Only irresolute private words were heard from
the Pope. The Sanfedisti caused many letters
to be sent from Germany assuring him that a
schism in the Church would be the consequence
of any war between the Pope and emperor. At
last, not to the soldiers, but to the priests,
Pius the Ninth first announced the great
change in his policy. On the twenty-ninth of
May he read an encyclic letter to the cardinals
assembled in consistory, disowning General
Durando, and virtually declaring that upon the
path of reform he dared advance no more. From
that day Pius has been every inch a pope.

The people of Rome became angry, and their
anger was fanned by the Sanfedisti, who threw
among the crowd a rumour that in Friuli a
Roman soldier had been found hung on a tree,
with a paper fixed to his breast bearing the
words, " This is the treatment reserved for the
soldiers of Pio Nono." Italy had built hopes on
the Pope, which fell as their foundation slipped
from under them. During the last ten years,
she has very wisely been rebuilding those hopes
on a better basis.

While in Rome the Pope was reading that
encyclic letter, four or five thousand Tuscan
citizens and university lads untrained to arms,
led by "exceedingly erudite persons who had
nothing military about them save the honour,
the courage, and the dress, having also for their
artillery no more than three small cannon and a
howitzer, dragged to the spot by post-horses
and there left immovable, were defending an
important post at Curtatone against Radetzky,
who brought to the field twenty-eight Austrian
battalions, twelve squadrons of cavalry, fifty-
eight cannon, and five batteries of rockets.

"These boys," Radetzky said, " will make me
lose an entire day!" They did, indeed, stay the
advance of the Austrians long enough to enable
the army of Charles Albert to win, on the day
following the battle of Goito. It was
accounted glorious after long fighting to
overwhelm with five-and-thirty thousand trained
soldiers this handful of undisciplined young
patriots, who proved at this their Thermopylae
that there is in the mild Tuscans a soul of
manhood which three centuries of despotism could
not destroy.

But there was—there is not, but there was—
weakness of inexperience. Ten years ago the
first great want of Italy was half perceived, and
in Tuscany, as elsewhere, there was a faith put
in the words of the wilder sort of republicans,
which has now been thoroughly relinquished by
their deeds. They had their day, and Tuscans
know to their own profit what manner of day it
was. There were few there who understood that
everything lay in the issue of Charles Albert's
chivalrous encounter with the Austrian. The
republicans helped Austria to discomfit the Sardinian
king, because he was a king. They disdained
compromise with monarchy, even when it was
Italian; so they brought down again, the armed
heel of a stranger empire on the people's necks.

Napoleon Guerrazzi, a shrewd, honest, and
eloquent lawyer of Leghorn, although he had
the mob of his own town at his disposal, was
not elected by the Livornese as one of their four
deputies when, in June, 'forty-eight, the first
assembly of the Tuscan Chambers was to meet
at Florence. But after a few months, Leghorn—
a seaport swarming with porters, fishermen, and
mariners, all ignorant, and all shouting for the
unknown good which they called a republic—was
torn by civil war. The hope of his fellow-
citizens was in Guerrazzi, whom they sought in
Florence and brought to their rescue. By his
bold energy and eloquence, Leghorn was saved.

Guerrazzi, though a theoretical republican,
was a practical man, and when, a month afterwards,
the Archduke, unable to rule by the sole
ministry of Montanelli, joined to him the
obnoxious demagogue Guerrazzi, he found at the
first interview good reason to believe that
from the man he had most dreaded he would
get the soundest help. Italy was then longing
for a federal Italian constituency, the demand
for it was strong, and Tuscany was eager
to choose deputies who might perhaps have to
decree the extinguishing of the archduchy.
Montanelli shared this eagerness, but Guerrazzi
fairly and boldly met it as a difficulty between
sovereign and people. His concession that
there should be nothing said or done by
Tuscany in prejudice of Rome, even satisfied
the Archduke; who gave way to the popular
demand. Thereupon the people hurried off
as usual to amuse themselves with a Te Deum,
of which the archbishop was determined that
for once they should be disappointed. They
found the vast church empty, the lights out, and
the altars stripped. The archbishop had left
his palace, and no priest was to be found. Nobody
then remembered that Radetzky was not beaten.

"Royal highness," wrote that general in
February, 'forty-nine, to Archduke Leopold,
"according to precise orders received from the
imperial government and from the emperor
our sovereign, it is gratifying to me to signify
to your imperial highness, that if you will in
all things, and through all things, conform to what
has been already announced to your highness by
the Aulic government, your highness need only
abandon your states on terra firma and place
yourself in safety at San Stefano; and I, as soon
as I have subdued the demagogues of Sardinia,
will fly to your aid with thirty thousand of my
brave troops, and will replace you on the throne
of your ancestors. If the courier, who will
give this present letter into your own hands,
brings back no answer, I shall consider the affair
as arranged." When this letter arrived, the
Archduke had already retired to Sienna, where he
was seen in bed, professing to be detained by
sickness, when messengers from his ministry
urged his return to Florence. Montanelli went
to reside near him, and his illness was believed
in. One morning Montanelli found his serene
highness up and well, and in very good humour.
To the question whether he had signed the law
for the assemblage of the Constituency, the
Archduke answered that he had hitherto been
too unwell, but that he would now do so without