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 892 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS man attacks and needing no mortal defenders." The Nuncio returned thanks and praises and refe/red Garibaldi's tender to the Pontifical Government at Rome. But Garibaldi, never well disposed to losing time, after vainly waiting for further communication from Pope or Nuncio, brooked no longer delay. With incredi- ble difficulty he scraped together money and means, and embarked with his brave friend, Anzani (who died at Genoa soon after landing), having with him only 85 men and two cannon, and leaving the remainder of his legion to follow when and how it could. He crossed the ocean, landed at Nice, proceeded to Genoa and Milan, and when Charles Albert, defeated at Custozza, withdrew from the Lombard city and accepted an armistice, which saved Piedmont from invasion, August, 1848, Gari- baldi passed over to Mazzini, and at the head of a volunteer force, of which Maz- zini was the standard-bearer, issued a manifesto in which he proclaimed the Sar- dinian king a traitor, and declared that " the royal war was at an end, and that of the people was now to begin." That proclamation was, however, only an idle bravado. Mazzini, even if he had the spirit, lacked the physical strength of a fighting man. The Garibaldians, on hearing the news of the fall of Milan, lost heart, and many crossed over the frontier to Switzerland. With thinned and dis- pirited bands. Garibaldi, aided by his friend Medici, ventured on a few desultory fights near Luino, on Lake Maggiore, but soon fell back and withdrew to Lugano in the Canton Ticino, his health, it is said, breaking down, and his immediate followers being reduced to some three hundred. A few months later Pius IX., fallen from his popularity and pressed hard by his disaffected subjects, who murdered his minister and almost stormed him in his palace at the Quirinal, ran away to Gaeta, and a Roman Republic was proclaimed, of which Mazzini, in a triumvirate with two others, mere men of straw, became the head. Attacked by the French in flagrant violation of all rights of nations, Rome undertook to defend itself, and whatever Italy could boast of generous hearts, regardless of party differences, rallied round Garibaldi, who drove back the French from Porta Pancrazia, April 29 and 30, 1849, defeated the Neapol- itans in that campaign of Velletri, which was like the farce contrasting with the tragic drama soon to be acted at Rome, and withstood a three months' siege, in which many of the noblest champions of the Italian cause lavished their lives in a hopeless, yet, as it proved, not a fruitless struggle. The French having gained possession of the city July 13, 1849, Garibaldi left it with a band of devoted volunteers, retired via Terni and Orvieto, gathering together about 2,000 men in his progress, crossed the Apennines, and pressed by the Austrians with overwhelming forces, sought a refuge at San Marino, gave the enemy the slip in the night, embarked at Cesenatico for Venice, which was still withstanding the Austrian siege, was met by four Austrian men-of-war, which compelled him to put back and land on the coast near Ravenna, and wandered ashore in the woods, where Anita, his inseparable companion in this disastrous inarch, succumbed to the fatigues of the journey, and expired in the hero's arms. Garibaldi's devoted friends Ugo Bassi and Ciceruacchio, falling into the hands of