but, on receiving a strong protest from the Pope, he refused to do so on the ground that it would expose himself and his subjects to the terrors of ecclesiastical censure.  He still remained in Tuscany, near Viareggio, till he was informed that a band of Leghornese had set out with the intention of capturing his person.  Then he left for Gaeta on board the English ship Bull Dog. The republic had been already proclaimed at Florence, with Montanelli and Guerrazzi as its chief administrators.  It succeeded in pleasing no one.  Civil war was more than once at the threshhold of Florence, for the peasants rose in armed resistance to the new government.  In less than two months the restoration of the Grand.  Ducal authority was accomplished almost of itself.  Unfortunately, the Grand Duke who was to come back was not the same man as he who went away.  The air of Gaeta did its work.

CHAPTER VIII

AT BAY

1849

Novara—­Abdication of Charles Albert—­Brescia crushed—­French
Intervention—­The Fall of Rome—­The Fall of Venice.

In the spring of 1848, a date might be found when every Italian ruler except the Duke of Modena wore the appearance of a friend to freedom and independence.  In the spring of 1849 no Italian prince preserved that appearance except the King of Sardinia.  Many causes contributed to the elimination, but most of all the logic of events.  It was a case of the survival of the fittest.  What seemed a calamity was a step in advance.

Early in March, the Marquis Pallavicini, prisoner of Spielberg, had a long interview with Charles Albert.  They sat face to face talking over Italian matters, and the King said confidently that the army was now flourishing; if the die were cast anew, they would win.  At parting he embraced the Lombard patriot with the words:  ’Dear Pallavicini, how glad I am to have seen you again!  You and I had always the same thought; the independence of Italy was the first dream of my youth; it is my dream still, it will be till I die.’

Some characters grow small in misfortune, others grow great.  The terrible scene at the Palazzo Greppi, the charge of treason, the shouts of ‘death,’ had left only one trace on Charles Albert’s mind:  the burning desire to deliver his accusers.

The armistice was denounced on the 12th of March, a truce of eight days being allowed before the recommencement of hostilities.  There is such a thing in politics as necessary madness, and it may be doubted if the Sardinian war of 1849 was not this thing.  The programme of fare da se had now to be carried out in stern earnest.  Sardinia stood alone, neither from south of the Apennines nor from north of the Alps could help be hoped for.  France, which was meditating quite another sort of intervention, refused the loan even of a general.  ‘They were not going to offend Austria to please Piedmont,’