'I won't try to paint with my poor pen the scene, but I was highly amused and in such imperturbable good humour, that even the captain of the Tonnerre, calling me a party man and attacking me as if I had fired at his nasty flag, did not make me call him what I might with truth have done, a Red. He would not eat, or drink, or do anything but fume. At last I coolly said "Eh bien, Monsieur, c'est votre faute." "Why, how, what you mean, Monsieur?" "That you have set the example of Tricolor, and desire all the world to adopt it, and are now angry because blue and green are so much alike, that after the sun has set one colour cannot be known from the other"; on which the Captain of the packet said Bon! and laughed heartily; he was a good little man and made light of the whole affair. The French have insisted on the extreme of satisfaction in this case.
'The next morning I was with the municipal body at 5 A.M. I found them in the lowest possible state of despondency and terror, although there was a change for the better in the appearance of the National Guard. They with anxious looks led me to their chair, shut the doors and then revealed to me in low tones that the state of affairs was worse. Of this I felt sure that it would either end in a pillage and a massacre, or cease from that moment.
'They placed before me a letter of Avezzana's addressed to the municipal body, threatening them with energetic measures if they did not advance the revolt by more activity. I found he and Albertini had instituted a tribunal, Albertini as president, with power of life and death with instant execution. Guillotines were built; these poor devils were waiting their doom. I sent for him, by a civil message, of course, I taxed him roundly with his intentions and bad faith. He, cowed, answered in a subdued tone. In short, the game was up, he that day tried to put an insult on me through the flag, failed again, got aboard an American ship and fled that night.
'I can't go on with this story any longer, I have written it to its positive finish to amuse you, my dearest wife. I have told it very ill, it may form, when we meet, a subject for an evening's conversation, when I can fill up gaps, explain incongruities, but not read my own handwriting.
'If you show it to anyone, take care it is only to a mutual friend or sister; it is not fit to meet the eye of a critic or indeed of anyone, but it is a note of the time from which a statement might with some further details be made.
'I have not said a word of loss of life. The King of Sardinia has about 100 killed, 15 officers and 300 wounded. What the loss on the side of the revolt is, no one can tell. My surgeons attended the wounded, sent by me; all the time the hospitals were full, but they said more were carried home than went there. They must have buried their slain in the night, for I have seen many women who have never seen their sons or husbands since the day the firing began.
'The Doria Palace and houses round it show the chief destruction. The town has suffered little, it did not last long enough to make impression on stone and marble houses. Five shell fell into the Ducal Palace, and six into the great hospital, the rest are scattered about, so that the damage only meets the eye here and there.
'I have a satisfaction in feeling that I shortened the punishment of the beautiful city.
'Its frescoes and its pictures, given to the bomb and the sack, would have been forgotten in Europe, and its ancient splendour might only have been talked of as existing before the bombardment of 1849.
'I say this to you only, and now shall hold my peace for the future.