Mazzini, through the negotiation of Mr. Cass, the American Chargé d’affaires, received a passport in his own name from the French, and went off viâ Civita Vecchia, with a bearer of despatches from the same Mr. Cass, I think, on Tuesday last, the 10th. He would go into Switzerland. This is quite positive.
On Monday I was at Albano. The French, seventy horse, came in that afternoon at four. The Spaniards meantime had just the previous night occupied Genzano, three miles off. One hears that the French have turned them out of it.
Two newspapers appear in Rome besides the official gazette, called the ‘Giornale di Roma’; one of these, the ‘Costituzionale,’ belongs to the prete interest; the other, ‘La Speranza dell’ Epoca,’ to Mamiani and coterie. They are under a military censure, but liberally exercised; a new appointment was freely commented on in malam partem yesterday by this latter print.
The Principessa di Belgiojoso is still here, looking after her feriti at the Monte Cavallo, who, as I think by Mr. Cass’s intercession, are allowed to remain there; at first, orders were given that they should be removed within a week. Garibaldi is said to have effected a junction at Terni with Forbes, an Englishman holding rank here of colonel, I think, and commanding a small detachment.
Add to the list of fortunate escapes, that a ball struck the façade of the Palazzo Sciarra on the terzo piano. On the secondo in front is the gallery, whose ample windows give light to the famous Modestia e Vanità of Leonardo da Vinci, the Violin Player of Raphael, Titian’s Bella Donna, and others, most of which, however, have been put into the passage for safety.
Freeborn, the Consul, has got one bomb in his bank. Do you know the difference between the two things, bomb and grenade? bomb has two handles, and grenade is a hollow ball with a hole in it; that is all I know. Grenades, they say, burst in the air; otherwise they are as big as bombs, and by no means innocent things.
July 14.
Giving the French and the ‘Times’ credit for some degree of truth-telling, the simple truth would appear to be, that we have been grenaded, not bombarded. It is possible that the cannon and mortars were pointed merely to the breach, and that the bombs and balls that came in were merely bad shots. But the obus (singular or plural) must certainly have been pointed against the very heart of the city, the Pantheon and Capitol; and a discharge of 150 or more grenades in a single night is, if not a bombardment, still—— My authority about Mazzini’s movements is[13] Miss Fuller, an American, who was in immediate communication with Mazzini and Mr. Cass, and who was a party to the negotiation. She is now gone to Rieti.
To the same.
Geneva: August 7.