Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/303

Rh adherents! From all that I have heard of him, I believe that he merited this devoted regard, from the purity of his character, and the firmness of his will. His ideal of life and government was, in its moral standard, not unlike that of Gioberti and Cesare Balbo, and other distinguished sons and daughters of Italy, but he differed from these in other points, and especially in the question of the violent measures he would make use of. Mazzini became dominant in Rome, and the old martial spirit of the city seemed to reawaken. It fought an heroic fight, against far superior armies, during eight months. The Marchioness d'Ossoli,—the American Margaret Fuller—has preserved in her letters most precious memorials of that time in Rome, when “Mazzini never slept, but never for a moment wavered, when his hand burned with fever, but his glance was steady, his whole being firm and calm, when young men were famished or died at their posts rather than yield them up, when mothers in the hospitals kissed their sons' amputated limbs, when women emulated men in the joy of sacrifice for the fatherland, when men felt themselves tempted to doubt of a Providence, when all this love and all this sacrifice proved to be in vain.” For they were in vain! Rome was subdued, hostile armies entered victoriously, the Triumvirs fled, the Pope returned.

But he returned no longer as the mild, the peace and pardon-proclaiming Pio Nono. He came as a stern, and, in many cases, an inexorable judge. Was it he himself, or his councilor and minister Antonelli—I will believe the latter—who caused that, of