Of the nature of these contrivances Luigi had just learnt something.  He had heard Barto Rizzo called ‘The Miner’ and ‘The Great Cat,’ and he now comprehended a little of the quality of his employer.  He had entered a very different service from that of the Signor Antonio-Pericles, who paid him for nothing more than to keep eye on Vittoria, and recount her goings in and out; for what absolute object he was unaware, but that it was not for a political one he was certain.  “Cursed be the day when the lust of gold made me open my hand to Barto Rizzo!” he thought; and could only reflect that life is short and gold is sweet, and that he was in the claws of the Great Cat.  He had met Barto in a wine-shop.  He cursed the habit which led him to call at that shop; the thirst which tempted him to drink:  the ear which had been seduced to listen.  Yet as all his expenses had been paid in advance, and his reward at the instant of his application for it; and as the signorina and Barto were both good patriots, and he, Luigi, was a good patriot, what harm could be done to her?  Both she and Barto had stamped their different impressions on his waxen nature.  He reconciled his service to them separately by the exclamation that they were both good patriots.

The plot for the rising in Milan city was two months old.  It comprised some of the nobles of the city, and enjoyed the good wishes of the greater part of them, whose payment of fifty to sixty per cent to the Government on the revenue of their estates was sufficient reason for a desire to change masters, positively though they might detest Republicanism, and dread the shadow of anarchy.  These looked hopefully to Charles Albert.  Their motive was to rise, or to countenance a rising, and summon the ambitious Sardinian monarch with such assurances of devotion, that a Piedmontese army would be at the gates when the banner of Austria was in the dust.  Among the most active members of the prospectively insurgent aristocracy of Milan was Count Medole, a young nobleman of vast wealth and possessed of a reliance on his powers of mind that induced him to take a prominent part in the opening deliberations, and speedily necessitated his hire of the friendly offices of one who could supply him with facts, with suggestions, with counsel, with fortitude, with everything to strengthen his pretensions to the leadership, excepting money.  He discovered his man in Barto Rizzo, who quitted the ranks of the republican section to serve him, and wield a tool for his own party.  By the help of Agostino Balderini, Carlo Ammiani, and others, the aristocratic and the republican sections of the conspiracy were brought near enough together to permit of a common action between them, though the maintaining of such harmony demanded an extreme and tireless delicacy of management.  The presence of the Chief, whom we have seen on the Motterone, was claimed by other cities of Italy.  Unto him solely did Barto Rizzo yield thorough adhesion.