He was indeed obliged to leave her the next day for Rome. Margaret was ill cared for, and lost,[237] through a severe fever, the ability to nurse her child. She was forced to dismiss her only attendant, and to struggle in her helpless condition with the dishonesty and meanness of the people around her. A balia[E] for the child was soon found, but Margaret felt the need of much courage in guarding the first days of her infant's life. In her eyes he grew "more beautiful every hour." The people in the house called him Angiolino, anticipating the name afterwards given him in baptism,—Angelo Eugene.
She was soon to find a new trial in leaving him. Her husband still wished to keep his marriage a profound secret, and to this end desired that the baby should be left at Rieti, in charge of "a good nurse who should treat him like a mother." Margaret was most anxious to return to Rome, to be near her husband, and also in order to be able to carry on the literary labor upon which depended not only her own support, but also that of her child.
Writing to Ossoli, she says: "I cannot stay long without seeing the boy. He is so dear, and life seems so uncertain. It is necessary that I should be in Rome a month at least, to write, and to be near you. But I must be free to return here, if I feel too anxious and suffering for him."[238]
Early in November Margaret returned to Rome. In a letter to her mother, bearing the date of November 16, she says:—
"I am again in Rome, situated for the first time entirely to my mind.... I have the sun all day, and an excellent chimney. It [her lodging] is very high, and has pure air, and the most beautiful view all around imaginable.... The house looks out on the Piazza Barberini, and I see both that palace and the Pope's [the Quirinal]."
The assassination of the Minister Rossi had taken place on the previous day. Margaret describes it almost as if she had seen it:—
"The poor, weak Pope has fallen more and more under the dominion of the cardinals. He had suffered the Minister Rossi to go on, tightening the reins, and because the people preserved a sullen silence, he thought they would bear it.... Rossi, after two or three most unpopular measures, had the imprudence to call the troops of the line to defend him, instead of the National Guard.... Yesterday, as he descended from his carriage to enter the Chamber [of Deputies], the crowd howled and hissed, then pushed him, and as he turned his head in consequence, a sure hand stabbed him in the back."
On the morrow, the troops and the people united in calling upon the Pope, then at the Quirinal,[239] for a change of measures. They found no audience, but only the hated Swiss mercenaries, who defeated an attempt to enter the palace by firing on the crowd. "The drum beat to call out the National Guard. The carriage of Prince Barberini has returned, with its frightened inmates and liveried retinue, and they have suddenly barred up the court-yard gate." Margaret felt no apprehension for herself in all this turmoil. The side which had, for the moment, the upper hand, was her own, and these very days were such as she had longed for, not, we may be sure, for their accompaniments of bloodshed and violence, but for the outlook which was to her and her friends one of absolute promise.
The "good time coming" did then seem to have come for Italy. Her various populations had risen against their respective tyrants, and had shown a disposition to forget past divisions in the joy of a country reconciled and united.
In the principal churches of Rome, masses were performed in commemoration of the patriotic men who fell at this time in various struggles with existing governments. Thus were honored the "victims" of Milan, of Naples, of Venice, of Vienna.