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(riusejjpe Ciujibaldi .

THE

LIBERATION OF ITALY

1815-1870

BY THE

COUNTESS EVELYN MARTINENGO CESARESCO

AUTHOR OF
* ITALIAN CHARACTERS IN THE EPOCH OF UNIFICATION,* ETC.

WITH PORTRAITS

FOURTH EDITION

LONDON

SEELEY, SERVICE isf CO. LIMITED

38 GREAT RUSSELL STREET

igi5

EVENTS OF OUR OWN TIME

A Series of Volumes on the most Important Events of the last Half-
Century, each containing 320 pages or more, with Plans, Portraits,
or other Illustrations, in extra Crown 8vo. Cloth, 5s.

THE WAR IN THE CRIMEA. By General Sir Edward
Hamlet, K.C.B. With Five Maps and Plans, and Four
Portraits on Copper. Seventh Edition.

THE INDIAN MUTINY OF 1857. By Colonel Malleson,
O.S.I. With Three Plans, and Four Portraits on Copper.
Seventh Edition.

THE AFGHAN WARS OF 1839-1842 and 1878-1880. By
Archibald Foebes. With Five Maps and Plans, and Four
Portraits on Copper. Third Edition.

THE REFOUNDING OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE. By

Colonel Malleson, C.S.I. With Five Maps and Plans, and
Four Portraits, 5s. Also New and Cheaper Edition, 2s. net.

THE LIBERATION OF ITALY, 1815-1870. By the
Countess Martinengo Cesaresco. With Portraits on Copper.
Second Edition.

Uniform with the above.

THE WAR IN THE PENINSULA. By Alexander Innes
Shand. With Pour Portraits on Copper, and Six Plans. 5s.

"Admirably lucid and well TpropoTtioned."^ Glasgow Herald.

GREAT BRITAIN IN MODERN AFRICA. By Edgar
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Map. 5s.

' ' Undoubtedly the best summary of modern African history that we have
had. " — Pall Mall Gazette.

SEELEY, SERVICE 6- CO. LIMITED

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 how-
ever 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 photo-
graph 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.

Ill

iv Preface

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 unifica-
tion 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 value-
less. 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 Mar-

Preface v

tinengo 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 Cor-
respondence, 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

a 2

vi Preface

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 en-
tire people to heroic effort.

Sali, Lago di Cards.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

RESURGAM
Italy from the Battle of Lodi to the Congress of Vienna, . . page i

CHAPTER II

THE WORK OF THE CARBONARI

Revolutions in the Kingdom of Naples and in Piedmont — The Conspiracy
against Charles Albert, . . . . , , 21

CHAPTER III

PRISON AND SCAFFOLD

Political Trials in Venetia and Lombardy — Risings in the South and Centre
— Ciro Menotti, .•...., 40

CHAPTER IV
YOUNG ITALY

Accession of Charles Albert — Mazzini's Unitarian Propaganda — The Brothers
Bandiera, ....... 56

CHAPTER V

THE POPE LIBERATOR

Events leading to the Election of Pius IX.— The Petty Princes— Charles
Albert, Leopold and Ferdinand, , , , , iji

viii Contents

CHAPTER VI

THE YEAR OF REVOLUTION

Insurrection in Sicily — The Austrians expelled from Milan and Venice—
CSiarles Albert takes the Field — Withdrawal of the Pope and King of
Naples — Piedmont defeated — The Retreat, . . . page 91

CHAPTER VII

THE DOWNFALL OF THRONES

Garibaldi arrives — Venice under Manin — The Dissolution of the Temporal
Power — Republics at Rome and Florence, . . . 120

CHAPTER VIII

AT BAY

Novara — Abdication of Charles Albert — Brescia crushed — French Interven
lion— The Fall of Rome— The Fall of Venice, . . .137

CHAPTER IX

'J'ATTENDS MON ASTRE '

The House of Savoy— A King who Keeps his Word — Sufferings of the Lom-
bards — Charles Albert's Death, . . . , ,165

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, 183

CHAPTER XI
PREMONITIONS OF THE STORM

Pisacane's Landing — Orsini's Attempt— The Compact of Plombi^res —
Cavour's Triumph, •...,. 208

Contents ix

CHAPTER XII

THE WAR FOR LOMBARDY

Austria declares War — Montebello — Garibaldi's Campaign — Palestro —
Magenta — The Allies enter Milan — Ricasoli saves Italian Unity — Acces-
sion of Francis II.— Solferino— The Armistice of Villafranca, page 227

CHAPTER XIII

WHAT UNITY COST

Napoleon III. and Cavour— The Cession of Savoy and Nice— Annexations
in Central Italy, . . . , . , ,251

CHAPTER XIV

THE MARCH OF THE THOUSAND

Origin of the Expedition — Garibaldi at Marsala — Calatafimi — The Taking
of Palermo — Milazzo — The Bourbons evacuate Sicily, . , 266

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, . . 29S

CHAPTER XVI
BEGINNINGS OF THE ITALIAN KINGDOM

The Fall of Gaeta — Political Brigandage — The Proclamation of the Italian
Kingdom — Cavour's Death, ..... 326

CHAPTER XVII

'ROME OR death!'

Cavour's Successors — Aspromonte — The September Convention — Garibaldi's
Visit to England, ....... 340

X Contents

CHAPTER XVIII

THE WAR FOR VENICE

The Prussian Alliance— Custoza—Lissa— The Volunteers— Acquisition ot
Venetia, .,,.... page 356

CHAPTER XIX

THE LAST CRUSADE

The French leave Rome— Garibaldi's Arrest and Escape— The Second French
Intervention — Monte Rotondo — Mentana, . . . 381

CHAPTER XX

ROME THE CAPITAL

M. Rouher's ' Never ! '—Papal Infallibility— S^dan— The Ureach in PorU
Pia— The King of Italy in Rome, .... 397

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGF

GiDSEPPE Garibaldi, . . . , . Frontispiece

Giuseppe Mazzini, • • • • .60

King Victor Emmanuel, . . . . . joc

Count Cavour, ■ , -s • , . . 192

The Liberation of Italy

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

A

2 The Liberation of Italy

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 provi-
dential 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 in-
tensely 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 particu-
lar 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 ob-
stinate 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

Resurgam 3

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 1 50 leagues of frontier, and these 1 50
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 popu-
lations 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 experi-
ment 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 com-
promised 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

4 The Liberation of Italy

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 govern-
ment, in compliance with a mere rumour, conveyed to
them through the ignoble medium of a petty shop-
keeper, 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 demo-
cratic institutions, the populace, neither hoodwinked nor

Resurgam 5

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 consoli-
dated, and miserable Italy assume, at last, a glorious
place, free and independent of strangers.' On the loth
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 circum-
stances 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 him-
self 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 incor-
porated it in the newly-created kingdom of Italy, which
no more corresponded to its name than did the Gothic

6 The Liberation of Italy

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 I'a
donn^e, 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 quick-
ening 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 in-
habitants 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 shame-
less 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 down-
fall of the man to whose sword they owed their existence.

Resurgam ^

Their dissolution was precipitated, however, by the dis-
cordant action of Murat and Eugene Beauharnais. Had
these two pulled together, whatever the issue was it
would have differed in much from what actually hap-
pened. Murat was jealous of Eugdne, 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
ofKcer 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 1 8 14, 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

8 The Liberation, of Italy

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

Resurgam 9

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 18 15, 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.

lo The Liberation of Italy

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 crush-
ing 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 fevi' 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 daunt-
less 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 re-
deem 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

Resurgam 1 1

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 Lom-
bardy 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 uncer-
tainty ceased on the 23rd of May 18 14, 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 com-
paratively 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,* 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 inter-
vention 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 emancipa-
tion 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
* See Memoirs of Lord Castlereagh, 1848, Vol. i. p. 34.

12 The Liberation of Italy

his own incredible efforts, would be crushed, and the King
would wreak 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

Resurgam 13

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 18 14. 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 conven-
tion concluded with the authorities on the 1 8th 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 con-
stitution- 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 English-
man 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

14 The Liberation of Italy

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 deter-
mination 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 enter-
tained and decided upon by the allied sovereigns. It was
not resolved upon because any particular state had un-
worthy or sordid views, or from any interest or feeling in
favour of the King of Sardinia, but solely to make him,

Resurgam 1 5

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 king-
dom 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
th& other Italian states, but the facts of the hour pre-
sented her in a most unattractive light The Genoese
felt the keenest heart-burnings in submitting to a de-
cision 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 dis-
affection, 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 Metter-
nich 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

1 6 The Liberation of Italy

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 irrecon-
cilable 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 com-
mercial 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 Na-

Resurgam 17

poleon, 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 con-
sciousness, 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 statu-
tory' 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

B

1 8 The Liberation of Italy

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 for-
gotten, 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 him-
self 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 at
libera 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 indepen-

Resurgam 19

dence : angry at the scant measure of freedom in Pied-
mont, 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 Man-
zoni, the founder of Italian Romanticism, to which he
gave an aspect differing from that which the same move-
ment 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 with-
out 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 pnly read, but discussed and thought over,
and every slight allusion to the times was instantly

20 The Liberation of Italy

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 can-
not 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
181S-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 des-
perate 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 recog-
nised. 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,

21

22 The Liberation of Italy

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 pre-
tensions 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 im-
press the poorer and more ignorant and excitable of the
brethren. The Vatican affected to believe that Car-
bonarism was an offshoot of Freemasonry, but, in spite of
sundry points of resemblance, such as the engagements of

The Work of the Carbonari 23

mutual help assumed by members, there seems to have
been no real connection between the two. Political Free-
masonry 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 inde-
pendence, 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 assidu-
ously, 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 181 3 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

24 The Liberation of Italy

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 in-
vested Carbonarism with the wild intensity of their own
temperament, resolute even to crime, but capable of
supreme impersonal enthusiasm. The ferment of ex-
pectancy that prevailed in Romagna is reflected in the
Letters ajid 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 apart-
ments, he writes, were full of the bayonets, fusils and
cartridges of his Carbonari cronies ; ' I suppose that they
consider me as a ddpdt, to be sacrificed in case of

The Work of the Carbonari 25

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 —
a 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 Con-
stitution in the month of March encouraged the Neapoli-
tans 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 com-
promised, 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 ist 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 in-
surrections there was sure to be a priest ; the Neapolitan
Church, much though there is to be laid to its account.

26 The Liberation of Italy

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 mo-
ment 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 Work of the Carbonari 27

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 18 12, 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 impos-
sible 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 incontest-
able right in taking common measures of security against
states which the overthrow of authority by revolt placed
in a hostile attitude towards every legitimate govern-
ment' The assumption was too broadly stated, even
for Lord Castlereagh's acceptance ; but he was con-
tented to make a gentle protest, which he further nul-
lified by allowing that, in the present case, intervention
was very likely justified. France expressed no dis-
approval. Only the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden

28 The Liberation of Italy

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 Con-
stitution, 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 what-
ever 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 1 821, 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 pre-

The Work of the Carbonari 29

parations 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 moun-
tains 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 ven-
geance 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 x82S, after mis-
governing for sixty-five years.

30 The Liberation of Italy

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 Em-
manuel 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 educa-
tion, 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 Montldart, Charles Albert
was made to sit on the box of the carriage, in a tem-
perature 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 Carig-

The Work of the Carbonari 31

nano, 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
1 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 Em-
manuel 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

32 The Liberation of Italy

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 re-
cognised.

Curiously enough, Prince Metternich had insisted on
the young Prince, then seventeen, visiting the head-
quarters of the Allies. Charles Felix (who was uncon-
nected 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 head-
quarters 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 extingviishing 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,

The Work of the Carbonari 33

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 1 82 1, when the affairs of Naples were creating much
excitement The principal conspirators, noble young men,
full of unselfish ardour, were the chosen friends and com-
panions 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

C

34 The Liberation of Italy

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 sur-
prise when, on the 2nd 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 loth 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 Work of the Carbonari 35

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 hur-
ried 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,

36 The Liberation of Italy

occurred the memorable deed of Pietro Micca, the peas-
ant-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 un-
enviable 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 sur-
render : ' I, too, am an Italian ! ' That evening he
allowed the Spanish Constitution to be proclaimed sub-
ject 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 pos-
sessor 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 dis-
cussion, when the brilliant suggestion was made that
the article should be cancelled. The article was can-
celled.

But Charles Felix could not be disposed of so easily.
The news of the late events reached him at Modena of

The Work of the Cdrbonavi 37

all places in the world, the rallying-point of the Prince
of Carignano's bitterest foes. He was not long in send-
ing 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 hi^
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 regi-
ments 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

38 The Liberation of Italy

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 emancipa-
tion 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 move-
ments of this period. North and south,N;hough the popu-
lations exhibited a childish delight at thfe^ overthrow of
the old, despotic form of government, their effervescence
ended as rapidly as it began. They did not really under-
stand what was going on. ' By-the-bye, what is this same
constitution they are making such a noise about ? ' asked

The Work of the Carbonari. 39

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. Carbon-
arism had been introduced into Lombardy the year before
by two Romagnols, Count Laderchi and Pietro Maroncelli.
It was their propaganda that put the Austrian Govern-
ment 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 Piedmont-
ese 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

40

Prison and Scaffold 41

that ^e 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 J 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 re-
duced 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

42 The Liberation of Italy

of deception, were but children in their hands, and
scarcely one of them was not doomed to be the in-
voluntary 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 charac-
teristic 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 Lom-
bardy, 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,

Prison and Scaffold 43

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 re-
actionary 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 associa-
tion 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 prud-
ence 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,

44 I'k^ Liberation of Italy

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, con-
secrated 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,

Prison and Scaffold 45

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 him-
self, 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 con-
demned 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 deatL
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

46 The Liberation of Italy

upon him. Though too ill to touch solid food, a sumptu-
ous 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
;^6o,ooo 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

Prison and Scaffold 47

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 ven-
geance fell speedily on the wretched villagers. Sur-
rounded 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 scorch-
ing 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

48 The Liberation of Italy

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 re-
marked, ' 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,

Prison and Scaffold 49

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 I'elmo, la mitia deponi,

O vetusta Signora del mondo ;
Sorgi, sorgi dal sonno profondo,
lo son I'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 pife.

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 181 5.
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

D

50 The Liberation of Italy

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 after-
wards called Ultramontane was then designated. The
last traces of reforms introduced by the French disap-
peared ; 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,

Prison and Scaffold 51

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 183 1, 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 vol-
canoes, 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 con-
cessions, 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 Moden-
ese revolution. Apologists have been found for the Bour-
bons 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

52 The Liberation of Italy

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 efifigy.

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 re-
spects, of high intelligence, thought that his ambition
could be turned to account for Italy. It was the mis-
take over again that Machiavelli had made with Cesare
Borgia.

Giro 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 indus-
trial 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 be-
lieve that his political views were regarded with favour,
and that he also received the royal promise that, what-
ever 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 assassina-
tion, though the particulars were never divulged.

Misley went to Paris to concert with the Italian com-

Prison and Scaffold 53

mittee 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 ot
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; tlie 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 in-
sistence 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 P^rier, the new President of the Council. A

54 The Liberation of Italy

month after the flight of the Duke of Modena, the in-
evitable 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 capitu-
lated 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 io 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 Giro Menotti attached to his

Prison and Scaffold 55

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 inter-
cepted, 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 Forll, 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 Lega-
tions in July 1 83 1, 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 27th April 1 83 1, Charles Albert came to the throne
he had so nearly lost. His reconciliation with his uncle,
Charles Felix, had been effected after long and melan-
choly 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 Due d'Angouldme'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 re-
mained 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 states-

56

' Young Italy* 57

man having committed suicide just as he was starting
for Verona. Prince Mettemich 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 Mettemich '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 pro-
posed to the new King the terms on which he might
keep his throne, as calmly as Mettemich 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 tradi-
tions 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 irre-
concilable 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

58 The Liberation of Italy

the King, and widely, though secretly, circulated in
Piedmont, began by telling him that his fellow-country-
men 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

' Young Italy ' 59

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 some-
thing 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 Ales-
sandria 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 educa-
tion 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, there-
fore, 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 strik-
ing. 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

6o The Liberation of Italy

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 mis-
doubt 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 sub-
stituting the progress of humanity's kitchen for the pro-
gress of humanity. He believed that Italy, united and
redeemed, was destined to shed through the world the

(riuseppe. MazzTJvC.

* Young Italy* 6i

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
bemg. 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.

The conscience of humanity is the last tribunal.
Ideas, as well as institutions, change and expand, but

62 The Liberation of Italy

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 associa-
tion 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

* Young Italy' 63

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 en-
thusiasm 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 develop-
ment. 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 re-
crossed 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 mon-
archy, 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 pre-
dilections, 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

64 The Liberation of Italy

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 pro-
nounces 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. With-
out Mazzini, when would the Italians have got beyond
the fallacies of federal republics, leagues of princes, pro-
vincial 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

' Young Italy' 65

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

66 The Liberation of Italy

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 reinforce-
ment 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 work-
ing 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

' Young Italy ' 6y

(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
T/te 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 en-
treaties, 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 re-
nounced every prospect of a brilliant career to enter the
service of their down-trodden country. When they de-
serted, strong efforts were made by the Archduke

68 The Liberation of Italy

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. An-
other 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 English-
men 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 nth 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 dis-
appeared ; 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

' Young Italy ' 69

he wrote to a Greek girl of Corfu, to whom he was en-
gaged, 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 im-
pression, 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 Buncombe. The
Home Secretary repeated a calumny which had ap-
peared 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 pro-
fessed 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

yo The Liberation of Italy

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.' i

^ 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
Curio 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 in-
timate 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 1S40.)

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 beauti-
ful things are to be read in old numbers of the Quarterly
Review. But on the whole, English men and women — in

71

72 The Liberation of Italy

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 ap-
preciate 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

The Pope Liberator 73

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 en-
gaged 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. Mas-
simo 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

74 The Liberation of Italy

bounds of legality. But he confessed that, when some-
one says : ' I suffer too much,' it is an unsatisfactory
answer to retort : ' You have not suffered enough.' Mas-
simo 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 over-
came 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 aspira-
tions of the Pope's subjects. He listened to their com-
plaints 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 pos-
sesses an army and a surplus in the treasury.' His
friends answered: 'What of Charles Albert, of 182 1, 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 be-
lieved 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,

The Pope Liberator 75

accepted by him when he said to the Duke d'Aumale in
1843 '• ' I ^m 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 im-
portance 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 him-
self; 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 con-
stantly 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

76 The Liberation of Italy

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 re-
assumed 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 per-
mission 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 of June 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 frdm 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

The Pope Liberator 77

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 dis-
quietude 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 pro-
nounced fatal. Roman Catholic writers connect the pro-
mulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception
with this incident of childhood. After entering the priest-
hood, 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

78 The Liberation of Italy

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 pro-
vincial interests, were sound patriots, though not revolu-
tionists, 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 under-
stood 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 Casi di Romagna, but also
Cesare Balbo's Le Speranze d'ltalia, 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

The Pope Liberator 79

of Europe, because Rome is the religious metropolis of
the world.' An ex-member of 'Young Italy,' a Pied-
montese by birth, a priest by ordination, Gioberti's pro-
fession of faith was derived from these three sources, and
it attracted thousands of Italians by its apparent recon-
ciliation 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 // 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

8o The Liberation of Italy

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 pro-
gress 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
m 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 intelli-
gent 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

The Pope Liberator 8 1

of dissolution. Every foreigner in Rome during the
reign of Gregory XVI. bore witness that his govern-
ment 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 twink-
ling 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 with-
out 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 popu-
lation. To resist all these contrary forces, Pius IX.
had only a popularity which, though for the time
immense, was founded almost completely on imagina-
tion. '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

F

82 The Liberation of Italy

'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
solol the fate of the experiment was sealed. Real con-
trol 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 com-
mand which he exerts over the populace.' It was Ciceru-
acchio 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 con-
nection 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 Secre-
tary 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 exasper-
ated 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.

The Pope Liberator 83

At this date the Italian question was better appre-
hended 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, a,nd 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 communi-
cations, 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 iirmly 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 afifirmed 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 determixied 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 pro-
vinces from taking an active part in the ' revolution '
which he declared to be already complete over all central

84 The Liberation of Italy

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 be-
lieved that Austria's only enemy was the aristocracy.
He even threw out hints that if the Austrian Govern-
ment 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 en-
courage them to go on. The Italian peasant, though ignor-
ant, had a far quicker innate intelligence than his unfortun-
ate 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, Metter-
nich 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 Lom-
bard lakes? Was it on purpose to spite the best of
governments, and the one most favourable to the aristo-

The Pope Liberator 85

cratic 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 satis-
fied 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 aris-
tocracy 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 Rhorgimento 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.

86 The Liberation of Italy

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 monster 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 nation-
ality, 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 ex-
ample of the Pope, for whom Charles Albert felt a
romantic devotion, was not enough to induce him to open

The Pope Liberator 87

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 en-
couragement 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

88 The Liberation of Italy

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 compli-
cated, 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 hand-
ing 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

The Pope Liberator 89

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- L.ouise 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 for-
tunate. Only on one occasion had the Grand Duke
given up a fugitive from the less 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

90 The Liberation of Italy

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 Aspro-
monte, 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 1 2th 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 un-
animity new in history, asserted its right and its resolve
to exist.

91

92 The Liberation of Italy

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 Con-
stitution 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 Neapoli-
tans 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 pro-
voked 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 revolution-
ary 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

The Year of Revolution 93

struggle, the islanders were subjugated in the spring of
1849.

So stout a fight for independence must win admira-
tion, 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 ac-
companied 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 at-
tempted 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 com-
monly 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 over-
looked. All thoughts of going to Ferdinand's help were
politely abandoned, and he, seeing himself in a defence-
less 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 con-
jurors, which is known as taking the wind out of your
enemy's sails. The Pope, the Grand Duke of Tuscany

94 The Liberation of Italy

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 re-
assured 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 sol-
diers, while the refusal to grant the studiously moderate
demands of men like Nazari of Bergamo and Manin and
Tommaseo 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 / Lom-

The Year of Revolution 95

bardi* This was the excuse for prohibiting every direct
or indirect public reference to the reigning Pontiff. Never-
theless, 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 Lom-
bardo- 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 i8th
of March 1848.

On the morning of that day. Count O'Donnel, the
Vice-Governor of Milan, announced the Emperor's con-
cessions. Before night he was the hostage of the revolu-
tion, 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.

* On the production of Verdi's opera, / Lombardi alia prima Crociata,
the Austrian Archbishop of Milan wished the Commissary of Police to pro-
hibit the performance because it treated of sacred subjects. When it was
recognised as one of the accelerating causes of the revolution, he drily re-
marked that they would have done better to take his advice. The grand
chorus, 'O Signore dal tetto nati6,' in which the censor had only seen a
pious chant, became the tnorning-song of national resurrection.

96 The Liberation of Italy

Taking refuge in the Citadel, Radetsky wrote to the
Podest^, Count Gabrio Casati (brother of Teresa Con-
falonieri), 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 1 50,000. 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 unpremedi-
tated, 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 enter-
prise; but when the die was cast none held back. In-
itiated by the populace, the revolt was led to its victorious

The Year of Revolution 97

close by the nerve and ability of the influential men who
directed its course.

Towards nightfall on the l8th, during which day
there had been only scuffles between the soldiers and
the people, Radetsky took the Broletto, where the Muni-
cipality 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

G

98 The Liberation of Italy

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 Aus-
trians, 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

The Year of Revolution 99

with a Radetsky. The Austrian authorities became con-
vinced 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
Palfify 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 re-
volution they were in prison, and PalfTy'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 eis spokesman and ruler. It
did not, however, happen by chance. The people in
Italy are observant ; the Venetians had observed Manin,

lOO The Liberation of Italy

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 Quadri-
lateral. The exception was of far greater moment than,
in the enchantment of the hour, anyone dreamt of con-
fessing. 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.

The Year of Revolution loi

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 pre-
vailed. 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 re-
concile lay and ecclesiastical pretensions, that the proposed
Chamber of Deputies, which was not to make laws affect-
ing 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 up-
rooting oaks and cedars might be clearly distinguished
the Voice of the Lord. Such utterances, mingled with

102 The Liberation of Italy

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 con-
demned 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 re-
serve, 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 con-
tinued, 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 en-
thusiasm of his subjects, and the demand that a Neapoli-

The Year of Revolution 103

tan 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 s^ '). Hence the often repeated phrase :
'L' Italia fari da sh' 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 libera-
tion so happily begun ; questions of government would
be reserved for the conclusion of the war. Joy was the

104 The Liberation of Italy

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, consider-
ing 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 re-
solution, 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 re-
late, was defended by only three hundred artillerymen
and a handful of hussars. It would have fallen into

The Year of Revolution 105

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 mean-
ing 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 pre-
vent 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

io6 The Liberation of Italy

world of the noble crime of patriotism. But, as Massimo
d'Azeglio once observed, Charles Albert had the in-
curable 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 con-
tained 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^arm^e, 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 with-
out connection with the supposed necessity, based on poli-
tical 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 Lom-
bard 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

The Year of Revolution 107

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 pro-
visions 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 volun-
teers, to which weak corps fell the task of opposing
Nugent's advance in Venetia. The colours of the Pon-
tifical troops were solemnly blessed before they left

io8 The Liberation of Italy

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 situa-
tion 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 pro-
tested that his sacred ofiice 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 Em-
peror 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

The Year of Revolution 109

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 in-
ferior 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 fol-

no The Liberation of Italy

lowed up, and might nearly as well have never been
fought.

The Neapolitan troops, of whom 41,000 were pro-
mised, 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 pro-
voke 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 revolu-
tion 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

The Year of Revolution 1 1 1

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 import-
ant) the Neapolitan troops, now at Bologna, recalled to
Naples. This was the pretty work of the few hundred
reckless rioters on the isth 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 com-
mander 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

112 The Liberation of Italy

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, capi-
tulated 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 in-
habitants, 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.

The Year of Revolution 1 1 3

Nugent was ordered by Radetsky to let the inter-
mediate 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 con-
ceived 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 loth 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 suc-
ceeded in dislodging the Austrians from Custoza after
four hours' struggle ; but next day, which was spent

H

114 The Liberation of Italy

entirely in fighting, Radetsky retook Custoza, and
obliged the King to fall back on Villafranca. Now be-
gan 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 ambi-
tion — 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, con-
vinced of the desperateness of the situation, had already

The Year of Revolution 115

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 re-
entered 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 father-
land.'

The political and diplomatic transactions connected
with the war in Lombardy were the subject after it
closed of much discussion, and of some violent recrimi-
nations. 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.

ii6 The Liberation of Italy

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 incom-
patible aspirations which ran through the conduct of
affairs, militated against a fortunate ending. The Pied-
montese 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 Jurte and beginning
of July over the whole of Lombardy and Venetia, in-
cluding Venice, where, perhaps alone, the feeling against
it was not that of a party, but of the bulk of the popula-
tion. 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

The Year of Revolution 117

general attack upon her power, but when the attack be-
gan, the British Government strained every nerve to limit
its extension and diminish its force. That Lord Palmer-
ston 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 interest-
ing 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 renounc-
ing the cradle of his race. When Lamartine was suc-
ceeded 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 it the form

ii8 The Liberation of Italy

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 Lom-
bardy 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

The Year of Revolution 119

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 loth 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 through 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

The Downfall of Thrones 121

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

122 The Liberation of Italy

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 be-
tween 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, en-
dorsed 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.

The Downfall of Thrones 123

Riding the wild horses and chasing the wild cattle of
the Pampas, his eyes covering the immense spaces un-
trodden 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 Parana 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 con-
trition 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 re-
morse, 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 ;^20, half of which he gave to a poor widow.

When the first rumours that something was preparing

1 24 The Liberation of Italy

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, there-
fore, 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

The Downfall of Thrones 125

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 pre-
destined 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 re-
sistance 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

126 The Liberation of Italy

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 t Italia, fixed them again at the mast-
head 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 op-
position he encountered from the Sovereign, and by the
absence of any real or solid moderate constitutional
party in the Chamber oi Deputies, Mamiani could carry

The Downfall of Thrones 127

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 cara-
bineers 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 pro-
clamation, ' 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 dissolu-
tion 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.

128 The Liberation of Italy

The Pope made a last endeavour to avert the cata-
strophe by calling to his counsels Count Pellegrino Rossi,
a man of unyielding will, who was as much opposed to
dem^ogic as to theocratic government. Rossi, having
been compromised when very young in Murat's enter-
prises, 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 ami-
cable 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

The Downfall of Thrones 1 29

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 police-
men 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

I

130 The Liberation of Italy

Monsignor Palma, who was in one of the rooms. The

Pope decided on flight. He left Rome in disguise during

the evening of the 2Sth 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 sth 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 Downfall of Thrones 131

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 ofiSce 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 accumulat-
ing beyond the dyke. One day the dyke would burst,
and the waters sweep all before them.

A Constituent Assembly was convoked for the Sth of
February 1849. The elections, which took place on the
2 1st 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 pro-
claimed from the Capitol.

Ten votes were given against the republic. No
government ever came into existence in a more strictly

132 The Liberation of Italy

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'ltalia ' 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 1 8th 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 autho-
rity, 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

The Downfall of Thrones 133

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 ot 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 am-
bassador, 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 willing-
ness 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 re-
signed because this policy was opposed by Rattazzi and
other of his colleagues in the ministry. It would have
been a difficult rdle to play ; Sardinia, while endeavouring
to checkmate the reaction, might have become its in-
strument. The failure of Gioberti's plan cannot be re-
gretted, 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 isth of May, was
still nominally in force ; Parliament had met during the

134 T^^ Liberation of Italy

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
nation 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 ist 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 main-
tained 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 Presi-
dent of the Neapolitan Chamber of Deputies a sealed packet

The Downfall of Thrones 135

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 ignor-
ance, 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 ; Aus-
trian 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 ap-
pointed by him included men as distinguished as the
Marquis Gino Capponi, Baron Ricasoli and Prince Cor-
sini, 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 revolu-
tion. In the last crisis, the Grand Duke entrusted the
government to the extreme Liberals, Montanelli the pro-
fessor, 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

136 The Liberation of Italy

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 ad-
hesion 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 adminis-
trators. It succeeded in pleasing no one. Civil war
was more than once at the threshold of Florence, for
the peasants rose in armed resistance to the new gov-
ernment. 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 Chailes Albert — Brescia crushed — French Inter-
vention—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 flourish-
ing; 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

137

138 The Liberation of Italy

only one trace on Charles Albert's mind : the burning
desire to deliver his accusers.

The armistice was denounced on the I2th of March,
a truce of eight days being allowed before the recom-
mencement 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 oi 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 besides 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

At Bay 139

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 ap-
pointment was made to satisfy the outcry against Pied-
montese 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 inten-
tional 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

140 The Liberation of Italy

they been cencentrated, 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 reinforce-
ments 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 stay-
ing 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

At Bay 141

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 re-
tired 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 honour-
able 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

142 The Liberation of Italy

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 govern-
ment 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 con-
cerned. 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

At Bay 143

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 desper-
ate 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 ap-
pointed 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 pro-
vince a fine of half a million francs.

144 'I'f'^ Liberation of Italy

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 ob-
stinacy. 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 con-
tinued late into the night. On the ist 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 mea-
sure. 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 conflagra-
tions, partly caused by the troops, partly by the bombard-
ment, 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 youtji named
Tito Speri led and animated tfie populace. The horrors
of the repression make one think of the fall of Khartoum.

At Bay 145

Not even in Hungary, where he went from Brescia to con-
tinue 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 re-
sponsible 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 other-
wise 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 ex-
penses 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

K

146 The Liberation of Italy

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 govern-
ment 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 con-
current testimony it is clear that the efforts of the govern-
ment 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 suc-
cessful 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

At Bay 147

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 ! ' * 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 know-
ledge 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

* 'Long live who has money and who has none."

148 The Liberation of Italy

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 English-
man, ' 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
Salad^ros or great slaughtering and salting establish-
ments 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

At Bay 149

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 dis-
honesty, 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 restora-
tion of the Temporal Power was the aim of the ex-
pedition 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 con-
stitutional 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

150 The Liberation of Italy

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 hood-
winked, 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 con-
siderably assisted by a French officer, Colonel Leblanc,
who was sent to Rome by Oudinot to come to an agree-
ment 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 cceur Uger, Oudinot ad-
vanced on Rome with 8000 men early on the 30th of
April. At eleven o'clock the two columns came in

At Bay 151

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 Pamphily, but Colonel Galetti arrived with
reinforcements, and before long Garibaldi drove the
French from the Pamphily 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 advanc-
ing, 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 rein-
forcements, 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.

152 The Liberation of Italy

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 I ' ' No, no,' ejaculated
Odilon Barrot. ' You are going to do the same as
Austria,' cried Lamorici^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.

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 Con-
sulta, 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

At Bay 153

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 re-
publicans: '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 in-
dividuals, 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 popula-
tion, 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 at-
tended 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

154 The Liberation of Italy

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 Nea-
politan vanguard, which he obliged to fall back. On the
1 8th, 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 dis-
tance, 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

At Bay 155

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 ist 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 state-
ment, which represents prodigies of valour, and the obla-
tion of as noble blood as ever watered the earth of Rome.
Melara, Masina, Daverio, Dandolo, Mameli : every school-
boy 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.

156 The Liberation of Italy

Mazzini, whose judgment was obscured by his attri-
bution 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 garroting of sister-republics.

Oudinot tightened his cordon ; on the i2th 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 illumin-
ated, 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 mH^e, 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 Assernbly — 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.

At Bay 157

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 follow-
ing 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 re-
sistance was impossible, wandered openly about the city
like a man in a dream. He felt as though he were look-
ing 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 hos-
pital, 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. Cice-
ruachio came with his two sons, and offered himself as

158 The Liberation of Italy

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 free-
dom prevented Garibaldi from falling into the clutches
of the Austrians, who surrounded the republic. He
treated with the Regent for the immunity of his fol-
lowers, 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,

At Bay 159

broken down with grief as he was, had to fly from the
spot. The Austrians were hunting for him in all direc-
tions. All the Roman fugitives were proclaimed out-
laws, 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

i6o The Liberation of Italy

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, com-
mitted 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 Com-
missioners, 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 main-
tain 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

At Bay i6i

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 neces-
sities 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 assist-
ance 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

L

1 62 The Liberation of Italy

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 energeti-
cally invoked against her by a state to which her title
went back no farther than the transfer effected by Buona-
parte 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 Palmer-
ston, he only received the cold comfort of the recommenda-
tion 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 2Sth over
60,000 projectiles fell on the fort. During the night of
the 25th the Commandant, Ulloa, by order of Govern-
ment, 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.

At Bay 163

After the beginning of July, an incessant bombard-
ment 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 pre-
vailed. The capitulation was arranged on the 22nd, and
signed on the 24th of July. Manin had calculated cor-
rectly; 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 1 ' they were heard saying. He em-
barked 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 Aus-
trians broke up his doorstep on which, according to a
Venetian custom, his name was engraved. Another
martyr, Ugo Bassi, had kissed the stone, exclaiming

164 The Liberation of Italy

' 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 ASTRB '
1849-1850

The Hoase 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 inherit-
ance. The internal condition of the kingdom, even apart
from the financial ruin which had succeeded to the hand-
some surplus of two years before, was full of embarrass-
ments of the gravest kind. There was a party represent-
ing 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 doc-
trines that had been introduced into the army than to
the insubordination of panic. There was another party

16S

1 66 The Liberation of Italy

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 govern-
ment 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.

JCin^ Vzcbor SErtvmaiviLel .

• y attends mon Astre ' 1 67

The King's address at this time was not conciliatory,
and, indeed, it never lost a bluntness which later harmon-
ised 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
he 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 abnega-
tion ; but of how much less humiliation than that per-
formed by his father twenty-eight years before, when
almost on the same day, by order of King Charles Felix,

1 68 The Liberation of Italy

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 accoutre-
ments. 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 enlarge-
ment of his frontier, if he would only give the easy assur-
ance 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

* y attends mon Astre ' 169

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. Dur-
ing 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 Em-
manuel 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 com-
municated 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

170 The Liberation of Italy

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 persuad-
ing 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

' y attends mon Astre ' 171

in the old irreconcilability of republican Genoa with
her Piedmontese masters, breaking out now afresh under
the strain of patriotic disappointment. Like the isth
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

172 The Liberation of Italy

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 menda-
city 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

' y attends mon Astre * 173

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 him-
self, 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 cen-
tury, 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 ten-
dency, 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. Fin-
ance, police, the administration of justice, military disci-
pline, 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 rdle^ it was impossible that he would not here-

1 74 The Liberation of Italy

after 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 inured 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 Em-
manuel) 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 arch-
ives 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 ad-
vised ; 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

* y^ attends mon Astre ' 175

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. ' Cast 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 under-
stood 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 ex-
orbitant, 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 sacri-
fices 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 con-
dition. But the amnesty question was the last to be
settled, and in this Piedmont stood alone. France and

1 76 The Liberation 0/ Italy

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 con-
sequences, 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

' y attends mon Astre ' 177

finally consented to pardon all but a small number of
the persons compromised in the late events. D'AzegHo
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 con-
firmed, 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 un-
pardoned 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 i8th of August, the Emperor of
Austria's birthday. In the morning, placards dissuad-
ing 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

M

178 The Liberation of Italy

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 ;

1 5. 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

' y^ attends mon Astre ' 179

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 i8th 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 re-
sponsibility made these novices in representative gov-
ernment 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

i8o The Liberation of Italy

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 responsi-
bility 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

' y attends mon Astre ' 1 8 1

parliament which met on the 20th of December con-
tained 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

1 82 The Liberation of Italy

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 occu-
pied 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.

183

184 The Liberation of Italy

' The Pope,' said M. Drouyn de Lhuys to the Nuncio in
Paris, ' 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 hence-
forth his most influential counsellor, were determined
not to concede. They had grown wise in their genera-
tion, 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 i8th 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

The Revival of Piedmont 185

where the King and A. von Humboldt received him with
open arms.

These were the auspices under which Pius IX. re-
turned to Rome after seventeen months' absence. A
four-fold invasion restored the Temporal Power, which
F^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
regime was characterised by Lord Clarendon at the Con-
gress 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 Ex-
pedition 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. ThuSj and thus only, was the leap from the
Presidental chair to the Imperial throne made possible.
The result was flattering, but still there are reasons to
think (apart from Prince J6r6me 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 com-
munications 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

1 86 The Liberation of Italy

disapproval of the recalcitrant attitude of the Papal
Government This letter was published as it was in-
tended 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 pro-
bably 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 pro-
portion 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 ; 50^00
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 posses-
sion 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

The Revival of Piedmont 1 87

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 wrath-
ful 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 1 1. ; 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 com-
mon malefactor, the chain never being undone, and pro-
ducing 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 im-
prisonment, were not chained, but they were put to
associate with the worst thieves and assassins, while their
material surroundings accorded with the moral atmo-
sphere 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

1 88 The Liberation of Italy

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 Sigismondo 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 as-
serting 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 con-
tagious. 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 H. rendered one consider-
able 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 : de-
fensive 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 ex-
pected 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

The Revival of Piedmont 189

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 un-
timely end.

The Grand Duke of Tuscany timidly inquired of the
Austrian premier if he might renew the constitutional
rigime 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, pro-
claimed 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 ques-
tion in Piedmont as well as id Tuscany, but there it had
another issue.

I90 The Liberation of Italy

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 ecclesi-
astical 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 Ecclesi-
astico 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

The Revival of Piedmont 191

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 amass-
ment 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 be-
tween 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 to-
wards arriving at a compromise, and that since his en-
deavours 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 Ecclesi-
astico. 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 out-
ward observances of religion in Catholic countries; the
government had to protect the Archbishop of Turin

192 The Liberation of Italy

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
oiiBcial servant of the state. When D'Azeglio submitted
the appointment to the King, Victor Emmanuel re-
marked 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 de-
liverance 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

CaiAJiT (. fii-'-ouj:

The Revival of Piedmont 193

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 deso-
lation, for the sweet silence of melancholy thought, her
twilight time of everlasting memories ? '

There is the case, stated with beautiful lucidity, ot
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 poli-
ticians 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

N

194 T^^ Liberation of Italy

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 desola-
tion 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 apprecia-
tion 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 consider-
able 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 fited 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 states-
man ; 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 Revival of Piedmont 195

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 con-
trast 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 ecclesi-
astical bills, and to put the final touches to the legis-
lation 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

196 The Liberation of Italy

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 land tax 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

The Revival of Piedmont 197

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 con-
demnation. 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, misin-
formed 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 con-
cerned in the abortive movement, which was by no means
consistent with facts, the Austrian Government sequestered
the landed property of the exiles and voluntary emi-
grants, reducing them and their families (which in most

igS The Liberation of Italy

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 seques-
trations 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 in-
dignant.' 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 be-
tween 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,

The Revival of Piedmont 199

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 surround-
ings ; it was hardly possible that he should listen to these

200 The Liberation of Italy

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 pro-
fession 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 excommunica-
tion 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 ot 15,000,000 francs, there
were many parish priests who had not an income of ;^20 ;

The Revival of Piedmont 201

a state of things seen to be anomalous by the best
ecclesiastics themselves, but their eiiforts 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 achieve-
ment, but it is possibly the one for which he deserves
mo.st 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 ser-
vants 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

202 The Liberation of Italy

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

The Revival of Piedmont 203

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 kgions.

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 com-
pletely 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 disappoint-
ment 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 him-
self 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 181 5. Yet it was for Italy that Cavour

204 The Liberation of Italy

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 popu-
lations 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. What-
ever 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

The Revival of Piedmont 205

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 con-
cerned 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
ritalie?' had suggested to the Piedmontese statesman
that definite scheme of a French alliance, which hence-
forth 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

2o6 The Liberation of Italy

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 re-
ducing 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 every-
one : ' 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 solu-
tion, 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

The Revival of Piedmont 207

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 con-
gratulations 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'itat, 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 Monsii 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 Plombi^res —
Cavour's Triumph.

In spite of the accusation of favouring political assassin-
ation 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 connec-
tion 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 disturb-
ance 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 Agesilao 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

208

Premonitions of the Storm 209

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, Cas-
tromediano 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 conjunc-
tion with whom he planned his unlucky venture. Pisa-
cane 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

O

2IO The Liberation of Italy

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 fright-
ened 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 disem-
barked near the village of Sapri, in the province of
Salerno. From information received, he imagined that
a revolutionary movement was on the point of break-
ing 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 restitu-
tion, 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

Premonitions of the Storm 211

the Archduke Maximih'an 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 re-
voked. It should be said, because it shows the one
white spot in Austrian despotism, its civil administra-
tion, 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 ex-
pressly 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 ofthe

212 The Liberation of Italy

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 De-
cember 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 dis-
cuss 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.

Premonitions of the Storm 213

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 18 19, he was of the
true Romagnol type in mind and body ; daring, resource-
ful, intolerant of control. From his earliest youth all his
actions had but one object, the liberation of his country
His youthful brain was enilamed 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 re-
sumed the cloak of friendship, but only to wait for rein-
forcements. 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 Eng-
land, 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

214 The Liberation of Italy

of his mystical leanings, and he disapproved of such en-
terprises 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 govern-
ment 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 com-
pliments which I did not deem fitting.' Unlike Victor
Emmanuel, who in after years carried on regular negotia-
tions 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 en-
couragement 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 im-
possible, he sought and found without much difficulty two
or three accomplices. One of these, Fieri, 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

Premonitions of the Storm 215

though everyone knew what had happened. Napoleon
III. had a striking proof of how little hold he possessed
on the afifections 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 pre-
parations 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, pro-
duced a powerful impression ; there was a dramatic in-
terest 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

2 1 6 The Liberation of Italy

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 Palmer-
ston 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 answer-
able 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 re-
ceived ; 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

Premonitions of the Storm 217

glad to have a conversation with him on Italian affairs.
This was the preliminary of the interview of Plombi^res.

Plombi^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 com-
pact 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 un-
certain ; but he came away from Plombi^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 gener-
ally extremely unhappy in marriage ? What had hap-
pened 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-

2 18 The Liberation of Italy

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 Im-
perial 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 con-
sent 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 Plombiferes
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 bomb-

Premonitions of the Storm 219

shell Turning to Baron Hubner, he said : ' Je regrette
que les relations entre nous soient si mauvaises ; dites
cependant k 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 pro-
found 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 judg-
ment 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, bat was there the
slightest prospect, eleven years later, of that chance being
repeated ? Each student of history may answer for him-
self 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.

2 20 The Liberation of Italy

The unconquerable dislike of men of principle, like
Mazzini, to joining hands with the author of the coup d^tat
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^res was on the prin-
ciple 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 substi-
tute 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 incontest-
able 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

Premonitions of the Storm 221

with it or its authors. But Italy thought otherwise, and
Garibaldi, the man who of all others most nearly repre-
sented 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 to-
wards 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 sacri-
fice 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 Sar-
dinian 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

222 The Liberation of Italy

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. Unfortun-
ately, 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 hos-
tilities. ' 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.

Premonitions of the Storm 223

Meanwhile there was no want of plainness in the
language employed in Piedmont. In opening the second
session of the sixth Sardinian Parliament, Victor Em-
manuel pronounced, on loth 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 evacu-
ate 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 pro-
tectress of nationalities ; we are, and shall be, protectors
of dynastic rights.' Finally, England proposed a con-
gress with a view to general disarmament. Piedmont,
counting on the madness of her adversary, risked agree- /
ment 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
;f 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

224 The Liberation of Italy

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

Premonitions of the Storm 225

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 En\peror 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 18 16 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 con-
firmed 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 sh&W 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

P

226 The Liberation of Italy

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 Govern-
ment 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 inde-
pendence.'

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

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 Sar-
dinian 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 appoint-

227

228 The Liberation of Italy

ment 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 iniiuences which cut short the enrol-
ment 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 meri, includ-
ing 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

The War for Lombardy 229

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 Reg-
nault de Saint-Jean d'Angdly 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 gener-
ally 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

230 The Liberation of Italy

the world. They carried about their pet monkt/s 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 recom-
pense 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 1 2th 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, con-
trary 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 re-
solution, 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

The War for Lombardy 231

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 epemy'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 ex-
cellent 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 be-
came concerned, and dispatched Urban with 1 0,000 men

232 The Liberation of Italy

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 con-
sequence 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,

The War for Lombardy 233

who was at Verona. The Austrian army was in full re-
treat 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 Pied-
montese 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 Sth, 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 de-
scribe 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

234 "^^^ Liberation of Italy

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 re-
ported 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 sym-
pathy 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 de-
monstrations 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 becom-
ing 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 minis-
ter 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 pro-
mised 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

The War for Lombardy 235

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^rdme 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 dis-
orders 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

236 The Liberation of Italy

causes external and internal, and how disastrous would
have been the slightest mistake or wavering in the direc-
tion 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 astute-
ness. 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 revolu-
tions were accomplished quietly ; but, some months after,
on the incautious return to Parma of a man deeply impli-
cated 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 dis-
tricts rose and demanded the dictatorship of Piedmont.
Napoleon foresaw that this would happen as far back
as the Plombi^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 Emperor's oppositioa

The War for Lombardy 237

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 con-
temporary 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 ad-
minister the provinces of Modena and Parma, and
Massimo d'Azeglio was charged with the same mission
in Romagna. The Marches of Ancona had been re-
covered 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

238 The Liberation of Italy

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 obedi-
ence. 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 play-
thing ; 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 ind in tastes than
her husband, her high spirit was not what the Neapo-
litans admire in women, and those who were devoted

The War for Lombardy 239

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 Confedera-
tion 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 engage-

240 The Liberation of Italy

ment 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 be-
cause 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 move-
ment 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

The War for Lombardy 241

Valleggio, on the 23rd ol 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 transcendent 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 Lom-
bard 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 asth. 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 Cas-
tiglione 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

Q

242 The Liberation of Italy

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 readi-
ness 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 Monte-
chiaro. 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 road-
side. 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 th? 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 contreisted hosts. The battle of
Solferino had begun.

The news flew to Montechiaro and to Valleggio.
Napoleon started for the scene of action with the

The War for Lombardy 243

Imperial Guard; Francis Joseph's staff was sent for-
ward 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 j 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 remark-
able incident was in keeping with the general manage-
ment 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 fight-
ing 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 mis-
fortune 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

244 The Liberation of Italy

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,
h^d 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 recom-
menced 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

The War Jor Lombardy 245

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 Bene-
dek, 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 recol-
lection 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

246 The Liberation of Italy

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 re-
sponsibility felt by their leaders. He never could

The War for Lombardy 247

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 continu-
ance 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 them-
selves, 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

248 The Liberation of Italy

Mincio, and everything led to the supposition that a new
and immediate battle was in contemplation. The Pied-
montese 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 Napo-
leon and Francis Joseph. He waited for a carriage in the
little cafi 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 with-

The War for Lombardy 249

draw 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 chival-
rous 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 per-
suaded 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

250 The Liberation of Italy

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 re-
ception was cold in the extreme. He was surprised, he
said, at the ingratitude of the Italians. It was still pos-
sible 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 abandon-
ment 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.

251

252 The Liberation oj Italy

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 be-
come 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.

What Unity Cost 253

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 1 5th of July). ' Yes, sir, he has dis-
honoured me,' and he set forth how, after promising to hunt
the last Austrian out of Italy, after secretly exacting the
price of his assistarice 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

254 The Liberation of Italy

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 de-
termined opposition to Italian unity which never ceased
till S6dan, 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 trans-
port. 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 accomplish-
ment 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

What Unity Cost 255

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 unfortun-
ate 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 Sar-
dinian 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

256 The Liberation of Italy

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
fared therefore to adopt the bold course of accepting the
annexations outright, and facing the responsibilities
which might arise. Victor Emmanuel thanked the dele-
gates, 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 Gari-
baldi, and the rest under that of the Sardinian GeneraJ
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 hasten-
ing the progress of events. Unaccustomed as they were
to weigh diplomatic difficulties, they saw the advantages

WAai Unity Cost 257

but not the perils of a daring course. Meanwhile Napo-
leon 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 in-
structed the officers under his command to disobey him.
It was then that Victor Emmanuel tried his personal in-
fluence, rarely tried without success, over the revolution-
ary 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
1 6th 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 oppor-
tunity 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 undertak-
ing 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 incom-
parable 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

R

258 The Liberation of Italy

finished its labours on the loth of November. The
compact was substantially the same as that arranged at
Villafranca. Victor Emmanuel, who had signed the Pre-
liminaries 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, how-
ever, 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 im-
possible 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 blandish-
ments could move the population from their resolve to

What Unity Cost 259

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 ter-
mination 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 anony-
mous 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 un-
affected 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 under-
stand 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 Ultra-
montane party knew Ihat they had only to remind him of
this oath to provoke a fresh assertion oi Non possumus.
The attitude of the Pope was one reason why the Con-
gress was abandoned ; but there was a deeper reason. A

26o The Liberation of Italy

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 deter-
mined to exact from Italy. The French envoy. Baron de
Talleyrand, whose business it was to communicate the un-
welcome 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 1 8th of January i860, the Emperor admitted
to Lord Cowley that, though there was as yet no arrange-
ment between himself and Victor Emmanuel on the sub-
ject, 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

WAai Unity Cost 261

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 Plombi^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.

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 Villa-
franca ; but later, in common with the best-informed
persons, he believed that the claim was finally with-
drawn. When, however, Napoleon asked again for the
provinces — not as the price of the war, but of the an-
nexations 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 repu-
tation 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 i860. The engage-
ment 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?

262 The Liberation of Italy

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 resist-
ance 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 1 8 14. 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 transac-
tion. 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 import-
ance 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

What Unity Cost 263

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 i860,
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 govern-
ment in the official plebiscite of the isth 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 pro-
posed 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

264 The Liberation of Italy

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 annexa-
tion to France.

The ratification of the treaty — which, by straining the
constitution, was concluded without consulting Parlia-
ment — was reluctantly given by the Piedmontese Cham-
bers, 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 accom-
plices 1 ' 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 sub-
jects, 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

WAai Unity Cost 265

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 tradi-
tions 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 : ' Delia 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 pro-
nounced them with remarkable energy. The speech con-
cluded: '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
i860

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 1 50,000 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

266

The March of the Thousand. 267

of the average Englishman. With regard to the other
theory — namely, that Cavour 'got up' the Sicilian ex-
pedition, 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 i860, 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

268 The Liberation of Italy

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 Lamorici^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 i860, 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 Govern-
ment 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 con-
science 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 March of the Thousand 269

'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 con-
templated the eventuality hinted at with the reverse of
apprehension. Of course this is true. Yet the responsi-
bility 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 i860 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

270 The Liberation of Italy

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 con-
trary ; 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 suc-
cess 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

The March of the Thousand 271

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. Gari-
baldi'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 pre-
parations, and he added : ' The insurrection in Sicily, con-
sider 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 inde-
pendence and the liberation of Venetia. The writer con-
cluded 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 conspira-
tors 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 sue-

272 The Liberation of Italy

ceeded 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 loth 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 Rosa-
lino 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 Gari-
baldi to go to the rescue. Some, like Crispi and Bixio,
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 Gari-
baldi 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

The March of the Thousand 273

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 Nea-
politan 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; TUrr (the Hungarian) was adju-
tant-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 ex-
pedition 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 abstain-
ing 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

S

274 The Liberation of Italy

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
lor the use of the expedition. On hearing of Garibaldi's
departure, Cavour ordered Admiral Persano, whose squad-
ron 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. Per-
sano 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 Neapoli-
tan 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 (Cap-
tain 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

The March of the Thousand 275

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 Cap-
tain 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 1 2th, 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 pro-
mulgated the decree by which he assumed the dictator-
ship of Sicily in the name of Victor Emmanuel.

The Neapolitan army numbered from 120,000 to
1 30,000 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 fluctu-
ating mass of Sicilian irregulars, which might be esti-
mated 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

276 The Liberation of Italy

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 ex-
pected. 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 situa-
tion. 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

The March of the Thousand 277

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 Mar-
sala 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 Calata-
fimi, 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 com-
mand a vast prospect, and here General Landi, with
3,000 men and four pieces of artillery, prepared to inter-
cept 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

278 The Liberation of Italy

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 insurrec-
tionary 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 re-
sisted, weary of waiting for the help that came not, dis-
couraged or hopeless, but unyielding. Food and ammuni-
tion 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 every-
thing looked most desperate, a messenger arrived in
his camp with a letter in Garibaldi's handwriting, which
bore the date of the i6th 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 con-
templated a descent on the capital. On the high table-
land of Renda he met Rosalino Pilo with his reanimated

The March of the Thousand 279

band. That day the Garibaldian army, all told, amounted
to S.ooo men. On the 21st of May, Rosaline 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 (Plana
de' Greci and Misilimeri), 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 fre-
quently 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 opera-
tions. 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

28o The Liberation of Italy

Garibaldi established his headquarters in that neigh-
bourhood. 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 hear-
ing 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 re-
tired into his tent, made of an old blanket stretched over
pikes ; a child, under the name of a sentiy, paced before
it to keep off the crowd.

To ;complete the deception of the enemy the Gari-
baldian 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

The March of the Thousand 281

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.

282 The Liberation of Italy

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 continu-
ously, 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 Neapoli-
tan 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

The March of the Thousand 283

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 com-
posed of Bavarians, reached Porta Termini and opened a
furious fire on the weak Garibaldian detachment stationed
there. Was it ignorance or bad faith ? Lieutenant Wil-
mot, 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,

284 The Liberation of Italy

and ordered them to desist. A few minutes later, Gari-
baldi 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 i860. 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 Nea-
politans 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 ex-
pressing the real wants of the city.' ' No,' cried Gari-
baldi, starting to his feet, ' the time for humble petitions
to the King, or to anyone else, is past ; I am the muni-
cipality, and I refuse.' General Letizia grew excited at
this declaration, but afterwards he agreed to submit the

The March of the Thousand 285

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 mani-
festo 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 chil-
dren joined, of 'War! war!' In the evening the city
was illuminated as on a feast-day.

Once more in history, the game of greatly dan^ng suc-
ceeded. 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 uncondi-
tional 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

286 The Liberation of Italy

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 im-
munity 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, Secre-
tary 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 Silician 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 pranc-
ing black charger, with a few other Red-shirts of his own age

The March of the Thousand 287

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 mis-
fortune, 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 com-
memoration of her accession, which display was naturally
interpreted by the Palermitans as a compliment to the

288 The Liberation of Italy

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 justi-
fied. 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
Wiillersdorf, 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 re-
lated 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

The March of the Thousand 289

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 atti-
tude 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 evacua-
tion 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.*

' Of Garibaldi's foreign officers, Colonel (afterwards General) Dunne was
one of the most marked personalities. WTien 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

T

290 The Liberation oj Italy

Garibaldi arranged his forces in three divisions ; one,
under Tiirr, 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 be-
tween 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

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, ex-
claiming : ' 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 &talistic 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.

The March of the Thousand 291

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 en-
gagement 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 know-
ing 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 uncer-
tain, 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

292 The Liberation of Italy

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 resi-
dents 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 March of the Thousand 293

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 respon-
sible 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 distri-
buted every morning to the most destitute, at the
gates of the royal palace, where he lived with a fru-
gality that scandalised the aged servants of royalty
whom he kept, out of kindness, at their posts. Theo-
retically, 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 Md 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

294 "^^^ Liberation of Italy

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 any-
one else ridiculous ; but Garibaldi, being altogether
simple and unselfconscious, was above ridicule. One
of the good works that he initiated was the transfor-
mation 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 Dic-
tator 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 per-
suade 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 uncon-
ventional methods, discredit the Italian cause in the
eyes of European statesmen. These reasons caused
him to desire and to endeavour to bring about the im-
mediate 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

The March of the Thousand 295

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 annexa-
tion, 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 per-
fectly 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 under-
takings against the Neapolitan kingdom.' This was the
first direct communication between the King and

296 The Liberation of Italy

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 con-
spiracies 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 Emmanel 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 him-
self 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 i860, the date which they bore. Their only con-
sequence 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

' Since the issue of this book, evidence has come to light to show that
Francis II. did desire to take these measures immediately, but that he was
dissuaded by the warning that by doing so ' he would dishonour his father's
memory ' ; an argument which probably has been pressed with fatal success
on more than one heir to absolutism.

The March of the Thousand 297

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 move-
ment which, if successful, would have brought a hostile
French army into Italy.

CHAPTER XV

THE MEETING OF THE WATERS
i860

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 Cam-
peador ; 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 under-
stood 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 power-
ful 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

298

The Meeting of the Waters 299

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 Gari-
baldi 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 ex-
ample 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 con-
vinced 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 your-
self at the head of the 40,000 who remain, and risk a

300 The Liberation of Italy

last stake, or, at least, fall gloriously after an honour-
able 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 curi-
osities. 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 king-
dom 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 con-
tributed its quota to the Thousand, contained more
patriotic energy than the rest of the Regno put to-
gether. 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 insur-
gents 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

The Meeting of the Waters 301

few men, a large force had already disembarked, and
so turned their attention to the mountains ; while Gari-
baldi, 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 im-
portance 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 gar-
rison of Reggio, 2000 men, under the command of
General Galotti. On the 20th, Bixio attacked the out-
posts; and on the 21st, Garibaldi fought his way into
the city — not, however, without meeting a strong resist-
ance 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 sud-
den 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 neigh-
bourhood 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 posi-
tion 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

302 The Liberation of Italy

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 2Sth 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

The Meeting of the Waters 303

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,;?^^/ 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 English-
man,' 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 ad-
mirably to the popular idea of what the conqueror of
Sicily ought to be like, although there was no resem-
blance to the real person. It happened that Eboli was
a royalist town and beyond the pale of declared re-
volution — a placid and antiquated little city with a for-
gotten air, where life had been probably too easy for
its inhabitants to wish for a change. But the supposed

304 The Liberation of Italy

arrival of the Terrible Man turned everything upside-
down. Peard, with Commander Forbes, who was fol-
lowing 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 re-
sounded, 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 ex-
pected in the bay of Naples and the gulf of Salerno
to-night. I strongly advise your withdrawing the gar-
rison 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 per-
sonal friends. The rumour was false ; but the telegram,
of course, reached the desired quarter, and the name

The Meeting of the Waters 305

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 Gari-
baldian 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 reassur-
ing, 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 Gari-
baldian 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 adja-
cent districts marched towards Capua. The river Vol-
turno, 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.

U

3o6 The Liberation of Italy

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 punish-
ment 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 in-
stitutions ; 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 tele-
gram 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

The Meeting of the Waters 307

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 thir-
teen 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 isth 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

3o8 The Liberation of Italy

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 any-
thing 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 con-
sequences 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 ' II 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 nth of September.

Garibaldi's first act had been to hand over the Nea-
politan 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

The Meeting of the Waters 309

wrote to the Marquis Pallavicini, the prisoner of Spiel-
berg, 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 unifica-
tion of Italy was to go on or whether it was to halt?
Garibaldi refused to give up Sicily to the King's govern-
ment 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.

3IO The Liberation of Italy

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, un-
scrupulous manoeuvres as some have called them, mas-
terpieces 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 indiffer-
ence, 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 inter-
vene, 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

The Meeting of the Waters 3 1 1

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 i860, 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.
5(X)0 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, La-
moriciere compared the Italian movement with Islam-
ism, 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. Lamoricifere'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.

312 The Liberation of Italy

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 dissolu-
tion of Lamorici^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 nth of
September, symptoms of revolution having meanwhile
broken out in the Marches, General Fanti in command
of 3S,ooo 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 Vend^ans whose de-
scendants 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

The Meeting of the Waters 313

not sustained by one scrap of the mystical enthusiasm of
the French : such a state of mind would have been in-
comprehensible 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^re was still able to hold his own
for three or four hours. General Pimodan and many
of the French officers were killed ; Lamorici^re 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

314 The Liberation of Italy

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 occa-
sioned by his presence. Mazzini replied, as he had a
perfect right to do, that every citizen is entitled to re-
main 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 revolu-
tionary 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 in-
terview, ' 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

The Meeting of the Waters 315

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 Nea-
politan 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, in-
cluding 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 Tiirr, as brave
an officer as ewr 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,
Tiirr crossed the Volturno with a view to taking up a

3i6 The Liberation of Italy

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 de-
feated 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 com-
panions. 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 accom-
plished.

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 forti-
fications 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

The Meeting of the Waters 3 1 7

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 mendi-
cant ; there were priests who, though not by any means
all unpatriotic, were beginning to be scared by Gari-
baldi'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 ist 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

3i8 The Liberation of Italy

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 head-
quarters 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, some-
times 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 Meeting of the Waters 319

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 re-
covery, 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 steadi-
ness and in dash. The French company and the Hun-
garian 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

320 The Liberation of Italy

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 de-
fence 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 1 50 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

The Meeting of the Waters 321

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 march-
ing 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 that 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 des-
potism 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 nth of October the Sardinian parliament
sitting at Turin passed all but unanimously the motion
authorising the King's Government to accept the annexa-
tion of those Italian provinces which manifested, by

X

322 The Liberation of Italy

universal suffrage, their desire to form part of the
Constitutional Monarchy. Cavour's speech on this
occasion was memorable : ' Rome,' he said, ' would in-
evitably 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 mel-
ancholy 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 nth 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

The Meeting of the Waters 323

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 dis-
mounted, 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 army 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 la-st

324 The Liberation of Italy

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 ^zs all the pomp that attended his departure.
Several hours later the people of Naples knew that their

The Meeting of the Waters 325

liberator had gone to dig up the potatoes which he had
planted in the spring.

By Cavour's advice, Victor Emmanuel offered Gari-
baldi 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— Tlie Fall of Gaeta— Political Brig-
Tandage — he Proclamation of the Italian Kingdom— Cavour's Death.

The Neapolitan army retreated, as has been already
stated, beyond the Garigliano. Capua, isolated and sur-
rounded, 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 ex
tremely strong and not unlike Gibraltar in its main feat-
ures. A headland running out into the sea and rising to

326

Beginnings of the Italian Kingdom 327

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 com-
manded 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 pro-
clamations to remind the world that if Francis were im-
possible and Victor Emmanuel ' wanted finish,' there was
an elegible 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.

328 The Liberation of Italy

to renounce a hopeless resistance. But at this eleventh
hour the King had adopted the principle of 'no sur-
render,' 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 fre-
quently seen on the ramparts encouraging the artillery-
men 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-country-
men.

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
bent 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 per-
haps 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

Beginnings of the Italian Kingdom 329

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 accom-
plices. 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

330 The Liberation of Italy

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 im-
possibility 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 M^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.

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

Beginnings of the Italian Kingdom 331

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 rigime not one joined the bands, but they
contained French, Austrian and Belgian officers, and one
Prussian. A nephew of Mgr. de M6rode, the young
Marquis de Traz6gnies, was with Chiavone ; the Carlist,
Jos^ Borj^s, was with a scoundrel named Crocco. Borjfes'
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^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^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 and was

332 The Liberation of Italy

immediately shot. He died bravely, chanting a Spanish
litany.

Borj^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, how-
ever 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 un-
conscious 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 com-
munism 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 sun-
shine 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.

Beginnings of the Italian Kingdom 333

The reorganisation of the southern provinces pro-
ceeded very slowly. The post of Lieutenant-Governor
was successively conferred on L. C. Farini, Prince Eugene
of Carignano, and Count Ponza d! S in 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 some-
times 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 adminis-
tration 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 i8th of February 1861, the first Italian legis-
lature 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 constitu-
tional monarchy had been laboriously tested and estab-
lished. 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

334 "^^^ Liberation of Italy

politic, one of the thorniest questions that arose was
the disposal of the Garibaldian forces. The chief im-
plored 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 con-
stitutional 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 strenu-
ously 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 ingrati-
tude, I would go and bury myself at Leri. I despise the

Beginnings of the Italian Kingdom 335

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 doubt-
less 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 re-
fused to stand for any constituency ; but when Naples
elected him her representative, almost without opposi-
tion, 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 parti-
culars 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

336 The Liberation of Italy

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 dissen-
sion 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 ap-
plause 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 as-
surances 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 ! " '

Beginnings of the Italian Kingdom 337

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

Y

33^ The Liberation of Italy

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 un-
disputed 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 for-
get the cradle of her liberties when her seat of govern-
ment 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 gener-
ation 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

Beginnings of the Italian Kingdom 339

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 af his broken
sayings that referred to Naples. It was his farewell pro-
test 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 Pied-
montese 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, accommo-
dating, 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.

340

Rome or Death 341

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 dis-
credit 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

342 The Liberation of Italy

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 redemp-
tion 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 Tres-
corre, 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

Rome or Death 343

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,ooo. 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, when asked if he would accept the
supreme command of the Federal army in the war
for the Union, he declined the invitation, 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 ot
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 some-
thing 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 oiificers at Sar-
nico. They were conveyed to Brescia, where a popular
attempt was made to liberate them ; the troops fired

344 ^-^^ Liberation of Italy

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 as-
suming 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 possi-
bility 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 i860.

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

Rome or Death 345

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 Ves-
pers ' 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 em-
barkation 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 ! '

34^ The Liberation of Italy

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 man-
date. ' 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 solu-
tion 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 1 860 ; 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 Capitate, 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,

Rome or Death 347

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 Cala-
brian coast with about 1000 of his men.

By this time the Italian Government, whether by spon-
taneous 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 re-
solution, 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 i860. 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, in-
stead 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 obtain-
ing provisions — not to a band like this of Garibaldi.
They wandered about for three days, suffering from

348 The Liberation of Italy

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 de-
fended it.

General La Marmora, then Prefect of Naples, and com-
mander-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 bat-
talions 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 emin-
ence, facing that on which the Garibaldians were posted,
and opened a violent fusillade, which, to Garibaldi's dismay,

Rome or Death 349

was returned for a few minutes by his right, consisting
of young Sicilians who were not sufificiently 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, N^laton, the position of
the ball w£is determined, and its extraction rendered
possible.

350 The Liberation of Italy

A general amnesty issued on the occasion of the mar-
riage 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 ir-
regular 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
\rery 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 Aspro-
monte, 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 insta-
bility which was contrary to the organisation of the new

Rome or Death 351

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 ; thiat Italy should waive the right
of protest against the internal organisation of the Papal
army unless its proportions became such as to be a mani-
fest 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 con-
tained 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 qud non by Napoleon,
for evident reasons. While it was clear ^that Turin could
not be the permanent capital of a kingdom that stretched
to ^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 not be reconciled to

352 The Liberation of Italy

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 Parlia-
ment 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

Rome or Death 353

supreme indifference to the whole affair, even to the con-
templated departure of the French troops, 'which con-
cerned the Imperial Government, not the Pope,' said
Cardinal AntonelH, ' since the occupation had been de-
termined 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 : —

Z

354 I'he Liberation of Italy

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 illus-
trious 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

Rome or Death 355

body who were seen at the Garibaldi fites 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 Govern-
ment 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 re-
membered 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

356

The War for Venice 357

sentiments on second rank to the grand end of Italian
unity, so the King, to serve the same end, showed him-
self superior to prejudices which in most men would have
proved insuperable. The fact that Victor Emmanuel
opened negotiations with Mazzini, and maintained them,
oiif 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 re-
volution in Galicia. When Garibaldi returned from
England he was nearly commissioned to start for Con-
stantinople, 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 un-
promising 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 moment-
ous 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

35^ The Liberation of Italy

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

The War for Venice 359

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 begin-
ning 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 incalcul-
able 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 prepara-
tions : 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

360 The Liberation of Italy

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, indicat-
ing amongst other names that of Colonel Pallavicini, who
commanded against him at Aspromonte : a trait charac-
teristic 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 es-
teem, 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

The War for Venice 361

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 calcula-
tion 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

362 The Liberation of Italy

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 assump-
tion that Prussia would be defeated ; he even seems to
have had some hopes of getting the Rhine bank in re-
turn 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.

The War for Venice 363

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 aspir-
ations 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 civilis-
ation of Dalmatia has been exclusively Latin ; the Roman
column points to the Venetian Campanile; all the

364 The Liberation of Italy

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 sub-
jection 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.

The War for Venice 365

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 un-
favourable nature of the ground which, being marshy,
is liable after heavy rains to become impassable. But
against this disadvantage had to be weighed the ad-
vantage 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 neces-
sary 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 con-

366 The Liberation of Italy

tinued. 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 pre-
vented Garibaldi from throwing up his command, so
dissatisfied was he with the conduct of Affairs.

Prussia invaded Hanover and Saxony on the i6th
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 con-
sisted of three corps d'armie under the command of
Generals Durando, Cucchiari and Delia Rocca, each
corps containing four divisions. The force under Cial-
dini was composed of eight divisions forming one corps
(iarm^e. An Italian military writer rates the numbers
at 133,000 and 82,000 respectively. La Marmora ac-
quired 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 un-
observed.

The War for Venice 367

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. Cial-
dini's advance, if he meant to advance, was checked
by floods. On the night of the 23rd most of La Mar-
mora'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 unsuspect-
ing 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 Aus-
trian 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.

368 The Liberation of Italy

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 ap-
proached 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 Cam-
pagna 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 mid-day, how-
ever, the Italian prospects improved so much that in the
opinion of Austrian military writers, with moderate rein-
forcements 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^armie ; 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, Govona,

The War for Venice 369

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 Arch-
duke 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, 31 12 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 men-
tioned 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 eTarmSe 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 at a general
of enterprise to try again, since it was known that the
Archduke had not a single new man to fall back on.

2 A

ZJ^ The Liberation of Italy

And there was Cialdini on the Po with his eight divisions
that had not been engaged at all. But, instead of adopt-
ing 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 tele-
graphed 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 Cas-
tiglione. 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 Koniggratz 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 neces-
sity, as she was bound in any case to cede it at the con-
clusion 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

The War for Venice 371

precluded by her engagement with Prussia from accept-
ing 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 h-zx prestige.
The first was to occupy the Trentino ; the second was to
destroy the Austrian fleet. With the means at her dis-
posal she ought to have been able to do botL

In the earlier phases of Italian liberation, no one dis-
puted that if Lombardy and Venetia were lost to the
Empire the Tridentine province, wr dged in as it is between
them, would follow suit. When, in 1848, Lord Palmerston
offered his services as mediator between Austria and re-
volted 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 pre-
viously held, but the attempt failed. The volunteers were

372 Tki Liberation of Italy

forced to retire with great loss, and the chief himself was
wounded. On the i6th 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 2ist. Each
side claimed that sanguinary day as a victory ; the Gari-
baldians 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 becom-
ing critical, because while Garibaldi sought to approach
Trento from the west, Medici with 10,000 men de-
tached 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 appear-
ance 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 un-
equal. He had been living in retirement for some years,
and neither knew nor v/as known by most of the officers

The War for Venice 373

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 Teget-
hoff" 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.

374 The Liberation of Italy

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 insuper-
able obstacle had the ships' crews been exercised in land-
ing troops under similar circumstances.

Persano reached Lissa on the morning of the i8th
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 Aus-
trians no time to repair their batteries, but at sunset
Persana 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 War for Venice 375

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 ad-
mit 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

37^ The Liberation of Italy

d Italia, and went on board the Affondatore. By some-
body'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, Per-
sano 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 ditalia, 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 ditalia was struck, one of her seamen,
thinking to assert a claim to pity, began to lower her
flag, but a young ofiicer pushed him aside and hoisted it

The War for Venice 377

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 Elizabeth to pick up all she
could, but two Italian ironclads were bearing down upon
him, and little could be done to save the drowning multi-
tude 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 tUtalia 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 skil-
ful manoeuvring was wanted, and also, perhaps, more pre-
cision 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

37^ The Liberation of Italy

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 disappoint-
ment 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

The War for Venice 379

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 mur-
mured '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 be-
sides 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 Bceuf 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,

380 The Liberation of Italy

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 Depu-
tation 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 S6dan ?

In the first period after the war, domestic difificulties
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
i860 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

381

382 The Liberation of Italy

of Ricasoli, namely, the application of the law for the
suppression of religious houses, and the expropriation
of ecclesiastical property. After an unsuccessful en-
deavour 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 administra-
tion 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 ex-
tended to more of the historic monasteries. The absten-
tion 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 Sep-
tember Convention for the evacuation of Rome expired
in December 1866, and at the opening of the new year,
for the first time since 1 849, the Eternal City was with-
out 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 per-
fectly 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,

The Last Crusade 383

although he was an unflinching opponent of the Tem-
poral 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.

384 The Liberation of Italy

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 con-
clusion 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 adven-
ture 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 con-
quering liberator ; they were not ready to make a revolu-
tion 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 Gari-
baldi 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, com-

The Last Crusade 385

plicity 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 pre-
vented the troops from moving is a fact, but the pro-
pitious 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.

3 B

386 The Liberation of Italy

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 out-
ward circumstances point one way, the inward proba-
bilities 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 Last Crusade 387

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 de-
scribe 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 ; Maxi-
milian'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,

388 The Liberation of Italy

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 trans-
ports 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 aban-
doned 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 i860
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 inten-
tion, 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 proclama-
tion, in which they were declared rebels. The French
were free to act.

The Last Crusade 389

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 t>e 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 be-
tween 7000 and 8000 volunteers. Those who have made
a higher estimate have included other bands which, either

390 The Liberation of Italy

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 Ro-
tondo, 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 2Sth 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

The Last Crusade 391

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 Sig-
nora 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. An-
other 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 de-
fect 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 ex-
pected, however, to fight the Papal troops alone, and not
the French.

392 The Liberation of Italy

This was very nearly being the case. On the ist of
November, the Papal General Kanzler called on General
De Failly at Civita Vecchia, and found him, to his con-
cern, 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 pro-
bably 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 acknow-
ledged by their own writers and apologists, sound in-
decent 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^s 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 bare-
foot, 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 be-
gan. Garibaldi looked sad, and spoke to no one, but

The Last Crusade 393

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
r'j-ong warriors now ! He mounted his horse, put it to a
gallop, which he rarely did, and, riding down the ranks ol
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 neigh-
bouring 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

394 T^^^ Liberation of Italy

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 miser-
ably-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,

The Last Crusade 395

human bloodhounds waiting to fly at them. What did
they behold ? ' The beast is gentle,' as Euripides makes
his captors say of Dionysus. 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 inharmoni-
ous 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

396 The Liberation of Italy

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 some-
thing 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 — S^dan — The Breach in
Porta Pia — ^The King of Italy in Rome.

Mentana had its epilogue in the debate in the French
Corps L^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 dis-
tinguished 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 impro-
visation.' The French Chamber confirmed it by throwing
out Favre's motion by 237 votes against 17.

Now, indeed, the Ultramontanes were jubilant through-
out 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

397

39^ The Liberation of Italy

measures which he took with a view to that contingency,
his correspondence with Mazzini is not the least remarli-
able. 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'Use-
dom, 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 inde-
pendence ; 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 in-
terest 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 Medi-
terranean : here France and Italy must find themselves
at variance whether they willed it or not. 'The con-
figuration of the terrestial 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

Rome, the Capital 399

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 Bis-
marck 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 English-
man 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

400 The Liberation of Italy

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 Govern-
ments 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 Mena-
brea 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 impres-
sion 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, the Capital 401

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 1

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

• See Les Alliances de PEmpire en 1869 et 1870 par le Prince Napoleon
Bonaparte: 1878.

2 C

402 The Liberation of Italy

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 inci-
dent 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 re-
turned, 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 sur-
rendered 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

Rome, the Capital 403

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 grow-
ing from then till now, when some critics think they see
in it the fatal upas tree of Italy. The process of trans-
forming a country where everything was wanting — roads,
railways, lines of navigation, schools, water, lighting, sani-
tary provisions, and the other hundred thousand require-
ments 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 with-
out example. During the whole period it has been neces-
sary 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 pro-
gress with economy ; but it may be said that if the path
entered upon by the man who took charge of the ex-
chequer after Menabrea's fall, Quintino Sella, had been
rigorously followed by his successors, the present situa-
tion would not be what it is.

Giovanni Lanza assumed the premiership in the gov-
ernment 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 conser-
vatism 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 Ecu-

404 The Liberation of Italy

menical 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 i8th of July 1870, the Pope was pro-
claimed Infallible.

That was a moment of excitement such as has not
often thrilled Europe, but the cause was not the In-
fallibility of Pius IX. On the i6th. Napoleon de-
clared 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

Rome, the Capital 405

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 Sep-
tember 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 ? More-
over, his present Prime Minister, M. Emile Ollivier, 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 Tiirr 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 tele-
gram 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

4o6 The Liberation of Italy

that France plunged into the campaign of 1870 single-
handed.

After Worth, 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 in-
fluence 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.

Rome, the Capital 407

Prince Napoleon remained in Florence, throwing away
his eloquence, till the and of September cut short the
argument. When he had left his cousin, the Emperor
was resolved to fall back on Paris according to Mac-
Mahon's plan, but the ministers and the Empress Regent
forced him to his doom. On the 2nd of September
Sddan 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 29th 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

4o8 The Liberation of Italy

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 Con-
vention, 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 mon-
arch, 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 Bis-
marck 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 nth of September, the Italian troops received
the order to enter the Papal states. For several weeks

Rome, the Capital 409

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, sur-
rendered 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 to 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 Septem-
ber, 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 Maz6
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

4IO The Liberation of Italy

was returned by the Zouaves with their ' Vive Pie Neuf.'
They had been already ordered to desist, as the Pope's in-
structions 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 handkerchieffastened 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 de-
fend 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 Capi-
tate 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

Rome, the Capital 411

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
and 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 : ' Cittcl Leonina Si.' As the Govern-
ment 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 affir-
mative and 1 507 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

412 The Liberation of Italy

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 attend-
ants, and bent on bringing help to the suffering popula-
tion. 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

Rome, the Capital 413

negherebbono la obbedienza? Quale invidia se gli
opporrebbe ? Quale Italiano gli negherebbe I'ossequio ? '
To fill the appointed part Victor Emmanuel possessed
the supreme qualiiication, 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 com-
pletion. 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 sanc-
tioned the adminstration 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 func-
tions. When the aged Pius heard that all was over, he
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 ex-

414 The Liberation of Italy

treme, 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 working-
men 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 un-
forgetting 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 inunda-
tions 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 mean-
while he urged the Italians to look to their defences,
and above all, 'to be strong on the sea, like England.' In

Rome, the Capital 415

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 :

AoVs xporov, x.a> iravree ii/iiis fifra, "XJ^fo-i xru'ir^sart.

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.

THE END.

INDEX

Albrbcht, Archduke, 364, 369.
Alessandria, 225.
Alfieri, 8, 18.
Alemann, General, 379.
Amedeo, Prince, i6g, 344, 368.
Amadeus, Victor, 73.
Amadeus with the Tail, 172.
Ampfere, 237.
Andreoli, Giuseppe, 51.

iAntonelli, Cardinal, loi, 130, 1841 X89, zgi, 39S,
,409-. ^

Anzani, Francesco, 124.
Appel, General, 14a
Amim, Count, 409.
Aspre, d'. General, 104, 139, 140.
Aspromonte, 300, 348, 350.
Austerlitz, 5.

Azeglio, Massimo d', 73, 74, 113, 17s, 190, 195,
206.

Bandibra, 67-69.

Bassi, Ugo, 154, 163.

Bastide, Jules, 117.

Bavaj General, 106, 114.

Bazaine, Marshal, 243.

Beauharnais, Eugene, 6-9.

Beauregard, Costa de, 224.

Bellegarde, Marshal, 9-1 1.

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, loi, 272, 301, 318, 360, 368, 408

Boccheciampi, 68.

Borj^s, Josfe, 331.

Brescia, Revolution at, 142, 232, 245, 343.

Briganti, General, 301, 302.

Brofferio, 179.

Bronzetta, Pilade, 318, 320.

Buhna, 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, 389, 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, 321, 325, 328, 337, 385, 396.

Capua, War around, 305, 318 ; capitulation,
326.

Carignano, Prince of, 30, 32, 37.

Carignano, Eugene de, 333.

Carlyle, Thomas, 6g.

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, n, 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 Plombiferes, 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 ; acces-
sion, 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, 338, 332, 348, 366, 370,

Cipriani, L., 255.

2 D

4i8

Index

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, Generalj 102, 107, 112.

Eboli, 303.

Elliot, Mr, 314.

Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg, 199, a66.

Falloux, de, 183.
Fanti, General, 257, 312, 334.
Farini, L. C, 73i iz?' =37) 255) 257. 333. 339-
Faro, Cape of, 297, 29B, 300.
Favre, Jules, 215, 397.

Ferdinand IL, 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 Jbseph, Emperor, 119, 160, 227, 240,
242, 249.

Gaeta, Fall of, 317-326.

Gamba, Pietro, 24, 50.

Garobetta, 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 CoUegno, 38.
Gioberti, 78, 133.
Gladstone, W. E., 1B7.
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, 23a, 242,

Hilliers, Baraguay d', 229.

Hoche, 5.

Hortense, Queen, 55_.

Humbert of the White Hands, 172.

Immaculate Conception, Doctrine of, 77.

Jesuits, sr, 75, 128, 379.

Kanzler, General, 392.
Kellersperg, Baron von, 2271
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, 35a,

357f 359> 361-366.
Lamoriciere, General, 311, 313.
Lannes, Marshal, 231.
Lanza, General, 282, 283, 2S6, 403, 406, 407.
Le Bceuf, General, 379.
Leo XII., 49.
Leopardi, 186.
Leopold II., 89, 159, 234.
Lesseps, Ferdmand, 15T, 154.
Letizia, General, 284, 286.
Liborio Romano, 306.
Lincoln, President, 343.
Lissa, Battle of, 374.
Lodi, 4.

Lombardy, trials in, 40; Revolution, zoo, x6tf.
Louis Philippe, 128.
Lucca, 16.

Machiavelli, 2, 3, 52, 4x2.
MacMahoD, Marshal, 229, 233, 244, 406.
JSilagenta, Battle of, 232, 234, 236.
Malghplla, 23.
Malmesbury, Lord, 223.
Mamelli, Goffredo, 154, 155.
Manin, Daniel, 99, iz6, z6e>, x6S, 203.

Index

419

Mantua, Prince Eugene in, 8-xo; gallant

defence, 105.
Manzoni, Alessandro, ig.
Margaret, Queen, 199, 401.
Maria Adelaide, Queen, i6g>
Maria Teresa, Queen, 31.
Marie Louise, Empress, I2,l3i ; death, 88
Marie Soiia, 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.
Maxiiuilian, 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
Orsinii 214 ; .protests against Napoleonic
war, 220,^ in Naples, 313, 354-357 ; corre-
sponds with the king, 398 ; arrested, 407 ;
death, 413.
Medici, Giacomo, 124, 125, 155, 231, 273, 289,

202, 301, 318, 360.
Melegnano, Battle of, 240.
Menabrea, General, 388-395, 400-402,
Menechini, 25.
Menotti, Giro, 52, 53, 64.
Mentana, Battl^ of, 392-397, 404.
Merode, Marquis de, 330.
Messina, held by Royal troops, 290 ; evacu-
ated, 295.
Mettemich, Prince, 15, 32, 46, 56, 83, 84, 86,

95, 400.
Mezzacapo, 237.
Micca, Pietro, 36.
Milan, revolt, 8-10 ; fighting in the city, 95 ;

Austrains depart, 233.
Milano, Ageslao, 208.
Milazzo, Battle of, 290.
Mincio, Battle of, 107, 241, 365, 366, 369.
Minghetti, Marco, loi, 129.
Minto, Lord, 87, ii6.
Misilmeri, 280.
Misley, Dr, 52.
Missori, Major, 291.^
Modena, revolution in, 53.
Monreale, 278.
Montalembertj 185.
Montanelli, Giuseppe, 112, 135, 136.
Monti, 16.

Montebello, Battle of, 231.
MorelH, 25, zg.
More, Domenico, 68.
Moscow, retreat from, 8.
Mundy, Admiral, 282, 283, 287, 288, 314, 320,

324, 354.
Murat, Joachim, 6, 7, zo, 13, 23.

Napier, Lord, go, 92.

Naples, 25-29, loi ; massacre, no; misrole m,

186-187; Galibaldi's march on, 299; King
enters, 324.

Napoleon Buonaparte, 2-10, 240.

Napoleon IIL, 55 ; elected President of French
Republic, iig, 149; letter to Ney, 185; at-
tempt on his life, 212; compact at Plom-
biferes, 217, 253 ; demands Nice and Savoy,
260-262; era of peace, 358.

Napoleon, Prince, i8s, 229, 235, 351, 406.

Nelaton, Dr, 349.

Ney, Edgar, 185.

Nice, cession of, 221, 224, 258, 262.

Nicotera, 209, 297.

Niel, 220, 244.

Ninco-Nanco, 330.

Normanby, Lord, 117, 228.

Novara, 37-39 ; battle of, 141, 412.

Nugent, General, 107, 112, 113, 143.

O'pONNEL, Count, 95.
Oliphant, Laurence, 263, 26C,
Olivier, Emile, 405.
Orsini, Colonel, 280.
Orsini, Felice, 213, 216.
Oudinot, General, 150, 156.

Palermo, strange discovery, 92 ; Sicilian ex-
pedition, 271-290 ; insurrection, 381.

Pallavicini, Giorgio, 42, 137, 309, 314, 344,
348, 360.

Palma, 330.

Palmerston, Lord, 83, in, 117, 161, 266, 282,
355. 371-

Panizzi, Anthony, 32.

Paris, Treaty of, 13 ; Congress of, 185.

Parma, 12-16.

jlia, 341.

Pastrengo, Battle of, 109.

Peard, Colonel, 303-306.

PelUco, Silvio, 40, 43.

Pepe, Guglielmo, 29, in, 126.

Perier, Casimir, 53.

Persano, Admiral, 274, 288, 308, 372, 377.

Peschiera, 112,, 240, 242, 248.

Petitti, General, 378.

Petre, 8r, 82.

Piacenza, garrisoned by Austrians, 16.

Piedmont, Revolution in, 33 ; struggle with
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 consti-
tution, loi ; encyclical letter, 108 ; flight to
Gaeta, 130 ; calls foreign aid to support tem-
poral power, 132; thanksgiving, 183, 259;
character, 311 ; calls to arms, 363, 408 ;
death, 413.

Flombi^res, 217; meeting between Napoleon
and Cavour.

Poerio, Carlo, 90, 126, 134.

Pralormo, Count, 176.

420

Index

Prina, General, 8.
Prince Consort, ig8, 258.

Raobtsky, g6, 104, iii, 139, 162, 167, 195^ 249.

Ralmondi, Captain, 35,

RatCazzi, 138, 200, 207, 252, 260, 340, 342, 350,

382, 384.
Reggio, 301, 347.
Renzi, Pietro, 73.
Ricasoli, Baron, 135, 235, 336, 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, 137 ; French depart

from, 382 ; declared capitalf 412.
Romeo, Domenico, 90.
Rossaroll, General, 29.
Rossetti, Gabriele, 49.
Rossi, 81, X28.
Rouher, 397, 405.
Ruffini, Jacobo, 63.
Ruskin, J., 102-

Russell, Lord John, 252, 268, 274, 377,
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,

2fi6.^

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.
TheodoKnda, Crown of, 6.
Thiers, 175, 397. 404-

Thurn, General, 140,
Ticino, T20, 139, 226, 228, 233.
Tolentino, Battle of, 10.
Torelli, Prince, 134,
Tortona, 230.

Trazegnies, Marquis de, 331.
Trentmo, 343, 363, 371,
Trescorre, 342, 343.
Tarr, General, 315, 405.

Ulloa, General, 304.
Ultramontanes, 190, 259, 397, 404.
XJmberto, Prince, 169, 344, 367, 36S, 401.
Urban, 231, 232.

Vacca, Admiral, 374.

Vaillant, General, 229, 261.

Vecchj, Colonel, ^28.

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 ; un-
popularity, 165-166 ^ visits English and
French courts, 204 ; invites Garibaldi to join
bis armYi 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, 26r.

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, 4o3.
Wilmot, Lieutenant, 280, 284.
Warth, 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, 238.

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