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75,000, while at Milan it stood at between 15,000 and 20,000. But if
we take the lower estimate, 15,000 regular troops under such a
commander, who, most rare in similar emergencies, knew his own mind,
and had no thought except the recovery of the town for his Sovereign,
constituted a formidable force against a civilian population, which
began the fight with only a few hundred fowling-pieces. The odds on
the side of Austria were tremendous.

If the Milan revolt had been one of the customary revolutions,
arranged with the help of pen and paper, its first day would have been
certainly its last. But even more than the Sicilian Vespers, it was
the unpremeditated, irresistible act of a people sick of being slaves.
At the beginning Casati tried to restrain it; so, with equal or still
stronger endeavours, did the republican Carlo Cattaneo, whose
influence was great. 'You have no arms,' he said again and again. Not
a single man of weight took upon himself the awful responsibility of
urging the unarmed masses upon so desperate an enterprise; but when
the die was cast none held back. Initiated by the populace, the revolt
was led to its victorious close by the nerve and ability of the
influential men who directed its course.

Towards nightfall on the 18th, during which day there had been only
scuffles between the soldiers and the people, Radetsky took the
Broletto, where the Municipality sat, after a two hours' siege, and
sent forthwith a special messenger to the Emperor with the news that
the revolution was on a fair way to being completely crushed.
Meanwhile, he massed his troops at all the entrances to the city, so
that at dawn he might strangle the insurrection by a concentric
movement, as in a noose. The plan was good; but to-morrow does not
belong even to the most experienced of Field-Marshals.

In all quarters of the city barricades sprang up like mushrooms.
Everything went, freely given, to their construction; the benches of
the Scala, the beds of the young seminarists, the court carriages,
found hidden in a disused church, building materials of the
half-finished Palazzo d'Adda, grand pianofortes, valuable pieces of
artistic furniture, and the old kitchen table of the artisan. Before
the end of the fight the barricades numbered 1523. Young nobles,
dressed in the velvet suits then in vogue, cooks in their white
aprons, even women and children, rushed to the defence of the
improvised fortifications. Luciano Manara and o