brave wife sought an interview with the Empress, in whom she found a warm advocate, but who was obliged to own, after several attempts to obtain a reprieve, that she despaired of success.  Teresa Confalonieri hurried back to Milan through the bitter winter weather, in doubt whether she should arrive before the execution had taken place.  But the unceasing efforts of the Empress won the day.  The respite was granted on the 13th of January; life-imprisonment was substituted for death.  The countess sent her husband the pillow which she had bathed with her tears during her terrible journey; needless to say that it was not given to him.  She died broken-hearted with waiting before he was set at liberty in the year 1836.

When Count Confalonieri reached Vienna on his way to Spielberg, he was surprised to find himself installed in a luxurious apartment, with three servants to wait upon him.  Though too ill to touch solid food, a sumptuous breakfast and dinner were daily set before him; and but for the constant jingle of his chains, he would have thought himself in a first-class hotel on a journey of pleasure.  The object of these attentions was clear when one evening Prince Metternich came to see him, and stayed for three hours, endeavouring by every exquisite flattery, by every promise and persuasion, to worm out of him the secrets of which he alone was believed to be the depositary.  The Austrian Government had spent L60,000 on the Milan Commission, and, practically, they were no wiser than when it began.  Would Confalonieri enlighten them?  Whatever scruples he might have felt during the trial could be now laid aside; there was no question of new arrests.  It was from pure, abstract love of knowledge that the Government, or, rather, the Emperor, desired to get at the truth.  If he preferred to open his mind to the Emperor in person, His Majesty would grant him a secret audience.  Above all, what was the real truth about the Prince of Carignano?

All the rest was a blind; it was the wish to have some damnatory evidence against Charles Albert, such as would for ever exclude him from the throne, that had induced the Emperor and his astute minister to make this final attempt.

‘Confalonieri need never go to Spielberg,’ said the Prince; ’let him think of his family, of his adored wife, of his own talents, of his future career, which was on the brink of being blotted out as completely as if he were dead!’ Confalonieri was worthy of his race, of his class, of himself; he stood firm, and next morning, almost with a sense of relief, he started for the living grave.

‘The struggle was decided,’ Prince Metternich had said in the course of the interview, ’and decided not only for our own, but for many generations.  Those who still hoped to the contrary were madmen.’