Let our tale revert to yet more distant memories, while the name of
"Italy" wakes the author's recollections. He is set thinking of the
sad times when newly-liberated Rome was again enchained by the hands of
European despotism, alarmed at the revival of the Mistress of the World,
and at the terrible warning conveyed by the Roman Republic. Alas! it
was by the arms of another great Republic that her hopes were blighted.
Napoleon, the secret enemy of all liberty, fleshed his weapons upon the
Romans when he had committed the crime _lesanazione_, and betrayed the
credulous people of Paris, slaying them in their streets without regard
to age or sex. May God, in his own time, deal with the assassin of the
2d of December, and of the world's liberty!
After the defense of Rome, the Recluse, never despairing of the fete of
Italy, although left with but few followers, decided to take the field.
But more is required than a handful of brave men when nations intend to
liberate themselves, and what can an irregular band of intrepid youths
accomplish against four armies?
It is true that in the present day national spirit is more awakened,
and the handful of brave youths has grown to heroic proportions and
historical deeds, but in those unhappy times the populace stood gazing
stupefied and in silence at the relics of the defenders of Rome
while passing out on their way to the open country, regarding them as
irretrievably lost. Not one of those men stood forward to increase our
ranks. On the contrary, every morning discovered a quantity of arms upon
the ground of bivouac, which deserters had abandoned. Those arms were
placed upon the mules and wagons which accompanied the column, so that
in time the column possessed more mules and wagons than men, and little
by little the hope of arousing that nation of sluggards vanished from
the souls of the faithful and courageous survivors.
At San Marino, seeing there was no longer any hope or heart to fight,
the order of the day was given "to dismiss the men to their homes." That
order was couched in the following terms: "Return to your homes, but
remember that Italy must not remain a slave."
The larger number took the road to their dwellings, but some deserters
from the Papal and Austrian troops, who, if taken prisoners would have
been shot, remained to accompany their chief in his last attempt to free
Venice.
And here begins a still sadder and more painful history.
Anita, the Recluse's inseparable companion, would not, even under these
trying circumstances, leave him. In vain did her husband endeavor to
persuade her to remain at San Marino. Though pregnant, faint, and sick,
arguments were of no avail: the courageous woman would heed no advice,
and answered all by smilingly asking "if he wished to abandon her."
Surrounded by the Austrian troops, tracked by the Papal police, that
tired remnant of the Roman army outstripped them all during a night
march, and arrived at the gates of Cesenatico at one o'clock in the
morning, where an Austrian detachment kept guard.
"Fall on them and disarm them," exclaimed Garibaldi to the few
individuals forming his retinue; and the Austrian soldiers, completely
stupefied, allowed themselves to be disarmed. The authorities were then
awakened, and requested to supply food and _bragozzi_, or small barges,
that the volunteers might embark.
It can not be denied that fortune has favored the Recluse in many
arduous enterprises, but at this time began for him a series of
adversities and misfortunes.
A northern cloud had spread itself over the Adriatic on this night, and
breaking into wind, had rendered the sea furious. The narrow mouth of
the port of Cesenatico was one mass of foam. Great were the efforts made
to leave the port in the _bragozzi_, thirteen in number, weighed down
as they were with people, and at day-break they succeeded. But at this
crisis numerous Austrians entered Cesenatico.
Sail was made, for the wind had become favorable, and on the following
morning four of the _bragozzi_, in one of which were Garibaldi and
Anita, with Cicernachio, his two sons, and Ugo-Bassi, landed in the Foci
del Po. Anita, carried in the arms of the man of her heart, was borne to
shore in a dying condition. The occupants of the other nine _bragozzi_
had given themselves up to the Austrian squadron, which had discovered
the little crafts by the light of a full moon, and had rained bullets
and grapeshot upon them until they surrendered.
The shores where the four boats put in were swarming with the enemy's
explorers, sent to trace the fugitives. Anita was lying a little way off
the shore, concealed in a corn-field, her head supported by the Recluse.
Leggiero, a valiant major belonging to the island of Maddalena, who had
followed the General in South America, and returned to Italy with him,
was their only companion. He lay peeping through the stalks, and very
soon discovered some of the cursed white curs in search of blood.
Cicernachio, Bassi, and nine others, who by our advice had taken a
different direction in order to escape the enemy, were all captured, and
shot like dogs by the Austrians.
When the nine victims were taken, the Austrians compelled nine peasants,
by force of blows, to dig nine holes in the sand, after which a
discharge from the enemy's picket dispatched the unhappy heroes. The
youngest, a son of a Roman tribune, only thirteen years of age, still
moved after the fire, but a blow from the butt-end of an Austrian's
musket smashed in his skull, and thus brutally ended his young life.
Bassi and his brother, Cicernachio, met with the same fate at Bologna.
The foreigner and the priest made merry in that hour of slaughter over
the purest Italian blood; and the mitred master of Rome remounted his
polluted throne, having for a footstool the corpses of his compatriots.
Let this cold brutality, this savage butchery of their honest
noble-hearted compatriots live in the memory of Italians, and give their
consciences no peace while they leave their magnificent city a prey to
the foreigner and to the vile priests, who use it as a den of infamy.
The Recluse, bearing his precious burden--that dear and faithful
wife--wandered sadly, with his companion, Leggiero, through the lagoons
of the lower Po, until he had closed her eyes, and wept over her cold
corpse tears of desperation. Onward he wandered then, through forests
and over mountains, ever pursued by the agents of the Pope and of
Austria. Fate, however, spared him, to suffer anew both danger and
fatigue, and to reap some triumphs too. The tyrants of Italy again found
him upon their tracks--those tracks indelibly stained by them with tears
and blood. Ill was it for them that he escaped until the day when they,
in turn, took to flight, and, like cowards, left their tables spread for
him, while the carpets of their superb palaces bore the imprint of the
rough shoes of his Thousand.
Meanwhile, however, our tale has brought the Recluse to Venice to
witness the liberty for which he had sighed so much. It was then that
the lagunes, covered with gondolas, saluted the red shirt as the token
of national redemption, and sad memories faded in the light of the joy
and freedom of that Queen of the Adriatic.