as well as king—­gave him permission to quit the regular army, go where he liked, and fight as he pleased.  With his volunteers Garibaldi performed many acts of bravery which won for him great eclat; but he made many military mistakes.  Once he came near being captured with all his men; but fortune favored, and he almost miraculously escaped from the hands of the Austrians.  The scene of his exploits was in the mountainous country around Lake Como.

Meanwhile the allied armies had defeated the Austrians at Magenta and Solferino, and Louis Napoleon had effected the celebrated treaty with Austria at Villa-Franca, arranging for a confederation of all the Italian States under the Papal Protectorate, and the cession of Lombardy to Sardinia.  This inconclusive result greatly disgusted all the Italian patriots.  Cavour resigned at once, but soon after was induced to resume his post at the head of affairs.  Venice and Verona were still in Austrian hands.  As the Prussians showed signs of uneasiness, it is probable that Louis Napoleon did not feel justified in continuing the war, in which he had nothing further to gain; at all events, he now withdrew.  Garibaldi was exceedingly indignant at the desertion of France, and opposed bitterly the cession of Nice and Savoy,—­by which he was brought in conflict with Cavour, who felt that Italy could well afford to part with a single town and a barren strip of mountain territory for the substantial advantages it had already gained by the defeat of the Austrian armies.

The people of the Italian States, however, repudiated the French emperor’s arrangements for them, and one by one Modena, Tuscany, Parma, and the Romagna,—­the upper tier of the Papal States,—­formally voted for annexation to the Kingdom of Sardinia; and the king, nothing loath, received them into his fold in March, 1860.  This result was in great measure due to the Baron Ricasoli of Tuscany, an independent country-gentleman and wine-grower, who had taken active interest in politics, and had been made Dictator of Tuscany when her grand duke fled at the outbreak of the war.  Ricasoli obstinately refused either to recall the grand duke or to submit to the Napoleonic programme, but insisted on annexation to Sardinia; and the other duchies followed.

Garibaldi now turned his attention to the liberation of Naples and Sicily from the yoke of Ferdinand, which had become intolerable.  As early as 1851, Mr. Gladstone, on a visit to Naples, wrote to Lord Aberdeen that the government of Ferdinand was “an outrage on religion, civilization, humanity, and decency.”  He had found the prisons full of state prisoners in the vilest condition, and other iniquities which were a disgrace to any government.  The people had attempted by revolution again and again to shake off the accursed yoke, and had failed.  Their only hope was from without.