberg, Prince, 176, 187,243, 244.
+
+  Sella, Quintino, 361.
+
+  Settembrini, 209.
+
+  Sicily--Insurrection, 91;
+    Sicilian expedition, 266.
+
+  Silvati, 25, 29.
+
+  Sirtori, 272, 360.
+
+  Speri, Tito, 144.
+
+  Spielberg, 44.
+
+  Solaro della Margherita, 223.
+
+  Solferino, Battle of, 243, 245.
+
+  Superga, the, 181.
+
+
+  Talleyrand, Prince, 32, 260, 264.
+
+  Tardio, 330.
+
+  Tchernaja, Battle of, 202.
+
+  Tegethoff, Admiral, 373-377.
+
+  Theobald de Brie, 22.
+
+  Theodolinda, Crown of, 6.
+
+  Thiers, 175, 397, 404.
+
+  Thurn, General, 140.
+
+  Ticino, 120, 139, 226, 228, 233.
+
+  Tolentino, Battle of, 10.
+
+  Torelli, Prince, 134.
+
+  Tortona, 230.
+
+  Trazegnies, Marquis de, 331.
+
+  Trentino, 343, 363, 371.
+
+  Trescorre, 342, 343.
+
+  Tuerr, General, 315, 405.
+
+
+  Ulloa, General, 304.
+
+  Ultramontanes, 190, 259, 397, 404.
+
+  Umberto, Prince, 169, 344, 367, 368, 401.
+
+  Urban, 231, 232.
+
+
+  Vacca, Admiral, 374.
+
+  Vaillant, General, 229, 261.
+
+  Vecchj, Colonel, 328.
+
+  Venice, 3-5;
+    political trials in, 40-44;
+    Austrians expelled, 99;
+    re-occupied by Austria, 160-163, 251, 322, 356, 371;
+    united to Italy, 379.
+
+  Venosta, 350, 361, 407.
+
+  Verona, Congress of, 56.
+
+  Victor Amadeus, 181.
+
+  Victor Emmanuel I.,
+    at Turin, 12;
+    King of Sardinia, 30;
+    abdicates, 36;
+    recommends mercy, 38.
+
+  Victor Emmanuel II.;
+    accession, 141;
+    unpopularity, 165-166;
+    visits English and French courts, 204;
+    invites Garibaldi to join his army, 221;
+    enters Milan, 234;
+    courage at Soferino, 245;
+    peace with Austria, 249;
+    letter to Napoleon, 255;
+    hailed King of Italy, 323;
+    entry into Naples, 324;
+    in Venice, 380;
+    illness, 402;
+    visit to Berlin, 406;
+    death, 413.
+
+  Victoria, Queen, 261.
+
+  Vienna, Congress of, 13, 15, 32, 10;
+    Treaty of, 379.
+
+  Vimercati, Count, 168, 169.
+
+  Volturno, 307, 313, 315;
+    Battle of, 319.
+
+
+  Waddington, 399.
+
+  Welden, General, 127.
+
+  Wellesley, Admiral, 68.
+
+  Wellington, Duke of, 56.
+
+  William I., Emperor, 358, 408.
+
+  Wilmot, Lieutenant, 280, 284
+
+  Woerth, Battle of, 405.
+
+  Wratislaw, 140.
+
+
+  Young Italy, Association of, founded by Mazzini, 63.
+
+
+  Zamboni, Luigi, 51.
+
+  Zedwitz, 243, 244.
+
+  Zobel, 232.
+
+  Zorzi, 126.
+
+  Zucchi, General, 54.
+
+  Zurich, Conference of, 257;
+
+    Treaty of, 258.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: See _Memoirs of Lord Castlereagh_, 1848, Vol. i. p. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 2: It is now Carlyle's turn to be aspersed. Let Mazzini
+speak for him from the grave: 'I do not know if I told you,' he wrote
+to the Marchesa Eleonora Curlo Ruffini, in a letter published a few
+months ago, 'that I have met upon my path, deserted enough, I hope,
+by choice, a Scotchman of mind and things, the first person here, up
+till now, with whom I sympathise and who sympathises with me. We
+differ in nearly all opinions, but his are so sincere and
+disinterested that I respect them. He is good, good, good; he has
+been, and I think he is still, unhappy in spite of the fame which
+surrounds him; he has a wife with talent and feeling; always ailing;
+no children. They live out of town, and I go to see them every now and
+then. They have no insular or other prejudices that jar upon me. I
+have grown more intimate with this man in consequence, I think, of an
+article I wrote here, after knowing him, against an historical work of
+his; perhaps, accustomed as he is to common-place praise, to which he
+is indifferent, my frankness pleased him. For the rest I shall see him
+rarely, and I can only give him esteem and the warmest sympathy--not
+friendship, which I can henceforth give to no one.' (22nd March
+1840.)]
+
+[Footnote 3: On the production of Verdi's opera, _I Lombardi alla
+prima Crociata_, the Austrian Archbishop of Milan wished the
+Commissary of Police to prohibit the performance because it treated of
+sacred subjects. When it was recognised as one of the accelerating
+causes of the revolution, he drily remarked that they would have done
+better to take his advice. The grand chorus, 'O Signore dal tetto
+natio,' in which the censor had only seen a pious chant, became the
+morning-song of national resurrection.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Long live who has money and who has none.']
+
+[Footnote 5: Of Garibaldi's foreign officers, Colonel (afterwards
+General) Dunne was one of the most marked personalities. When quite a
+young man he sold his commission in the English army and took to
+fighting under many flags. In the Crimean War he commanded a company
+of Bashi Bazouks. He had in him more than a dash of Gordon, of Burton,
+and like them he could do what he chose with untamed natures. If he
+was not obeyed fast enough he adopted rather strong measures. A
+Sicilian company, under fire for the first time, failed to show
+sufficient promptitude in executing an order to escalade a wall and
+jump into a garden, from which the enemy was keeping up a brisk fire.
+Dunne caught up half-a-dozen of the men into his saddle and pitched
+them bodily over the wall. The effect was singular, for seeing the
+Garibaldians falling from the clouds, the Neapolitans took to their
+heels, exclaiming: 'They can fly! they can fly!' Generally, however,
+he infused his own courage into all who served under him with a touch,
+perhaps, of his own fatalistic mysticism. It was a strange experience
+to hear this courteous, mild-mannered gentleman lament that Rome had
+not been burnt down; the disappearance of the scene of so many awful
+crimes he regarded necessary as a moral sanitary measure.]
+
+
+
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