Affairs and President of the Council for a few days in Piedmont, wrote, on the 1st of March, to the Minister Martini at Gaeta that "he was to observe a strict neutrality in the affairs of Rome; since," he added, "being excluded from the intervention, we have deemed it our duty to protest." He went on to say, "I need hardly observe to you that you should make it your business to imprint on our relations with the Holy Father that character of affectionate veneration, which becomes a Government and a people eminently Catholic. You will pursue a similar course with respect to the Grand Duke, in regard to whom our position is almost identical."

The Grand Duke had reached Gaeta on the 22nd of February, and had been very joyously welcomed there by the Papal and Neapolitan Courts, by the Russian and Austrian Ambassadors, and by the rest of the authors of, and accomplices in, plots against the liberty and independence of Italy. "We did not look for him so soon," said one of these, felicitating himself on such good luck. The Grand Duchess was inflamed, in true Neapolitan fashion, with a mighty fever of absolutism; and was petted in all the impulses of a woman and a Bourbon, by a clique, adroit in feminine diplomacy, whom her royal relatives had planted round her. She was now acquiring influence in the direction of Tuscan politics. The entire Grand Ducal family, which had fixed its sojourn at Molo di Gaeta, lived in close intimacy with the Royal family of Naples; and it is superfluous to remark, that they got on well together. Benedictions

and ecclesiastical censures, gallantry and fear, imbecility and pride, marvellously conspired to throw Tuscany into the arms of faithless strangers. It is said that the Grand Duke, even before reaching Gaeta, wrote to his Austrian relatives to ask for help: undoubtedly such was the rumour in Italy and beyond it; while the movements of the Austrian army of Upper Italy pointed towards the Tuscan frontier. It was then that the Piedmontese Ministry sent orders to General Alfonso La Marmora, who commanded the division of Sarzana, to hold himself in readiness for active operations. The orders bore "that the Piedmontese division was not to be pushed into Tuscan territory, until positive information of the march of the Austrian force to that quarter should have been received. In such case, General La Marmora would at once occupy the passes of the Apennines that point towards Modena, by no means with the view of meddling in the domestic affairs of Tuscany, or of undertaking the defence of the entire Tuscan territory, but, undoubtedly, with that of occupying the strategical positions, necessary for the defence of the military line of Piedmont, and capable of facilitating a march to attack the Austrian forces in the Modenese.

But the convenient season for Austria to throw herself into the heart of Central Italy had not yet arrived, nor for the three Courts, that were conspiring at Gaeta, to gratify even to satiety their vindictive eagerness. France replied as before to the note of February 18th, in which her armed intervention was

it

requested, by general expressions, recommending prudential arrangements, and gaining time. The minister, D'Harcourt, went on to state, that it would not be proper either to decide or to act without the assent of Piedmont, and persisted in suggesting Italian preferably to foreign interference. Hence arose, that every day he grew more odious to the Neapolitan and Papal Courts, which placed their reliance on Rayneval in his stead; who, as Minister of the French Republic at Naples, naturally was also mixed up with those negotiations. At length the Government of France spoke out, and proposed that diplomatic conferences should be held at Gaeta between the representatives of the Four Powers, whose armed intervention the Pontifical Court had solicited; and that no undertaking should be commenced, unless by a previous agreement of all parties at those conferences. Hence ensued new postponements of action, and new negotiations, of which we shall have to treat in the sequel.

CHAP. IV.

UNIFICATION UNPA

MAZZINI IN TUSCANY: HIS BARREN PROJECT.
LATABLE TO THE TUSCANS. -LANGUAGE OF MAZZINI TO CAPPONI,
AND REMARKS.-MAZZINI AT ROME, AND REMARKS. SOME VOTES
OF THE ASSEMBLY. -MAZZINI A MEMBER OF IT: HIS LANGUAGE
THERE. HIS SYSTEM, OPINIONS, ACTS, AND INCONSISTENCIES.
HIS POWER. HE STILL URGES UNIFICATION.—CANINO.-COMMIS-
SIONERS SENT TO TUSCANY. - THE ITALIAN CONSTITUENT. — DE-
BATE ON BASE MONEY.— - MEASURES AGAINST POLITICAL ASSASSI-
NATIONS. EXTRACTS FROM A PROCLAMATION OF SAFFI. HIS
INSTRUCTIONS TO THE PRESIDENTS.-EXTRACTS FROM A LETTER
OF HIS TO LADERCHI, PRESIDENT OF RAVENNA.
REMEDIAL PROCEEDINGS AT IMOLA.-PASSAGE FROM A PROCLA-
MATION OF HIS. PASSAGE FROM ANOTHER LETTER OF SAFFI.
SOME REPRESSIVE PROCEEDINGS IN ROME.

TRUCE BETWEEN PIEDMONT AND

AUSTRIA.

-

LADERCHI'S

END OF THE M. MERCIER AT

THE CAMP OF CHARLES ALBERT, AND THEN AT GAETA.-EFFECT OF THE NEWS THAT THE TRUCE WAS ENDED AT GAETA AND AT NAPLES.-M. MERCIER SENT TO ROME BY THE DUC D'HARCOURT. -HIS INTERVIEW WITH ARMELLINI.- -WITH MAMIANI, AND HIS ANSWER. LORENZO VALERIO SENT BY THE GOVERNMENT OF PIEDMONT INTO CENTRAL ITALY, TO FLORENCE, BOLOGNA, ANCONA, AND ROME. INCIDENTS IN THE ASSEMBLY OF ROME ON PROCLAMATION

THE NEWS OF WAR.-LANGUAGE OF MAZZINI.
OF WAR.

RECOLLECTIONS.

MAZZINI could not succeed in controuling, either by his own authority or by the efforts and clamour of his agents, the politics of Tuscany. Not less modest in his aspect, than headstrong in his temper, he desired beyond everything to make Tuscany into a Province of the Roman Republic: but this notion, cloaked under the grandiloquent phrase of unification, did not suit the

views either of Guerrazzi, or of the Council of State, or even of their fellow-citizens most notable for flaming Liberalism. If we except Montanelli, who had now resumed his first love towards the Giovine Italia, and Mordini the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who would go a-hunting after every momentary whimsey with the common herd of the Clubs, Tuscany not only was restive towards Mazzini, but gave a dull and sullen opposition to the tricks of her extemporary administrators. Of this Mazzini was himself aware, and he admitted to Capponi that Italy did not seem to be inclined for a Republic; protesting, however, that by a Republic only could she obtain success and unity, that the precedent and effort should be made, so that the seed might ripen with time. And though he was in doubt whether that experiment of his could be carried through, or grow into the consistency of a State, still he thought that love for Italy demanded the attempt. Strange passion this, of the fanaticism that creates its idol, and then immolates to it human victims with a Druidical piety, as if nations were ideal entities, and had no nerves to suffer or eyes to weep, and as if the sages of revolution came straight down from God, and fetched from Him the right to afflict and to remodel human nature, with a creative power pre-ordained to a certain and determined object.

Rome was the fit atmosphere of Mazzini: to Rome he was attracted by his revolutionary mysticism, by his sectarian fatalism, by an excited multitude given over to pride of race and of traditions, to hazard, and