amongst the Italians which will never be forgotten.

The affair at Aspromonte is one which will be remembered in history. It witnessed the fall of the great hero of the Italian revolution -the most fearless soldier and enterprising leader of his day; a man devoted heart and soul to the cause of his country, and for its sake (as he thought) becoming a wild revolutionist; one who, with all his faults, amidst a scene of intrigue, selfishness, and time-serving, stands forth as open as the day and uninfluenced by a single thought of self. His conduct in the last days of his enterprise manifests the misconceptions which had led him to embark in so Quixotic an adventure. His rebellion was an excess of loyalty. He never contemplated a civil war. He expected either that the royal army would openly join him, or else that, as was the case in Sicily, it would only make a show of opposing his movements. When, after landing in Calabria, a deputation from Reggio went to him to request that he would not, by entering it, expose the town to the horrors of civil war, he replied to the mayor: "Don't be afraid, there will be no civil war. I will march across Calabria as I have marched through Sicily. Examine the muskets of my volunteers: they are not loaded. If I am prevented passing through Reggio, I shall go over the mountains. Have no apprehensions. I know what I am about; but La Marmora and his set (cognotti) know nothing of my intentions." But whatever might have been the original design, whatever were the secret desires, of great personages at Turin, the will of their Imperial ally overruled their hesitation, and spoiled their game of intended double-dealing. The Government found itself compelled to employ its full military power to crush the movement against Rome; and from that moment the fate of the movement was decided. "The duty of an army,' said Carnot, "is to act: it does not deliberate." Whatever hesitations

there might be at Turin, there could be none with the generals. Before Garibaldi, relinquishing his purpose of entering Reggio, could reach the passes through which he hoped to make his way through the mountains, the royal army had occupied them, and a strong column, composed partly of Bersaglieri and partly of the line, under Colonel Pallavicino, advanced against the

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rebels on the level summit of Aspromonte. Let us endeavour to bring before the mind's eye of our readers the singular scene which followed :—

"The General (says the report of the Garibaldian officers), determined to avoid a collision with the troops, ordered us to cross a streamlet, and march half way up a hill to the north, at the outskirts of a dense pine wood. The troops were then pouring down from the adjoining heights, and were advancing Garibaldi was standing in against us. the centre of the column giving reiteratered orders not to fire, and quietly examined the advancing regulars through his glass. The troops, meanwhile, were rapidly advancing, extending right and left from their centre, evidently with a view to surround us. Our men remainothers standing, and the officers were ed stock still, some were sitting down, constantly shouting Don't fire.' The Bersaglieri, who were now within range, halted, delivered a volley, and continued to advance, firing as they came.

summons

No

raw

or previous intimation was less, with the exception of some given us. Our men remained motionyouths, who began to load and fire—but the remainder did not move, remaining sitting, standing, or lying down, as they might chance to be when the fire was opened. The General was standing in front of us, amidst a perfect hailstorm he was struck by a spent ball in the of bullets, shouting, 'Don't fire!' when thigh, and his right ankle was shattered by another shot. He raised his hat, crying 'Viva Italia!' and fell. Several officers carried him under an adjoining tree, where he repeated his orders, 'Don't fire, don't fire; let them advance. The regulars did advance, and we were very soon all mixed up together."

Garibaldi, in his letter written on board the Duca di Genova, says :—

"I ran to the front of our line, crying out to them not to fire; and from the

centre to the left, where my voice and those of my aides-de-camp could be heard, not a trigger was pulled. It was not thus on the attacking side. Having arrived at a distance of 200 metres, they began a tremendous fire, and the party of Bersaglieri who were in front of me, directing their shots against me, struck me with two balls, one in the left thigh, not serious, the other in the ankle of the right foot, making a serious wound.

"As all this happened at the opening of the conflict, and I was carried to the skirt of the wood after being wounded, I could see nothing more, a thick crowd having formed around me while my wound was being dressed. I feel certain, however, that up to the end of the line, which was at my litter, and to that of my aides-de-camp, not a single musket was fired. It was not so on our right. The Picciotti, attacked by the regular troops, replied by a fire upon the whole line, and, although the trumpets sounded to cease firing, there was at that spot a smart fusillade, which lasted not more than a quarter of an hour.

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My wounds led to some confusion in our line. Our soldiers, not seeing me, began to retreat into the wood, so that little by little the crowd round me broke up, and the most faithful alone remained."

As the Bersaglieri advanced, says another letter, "not a cry, not a shot was heard from our men ; only the General standing erect, with his ample light-grey cloak, lined with red, flung across his massive shoulders, remained on the lookout, and turned every now and then to repeat his order, No firing! When he received his wounds, says the same eyewitness, "Garibaldi not only retained his erect position, but uncovered his head, waved his hat with his left hand, and repeatedly cried, Viva Italia! No firing!"" A Garibaldian officer concludes the story

thus:

"When the General received the shot, he was passing along our front, and ordering us not to fire. I saw, as it were, a sudden slight contraction in all his body. He, however, went on a few steps more, and then staggered. We ran to him and supported him to the edge of the wood. From that moment to describe to you what took place is impossible. The lion wounded and de

spising his pain was truly great in enthusiasm, indignation, and anger. Raising his hat, he cried Italy for ever! Italy for ever!' and it was a deep and gigantic cry which came from his heart. I had his poor foot supported on my leg, and when in his excitement he apostro phised his assailants, and asked what the volunteers were doing, I felt a thrill run through my limbs, and calling his attention to his wound, begged him to keep quiet. A litter was made in the best manner it could be done, and at sunset the same evening the sad convoy began to move."

Placed at the foot of a tree, the wounded General lighted a cigar while the surgeons probed and bathed his wounds. He desired them to amputate the limb on the spot, if necessary: an operation which was deemed unnecessary. His son, Menotti, also wounded, was carried to the place where his father was lying. And-strange conclusion to a rebellion-the royal troops, crowding to the spot, were received with cries of "Hurrah for the Army of Italy!" The affair was not a combat-it was simply a capture, and the chief "rebel" was King's dominions. the most loyal-hearted man in the We have not sonal question, Who was most to space to discuss the merely perblame?-but we think Mr Henley spoke with his usual_sound_and caustic sense when he said, at been a kind of revolution going on Chipping Norton :-"There has in Italy, and a certain class of people are glad to kick down the ladder by which they have climbed to eminence. In the history of the world that has always been the and sincere men go certain lengths, case, and always will be. Honest and more longheaded men gain the advantage; and having obtained that advantage the more honest men are cast adrift, if they do not fare worse. This is too much the character of the events that are occurring in Italy at the present moment. All I hope is that the honest men may fare better than they seem likely to do, and that the really good and deserving men may obtain that advantage which they de

serve, and which that unhappy country desires."

But if we leave the characters of the individual actors in the recent crisis to the verdict of history, the interests of Europe require that we shall not so deal with the policy which has produced this crisis. The continued occupation of Rome by the French is a flagrant violation of the rights of nations. The French army has no business there under any circumstances: emphatically it has no business there merely because it suits, the interests of the French Emperor. We grant that for Napoleon to abandon the Pope would produce a serious difficulty in France; but we have yet to learn that a sovereign has a right to violate the independence of another country in order that he may escape a difficulty at home. Still more, where that difficulty has been of his own making. Whether or not President Louis Napoleon approved of the expedition to Rome in 1849, he at least turned it to his own account. It won for him the support of the Clerical party in France, and they won for him the throne. He has already been amply paid for his high-handed support of the Papacy. As little on personal, therefore, as on general grounds has he any plea for continuing his unlawful occupation of Rome. But that is not half the question. The Emperor retains his grasp upon Rome for reasons too selfish and shameful to be openly acknowledged. He does so to so to divide Italy-to perpetuate and aggravate its difficulties-and to keep his hold upon the Italian Government until he has wrung from it fresh cessions of territory and an ignoble complicity with his further schemes of ambition. When Count Cavour declared that not another inch of Italian soil would be ceded, he added that further annexations of territory to the Italian kingdom would be paid for "by co-operation on the Rhine." A more immoral and utterly disgraceful compact was never made; and Cavour's successor repudiated

it. Surely it would be a disgrace unparalleled if the first act of Italy, after asserting her own independence and integrity, were to cooperate in an attack upon the independence and integrity of another state, Germany. But this is what Napoleon hopes for. This is why he retains his grasp upon Rome. If Italy is to be united, he must exact fresh cessions of territory. If he has to loosen his hold upon Rome, and let Italy go free, he must first get up a war in which Italy shall help him, directly or indirectly, to obtain the frontier of the Rhine. Is it for the interests of Europe that such designs be accomplished?

Napoleon would fain crush Garibaldi; for, whatever Garibaldi be, he is at least the greatest obstacle to the accomplishment of the policy of the French Emperor towards Italy. Without Garibaldi, the Emperor would make short work of the thick-headed but good-hearted Sardinian King and his feeble timeserving Ministers. Napoleon confidently persuades the other Continental Powers that in crushing Garibaldi he is putting down "the revolution." He conceals the fact that but for his own unjust and despotic retention of the capital of Italy, Garibaldi would not have been in arms at all. Nay, but for that shameless occupation, Garibaldi, as we have shown, would never have made appeals to "the revolution in other countries. "We desire to invade no foreign soil: let us remain unmolested in our own "-that was his sole programme at the end of 1859. It is the selfish grinding policy of Napoleon that made Garibaldi a revolutionist in order that he might be a patriot. But, after all, what is the difference between Garibaldi and Napoleon as regards the peace of Europe? It is simply this. Garibaldi, in order to free his country both from French and Austrians, would call the Hungarians, Sclaves, and the Christians in Turkey to his aid, in order that these populations as well as the

Italians might become the masters of their own destinies. The Emperor Napoleon also means warbut of a different kind. He wants to wage another war for the glorification of himself, and for the further aggrandisement of France: but it must be a war in which he is the supreme chief-in which (as in the Italian war) he can make peace when and as he likes, and which will benefit France without adding to the strength of any State which is sufficiently strong to be really independent. Napoleon's game in Italy will not bear the fruits which he expects of it, if it does not lead to a war in which the Italians will be involved in hostilities with the Germans. Garibaldi has no such desire. With his whole heart he deprecates such a war. Napoleon wishes Venice to be taken first, leaving Rome till afterwards; Garibaldi and Ricasoli want Rome first, leaving Venice till afterwards. Moreover, if Venice cannot be obtained without a war, Garibaldi desires to throw France out of the business altogether, and to place the seat of war entirely in eastern Europe, so as not to involve Germany in the strife. Such are the rival programmes of the men who have recently been in armed antagonism. In condemning both, we have no hesitation as to which we condemn the most.

We have great sympathy for Italy -very little, we regret to say, for the Italian Government. Hitherto its policy has been characterised by a superabundance of intrigues, and by a great want of honour and honesty. Very timid in asserting rights which it can fairly claim, it has been very willing to become an assailant of the rights of others. It has chosen a policy that walks in darkness. It has become a subordinate partner or satellite of the scheming, tortuous, secret, and timeserving policy of the Emperor of the French. And what has it gained? Has it not been duped and snubbed at every turn? And has not this last crisis furnished one lesson more of the mingled tyranny and

duplicity of the Sovereign whom the Italian Government have so long accepted as master? When Garibaldi, earnest to prosecute his enterprise, prepared to cross over from Catania to the mainland, and when the royal army was evidently in partial collusion with him, the crisis appeared so serious at the Tuileries that Prince Napoleon was despatched on a special errand to Turin, to persuade the Government to crush the movement at once. For several days he stayed with the King at the hunting-palace of Moncalieri. "Only put down this rebellion-give this one last proof of the power of the Government to maintain and repress the revolution, and then Rome will be yours. Show to Europe that the new kingdom of Italy is an orderly and not a revolutionary State, and then the Emperor will be able to say: Italy is now a worthy member of the European commonwealth; respecting, as France does, the rights of nations and the liberties of the people, I cannot longer occupy Rome: I withdraw.' Such was the substance of the message delivered by Prince Napoleon to King Victor Emmanuel. The well-known opinions of the Prince in favour of Italian unity lent additional weight to the message. The King listened and acquiesced: he would make this one more sacrifice and Garibaldi was shot down by the royal troops on the heights of Aspromonte. But did the Emperor keep his word? Of course not. The moment the rebellion was crushed, he resumed his old attitude. had gained his point. He had not only escaped from a danger, but he had made it more difficult than ever for the Italian Government to oppose his will. Had they not proclaimed it rebellion to demand Rome

He

had they not sacrificed Garibaldi himself for demanding the evacuation of the Eternal City: how then could they, without standing selfcondemned as traitors to Italy and as guilty of Italian blood, proclaim anew that the possession of Rome "is for the Italians not merely a

right, but an inexorable necessity?"

Mortified, duped, and angeredwith his best general and most loyal subject in prison, and with the indignant murmurs of all Italy in his ears-it seems as if King Victor Emmanuel has at length summoned up resolution to speak out plainly. He has at length publicly protested, though in a mild form, against the French occupation of Rome. In a circular note to the Italian ministers at foreign Courts, explanatory of the Garibaldian enterprise, General Durando, in the name of his Government, acknowledges that Garibaldi, though technically wrong, was substantially right. He says :—

"Law has carried the day but it must be admitted that the watchword of the volunteers was, this time, the expression of a want more imperative than ever. The whole nation claims the capital.

"If Garibaldi has been resisted, it is solely because the Government is convinced that it will attain its end, and that the Catholic Powers, France above all, will recognise the danger of maintaining the antagonism between the Papacy and Italy.

"The present situation is no longer tenable, and would end by involving extreme consequences, compromising the religious interests of Catholicism and the tranquillity of Europe."

One great mistake, as it seems to us, is frequently committed in judging of the relative position of Italy and France. We have been told again and again, that if so and so occurred, a French army would invade Italy, occupy Naples, &c., or even convert Southern Italy into a kingdom for Prince Murat. We demur to such views. The great power of the French Emperor in Italy depends mainly on the fact that he gets the Italian Government to act for him. They either, as in the case of Gaeta, acquiesce in his intervention—at least they make no formal protest against it; or else,

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as in stopping Garibaldi in 1860 and again now, they obey his orders and do his work. This has been his great advantage. Until he got the Italian Government to declare against Garibaldi, the Emperor dared not move a single regiment into Southern Italy against him: but no sooner had the Government proclaimed Garibaldi enemy, than the opportunity was at once opened to the Emperor to intervene as much as he pleased, "in order to help his ally.' truth the more the Italian Government succumbed to his policy, the more has he been enabled to carry out his game of intervention. Instead of secretly trafficking with the Emperor for Rome-instead of conspiring and waiting, only to be duped-the King ought to have seen from the first that Napoleon would never relinquish Rome until he was compelled to do so. The King ought to have appealed to Italy and to Europe. He ought to have pro

claimed that the so-called Liberator of Italy was the greatest obstructor of her unity and independence. The Emperor Napoleon, we repeat, cannot afford to break with Italy; and we feel assured, that before a resolute movement of the Italians and their Government to obtain possession of Rome, the French army will be withdrawn without firing a shot. That is to say, provided the movement take place now. The case may be different two years hence. If the Italians adopt Napoleon's policy of attacking Venice first, they will find themselves sold. In that war the Emperor expects to get from Italy the co-operation requisite to help him to the frontier of the Rhine: thereafter he will have little need of the Italian alliance, and will only seek to keep Italy feeble. So that if Rome is not to be got until after Venice, the Italians by their own fault will have little chance of getting Rome at all.