“And Jenny shall give us a capital cup of coffee,” said Mirandola; “it is the only hospitality that I can offer my friends. Give me a light, my general; and now, how are things?”
“Well, at the first glance, very bad; the French have left Rome, and we are not in it.”
“Well, that is an infamy not of today or yesterday,” replied Mirandola, “though not less an infamy. We talked over this six months ago, when you were over here about something else, and from that moment unto the present I have with unceasing effort labored to erase this stigma from the human consciousness, but with no success. Men are changed; public spirit is extinct; the deeds of ‘48 are to the present generations as incomprehensible as the Punic wars, or the feats of Marius against the Cimbri. What we want are the most natural things in the world, and easy of attainment because they are natural. We want our metropolis, our native frontiers, and true liberty. Instead of these, we have compromises, conventions, provincial jealousies, and French prefects. It is disgusting, heart-rending; sometimes I fear my own energies are waning. My health is wretched; writing and speaking are decidedly bad for me, and I pass my life in writing and speaking. Toward evening I feel utterly exhausted, and am sometimes, which I thought I never could be, the victim of despondency. The loss of the doctor was a severe blow, but they hurried him out of the place. The man of Paris would never rest till he was gone. I was myself thinking of once more trying Switzerland, but the obstacles are great; and, in truth, I was at the darkest moment when Jenny brought me the light of your name.”
The general, who had bivouacked on a group of small chairs, his leg on one, his elbow on another, took his cigar from his mouth and delivered himself of a volume of smoke, and then said dryly: “Things may not be so bad as they seem, comrade. Your efforts have not been without fruit. I have traced them in many quarters, and, indeed, it is about their possible consequences that I have come over to consult with you.”
“Idle words, I know, never escape those lips,” said Mirandola; “speak on.”
“Well,” said the general, “you see that people are a little exhausted by the efforts of last year; and it must be confessed that no slight results were accomplished. The freedom of Venice—”
“A French intrigue,” exclaimed Mirandola. “The freedom of Venice is the price of the slavery of Rome. I heard of it with disgust.”
“Well, we do not differ much on that head,” said the general. “I am not a Roman as you are, but I view Rome, with reference to the object of my life, with feelings not less ardent and absorbing than yourself, who would wish to see it again the empress of the world. I am a soldier, and love war, and, left to myself, would care little perhaps for what form of government I combated, provided the army was constituted on the principles of fraternity and equality; but the passion of my life, to which I have sacrificed military position, and perhaps,” he added in a lower tone, “perhaps even military fame, has been to destroy priestcraft, and, so long as the pope rules in Rome, it will be supreme.”
“We have struck him down once,” said Mirandola.
“And I hope we shall again, and forever,” said the general, “and it is about that I would speak. You are in error in supposing that your friends do not sympathize with you, or that their answers are dilatory or evasive. There is much astir; the old spirit is not extinct, but the difficulties are greater than in former days when we had only the Austrians to encounter, and we cannot afford to make another failure.”