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 Mazzini conferred with him, collected money for him, and went as far as Lugano with the intention of supporting him when the volunteers crossed from Sicily for the march on Rome. But he went no further.

There was fighting again in 1866. The Italians were defeated, and Napoleon III concluded a peace by which the Austrians ceded Venetia to him, and he handed it over to Italy. This was rather a humiliating conclusion of this part of the struggle, and Mazzini resented it. In spite of the failure of so many of his efforts, he appeared to many of his fellow-countrymen as a distant and rather wonderful figure, surrounded by an atmosphere of mystery, with the one thought of his beloved country ever in his mind. Their confidence and respect for him were shown by the fact that forty thousand people signed the petition for his amnesty—that is to say, his return to Italy; but when at last it was granted he refused to take his seat as a deputy in Parliament, for although he had been duly elected by Messina he would not take the oath of allegiance to the monarchy.

The republic now came to be a more important object to him than unity. He plotted and schemed, and went so far as to intrigue with Bismarck in order to get the help of Germany in what would have been a civil war. He admired Bismarck's tremendous determination, and he believed in German unity, but he added, "I abhor the Empire and the supremacy it arrogates over Europe."