The week passed somehow, unpleasantly enough for most of the persons concerned in this veracious history, but Saturday night came at last, and brought with it a series of events which modified the existing situation.  Gouache was on duty at the barracks when orders were received to the effect that the whole available force in Rome was to march soon after midnight.  His face brightened when he heard the news, although he realised that in a few hours he was to leave behind him all that he held most dear and to face death in a manner new to him, and by no means pleasant to most men.

Between two and three o’clock on Sunday morning Gouache found himself standing in the midst of a corps of fifteen hundred Zouaves, in almost total darkness and under a cold, drizzling November rain.  His teeth chattered and his wet hands seemed to freeze to the polished fittings of his rifle, and he had not the slightest doubt that every one of his comrades experienced the same unenviable sensations.  From time to time the clear voice of an officer was heard giving an order, and then the ranks closed up nearer, or executed a sidelong movement by which greater space was afforded to the other troops that constantly came up towards the Porta Pia.  There was little talking during an hour or more while the last preparations for the march were being made, though the men exchanged a few words from time to time in an undertone.  The splashing tramp of feet on the wet road was heard rapidly approaching every now and then, followed by a dead silence when the officers’ voices gave the order to halt.  Then a shuffling sound followed as the ranks moved into the exact places assigned to them.  Here and there a huge torch was blazing and spluttering in the fine rain, making the darkness around it seem only thicker by the contrast, but lighting up fragments of ancient masonry and gleaming upon little pools of water in the open spaces between the ranks.  It was a dismal night, and it was fortunate that the men who were to march were in good spirits and encouraged by the arrival of the French, who made the circuit of the city and were to join them upon the road in order to strike the final blow against Garibaldi and his volunteers.

The Zouaves were fifteen hundred, and there were about as many more of the native troops, making three thousand in all.  The French were two thousand.  The Garibaldians were, according to all accounts, not less than twelve thousand, and were known to be securely entrenched at Monte Rotondo and further protected by the strong outpost of Mentana, which lies nearly on the direct road from Rome to the former place.  Considering the relative positions of the two armies, the odds were enormously in favour of Garibaldi, and had he possessed a skill in generalship at all equal to his undoubted personal courage, he should have been able to drive the Pope’s forces back to the very gates of Rome.  He was, however, under a twofold disadvantage which more than counterbalanced