Checked in 1833, the descent on Savoy was actually attempted in 1834, [Pg.66] with Mazzini's consent, though not by his wish. An officer who had won some celebrity in the Polish revolution, General Ramorino, a Savoyard by origin, was given the command. Ramorino was a gambler, who could not be trusted with money, but Mazzini's suspicion that on this occasion he played the part of traitor is not proved. However that may be, the expedition ended almost as soon as it began. Ramorino crossed the frontier of Savoy at the head of the column, but when he heard that a Polish reinforcement had been stopped on the Lake of Geneva, he retreated into Switzerland, and advised the band to follow him.
After these events, Mazzini could no longer carry on his propaganda in France. He took refuge in England, where a great part of his life was to be passed, and of which he spoke, to the last, as his second country. The first period of his residence in England was darkened by the deep distress and discouragement into which the recent events had plunged him; but his faith in the future prevailed, and he went on with his work. His endeavours to help his fellow-exiles reduced him to the last stage of poverty; the day came when he was obliged to pawn a coat and an old pair of boots. These money difficulties did not afflict him, and by degrees his writings in English periodicals brought some addition to the small quarterly allowance which he received from his mother. It seems strange, though it is easily explained, that it was in London that he first got to know the Italian working classes. He was surprised and gladdened by the abundance of good elements which he found in them. No country, indeed, has more reason to hope in her working men than the land whose sons have tunnelled the Alps, cut the most arduous railway lines in America and India, brought up English ships from the deep, laid the caissons (a [Pg.67] task of extreme danger) which support the great structure of the Bridge of the Firth of Forth, and left their bones to whiten at Panama. 'It is the universal testimony,' writes a high American authority, 'that no more faithful men have come among us.' What was the cause of the slaughter of the Aigues Mortes? That the Italians worked too well.
Mazzini wrote for his humble friends the treatise on The Duties of Man, in which he told them that he loved them too well to flatter them. Another work that occupied him and consoled him was the rescue and moral improvement of the children employed by organ-grinders, and he was the first to call attention to the white slavery to which many of them were subjected. He opened a school in Hatton Garden, in which he taught, and which he mainly supported for the seven years from 1841 to 1848.
The enterprise of the Brothers Bandiera belongs to the history of 'Young Italy,' though Mazzini himself had tried to prevent it, believing that it could only end in the sacrifice of all concerned. Nor, at the last, did the actors in it expect anything else. They had hoped for better things; for a general movement in the South of Italy, or at least for an undertaking on a larger and less irrational basis. But promises failed, money was not forthcoming, and it was a choice between doing nothing or a piece of heroic folly. Contrary to Mazzini's entreaties, they chose the second alternative.
Attilio and Emilio Bandiera were sons of the Austrian admiral who, in 1831, arrested Italian fugitives at sea. Placed by their father in the Austrian navy, they renounced every prospect of a brilliant career to enter the service of their down-trodden country. When they deserted, [Pg.68] strong efforts were made by the Archduke Rainieri, through their mother, to win them back, but neither the offers of pardon nor the poor woman's tears and reproaches turned them from their purpose. Another deserter was with them, Lieutenant Domenico Moro, a youth of great charm of person and disposition, who had been employed with a mixed force of Englishmen and Austrians in the Lebanon, where he formed a warm friendship with Lieutenant, now Admiral, Sir George Wellesley, who still preserves an affectionate remembrance of him. Nicola Ricciotti, a Roman subject who had devoted all his life to Italy, and Anacarsi Nardi, son of the dictator of Modena, were also of the band, which counted about twenty.
The Bandieras and their companions sailed from Corfu for the coast of Calabria on the 11th of June 1844. 'If we fall,' they wrote to Mazzini, 'tell our countrymen to imitate our example, for life was given to us to be nobly and usefully employed, and the cause for which we shall have fought and died is the purest and holiest that ever warmed the heart of man.' It was their last letter. After they landed in Calabria one of their number disappeared; there is every reason to suppose that he went to betray them. They wandered for a few days in the mountains, looking for the insurgent band which they had been falsely told was waiting for them, and then fell into an ambush prepared by the Neapolitan troops. Some died fighting; nine were shot at Cosenza, including the Bandieras, Mori, Ricciotti and Nardi. Boccheciampi the Corsican, whom they suspected of treason, was brought up to be confronted with them during the trial; when asked if he knew who he was, Nardi replied: 'I know no word in my divine Italian language that can fitly describe that man.' Boccheciampi was condemned to a nominal imprisonment; when he came out of prison he wrote to a [ [Pg.69] Greek girl of Corfu, to whom he was engaged, to join him at Naples, that they might be married. The girl had been deeply in love with him, and had already given him part of her dowry, but she answered: 'A traitor cannot wed a Greek maiden; I bear with me the blessing of my parents; upon you rests the curse of God.'
The martyrdom of the Bandieras made a great impression, especially in England, where the circumstance came to light that their correspondence with Mazzini had been tampered with in the English Post Office, and that information as to their plans had reached the Austrian and Neapolitan Governments through the British Foreign Office. The affair was brought before the House of Commons by Thomas Duncombe. The Home Secretary repeated a calumny which had appeared many years before in a French newspaper, to the effect that the murder of an Italian in Rodez by two of his fellow-countrymen was the result of an order from the Association of Young Italy. Sir James Graham had to apologise afterwards for 'the injury inflicted on Mr Mazzini' by this statement, which he was obliged to admit was supported by no evidence, and was contrary to the opinion of the Judge who tried the case.
The Times having observed in a leading article that the gravity of the fact in question, the violation of private correspondence in the Post Office, was not affected by the merits or demerits of Mr Mazzini, of whom it professed to 'know nothing,' Thomas Carlyle wrote next day a letter containing words which may be quoted as some of the best and truest ever written about the great Italian: 'I have had the honour to know Mr Mazzini for a series of years, and, whatever I may think of his practical insight and skill in worldly affairs, I can with great [Pg.70] freedom testify that he, if I have ever seen one such, is a man of genius and virtue, one of those rare men, numerable unfortunately but as units in this world, who are worthy to be called martyr souls; who in silence, piously in their daily life, understand and practise what is meant by that.' [[2]]