poet of the people, Goffredo Mameli; the spot where Manara, already weakened by his wound, led nineteen followers against a position held by three hundred Frenchmen and died attacking it; the spot where fell Daverio and Ramorino, refusing to retreat, although reduced to twenty against one hundred, the Villa Corsini, Villa Valentini, Vascello, Villa Pamfili, —the very stones of Rome-each one sanctified by the blood of one who fell with a smile on his face, and the Republican cry upon his lip, our rising Rome will never, or at least will not long be profaned by the monarchy.

CHAPTER IX.

CONCLUSION.

1850-1872.

THE record of Mazzini's life in his own words closes with the preceding chapter. He never deliberately undertook to write his autobiography, and the reader who has followed the work thus far will have seen that his notes upon events in which he was concerned are quite as often discussions upon the principles involved and earnest presentation of governing ideas as records of facts. Mazzini's personal history, morever, seems to him of far less importance than the growth in the public mind of the truths to which his life was devoted in the preface to the series of volumes from which this volume is gathered he says, simply and impressively: "Indifferent, from the inborn tendency of my mind, to that empty clamor which men call fame; and despising, from natural pride and a quiet conscience, the many calumnies which have darkened my path through life; convinced, even unto faith, that the duty of our earthly existence is to forget self in the aim prescribed to us by our individual faculties and the necessities of the times, I have kept no record of dates, made no biographical notes, and preserved no copies of letters. But even had I jealously preserved such, I should not now have the courage to use them. In the face of the reawakening of that

people to whom alone God has as yet granted the privilege, in each great epoch of its own existence, of transforming Europe, all individual biography appears as insignificant as a taper lighted in the presence of the rising sun."

It remains for us to trace briefly the course of Mazzini during the twenty years preceding his death. The Pope returned to Rome under the protection of French bayonets, and Mazzini continued his educational labors in Switzerland. From Lausanne he sent out the journal "Italia del Popolo," and busied himself perfecting organizations which should give concrete expression to his ideas of association and Italian Unity. From this time forward he lived so constantly under assumed names and in concealment, that even when danger ceased to be regarded, his habits were so confirmed that he continued to maintain secrecy. He was the intimate associate of a small and devoted circle of English men and women, the inspirer of a body of young men called "The Society of the Friends of Italy." The meetings of the Italians and their English friends were at Madame Venturi's, in West Brompton, a remote suburb of London.

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"There were representatives there," says a writer in the Washington "Capital," "in the refugees from the various continental governments, of every new political and sociological ism in Europe, from the emancipation of Pesth to the fraternal brotherhood of Berlin and Paris. Some of the quickest minds of England were often present, and eloquent with sympathy. The budding impulses of all sorts of misty liberalism got mixed frequently with the clear scheme of Italian Unity in impetuous, unclarified expression. And between Polish counts, German democrats, and

ostracized Magyars and Frenchmen, there was generally a good deal of heterogeneous and clamorous elocution. Mazzini with his meagre, sallow face often sat in his place without saying a word, looking like his own ghost propped in a chair or like his cadaverous bust outside in the hall, until something said in the line of his own purpose moved him, when he would overflow with a passionate rhetorical burst that reminded his hearers of lava streaming down the sides of Vesuvius. And while he spoke his whole form grew electric, and his black Italian eyes. shot a fire that meant all that Italy has grown to since. There were sometimes quieter scenes than this in the West Brompton parlor, when the Italian met to secretly consult only two or three confederates. It was from this kind of a conference that Mazzini, the ambassador of his own plans, stole out into the capitals and into the very courts of the continent, where his name was a terror and the knowledge of his presence would have been death. But his cat-like footfall never betrayed him to Europe, and he passed untouched through her highways and byways as often as he listed, like the very wraith and spirit of Republicanism that he was. In fact Mazzini's frequent secret presence in Europe in the years he was banished from every foot of its soil was the actual symbol of the democratic ideas that were and are revolutionizing continental monarchy, while they cannot be touched by its sword. It was the fear of the people that made Vienna quake as often as it was whispered that the fiery Italian was pausing at Venice. Of all the revolutionists of Italy Mazzini was the only one absolutely fearless and uncompromising. And "Who fears not for his own life has

mine at his mercy," the Italians have said always. It was on this principle of fearing that the European governments dreaded Mazzini's passage through their territory as the seam of political earthquake. What it was to perform, that the Italian started on his many secret midnight embassies out of London to the continent, his best friends here never knew. In the way that Mazzini himself intended it was known that they were never successful. But the history of these personal movements when it comes will be immensely interesting, as there is not likely to come again to any single man the chance of so frightening old Europe out of her propriety as did this earnest-minded hero, who presented himself before her gigantic terror with the smooth pebble stone of democracy in his sling."

Of the outbreaks in Italy which occurred in this restless period and were in popular estimation inspired by Mazzini, the one which made the sharpest impression was the attempted assassination of Napoleon III. by Orsini and three associates in 1858. Orsini had been an ardent disciple and friend of Mazzini and was much in his confidence. Both Mazzini and Ledru-Rollin were charged with complicity in Orsini's attempt upon the life of Louis Napoleon, but the movement was one entirely opposed to Mazzini's revolutionary principles, since he aimed not at tyrannicide but at the rising of people against injustice in government. "Orsini," says Mr. Holyoake,1 "never imparted his design to Mazzini. His intention was to surprise his old chief by it. He had come to imagine that Mazzini had not a due respect for his capacity, and half suspected that he was being 1 In a communication to the Boston Daily Globe, dated March 21, 1872.