But wounds and assaults only fire more and more the courage of her defenders.  They feel the justice of their cause, and the peculiar iniquity of this aggression.  In proportion as there seems little aid to be hoped from man, they seem to claim it from God.  The noblest sentiments are heard from every lip, and, thus far, their acts amply correspond.

On the eve of the bombardment one or two officers went round with a fine band.  It played on the piazzas the Marseillaise and Roman marches; and when the people were thus assembled, they were told of the proclamation, and asked how they felt.  Many shouted loudly, Guerra!  Viva la Republica Romana! Afterward, bands of young men went round singing the chorus,

  “Vogliamo sempre quella,
  Vogliamo Liberta.”

("We want always one thing; we want liberty.”) Guitars played, and some danced.  When the bombs began to come, one of the Trasteverini, those noble images of the old Roman race, redeemed her claim to that descent by seizing a bomb and extinguishing the match.  She received a medal and a reward in money.  A soldier did the same thing at Palazza Spada, where is the statue of Pompey, at whose base great Caesar fell.  He was promoted.  Immediately the people were seized with emulation; armed with pans of wet clay, they ran wherever the bombs fell, to extinguish them.  Women collect the balls from the hostile cannon, and carry them to ours.  As thus very little injury has been done to life, the people cry, “Madonna protects us against the bombs; she wills not that Rome should be destroyed.”

Meanwhile many poor people are driven from their homes, and provisions are growing very dear.  The heats are now terrible for us, and must be far more so for the French.  It is said a vast number are ill of fever; indeed, it cannot be otherwise.  Oudinot himself has it, and perhaps this is one explanation of the mixture of violence and weakness in his actions.

He must be deeply ashamed at the poor result of his bad acts,—­that at the end of two weeks and so much bravado, he has done nothing to Rome, unless intercept provisions, kill some of her brave youth, and injure churches, which should be sacred to him as to us.  St. Maria Trastevere, that ancient church, so full of precious remains, and which had an air of mild repose more beautiful than almost any other, is said to have suffered particularly.

As to the men who die, I share the impassioned sorrow of the Triumvirs.  “O Frenchmen!” they wrote, “could you know what men you destroy! They are no mercenaries, like those who fill your ranks, but the flower of the Italian youth, and the noblest among the aged.  When you shall know of what minds you have robbed the world, how ought you to repent and mourn!”

This is especially true of the Emigrant and Garibaldi legions.  The misfortunes of Northern and Southern Italy, the conscription which compels to the service of tyranny those who remain, has driven from the kingdom of Naples and from Lombardy all the brave and noble youth.  Many are in Venice or Rome, the forlorn hope of Italy.  Radetzky, every day more cruel, now impresses aged men and the fathers of large families.  He carries them with him in chains, determined, if he cannot have good troops to send into Hungary, at least to revenge himself on the unhappy Lombards.