What a multitude of thoughts arise in the mind as we see these two tombs open almost contemporaneously, one to receive the remains of the last pope-king, and the other those of the first king of Italy. In these two men are personified one of the greatest epochs of history, an epoch fertile in the most glorious events which can take place in a nation. It is the epoch of a free state and a risen nation. And these two men were the artificers of the prodigious event—Pius IX by the religious impulse given to the Italian revolution in its first phases; Victor Emmanuel by having constituted himself the champion of independence of unity and of the liberty of Italy. From this moment the two men drifted apart. Pius IX resumed the life traced for him by papal tradition. Victor Emmanuel remained faithful to his mission and did his duty to the last day of his life. A grateful nation by the mouth of its representatives proclaimed him “The Father of his country.”[e]
FOOTNOTES
[36] [The bombardment lasted from 5:30 A.M. to 10:30 A.M., the white flag being hoisted at 10:10. Reports of the losses vary greatly, Cadorna admitting 32 killed and 143 wounded on his side, though the estimates ranged as high as 2,000; but Beauffort[g] thinks this a manifest exaggeration. According to O’Clery[h] the pontifical troops lost 16 killed and 53 wounded.]
[37] [Few dates in modern European history equal in significance that of September 20th, 1870, when the Italian troops under General Cadorna took possession of Rome in the name of the Italian nation, and completed at one stroke both the work of the Risorgimento and the destruction of the temporal power of the Roman pontiff.[d]]
[38] [O’Clery,[h] however, calls the plebiscite a “disgraceful farce,” comparing it with that by which Napoleon III secured his vote. He points out that in Rome, where several thousands took arms for the pope, only 46 voted for him. Beauffort[g] says that one foreign sculptor voted 22 times without being challenged, and that whole bands went from urn to urn.]
[39] [“The dream of his life was accomplished, and in a manner most flattering to a monarch’s pride. Yet this rose was not without its thorn either. To be all sweetness he should have had Pio Nono’s blessing, and be crowned, like Charlemagne, by the hands of the venerable pontiff in that city of glorious memories where he was henceforth to reign. But he grasped the rose, thorn and all, with the memorable exclamation, ‘A Roma ci siamo e ci resteremo!’”—Godkin.[i]]
Street in Pompeii, Present Time
