So Garibaldi returned at forty-one years of age to the country where the sentence of death passed upon him had never been revoked.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, [Pg.125] but to die. The day before he expired, Medici arrived at Genoa; he was very angry with the Chief, in consequence of some disagreement as to the place of landing. Anzani said to him entreatingly: 'Do not be hard, Medici, on Garibaldi; he is a predestined man: a great part of the future of Italy is in his hands.' The counsel from dying lips sank deep into Medici's heart; he often disagreed with Garibaldi, but to his last day he never quarrelled with him again. Long years after, if friction arose between Garibaldi and his King, it was Medici's part to throw oil on the waters.
Garibaldi sought an interview with Charles Albert, and offered him his arms and the arms of his Legion, 'not unused to war.' Pope or prince, little it mattered to him who the saviour of Italy should be. But Charles Albert, though he was polite, merely referred his visitor to his ministers, and the inestimable sword of the hero went begging for a month or more, till the Provisional Government of Milan gave him the command of the few thousand volunteers with whom we saw him at the conclusion of the campaign. The war was over before he had a chance of striking a blow. His indignant cry of defiance could not be long sustained, for Garibaldi never drove men to certain and useless slaughter; when the real position of things became known to him, he led his band over the Swiss confines, and bid them wait for a better and not distant day.
Under Manin's wise rule, which was directed solely to the preservation of peace within the city, and resistance to the enemy at its gates, Venice remained undaunted by the catastrophes in Lombardy, after all the Venetian terra firma had been restored to Austria. (Even the heroic little mountain fort of Osopo in the Friuli was compelled to capitulate on the 12th of October.) The blockade of the city on the [Pg.126] lagunes did not prevent Venice from acting not only on the defensive but on the offensive; in the sortie of the 27th of October, 2500 Venetians drove the Austrians from Mestre with severe losses, carrying back six captured guns, which the people dragged in triumph to the Doge's palace. A cabin-boy named Zorzi was borne on the shoulders of the soldiers enveloped in the Italian flag; his story was this: the national colours, floating from the mast of the pinnace on which he served, were detached by a ball and dropped into the water; the child sprang in after them, and with a shout of Viva l'Italia, fixed them again at the masthead under a sharp fire. Zorzi was, of course, the small hero of the hour, especially among the women. General Pepe commanded the sortie, with Ulloa, Fontana and Cosenz as his lieutenants; Ugo Bassi, the patriot monk of Bologna, marched at the head of a battalion with the crucifix, the only arms he ever carried, in his hand. The success cost Italy dear, as Alessandro Poerio, poet and patriot, the brother of Baron Carlo Poerio of Naples, lost his life by a wound received at Mestre. But the confidence of Venice in her little army was increased a hundredfold.
The most important event of the autumn of 1848 was the gradual but continuous break-up of the Papal authority in Rome. The meeting of the new Parliament only served to accentuate the want of harmony between the Pope and his ministers; assassinations were frequent; what law there was was administered by the political clubs. In Count Terenzio Mamiani, Pius IX. found a Prime Minister who, for eloquence and patriotism, could hardly be rivalled, but hampered as he was by the opposition he encountered from the Sovereign, and by the absence of any real or solid moderate constitutional party in the Chamber of [Pg.127] Deputies, Mamiani could carry out very few of the improvements he desired to effect, and in August he retired from an impracticable task, to be replaced by men of less note and talent than himself.
Wishing to create fresh complications for the Pope, the Austrians invaded the Legations, regardless of his protests, and after the fall of Milan, General Welden advanced on Bologna, where, however, his forces were so furiously attacked by the inhabitants and the few carabineers who were all the troops in the town, that they were dislodged from the strong position they had taken up on the Montagnola, the hill which forms the public park, and obliged to fly beyond the city walls. Radetsky disapproved of Welden's movements on Bologna, and ordered him not to return to the assault.
Had the Austrians returned and massacred half the population of Bologna, the Pope might have been saved. When Rome heard that the stormy capital of Romagna was up in arms, once more, for a moment, there were united counsels. 'His Holiness,' ran the official proclamation, 'was firmly resolved to repel the Austrian invasion with all the means which his State and the well-regulated enthusiasm of his people could supply.' The Chamber confirmed the ministerial proposal to demand French help against Austria. But all this brave show of energy vanished with the pressing danger, and Bologna, which, by its manly courage, had galvanised the whole bloodless body-politic, now hastened the hour of dissolution by lapsing into a state of deplorable anarchy, the populace using the arms with which they had driven out the Austrians, to establish a reign of murder and pillage. L.C. Farini restored something like order, but the general weakness of the power of government became every day more apparent.
[ [Pg.128] The Pope made a last endeavour to avert the catastrophe by calling to his counsels Count Pellegrino Rossi, a man of unyielding will, who was as much opposed to demagogic as to theocratic government. Rossi, having been compromised when very young in Murat's enterprises, lived long abroad, and attained the highest offices under Louis Philippe, who sent him to Rome to arrange with the Pope the delicate question of the expulsion of the Jesuits from France, which he conducted to an amicable settlement, though one not pleasing to the great Society. Not being one of those who change masters as they change their boots according to the state of the roads, the ambassador retired from the French service when Louis Philippe was dethroned. As minister to the Pope, he made his influence instantly felt; measures were taken to restore order in the finances, discipline in the army, public security in the streets, and method and activity in the Government offices. The tax on ecclesiastical property was enforced; fomenters of anarchy, even though they wore the garb of patriots, and perhaps honestly believed themselves to be such, were vigorously dealt with. If anyone could have given the Temporal Power a new lease of life, it would have been a man so gifted and so devoted as Pellegrino Rossi, but the entire forces, both of subversion and of reaction, were against him, and most of all was against him the fatality of dates. Not at human bidding do the dead arise and walk. The most deeply to be regretted event that happened in the course of the Italian revolution gave his inevitable failure the appearance of a fortuitous accident.
[ [Pg.129] Parliament, which had been prorogued on the 26th of August, was to open on the 15th of November. Anarchy, black and red, was in the air. Though disorders were expected, Rossi made no provision for keeping the space clear round the palace where Parliament met; knots of men, with sinister faces, gathered in all parts of the square. Rossi was warned in the morning that an attempt would be made to assassinate him; he was entreated not to go to the Chamber, to which he replied that it was his duty to be present, and that if people wanted his blood they would have it sooner or later, whether he took precautions or not. Two policemen to keep the passage free when he reached the Chamber would, nevertheless, have saved his life. As he walked from his carriage to the stairs, an unknown individual pushed against him on the right side, and when he turned to see who it was, the assassin plunged a dagger in his throat. He fell, bathed in blood, to expire without uttering a word.
In the Chamber, the deputies proceeded to business; not one raised an indignant protest against a crime which violated the independence of the representatives of the nation. The mere understanding of what liberty means is absolutely wanting in most populations when they first emerge from servitude.