r, in every European tongue,
while the events were going on, has become or will ever become
valueless. I have had access to a collection of these older writings,
formed with much care between the years 1850-1870, and some
authorities that were wanting, I found in the library of Sir James
Hudson, given by him to Count Giuseppe Martinengo Cesaresco after he
left the British legation at Turin.

There are, of course, many books in which the affairs of Italy figure
only incidentally, which ought to be consulted by anyone who wishes to
study the inner working of the Italian movement. Of such are Lord
Castlereagh's _Despatches and Correspondence_, and the autobiographies
of Prince Metternich and Count Beust.

Perhaps I have been helped in describing the events clearly, by the
fact that I am familiar with almost all the places where they
occurred, from the heights of Calatafimi to the unhappy rock of Lissa.
Wherever the language of the _Si_ sounds, we tread upon the history of
the Revolution that achieved what a great English orator once called,
'the noblest work ever undertaken by man.'

The supreme interest of the re-casting of Italy arises from the new
spectacle of a nation made one not by conquest but by consent. Above
and beyond the other causes that contributed to the conclusion must
always be reckoned the gathering of an emotional wave, only comparable
to the phenomena displayed by the mediaeval religious revivals.
Sentiment, it is said, is what makes the real historical miracles. A
writer on Italian Liberation would be indeed misleading who failed to
take account of the passionate longing which stirred and swayed even
the most outwardly cold of those who took part in it, and nerved an
entire people to heroic effort.

Salo, Lago di Garda.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

RESURGAM

Italy from the Battle of Lodi to the Congress of Vienna

CHAPTER II

THE WORK OF THE CARBONARI

Revolutions in the Kingdom of Naples and in Piedmont--The Conspiracy
against Charles Albert

CHAPTER III

PRISON AND SCAFFOLD

Political Trials in Venetia and Lombardy--Risings in the South and
Centre--Ciro Menotti

CHAPTER IV

YOUNG ITALY

Accession of Charles Albert--Mazzini's Unitarian Propaganda--The
Brothers Bandiera

CHAPTER V

THE POPE LIBERATOR

Events leading to the Election of Pius IX.--The Petty Princes--Charles
Albert, Leopold and Ferdinand

CHAPTER VI

THE YEAR OF REVOLUTION

Insurrection in Si