Builders of United Italy

by Rupert Sargent Holland

The truce had been virtually agreed on when Oudinot suddenly attacked and placed Rome in a state of siege. For almost a month the citizens fought with unfailing courage. Mazzini, Garibaldi, Mameli, the martyr war-poet, Bassi, the great preacher, republicans and royalists, princes and peasants, all within Rome’s walls fought for freedom from the foreigner. There could be but one end, and it came when starvation and losses had weakened the defenders so that they could no longer hold their posts. Mazzini would have fought hand-to-hand in the streets, the army was with him, but the Assembly voted to surrender. The besiegers entered, Garibaldi led his Three Thousand in their great retreat, Mazzini stayed on in Rome uttering such protest as he could, unharmed by the French troops who dared not touch him, through knowledge of the people’s love for him.

The downfall of the Republic must have been a terrible blow to Mazzini, probable as it is that he foresaw the city could not long last by itself. Physical force and treachery had overwhelmed the noblest concepts of government. Temporary disappointment, however, could not dull his spirit, the prophet of United Italy proved himself a true prophet. He went on with his work, at first in Switzerland, then again driven away by foreign influence, in London.

He took up his life there, much older, much more worn and scarred, but with the same indomitable spirit. “His face in repose,” wrote a contemporary of this time, “was grave, even sad, but it lit up with a smile of wonderful sweetness as he greeted a friend with a pressure rather than a shake of the thin hand,” and again his piercing black eyes were described as “of luminous depth, full of sadness, tenderness and courage, of purity and fire, readily flashing into indignation or humor, always with the latent expression of exhaustless resolution.” His pictures are familiar, the high straight forehead, the strong nose, the curving lips, the scant gray, then almost white, mustache and beard, the high-buttoned frock coat and the silk handkerchief wound like a stock about his throat.

London had grown kinder to him than at first, he had many good friends, and he could understand better the English point of view. He lodged as humbly as before, and again took up his writing, his correspondence, and his ceaseless care for his poor countrymen. One of his best biographers gives us this sketch of him, a picture that portrays the man, “in his small room, every piece of furniture littered with books and papers, the air thick with smoke of cheap Swiss cigars (except when friends sent Havanas), brightened only by his tame canaries and carefully-tended plants, he was generally writing at his desk until evening, always with more work in hand than he could cope with, carrying on the usual mass of correspondence, writing articles for his Italian papers, raising public funds with infinite labor, stirring his English friends to help the cause, finding money and work for the poor refugees, or organizing concerts in their interest.” With what infinite reverence must the men he helped have looked on him!

The prophet is not a statesman; he can show the road, but rarely follow it. Mazzini’s life had reached its climax when as Triumvir he had started to practise his own precepts, his work had been to scatter seed for the crop which other men should reap at harvest. He could not understand the dissimulations of diplomacy, he could not tolerate compromise, he could not now sacrifice his dreams of a republic for liberty and union. These qualities were not in his character; if they had been he could not have led men’s minds by his words and actions; he could not be both a prophet and an opportunist; the need of the former was passing, and that of the latter at hand.

Few men understood the twists and turns of Cavour’s policy as Prime Minister of Piedmont, and Mazzini not at all. After the battle of Novara Charles Albert had abdicated in favor of his son Victor Emmanuel, and a new order had come to pass in Piedmont. Cavour had a definite goal, the unity of Italy under the leadership of his king; and he never forgot that goal. To win it, he realized that he needed more than the raw volunteer forces of 1848, more than mere enthusiasm, no matter how heroic; he needed efficient troops, he needed a foreign ally, he needed a moment when Austria should be at a disadvantage, above all he needed one leader instead of a dozen to determine on any action. To accomplish these ends he gave republicans little sympathy, and centered the national movement about his king, he treated with Louis Napoleon, and did his utmost to win his favor, he discountenanced secret half-prepared revolts against the Austrians, he drilled and multiplied the troops, and harbored the finances. At all these measures Mazzini instinctively revolted; he wanted a republic, he loathed Napoleon as the betrayer of Rome, he was ever eager for any sincere demonstration against Austria. He only learned half-truths in London, but those half-truths did not inspire him to trust Cavour. Neither of these men understood the other; to Cavour Mazzini was the fanatic who would destroy any cause by lack of temperance, to Mazzini Cavour was the aristocrat who would inflict upon the poor of Italy simply a new yoke in place of the old. They could not work together, and so Mazzini publicly denounced Cavour, and the latter declared Mazzini an exile from his home.

Meantime, while Piedmont was playing a wary game, and all the Italian states were making ready for the next great attempt, Mazzini took part in two small insurrections, one near Como, and the other at Genoa, both of which failed disastrously. The latter was the more serious, the government was tired of these perennial conspiracies, and denounced the revolt as anarchistic. Mazzini and five other leaders were sentenced to death, and many to long terms of imprisonment. Mazzini hid in the house of the Marquis Pareto, and was undiscovered, although the police made a prolonged search for him. It is said that Mazzini himself, dressed as a footman, opened the door to the officer, who recognized him as an old schoolmate, and had mercy. Some days later he escaped from the house, undisguised, walking arm-in-arm with a lady of Genoa, and reaching a carriage, was driven to Quarto, and thence went to England. There were many curious turns and twists in this conspiracy in which both conspirators and government were working for the same great end, but with widely different means, and with avowed enmity between them.

It was not long until Cavour and Napoleon met at Plombières and made their famous compact, after that events hastened forward. By the spring of 1859 Cavour had prepared both royalists and republicans for war. With his ally he felt that the Italian cause must now triumph, and at a given signal the conflict began. The Princes were driven from Tuscany, Romagna, Parma, and Modena, and all those states declared for Victor Emmanuel. Much as Mazzini hated Cavour’s French ally, he could no longer stay his enthusiasm. He saw unity at last almost come, after Solferino he declared that the Austrian domination was at an end. Without warning Napoleon met the Emperor Francis Joseph at Villafranca and betrayed the cause. He abandoned Venetia to Austria, and central Italy to the Bourbon Princes. Cavour, wild with indignation, spoke his feelings and resigned, the Italians were again left to their own divided efforts.

Mazzini, his fears of Napoleon now justified, went to Florence and declared that the people of central Italy must stake all for their briefly-won freedom, he gave up his republican protests, and advocated annexation with Piedmont so they might have unity. He wrote to friends in Sicily and Rome, he begged Garibaldi to lead his troops into Umbria. All this time he had to live virtually in hiding, the ban against him had not been raised, and the thought that he, whose every emotion was for Italy, should not be trusted at all among his countrymen galled him to the quick. He wrote: “To be a prisoner among our own people is too much to bear.”