ed from Italian soil, and a united people joined
hands from the Alps to the Adriatic.

He had returned to his native land, and there, active and uncompromising
to the last, he died at Pisa, on March 10, 1872, in the Casa Rosselli. A
private letter in the possession of Mr. Stansfeld gives some particulars
of his last hours. He was perfectly tranquil, and free from suffering,
but sank into a gradual stupor. During the day, at times, his hands
moved mechanically, as if he were holding and smoking a cigar. Madame
Rosselli asked him why he did that; but his mind was wandering, he did
not understand her, and answered an imaginary question. He roused
himself, and looking straight at her, he said, with great animation and
intenseness, "Believe in God? Yes, indeed I do believe in God." These
were his last words of consciousness.

A friend of his, writing a few days after the fatal 10th of March, tells
how the mystery which surrounded him all his life continued to envelop
him to the moment when death broke the seals of secrecy. Then, for the
first time, the good people of Pisa learnt that the mild and retiring
Mr. Francis Braun, who had long lived within their walls, was no other
than the redoubtable Mazzini. He had come to their city in the February
of the preceding year, and had remained till August, returning from
Switzerland with the first frosts of November. The authorities doubtless
knew perfectly well who the supposed Englishman was, who spent all his
days in study and all his evenings in the company of the self-same small
family circle. But they were to let him alone. It was not for the first
time that they wisely ignored his presence. The chief difficulty of the
Italian Government had been, not to find him and seize him, but to find
and not to molest him. On one occasion the Neapolitan police put the
Government into much perturbation by telegraphing that it was
"impossible to avoid arresting Mazzini."

On another occasion--it was in 1857--the house of the Marchese Pareto,
where Mazzini was staying, was surrounded by the police, and a large
military force in attendance made a portentous show. The Quaestor, an
old schoolfellow of Mazzini, formally demands admittance in the King's
name, when the door is opened by Mazzini himself, disguised as a
servant. The Quaestor asks to speak to the Marquis, and is forthwith
introduced by the obsequious flunkey. Did the Quaestor recognise his old
friend? Our informant believes he did.