into the melee, dealt blows right and left:  he seemed possessed by some supernatural power.  Those around him say that it is impossible that he would have much longer escaped death, but suddenly a message came summoning him to the Assembly—­it saved his life.  When he appeared at the door of the Chamber, the deputies rose and burst into wild applause.  He seemed puzzled, but, looking down upon himself, he read the explanation; he was covered with blood, his clothes were honeycombed by balls and bayonet thrusts, his sabre was so bent with striking that it would not go more than half into its sheath.

What the Assembly wanted to know was whether the defence could be prolonged; Garibaldi had only to say that it could not.  They voted, therefore, the following decree:  ’In the name of God and of the People:  the Roman Constituent Assembly discontinues a defence which has become impossible, and remains at its post.’  At its post it remained till the French soldiers invaded the Capitol, where it sat, when, yielding to brute force, the deputies dispersed.

Mazzini, who would have resisted still, when all resistance was impossible, wandered openly about the city like a man in a dream.  He felt as though he were looking on at the funeral of his best-beloved.  How it was that he was not killed or arrested is a mystery.  At the end of a week his friends induced him to leave Rome with an English passport.

On the 2nd of July, before the French made their official entry, Garibaldi called his soldiers together in the square of the Vatican, and told them that he was going to seek some field where the foreigner could still be fought.  Who would might follow him; ’I cannot offer you honours or pay; I offer you hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles, death.’

Three thousand followed him.  Beside her husband rode Anita; not even for the sake of the child soon to come would she stay behind in safety.  Ugo Bassi was there; Anghiar was dead, Mameli was dying in a hospital, but there was ‘the partisan or brigand Forbes,’ as he was described in a letter of the Austrian general D’Aspre to the French general Oudinot, with a good handful of Garibaldi’s best surviving officers.  Ciceruacchio came with his two sons, and offered himself as guide.  No one knew what the plan was, or if there was one.  Like knights of old in search of adventures, they set out in search of their country’s foes.  It was the last desperate venture of men who did not know how to yield.

After wandering hither and thither, and suffering severe hardships, the column reached the republic of San Marino.  The brave hospitality of that Rock of freedom prevented Garibaldi from falling into the clutches of the Austrians, who surrounded the republic.  He treated with the Regent for the immunity of his followers, who had laid down their arms; and, in the night, he himself escaped with Anita, Ugo Bassi, Forbes, Ciceruacchio and a few others.  They hoped to take their swords to Venice, but a storm