Margaret relates various attempts made by Austrians
in Lombardy and by Oscurantists in Rome to excite the
people to overt acts of violence, and thus gain a pretext for the employment of armed force. In Rome,
on New Year's day, an attempt of this sort was near
succeeding, the governor of the city having ungraciously
forbidden the people to wait upon the Pope at the
Quirinal, and to ask for his blessing. Fortunately,
instead of rising in rebellion, they betook themselves
to Senator Corsini, by whose friendly interposition the
Pope was induced to make a progress through the city,
interrupted only by the prayers of his subjects, who,
falling on their knees as he passed, cried out: “Holy
Father, don't desert us! don't forget us! don't listen
to our enemies!” the Pope, in tears, replying: "Fear
nothing, my people; my heart is yours." And this
tender-hearted populace, seeing that the Pope looked ill,
and that the weather was inclement, begged him to
return to the Quirinal, which he did, the popular leader,
Ciceruacchio, following his carriage.
A letter from Mazzini to Pope Pius, printed in Paris, had reached Italy by this time, and was translated by Margaret for publication in the New York Tribune. Some passages of it will not be out of place here, as showing the position and outlook of a man by far the most illustrious of the Italian exiles, and one whose purity of life and excellence of character gave to his opinions a weight beyond their intellectual value.
After introducing himself as one who adores God, Mazzini says that he adores, also, an idea which seems to him to be of God, that of Italy as "an angel of moral unity and of progressive civilization for the nations of Europe.”
Having studied the great history of humanity, and
