"The unity of Italy," says Mazzini, "is a work of God. It will be fulfilled, with you or without you. But I address you because I believe you worthy to take the initiative in a work so vast; ... because the revival of Italy, under the ægis of a religious idea of a standard, not of rights, but of duties, would leave behind all the revolutions of other countries, and place her immediately at the head of European progress."
Pure and devout as are the sentiments uttered in this letter, the views which accompany them have been shown, by subsequent events, to be only partially just, only partially realizable. The unification of Italy may to-day be called "a work of God;" but had it been accomplished on the theocratic basis imagined by Mazzini, it could not have led either Europe or Italy itself to the point now reached through manifold endeavor and experience. Spirits may be summoned from the upper air as well as from the "vasty deep," but they will not come until the time is ripe for[229] their work. And yet are prayer and prophecy of this sort sacred and indispensable functions in the priesthood of ideas.
On March 29, 1848, Margaret is able to praise once more the beauty of the scene around her:—
"Now the Italian heavens wear again their deep blue. The sun is glorious, the melancholy lustres are stealing again over the Campagna, and hundreds of larks sing unwearied above its ruins. Nature seems in sympathy with the great events that are transpiring."
What were these events, which, Margaret says, stunned her by the rapidity and grandeur of their march?
The face of Italy was changed indeed. Sicily was in revolt, Naples in revolution. Milan, Venice, Modena, and Parma were driving out their tyrants; and in Rome, men and women were weeping and dancing for joy at the news. Abroad, Louis Philippe had lost his throne, and Metternich his power. Margaret saw the Austrian arms dragged through the streets, and burned in the Piazza del Popolo. "The Italians embraced one another, and cried, Miracolo! Providenza! The Tribune Ciceruacchio fed the flame with fagots. Adam Mickiewicz, the great poet of Poland, long exiled from his country, looked on." The double-headed Austrian[230] eagle was torn from the front of the Palazzo di Venezia, and in his place was set the inscription, "Alta Italia." By April 1st the Austrian Viceroy had capitulated at Verona, and Italy appeared to be, or was for the time, "free, independent, and one."
Poor Pope Pius, meanwhile, had fallen more and more into the rear of the advancing movement, and finally kept step with it only as he was compelled to do, secretly looking for the moment when he should be able to break from the ranks which he himself had once led. On May 7th, Margaret writes of his "final dereliction to the cause of freedom," by which phrase she describes his refusal to declare war against Austria, after having himself done and approved of much which led in that direction. The position of the Pontiff was now most unhappy. Alarmed at the agitation and turmoil about him, it is probable that he bitterly regretted the acts in which he had been sincere, but of which he had not foreseen the consequences. Margaret describes him as isolated in his palace, guided by his confessor, weak and treacherous in his movements, privately disowning the measures which the popular feeling compelled him to allow, and secretly doing his utmost to counteract them.
In the month of May Margaret enjoyed some excursions into the environs of Rome. She visited[231] Albano, Frascati, and Ostia, and passed some days at Subiaco and at Tivoli. On the 28th of the same month she left Rome for the summer, and retired to Aquila, a little ruined town in the Abruzzi Mountains, where, after so many painful excitements, she hoped to find tranquillity and rest.[232]