circumstances that had occurred since the Pope's departure, with the proceedings of the Ministry of the 16th of November, and of the Provisional Government; and he concluded with the following words :

"The sympathy of the nations democratically governed will never fail to resist those who might attempt to overwhelm us by numbers and physical force. Our cause is not isolated, is not the cause of a single people, but reaches far and wide, inasmuch as democracy daily makes way and encroaches on the ascendancy of the old system. In this view, we have allies every where. It is no longer practicable to stifle a whole people with impunity for having dared to proclaim its natural right of self-government at its own pleasure. An Holy Alliance now finds its adversaries within its own bosom. A different alliance, of an higher holiness, that between peoples, every day waxes larger and firmer, to abase and to combat, if need be, even that of kings.

"As respects ourselves, the orderly development of the plan of universal suffrage has shown, that our people, in proclaiming its own sovereignty, has proclaimed a right which it is qualified to exercise. Universal suffrage has not, perhaps, been put in practice so regularly and extensively, even in the countries which gave that system birth.

"This people, the first in Italy to find itself free, has invited you to the Capitol to inaugurate a new era for the country; to release it from the yoke, whether domestic or foreign; to reconstitute it as a Nation; to clear it at once from the old incubus of tyranny, and from the new imposture of Constitutions. You meet, citizens, amid the monuments of two mighty epochs. On the one hand lie the ruins of the Italy of the Cæsars, on the other the ruins of the Italy of the Pope; be it yours to raise a fabric that will sit firmly upon the fragments. Think not the work of life inferior to that of death, and may the banner of the people's Italy blaze proudly on the spot, where sleep the thunders of the Roman eagle

and the Vatican. With this preface, we inaugurate your immortal labours, under the auspices of these two most sacred names, Italy and the People."

It is said that this speech, mightily applauded by the members, and by the bellowers of the public galleries, had not been approved in all its parts by the colleagues of Armellini; and there are those who affirm that, by means of Accursi, the Republicans managed to have a hand in it, and to amend it a little before the opening of the Assembly. When it had been read throughout, the Prince of Canino, in answering to the roll-call, shouted "Long live the Republic!" and Garibaldi said, "What use to lose time in vain formalities? the delay even of a minute is a crime: long live the Republic!" The audience in the galleries applauded, but a buzz arose among the members. Hereupon Sterbini held this language, that they ought to observe the usages and forms common with Parliaments; and not to decide under a rush of passion, but with matured reflection. So then Sterbini had lived to see the day that he, too, had to appeal to prudence. He went on speaking, or rather chattering, upon this incident, until the names of the members were drawn by lot, to be divided into sections for the purpose of verifying the returns. At the sitting of the 7th, they set about this business, when a dispute arose about the election of one Agatone de Luca Tronchet, once a pontifical carabineer, then a judge of inquisition in the Gregorian Commissions, then, when the times turned, a turn-coat offering incense to the people, organising political clubs, and

inflaming the multitude. Some one remarked, that he was ill fitted to sit among honourable men, if he were the same individual that was alleged to have been expelled, for disgraceful reasons, from the armed police-force, and that was loaded with the infamy of the exceptional commissions. But when the man had stammered out some excuses, and Galletti had acquitted him of the first imputation, the discussion ended. Tronchet however did not enter the House again, and, a few days later, he resigned his seat. Galletti was chosen President at that second sitting of the Assembly: and he accepted, with the declaration, "that its sittings were rightful, and that it felt itself the sole sovereign power to decide on the destinies of its country." There was nothing else said worthy of mention, except that Audinot demanded of the Government such papers as would afford materials for judging of their diplomatic transactions, of the intentions of the European Goverments, and of the condition of the country. On the next day, Canino, after having lauded the Provisional Government for addressing itself to the convocation of the Constituent, censured it sharply for the appointment of exceptional commissions, for the armfuls of laws it had extemporised, and for its mismanagement of the finances and the army. When Armellini and Sterbini had been heard in answer, Audinot afresh invited the Assembly to examine the papers which the Minister of Foreign Affairs was to produce: and although some persons would brook no delay, yet, on Muzzarelli's declaring that the Roman Government had no official correspond

ence with any other, all agreed upon withdrawing to peruse these papers in private. During this interval, Castellani, the Envoy of Venice, who was attending the sitting in the gallery assigned to the diplomatists, received from Gaeta a letter of this tenour. "The Tuscan Minister went in to the Pope, just as Esterhazy, the Minister of Austria, was coming out. The Pope told the former, that the latter had assured him of the consent of France to the armed intervention. Half an hour later, the Cardinals met in consistory: and on the same day Monsignor Bedini, deputy to Cardinal Antonelli, set out for Paris under the name of Cavaliere Spadoni, accompanied, it is said, by Esterhazy's Secretary." The news thus received by Castellani was almost entirely correct, and he, fearing some precipitate determination, went to find Borgatti, who was deputy to Muzzarelli, and read him the letter. But Borgatti related to him that, when the members of the Assembly had read what Gioberti had written to Muzzarelli, so far were they from listening to prudent counsels, that they had given the reins to passion, and were ready to plunge unaided into the angry sea, to burn their ships, and commit themselves to God and the people. So that, as Borgatti said, upon witnessing this frenzy, he had withdrawn from among the papers that note from Muzzarelli to Berghini, of which I have given a copy *, in fear lest the tempest of rage, which had burst in reproaches on the head of Gioberti, might recoil on the Government of Rome. 'What would you have?" said Borgatti in great Suprà, p. 148.

*

do

excitement; "if we give them this news from Gaeta, there will be mischief: while I was reading Gioberti's dispatch just now, they shook their fists in my face. Any reasonable proposal is out of the question." Meantime Sterbini came out. Castellani went to meet him, and gave him the news he had received. "And you believe it?" he asked with a leer. Then, when the other had answered "yes," he rejoined grinning, "I admire your credulity," and turned his back. The representatives now came out, most of them in great excitement, and resumed the debate. The first to speak was one Savini of Bologna, a sorry playwright and literary trifler, a man wholly without weight in his native district. He delivered a short declamation, applauded in its course and at the end, in the following strain. "Let us in God's name, as representatives of a Christian people, and with the Gospel in our hands, pronounce once for all, that the Popes shall not sit in the seat of Kings, that their dominion is not of this world." After him Mamiani took up the discussion. Studious to find access to the sympathies of his audience, he set forth that in Rome, on a careful consideration, two modes of government, and two only, would appear to be possible; that of the Popes, and that of Cola da Rienzo. His opinion had ever been that, unless the chief part of the Pope's temporal power were devolved on Ministers and on a Parliament, it would continue to be, as it had too often been, a scourge to Religion and to Italy; "Republic" was a noble word, and republican government the best, where there is adequate virtue in the people: