autiful view all around
imaginable.... The house looks out on the Piazza Barberini, and I see
both that palace and the Pope's [the Quirinal]."

The assassination of the Minister Rossi had taken place on the previous
day. Margaret describes it almost as if she had seen it:--

"The poor, weak Pope has fallen more and more under the dominion of the
cardinals. He had suffered the Minister Rossi to go on, tightening the
reins, and because the people preserved a sullen silence, he thought
they would bear it.... Rossi, after two or three most unpopular
measures, had the imprudence to call the troops of the line to defend
him, instead of the National Guard.... Yesterday, as he descended from
his carriage to enter the Chamber [of Deputies], the crowd howled and
hissed, then pushed him, and as he turned his head in consequence, a
sure hand stabbed him in the back."

On the morrow, the troops and the people united in calling upon the
Pope, then at the Quirinal, for a change of measures. They found no
audience, but only the hated Swiss mercenaries, who defeated an attempt
to enter the palace by firing on the crowd. "The drum beat to call out
the National Guard. The carriage of Prince Barberini has returned, with
its frightened inmates and liveried retinue, and they have suddenly
barred up the court-yard gate." Margaret felt no apprehension for
herself in all this turmoil. The side which had, for the moment, the
upper hand, was her own, and these very days were such as she had longed
for, not, we may be sure, for their accompaniments of bloodshed and
violence, but for the outlook which was to her and her friends one of
absolute promise.

The "good time coming" did then seem to have come for Italy. Her various
populations had risen against their respective tyrants, and had shown a
disposition to forget past divisions in the joy of a country reconciled
and united.

In the principal churches of Rome, masses were performed in
commemoration of the patriotic men who fell at this time in various
struggles with existing governments. Thus were honored the "victims" of
Milan, of Naples, of Venice, of Vienna.

Not long after the assassination of Rossi, the Pope, imploring the
protection of the King of Naples, fled to Gaeta.

"No more of him," writes Margaret; "his day is over. He has been made,
it seems unconsciously, an instrument of good which his regrets cannot
destroy."

The political consequences of this act were scarcely forese