t the group which surrounded it. They were men
in red shirts, with a scarf round the body, a cloak over the shoulders,
trousers thrust into high boots, and broad-leaved plumed hats. But what
faces these were! How instinct with purpose and determination! Look at
the well-known portrait of Orsini, the man who threw bombs at Napoleon
III.; in him you have the typical Italian cast of countenance often
seen in the men who had risen against the tyranny in Church and State,
braving the dungeon and the scaffold, and had leagued themselves
together in those formidable organisations from which sprang the army
that liberated Italy. Louis Napoleon had himself been a member of one
of these associations, and he had sworn, like all his comrades, that
whatsoever position he might gain, he would use it to further Italy's
unity and happiness, or in default that he would forfeit his own life.
It was Orsini, his former comrade in the Carbonari, who reminded
Napoleon of his oath, after he had become Emperor of the French. And
Orsini did it in the manner best calculated to make the Emperor realise
the fate which awaited him if he failed to keep his pledge.

The first time I saw Orsini's portrait the idea flashed across my mind
that ten thousand such men might conquer the world. And now, as I stood
here, I had before me those whom the same feeling for their country's
wrongs had animated with the same intense passion. Over that passion
a kind of repose had fallen now, but the gloomy and lowering brows
showed that it was not the tranquillity of content. The medals on their
breasts proved that they had been present at Porta San Pancrazio in
1849 (when Garibaldi, though outnumbered by the French troops, twice
forced them to retreat), in 1858, at the Lake of Garda, in 1859 in
Sicily and Naples. And it was probable enough, though there were no
medals to testify to _that_ fact, that the history of their lives would
have revealed their share in the day of Mentana. This is one of those
battlefields which is not recognised by the Government, but which has
burnt itself most deeply into the hearts of the people, as Louis
Napoleon learnt to his cost. He had formally secured the help of Italy
against the Germans in 1870; the remembrance of Mentana made it
impossible for King and Government to carry out the agreement. It would
have been as much as Victor Emmanuel's throne was worth to have done
that.

The contrast between this dark and formidable determina