that a great plot was being hatched in the army, the object of which was to dethrone him. The alleged facts were hardly credible, and the perils were exaggerated; every endeavour to excite alarm in his mind was resorted to, in order to implant there implacable resentments which were to be called into action on the pretence of saving the monarchy.

By means of reiterated falsehood, unfounded calumnies, and frequent denunciations of the accused parties, a craving for blood was skilfully awakened in the royal breast. An extraordinary criminal commission was formed at Turin, to put in force all the punishments known to the criminal law of Piedmont.

A violation of the penal code was forthwith resorted to by a decision of the commission: viz., that all parties accused, civil and military, should be amenable to the jurisdiction of a council of war.

With what little scruple this step was determined on the following circumstance will show :

An officer who was seated on the bench as a judge, in the council of inquiry, was about to interrogate a lawyer upon some principles of criminal jurisprudence, when the lawyer replied that the first basis of all law, the first rule of every code was, that “ a military council of inquiry, if challenged to show its authority, must admit its incompetency to try citizens."

"It is impossible for us to do that," rejoined the officer, "for the general has issued an order authorizing us to assert that we are competent."

So the general's order was allowed for once to serve as the basis of the law-the authoritative rule of the code.

The first victim whose blood stained the purple robe of the new king was Corporal Tamburelli, who was condemned to be shot in the back, for having committed the crime of reading the columns of Young Italy to his soldiers.

The second was Lieutenant Tolla, declared guilty of having seditious books in his possession, and for not

having denounced the plot while aware of its existence. Like Tamburelli, he was shot from behind. This was an ingenious invention of the Piedmontese magistracy to assimilate in some degree the punishment of being shot with that of death by the gallows. It was not sufficient to kill, it was thought desirable to couple death with dishonour. On the 15th of June were also shot in this manner, Serjeant Miglio, Giuseppe Biglia, and Antonio Gavolli.

All these men died with exemplary courage. Jacopo Ruffini was confined in the tower of Genoa. Every means was resorted to to subdue his spirit: want of food, want of sleep. He felt that he was growing weaker, not only physically but morally, and resolved not to wait till death should overtake him in a dishonouring shape. Fearing he should not retain strength to inflict self-destruction on the day fixed for his execution, he unfastened a blade of iron from the door of his prison, sharpened it, and with this cut his throat. But in his dying throes, he contrived to write with the tip of his finger, moistened with his blood, on the wall "I leave by this my last testament my vengeance to Italy."

When his gaoler entered his cell on the following morning, he found him dead.

Other victims soon followed: Luciano, Piacenza, and Louis Turffs, at Genoa ; Domenico Ferrari, Giuseppe Menardi, Giuseppe Bigano, Amandi Costa, Giovanni Marini, at Alessandria-were all shot like the others.

Then came the turn of Andrea Vochieri. One of those condernned at Alessandria who survived the long tortures of Fenestrelle has, in his memoirs, left an account of the last days of this patriot.

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They began," said he, speaking of himself, "by taking away my books, a Bible, a collection of Christian prayers, and another religious book; they then placed irons on my feet, and led me to another dungeon, more loathsome than the first, with double-barred windows

and double-locked doors; this dungeon adjoined that of poor Vochieri, and some ill-stopped chinks allowed me to get a glimpse of his prison by the aid of a faint light, which filtered through some small opening in his cell. He was lying upon a miserable bench with his feet manacled, while two guards stood beside him, sabre in hand; a functionary, armed with a gun, also guarded the door. An awful silence prevailed in this dismal dungeon; the soldiers seemed more under the dominion of terror than the prisoner himself. From time to time, two Capuchins came to see him and exhort him. I had him thus before my eyes for a whole week, without being able to refrain from looking at him, in spite of the pain it gave me. At length, one day, they carried him away, and led him to death."

But something remains to be told which his neighbouring prisoner was not enabled to relate, for he could not know it. Vochieri was led to death by the longest road; this passed before his own house, in which were then residing his sister, his wife, and his two children, and it was expected that the sight of all he loved in the world would shake his resolution, and that he would then be induced to make some important revelations. But these attempts were unavailing : smiling sadly, he exclaimed

"They have forgotten there is something in the world I love better than sister, wife, or children: that is Italy, 'Viva l'Italia !'"

Then turning towards the galley-slave guards, who instead of soldiers were ordered to shoot him, he pronounced the single word "March!"

A quarter of an hour after, he fell pierced by six balls.

Charles-Albert had now become one of the family of sovereigns in the Holy Alliance; and, like the Pope, like the King of Naples, like Francis IV., and like Ferdinand VII., his hands too were stained with the blood of his people.

There was, at that time living at Nice, his native place, a young man, who, after seeing all this blood flow, resolved to take an oath to consecrate his life to the worship of that liberty for which so many martyrs had fallen. This young man, then twentysix years of age, was Joseph Garibaldi.

But we must now let him speak for himself, and relate the marvellous events of his adventurous exist

ence.

ALEX. DUMAS.