Far, indeed, was Austria the victorious in August from Austria the humiliated in May.  On the 9th of August, Hess and Salasco signed the armistice between the lately contending Powers.  The next day the Emperor Ferdinand returned to his capital, from which he had been chased in the spring.  He might well congratulate himself upon the marvellous recovery of his empire; but the revolution in Hungary was yet to be quelled, and another rising at Vienna in October tried his nerves, which were never of the strongest.  On the 2nd of December he abdicated in favour of his young nephew, the Archduke Francis Joseph, who had been brought face to face more than once on the Mincio with the Duke of Savoy, whom he rivalled in personal courage.

On the 10th of December, another event occurred which placed a new piece on the European chess-board:  Louis Napoleon was elected to the Presidency of the French Republic.

CHAPTER VII

THE DOWNFALL OF THRONES

1848-1849

Garibaldi Arrives—­Venice under Manin—­The Dissolution of the Temporal
Power—­Republics at Rome and Florence.

While the remnant of the Piedmontese army recrossed the bridge over the Ticino at Pavia, crushed, though not though want of valour, outraged in the person of its King, surely the saddest vanquished host that ever retraced in sorrow the path it had traced in the wildest joy, a few thousand volunteers in Lombardy still refused to lay down their arms or to recognise that, after the capitulation of Milan, all was lost.  Valueless as a fact, their defiance of Austria had value as a prophecy, and its prophetic aspect comes more clearly into view when it is seen that the leader of the little band was Garibaldi, while its standard-bearer was Mazzini.  These two had lately met for the first time since 1833, when Garibaldi, or ‘Borel,’ as he was called in the ranks of ‘Young Italy,’ went to Marseilles to make the acquaintance of the head and brain of the society which he had joined, as has been mentioned, on the banks of the Black Sea.

‘When I was young and had only aspirations,’ said Garibaldi in London in April 1864, ’I sought out a man who could give me counsel and guide my youthful years; I sought him as the thirsty man seeks water.  This man I found; he alone kept alive the sacred fire, he alone watched while all the world slept; he has always remained my friend, full of love for his country, full of devotion for the cause of freedom:  this man is Joseph Mazzini.’

The words spoken then—­when the younger patriot was the chosen hero of the greatest of free nations, while the elder, still misunderstood by almost all, was shunned and calumniated, and even called ’the worst enemy of Italy’—­gave one fresh proof, had one been wanting, that, though there have been more flawless characters than Garibaldi, never in a human breast beat a more generous heart.  Politically, there was nearly as much divergence between Mazzini and Garibaldi as between Mazzini and Cavour; the master thought the pupil lacked ideality, the pupil thought the master lacked practicalness; but they were at one in the love of their land and in the desire to serve her.