“You are a fool, Gaetano.  What is a girl to a couple of hundred soldiers?  Besides, if you had held her tight she would not have got here in time to be killed.”

“Eh—­but a girl!  The other vagabonds at least, we have despatched in a good cause.  Viva la liberta!”

“Hush!  There are the gendarmes!  This way!”

So they disappeared into the darkness whence they had come.

It was not only in the Borgo Nuovo that there was confusion and consternation.  The first signal for the outbreak had been given in the Piazza Colonna, where bombs had been exploded.  Attacks were made upon the prisons by bands of those sinister-looking, unknown men, who for several days had been noticed in various parts of the city.  A compact mob invaded the capitol, armed with better weapons than mobs generally find ready to their hands.  At the Porta San Paolo, which was rightly judged to be one of the weakest points of the city, a furious attack was made from without by a band of Garibaldians who had crept up near the walls in various disguises during the last two days.  More than one of the barracks within the city were assaulted simultaneously, and for a short time companies of men paraded the streets, shouting their cries of “Viva Garibaldi, Viva la liberta!” A few cried “Viva Vittorio!” and “Viva l’Italia!” But a calm observer—­and there were many such in Rome that night—­could easily see that the demonstration was rather in favour of an anarchic republic than of the Italian monarchy.  On the whole, the population showed no sympathy with the insurrection.  It is enough to say that this tiny revolution broke out at dusk and was entirely quelled before nine o’clock of the same evening.  The attempts made were bold and desperate in many cases, but were supported by a small body of men only, the populace taking no active part in what was done.  Had a real sympathy existed between the lower classes of Romans and the Garibaldians the result could not have been doubtful, for the vigour and energy displayed by the rioters would inevitably have attracted any similarly disposed crowd to join in a fray, when the weight of a few hundreds more would have turned the scale at any point.  There was not a French soldier in the city at the time, and of the Zouaves and native troops a very large part were employed upon the frontier.  Rome was saved and restored to order by a handful of soldiers, who were obliged to act at many points simultaneously, and the insignificance of the original movement may be determined from this fact.

It is true that of the two infernal schemes, plotted at once to destroy the troops in a body and to strike terror into the inhabitants, one failed in part and the other altogether.  If the whole of the gunpowder which Giuseppe Monti and Gaetano Tognetti had placed in the mine under the Serristori barracks had exploded, instead of only one-third of the quantity, a considerable part of the Borgo Nuovo would have been destroyed;