tumultuous on the morning of the 25th, that it was found necessary to decide not to oppose the landing of the French troops, provided the General in command should ratify the promises of his Aide-decamp. These he did actually ratify: and he tendered his friendship to the President, declared the respect of France for any government agreeable to the majority, and settled on these terms; the Roman Government to retain the Civic administration; the Roman troops to garrison the fortress, arsenal, and ramparts, and to hold the gates and cantonments jointly with the French. The National Guard to continue in arms, the Municipality in office: the two tricolor flags to float together on the towers of the place. Thus was the debarcation of the French troops begun and completed without opposition. As they set foot on shore they shouted "the Republic for ever," "Italy for ever": and the people replied with "the Republic of Rome for ever," "the Republic of France for ever."

General Oudinot now immediately published the Proclamation, which Espivent had delivered in for perusal. It was the same which M. Drouin De L'Huys, Minister of Foreign Affairs, had framed. Here it is.

"Expeditionary Corps of the Mediterranean. "Inhabitants of the Roman States,

"Amidst the events by which Italy is at present tossed, the French Republic has resolved to send an armed force into your territory; not to defend the subsisting government, which it has never acknowledged, but to avert from your

country great calamities. France does not mean to arrogate to herself the right of regulating what are mainly interests of the Roman people, yet in a large sense concern Europe at large, and the entire Catholic world.

"She believes simply that, in her position, she is peculiarly called upon to interpose, in order to facilitate the establishment of a government equally removed from the abuses which the generosity of Pius IX. has destroyed for ever, and from the anarchy of these last times.

"The flag that I have hoisted on your shores is that of peace, of order, of reconciliation, and of genuine liberty: around it will rally all, who shall desire to share in the accomplishment of this patriotic and holy work."

The tenour of this Proclamation troubled the Republicans; and they made representations and complaints to the Municipality, which at an extraordinary meeting resolved unanimously to address to General Oudinot this statement.

"A short time ago, days of happiness and promise were dawning upon Italy: and the people, although ground down by a lengthened servitude, yet, relying on their Sovereigns, arose and fought at the hallowed cry of national independence, so that the blood of these heroes, destroyed by the arms of tyranny, has consecrated among us the ardent longing of a people, to live free and independent on its own soil. Those days of bliss have vanished: treachery and fraud have been exerted to the uttermost, to bring Italy back to a fresh abjection, and to humiliating dishonour.

"Pius IX., whom we once worshipped as Italy's regenerating Angel, subsequently abandoning the cause of the people, followed the footsteps of his predecessors in the temporal sovereignty, and became the earliest cause of so great a misfortune. Country, honour, life, interest, greatness, of all these we have been robbed through him; who, the fated

victim of the acts of the priestly caste, made himself the hot

ally of our persecutors.

"Citizens of France, Generals and Soldiers of the Republic! Will you, who by offering up yourselves at the altar of freedom have so long ago consecrated its principle, crush us who, besmeared with blood, and with wounds yet unhealed gaping in our breasts, have dedicated our affections to freedom and to independence? Deserted by our Prince, who had brought the cause of nationality to ruin, in the free use of our rights we have chosen, like you, by the universal suffrage of a thronging people, our representatives to the Roman Constituent Assembly; and they, as the organs of the popular desire, have proclaimed among us the most advantageous kind of political rule - Republican Government. Generals and Soldiers of the Republic! you surely will not trample on a people, into which alone is now gathered the sacred fire of freedom, everywhere else in this unhappy land extinguished by the domineering force of Croat and Bourbon arms.

"Soldiers of France! we extend to you the hands of brethren; because a free people cannot carry chains to a people struggling into freedom; and the arms in your hands cannot be the steel parricidal to our Republic, but must surely be brandished in defence of right and justice, and as the guarantee of the feeble and the oppressed. Oppressed, General, we have been; and the Popedom, chiefest source of calamities to Italy uninterrupted through ages, never, surely, so help us God! will be reinstated by you, who, mindful of your former glory, of the faith and traditions of your fathers, will recollect, that while to aid the oppressed is more a debt than a virtue, to oppress the feeble is infamy even more than it is treachery.

"The municipality of Cività Vecchia, as the first of the Roman cities where the banner of France has been unfurled, a faithful exponent of the sense of the population, lays before you a protestation of its political creed. Among us reigns order, and not anarchy; here the law is in respect. Our

people awoke to the aspirations of liberty, and will know how to realise them, unless a cruel destiny decree the extinction in this place, by fraternal hands, of that fire of freedom. That fire warms us, and makes us faithful to the Roman Republic, which we will cheerfully uphold, alike in its days of glory, if such are to break upon us, and in its periods of calamity, if this, which God forbid, should overtake us.

"General! receive these sentiments as indicative of the wishes of the people at large, who will bless you and your army, if you shall prove brothers to succour us in the hour of misfortune; confident that the day can never come, when Italy shall have to execrate and consign to the scorn of posterity, the honoured name of that France, by whose side our gallant fathers fought in the happy period of her glory, and parted from you only with an oath of brotherhood when heavy calamity smote your country as well as our own.

"Receive, General, the affectionate embraces which this population, trusting in the nobleness and honour of the French nation, offers you through our medium."

General Oudinot in displeasure commanded the impression to be seized, the copies which had been posted to be torn down, and the only printing office in Cività Vecchia to be closed, and put in the custody of the French troops.

See then the French Republic become the van of the foreign crusade! Truly the Republic of Rome was but a weakling, and had lived without honour until that day; but, as the narrative proceeds, we shall see that the effort of so many Powers heartens it, and gains it credit: we shall find French temerity chastised beneath the Roman walls; General Oudinot weaving a chaplet of laurels for Garibaldi; Ferdinand of Naples, who stalked as proudly on as if he were the

King of Kings, carrying back to panting Gaeta the ignominy of a flight; the pompous Spaniards landed to display their impotence; the Germans, to desolate, as heretofore, the cities of Italy with fire and sword. Every hoary oppressor of the country now tramples her hallowed soil, while every Italian spirit gnashes with indignation. Rome resists, and an halo of Italian glory surmounts the bier of the Roman Republic. The strangers, who came down on us to rebuild the throne of the Popes upon the ruins of vanquished cities, and upon the carcasses of men baptized in Christ, have shaped an history for the Roman Republic, and founded in the heart of the rising generation, as a creed, what was formerly but the crotchet of an individual or a sect. The Catholic Priesthood pours benediction on the arms of the stranger, and curses Italy and freedom: thus by degrees do the madnesses and crimes of Kings and of Courts succeed the madnesses and crimes of the people. Kings and Princes set their oaths at nought. One King only in Italy holds his sacred, and keeps faith with freedom, with the Nation, with misfortune. He is of a devout and even highminded stock: he is Victor Emmanuel the Second, he is the son of Charles Albert. He was gallant in the field, and on the throne his grateful people style him the Truehearted King. Yet by his brother Kings and by the Priests he is cursed; such is the perversion of consciences; on such a slough, reddened with blood, do the powers of this world idly seek to build. But the Revolution nurses its strength, and, fermenting in the dark, bides