“We honor you, Germans! we pant to give you glorious evidence of this.  And, as a prelude to the friendly relations we hope to form with your governments, we seek to alleviate as much as possible the pains of captivity to some officers and soldiers belonging to various states of the Germanic Confederation, who fought in the Austrian army.  These we wish to send back to you, and are occupied by seeking the means to effect this purpose.  We honor you so much, that we believe you capable of preferring to the bonds of race and language the sacred titles of misfortune and of right.

“Ah! answer to our appeal, valiant, wise, and generous Germans!  Clasp the hand, which we offer you with the heart of a brother and friend; hasten to disavow every appearance of complicity with a government which the massacres of Galicia and Lombardy have blotted from the list of civilized and Christian governments.  It would be a beautiful thing for you to give this example, which will be new in history and worthy of these miraculous times,—­the example of a strong and generous people casting aside other sympathies, other interests, to answer the invitation of a regenerate people, to cheer it in its new career, obedient to the great principles of justice, of humanity, of civil and Christian brotherhood.”

“THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF MILAN TO THE NATIONS SUBJECT TO THE RULE OF THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA.

“From your lands have come three armies which have brought war into ours; your speech is spoken by those hostile bands who come to us with fire and sword; nevertheless we come to you as to brothers.

“The war which calls for our resistance is not your war; you are not our enemies:  you are only instruments in the hand of our foe, and this foe, brothers, is common to us all.

“Before God, before men, solemnly we declare it,—­our only enemy is the government of Austria.

“And that government which for so many years has labored to cancel, in the races it has subdued, every vestige of nationality, which takes no heed of their wants or prayers, bent only on serving miserable interests and more miserable pride, fomenting always antipathies conformably with the ancient maxim of tyrants, Divide and govern,—­this government has constituted itself the adversary of every generous thought, the ally and patron of all ignoble causes, the government declared by the whole civilized world paymaster of the executioners of Galicia.

“This government, after having pertinaciously resisted the legal expression of moderate desires,—­after having defied with ludicrous hauteur the opinion of Europe, has found itself in its metropolis too weak to resist an insurrection of students, and has yielded,—­has yielded, making an assignment on time, and throwing to you, brothers, as an alms-gift to the importunate beggar, the promise of institutions which, in these days, are held essential conditions of life for a civilized nation.