This second attempt to raise an insurrection ended in the entire Buonaparte family being driven by the wrathful Corsicans to France, which henceforth was their adopted country. The Revolution blazed forth and King and Queen went to the scaffold, while treason that might, in time of peace, have served to send an {172} officer to death, proved a stepping-stone to high rank and promotion. It was a civil war, and in it Napoleon was first to show his extraordinary skill in military tactics. He had command of the artillery besieging Toulon in 1793 and was marked as a man of merit, receiving the command of a brigade and passing as a general of artillery into the foreign war which Republican France waged against all Europe.

The command of the army of Italy was offered Napoleon by Barras, who was one of the new Directory formed to rule the Republic. A rich wife seemed essential for a poor young man with boundless ambitions just unfolding. Barras had taken up the Corsican, and arranged an introduction for him to Josephine Beauharnais, the beautiful widow of a noble who had been a victim of the Reign of Terror. He had previously made the acquaintance of Josephine's young son Eugene, when the boy came to ask that his father's sword might be restored to him.

Josephine pleased the suitor by her amiability, and was attracted in turn by his ardent nature. She was in a position to advance his interests through her intimacy with Barras, who promised that Napoleon should hold a great position in the army if she became his wife. She married Napoleon in March 1796, undaunted by the prediction: "You will be a queen and yet you will not sit on a throne." Napoleon's career may then be said to have begun in earnest. It was the dawn of a new age in Europe, where France stood forth as a predominant power. Austria was against her as the avenger of Marie Antoinette, France's ill-fated Queen, who had been Maria Theresa's daughter. England and Russia were in alliance, though Russia was an uncertain and disloyal ally.

{173}

Want of money might have daunted one less eager for success than the young Napoleon. He was, however, planning a campaign in Italy as an indirect means of attacking Austria. He addressed his soldiers boldly, promising to lead them into the most fruitful plains in the world. "Rich provinces, great cities will be in your power," he assured them. "There you will find honour, fame, and wealth." His first success was notable, but it did not satisfy the inordinate craving of his nature. "In our days," he told Marmont, "no one has conceived anything great; it falls to me to give the example."

From the outset he looked upon himself as a general independent of the Republic. He was rich in booty, and could pay his men without appealing to the well-nigh exhausted public funds. Silently, he pursued his own policy in war, and that was very different from the policy of any general who had gone before him. He treated with the Pope as a great prince might have treated, offering protection to persecuted priests who were marked out by the Directory as their enemies. He seized property everywhere, scorning to observe neutrality. Forgetting his Italian blood, he carried off many pictures and statues from the Italian galleries that they might be sent to France. He showed now his audacity and the amazing energy of his plans of conquest. The effect of the horror and disorders of Revolutionary wars had been to deprive him of all scruples. He despised a Republic, and despised the French nation as unfit for Republicanism. "A republic of thirty millions of people!" he exclaimed as he conquered Italy, "with our morals, our vices! How is such a thing possible? The nation wants a chief, a chief covered with glory, not theories of {174} government, phrases, ideological essays, that the French do not understand. They want some playthings; that will be enough; they will play with them and let themselves be led, always supposing they are cleverly prevented from seeing the goal toward which they are moving." But the wily Corsican did not often speak so plainly! Aiming at imperial power, he was careful to dissimulate his intentions since the army supporting him was Republican in sympathy.

Napoleon had achieved the conquest of Italy when only twenty-seven. In 1796 he entered Milan amid the acclamations of the people, his troops passing beneath a triumphal arch. The Italians from that day adopted his tricolour ensign.

The Directory gave the conqueror the command of the army which was to be used against England. The old desperate rivalry had broken out again now that the French saw a chance of regaining power in India. It was Napoleon's purpose to wage war in Egypt, and he needed much money for his campaign in a distant country. During the conquest of Italy he had managed to secure money from the Papal chests and he could rely, too, on the vast spoil taken from Berne when the old constitution of the Swiss was overthrown and a new Republic founded. He took Malta, "the strongest place in Europe," and proceeded to occupy Alexandria in 1798. In the following February he marched on Cairo.

England's supremacy at sea destroyed the complete success of the plans which Napoleon was forming. He had never thought seriously of the English admiral Nelson till his own fleet was shattered by him in a naval engagement at Aboukir. After that, he understood that he had to reckon with a powerful enemy.

{175}

The Turks had decided to anticipate Napoleon's plan for securing Greece her freedom by preparing a vast army in Syria. The French took the town of Jaffa by assault, but had to retire from the siege of Acre. The expedition was not therefore a success, though Napoleon won a victory over the Turkish army at Aboukir. The English triumphed in Egypt and were fortunate enough to win back Malta, which excluded France from the Mediterranean. Napoleon eluded with difficulty the English cruisers and returned to France, where he rapidly rose to power, receiving, after a kind of revolution, the title of First Consul. He was to hold office for ten years and receive a salary of half a million francs. In reality, a strong monarchy had been created. The people of France, however, still fancied themselves a free Republic.

War was declared on France by Austria and England in 1800, and the First Consul saw himself raised to the pinnacle of military glory. He defeated the Austrians at Marengo, while his only rival, Moreau, won the great battle of Hohenlinden. At Marengo, the general whom Napoleon praised above all others fell dead on the field of battle. The conqueror himself mourned Desaix most bitterly, since "he loved glory for glory's sake and France above everything." But "Alas! it is not permitted to weep," Napoleon said, overcoming the weakness as he judged it. He had done now with wars waged on a small scale, and would give Europe a time of peace before venturing on vaster enterprises. The victory of Marengo on June 14th, 1800, wrested Italy again from Austria, who had regained possession and power in the peninsula. It also saved France from invasion. Austria was obliged to accept an armistice, a humiliation she had not {176} foreseen when she arrayed her mighty armies against the First Consul. Napoleon gloried in this success, proposing to Rouget de Lisle, the writer of the Marseillaise, that a battle-hymn should commemorate the coming of peace with victory.

The Treaty of Luneville, 1801, settled Continental strife so effectually that Napoleon was free to attend to the internal affairs of the French Republic. The Catholic Church was restored by the Concordat, but made to depend on the new ruler instead of the Bourbon party. The Treaty of Amiens in 1802 provided for a truce to the hostilities of France and England.

With the world at peace, the Consulate had leisured to reconstruct the constitution. The capability of Napoleon ensured the successful performance of this mighty task. He was bent on giving a firm government to France since this would help him to reach the height of his ambitions. He drew up the famous Civil Code on which the future laws were based, and restored the ancient University of France. Financial reforms led to the establishment of the Bank of France, and Napoleon's belief that merit should be recognized publicly to the enrolment of distinguished men in a Legion of Honour.

The remarkable vigour and intelligence of this military leader was displayed in the reforms he made where all had been confusion. France was weary of the republican government which had brought her to the verge of bankruptcy and ruin, and inclined to look favourably on the idea of a monarchy.

Napoleon determined that this should be the monarchy of a Buonaparte, not that of a Bourbon. The Church had ceased to support the claims of Louis XVI's brother. Napoleon had won the noblesse, too, {177} by his feats of arms, and the peacemaker's decrees had reconciled the foreign cabinets. It ended, as the prudent had foreseen, in the First Consul choosing for himself the old military title of Emperor.

His coronation on December 2nd, 1804, was a ceremony of magnificence, unequalled since the fall of the majestic Bourbons. Napoleon placed the sacred diadem on his own head and then on the head of Josephine, who knelt to receive it. His aspect was gloomy as he received this symbol of successful ambition, for the mass of the people was silent and he was uneasy at the usurpation of a privilege which was not his birthright. The authority of the Pope had confirmed his audacious action, but he was afraid of the attitude of his army. "The greatest man in the world" Kleber had proclaimed him, after the crushing of the Turks at Aboukir in Egypt. There was work to do before he reached the summit whence he might justly claim such admiration. He found court life at St Cloud very wearisome after the peace of his residence at Malmaison.

"I have not a moment to myself, I ought to have been the wife of a humble cottager," Josephine wrote in a fit of impatience at the restraints imposed upon an Empress. But she clung to the title desperately when she knew that it would be taken from her. She had been Napoleon's wife for fourteen years, but no heir had been born to inherit the power and to continue the dynasty which he hoped to found. She was divorced in 1809, when he married Marie Louise of Austria.

Peace could not last with Napoleon upon the throne of France, determined as he was in his resolution to break the supremacy of the foe across the Channel. {178} He had not forgotten Egypt and his failure in the Mediterranean. He resolved to crush the English fleet by a union of the fleets of Europe. He was busied with daring projects to invade England from Boulogne. The distance by sea was so short that panic seized the island-folk, who had listened to wild stories about the "Corsican ogre." Nelson was the hope of the nation in the year of danger, 1805, when the English fleet gained the glorious victory of Trafalgar and saved England from the dreaded invasion. But the hero of Trafalgar met his death in the hour of success, and, before the year closed, Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz destroyed the coalition led by the Austrian Emperor and the Tsar and caused a whole continent to tremble before the conqueror. The news of this battle, indeed, hastened the death of Pitt, the English minister, who had struggled nobly against the aggrandisement of France. He knew that the French Empire would rise to the height of fame, and that the coalition of Russia, Prussia, and Austria would fall disastrously.

"The Prussians wish to receive a lesson," Napoleon declared, flushed by the magnificence of his late efforts. He defeated them at Jena and Auerstadt, and entered Berlin to take the sword and sash of Frederick the Great as well as the Prussian standards. He did honour to that illustrious Emperor by forbidding the passage of the colours and eagles over the place where Frederick reposed, and he declared himself satisfied with Frederick's personal belongings as conferring more honour than any other treasures.

By the Treaty of Tilsit, concluded with Alexander of Russia on a raft upon the River Niemen, Prussia suffered new humiliations. The proud creation of Frederick's military genius had vanished. There was {179} even undue haste to give up fortresses to the conqueror. The country was partitioned between Russia, Saxony, and Westphalia, created for the rule of Jerome Buonaparte, Napoleon's younger brother. He set up kings now with the ease of a born autocrat. His brother Joseph became King of Naples, and his brother Louis King of Holland.

A new nobility sprang up, for honours must be equally showered on the great generals who had helped to win his victories. The new Emperor was profuse in favour, not believing in disinterested affection. He paid handsomely for the exercise of the humours, known as his "vivacites," entering in a private book such items as "Fifteen napoleons to Menneval for a box on the ear, a war-horse to my aide-de-camp Mouton for a kick, fifteen hundred arpens in the imperial forests to Bassano for having dragged him round my room by the hair."

These rewards drained the empire and provided a grievance against the Corsican adventurer who had dared to place all Europe under the rule of Buonaparte. The family did not bear their elevation humbly, but demanded ever higher rank and office. Joseph was raised to the exalted state of King of Spain after the lawful king had been expelled by violence. The patriotism of the Spanish awoke and found an echo in the neighbouring kingdom of Portugal. Napoleon was obliged to send his best armies to the Peninsula where the English hero, Sir Arthur Wellesley, was pushing his way steadily toward the Pyrenees and the French frontier.

The expedition to Russia had been partly provoked by the Emperor's marriage with Marie Louise of Austria. There had been talk of a marriage between Napoleon and the Tsar's sister. Then the {180} arrangement of Tilsit had become no longer necessary after the humbling of Austria. Napoleon wished to throw off his ally, Alexander, and was ready to use as a pretext for war Russia's refusal to adopt his "continental system" fully. This system, designed to crush the commercial supremacy of England by forbidding other countries to trade with her, was thus, as events were to prove, the cause of Napoleon's own downfall.

The enormous French army made its way to Russia and entered Moscow, the ancient capital, which the inhabitants burned and deserted. In the army's retreat from the city in the depth of winter, thousands died of cold and hunger, and 30,000 men had already fallen in the fruitless victory at Borodino.

Napoleon was nearing his downfall as he struggled across the continent in the dreadful march which reduced an army of a quarter of a million men to not more than twelve thousand. He had to meet another failure and the results of a destructive imperial policy in 1814, when he was defeated at Leipzig by Austria, Russia, and Prussia, who combined most desperately against him. The Allies issued at Frankfort their famous manifesto "Peace with France but war against the Empire." They compelled Napoleon to abdicate, and restored the Bourbon line. A court was formed for Louis XVIII at the Tuileries, while Napoleon was sent to Elba.

Louis XVI's brother, the Count of Artois, came back, still admired by the faded beauties of the Restoration. The pathetic figure of Louis XVI's daughter, the Duchess of Angouleme, was seen amid the forced gaieties of the new regime, and Madame de Staeel haunted the court of Louis XVIII, forgetting her late revolutionary sentiments.

{181}

Napoleon grew very weary of his inaction on the isle of Elba. He had spent all his life in military pursuits and missed the companionship of soldiers. He thought with regret of his old veterans when he welcomed the guards sent to him. Perhaps he hoped for the arrival of his wife, too, as he paced up and down the narrow walk by the sea where he took exercise daily. But Marie Louise returned to her own country.

Napoleon found some scope for his activity in the government of the island, and gave audiences regularly to the people. He might seem to have lost ambition as he read in his library or played with a tame monkey of which he made a pet, but a scheme of great audacity was forming in his mind. He resolved to go back to France once more and appeal to the armies to restore him.

The Bourbons had never become popular again with the nation which was inspired with the lust for military successes. The life in the Tuileries seemed empty and frivolous, wanting in great figures. There was little resistance when the news came that Napoleon had landed and put himself at the head of the troops at Grenoble.

He had appealed to the ancient spirit of the South which had risen before in the cause of liberty. Feudalism and the oppression of the peasants would return under the rule of the Bourbons, he assured them. They began to look upon the abdicated Emperor as the Angel of Deliverance. The people of Lyons were equally enthusiastic, winning warmer words than generally fell from the lips of Napoleon. "I love you," he cried, and bore them with him to the capital. He entered the Tuileries at night, and again the eagle of the Empire flew from steeple to steeple on every church of Paris.

{182}

The Hundred Days elapsed between the liberation from the Bourbons and Napoleon's last struggle for supremacy. The King made a feeble effort against the Emperor. It was, however, the united armies of England and Prussia that met the French on the field of Waterloo in 1815. From March 13th to June 22nd Napoleon had had time to realize the might of Wellesley, now Duke of Wellington. The splendid powers of the once indefatigable French general were declining. Napoleon, who had not been wont to take advice, now asked the opinions of others. The dictator, so rapid in coming to a decision, hesitated in the hour of peril. He was defeated at Waterloo on June 18th, 1815, by Bluecher and Wellington together. The battle raged from the middle of morning to eight o'clock in the evening and ended in the rout of the French troops. The Emperor performed a second time the ceremony of abdication, and, his terrible will being broken, surrendered on board the Bellerophon to the English.

The English Government feared a second return like the triumphant flight from Elba. No enemy had ever been so terrible to England as Napoleon. He must be removed altogether from the continent of Europe. St Helena was chosen as the place of imprisonment, and Sir Hudson Lowe put over him as, in some sort, a gaoler. A certain amount of personal freedom was accorded, but the captive on the lonely rock did not live to regain liberty. He died in 1821 on a day of stormy weather, uttering tete d'armee in the last moments of delirium.



{183}

Chapter XVI

"God and the People"

The diplomatists who assembled at the Congress of Vienna to settle the affairs of Europe, so strangely disturbed by the vehement career of that soldier-genius, Napoleon, had it in their minds to restore as far as possible the older forms of government.

Italy was restless, unwilling to give up the patriotic dreams inspired by the conqueror. The people saw with dismay that the hope of unity was over since the peninsula, divided into four states, was parcelled out again and placed under the hated yoke of Austria. Soldiers from Piedmont and Lombardy, from Venice and Naples, Parma and Modena, had fought side by side, sharing the glory of a military despot and willing to endure a tyranny that gave them a firm administration and a share of justice. They saw that prosperity for their land would follow the more regular taxation and the abolition of the social privileges oppressive to the peasants. They looked forward to increase of trade as roads were made and bridges built, and they welcomed the chance of education and the preparation for a national life. Napoleon had always held before them the picture of a great Italian State, freed from foreign princes and realizing the promise of the famous Middle Ages.

{184}

Yet Napoleon had done nothing to forward the cause of Italian freedom before his final exile. The Italians would have made Eugene Beauharnais king, of a united Italy, but Eugene was loyal to the stepfather who had placed under his power the territory lying between the Alps and the centre of the peninsula. Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law, would have grasped the sceptre, for he was devoured by overwhelming ambition. He owed his rapid advance from obscurity to the position of a general to the Corsican, whose own career had led him to help men to rise by force of merit. Murat bore a part in the struggle for Italy when the cry was ever Liberty. A new spirit had come upon the indolent inheritors of an ancient name. They were burning to achieve the freedom of Italy, and hearkened only to the voice that offered independence.

Prince Metternich, the absolute ruler of Austria, set aside the conflicting claims, and parcelled out the states among petty rulers all looking to him for political guidance. Italy was "only a geographical expression," he remarked with satisfaction. Cadets of the Austrian house held Tuscany and Modena, and Marie Louise, the ex-empress, was installed at Parma. Pius VII took up the papal domain in Central Italy with firmer grasp. Francis II, Emperor of Austria, seized Venice and Lombardy, while a Bourbon, in the person of Ferdinand I, received Naples and Sicily, a much disputed heritage. Victor Emmanuel, King of Sardinia, received also the Duchies of Savoy and Piedmont. San Marino was a republic still, standing solitary and mournful upon the waters of the Adriatic. Italy was divided state from state, as in the medieval times, but now, alas! each state could not boast free government.

{185}

Italians, eating the bread of slaves, felt that they were in bondage to Vienna. Metternich had determined they should know no master but himself, and all attempts to rebel were closely watched by spies. The police force allowed nothing to be printed or spoken against the government that was strong to condemn disorder. There were ardent souls longing to fight for the cause of Italy and Liberty. There were secret societies resolving desperate measures. There was discontent everywhere to war with Metternich's distrust of social progress.

The sufferings of rebel leaders moved the compassion of Giuseppe Mazzini, the son of a clever physician in the town of Genoa. He was only a boy when he was accosted by a refugee, whose wild countenance told a story of cruelty and oppression. From that moment, he realized the degradation of Italy and chose the colour of mourning for his clothes; he began to study the heroic struggles which had made martyrs of his countrymen in late years, and he began to form visionary projects which led him from the study of literature—his first sacrifice. He had aspired to a literary career, and renounced it to throw himself into the duties he owed to countrymen and country.

In 1827, Mazzini joined the Carbonari, or Charcoalmen, a society which worked in different countries with one aim—opposition to the despot and the legitimist. The young man of twenty-two was impressed, no doubt, by the solemn oath of initiation which he had to take over a bared dagger, but he soon had to acknowledge that the efforts of the Carbonari were doomed to dismal failure. Membership was confined too much to the professional class, and there were too few appeals to the youth of Italy. Treachery was {186} rife among the different sections of the wide-spreading organization. It was easy for a man to be condemned on vague suspicions. When Mazzini was arrested, he had to be acquitted of the charge of conspiracy because it was impossible to find two witnesses, but general disapproval was expressed of his mode of life. The governor of Genoa spoke very harshly of the student's habit of walking about at night in thoughtful silence. "What on earth has he, at his age, to think about?" he demanded angrily. "We don't like young people thinking without our knowing the subjects of their thoughts."

The "glorious days of July," 1830, freed the French from a monarchy which threatened liberal principles, and roused the discontented in other countries to make fresh efforts for freedom. Certain ordinances, published on July 25th by the French Ministry, suspended the freedom of the press, altered the law of election to the Chambers of Deputies, and suppressed a number of Liberal journals. Paris rose to resist, and on July 28th, men of the Faubourg St Antoine took possession of the Hotel de Ville, hoisting the tricolour flag again. Charles X was deposed in favour of Louis Philippe, the Citizen-King, who was a son of that Duke of Orleans once known as Philippe Equality. "A popular throne with republican institutions" thus replaced the absolute monarchy of the Bourbons. There was an eager belief in other lands that the new King of France would support attempts to abolish tyranny, but Louis Philippe was afraid of losing power, and in Italy an insurrection in favour of the new freedom was overawed by an army sent from Austria. The time was not yet come for the blow to be struck which would fulfil the object of the {187} Carbonari by driving every Austrian from their country.

Mazzini passed into exile, realizing that there had been some fatal defect in the organization of a society whose attempts met with such failure. He was confirmed in his belief that the youth of Italy must be roused and educated to win their own emancipation. "Youth lives on freedom," he said, "grows great in enthusiasm and faith." Then he made his appeal for the enrolment of these untried heroes. "Consecrate them with a lofty mission; influence them with emulation and praise; spread through their ranks the word of fire, the word of inspiration; speak to them of country, of glory, of power, of great memories." So he recalled the past to them, and the genius which had dazzled the world as it rose from the land of strange passion and strange beauty. Dante was more than a poet to him. He had felt the same love of unity, had looked to the future and seen the day when the bond-slave should shake off the yoke and declare a national unity.

The young Italians rallied round the standard of the patriot, whose words lit in them the spark of sacrifice. They received his adjurations gladly, promising to obey them. He pointed out a thorny road, but the reward was at the end, the illumination of the soul which crowns each great endeavour. Self had to be forgotten and family ties broken if they held back from the claims of country. Mazzini thought the family sacred, but he bade parents give up their sons in time of national danger. It was the duty of every father to fit his children to be citizens. Humanity made demands which some could only satisfy by submitting to long martyrdom.

{188}

Mazzini himself had parted from the Genoese home, which was very desolate without the beautiful son of such brilliant promise. He dwelt in miserable solitude, unable to marry the woman he loved because an exile could not offer to share his hearth with any. He felt every pang of desolation, but he would never return to easy acceptance of an evil system. He asked all from his followers and he gave all, declaring that it was necessary to make the choice between good and evil.

The work that was to create a mighty revolution began in a small room at Marseilles. Austria would not give up her hold on Italy unless force expelled her from the country. There must be war and there must be soldiers trained to fight together. It seemed a hopeless enterprise for a few young men of very moderate means and ability, but young Italy grew and the past acquiescence could never be recovered. Mazzini was light of heart as he wrote and printed, infecting his companions with the vivacity of his spirit. He wore black still, but his cloak was of rich Genoese velvet. The wide "Republican" hat did not conceal the long black curling hair that shaded features of almost perfect regularity. His dark eyes, gaily flashing, drew the doubting toward confidence and strengthened those who already shared a like ideal. He was a leader by nature and would work indefatigably, sharing generously the portion that was never plenteous.

Political pamphlets, written by an unwearied pen, were sent throughout Italy by very strange devices. State was barred from state by many trade hindrances that prevented literature from circulating, and freedom of the press had been refused by Napoleon. It was necessary for conspirators to have their own printing {189} press, and conceal their contraband goods in barrels of pitch and in packets of sausages!

At Genoa, all classes were represented in the Young Italy which displaced the worn-out Carbonari. There were seamen and artisans on the list, and Garibaldi, the gallant captain of the mercantile marine, swore devotion to the cause of freedom. He had already won the hearts of every sailor in his crew, and made a name by writing excellent verses.

Mazzini looked to Piedmont, the State of military traditions, for aid in the struggle that should make the Alps the boundary of a new Italian nation. He wrote to Charles Albert, who professed liberal opinions, beseeching him to place himself at the head of the new party. "Unite on your flag, Union, Liberty, and Independence!" he entreated. "Free Italy from the barbarian, build up the future, be the Napoleon of Italian freedom. Your safety lies in the sword's point; draw it, and throw away the scabbard. But remember if you do it not, others will do it without you and against you."

Thousands flocked to join the new association, which began to rouse the fears of mighty governments. A military conspiracy was discovered, into which many non-commissioned officers had entered. Humble sergeants were tried by court-martial, tortured to betray their confederates, and sentenced to death, giving the glory of martyrdom to the cause of Young Italy.

Mazzini lost the friend of his youth, Jacopo Ruffini, and the loss bowed him with a sense of calamity too heavy to be borne. He had to remind himself that sacrifice was needful, and advance the preparations for a new attack under General Ramolino, who had {190} served Napoleon. He was in exile at Geneva, and chose Savoy as the base of operations. The whole attempt failed miserably, and hardly a shot was fired.

Even the refuge in Switzerland was lost after this rising. He fled from house to house, hunted and despairing with the curses of former allies in his ears now that he had brought distress upon them. He could not even get books as a solace for his weary mind, and clothes and money were difficult to obtain since his friends knew how importunate was Young Italy in demands, and how easily he yielded to the beggar. Bitterness came to him, threatening to mar his fine nature and depriving him of courage. Italy had sunk into apathy again, and he knew not how to rouse her. He bowed his head and asked pardon of God because he had dared to sacrifice in that last effort the lives of many others.

Mazzini rose again, resolved to do without friends and kindred, if duty should forbid those consolations. He thought of the lives of Juvenal, urging the Roman to ask for "the soul that has no fear of death and that endures life's pain and labour calmly." He gave up dreams of love and ambition for himself, feeling that the only way for Italy to succeed was to place religion before politics. The eighteenth century had rebelled for rights and selfish interests, and the nineteenth century was preparing to follow the same teaching. Rights would not help to create the ideal government of Mazzini. Men fought for the right to worship, and sometimes cared not to use the privilege when they had obtained it. Men demanded votes and sold them, after making an heroic struggle.

In 1837, London received the exiles who could find no welcome elsewhere. The fog and squalor of the {191} city offered a dreary prospect to patriots from a land of sun and colour. Poverty cut them off from companionship with their equals. Mazzini was content to live on rice and potatoes, but the brothers Ruffini had moments of reaction. The joint household suffered from an invasion of needy exiles. There were quarrels and visits to the pawnshops. Debt and the difficulty of earning money added a sordid element.

Mazzini made some friends when the Ruffinis left England. He knew Carlyle, the great historian, and visited his house frequently. The two men differed on many points, but "served the same god" in essentials. Carlyle had an admiration for the despot, while the Italian loathed tyranny. There was hot debate in the drawing-room where the exile talked of freedom, blissfully unconscious that his wet boots were spoiling his host's carpet! There were sublime discussions of the seer Dante, after which Carlyle would dismiss his guest in haste because he longed to return to his own study.

The prophet had lost his vision but it came back to him, working among the wretched little peasants, brought from Italy to be exploited by the organ-grinders. He taught the boys himself and found friends to tend them. Grisi, the famed singer, would help to earn money for the school in Hatton Garden.

To reach the working classes had become the great aspiration of Mazzini. "Italy of the People" was the phrase he loved henceforward. He roused popular sympathy by a new paper which he edited, the Apostolato Popolare. It served a definite end in rousing the spirit that was abroad, clamouring for nationalism.

Revolution broke out in 1847 when Sicily threw off the Bourbon yoke, and Naples obtained a constitution {192} from King Ferdinand. The Romans followed their lead, and Piedmont and Tuscany were not behindhand. Joyful news came from Vienna, announcing Metternich driven from his seat of power. One by one this minister's Italian puppets fell, surrendering weakly to the will of a triumphant people, and Italy could wave the flag "God and the People" everywhere save in the Austrian provinces and their dependent duchies.

Mazzini returned to learn that he was regarded as the noble teacher of the patriotism which inspired the peninsula. The years of loneliness and sorrow receded from his memory in that glad and glorious moment when he entered liberated Milan, borne in a victorious procession. Armies were gathering for the final tussle which should conclude the triumph of the first revolt. Class prejudices were forgotten in the great crusade to free a nation. Charles Albert led them, having taken his side at last; but he had no power to withstand the force of Austria, and he was forced to his knees while Northern Italy endured the humiliation of surrender.

Mazzini carried the flag for Garibaldi in the vain hope that the victory of the people might atone for the conquest of the princes. He went to Rome to witness her building of a new Republic. It had long been in his mind that the Eternal City might become the centre of united Italy. He felt a deep sense of awe as he received the honour of being made a Triumvir. No party-spirit should guide the Republic while he held power as a ruler, no war of classes should divide the city. Long cherished ideals found him true, and inspired those who shared the government. Priests were glad to be acquitted from the tyrannous power {193} of a Pope who had now been driven from the city. Some of the more zealous would have given up the observances of the Roman Catholic religion, but Mazzini was in favour of continuing the services. He would not have confessional-boxes burnt, since confession had relieved the souls of believers.

In private life, the Triumvir clung to simplicity that he might set an example in refusing to be separated from the working classes. He dined very frugally, and chose the smallest room in the Quirinal for his dwelling. He gave audience to any who sought him, and gave away strength and energy with the same generous spirit that inspired him to spend the modest salary attached to his office on his poorer brethren. He was bent on showing the strength of a Republic to all European cities that strove for the same freedom.

The Pope tried to regain his authority, and found an ally in Louis Napoleon, a nephew of the great Emperor, who became president of the Republic which expelled the Citizen-King of France. Louis was anxious to conciliate the French army and clergy. He besieged Rome with an army of 85,000 men, and met with a brave resistance.

There were famous names in the list of Roman defenders—Mameli, the war-poet, and Ugo Bassi, the great preacher, fought under Garibaldi, the leader of the future. Mazzini cried out on them that surrender was not for them. "Monarchies may capitulate, republics die and bear their testimony even to martyrdom."

On July 3rd, 1849, Rome fell before overwhelming numbers, though the conquerors were afraid to face the sullen foes who opposed them at the very gates of the doomed Republican stronghold. The prophet lingered {194} in the streets where he would have kept the flag flying which had been lowered by the Assembly. He was grey with the fierce endurance of the two months' siege, but his heart bade him not desert his post from any fear of death. Secretly he longed for the assassin's knife, for then he would have shed the blood of sacrifice for the cause of patriotism.



{195}

Chapter XVII

"For Italy and Victor Emmanuel!"

The year of Revolution, beginning with most glorious hopes, ended disastrously for the Italian patriots. Princes had allied with peasants in eager furtherance of the cause of freedom but defeat took away their faith. The soldiers lost belief in the leaders of the movement and belief, alas! in the ideals for which they had been fighting.

Charles Albert, the King of Sardinia, continued to struggle on alone when adversities had deprived his most faithful partisans of their zeal for fighting. He had once been uncertain and vacillating in mind, but he became staunch in his later days and able to reply courageously to the charges which his enemies brought against him. He mustered some 80,000 men and put them under Polish leaders—a grave mistake, since the soldiers were prejudiced by the strange foreign aspect of their officers and began the war without enthusiasm for their generals.

Field-Marshal Radetsky, a redoubtable enemy, only brought the same numbers to the field, but he had the advantage of being known as a conquering hero. His cry was "To Turin!" but the bold Piedmontese rallied to defend their town and spread the news of joyful victory throughout the Italian peninsula. Other {196} defenders of liberty dared to raise their heads now, thought once more of Italy free and united.

At the battle of Novara, fought on an April morning of 1849, the King of Sardinia gave up his throne, and longed for death that he might make some tardy recompense for the failure of his attempt to withstand the power of Austria. "Let me die, this is my last day," he said when officers and men would have saved him from the fate of the 4000 Sardinians who lay dead and wounded. He was not suffered to meet death but rode away, pointing to his son Victor Emmanuel II as he left his army. "There is your King!" he said, resigning all claim to royalty now that he had met defeat. He promised that he would serve in the ranks as a private soldier if Italian troops made war again on Austria.

After the disgrace of Novara and the flight from Rome it seemed that Mazzini could do nothing more for the cause of patriotism he had served so nobly. He had given up hope of a great Italian Republic, and saw that men's hearts were turned toward the young King Victor and the monarchy.

Yet Garibaldi, the soldier of fortune, had not renounced the aspirations of Mazzini, a leader to whom he had always been devoted. "When I was young I had only aspirations," he said. "I sought out a man who could give me counsel and guide my youthful years; I sought him as the thirsty man seeks water. This man I found; he alone kept alive the sacred fire; he alone watched while all the world slept; he has always remained my friend, full of love for his country, full of devotion for the cause of freedom: this man is Joseph Mazzini."

The worship of the prophet had led the gallant, {197} daring sailor into hairbreadth escapes and strange vicissitudes of fortune. He had been sentenced to death as "an enemy of the State and liable to all the penalties of a brigand of the first category." He had fled to South America and ridden over the untrodden pampas, tasting the wild life of Nature with a keen enjoyment. He had been a commander in the navy, and had defended Monte Video. He had been imprisoned and tortured, and had taken Anita, daughter of Don Benito Riverio de Silva of Laguna to be his wife and the companion of his adventures.

Garibaldi could not afford even the priest's marriage fees for his life was always one of penury, so he gave him an old silver watch. When he was Head of the Italian Legion he was content to sit in the dark, because he discovered that candles were not served out to the common soldiers. The red shirts of his following had been bought originally for their cheapness, being intended for the use of men employed in the great cattle-markets of the Argentine. The sordid origin of the Camicia Rossa was soon forgotten as it became the badge of honour. Its fame was sung in many foreign lands, and it generally figured in pictures of Garibaldi.

The Legion created some alarm in Rome as they appeared—men with their dark faces surmounted by peaked hats and waving plumes. Garibaldi himself rode on a white horse and attracted favourable notice, for he was a gallant horseman and his red shirt became him no less than the jaunty cap with its golden ornaments. Three thousand men accepted the offer which the chief made when there was news that the French were advancing to the city. He did not promise them gold nor distinction, but a chance of meeting {198} their ancient enemy of Austria. Cold and hunger would be theirs, and the weariness of constant marches. Death would be the lot of many in their ranks, the cruel tortures of their gaolers. All men were outlaws who had defended Rome, the Republic, to the last, and bread and water might be refused to them within the confines of their country.

The cry for war sounded, and Garibaldi led three thousand men, including Ugo Bassi and the noblest of knight-errants. The attempt to reach Venice was frustrated by a storm, and Anita died miserably in a peasant's cottage, where she was dragged for shelter. Garibaldi fled to the United States, and never saw again many of his bold companions. Venice was left of dire necessity to defend herself from Austria. She had sworn to resist to the last, and President Manin refused to surrender even when cholera came upon the town and the citizens were famished. He appealed to England, but only got advice to make terms with the besiegers. He capitulated in the end because the town was bombarded by the Austrian army, and he feared that the conquerors would exercise a fell vengeance if the city still resisted. There was nothing left to eat after the eighteen months' siege of Venice. Manin left for Marseilles, mourned bitterly by the Venetians. His very door-step was broken by the Austrians, who found his name upon it. Ugo Bassi had kissed it, voicing the sentiment of many. "Next to God and Italy—before the Pope—Manin!"

Victor Emmanuel, the young King of Sardinia, had won no such popularity, suffering from the prejudice against his family, the House of Savoy, and against his wife, an Austrian by birth. He came to the throne at a dark time, succeeding to a royal inheritance of {199} ruin and misery. The army had been disgraced, and the exchequer was empty. He had the dignity of a king and remarkable boldness, but it would have been hard for him to have guided Italy without his adviser and friend, the Count Cavour.

Mazzini, the prophet, and Garibaldi, the soldier, had won the hearts of Italians devoted to the cause of Italy. Cavour suffered the same distrust as Victor Emmanuel, but he knew his task and performed it. He was the statesman who made the government and created the present stable monarchy. He had to be satisfied with less than the Republican enthusiasts. He had few illusions, and believed that in politics it was possible to choose the end but rarely possible to choose the means.

Born in Piedmont in 1810, the statesman was of noble birth and sufficient wealth, being a godson of Pauline, sister of the great Napoleon. He joined the army as an engineer in 1828, but found the life little to his taste since he was not allowed to express his opinions freely. He resigned in 1831 and retired to the country, where he was successful as a farmer. He travelled extensively for those days, and visited England, where he studied social problems.

Of all foreigners, Cavour, perhaps, benefited most largely by a study of the English Parliament from the outside. He was present at debates, and wrote articles on Free Trade and the English Poor Law. He had enlightened views, and wished to promote the interests of Italy by raising her to the position of a power in Europe. He set to work to bring order into the finances of Sardinia, but the King recognized his minister's unpopularity by the nickname bestia neira. He had a seat in 1848 in the first Parliament of {200} Piedmont, and was Minister of Commerce and Agriculture later. He pushed on reforms to benefit the trade and industries of Italy without troubling to consult the democrats, his enemies. His policy was liberal, but he intended to go slowly. "Piedmont must begin by raising herself, by re-establishing in Europe as well as in Italy, a position and a credit equal to her ambition. Hence there must be a policy unswerving in its aims but flexible and various as to the means employed." Cavour's character was summed up in these words. He distrusted violent measures, and yet could act with seeming rashness in a crisis when prudence would mean failure.

Prime Minister in 1852, he saw an opportunity two years later of winning fame for Piedmont. The Russians were resisting the western powers which defended the dominions of the Porte. Ministers resigned and the country marvelled, but Cavour signed a pledge to send forces of 15,000 men to the Crimea to help Turkey against Russia. It would be well to prove that Italy retained the military virtues of her history after the defeat of Novara, he said in reply to all expostulations. The result showed the statesman's wisdom and justified his daring. The Sardinians distinguished themselves in the Crimea, and Italy was able to enter into negotiations with the great European powers who arranged the Peace of Paris.

The Congress of Paris was the time for Cavour to gain sympathy for the woes of Italian states, still subject to the tyrannous sway of Austria. He denounced the enslavement of Naples also, and brought odium upon King Ferdinand, but "Austria," he said, "is the arch-enemy of Italian independence; the {201} permanent danger to the only free nation in Italy, the nation I have the honour to represent."

England confined herself to expressions of sympathy, but Louis Napoleon, now Emperor of France, seemed likely to become an ally. He met Cavour at Plombieres, a watering place in the Vosges, in July 1858, and entered into a formal compact to expel the Austrians from Italy. The final arrangements were made in the following spring in Paris. "It is done," said Cavour, the minister triumphant. "We have made some history, and now to dinner."

Mazzini, in England, read of the alliance with gloomy misgivings, for, as a Republican, he distrusted the President of France who had made himself an Emperor. He said that Napoleon III would work now for his own ends. He protested in vain. Garibaldi rejoiced and returned from Caprera, where he had been trying to plant a garden on a barren island.

Cavour fought against some prejudice when he offered to enrol Garibaldi and his followers in the army of Sardinia. Charles Albert had refused the hero's sword in the days of his bitter struggle, and the regular officers still looked askance on the Revolutionary captain.

But the Austrian troops were countless, numbering recruits from the Tyrol and Bohemia, from the valleys of Styria and the Hungarian steppes. There was need of a vast army to oppose them. The French soldiers fought gallantly, yet they were inferior to the Austrians in discipline. When the allies had won the hard contested fight of Montebello it was good to think of that band of 3000, singing as they marched, "Addio mia bella, addio," like the knights of legend. They crossed Lake Maggiore into the enemy's own {202} country, and took all the district of the Lowland Lakes.

In June, the allies won the victory of Magenta, and on the 8th of that month, King and Emperor entered Milan flushed with victory. The Austrians had fled, and the keys of the city were in the possession of Victor Emmanuel.

The Emperor of Austria, Francis Joseph, had assumed command of the army when the great battle of Solferino was fought amidst the wondrous beauty of Italian scenery in an Italian summer. It was June 24th, and the peasant reaped the harvest of Lombardy, wondering if he should reap for the conqueror the next day. The French officers won great glory as they charged up the hills, which must be taken before they could succeed in storming Solferino. After a fierce struggle of six hours, the streets of the little town were filled with the bodies of the dead and dying. By the evening, the victory of the allies over Austria was certain.

Napoleon III had kept his promise to the Italian people, who were encouraged by a success of the Piedmontese army under Victor Emmanuel at San Martino. But he disappointed them cruelly by stopping short in his victorious career and sending General Fleury to the Austrian camp to demand an armistice. Europe was amazed when the preliminaries of peace were signed, for it was generally expected that Austria would be brought to submission. Italy was in despair, for Venetia had not yet been won for them.

Cavour raged with fury, regretting that he had trusted Napoleon and trusted his King, Victor Emmanuel, who agreed to the proposals for an armistice. Now he heaped them with reproaches because they had {203} given up the Italian cause. He resigned office in bitterness for it was he who had concluded the alliance of France and Italy.

Napoleon returned to France, pursued by the indignation of the country he had come to deliver. He complained of their ingratitude, though he might have known that Lombardy would not accept freedom at the cost of Venice. He was execrated when the price of his assistance was demanded. France claimed Nice and Savoy as French provinces henceforth. Savoy was the country of Victor Emmanuel, and Nice the honoured birthplace of the idolized Garibaldi!

Garibaldi was chosen by the people of Nice for the new Chamber of 1860, for they hoped that he would make an effort to save his native town. He had some idea of raising a revolution against French rule, but decided to free Sicily as a mightier enterprise. Victor Emmanuel completed the sacrifice which gave "the cradle of his race" to the foreigner. He was reconciled to the cession at length because he believed that Italy had gained much already.

Cavour did not openly approve of the attack which Garibaldi was preparing to make upon the Bourbon's sovereignty. Many said that he did his best to frustrate the plans of the soldier because there was hostility between them. Garibaldi could not forgive the cession of Nice to which the statesmen had, ere this, assented. He was bitter in his feeling toward Victor Emmanuel's minister, but he was loyal to Victor Emmanuel. His band of volunteers, known as the Thousand, marched in the King's name, and the chief refused to enrol those whose Republican sentiments made them dislike the idea of Italian unity. "Italy and Victor Emmanuel," {204} the cry of the Hunters of the Alps, was the avowed object of his enterprise.

Garibaldi sailed amid intense excitement, proudly promising "a new and glorious jewel" to the King of Sardinia, if the venture were successful. The standard of revolt had already been raised by Rosaline Pilo, the handsome Sicilian noble, whose whole life had been devoted to the cause of country. The insurgents awaited Garibaldi with a feverish desire for success against the Neapolitan army, which numbered 150,000 men. They knew that the leader brought only few soldiers but that they were picked men. Strange stories had been told of Garibaldi's success in warfare, being due to supernatural intervention. The prayers of his beautiful old peasant-mother were said to have prevailed till her death, when her spirit came to hold converse with the hero before battle.



The Red-shirts landed at Marsala, a thousand strong, packed into merchant vessels by a patriotic owner. Garibaldi led them to the mountain city of Salemi, which had opposed the Bourbon dynasty warmly. There he proclaimed himself dictator of Sicily in the name of Victor Emmanuel, soon to be ruler of all Italy. Peasants joined the Thousand, armed with rusty pistols and clad in picturesque goat-skins. They were received with honour by the chief, who was pleased to see that Sicily was bent on freedom. A Franciscan friar threw himself upon his knees before the mighty leader and asked to join the expedition. "Come with us, you will be our Ugo Bassi," Garibaldi said, remembering with a pang the defence of Rome and the fate of the defenders.

At Palermo, the capital of Sicily, the Neapolitan soldiers were awaiting the arrival of the Thousand. They ventured to attack first, being very strong in {205} numbers. The bravest might have feared to oppose the royal troops with such a disadvantage, but Garibaldi held firm when there were murmurs of surrender. "Here we die," he said, and the great miracle was accomplished. "Yesterday we fought and conquered," the chief wrote to the almost despairing Pilo. The two forces joined and Pilo fell, struck by a bullet. It was May 27th when Garibaldi entered the gates of Palermo.

The bells were hammered by the inhabitants, delighted to welcome the brave Thousand to their city. There was still a fierce struggle within the walls, and the Neapolitan fleet bombarded the town. An armistice was granted on May 30th, for the Royalists needed food and did not realize that Garibaldi's ammunition was exhausted. He refused to submit to any humiliating terms that might be offered to Palermo. He threatened to renew hostilities if the enemy still thought of them. All declared for war, though they knew how such a war must have ended. It was by the Royalists' act that the evacuation of the city was concluded.

The Revolution had succeeded elsewhere, and for the last time the Bourbon flag was hoisted in Sicilian waters. The conquest of Sicily had occupied but a few days. The Dictator proceeded thence to the south of Italy and advanced on the Neapolitan kingdom.

Victor Emmanuel would have checked the hero of Palermo, and Cavour was thoroughly uneasy. No official consent had been given for this daring act of aggression, and foreign powers wrote letters of protest, while King Francis II, the successor of Ferdinand, held out such bribes as fifty million francs and the Neapolitan navy to aid in liberating Venice. France induced the King of Sardinia to make an effort to restrain the {206} popular soldier. Garibaldi promised Victor Emmanuel to obey him when he had made him King of Italy.

At Volturno the decisive battle was fought on the first day of October 1860, the birthday of King Francis. "Victory all along the line" was the message sent by Garibaldi to Naples after ten hours' fighting. There had been grave fears expressed by Cavour that the army would march on Rome and expel the French after this conclusion. But the King was advancing toward the south of Italy to prevent any move which would provoke France, and Garibaldi, marching north, dismounted from his horse when he met the Piedmontese, and walking up to Victor Emmanuel, hailed him King of Italy. Naples and Sicily, with Umbria and the Marches, decided in favour of a united sceptre under the House of Savoy. It was Garibaldi's proclamation to the people which urged them to receive the new King with peace and affection. "No more political colours, no more parties, no more discords," he hoped there would be from the 7th of November, 1860. It was on that day that the king-maker and the King together entered Naples. Garibaldi refused all the honours which his sword had won, and left for his island-home at Caprera, a poor man still, but one whose name could stir all Europe.

The Italian kingdom was proclaimed by the new Parliament which met in February 1861, at Turin. All parts of Italy were represented save Rome and Venice, and King Victor Emmanuel II entered on his reign as ruler of Italy "by the Grace of God and the will of the nation."



{207}

Chapter XVIII

The Third Napoleon

Italy was free, but Italy was not yet united as patriots such as Garibaldi had hoped that it might be. Venice and Rome must be added to the possessions of Victor Emmanuel before he could boast that he held beneath his sway all Italy between the Alps and Adriatic.

Rome, the dream of heroes, was in the power of a Pope who had to be maintained in his authority by a garrison of the French. Napoleon III clung to his alliance with the Catholic Church, and refused to withdraw his troops and leave his Papal ally defenceless, for he cared nothing about the views of Italian dreamers who longed that the Eternal City should be free.

There was romance in the life-story of this French Emperor upon whose support so many allies had come to depend. He was the son of Louis Buonaparte and Hortense Beauharnais, who was the daughter of the Empress Josephine. During the reign of Louis Philippe, this nephew of the great usurper had spent his time in dreary exile, living in London for the most part, and concealing a character of much ambition beneath a moody silent manner. He visited France in 1840 and tried to gain the throne, but was unsuccessful, for he was committed to the fortress of Ham, a state prison. He escaped in the disguise of a workman, and made a second {208} attempt to stir the mob of Paris to revolution in the year 1848, when Europe was restless with fierce discontent. The King fled for his life, and a Republic was formed again with Louis Napoleon as President, but this did not satisfy a descendant of the great Buonaparte. He managed by the help of the army to gain the Imperial crown, never worn by the second Napoleon, who died when he was still too young to show whether he possessed the characteristics of his family. Henceforth Napoleon III of France could no longer be regarded as a mere adventurer. The Pope had come to depend on French troops for his authority, and the Italians had to pay a heavy price for French arms in their struggle against Austria.

Paris renewed its gaiety when Napoleon married his beautiful Spanish wife, Eugenie, who had royal pride though she was not of royal birth. There were hunting parties again, when the huntsmen wore brave green and scarlet instead of the Bourbon blue and silver; there were court fetes, which made the entertainments of Louis Philippe, the honest Citizen-King, seem very dull in retrospect. The Spanish Empress longed to rival the fame of Marie Antoinette, the Austrian wife of Louis XVI who had followed that King to the scaffold. Like Marie Antoinette, she was censured for extravagances, the marriage being unpopular with all classes. The bourgeoisie or middle class refused to accept the Emperor's plea that it was better to mate with a foreigner of ordinary rank than to attempt to aggrandize the new empire by union with the daughter of some despotic king.

Yet France amused herself eagerly at the famous fetes and hunts of Compiegne, while the third Napoleon craftily began to develop his scheme for obtaining {209} influence in Europe that should make him as great a man as the Corsican whom all had dreaded. The Emperor's insignificant appearance deceived many of his compeers, who were inclined to look on him as a ruler who would be content to take a subordinate place in international affairs. He dressed in odd, startling colours, and moved awkwardly; his eyes were strangely impenetrable, and he seemed listless and indifferent, even when he was meditating some subtle plan with which to startle Europe.

Dark stories were told of the part Napoleon played in the Crimean War, when Turkey demanded help against Russia, which was crippling her army and her fleet. Many suspected that the French Emperor used England as his catspaw, and saw that the English troops bore the brunt of all the terrible disasters which befell the invaders of the south of Russia. Alma, Balaclava, and Inkerman were victories ever memorable, because the heroes of those battles had to fight against more sinister foes than the Russian troops they defeated in the field. Stores of food and clothes were delayed too long before they reached the exhausted soldiers, and there was suspicion of unjust favour shown to the French soldiers when their English allies sought a healthy camping-ground. The war ended in 1855 with the fall of Sebastopol, and it was notable afterwards that the Napoleonic splendour increased vastly, that the sham royalty seemed resolved to entertain the royal visitors who had once looked askance at him.

France began to believe that no further Revolution could disturb the Second Empire, which was secure in pride at least. Yet Austria was crushed by Prussia at the great battle of Sadowa in 1866, and the Prussian state was advancing rapidly under the government of {210} a capable minister and king. There were few Frenchmen who had realized the importance of King Wilhelm's act when he summoned Herr Otto von Bismarck from his Pomeranian estates to be his chief political adviser. The fast increasing strength of the Prussian forces did not sufficiently impress Napoleon, who had embarked on a foolish expedition to Mexico to place an Austrian archduke on the throne, once held by the ancient Montezumas. The news of Sadowa wrung "a cry of agony" from his court of the Tuileries, where everyone had confidently expected the victory of Austria. Napoleon might have arbitrated between the two countries, but he let the golden opportunity slip by in one of those half-sullen passive moods which came upon him when he felt the depression of his bodily weakness. Prussia began to lay the foundation of German unity, excluding Austria from her territory.

Napoleon handed over Venice to Italy when it was ceded to him at the close of the Austrian war, and Garibaldi followed up this cession by an attempt on Rome, which he resolved should be the capital of Italy. He defeated the Papal troops at Monte Rotondo, which commanded Rome on the north, but he was defeated by French troops at the battle of Mentana. The repulse of the Italian hero increased the national dislike of French interference, but Napoleon only consented to evacuate Rome in 1870 when he had need of all his soldiers to carry out his boast that he would "chastise the insolence of the King of Prussia."

The Franco-Prussian War arose nominally from the quarrel about the throne of Spain, to which a prince of the Hohenzollern house had put in a claim, first obtaining permission from Wilhelm I to accept the dignity. This prince, Leopold, was not a member of the Prussian {211} royal family, but he was a Prussian subject and a distant kinsman of the Kaiser. It was quite natural, therefore, that he should ask the royal sanction for his act and quite natural that Wilhelm should give it his approval if Spain made the offer of the crown.

Napoleon sought some cause of difference with Prussia, because Bismarck had refused to help him to win Belgium and Luxemburg in 1869. He was jealous of this new military power, for his own fame was far outstripped by the feats of arms accomplished by the forces of General von Moltke, the Prussian general. He thought that war against his rival might help him to regain the admiration of the French. They were humiliated by the failure of the Mexican design and saw fresh danger for their country in Italian unity and the new confederation of North Germany.

Napoleon, racked by disease, might have checked his own ambition if his Empress had not been too eager for a war. He was misled by Marshal Leboeuf into fancying that his own army was efficient enough to undertake any military campaign. He allowed his Cabinet to demand from Wilhelm I that Prince Leopold's claim to the Spanish crown, which had been withdrawn, should never be renewed by the sanction of Prussia at least. The unreasonable demand was refused, and France declared war in July 1870, eighteen years after the new empire had risen on the ruins of the Republic of the French.

The other European powers would not enter this war, though England offered to mediate between the rival powers. France and Prussia had to test the strength of their armies without allies, and neither thought how terrible the cost would be of that long national jealousy. Napoleon took the field himself, leaving Eugenie as {212} Regent of the French, and the King of Prussia led his own army with General Von Moltke and General Von Roon in command.

The French army invaded South Germany, but had to retreat in disorder after the battle of Worth. The battle of Sedan on September 1st, 1870, brought the war to a conclusion, the French being routed and forced to lay down their arms. Napoleon had fought with courage, but was obliged to surrender his sword to Wilhelm I upon the battlefield. He declared that he gave up his person only, but France herself was forced to yield after the capitulation of Metz, which had resisted Prussia stoutly. The Empress had fled to England and the Emperor had been deposed. France was once more a Republic when the siege of Paris was begun.

The citizens showed strange insensibility to the danger that they ran, for they asserted that the Germans dared not invest the town. Nevertheless, Parisians drilled and armed with vigour as Prussian shells burst outside the walls and the clang of bells replaced the sounds of mirth that were habitual to Paris. Theatres were closed, to the dismay of the frivolous, whom no alarm of war would turn from their ordinary pursuits. The Opera House became a barracks, for the camps could not hold the crowds that flocked there from the provinces.

Still many ridiculed the idea of investment by the Prussian troops, and householders did not prepare for the famine that came on them unawares. People supped in gaily-lighted cafes and took their substantial meals without thought of the morrow. There were fewer women in the streets and the workmen carried rifles, but the shops were still attractive in their wares. The fear of spies occupied men's thoughts rather than {213} the fear of hunger—a foreign accent was suspicious enough to cause arrest! There were few Englishmen in the capital, but those few ran the risk of being mistaken for Prussians, since the lower classes did not distinguish between foreigners.

Paris was invested on September 19th, 1870, and the citizens had experienced terrible want. In October Wilhelm established his headquarters at Versailles, part of the French Government going to Tours. Gambetta, the new minister, made every effort to secure help for France. He departed from Paris in a balloon, and carrier pigeons were sent in the same way to take news to the provinces and bring back offers of assistance. Strange expedients for food had been proposed already, and all supplies were very dear. Horseflesh was declared to be nutritious, and scientists demonstrated the valuable properties of gelatine. Housewives pored over cookery-books to seek for ways of using what material they had when beef and butter failed. A learned professor taught them how to grow salads and asparagus on the balconies in front of windows. The seed-shops were stormed by enthusiasts who took kindly to this new idea.

Gambetta's ascent in the balloon relieved anxiety for a time, because every Parisian expected that help would come. But soon gas could not be spared to inflate balloons and sturdy messengers were in request who dared brave the Prussian lines. Sheep-dogs were sent out as carriers after several attempts had been frustrated, but the Prussian sentries seized the animals, and pigeons were soon the only means of communication with the provinces.

The Parisians clamoured for the theatres to be opened, though they felt the pangs of hunger now. They {214} retorted readily when there was some speech of Nero fiddling while Rome burned. Their city was not yet on fire, they said, and Napoleon, the Nero of the catastrophe, could not fiddle because he had no ear for music! The Cirque National was opened on October 23rd, though fuel was running short and the cold weather would soon come.

In winter prices rose for food that the fastidious had rejected earlier in the siege. A rat cost a franc, and eggs were sold at 80 francs the dozen. Beef and mutton had disappeared entirely from the stalls, and butter reached the price of fifty francs the demi-kilogramme. The poor suffered horrible privations, and many children died from the effect of bread soaked in wine, for milk was a ridiculous price. Nevertheless, four hundred marriages were celebrated, and Paris did not talk of surrender to their Prussian foes.

Through October and November poultry shops displayed an occasional goose or pigeon, but the sight of a turkey caused a crowd to collect, and everyone envied those who could afford to purchase rabbits even though they paid no less than 50 francs. Soon dogs and cats were rarely seen in Paris, and bear's flesh was sold and eaten with avidity. At Christmas and New Year very few shops displayed the usual gifts, for German toys were not popular at the festive season and the children of the siege talked mournfully of their "New Year's Day without the New Year's gifts."

Shells crashed into houses in January of 1871, an event most startling to Parisians, who had expected a formal summons to surrender before such acts took place. After the first shock of surprise there was no shriek of fear. Capitulation was negotiated on January 26th, not on account of this new danger, but {215} because there was no longer bread for the citizens to buy.

Gambetta resisted to the last, but his dictatorship was ended, and a National Assembly at Bordeaux elected M. Thiers their president. By the treaty of Frankfort, signed in May 1871, France ceded Alsace and Lorraine to Prussia, together with the forts of Metz, Longwy and Thionville. She had also to pay a war indemnity of 200,000,000 pounds sterling. By the exertions of Bismarck, the imperial crown was placed upon the head of Wilhelm I, and the conqueror of France was hailed as Emperor of United Germany in the Great Hall of Mirrors at Versailles by representatives of the leading European states. The German troops were withdrawn from Paris, where civil war raged for some six weeks, the great buildings of the city being burned to the ground.

Europe was satisfied that united Germany should take the place of Imperial France, whose policy had been purely personal and selfish since its first foundation in 1852. The fall of Napoleon III caused little regret at any court, for he had all the unscrupulous ambition of his mighty predecessor, without the genius of the First Napoleon.



{216}

Chapter XIX

The Reformer of the East

Italy had won unity after a gallant struggle, and Greece some fifty years before revolted from the barbarous Turks and became an independent kingdom. The traditions of the past had helped these, since volunteers remembered times when art and beauty had dwelt upon the shores of the tideless Mediterranean. Song and romance haloed the name of Kossuth's race when the patriot rose to free Hungary from the harsh tyranny of Austria. General sympathy with the revolutionary spirit was abroad in 1848, when the tyrant Metternich resigned and acknowledged that the day of absolutism was over.

It was otherwise with the revolting Poles, who dwelt too far from the nations of the West to rouse their passionate sympathies. France promised to help their cause, but failed them in the hour of peril. Poland made a desperate struggle to assert her independence in 1830, when Nicholas the Autocrat was reigning over Russia. The Poles entered Lithuania, which they would have reunited with their ancient kingdom, but were completely defeated, losing Warsaw, their capital, and their Church and language, as well as their own administration.

Under Nicholas I, a ruler devoted to the military power of his Empire, there was little chance of freedom. He had himself no love of the West and the bold reforms {217} which might bring him enlightened and discontented subjects. He crushed into abject submission all opposed to his authority. The blunt soldier would cling obstinately to the ancient Muscovy of Peter. He shut his eyes to the passing of absolutism in Europe and died, as he had reigned, the protector of the Orthodox Church of Russia, the sworn foe of revolutionaries.

Alexander II succeeded his father while the Crimean war was distracting the East by new problems and new warfare. Christian allies fought for the Infidel, and France and England declared themselves to be on the side of Turkey.

At the famous siege of Sebastopol, a young Russian officer was fighting for promotion. He wrote vivid descriptions of the battle-fields and armies. He wrote satirical verses on the part played by his own country. Count Leo Tolstoy was only a sub-lieutenant who had lived gaily at the University of Kazan and shared most of the views of his own class when he petitioned to be sent to the Crimea. The brave conduct of the private soldiers fighting steadfastly, without thought of reward or fear of death, impressed the Count, with his knowledge of the self-seeking, ambitious nobles. He began to love the peasantry he had seen as dim, remote shadows about his father's estate in the country. There he had learnt not to treat them brutally, after the fashion of most landowners, but it was not till he was exposed to the rough life of the bastion with Alexis, a serf presented to him when he went to the University, that Tolstoy acquired that peculiar affection for the People which was not then characteristic of the Russian.

After the war the young writer found that, if he had not attained any great rank in the army, high honours were awarded him in literature. Turgeniev, the veteran {218} novelist, was ready to welcome him as an equal. The gifted officer was flattered and feted to his heart's content before a passionate love of truth withdrew him from society.

After the death of Nicholas reaction set in, as was inevitable, and Alexander II was eager to adopt the progress of the West. The German writers began to describe the lives of humble people, and their books were read in other lands. Russia followed with descriptions of life under natural conditions, the silence of the steppes and the solitude of the forest where hunter and trapper followed their pursuits far from society.

Tolstoy set out for Germany in 1857, anxious to study social conditions that he might learn how to raise the hapless serfs of Russia, bound, patient and inarticulate, at the feet of landowners, longing for independence, perhaps, when they suffered any terrible act of injustice, but patient in the better times when there was food and warmth and a master of comparatively unexacting temper.

Tolstoy had already written Polikoushka, a peasant story which attracted some attention. He was in love with the words People and Progress, and spoke them continually, trampling upon conventions. A desire to be original had been strong within him when he followed the usual pursuits of Russians of fashion. He delighted in this wandering in unknown tracks where none had preceded him. He was sincere, but he had not yet taken up his life-work.

At Lucerne he was filled with bitterness against the rich visitors at a hotel who refused to give alms to a wandering musician. He took the man to his table and offered wine for his refreshment. The indignation of the other guests made him dwell still more fiercely upon {219} the callousness of those who neglect their poorer neighbours. Yet the quixotic noble was still sumptuous in his dress and spent much time on the sports which had been the pastimes of his boyhood. He nearly lost his life attempting to shoot a she-bear in the forest. The beast drew his face into her mouth and got her teeth in the flesh near the left eye. The intrepid sportsman escaped, but he bore the marks for long afterwards.

In 1861 a new era began in Russia, and a new period in Tolstoy's life, which was henceforward bound up with the history of the country folk. Alexander II issued a decree of emancipation for the serf, and Tolstoy was one of the arbitrators appointed to supervise the distribution of the land, to arrange the taxes and decide conditions of purchase. For each peasant received an allotment of land, subject for sixty years to a special land-tax. In their ignorance, the serfs were likely to sell themselves into new slavery where the proprietors felt disposed to drive hard bargains. Many landlords tried to allot land with no pasture, so that the rearer of cattle had to hire at an exorbitant rate. There had been two ways of holding serfs before—the more primitive method of obliging them to work so many days a week for the master before they could provide for their own wants, and the more enlightened manner of exacting only obrok, or yearly tribute. Tolstoy had already allowed his serf to "go on obrok," but, according to himself, he did nothing very generous when the new act was passed providing for emancipation.

He defended the freed men as far as possible, however, from the tyranny of other landowners, who began to dislike him very thoroughly. He had won the poor from their distrust by an experiment in education which he tried at his native place of Yasnaya Polyana.

{220}

The school opened by Count Tolstoy was a "free"; school in every sense of the word, which was then becoming popular. The children paid no fees and were not obliged to attend regularly. They ran in and out as they pleased and had no fear of punishments. It was a firm belief of the master that compulsory learning was quite useless. He taught in the way that the pupils wished to learn, humbly accepting their views on the matter. Vivid narration delighted the eager peasant boys in their rough sheepskins and woollen scarves. They would cry "Go on, go on," when the lesson should have ended. Any who showed weariness were bidden to "go to the little ones." At first, the peasants were afraid of the school, hearing wonderful stories of what happened there. They gained confidence at length, and then the government became suspicious.

Tolstoy had given up his work with a feeling of dissatisfaction and retired to a wild life with the Bashkirs in the steppes, where he hoped to recover bodily health, when news came that the schools had been searched and the teachers arrested. The effect on the ignorant was to make Tolstoy seem a criminal.

Hatred of a government, where such a search could be conducted with impunity, was not much modified by the Emperor's expression of regret for what had happened. The pond on Tolstoy's estate had been dragged, and cupboards and boxes in his own house opened, while the floor of the stables was broken up with crowbars. Even the diary and letters of an intimate character which had been kept secret from the Count's own family were read aloud by gendarmes. In a fit of rage, the reformer wrote of giving up his house and leaving Russia "where one cannot know from moment to moment what awaits one."

{221}

In 1862 Tolstoy married Sophia Behrs, the daughter of a Russian physician. He began to write again, feeling less zeal for social work and the need to earn money for his family. The Cossacks described the wild pleasures of existence away from civilization, where all joys arise from physical exertion. Tolstoy had known such a life during a sojourn in the Caucasus. It attracted him especially, for he was an admiring follower of Rousseau in the glorification of a return to Nature.

On the estate of Yasnaya there was work to be done, for agricultural labour meant well-cultivated land, and that meant prosperity. A large family was sheltered beneath the roof where simplicity ruled, and yet much comfort was enjoyed. Tolstoy wore the rough garments of a peasant, and delighted in the idea that he was often taken for a peasant though he had once been sorely troubled by his blunt features and lack of physical beauty. Family cares absorbed him, and the books he now gave to the world in constant succession. His name was spoken everywhere, and many visitors disturbed his seclusion. War and Peace, a description of Napoleonic times in Russia, found scant favour with Liberals or Conservatives in the East, but it ranked as a great work of fiction. Anna Karenina gave descriptions of society in town and country that were unequalled even by Turgeniev, the writer whose friendship with Tolstoy was often broken by fierce quarrels. The reformer's nature suffered nothing artificial. He sneered at formal charity and a pretence of labour. Hearing that Turgeniev's young daughter sat dressed in silks to mend the torn and ragged garments of poverty, as part of her education, he commented with his usual harshness. The comment was not forgiven, and strife separated men who had, nevertheless, a {222} curious attraction for each other. Fet, the Russian poet was, indeed, the only friend in the literary world fortunate enough always to win the great novelist's approbation.

As the sons grew up, the family had to spend part of the year in Moscow that the lads might attend the University. It was necessary to live with the hospitality of Russians of the higher class, and division crept into the household where father and mother had been remarkable for their strong affection. Tolstoy wore the sheepskin of the labourer and the felt cap and boots, and he ate his simple meal of porridge at a table where others dined with less frugality. He had given up the habits of his class when he was fifty and adopted those of the peasantry. In the country he rose early, going out to the fields to work for the widow and orphan who might need his service. He hoped to find the mental ease of the manual labourer by entering on these duties, but his mind was often troubled by religious questions. He was serving God, as he deemed it, after a period of unbelief natural to young men of his station.

He had learnt to make boots and shoes and was proud of his skill as a cobbler. He gave up field sports because they were cruel, and renounced tobacco, the one luxury of Mazzini, because he held it unhealthy and self-indulgent. Money was so evil a thing in his sight that he would not use it and did not carry it with him. "What makes a man good is having but few wants," he said wisely. There were difficulties in the way of getting rid of all his property, for the children of the family could not be entirely despoiled of their inheritance. There were thirteen of them, and they did not all share the great reformer's ideas.

In 1888, Tolstoy eased his mind by an act of formal {223} renunciation. The Countess was to have charge of the estates in trust for her children. The Count was still to live in the same house, but resolved to bind himself more closely to the people. He had volunteered to assist when the census was taken in 1880 and had seen the homes of poverty near his little village. He had been the champion of the neighbourhood since he defended a young soldier who had been unjustly sentenced. There was always a knot of suppliants under the "poor people's tree," ready to waylay him when he came out of the porch. They asked the impossible sometimes, but he was always kindly.

Love for the serf had been hereditary. Tolstoy's father was a kindly-natured man, and those who brought up the dreamy boy at Yasnaya had insisted on gentle dealings with both men and animals. There was a story which he loved of an orderly, once a serf on the family estate, who had been taken prisoner with his father after the siege of Erfurt. The faithful servant had such love for his master that he had concealed all his money in a boot which he did not remove for several months, though a sore was formed. Such stories tallied with the reformer's own experiences of soldiers' fighting at Sebastopol.

His mind was ever seeking new ways to reach the people. He believed that they would read if there were simple books written to appeal to them. He put his other labours on one side and wrote a series of charming narratives to touch the unlettered and draw them from their passion for vodka, or Russian brandy, and their harmful dissipations. Ivan the Fool was one of the first of these. The Power of Darkness had an enormous popularity. The ABC books and simple versions of the Scriptures did much to dispel sloth of mind in the {224} peasant, but the Government did not look kindly on these efforts. To them the progressive Count was dangerous, though he held apart from those fanatics of the upper classes who had begun to move among the people in the disguise of workers, that they might spread disturbing doctrines.

The police system of Russia involved a severe censorship of literature. Yet only one allusion did Tolstoy make in his Confessions to the revolutionary movement which led young men and women to sacrifice their homes and freedom from a belief that the section of society which they represented had no right to prey upon the lower. Religion, he says, had not been to them an inspiration, for, like the majority of the educated class in Russia, they were unbelievers. Different in his service toward God and toward Mankind was the man who had begun life by declaring that happiness came from self-worship. He prayed, as age came upon him, that he might find truth in that humanity which believed very simply as others had believed of old time, but he could not be satisfied by the practises of piety. He was tortured until he built up that religion for himself which placed him apart from his fellows who loved progress.

The days of persecution in the East were as terrible as in the bygone days of western mediaeval tortures. For their social aims, men and women were condemned to death or banishment. The dreary wastes of Siberia absorbed lives once bright and beautiful. Known by numbers, not by names, these dragged out a weary existence in the bitter cold of an Arctic winter. "By order of the Tsar" they were flogged, tormented, put in chains, and reduced to the level of animals, bereft of reason. Fast as the spirit of freedom raised its head, it was cowed by absolutism and the powerful machinery {225} of a Government that used the wild Cossacks to overawe the hot theories of defenceless students. Educated men were becoming more common among the peasants, thanks to Tolstoy's guidance. He had shown the way to them and could not repent when they took it, for it is the duty of the reformer to secure a following. Anarchy he had not foreseen, and was troubled by its manifestations. The gentle mind of an old man, resting peacefully in the country, could not penetrate the dark corners of cities where the rebellious gathered together and hatched plots against the tyrant. In spite of Alexander's liberal measures, the Nihilists were not satisfied with a Government so despotic. Many attempts had been made to assassinate him before he was killed by a hand-bomb on March 13th, 1881.

Alexander III abandoned reforms and the discontent increased in Russia, where the plots of conspirators called forth all the atrocities of the spy-system which still existed. Enmity to the Government was further roused in a time of famine, wherein thousands of peasants perished miserably. Tolstoy was active in his attempts to relieve the sick and starving in the year 1891, when the condition of the people was heartrending. He received thanks which were grateful to one very easily discouraged. The peasants turned to him for support quite naturally in their hour of need.

Trouble came upon the aged leader through a sect of the Caucasian provinces who had adopted his new views with ardour. The Doukhobors held all their goods in common and made moral laws for themselves, based on Tolstoy's form of religion. They refused to serve as soldiers, which was said to be a defiance of their governor. The leaders were exiled and some hundreds enrolled in "a disciplinary regiment" as a punishment. {226} Tolstoy managed to rouse sympathy for them in England, and they were allowed to emigrate instead of suffering persecution. He wrote Resurrection, a novel dealing with the terrible life of Russian prisons, to get money for their relief. He was excommunicated formally for attacking the Orthodox Church of Russia in 1901. The sentence caused him to feel yet more bitterly toward the Russian government. He longed to see peace in the eastern land whence tales of cruelty and oppression startled the more humane provinces of Europe. He would fain have stayed the outrages of bomb-throwing which the Nihilist societies perpetrated. He could feel for the unrest of youth, but he knew from his long experience of life that violence would not bring them to the attainment of their objects.

The tragedy of the Moujik-garbed aristocrat, striving for self-perfection and cast down by compromise made necessary by love for others, drew to a close as he neared his eightieth year. He would have given everything, and he had kept something. Worldly possessions had been stripped from his dwelling, with its air of honest kindly comfort. More and more the descendant of Peter the Great's ambitious minister began to feel the need of entire renunciation. It was long since he had known the riotous life of cities, but even the peace of his country retreat was broken by discords since all did not share that longing for utter self-abnegation which possessed the soul of Leo Tolstoy, now troubled by remorse.

In the winter of 1910 the old man left the home where he had lived in domestic security since the first years of his happy marriage. It was severe weather, and his fragile frame was too weak for the long difficult journey he planned in order to reach a place of retreat in the {227} Caucasus Mountains. He had resolved to spend his last days in complete seclusion, and to give up the intercourse with the world which made too many claims upon him. He died on this last quest for ideal purity, and never reached the abode where he had hoped to end his days. The news of his death at a remote railway station spread through Europe before he actually succumbed to the severity of his exposure to the cold of winter. There was universal sorrow, when Tolstoy passed, among those who reckoned him the greatest of modern reformers.



{228}

Chapter XX

The Hero in History

Across the spaces of the centuries flit the figures known as heroes, some not heroic in aspect but great through the very power which has forbidden them to vanish utterly from the scenes of struggle. Poets who wrote immortal lines and philosophers who mocked the baseness of the age which set up shams for worship, reformers with a fierce belief in the cause that men as good as they abhorred to the point of merciless persecution—these rank with the soldier, rank higher than the monarch whose name must be placed upon the roll because his personality was strong to mould events that made the history of his country. High and low, prince or peasant—all knew the throes of struggle with opposing forces, since without effort none have attained to heroism.

Back into the Middle Ages Dante and Savonarola draw us, marvelling at the narrow limits which bound the vision of such free unfettered minds. The little grey town of Tuscany lives chiefly on the fame of the poet and preacher who loved her so passionately though she proved a cruel and ungrateful mother. The Italian state has ceased to assert its independence, and the brawling of party-strife no longer draws the mediator to make peace and, if possible, secure to himself some of the rich treasures of the Florentines whose work was {229} coveted afar. Pictures of wondrous beauty have been defaced and stolen, statuary has crumbled into the dust that lies thick upon the tombs of great men who have fallen. But the words of the Divine Comedy will never be forgotten, and the glory of an epic rests always with Italian literature. All the cold and passionless intellect of the Renaissance can be personified in Lorenzo the Magnificent, who encouraged the pagan creeds that the Prior of San Marco yearned to overthrow. Enemies in life, they serve as opposing types of the fifteenth century Italian, one earnest, ardent, filled with zeal for self-sacrifice, the other an epicure, gratifying each whim, yet deserving praise because in every form he encouraged beauty. There is something fine in the magnanimity of the Medicean tyrant when he tried to conciliate the honest monk; there is something infinitely noble in the very weakness of the martyr, whose death disappointed so many of his followers because it proved that he had not miraculous powers.

The charm of Southern cities makes the background for the drama between man and the devil seem dingy in comparison, but even Central Europe has romantic figures in the Reformation times. No sensuous Italian mind could have defied Pope and Emperor so stoutly and changed the religion of many European nations without the world being drenched in blood. Luther is a less gallant champion than William of Orange who fought for toleration and lost life and wealth in the cause, but his words were powerful as weapons to reform the ancient abuses of the Church. He is singularly steadfast among the ranks of men struggling for freedom of the soul, but hardly daring to war against the cramping dogmas of the past.

{230}

The soldiers of the Catholic Church have all the glamour of tradition to render them immortal—they are the saints now whose lot was humblest upon earth. The Crusader has clashed through the ages with the noise of sword and armour, attracting the lover of romance, though he performed less doughty deeds than the monk of stern asceticism, whose rule forbade him to break peace. He enjoys glory still as he enjoyed the hour of victories, and the battle that might bring death but could not result in shame. The Brethren of St Dominic and St Francis shrank in life, at least, from the reverence paid to the sacrifice of worldly pleasures. They were marvellously simple, and believed that only some stray picture on their convent walls would remain to tell their story. They judged themselves unworthy to be praised, and their creed of cheerful resignation would have forbidden them to accept the adulation of the hero-worshipper which was lavished in their age upon more brilliant warriors of the Church.