Chapter 2

THE MOUNTAIN HEIGHTS—THE CENTRAL EUROPEAN COMMITTEE—MAZZINI—LEDRU-ROLLIN—KOSSUTH

In London I made haste to see Mazzini, not only because he had taken the warmest and most active interest in the misfortunes which had befallen my family, but also because I was charged with a special commission to him from his friends. Medici, Pisacane, Mezzacapo, Cosenz, Bertani and the rest were dissatisfied with the direction of affairs given from London; they said that Mazzini did not understand the new position, and they complained of the revolutionary sycophants who, to curry favour, supported his idea that everything was ready for a rising and only waiting for a signal. They wanted internal changes in the party, they thought it essential to introduce a far more military element and to have strategists at the head of the movement, instead of lawyers and journalists. With this object they wished Mazzini to associate himself more closely with generals of genius, such as Ulloa,[32] who with old Pepe[33] stood in dissatisfied aloofness.

They commissioned me to tell all this to Mazzini, partly because they knew he had confidence in me, and partly because my position outside the Italian parties freed my hands.

Mazzini received me as an old friend. At last the conversation turned on the message given me by his friends. At first he listened to me very attentively, though he did not disguise the fact that he was not quite pleased at opposition; but when from general propositions I came down to details and personal questions, then he suddenly cut me short.

‘That is not so at all, there is not a word of sense in it!’

‘It is not six weeks, though,’ I observed, ‘since I left Genoa, and I have spent the last two years in Italy and can myself confirm a great deal of what I have said, speaking in the name of your friends.’

‘It is just because you have been in Genoa that you say that. What is Genoa? What could you hear there? The opinion of one group of the exiles! I know that they think that, but I know too that they are mistaken. Genoa is a very important centre, but it is only one point and I know the whole of Italy; I know the needs of every little spot from Abruzzi to Vorarlberg. Our friends in Genoa are out of touch with the whole peninsula, they cannot judge what it wants, they cannot judge the state of mind of the public.’

I made two or three more attempts, but by now he was _en garde_, beginning to get angry and answering impatiently. I ceased speaking, with a feeling of sadness; I had not noticed such intolerance in him in old days.

‘I am very grateful to you,’ he said, after a moment’s thought. ‘I ought to know our friends’ opinion; I am ready to weigh everything, to consider everything, but whether I agree or not is a different matter; a great responsibility lies upon me, not only before God and my conscience, but before the Italian people.’

My mediation was a failure.

Mazzini was already planning his 3rd of February 1853; the question was settled in his mind, and his friends did not agree with him.

‘Do you know Ledru-Rollin, and Kossuth?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Would you like to make their acquaintance?’

‘Very much.’

‘You ought to see them. I will write you a few words to both. Tell them what you have seen, how you have left our friends. Ledru-Rollin,’ he went on, taking up the pen and beginning a note, ‘is the most charming man in the world, but a Frenchman _jusqu’au bout des ongles_. He firmly believes that Europe will never move without a revolution in France. _Le peuple initiateur!..._ But where is French initiative now? Though even in the past the ideas which moved France came from Italy or from England. You will see that Italy will begin the new era of revolution! What do you think?’

‘I must own that I do not think so.’

‘Why,’ he said smiling, ‘will it be the Slav world?’

‘I didn’t say that; I do not know on what Ledru-Rollin bases his convictions, but it is very probable that no revolution will succeed in Europe while France is in the state of prostration in which we see her.’

‘So you are still under the influence of the prestige of France?’

‘The prestige of her geographical position, her formidable army and her natural support by Russia, Austria and Prussia.’[34]

‘France is asleep, we will awaken her.’

There was nothing left for me to say but, ‘God grant that your words may come true!’

Which of us was right at that moment was shown by Garibaldi. In a former chapter I have spoken of my meeting with him in the West India Docks on his American ship, _The Commonwealth_.

There at lunch with him, in the presence of Orsini, Haug and me, Garibaldi, speaking with great affection of Mazzini, gave his candid opinion of the attempt of the 3rd of February 1853 (we met in the spring of 1854), and spoke of the necessity of uniting all the Italian groups in one fighting party. And on the evening of the same day, we met at the house of an acquaintance; Garibaldi was not in good spirits, Mazzini took out of his pocket a number of the _Italia del Popolo_, and showed him an article in it. Garibaldi read it through and said: ‘Yes, it is smartly written, but a very mischievous article. I tell you plainly, the journalist or the writer ought to be severely punished for such an article. To do all he can to increase the breach between us and Piedmont when we only have one army, the army of the King of Sardinia! It is a recklessness and unnecessary insolence that borders upon crime.’

Mazzini defended the paper, Garibaldi became still more depressed.

When leaving his ship, he had said it would be too late to go back to the docks and that he would sleep at a hotel, and I had invited him to come home with me instead. He had consented. Besieged on all sides by an indomitable legion of ladies, Garibaldi succeeded by a series of marches and countermarches in extricating himself from the throng and, reaching me, whispered in my ear: ‘How long are you staying?’

‘Let us go at once if you like.’

‘Please do.’

We took leave; on the way home he said to me: ‘How sorry I am, how terribly sorry that Peppo[35] is so carried away and with the noblest and purest intentions makes such mistakes! It was more than I could stand just now; he is pleased at having trained his followers to irritate Piedmont. Why, if the king goes over altogether to the reactionaries, free speech will be silenced in Italy and the last support of the movement will be lost. The republic, the republic! I have been a republican all my life, but it is not a question of a republic now. I know the Italian masses better than Mazzini, I have lived with them and lived their life. Mazzini knows the educated classes of Italy and sways their intellects; but out of them there is no making an army to drive out the Austrians and the Pope; for the mass, for the Italian people, the only banner is “Unity and the expulsion of foreigners!” And how is that to be attained by estranging the one powerful kingdom in Italy which, for one reason or another, wishes to stand by Italy, and is afraid to do so; instead of inviting its co-operation, they repel it and insult it. On the day when the _young man_ believes that he has more in common with the archdukes than with us, the progress of Italy will be delayed for a generation or two.’

Next day was Sunday; he went for a walk with my son, had his daguerrotype taken at Caldesi’s and brought it me for a present, and then stayed to dinner.

In the middle of dinner, I was called out to see an Italian who had been sent by Mazzini and had been looking for Garibaldi all day; I asked him to sit down to the table with us.

The Italian seemed anxious to speak to him alone, I suggested they should go into my study. In the course of the conversation Garibaldi twice over repeated what he had said to me on the way home.

In aim he was completely at one with Mazzini, but differed from him in the method of achieving it. That Garibaldi understood the masses of the people better I am absolutely convinced. Mazzini, like a mediaeval monk, had a deep understanding of one side of life, but invented the others; he lived a great deal in thought and passion, not in the everyday world; from his early years till his hair was grey, he had lived in the juntas of the Carbonari, and in a circle of persecuted republicans and Liberal writers; he was in relations with Greek revolutionary clubs and Spanish _exaltados_, he conspired with the genuine Cavaignac and the impostor Ramorino,[36] with the Swiss James Fazy, with the Polish democracy, with the Moldo-Wallachians.... From his study the enthusiastic Konarski set off with his blessing, went to Russia and was lost. All that is so, but he was never in touch with the people, with that _solo interprete della legge divina_, with that thick layer that goes down to the foundations, that is, reaches the fields and the plough, and includes the wild shepherds of Calabria, the _facchinos_ and the boatmen; while Garibaldi, not only in Italy but everywhere, lived among them, knew their strength and their weakness, their griefs and their joys: he knew them on the field of battle and on the stormy ocean, he could become a legendary figure like Bem,[37] and inspired more faith than his patron, San Giuseppe....

Only Mazzini did not believe in him.

And Garibaldi as he went away said: ‘I am going with a heavy heart, I have no influence over him, and again he will undertake something before the time is ripe!’

Garibaldi guessed right. Before a year was over, there were again two or three unsuccessful outbreaks; Orsini was arrested by the Piedmont gendarmes on Piedmont soil, almost with a weapon in his hands, one of the centres of the movement was discovered in Rome, and the marvellous organisation of which I have spoken was broken up. The panic-stricken governments strengthened their police: the brutal coward, the King of Naples, resorted to torture again.

Then Garibaldi could stand it no longer, and published the famous letter in which he said: ‘None but madmen or enemies of the Italian cause can take part in these unfortunate risings.’

Perhaps that letter ought not to have been published. Mazzini was crushed and unhappy. Garibaldi had dealt him a blow ... but that his letter was perfectly consistent with what he had said to me and before me—of that there can be no doubt.

Next day I went to see Ledru-Rollin; he received me very graciously. His colossal, imposing figure, which did not gain by scrutiny _en détail_, made a favourable impression as a whole. He must have been both a _bon enfant_ and a _bon vivant_. His grey hair and the wrinkles on his brow showed that his anxieties had not passed over him quite without leaving a trace. He had spent his life and his fortune on the revolution and the public favour had deserted him. The strange, ambiguous part he played in April and May and his feebleness in the days of June had estranged from him a section of the Reds, without bringing him any nearer the Blues. His name which had served as a symbol, and had at one time been on the lips of the peasants, though in a distorted form,[38] was more rarely heard. Even his party in London was gradually melting away; especially after Felix Pyat set up in London.

Settling himself comfortably on a sofa, Ledru-Rollin began to ‘harangue’ me: ‘The revolution,’ he said, ‘can only radiate (_rayonner_) from France. It is clear that whatever country you belong to, you ought first of all to assist us for the sake of your own cause. The revolution can only come from Paris. I know very well that our friend Mazzini is not of that opinion. He is carried away by his patriotism. What can Italy do with Austria on her back and the soldiers of Napoleon in Rome? What we need is Paris; Paris means Rome; Warsaw, Hungary, Sicily—and happily Paris is perfectly ready—make no mistake about it, she is perfectly ready! The revolution is made. _La révolution est faite, c’est clair comme bonjour._ I don’t think about that, I think of what is to follow it, of how to avoid our mistakes of the past.’ He went on in this way for half an hour and, suddenly realising that he was not alone and not facing an audience, said to me in a very good-natured way: ‘You see you and I are entirely at one about it.’ I had not opened my lips. Ledru-Rollin went on: ‘As for the material fact of the revolution, it is delayed by our lack of funds. Our means have been exhausted in this struggle which has been going on for years and years. If only I had at once a hundred thousand francs at my disposal—yes—a miserable hundred thousand francs—there would be revolution in Paris the day after to-morrow or the day after that.’

‘But how is it,’ I observed at last, ‘that such a wealthy nation, absolutely ready to rise, does not find a hundred thousand or even half a million francs?’

Ledru-Rollin coloured a little but answered without faltering: ‘_Pardon, pardon_, you are speaking of theoretical hypotheses, while I am speaking of facts, simple facts.’

That I could not understand.

When I was leaving, Ledru-Rollin escorted me down the stairs in the English fashion and, giving me his enormous, titanic hand, said once more: ‘I hope this is not good-bye. I shall always be pleased to see you, and so _au revoir_.’

‘In Paris,’ I added.

‘In Paris?’

‘You have so convinced me that the revolution is just upon us, that I really don’t know if I shall have time to see you here.’

He looked at me in perplexity, and so I made haste to add: ‘Anyway I sincerely hope so. That I think you cannot doubt.’

‘Otherwise you would not have been here,’ he observed, and we parted.

* * * * *

Kossuth I saw for the first time on my second visit. It happened like this: when I arrived I was greeted in the parlour by a military gentleman in a semi-Hungarian military costume, with the information that His Honour the Governor was not receiving.

‘Here is a letter from Mazzini.’

‘I will give it him at once. Kindly sit down.’ He offered me a pipe and then a chair. Two or three minutes later he returned. ‘His Honour the Governor extremely regrets that he cannot see you, he is just finishing his American mail. However, if you like to wait, he will be delighted to see you later.’

‘And will he soon have finished his letters?’

‘At five o’clock exactly.’

I glanced at my watch; it was half-past one.

‘Well, I am not going to wait three hours and a half.’

‘But will you not come again later?’

‘I live at least three miles from Notting Hill. However,’ I added, ‘I have no pressing business with His Honour the Governor!’

‘But His Honour the Governor will be extremely sorry.’

‘Here is my address, then.’

A week passed; one evening a long gentleman with long whiskers appeared—a Hungarian colonel whom I had met in the summer at Lugano.

‘I have come to you from His Honour the Governor. He is very much troubled at your not having been to see him.’

‘Oh, how unfortunate! However, I did leave him my address. If I knew the right time to go I would certainly go to see Kossuth to-day or ...’ I added inquiringly, ‘what ought I to say ... to His Honour the Governor?’

‘_Zu dem Olten, zu dem Olten_,’ observed the colonel, smiling; ‘we always call him _der Olte_ among ourselves. What a man! You will see. Such a head as his there is not in the whole world, never has been and ...’ the colonel inwardly sang a hymn in praise of Kossuth.

‘Very good, I will come to-morrow at two o’clock.’

‘That is impossible. To-morrow is Wednesday. To-morrow morning the old man only receives our people, only Hungarians.’

I could not help laughing, and the colonel laughed too.

‘When does your old man drink tea?’ I asked.

‘At eight o’clock in the evening.’

‘Tell him that I will come to-morrow at eight o’clock. If that won’t do you must write to me.’

‘He will be delighted—I will wait for you in the reception-room.’

This time as soon as I rang the bell the long colonel met me, and a short colonel at once led me to Kossuth’s study.

I found Kossuth working at a big table; he was wearing a black velvet Hungarian jacket and a little black cap: he is far better-looking than all his portraits and busts; in his youth he must have been a handsome fellow and the romantically pensive character of his face must have been terribly attractive to women. His features have not the classical correctness of Mazzini’s, Saffi’s or Orsini’s; but—and perhaps indeed owing to this fact—he was more akin to us Northerners. Not only a strong mind but a deeply feeling heart could be seen in his mournfully gentle expression; his melancholy smile and rather impressive manner of speech put the finishing touches to his charm. He speaks extremely well, though with a distinct accent, equally persistent in his French, his German and his English. He does not elaborate his phrases nor deal in commonplaces; he thinks with one, listens, and develops his thought almost always originally, because he is much freer than the others from pedantry and the spirit of party. Perhaps a legal training may be detected in his manner of advancing arguments and objections, but what he says is earnest and well thought out.

Kossuth had had a great deal to do with the practical business of his countryside before 1848; this gave him a certain correctness of judgment. He was very well aware that in the world of events and practice it is not always possible to fly straight as the crow, that facts rarely develop along a simple logical line, but take a tacking course, zigzagging or going off at a tangent. And that is among others the reason why Kossuth is inferior to Mazzini in fiery activity, and why, on the other hand, Mazzini is continually making attempts, desperate efforts, while Kossuth makes none at all.

Mazzini’s attitude towards the Italian revolution is that of a fanatic; he believes in his idea of it; he does not subject that idea to criticism, but bounds forward _ora e sempre_, like an arrow loosed from the bow. The less he takes circumstances into account the simpler and more persistent is his activity, and the purer his idea.

The revolutionary idealism of Ledru-Rollin is not complicated either; it may be all found in the speeches of the Convention and the measures of the Committee of Public Security. Kossuth brought with him from Hungary no common store of revolutionary tradition, no apocalyptic formulas of social doctrinairism, but simply the protest of his own country, which he had studied thoroughly, a new country, unknown as regards its needs, as regards its barbaric free institutions and as regards its mediaeval forms. In comparison with his comrades, Kossuth was a specialist.

The French refugees, with their unfortunate habit of judging everything wholesale and measuring everything by their own standard, made it a great reproach against Kossuth that in Marseilles he had expressed his sympathy with Socialist ideas, and, in the speech delivered in London from the balcony of the Mansion House, had spoken with deep respect of the parliamentary system.

Kossuth was perfectly right. These events occurred during his journey from Constantinople, that is, during the most triumphantly heroic episode of the dark years that followed 1848. The American ship which tore him from the uplifted claws of Austria and Russia was proudly sailing with the exile to one republic and stopped on the shores of another. There already a decree of the police-dictator of France was waiting to forbid the exile’s stepping on the soil of the future empire. Now that would have been the end of it; but in those days there were still men in France not completely broken in, and crowds of workmen hastened in boats to the ship to greet Kossuth, and Kossuth very naturally spoke with them of Socialism. The scene changes. On the way, one free country begged of the other a visit from the exile. Kossuth, publicly thanking the English for his reception, did not conceal his respect for the system which made it possible. He was in both cases perfectly sincere; he did not represent any party at all; he could sympathise with the French workman and sympathise with the English constitution without becoming an Orleanist or being false to Republicanism. Kossuth knew this and well understood his position in England as regards revolutionary parties on the negative side, too; he became neither a Glückist nor a Piccinist;[39] he held himself equally aloof from Ledru-Rollin and from Louis Blanc. With Mazzini and Worcell he had ground in common, their frontiers were adjacent, their struggle was similar and, indeed, almost the same; with them he first made friends.

But Mazzini and Worcell had long been what the Spanish call _afrancisados_. Kossuth, with stubborn reluctance, gave in to them, and it is well worth noting that he yielded in proportion as his hopes of a rising in Hungary grew fainter and fainter.

From my conversation with Mazzini and Ledru-Rollin, it is evident that Mazzini looked for the revolutionary impulse from Italy, and was altogether greatly dissatisfied with France, but from that it does not follow that I am wrong in calling him _afrancisado_. His attitude was on the one hand due to a patriotism not altogether in harmony with the idea of the brotherhood of peoples and the universal republic, and on the other hand to his personal indignation with France for having in 1848 done nothing to help Italy and in 1849 everything to ruin her. But being irritated against the France of to-day does not mean being outside her influence; the French revolutionary faith has its common uniform, its ritual, its creeds; within its limits one may be a political liberal or a desperate democrat; one may without loving France love one’s own country in a French fashion; all those will be variations, personal cases, but the algebraical formula will remain the same.

Kossuth’s conversation with me at once took a serious turn, there was more sadness than cheerfulness in his views and his words; he certainly did not expect a revolution to-morrow. His knowledge of South-Eastern Europe was immense; he surprised me by quoting points from the treaties of Catherine with the Porte.

‘What terrible mischief you did us at the time of our rebellion,’ he said, ‘and what terrible mischief to yourselves! What a narrow and anti-Slav policy to support Austria! You may be sure Austria will not say thank you for being saved; do you imagine she does not understand that Nicholas was not helping her, but despotic power in general?’

He knew far less about the social than about the political and military state of Russia. That is not surprising. There are but few of our own statesmen who know anything about it except generalities and casual, private, disconnected observations. He thought that the Crown peasants paid their taxes in the form of labour, and questioned me about the village commune and the power of the landowners; I told him what I knew.

On leaving Kossuth I asked myself what he had in common with his comrades, except caring for the independence of his people. Mazzini was dreaming of freeing humanity by means of Italy, Ledru-Rollin wanted to free mankind in Paris and then sternly to dictate freedom to the whole world. Kossuth hardly troubled about humanity and was, it seemed, scarcely concerned whether a republic would shortly be proclaimed in Lisbon, or whether the Bey of Tripoli would be called a simple citizen of the one and indivisible Tripoli commonwealth.

This distinction, which struck me from the first glance, was apparent afterwards in a succession of actions. Mazzini and Ledru-Rollin, as men independent of practical considerations, did their utmost to make revolutionary attempts every two or three months, Mazzini by risings, Ledru-Rollin by the dispatch of agents. Mazzini’s friends were perishing in the Austrian and Papal prisons, Ledru-Rollin’s emissaries were perishing in Lambessa and Cayenne,[40] but with the fanaticism of blind believers they persisted in dispatching their Isaacs to the sacrifice. Kossuth made no attempts; Libényi,[41] who stuck a knife in the Emperor of Austria, had no connection with him.

No doubt Kossuth came to London with more sanguine hopes, and, indeed, there is no denying that he might well have had his head turned. One need but recall the continual ovation, the regal procession across seas and oceans, and the towns of America quarrelling over the honour of being the first to meet him and to conduct him within their walls. Proud London, the city of two millions, stood waiting for him at the railway-station, the Lord Mayor’s carriage was there in readiness for him; aldermen, sheriffs, Members of Parliament escorted him through a sea of surging people who greeted him, shouting and flinging up their hats.... And when he came out on the balcony of the Mansion House with the Lord Mayor, he was welcomed with thunders of ‘Hurrah!’ such as Nicholas could never wring from the crowd in London through the patronage of Wellington, the statue to Nelson, or by courting favour over race-horses.

The haughty English aristocracy, who went down to their country seats while Napoleon III. was banqueting with the Queen at Windsor or carousing with shopkeepers in the City, forgot their dignity and crowded in coaches and carriages to see the famous agitator. People of the highest rank were presented to him, the exile. _The Times_ frowned on it at first, but was so scared at the clamour of public opinion that it began abusing Napoleon to smooth over its error.

Is it strange that Kossuth came back from America full of hopes? But after spending a year or two in London and seeing the direction history was taking on the Continent and the cooling of enthusiasm in England itself, he saw that a rising in Hungary was impossible and that England was a poor ally of revolution. Once again he was filled with hopes and again championed his old cause before the English people: that was at the beginning of the Crimean War.

He abandoned his seclusion then and appeared hand in hand with Worcell, that is, with democratic Poland, which besought the Allies for no more than a summons, no more than their consent, in order to risk a rebellion. No doubt this was for Poland the great moment—_oggi o mai_. If the restoration of Poland had been sanctioned, what might not Hungary have expected? That was why Kossuth appeared at the Polish meeting of the 29th of November 1854, and asked for a hearing. That was why he afterwards, in company with Worcell, visited the principal towns of England, promoting the agitation for the benefit of Poland. Kossuth’s speeches delivered on those occasions are very remarkable both in form and matter, but this time England was not carried away by him: people flocked in crowds to the meetings, applauded his marvellous eloquence, were ready to subscribe to funds; but the movement went no further, his words did not call forth that echo in other circles, in the masses, which might have influenced Parliament or have forced the Government to change its course. The year 1854 passed; 1855 had come; Nicholas was dead. Poland had not moved, the war was confined to the shores of the Crimea; it was useless even to dream of the restoration of Polish nationalism; Austria was a bone in the throat of the Allies. Besides, all were longing for peace, all that mattered had been attained, the civilian Napoleon was covered with military glory.

Kossuth withdrew from the stage again. His articles in the _Atlas_ and the lectures on the Concordat, which he gave in Edinburgh and Manchester, are rather to be reckoned as private work. Kossuth had saved neither his own fortune nor his wife’s. Accustomed to the lavish luxury of Hungarian magnates, he had in a foreign land to earn his livelihood; he did this and made no secret of it.

There is something of dignity and melancholy about the whole family: one can see that great events have passed over it and have raised the diapason of all. Kossuth is to this day surrounded by a few faithful followers; at first they were his court and now they are simply his friends.

Events have left their trace on him, he has grown much older of late, and his resignation makes one’s heart ache.

The first two years we rarely met; then chance brought us together at one of the most beautiful spots not only in England but in Europe—in the Isle of Wight. We spent a month in Ventnor at the same time that he was there in 1855.

Before he went away we were all at a children’s party. Kossuth’s two sons, splendid and charming lads, were dancing with my children.... Kossuth stood in the doorway and looked mournfully at them, then with a smile towards my son said to me:

‘Here is the younger generation quite ready to replace us.’

‘Will they see it?’

‘That is just what I was wondering. Meanwhile let them dance,’ he added and watched them still more mournfully.

I fancy that then, too, we were thinking the same thing: will their fathers see it? And what will they see? Does not the revolutionary era, for which we, in the light of the dying glow of the ’nineties, were striving, for which Liberal France, Young Italy, Mazzini, Ledru-Rollin were striving, already belong to the past? Are not these men becoming the sorrowful representatives of the past, around whom a new life and new problems are springing up? Their religion, their language, their movement, their aims are all akin to us, and at the same time alien ... the chime of the church bell on the still morning of a saint’s-day and the singing of the liturgy thrill the soul even now, but yet we have no faith!

These are melancholy truths: it is hard, bitter to look some things in the face, hard sometimes to tell plainly what one sees. And is it necessary? It, too, is in its way an obsession or a disease. ‘The truth, the bare truth and nothing but the truth!’ All that is very fine; but is the seeing of it compatible with our life? Will it not corrode it, as too strong an acid eats away the sides of a vessel, and is not the passion for it a terrible infirmity that bitterly punishes one who cherishes it in his heart?

One memorable day for me a year ago, this thought was particularly insistent.

On the day of Worcell’s death I was awaiting the sculptor in the poor room where that martyr’s sufferings ended. An old servant was standing with a guttering yellow candle-end in her hand, to light up the wasted corpse that lay covered by a single sheet. As afflicted as Job, he had fallen asleep with a smile on his lips, faith was still steady in his dimming eyes, closed by a fanatic like himself, Mazzini.

I loved that old man and grieved over him, and I did not once tell him all the truth that I had in my mind. I did not want to trouble his failing spirit, he had suffered far too much, he needed the prayer for the dying and not the truth, and that is why he was so glad when Mazzini whispered vows and words of faith into his dying ear!

Appendix

(To Chapter 2)[42]

What has changed? The years ’59 and ’60 have widened the horizon. Persons and parties are more clearly defined, some have grown stronger, others have vanished. With strained attention, checking not only every criticism, but even the throbbing of our hearts, we have watched over those dear to us for these last two years. They have at times disappeared behind the smoke of battle, at times have stood out vividly against it, growing vaster every minute, and again have vanished in the smoke. At this moment it has passed away and we can breathe again, all those dear to us are safe!

And beyond the smoke, in the shade, apart from the noise of battle, with no share in the rejoicings of victory, with no share in the laurel wreaths, one figure stands out like a colossus.

Cursed by all parties, by the cheated plebeian, by the savage priest, by the cowardly bourgeois, and the scum of Piedmont; vilified by all the organs of all the reactions, from the papal and imperial _Moniteur_ to the liberal eunuchs of Cavour, and the grand eunuch of the London money-changers, _The Times_ (which cannot mention Mazzini’s name without vulgar abuse), he remained not only ‘unshaken in the midst of universal error,’ but with joy and rapture blessing the friends and foes who were carrying out _his_ thought, _his_ plan. Pointing to him, as to some angel of destruction:

‘The people mysteriously saved by him
Reviled his sacred head,’[43]

but beside him stood not Kutuzov but Garibaldi. In the person of her hero, her deliverer, Italy did not break with Mazzini. How was it Garibaldi did not yield him half his laurels? Why did he not openly avow that he went hand in hand with him? Why did not the abandoned triumvir of Rome urge his claims? Why did Mazzini himself beg Garibaldi not to mention him? And why did the popular leader, pure-hearted as a child, keep silence and thus falsely admit the breach?

There was something dearer to both than their persons, their names, their reputations ... Italy!

And the vulgar world of to-day did not understand them. It could not grasp such greatness; its bookkeeping is not equal to adjusting the accounts of such a debit and credit!

Garibaldi has become more than ever a figure from Cornelius Nepos; he has the same antique grandeur on his little farm, the same simple-hearted, pure grandeur, as a description from Homer or a Greek statue. No trace of rhetoric, of melodrama, of diplomacy. They are superfluous in the heroic epic; when it was over and everyday life began, then the King dismissed him as one dismisses the driver who has brought one to one’s destination and, embarrassed at not being able to give him a tip, surpassed Austria in his colossal ingratitude; while Garibaldi did not resent it, but, with a smile on his face and fifty _scudi_ in his pocket, went out from the palaces of the countries he had subdued, leaving the courtiers to reckon his expenses and decide that he had spoiled the bear’s skin.

They might amuse themselves as they pleased: half of the great work was done, if Italy was welded into one and the white _cretins_ had been driven out.

There were painful moments for Garibaldi. He is captivated by people; just as he was captivated by Alexandre Dumas, he is captivated by Victor Emmanuel; the King’s lack of delicate feeling wounds him, the King knows this, and, to soften him, sends pheasants killed by his own hands, flowers from his own garden, and loving notes inscribed: ‘_Sempre il tuo amico Vittorio_.’

For Mazzini, people do not exist, for him nothing exists but the cause and, indeed, the one cause; he himself exists, ‘lives and moves,’ only in it. However many pheasants and flowers the King might send him, he would not be touched. But he would at once collaborate, not only with him whom he reckons a good though foolish man, but even with his Talleyrand in miniature, whom he does not reckon a good or even a decent man. Mazzini is an ascetic, the Calvin, the Procida[44] of Italian emancipation. One-sided, for ever absorbed by one idea, for ever ready and on his guard, Mazzini keeps his vigil with the same obstinacy and patience with which he created a compact party out of scattered individuals and vague yearnings, and, after a dozen failures, called out Garibaldi and his army of half-free Italy, and preserved the living, infallible hope of its unity. Day and night, catching fish and going out hunting, lying down and getting up, Garibaldi and his followers see the thin, melancholy hand of Mazzini pointing to Rome, and they will still march thither.

I did wrong in omitting from a fragment that I have published already some pages about Mazzini; his figure has not come out so clearly without them. I dwelt particularly on his breach with Garibaldi in 1854 and on my difference of opinion with him. I did this through delicacy, but such delicacy is too petty for Mazzini, there is no need to keep anything back about such men, there is no need to spare them!

After his return from Naples he wrote me a note; I hastened to him, I had a pang at my heart when I saw him, I was still expecting to find him sad and wounded in his love, his position was tragic in the extreme. I did in fact find him older physically but younger in soul; with both hands stretched out, as his habit was, he rushed towards me with the words: ‘And so at last it is coming true!’ There was a look of delight in his eyes, and his voice trembled.

He spent the whole evening telling me of the time that preceded the expedition to Sicily, of his relations with Victor Emmanuel, then of Naples. In the enthusiasm, in the love with which he talked of Garibaldi’s victories and heroic deeds, there was as much affection for him as in his abuse of him for over-trustfulness and inability to read men.

As I listened to him, I tried to catch a single note, a single sound of wounded pride, and I could not catch it; he was sad, but sad like a mother abandoned for the time by a beloved son—she knows that the son will come back and, more than that, knows that the son is happy: that covers everything for her.

Mazzini is full of hopes, he stands closer to Garibaldi than ever. With a smile he described how Neapolitan crowds, incited by the agents of Cavour, surrounded his house, shouting: ‘Death to Mazzini!’ They had been persuaded, among other things, that Mazzini was a ‘Bourbon republican.’

‘There were several men and one young Russian with me at the time,’ he told me; ‘he was surprised at our going on talking as before. “Don’t be uneasy,” I said to soothe him, “they won’t kill me, they will only shout!”’

No, there is no need to spare men like that!

_January 31, 1861._