"Do so," said I; "my poor boys! Perhaps it is God who inspires you."

They went and returned, leaving half their number behind them. Emile had a thigh shot through. Manelli was wounded in the leg. We had suffered terrible losses. The Italian legion had, killed and wounded, five hundred men placed hors de combat. The Bersaglieri, who had only six hundred men engaged, had a hundred and fifty killed. All the other losses were in the same proportion. The entire loss of my division of four thousand men was one thousand, of whom one hundred were officers. The Signor Bertani, in his report, reckons one hundred and eighty officers wounded at the Villa Corsini and the Gate of the People. The Bersaglieri alone had two officers killed, and eleven wounded.

The officers killed were Colonel Daverio, Colonel Masina, Colonel Pollerio, Major Camerino, Adjutant Major Feralta, Lieutenant Bonnet, Lieutenant Cavalleri Emmanuel, Sub-Lieutenant Grani, Captain Dandolo, Lieutenant Scarani, Captain David, Lieutenant Sareto, Lieutenant Cazzaniya.

On this memorable day wonderful acts of courage and devotion were exhibited. In our last charge, Ferrari and Magiagalli, not being able to enter with us, threw themselves, with a few men who followed them, upon the Villa Valentini. They there had to overcome the most obstinate resistance. They fought from staircase to staircase, from chamber to chamber, not with guns-guns had become useless-but with the sabre. The blade of Magiagalli's broke in two; but with the stump he continued to strike, and struck so well, Ferrari striking as well on his part, that they remained masters of the Villa Valentini. Quartermaster Monfreni, only eighteen years of age, had his right hand pierced through by a bayonet. He ran and got it dressed, and in a minute was in his rank again. "What do you come here for ?" cried Manara ; "wounded as you are, you are good for nothing."

1

"I ask your pardon, Colonel," replied Monfreni, “I count for one!"

This brave young man was killed.

Lieutenant Brenzielli, knowing that his ordonnance, for whom he had a great affection, was killed in the Villa Corsini, took with him four resolute men in the night, entered the Villa, and bore off the body of his riend, which he religiously buried. A Milanese soldier, D'Alla Langa, saw Corporal Fiozani fall, mortally wounded. It was at the moment when we were repulsed. He could not bear to leave the body in the hands of the enemy, so he lifted it on to his shoulders; but, at the end of twenty paces, a ball struck him, and he fell dead under his dying friend.

The grief of Lieutenant Emile Dandolo affected the whole army. I have mentioned that he came with Manelli to request me to allow them to make another attempt, and that I gave my consent. Dandolo penetrated into the Villa Corsini, but was only occupied by one thought-his brother. He fancied that he was only wounded or taken prisoner. Amidst the firing, he kept crying to his companions: "Do you see my brother?" Amidst the firing, heedless of himself, he sought among the wounded and the dying, interrogating the former and examining the latter. Whilst thus employed, he received a ball through his thigh, and fell. His companions carried him off. Conducted to

There

an ambulance his wound was dressed; but as soon as that was done he took a stick to support himself, and limping along he set out again in search of his brother. He entered the house in which Ferrari was. also was the body of Henry Dandolo. Ferrari, feeling himself too weak to witness the violent bursts of grief he anticipated, threw a cloak over the body. Emile entered; he interrogated, he insisted-but all replied that Henry Dandolo had been wounded, and in all probability was a prisoner-not one could muster courage to tell him he was dead.

At length, as he must sooner or later learn the fatal

news, Manara was with difficulty persuaded to announce it to him. At the moment he was passing before one of the small cassini taken from the French, Manara beckoned to him to come in. All who were in the apartment left it.

"Seek for your brother no longer, my poor friend,” said he, taking his hand; "I will henceforth be your brother." He sunk immediately to the ground, overcome more by the terrible announcement than weakened by the loss of blood, or by the pain of his wounds.

Two young girls suddenly meeting with their father being brought home dead, one of them fainted on the body, and when recovered fell into a state of madness. A mother seeing her son expire, could not shed a tear -but three days after she was dead.

As a contrary trait a father, whose name I will not mention that he may not be denounced by the hatred of the priests, on having his elder son wounded and on the point of death, brought me his second boy, about thirteen years old, saying, "Teach him to avenge his brother, General!" His ancestor, the old Horatius, could not have done better.

CHAPTER LV.

THE SIEGE.

FEARING an assault for the next day, I charged Giacomo Medici with the defence of all our advanced line, which now consisted of Vascello, and three or four small houses taken back from the French. I then passed the night in organizing our means of defence.

There could be no longer any idea of saving Rome. From the moment an army of forty thousand men, having thirty-six pieces of siege cannon, can perform their works of approach, the taking of a city is nothing but a question of time. It must, one day or other, fall; the only hope it has left is to fall gloriously.

I that evening established my head-quarters in the

Casino Savorelli, which, rising above the ramparts, overlooks the St. Pancrazio gate, and from its proximity permits everything to be seen that is passing in the Vascello, the Villa Corsini, and the Villa Valentini. It is true I was within half carbine shot of the French tirailleurs-but he who risks nothing wins nothing. I ordered my brave cart driver to find me some pioneers, and to take care not to forget the little sweeteners of labour, such as a glass of wine, or a drop of brandy, they might stand in need of during their work. He was a brave patriot, who afterwards paid dear for his patriotism; he was called Cicera Vecchio as a surname, his real name was Angelo Brunetto. He would never receive pay either for his labour or for what he provided.

There are in this world men into whose souls God breathes a greater quantity of perfectibility. In days of tranquillity they labour at increasing the comforts of mankind, in spreading instruction or in facilitating the march of progress-then they are called Guttenberg, Vincent de Paol, Galileo, Vico, Rousseau, Volta, Filangieri, Franklin.

In times of calamity they are seen surging up all at once, guiding the masses and exposing themselves to the shocks of adverse fortune: then the gratitude of the world designates them under the names of Arnoldo de Brescia, Savonarola, Cola di Rienzo, Mazaniello, Joseph de Risi, and Cicera Vecchio.

These men are always born poor-in the class of the people of that class which in disastrous epochs is always the privileged of endurance. But whilst groaning they meditate, whilst dreaming they hope, whilst suffering they work. Angelo Brunetto, as I have said, was one of these elect. Nothing was wanting for the consecration of the mission received, not even martyrdom.

During the whole siege of Rome he was the living standard of the people. Applauded, sought for, welcomed by his companions like an authority, he was the

true primus inter pares; but in spite of his triumphs he remained no less modest; living as he had always lived-frank, loyal, and honest. He was indebted for his easy circumstances to his labour, for the affection of his fellow-citizens to his civil probity, and for the esteem of the Pope himself, to whom he had rendered great services at the time of the riots, to his charity for the powerful, one of the rarest virtues in the weak when they are called upon to take the place of the strong.

He was born in Rome in 1802, in the quarter of Repetta. As he was fat and ruddy in his childhood, his mother gave him the sobriquet of Cicera Vecchio, which, in the patois of the Roman people, means flourishing, full of health. As he grew up, the vigour promised in the child developed itself in the man. That was the title Brunetto reproduced the most frequently. When I knew him in 1849 he had a full light beard, already beginning to be grey, long curly hair, a broad chest, a tall person, and a firm bearing. Never did the unfortunate enter his house with extended hands and go out with those hands empty; but, likewise, never was his name seen on those subscription lists, much more frequently destined for the glorification of the subscribers than for the relief of the unfortunate.

In the inundations of the Tiber, so frequent at Rome, he was always the first to turn boatman, in order to convey provisions and words of comfort to his compatriots imprisoned by the waters. This brave man adored me; when I stood in need of workmen for the engineer service, I had but to make a sign to him and he soon came with two hundred, three hundred, four hundred men. I gave him orders upon the minister, but he never claimed a single one of them. At my departure from Rome he followed me with his two children, landed with me and Ugo Bassi at Mesola, and then, with his sons, took a road in an opposite direction to mine. At its proper date I will de