Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

ourselves-we have, nevertheless, followed them from afar, accompanying with our applauses and our vows the universal concert of Italy and of all Christendom. But when, some few days since, we heard of the sacrilegious attempt by which a faction, fomented and supported by the foreigner, and not yet tired, after so long a time, of rending our poor country, was proposing to itself to overthrow the order of things already existing, it appeared to us that admiration and enthusiasm for the Sovereign Pontiff are too feeble a tribute, and that a more imperative duty is imposed upon us.

"We who write to you, most illustrious and respectable Seigneur, are men who, still animated by the same spirit which made us brave exile, have, at Montevideo, taken up arms for a cause which appeared to us just, and gathered together some hundreds of men, our compatriots, who had come hither hoping to pass less troubled days than those we were compelled to endure in our own country. Now, during the five years which its walls have been besieged, every one of us, more or less, must have given proofs, more than once, of resignation and courage, and, thanks to Providence, and to that antique spirit which still warms our Italian blood, our legion has had occasion to distinguish itself, and every time that this opportunity has presented itself, it has not allowed it to escape; so that I believe we may be permitted to say, without vanity, it has, upon the path of honour, passed all other corps which were its rivals and emulators.

"If, then, at the present time, the men who have some acquaintance with arms, are accepted by his Holiness, it is useless to say, that more willingly than ever we shall consecrate them to the service of him who does everything for his country and the Church. We shall consider ourselves happy if we can come to the aid of the work of redemption of Pio Nono, we and our companions, in the name of whom we speak to you, and we shall not consider we pay too dearly with all our blood.

"If your illustrious and respectable Seigneurie thinks that our offer may be agreeable to the Sovereign Pontiff, lay it at the foot of his throne.

"It is not the puerile pretension that our arm is necessary, which induces us to make this offer. We well know that the Throne of St. Peter reposes very upon bases which human succour can neither shake nor strengthen, and that, in addition, the new order of things reckons many defenders who would know how to repulse vigorously the unjust aggressions of its enemies ; but as the work must be distributed among the good, and the hard labour given to the strong, do us the honour to reckon us among the latter.

"In the meanwhile, we thank Providence for having preserved his Holiness from the machinations of the Tristi, and we put up our ardent vows that it may grant him many years for the happiness of Christendom and Italy.

66

Nothing remains now but to beg your illustrious and most venerable Seigneurie to pardon us the trouble we give you, and to accept the sentiments of our perfect esteem, and of the profound respect with which we

are

"Of his illustrious and most respectable Seigneurie, "The devoted servants,

"Montevideo, October 12, 1847."

"G. GARIBALDI.
"LEO ANZANI.

We waited in vain; no news arrived either from the Nuncio or his Holiness. It was then we formed the resolution of returning to Italy with a part of our legion. My resolution was to second the revolution where it was already in arms, and to excite it where it was still asleep-in the Abruzzi, for example. Only, not one of us had a single sou with which to defray the passage.

CHAPTER XLIX.

I RETURN TO EUROPE-THE DEATH OF ANZANI.

I HAD recourse to a means which always succeeds with generous hearts. I opened a subscription among my compatriots. The affair was progressing very well, when some evil-minded persons endeavoured to raise a party against me among the legionaries, by intimidating those who were disposed to follow me; they insinuated to these poor men that I was leading them to a certain death, that the enterprise I dreamt of was an impossibility, and that a fate similar to that of the brothers Bandiera awaited them. It resulted from this that the most timid drew back, and I was left with only eighty-five men, and of these eighty-five men, twentynine abandoned us when we embarked. By good luck, those who remained staunch were the most valiant, almost all the survivors of our fight of Sant Antonio. In addition to these I had a few Orientals who had faith in my fortunes, and among these was my poor negro Aguyar, who was killed at the siege of Rome.

I have said that I had authorized a subscription among the Italians to assist our expedition. The greater part of this subscription was furnished by Etienne Antonini, a Genoese established at Montevideo. The government, on its part, offered to assist us to the extent of its power, but I knew it was so poor that I would not accept anything from it but two cannons and eight hundred muskets, which I transported on board our brig.

But at the moment of our departure the same thing happened to us with Garolo de Nerio, commander of the Béponte, which befel the French under Baldwin, at the time of the fifth Crusade, with the Venetians who had promised to transport them to the Holy Land. His extortion was such that we were obliged to sell

our very shirts to satisfy him, so that during our passage several were obliged to remain in bed for want of clothes to dress themselves in.

We were already three hundred leagues from the coast, nearly in the latitude of the mouths of the Oronoko, and I was amusing myself with Orrigoni, harpooning dolphins, upon the bowsprit, when all at once I heard the cry of fire! To spring from the bowsprit to the deck was but the work of a second.

Whilst distributing the provisions, the man so employed had had the imprudence to draw the brandy with a lighted candle in his hand. The brandy caught fire, and the man losing his presence of mind, instead of closing the barrel had let it run in a stream. The provision-hold, separated from the powder-room only by a plank of scarcely an inch thick, was a real lake of fire.

It was in this instance I saw how accessible the bravest men are to fear, when danger presents itself in an aspect in which they have not been accustomed to face it. All these men who were heroes, perfect demigods in the field of battle, ran against each other, rushed here and there in confusion, trembling and terrified as children. At the end of ten minutes, aided by Anzani, who left his bed at the first cry, I succeeded in putting out the fire.

Poor Anzani, in fact, kept his bed, not from being totally destitute of clothes, but because he was already suffering from the disease of which he was doomed to die on arriving at Genoa, that is to say, a pulmonary phthisis. This admirable man, in whom his greatest enemy, if he could possibly have had an enemy, could not have found a single fault, after having consecrated his life to the cause of liberty, desirous that his last moments should be useful to his companions in arms, was every day assisted on to the deck, when he could no longer come up himself, and there, reclining on a mattress, he gave lessons in strategy to our legionaries

assembled round him in the stern of the vessel. Poor Anzani! he was a veritable dictionary of the sciences; it would be as difficult for me to enumerate the things he knew as to find out anything he did not know.

At Palo, about five miles from Alicant, we landed to buy a goat and some oranges for Anzani. It was there we learnt, from the Sardinian vice-consul, a part of the events which were going on in Italy. There we learnt that the Piedmontese constitution had been proclaimed, and that the five glorious days of Milan had taken place, all things of which we were necessarily ignorant at our departure from Montevideo on the 27th of March, 1848.

The vice-consul told us that he had seen Italian vessels pass with the tricoloured flag. I required no more than this to make me determine to hoist the standard of independence. I struck the flag of Montevideo, under which we had been sailing, and I immediately hoisted the Sardinian flag, improvised with half a bed-sheet, a red scarf, and the remains of the green facings of our uniforms-be it recollected that our uniform was a red blouse with green and white facings.

On the 24th of June, the day of St. John, we arrived in sight of Nice. Many were of opinion that we ought not to land without the most ample information. I risked more by it than any other, as I was still under sentence of death. I, however, did not hesitate—or rather I could not hesitate, for, being recognised by the men who came on board our vessel, my name was soon spread, and scarcely was my name spread, than all Nice rushed towards the port, and we were forced, amidst acclamations, to accept the welcome offered to us on all sides. As soon as it became known that I was at Nice, and that I had crossed the ocean to come to the assistance of Italian liberty, volunteers flocked to me in all directions.

But I had, at the moment, views which I thought

« AnteriorContinuar »