Page:A French Volunteer of the War of Independence.djvu/270

246 nexed, and the people had just submitted themselves. The two-legged mules still carried their burden, though the pack was marked with another letter, and it was politic not to make the new load heavier than the old one. Trieste was the most advanced outpost of the French Republic, and it was difficult to believe it would be held for a long term. The adventurer who governed France spent his years in playing at war, and risked all for all in each battle.

Placed thus at the top of the gulf, I had in front of me the Adriatic Sea, which stretched like a long street between the former Republic of Venice, the former Papal States, and the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies,—for the time being. Behind me on the north I had the land of the Pandours of Trenk, the Croats of the celebrated Count Serin, of the fortress of Zigeth, semi-savages, whose only claim to civilization was their fidelity to the Romische Kaiser, and the paternal house of Austria. Peace between such neighbours only depended on circumstances.