Rattazzi’s taste was for intrigue rather than for adventure in the grand sense.  An adventurous minister would have accelerated the enterprise to the utmost, in secret or not in secret, and would then have preceded Garibaldi to Rome before the Clerical party in France had time to force Napoleon to act.  The rest could have been left to the Roman people.  What they did in 1870 they would have done in 1867; they were ready to acclaim any conquering liberator; they were not ready to make a revolution on their own account, and with all their leaders in prison or in exile, they are hardly to be blamed for it.  For such a policy Italy might have pleaded that necessity which knows no law.  Everybody allowed that if Garibaldi went to Rome the Italians must go there too:  the very security of the Pope demanded it—­at least, he said so.  As to the first part of the programme, complicity in the preparation of the movement, it would have been an infringement of the Convention, but had France kept the Convention?  French bishops recruited soldiers for the Pope in every province of France, and the Antibes Legion was drawn, officers and men, from the French army.  When some of the men deserted, the French War Office sent General Dumont to Rome to look to the discipline of the regiment.  Those who argued that the spirit, if not the letter, of the agreement had been already evaded, could make out a good case for their position.

It has been suggested that this is what Rattazzi’s policy would have been, but for the opposition of the King.  Were it so, the minister ought to have resigned at the beginning of the proceedings instead of at the end.  That in the ultimate crisis it was the King who prevented the troops from moving is a fact, but the propitious moment was then past and gone.  ‘Do as you like, but do it quickly,’ Napoleon said to Cavour when Cialdini was to be sent to the Cattolica.  And it was done quickly.

After letting Garibaldi make what arrangements and issue what manifestoes he chose for six weeks, Rattazzi suddenly had him arrested at Sinalunga on the 23rd of September.  The only consequence was fatal delay; not knowing what to do with their prisoner, the Government shipped him to Caprera.  Personally he was perfectly free; no conditions were imposed; but nine men-of-war were despatched to the island to sweep the seas of erratic heroes.  In spite of which, Garibaldi escaped in a canoe on the 14th of October.

That night, between sundown and moonrise, there was only one hour’s dark, but it sufficed the fugitive to make good his passage from Caprera to the island of Maddalena.  A strong south-east breeze was blowing; the waves, however, were rather favourable to the venture, as they hid the frail bark from any eyes that might be peering through the night.  Garibaldi did not fear; he had often put out on this terrible sea when lashed to fury to succour sailors in their peril.  On reaching Maddalena he scrambled over the rocks to the house of an English lady who was delighted to give him hospitality.  Next evening he proceeded to Sardinia, from which, after several adventures, he sailed for the Tuscan coast in a boat held in readiness by his son-in-law, Canzio.  And so, to the amazement of friends and foes, he arrived in Florence, where, before many hours were past, he was haranguing the enthusiastic crowd from a balcony.