"Accept, &c.
"Villa Pamfili, 12 June, 1849, 5 P.M."
He was in fact at Villa Santucci, much farther out, but could not be content without falsifying his date as well as all his statements.
"PROCLAMATION.
"Inhabitants of Rome,—We did not come to bring you war. We came to sustain among you order, with liberty. The intentions of our government have been misunderstood. The labors of the siege have conducted us under your walls. Till now we have wished only occasionally to answer the fire of your batteries. We approach these last moments, when the necessities of war burst out in terrible calamities. Spare them to a city fall of so many glorious memories.
"If you persist in repelling us, on you alone will fall the responsibility of irreparable disasters."
The following are the answers of the various functionaries to whom this letter was sent:—
ANSWER OF THE ASSEMBLY.
"General,—The Roman Constitutional Assembly informs you, in reply to your despatch of yesterday, that, having concluded a convention from the 31st of May, 1849, with M. de Lesseps, Minister Plenipotentiary of the French Republic, a convention which we confirmed soon after your protest, it must consider that convention obligatory for both parties, and indeed a safeguard of the rights of nations, until it has been ratified or declined by the government of France. Therefore the Assembly must regard as a violation of that convention every hostile act of the French army since the above-named 31st of May, and all others that shall take place before the resolution of your government can be made known, and before the expiration of the time agreed upon for the armistice. You demand, General, an answer correspondent to the intentions and power of France. Nothing could be more conformable with the intentions and power of France than to cease a flagrant violation of the rights of nations.
"Whatever may be the results of such violation, the people of Rome are not responsible for them. Rome is strong in its right, and decided to maintain tire conventions which attach it to your nation; only it finds itself constrained by the necessity of self-defence to repel unjust aggressions.
"Accept, &c., for the Assembly,