The members of the papal party who showed the greatest spirit and the highest courage at this trying conjuncture were the Roman ladies and their foreign friends. They scraped lint for the troops as incessantly as they offered prayers to the Virgin. Some of them were trained nurses, and they were training others to tend the sick and wounded. They organized a hospital service, and when the wounded arrived from Viterbo, notwithstanding the rumors of incendiarism and massacre, they came forth from their homes, and proceeded in companies, with no male attendants but armed men, to the discharge of their self-appointed public duties. There were many foreigners in the papal ranks, and the sympathies and services of the female visitors to Rome were engaged for their countrymen. Princesses of France and Flanders might be seen by the tressel-beds of many a suffering soldier of Dauphin and Brabant; but there were numerous subjects of Queen Victoria in the papal ranks—some Englishmen, several Scotchmen, and many Irish. For them the English ladies had organized a special service. Lady St. Jerome, with unflagging zeal, presided over this department; and the superior of the sisterhood of mercy, that shrank from no toil and feared no danger in the fulfilment of those sacred duties of pious patriots, was Miss Arundel.
She was leaning over the bed of one who had been cut down in the olive-wood by a sabre of Campian’s force, when a peal of artillery was heard. She thought that her hour had arrived, and the assault had commenced.
“Most holy Mary!” she exclaimed, “sustain me.”
There was another peal, and it was repeated, and again and again at regular intervals.
“That is not a battle, it is a salute,” murmured the wounded soldier.
And he was right; it was the voice of the great guns telling that the French had arrived.
The consternation of the Revolutionary Committee, no longer sustained by Colonna, absent in France, was complete. Had the advanced guard of Garibaldi been in sight, it might still have been the wisest course to rise; but Monte Mario was not yet peopled by them, and an insurrection against the papal troops, reanimated by the reported arrival of the French, and increased in numbers by the fugitives from Viterbo, would have been certainly a rash and probably a hopeless effort. And so, in the midst of confused and hesitating councils, the first division of the French force arrived at the gates of Rome, and marched into the gloomy and silent city.
Since the interference of St. Peter and St. Paul against Alaric, the papacy had never experienced a more miraculous interposition in its favor. Shortly after this the wind changed, and the sky became serene; a sunbeam played on the flashing cross of St. Peter’s; the Pope left the Castle of Angelo, and returned to the Quirinal; the Noble Guard sheathed their puissant blades; the six-score of monsignori reappeared in all their busy haunts and stately offices; and the court of Rome, no longer despairing of the republic, and with a spirit worthy of the Senate after Cannae, ordered the whole of its forces into the field to combat its invaders, with the prudent addition, in order to insure a triumph, of a brigade of French infantry armed with chassepots.
Garibaldi, who was really at hand, hearing of these events, fell back on Monte Rotondo, about fifteen miles from the city, and took up a strong position. He was soon attacked by his opponents, and defeated with considerable slaughter, and forced to fly. The papal troops returned to Rome in triumph, but with many wounded. The Roman ladies and their friends resumed their noble duties with enthusiasm. The ambulances were apportioned to the different hospitals, and the services of all were required. Our own countrymen had suffered severely, but the skill and energy and gentle care of Clare Arundel and her companions only increased with the greater calls upon their beautiful and sublime virtue.
A woman came to Miss Arundel and told her that, in one of the ambulances, was a young man whom they could not make out. He was severely wounded, and had now swooned; but they had reason to believe he was an Englishman. Would she see him and speak to him? And she went.