Garibaldi had escaped, but the mischief done to the movement by the loss of nearly a month could not be remedied.  Although large armed bands under Acerbi, Nicotera and Menotti Garibaldi were gathered near Viterbo, as usually happened in the absence of the chief, nothing effectual was done.  But it was in Paris that the delay brought the most ruinous results.

The history of the second French expedition to Rome will never be satisfactorily told, because, while the outward circumstances point one way, the inward probabilities point another.  Napoleon had said that if the Convention were not observed he would intervene, and he did intervene; nothing could seem simpler.  Yet it is not doubtful that, in his inmost heart, he was wishing day and night that something would turn up to extricate him from the Roman dilemma once for all.  While he hesitated, the Clerical party in France did not hesitate.  Not a moment was thrown away by them.  Towards the middle of October, it was reported that ’half royalist and half Catholic France will be in Rome in the course of the week.  Men with names belonging to the proudest French nobility—­the De Lusignans, De Clissons, De Lumleys, De Bourbon-Chalens, etc., are chartering vessels, arriving in Rome by scores and hundreds, and hence hurrying to the front to take their places as privates in the Zouaves.’  That, however, does not describe the most important sphere of their activity which was the ante-chamber, nay, the boudoir of St Cloud.  In that palace, three years later to be rased to the ground by the Germans, the net was woven which every day closed tighter and tighter round Napoleon, till he was enveloped in its meshes past escape.  Ever since De Morny’s death, the influence nearest the throne had been increasing in strength; it is needless to say in which direction it was exercised.  Napoleon was ill; Maximilian’s ghost floated over him; he felt his power slipping from his hands in spite of the noise and show of the Exhibition, which was supposed to mark its zenith.  The words of the old pact with the Royalists buzzed in his ears:  ’Do you keep the Pope on his throne, and we will keep you on yours.’  And he yielded.

The ‘principle’ of French intervention was adopted by the council of ministers on the 17th of October.  Then, and not till then, Rattazzi decided to send the Italian troops over the frontier.  On finding that neither the King nor several of his colleagues in the ministry would support him, he resigned office on the 19th of the month.

It was on the day after that Garibaldi appeared in Florence.  As there was no ministry, no one thought it his business to interfere with him.  Cialdini, whom the King had requested to form a cabinet, did go and ask him to keep quiet till there was some properly qualified person to arrest him; but this, not unnaturally, he declined to do.  He left Florence by special train for Terni, whence he crossed the frontier and joined the insurgent bands near Rome.