No error could have proved more calamitous; till that moment the Austrians were in ignorance of the Piedmontese mission; De-Castillia was arrested on some far more trifling charge. Pallavicini"s generous folly was rewarded by fourteen years" imprisonment, and its first consequence was the arrest of Count Confalonieri, at whose instance the visit to Turin had been made. For months the Austrians had desired to have a clue against him; the opportunity was come at last.
Federico Confalonieri, brilliant, handsome, persuasive, of great wealth and ancient lineage, innately aristocratic, but in the best sense, was morally at the head of Lombardy, by the selection of the fittest, which at certain junctures makes one man pre-appointed leader while he is still untried. When in England, the Duke of Suss.e.x prevailed upon him to become a Freemason, but he was not a Carbonaro in the technical sense, though both friends and foes believed him to be one. He knew, however, more about this and the other secret societies then existing in Italy--even those of the reactionary party--than did most of the initiated. In an amusing pa.s.sage in his memoirs he relates how, when once forcibly detained in a miserable hostelry in the Calabrian Mountains, a den of brigands, of whom the chief was the landlord, he guessed that this man was a Calderaio, and it occurred to him to make the sign of that bloodthirsty sect. Things changed in a second; the brigand innkeeper was at his feet, the complete household was set in motion to serve him. In 1821, he founded at Milan, not a secret society, but an a.s.sociation in which all the best patriots were enrolled, and of which the sole engagement was the formula, repeated on entering its ranks: "I swear to G.o.d, and on my honour, to exert myself to the utmost of my power, and even at the sacrifice of my life, to redeem Italy from foreign dominion."
Knowing to what extent he was a marked man, Confalonieri would have only exercised common prudence in leaving the country, but he could not reconcile himself to the idea of flight. Anonymous warnings rained upon him: most likely they all came from the same quarter, from Count Bubna, the Austrian Field-Marshal, with whom Confalonieri was personally on friendly terms. On the 12th of December the Countess Bubna made a last effort to save him; her carriage was ready, she implored him to take it and escape across the frontier. He refused, and next day he was arrested.
Austrian legal procedure was slow; the trial of the first Carbonari, Silvio Pellico and his companions, did not take place till 1822. On the 22nd of February the sentence of death was read to Silvio Pellico in his Venetian prison, to be commuted to one of fifteen years"
imprisonment at Spielberg, a fortress converted into a convict prison in a bleak position in Moravia. To that rock of sorrow, consecrated for ever by the sufferings of some of the purest of men, Silvio Pellico and Pietro Maroncelli, with nine or ten companions, condemned at the same time, were the first Italians to take the road. Here they remained for the eight years described by the author of _Francesca da Rimini_, in _Le Mie Prigioni_, a book that served the Italian cause throughout the world. Even now some Italians are indignant at the spirit of saintly resignation which breathes upon Silvio Pellico"s pages, at the veil which is drawn over many shocking features in the treatment of the prisoners; they do not know the tremendous force which such reticence gave his narrative. _Le Mie Prigioni_ has the reserve strength of a Greek tragedy.
Maroncelli contracted a disease of the leg through the hardships endured; amputation became necessary, but could not be performed till permission was received from Vienna--a detail showing the red-tapism which governed all branches of the Austrian administration. This patriot went, after his release, to America, where he died, poor, blind and mad. Pellico, crushed in soul, devoted his latter years entirely to religion. Only men of iron fibre could come out as they went in. The Spielberg prisoners wore chains, and their food was so bad and scanty that they suffered from continual hunger, with its attendant diseases. Unlike the thieves and a.s.sa.s.sins confined in the same fortress, the State prisoners were given no news of their families. Such was Spielberg, "a sepulchre without the peace of the dead."
The State trials of the Lombard patriots in 1823 resulted in seven capital sentences on the Milanese, thirteen on the Brescians, and four on the Mantuans. The fate of the other prisoners depended on that of Count Confalonieri. If the sentence on him were not carried out, the lives at least of the others might be regarded as safe, since he was looked upon as the head. It is certain that the authorities, and the Emperor himself, had the most firm intention of having him executed; the more merciful decision was solely due to the Countess Confalonieri"s journey to Vienna. Accompanied by the prisoner"s aged father, this beautiful and heroic woman, a daughter of the n.o.ble Milanese house of Casati, went to Vienna before the conclusion of the trial, to be ready for any eventuality. When the sentence of death was pa.s.sed, it was announced by the Emperor to old Count Confalonieri, whom he advised to return with the Countess Teresa as fast as possible if they wished to see the condemned man alive. Undaunted by the news, the brave wife sought an interview with the Empress, in whom she found a warm advocate, but who was obliged to own, after several attempts to obtain a reprieve, that she despaired of success. Teresa Confalonieri hurried back to Milan through the bitter winter weather, in doubt whether she should arrive before the execution had taken place. But the unceasing efforts of the Empress won the day. The respite was granted on the 13th of January; life-imprisonment was subst.i.tuted for death. The countess sent her husband the pillow which she had bathed with her tears during her terrible journey; needless to say that it was not given to him. She died broken-hearted with waiting before he was set at liberty in the year 1836.
When Count Confalonieri reached Vienna on his way to Spielberg, he was surprised to find himself installed in a luxurious apartment, with three servants to wait upon him. Though too ill to touch solid food, a sumptuous breakfast and dinner were daily set before him; and but for the constant jingle of his chains, he would have thought himself in a first-cla.s.s hotel on a journey of pleasure. The object of these attentions was clear when one evening Prince Metternich came to see him, and stayed for three hours, endeavouring by every exquisite flattery, by every promise and persuasion, to worm out of him the secrets of which he alone was believed to be the depositary. The Austrian Government had spent 60,000 on the Milan Commission, and, practically, they were no wiser than when it began. Would Confalonieri enlighten them? Whatever scruples he might have felt during the trial could be now laid aside; there was no question of new arrests. It was from pure, abstract love of knowledge that the Government, or, rather, the Emperor, desired to get at the truth. If he preferred to open his mind to the Emperor in person, His Majesty would grant him a secret audience. Above all, what was the real truth about the Prince of Carignano?
All the rest was a blind; it was the wish to have some d.a.m.natory evidence against Charles Albert, such as would for ever exclude him from the throne, that had induced the Emperor and his astute minister to make this final attempt.
"Confalonieri need never go to Spielberg," said the Prince; "let him think of his family, of his adored wife, of his own talents, of his future career, which was on the brink of being blotted out as completely as if he were dead!" Confalonieri was worthy of his race, of his cla.s.s, of himself; he stood firm, and next morning, almost with a sense of relief, he started for the living grave.
"The struggle was decided," Prince Metternich had said in the course of the interview, "and decided not only for our own, but for many generations. Those who still hoped to the contrary were madmen."
Some years of outward quiet doubtless confirmed him in the first opinion, while the second was not likely to be shaken by the next attempt that was made to take up arms for freedom. On the 28th of June 1828, several villages in the province of Salerno rose in obedience to the harangues of two patriotic ecclesiastics, Canon de Luca and Carlo da Celle, superior of a capuchin convent. This was meant to develop into a general insurrection, but it was nowhere followed up, and the sword of vengeance fell speedily on the wretched villagers. Surrounded by the royal troops, they were forced into submission, many were shot on the spot, others were dragged in chains to Salerno, not even a drop of water being allowed them during the journey under the scorching sun. The village of Bosco was rased to the ground. The priest, the monk, and twenty-two insurgents were shot after the repression. The heads of the victims were cut off and placed in iron cages where their wives or mothers were likely to see them. A woman went to Naples to beg for the pardon of her two grandsons, by name Diego and Emilio. The King, with barbarous clemency, told her to choose one. In vain she entreated that if both could not be saved the choice should be left to chance, or decided by someone else. But no; unless she chose they would both be shot. At last she chose Diego. Afterwards she went mad, and was constantly heard wailing: "I have killed my grandson Emilio."
This anecdote gives a fair notion of Francis I., whose short reign was, however, less signalised by acts of cruelty, though there were enough of these, than by a venality never surpa.s.sed. The grooms-in-waiting and ladies-of-the-bedchamber sold the public offices in the daylight; and the King, who was aware of it, thought it a subject for vulgar jokes with his intimates. Francis died in 1830 of bad humour at the Paris revolution, and was succeeded by Ferdinand II., to be known hereafter as Bomba--then a clownish youth, one of whose first kingly cares was to create St Ignatius Loyola a Field-Marshal.
The revolution which upset the throne of Charles X., and ushered in the eighteen years" reign of the Citizen King, seemed likely to have momentous consequences for Italy. The principle of non-intervention proclaimed by French politicians would, if logically enforced, sound the death-knell of the Austrian power in Italy. Dupin, the Minister of War, enlarged on the theme in a speech which appeared to remove all doubt as to the real intentions of the Government. "One phrase," he remarked, "has made a general impression; it expresses the true position of a loyal and generous Government. Not only has the President of the Council laid down the principle that France should abstain from intervention; he has declared that she would not tolerate intervention on the part of others. France might have shut herself up in a cold egotism, and simply said that she would not intervene; this would have been contemptible, but the proclamation of not suffering the interventions of others is the n.o.blest att.i.tude a strong and magnanimous people can a.s.sume; it amounts to saying: Not only will I not attack or disturb other nations, but I, France, whose voice is respected by Europe and by the whole world, will never permit others to do so. This is the language held by the ministry and by the amba.s.sadors of Louis Philippe; and it is this which the army, the National Guard, France entire, is ready to maintain."
Truly language was invented to travesty the truth, and when French politicians say they are going to the right it is an almost sure sign that they are going to the left; nevertheless, is it possible to blame the Italians who read in these a.s.surances a positive promise affecting their own case?
The same a.s.surances were repeated again and again through the winter of 1830-31; they were repeated authoritatively as late as March in the latter year. Well may a French writer inquire: "Was it insanity or treachery?"
The good tidings were published by the Italian exiles, who, living close to the great centres of European politics, were the first to intoxicate themselves with the great delusion. From London, Gabriele Rossetti sent the exultant summons:
Cingi l"elmo, la mitra deponi, O vetusta Signora del mondo: Sorgi, sorgi dal sonno profondo, Io son l"alba del nuovo tuo d.
Saran rotte le vostre catene, O Fratelli che in ceppi languite; O Fratelli che il giogo soffrite Calcherete quel giogo col pie.
The child beside whose cradle the ode was written, was to grow to manhood while Italy still remained "the weeping, desolate mother." The cry of the poet was not, however, without an echo. In 1831, Romagna, Parma and Modena rose in rebellion.
Things had been going, without much variation, from bad to worse in the Roman states, ever since 1815. Pius VII. (Chiaramonti), who died in 1823, was succeeded by Leo XII. (Genga), an old man who was in such enfeebled health that his death was expected at the time of his election, but, like a more famous pontiff, he made a sudden recovery, which was attributed to the act of a prelate, who, in prayer, offered his own life for the Pope"s, and who died a few days after resolving on the sacrifice. During this Pope"s reign, the smallpox was rife in Rome, in consequence of the suppression of public vaccination. The next conclave, held in 1829, resulted in the election of Pius VIII.
(Castiglioni da Cingoli), who died on the 30th of November 1830, and was followed by Gregory XVI. (Cappellari). In each conclave, Austria had secured the choice of a "Zealot," as the party afterwards called Ultramontane was then designated. The last traces of reforms introduced by the French disappeared; criminal justice was again administered in secret; the police were arbitrary and irresponsible.
All over the Roman states, but especially in Romagna, the secret society of the Sanfedesti flourished exceedingly; whether, as is probable, an offshoot of the Calderai or of indigenous growth, its aims were the same. The affiliated swore to spill the last drop of the blood of the Liberals, without regard to s.e.x or rank, and to spare neither children nor old men. Many Romagnols had left their country after the abortive agitation of 1821, and amongst these were the Gambas. Count Pietro died in Greece, where he had gone on the service of freedom. Had he lived, this young man would have been sure to win a fair name in the annals of Italian patriotism; he should not, as it is, be quite forgotten, as it was chiefly due to him that Byron"s life took the redeeming direction which led to Missolonghi.
In February 1831, Romagna and the Marches of Ancona threw off the Papal Government with an ease which must have surprised the most sanguine. The white, red and green tricolor was hoisted at Bologna, where, as far as is known, this combination of colours first became a political badge. Thirty-six years before Luigi Zamboni and Gian Battista De Rolandis of Bologna had distributed rosettes of white, red and green ribbon; Zamboni was arrested, and strangled himself, afraid of betraying his friends; De Rolandis was hung on the 23rd of April 1796. Such was the origin of the flag, but, until 1831, the Carbonaro red, blue and black was the common standard of the revolution. From that year forth, the destinies of Italy were accomplished under the colours of better augury, so fit to recall her fiery volcanoes, her wooded Apennines, her snow-crowned Alps; colours which in one sense she receives from Dante, who clothes in them the vision of the glorified Beatrice.
The rising at Parma requires but little comment. The Empress Marie-Louise neither hated her subjects, nor was hated by them, but her engagements with Austria prevented her from granting the demanded concessions, and she abandoned her state, to return to it, indeed, under Austrian protection, but without the odious corollary of vindictive measures which was generally meant by a restoration.
Much more important is the history of the Modenese revolution.
Apologists have been found for the Bourbons of Naples, but, if anyone ever said a good word for Francesco d"Este, it has escaped the notice of the present writer. Under a despotism without laws (for the edicts of the Prince daily overrode the Este statute book which was supposed to be in force), Modena was far more in the power of the priests, or rather of the Jesuits, than any portion of the states of the Church.
Squint-eyed, crooked in mind and bloodthirsty, Francis was as ideal a bogey-tyrant as can be discovered outside fiction. In 1822, he hung the priest Giuseppe Andreoli on the charge of Carbonarism; and his theory of justice is amusingly ill.u.s.trated by the story of his sending in a bill to Sir Anthony Panizzi--who had escaped to England--for the expenses of hanging him in effigy.
Francis felt deeply annoyed by the narrow limits of his dominions, and his annoyance did not decrease with the decreasing chances of his ousting the Prince of Carignano from the Sardinian throne. He was intensely ambitious, and one of his subjects, a man, in other respects, of high intelligence, thought that his ambition could be turned to account for Italy. It was the mistake over again that Machiavelli had made with Cesare Borgia.
Ciro Menotti, who conceived the plan of uniting Italy under the Duke of Modena, was a Modenese landed proprietor who had exerted himself to promote the industry of straw-plaiting, and the other branches of commerce likely to be of advantage to an agricultural population. He was known as a sound philanthropist, an excellent husband and father, a model member of society. Francis professed to take an interest in industrial matters; Menotti, therefore, easily gained access to his person. In all the negotiations that followed, the Modenese patriot was supported and encouraged by a certain Dr Misley, who was of English extraction, with whom the Duke seems to have been on familiar terms. It appears not doubtful that Menotti was led to believe that his political views were regarded with favour, and that he also received the royal promise that, whatever happened, his life would be safe. This promise was given because he had the opportunity of saving the Duke from some great peril--probably from a.s.sa.s.sination, though the particulars were never divulged.
Misley went to Paris to concert with the Italian committee which had its seat there; the movement in Modena was fixed for the first days of February. But spies got information of the preparations, and on the evening of the 3rd, before anything had been done, Menotti"s house was surrounded by troops, and after defending it, with the help of his friends, for two hours, he was wounded and captured. Next day the Duke despatched the following note to the Governor of Reggio-Emilia: "A terrible conspiracy against me has broken out. The conspirators are in my hands. Send me the hangman.--Francis."
Not all, however, of the conspirators were in his hands; the movement matured, in spite of the seizure of Menotti, and Francis, "the first captain in the world," as he made his troops call him, was so overcome with fright that on the 5th of February he left Modena with his family, under a strong military escort, dragging after him Giro Menotti, who, when Mantua was reached, was consigned to an Austrian fortress.
Meanwhile, the revolution triumphed. Modena chose one of her citizens as dictator, Biagio Nardi, who issued a proclamation in which the words "Italy is one; the Italian nation is one sole nation," testified that the great lesson which Menotti had sought to teach had not fallen on unfruitful ground. Wild as were the methods by which, for a moment, he sought to gain his end, his insistance on unity nevertheless gives Menotti the right to be considered the true precursor of Mazzini in the Italian Revolution.
Now that the testing-time was come, France threw to the winds the principle announced in her name with such solemn emphasis. "Precious French blood should never be shed except on behalf of French interests," said Casimir Perier, the new President of the Council. A month after the flight of the Duke of Modena, the inevitable Austrians marched into his state to win it back for him. The hastily-organised little army of the new government was commanded by General Zucchi, an old general of Napoleon, who, when Lombardy pa.s.sed to Austria, had entered the Austrian service. He now offered his sword to the Dictator of Modena, who accepted it, but there was little to be done save to retire with honour before the 6000 Austrians. Zucchi capitulated at Ancona to Cardinal Benvenuti, the Papal delegate. Those of the volunteers who desired it were furnished with regular pa.s.sports, and authorised to take ship for any foreign port. The most compromised availed themselves of this arrangement, but the vessel which was to bear Zucchi and 103 others to Ma.r.s.eilles, was captured by the Austrian Admiral Bandiera, by whom its pa.s.sengers were kidnapped and thrown into Venetian prisons, where they were kept till the end of May 1832.
This act of piracy was chiefly performed with a view to getting possession of General Zucchi, who was tried as a deserter, and condemned to twenty years" imprisonment. Among the prisoners was the young wife of Captain Silvestro Castiglioni of Modena. "Go, do your duty as a citizen," she had said, when her husband left her to join the insurrection. "Do not betray it for me, as perhaps it would make me love you less." She shared his imprisonment, but just at the moment of the release, she died from the hardships endured.
By the end of the month of March, the Austrians had restored Romagna to the Pope, and Modena to Francis IV. In Romagna the amnesty published by Cardinal Benvenuti was revoked, but there were no executions; this was not the case in Modena. The Duke brought back Ciro Menotti attached to his triumphal car, and when he felt that all danger was past, and that the presence of the Austrians was a guarantee against a popular expression of anger, he had him hung.
"When my children are grown up, let them know how well I loved my country," Menotti wrote to his wife on the morning of his execution.
The letter was intercepted, and only delivered to his family in 1848.
The revolutionists found it in the archives of Modena. On the scaffold he recalled how he was once the means of saving the Duke"s life, and added that he pardoned his murderer, and prayed that his blood might not fall upon his head.
During the insurrection in Romagna, an event occurred which was not without importance to Europe, though it pa.s.sed almost unnoticed at the time. The eldest son of Queen Hortense died in her arms at Forl, of a neglected attack of measles; some said of poison, but the report was unfounded. He and his brother Louis, who had been closely mixed up with Italian conspiracies for more than a year, went to Romagna to offer their services as volunteers in the national army. By the death of the elder of the two, Louis Napoleon became heir to what seemed then the shadowy sovereignty of the Buonapartes.
No sooner had the Austrians retired from the Legations in July 1831, than the revolution broke out again. Many things had been promised, nothing performed; disaffection was universal, anarchy became chronic, and was increased by the indiscipline of the Papal troops that were sent to put it down. The Austrians returned and the French occupied Ancona, much to the Pope"s displeasure, and not one whit to the advantage of the Liberals. This dual foreign occupation of the Papal states lasted till the winter of 1838.
CHAPTER IV
"YOUNG ITALY" 1831-1844
Accession of Charles Albert--Mazzini"s Unitarian Propaganda--The Brothers Bandiera.
On 27 April 1831, Charles Albert came to the throne he had so nearly lost. His reconciliation with his uncle, Charles Felix, had been effected after long and melancholy preliminaries. To wash off the Liberal sins of his youth, or possibly with a vague hope of finding an escape from his false position in a soldier"s death, he joined the Duc d"Angouleme"s expedition against the Spanish Const.i.tutionalists. His extraordinary daring in the a.s.sault of the Trocadero caused him to be the hero of the hour when he returned with the army to Paris; but the King of Sardinia still refused to receive him with favour--a sufficiently icy favour when it was granted--until he signed an engagement, which remained secret, to preserve intact during his reign the laws and principles of government which he found in force at his accession. If there had been an Order of the Millstone, Charles Felix would doubtless have conferred it upon his dutiful nephew; failing that, he presented to him for signature this wonderful doc.u.ment, the invention of which he owed to Prince Metternich. At the Congress of Verona in 1822, Charles Albert"s claims to the succession were recognised, thanks chiefly to the Duke of Wellington, who represented England in place of Lord Londonderry (Castlereagh), that statesman having committed suicide just as he was starting for Verona. Prince Metternich then proposed that the Prince of Carignano should be called upon to enter into an agreement identical with the compact he was brought to sign a couple of years later. In communicating the proposal to Canning, the Duke of Wellington wrote that he had demonstrated to Prince Metternich "the fatality of such an arrangement," but that he did not think that he had made the slightest impression on him. So the event proved; baffled for the moment, the Prince managed to put his plan in execution through a surer channel.
With the accession of Charles Albert appears upon the political scene a great actor in the Liberation of Italy, Giuseppe Mazzini. Young and unknown, except for a vague reputation for restlessness and for talent which caused the government of Charles Felix to imprison him for six or seven months at Savona, Mazzini proposed to the new King the terms on which he might keep his throne, as calmly as Metternich had proposed to him the terms on which he might ascend it. The contrast is striking; on the one side the statesman, who still commanded the armed force of three-fourths of Europe, doing battle for the holy alliance of autocrats, for the international law of repression, for all the traditions of the old diplomacy; on the other, the young student with little money and few friends, already an exile, having no allies but his brain and his pen, who set himself, certain of success, to dissolve that mighty array of power and pomp. All his life Charles Albert was a Faust for the possession of whose soul two irreconcilable forces contended; the struggle was never more dramatically represented than at this moment in the person of these two champions.
Mazzini"s letter to Charles Albert, which was read by the King, and widely, though secretly, circulated in Piedmont, began by telling him that his fellow-countrymen were ready to believe his line of conduct in 1821 to have been forced on him by circ.u.mstances, and that there was not a heart in Italy that did not quicken at his accession, nor an eye in Europe that was not turned to watch his first steps in the career that now unfolded before him. Then he went on to show, with the logical strength in developing an argument which, joined to a novel and eloquent style, caused his writings to attract notice from the first, that the King could take no middle course. He would be one of the first of men, or the last of Italian tyrants; let him choose. Had he never looked upon Italy, radiant with the smile of nature, crowned with twenty centuries of sublime memories, the mother of genius, possessing infinite means, to which only union was lacking, girt round with such defences that a strong will and a few courageous b.r.e.a.s.t.s would suffice to defend her? Had it never struck him that she was created for a glorious destiny? Did he not contemplate her people, splendid still, in spite of the shadow of servitude, the vigour of whose intellect, the energy of whose pa.s.sions, even when turned to evil, showed that the making of a nation was there? Did not the thought come to him: "Draw a world out of these dispersed elements like a G.o.d from chaos; unite into one whole the scattered members, and p.r.o.nounce the words, "It is mine, and it is happy"?"
Mazzini in 1831 was twenty-six years of age. His father was a Genoese physician, his mother a native of Chiavari. She was a superior woman, and devoted more than a mother"s care to the excitable and delicate child, who seemed to her (mothers have sometimes the gift of prophecy) to be meant for an uncommon lot. One of the few personal reminiscences that Mazzini left recorded, relates to the time and manner in which the idea first came to him of the possibility of Italians doing something for their country. He was walking with his mother in the Strada Nuova at Genoa one Sunday in April 1821, when a tall, black-bearded man with a fiery glance held towards them a white handkerchief, saying: "For the refugees of Italy." Mazzini"s mother, gave him some money, and he pa.s.sed on. In the streets were many unfamiliar faces; the fugitives from Turin and Alessandria were gathered at Genoa before they departed by sea into exile. The impression which that scene made on the mind of the boy of sixteen was never effaced.
Owing to his delicate health, Mazzini"s early education was carried on at home, where the social atmosphere was that of one of those little centres in a provincial capital which are composed of a few people, mostly kindred, of similar tastes, who lead useful and refined lives, content with moderate ease. The real exclusiveness of such centres exceeds any that exists in the most aristocratic sphere in the world.
The Mazzinis were, moreover, Genoese to the core; and this was another reason for exclusiveness, and for holding aloof from the governing cla.s.s. Mazzini was born a few days after Napoleon entered Genoa as its lord. He had not, therefore, breathed the air of the ancient Republic; but there was the unadulterated republicanism of a thousand years in his veins.
When he grew to manhood his appearance was striking. The black, flowing hair, the pale, olive complexion, the finely-cut features and lofty brow, the deep-set eyes, which could smile as only Italian eyes can smile, but which could also flash astral infinitudes of scorn, the fragile figure, even the long, delicate, tapering fingers, marked him for a man apart--though whether a poet or an apostle, a seer or a saint, it was not easy to decide. Yet this could be said at once: if this man concentrated all his being on a single point, he would wield the power, call it what we will, which in every age has worked miracles and moved mountains.
Mazzini became a Carbonaro, though the want of clear, guiding principles in Carbonarism made him mis...o...b.. its efficacy, and its hierarchical mysteries and initiatory ordeals repelled him by their childishness. Then followed his arrest, and his detention in the fortress of Savona, which was the turning-point in his mental life.
Before that date he learnt, after it he taught. From his high-perched cell he saw the sea and the sky--with the Alps, the sublimest things in Nature. The voices of the fishermen reached his ears, though he could not see them. A tame goldfinch was his companion. Here, in a solitude and peace which he remembered with regret in the stormy and sorrowful years that were to come, he conceived his message and the mission, in which he believed to the last day of his life.