To refer to the hideous, and, it may be said with justice, the vulgar crime of which Orsini and his accomplices were guilty, is not here necessary, further than will suffice to refresh the memory of the reader. The attempt took place on the evening of the 14th of January, 1858, at the moment when the Emperor Napoleon III. and the Empress arrived at the Opera. The details are too well known to need repetition. On March 13th following Orsini was guillotined.
That the crime had been long premeditated, and that Orsini had not been impelled to it by any sudden frenzied impulse, is clear from a passage in his defence of himself, if defence it could be called, on his trial:—“From my youth,” said he, “I have only had one object, and one fixed idea, the deliverance of my country, and vengeance against the Austrians, and I have constantly conspired against them up to 1848.... When in England, I was imbued with a mania of being useful to my country. I witnessed ridiculous attempts being made by Mazzini, who sent 15 or 20 men to Italy, where they lost their lives. I tried loyal means; I went over to England, and in all the meetings which I addressed, advocated the principle of non-intervention.... After the fall of Rome, I felt convinced that Napoleon would no longer assist us: and I said to myself, that man must be killed.... I am very sorry that so many people were wounded, and if my blood could repair this misfortune, I am quite ready to give it for the people. Here it is!” These words were described by the French newspapers at the time as bombastic—an epithet singularly out of place. Terrible they might well be called, and full of ghastly meaning: witnesses not only to the atrocity of the crime itself, but to the length of time—two whole years—during which the plot to commit it had been in process of elaboration.
On the eve of his execution, Orsini addressed a letter to the Emperor, in which he said:—“Near the close of my career, I yet wish to make a last effort, for the sake of Italy. Her independence has hitherto prompted me to defy all dangers, to court all sacrifices. Italy has been the constant object of my affections, and this is the last thought that I wish to record in the words which I address to your Majesty.“
Let the reader compare the passage with Orsini’s letters to Panizzi. The death of Napoleon, considered so necessary to the cause of Italian Union by Orsini, might possibly not have promoted that good end. But could it have been that the alarm caused to the Emperor by the assassin’s attempt was one of the chief reasons that led him to take arms against Austria in 1859?
It has been told the writer of this memoir, on various occasions in the course of conversation, that, when the news appeared in the second edition of the Times of Saturday, January 16th, 1858, that “Orsini or Corsini” had attempted the murder of the Emperor, Panizzi, who was in the habit of visiting Brooks’s every afternoon, was at once, and on that very Saturday, questioned by other members of the Club whether the assassin was his friend. Panizzi replied that he doubted it very much, seeing that he himself had an appointment with Orsini for the following day, when they were both to call on Lord Palmerston together. This was thought at the time to be a deep but futile scheme for establishing an alibi. Of the truth of the story we have no evidence beyond what we have mentioned. So far as we have been able to ascertain, there is nothing to show that Orsini was in London at all in this month of January. It is a matter of regret that we cannot help the reader further to judge of the truth or falsehood of the anecdote. As we would not ourselves be held to have painted the would-be assassin in too dark a colour, so would we willingly grant all indulgence to any who, from merely reading the facts of his history, should be inclined to depict him in the deepest of hues. That, by many ordinary Englishmen, such a man, who scrupled not to attack and destroy all, known or unknown, who stood in his way, might aptly be called the mad dog of society, is perfectly conceivable. But, granting all that can be brought against him, and in no wise seeking to justify his actions, we nevertheless submit that the character of Orsini is rather deserving of careful study, and even of allowance, if that study be made fully and without prejudice, than of hasty condemnation. A fanatic of fanatics, he was undoubtedly, both to friends and foes, the most dangerous of men; but he had also the good points of a fanatic—he was unselfish, and of necessity disinterested. If, to use the mildest of terms, he little more than undervalued his neighbour’s life, he at least threw his own into the balance. Nor can it be denied, from what has been said and quoted above, that patriotism (unenlightened it might be, carried to a crime as it assuredly was, yet earnest and sincere, and having no taint of self-seeking, though much of self-imposture), was the man’s one inspiration throughout his life. That personally he was not of a vulgarly brutal cast of mind is evident if only from his letters to Panizzi. His learning and ability were more than common place; as a soldier his skill and courage were unquestioned. We would be content to speak of him, however, in no higher terms than were employed by his advocate at his trial. “He was not there,” said M. Jules Favre, “either to justify or to save his client, but he came there with the wish to endeavour to cast on his immortal soul some rays of that truth which he trusted would protect his memory against the execration of posterity.”
CHAPTER XXII
Departure of Neapolitan Prisoners; At Cadiz; Cork; ‘Captain James’; Poerio’s Letter; Ferdinand II.