Oudinot formally disavowed all Lesseps’ proceedings from first to last, and announced, on the 1st of June, that he had orders to take Rome as soon as possible.  Out of regard, however, for the French residents, he would not begin the attack ’till the morning of Monday the 4th.’  Now, though no one knew it but the French general, that Monday morning began with Sunday’s dawn, when the French attacked Melara’s sleeping battalion at the Roman outposts.  It was easy for the French to drive back these 300 men, and to occupy the Villa Corsini (’Villa,’ in the Roman sense, means a garden) and the position dominating Porta San Pancrazio; but Galetti came up and retook them all, to lose them again by nine o’clock.  Then Garibaldi, who was ill, hurried to the scene from his sick-bed, and thrice that day he retook and thrice he lost the contested positions—­a brief statement, which represents prodigies of valour, and the oblation of as noble blood as ever watered the earth of Rome.  Melara, Masina, Daverio, Dandolo, Mameli:  every schoolboy would know these names if they belonged to ancient, not to modern, history.  Bright careers, full of promise, cut short; lives renounced, not only voluntarily, but with joy, and to what end?  Not for interest or fame—­not even in the hope of winning; but that, erect and crowned with the roses of martyrdom, Rome might send her dying salutation to the world.

At sunset the French had established their possession of all the points outside the Gate of San Pancrazio, except the Vascello, a villa which had been seized from their very teeth by Medici, who held it against all comers.  Monte Mario was also in their hands.

Mazzini, whose judgment was obscured by his attribution of the Italian policy of France to Louis Napoleon alone, hoped for a revolution in Paris, but Ledru Rollin’s attempt at agitation completely failed, and the country applauded its government now that the mask was thrown away.  The reasons for revolutions in Paris have always been the same; they have to do with something else than the garrotting of sister-republics.

Oudinot tightened his cordon; on the 12th of June he invited the city to capitulate.  The answer was a refusal; so, with the aid of his excellent artillery, he crept on, his passage contested at each step, but not arrested, till, on the 27th, the Villa Savorelli, Garibaldi’s headquarters, fell into the hands of the enemy, and, on the night of the 29th, the French were within the city walls.  St Peter’s day is the great feast of Rome, and this time, as usual, the cupola of St Peter’s was illuminated, the Italian flag flying from the highest point.  The thunderstorm, which proverbially accompanies the feast, raged during the night; the French shells flew in all directions; the fight raged fiercer than the storm; Medici held out among the crumbling walls of the Vascello, which had been bombarded for a week; the heroic Manara fell fighting at Villa Spada; Garibaldi, descending