been growling in Italy, now and then emitting sharp, short gleams, until the veering of the Pope to the liberal side gave consistency to the wants and wishes of the peoples. It was on the Tedeschi, before all, that the national hatred was concentrated. Austria had gone beyond the authority delegated to her by the Congress of Vienna, and throughout the peninsula employed her troops as sbirri to suppress free interchange of ideas. It was impossible for such a state of things to last longer; and though the French revolution of 1848 gave the signal for revolt, even without that event the Italians could not be held back longer from an appeal to the grim god of battles. M. Garnier Pagès, who, by the way, has been largely assisted in his task by the deceased ex-dictator of Venice, Manin, gives the following glowing account of the Milanese glorious days:

The combat has begun in an instant, men of all ranks, of all trades, women accustomed to rude toil, ladies with delicate hands, even children, all prepared arms and means of resistance. The streets were unpaved, and barricades raised. In default of planks and beams, carriages were dragged up, and everything that presented itself was employed. Some gave their furniture, the poor their only bed, the rich their gilded chairs, while a manufacturer threw in the largest of his pianofortes. At this supreme moment everybody offered, for the common defence, his fortune and his life. Marshal Radetzky had a difficulty in escaping from the torrent that began to overflow, and flying from his palace to the castle, abandoning a portion of his clothes, and even his sword, with which he had menaced the Milanese, and which now became their trophy. On the 19th, at daybreak, the tocsin was heard, the cry "To arms!" and the sound of cannon. The battle had recommenced. Never, perhaps, had a population found itself in so terrible a situation. Enclosed within walls, flight itself in the event of defeat was no longer possible. They must not expect from foreign and savage soldiers either pity or mercy; their ferocity could only be satiated by pillage, violation, and carnage. Had not the chief himself denounced the sack of the city, if it resisted, and he was the man to keep his word. There was no hope for the city, then, if it succumbed, and the citizens could only count on their courage and their despair. In this gigantic contest, each bore in his heart the sublime resolution, Victory or death!-a supreme moment, a solemn hour for this nation struggling beneath the sword that kills. The historian, while retracing this affecting scene, feels his hand tremble. The genius of deliverance created arms. The theatres and museums were stripped of old carbines and dress-swords; the iron bars of the railways were sharpened; tools fastened to the end of sticks; knives served as daggers; the women heated oil and melted lead; furniture, tiles, bottles, paving-stones, vessels of every description were arranged as projectiles; barricades were multiplied; no arn was inactive; the chemists manufactured gunpowder, caps, and fulminating cotton; some invented destructive agents; the tradesmen supplied vitriol, which was to fall in a burning shower. . . . The troops ad

vanced along the widest streets, swept them with canister, and pointed their guns at the barricades. The inhabitants poured on the soldiers the piled-up materials; the young men were saving with their ammunition, and each round told, and delivered the city from an enemy.

While Radetzky fell back, like a boar at bay, beneath the walls of Verona, Charles Albert was in a most awkward position. We are glad to find that M. Pagès does not force in the cuckoo cry of treason, so often raised against that monarch: he is disposed to regard him as a weak-minded man, instigated by a strong dose of ambition. On hearing of the fall of monarchy in France, Charles Albert was stupified: on

one hand he was haunted by the demon of republicanism, on the other he did not like the opportunity for aggrandisement to slip. Worst of all, he could not remain stationary, he must move with the tide. After great hesitation, therefore, he resolved to place himself at the head of the Italian movement, and obtain that iron crown which his ancestors had worn with honour for a season.

Lamartine, feeling perfectly aware that the only thing that could support his tottering authority was a foreign war, at once offered the King of Sardinia the aid of the sword of France, but he at once declined it. The president of the provisional government then appealed to Mazzini to accept French help, but he haughtily endorsed the king's memorable reply, "L'Italia farà di se." In fact, the Italians were so astounded at having driven the Austrians out of Milan, that they thought they need only follow up their victory to render their country great, glorious, and free. In truth, circumstances seemed to justify this view : from one end of the peninsula to the other, prince was outbidding prince in his offers of assistance to the popular cause; the Neapolitan troops were hurrying up, the Roman army was on the frontier of Venetia, and that country was torn from Radetzky, with the exception of the redoubtable Quadrilateral, in which the grey-haired field-marshal was fretting his proud heart, and urging on his court the necessity of reinforcements, which it could not offer him. In the mean while, Charles Albert went on from victory to victory, till he was brought up by the frowning walls of Verona, which have since made another conqueror hesitate. During this period treachery was at work throughout the peninsula. Ferdinand of Naples regained his authority on the Continent, and Pio Nono began playing fast and loose with the national cause; but no foe was so dangerous to it as Charles Albert himself. In his jealousy of the volunteers he left them unsupported, and Radetzky was enabled to surprise their column at Curtatone, where they were cut to pieces after a magnificent defence. The perusal of their exploits reads like a page from the history of ancient Greece:

For more than three hours they resisted and performed prodigies of valour. General Laugier sustained the valour of his troops by example and words. The cries of "Viva l'Italia!" gave strength to the weakest and courage to the most timid. The sharpshooters fought in the open, saying that they wished to show their breasts to the enemy. The students' battalion, intrepid in fire, proceeded wherever the peril was the greatest; they fell without giving way, and died as heroes. The learned professor of geology, Leopold Pella, expired with the cry "that he had not yet done enough for his country."

At

this supreme moment an affecting episode took place. Some forty volunteers, led by Montanelli, rushed forward over the dead bodies to a neighbouring mill, and there offered a desperate resistance to the Austrians. Bullets hailed on the sacred battalion, and decimated it. One by one they fell, and their cartridges-glorious heritage of the dying men!-were shared among the survivors. The heroic group, gradually reduced, closed up round the Italian flag. Pietro Parra, a very promising youth, was struck by the side of Montanelli, who threw himself on a man whom he regarded as a brother, felt the pulsing of his heart, and soon after only embraced a corpse. He seized his brave comrade's musket to avenge him, but immediately felt his left arm pierced by a bullet, made vain efforts to continue the combat, and lost his senses as he cried to his friends, who, not wishing to separate from him, surrendered to the Austrians, "You will bear testimony that I fell with my face to the foe."

Another glorious episode of the campaign was the defence of Vicenza by Colonels Massimo d'Azeglio and Enrico Cialdini. At daybreak, black, compact masses of the enemy were seen advancing on the devoted town from every direction. The fire began at four A.M., by an attack of tirailleurs. The column commanded by Culoz rushed impetuously towards the heights, which were defended with equal vigour. Wratislaw threw himself on the Rotunda, but in vain; and, forced to have recourse to his artillery, directed his attack on the gate, where an obstinate fight was carried on. At this moment, D'Aspre charged in close column the barricade of the Padua gate, but was foiled by the bravery of the Italians. On all sides the contest was furious and sanguinary; the town was begirt by a belt of fire and iron. The general, the officers, the volunteers, the soldiers, the townsmen, endured, without stirring, this formidable assault, which threatened to swallow them up. They fought for six hours, and the Austrians made but insensible progress. The shock of arms was most terrible on the heights, where the Italians and Swiss had concentrated their efforts on Bericocolo. The artillery, excellently served by the Swiss, hurled death into the ranks of the assailants; on either side it was felt that this hill was the key of the position, and that if carried the contest would be virtually at an end. To effect it, the Austrians made a desperate effort, and charged it with twelve thousand fresh troops. The Italians and Swiss resisted desperately, but prodigies of valour could not keep the foe back. The termination of the contest is so brilliantly told by M. Pagès, that it must serve as an apology for

an extract:

Durando gave his orders everywhere; no one needed to hear the voice of his chief to be inspired, for his presence sufficed. On learning the retreat of D'Azeglio, he rushed to the reserve, told the Swiss to fly to his help, and himself tried at the head of a column to turn the hill on the opposite side; but the Austrian ranks were so dense that the Italians were compelled to fall back on the town. The enemy, master of the heights, covered them with batteries, and soon shells, shrapnel, and balls, rained on the city. The resistance, concentrated behind gates and barricades, became through this only the greater; peril heightened audacity in their hearts and did not affect them. Night came, to add the horrors of its darkness to all the horrors of the engagement. For sixand-thirty hours the Italians had been under arms: exhausted by the hunger and thirst they had not found time to appease, by fatigue and bloodshed, they still did not feel their courage exhausted. But could such heavy sacrifices save the city? After the loss of the heights it would soon be but a pile of ruins. The Swiss artillery was partially dismounted; should Vicenza be exposed to all the disasters of a city taken by storm? The general examined sadly, but coolly, this mournful situation. He had neither promise nor hope of succour from Charles Albert; perhaps he could obtain an honourable capitulation for the inhabitants and his army. At about six P.M. he informed the committee of defence of his resolution, and gave them a quarter of an hour to reflect. The committee repulsed, in the name of the city, all capitulation. The general received this reply as the frenzy of patriotism, and took on himself to hoist the white flag. At this sinister sight a terrible crisis was produced by despair: hearts revolted, transports of anger seized on the minds; the volunteers, the inhabitants, preferred death to surrender. The flag, pierced by bullets, fell, and the firing began again on all sides furiously. But the general saw the certain danger, and the impossibility of defence: he might still save the army and city from complete destruction. He accepted the responsibility of the capitulation, hoisted the white flag again, and sent messengers to the enemy's camp.

In this way Radetzky compensated for the fall of Peschiera by gradually extending his grasp of the Venetese, and ere long reinforcements began pouring in. Charles Albert had dislocated his forces by attempting the siege of Mantua, and there was a chance of the old field-marshal being able to "blot" the king's weak point. In this actual state of affairs Lamartine once more offered the sword of France to the patriots, and with the determination to cross the Alps at the first cry for rescue, raised an army of five hundred thousand men. Looking back through the past, it is instructive to find Lamartine speaking in the following way to the National Assembly: "In no case will Italy fall again under the yoke she has so gloriously shaken off. In no case will France fail in that fraternity for twenty-six millions of human beings, which has been her law for the past, and will be her duty for the future." But the Italians, in one point, if in no other, displayed wisdom: they would not accept French aid; and all Lamartine could do was to send a French squadron into the Adriatic, and wait the course of events. In fact, at that moment an external war could alone prove the salvation of the French provisional government, and Lamartine was eventually hurled from power because he listened to the promptings of his better self and avoided it.

Still, there was sufficient in the debates of the French House to alarm Austria as to intervention, and she would have been glad to come to a satisfactory settlement with Sardinia if she could do so with honour. Radetzky had by this time an army numerically superior to that of Charles Albert, and before resuming the offensive there was no disgrace in trying to put an end to the war, especially as its continuance rendered it more than probable that France would step in and act the part of the lawyer in the fable of the oyster and the shells. Hence the court of Vienna sent M. de Hummelauer to ask the intervention of England in the quarrel, and Lord Palmerston was disposed to listen. The Austrian envoy strongly urged the advisability of a union between Austria and Piedmont, "because in that way their forces could be combined in a system of common defence against French invasion." The first proposition was to constitute the Lombardo-Venetese into an independent state, with its own army and government, but still remaining under the sovereignty of the emperor. This Lord Palmerston declined, and then M. Hummelauer presented a second memorandum, by which Lombardy would be rendered independent, while the Venetian state would remain under the sovereignty of the emperor, with a national administration. Here, again, Lord Palmerston hesitated in face of the strong Italian feeling evidenced in Venetia, and evidently did not wish to accept the responsibility. Hence the negotiations were broken off, as Austria, under present circumstances, did not feel disposed to surrender the line of the Adige, which was necessary to protect Trieste. At any rate, these negotiations deserve not to be forgotten, as they formed the basis of the treaty of Villafranca, and show that by the exercise of a judicious. pressure the British government could have obtained in 1848 all that the Emperor of the French was enabled to secure after a campaign of more than usual severity. We cannot help thinking, then, that Lord Palmerston, on this occasion, did not display that acumen which people are generally agreed to credit him with in matters relating to foreign policy. Still, the Venetese court was not beaten yet, but made the provisional

junta at Milan the same proposition-namely, the liberation of Lombardy -if she would throw Venetia over. To their honour, this was at once refused, and henceforth arms could alone decide.

The chances were greatly favourable to Radetzky: Charles Albert had extended his front from Peschiera to Mantua, while the Austrian field-marshal held his thoroughly in hand. At the end of May and the beginning of June, Charles Albert honestly wished to save Venetia, and only treat with Austria on the condition of Italy being entirely emancipated from the foreign yoke. Doubtless politicians had already begun to whisper to him the immediate and brilliant advantages which a new treaty of Campo-Formio would offer him; doubtless prudent councillors were already whispering in his ear ideas of abandonment and treason to Venetia; but for all that, at this moment he was as resolute as an undecided character can be to yield no inch of his Italian country. But by the beginning of July a change began to come over the king: he had but sixty thousand men, while the Austrian army, after the junction of Nugent and Welden's corps, amounted to eighty-five thousand.

:

Charles Albert, in presence of these forces, supported by the fortresses and the Adige, in a formidable position, felt his impotence, and could not make up his mind whether to advance or retire. Daily different places were suggested to him he studied them carefully, but could not fix on any one. He heard the cries of all Italy, which excited and urged him forward, and he heard, too, the voice of prudence, which pointed out the danger and held him back. Fearless for himself, he trembled for his sons' property. A battle risked, a battle lost, was a crown that disappeared before it had been seized! It was his own throne menaced. Italy disarmed, the French Republic in Italy! At this moment, clever people brought before his undecided mind the advantages proposed by Austria and repelled by him. But he had pledged himself too deeply. No! he would never sign a treaty of Campo-Formio: a hundred times better fall on the battle-field arms in hand,

At last, however, the king gave way to his advisers, and on July 7 he wrote to Radetzky offering to accept the Adige as the eastern frontier of the state; but it was too late. The terms were not equal: Radetzky by this time held the whole of the Venetese but the capital, and Austria was in honour bound not to listen to any negotiations until she had gained some signal successes over the foe. That signal success was the battle of Custosa, where Radetzky completely outmanoeuvred the Piedmontese, and took them between two fires. The king was only able to bring twentytwo thousand men into action; and though they fought with great bravery, they were eventually compelled to retreat. This fight became more fatal to the Italian cause through its consequences than through its result. The Piedmontese, hitherto superior in every action, lost their self-confidence.

The combat had been glorious, but the defeat was overwhelming. Demoralisation seized on the bravest and fear on the cowardly; there were pitiable terrors and criminal desertions; the commissariat, badly organised, left the army without provisions; the exhausted soldiers could not repair their strength; disorder reigned everywhere. To their terrified minds Radetzky constantly appeared, menacing with his victorious army. What complaints, what groans! It was a frightful spectacle of human misery! Faces were gloomy, hearts in despair. The very prisoners, the result of their successes, became an embarrassment, and seemed a mockery of destiny. The generals knew not how to justify their