on the 2nd of July that his Government could not give up this point.  It was a conscientious duty so universally and strongly felt, that they were readier to submit to the consequences, whatever they might be, than to dishonour themselves by renouncing it.  In other words, they were ready to face a new war, abandoned to their fate by all Europe, to undergo a new invasion, which meant the utter destruction of their country, rather than leave their Lombard and Venetian fellow-countrymen to the revenge of Austria.  Count Pralormo added that he was speaking not only in the name of the ministry, but of the King and the whole nation.  The risk was no imaginary one; there were many in Austria who desired an excuse for crushing the life out of the small state which was the eternal thorn in the side of that great Empire.  Few remember now the sufferings of Piedmont for Italy, or the perils, only too real, which she braved again and again, not from selfish motives—­for the Piedmontese of the old, narrow school, who said that their orderly little country had nothing to gain from being merged in a state of 25,000,000 were by no means in error—­but from genuine Italian fellow-feeling for their less happy compatriots beyond their confines.

At last, when the armistice concluded on the morrow of Novara had been prolonged for five months, the treaty of peace was signed.  Prince Schwarzenberg offered to further reduce the indemnity, 75,000,000 to 71,000,000, but D’Azeglio having agreed to the former figure, preferred to abide by his agreement.  He thought, probably, that he would thus gain some concession as to the amnesty, and, in fact, Austria finally consented to pardon all but a small number of the persons compromised in the late events.  D’Azeglio still stood out, but finding that there was no shadow of a chance of obtaining more than this, he reluctantly accepted it.  The great mass, the hundred thousand and more fugitives who had left their homes in Lombardy and Venetia, were, at any rate, promised a safe return.  The city of Venice, as yet undominated, though on the brink of her fall, was totally excluded.  The list of those whose banishment from Lombardy was confirmed, comprises the noblest names in the province; with the exception of a few who were excluded from the amnesty on the score that, before the revolution, they were Austrian functionaries, nearly every unpardoned Lombard was noble:  Casati, Arese, Borromeo, Litta, Greppi, Pallavicini, and the Princess Cristina Belgiojoso of Milan, the two Camozzis of Bergamo, and G. Martinengo Cesaresco of Brescia.

It must not be imagined that this amnesty ushered in a reign of oblivion and mildness.  It seemed, rather, that Austria, afraid of the moral consequences of the return of so many unloving subjects, redoubled her severity.  The day following the promulgation of the amnesty was the 18th of August, the Emperor of Austria’s birthday.  In the morning, placards dissuading the citizens from taking part in