In Hungary the game had been more open; though there, as in France, Liberty fell by the basest of all betrayals.
And again, in Baden the same foul play, though there the Secret Convention decided to settle it by the sword. The perjured King of Prussia was the man called upon to wield it, and his hireling soldiers proved too strong for the patriots of the Schwarzwald.
Once more, at the eleventh hour, another spark of that eternal flame of freedom appeared in an unexpected quarter—the very hotbed of despotism, political and religious—in the ancient city of Rome. And again sat the Secret Convention: an eminent English diplomate the most active of its members—he of all others the most successful cajoler of peoples—he whose long career had been a succession of betrayals. He has gone hence without witnessing their exposure. For all that, history will one day expose them.
Once more then sat the Secret Conclave; and once more went forth the edict for this fresh spark of Liberty, that had sprung up in agonised Italy, to be stifled like the rest. There was no need to use artifice. Slight strategy would suffice for an enemy so insignificant.
It was merely a graceful concession to Catholic Christendom, to make it a pretence of restoring the Pope. The Republic would have been crushed all the same if the Pope had gone to purgatory. The sword was again invoked, and it became a question of who was to wield it. English soldiers could not be sent, for England was a Protestant country, and the thing would have looked queer. But English gold was easily convertible into French soldiers, whose sovereign had no such scruples; and these hirelings were selected to restore the Pope. By them it was ostensibly done; but the act was equally due to the other crowned heads; and its direction specially to the British, diplomate of whom we have spoken. History holds the indisputable proof.
Poor Mazzini, and Saffi, and Aurelli! If there had not been a voice in all Rome against you—in all Italy—you could not have triumphed!
The decree had gone forth for your destruction. Your doom had been pre-ordained, and was pronounced in the very hour of your victory; even while the streets of Rome, cleared of the rotten rubbish of despotism, were ringing with that regenerating shout, “Long live the Republic!” For three months did it resound through the stradi of the classic city—the city of the Caesars and Colonnas. It was heard upon bastion and battlement, from behind battery and barricade, amidst scenes of heroic strife that recalled the days of Horatius. It was heard in the eloquent speeches of Mazzini—in the exciting war-cry of Garibaldi!
All in vain! Three short months—and it was heard no more. The Republic was overthrown, less by bayonets than by betrayal; but the rule of the bayonet succeeded, and Chasseur and Zouave, Spahi and Turco—all ruffians of the truest type—from that day to this have stood guard over the fettered limbs of Roman liberty.
In these troublous times, of three months’ duration, Luigi Torreani took part with the Republic. So did his friend, the young Englishman. So, too, did Luigi’s father; for the sindico, shortly after the affair with the brigands, had transferred his household gods to the city, which then promised a safe retreat from the insecurity he had long experienced.
But with the Republic at an end, and despotism once more triumphant, Rome itself was only safe for the foes of freedom. As Francesco Torreani was not one of these, another move became necessary. In what direction was it to be made? There was no part of Italy that offered an asylum. The Austrians still held Venice. Carlo Alberto had been beaten in the north, and the brigand’s king ruled the Neapolitans with a rod of iron. Turn which way he would, there was no home on Italian soil for a suspected patriot.