Page:Rebels and reformers (1919).djvu/245

 overestimated the strength of his own following and ignored the true state of affairs. This was partly due to his enforced exile, which kept him out of contact with the movements in Italy. With Garibaldi, the great man of action, his relations were also strained. They never saw eye to eye, and constantly differed as to the best course to take. Garibaldi believed in the King. Mazzini could never get over his engrained prejudice against monarchy. Garibaldi was irritated with Mazzini and called him "the great doctrinaire." But although they so often found it impossible to act together, they became reconciled in the end, and each recognized the other's great talents and services.

Mazzini was accused of encouraging political assassination. Many charges were brought against him which were absolutely false, and he was wrongly suspected of being at the back of various plots which were discovered for the assassination of Victor Emmanuel and Louis Napoleon. He had indeed said that exceptional moments might arise when the killing of a tyrant might be the only means of putting an end to the intolerable oppression. In his early days, too, a young man came to him with a plan for the assassination of the King, Charles Albert. Mazzini, having failed to dissuade him, helped him on his journey and sent him a dagger. But in late life he not only vigorously discouraged plots of this sort, but actually stopped them. It is true, however, that his attempts to justify violence on certain occasions, and the argu