h Mazzini, Cavour,
while ready to make an alliance with the Radicals in the Chamber, was
extremely loth to have anything to do with actual revolutionists. His
not answering Orsini's letter certainly led up to the attempt of the
14th of January 1858.

Having quarrelled with Mazzini, and receiving no encouragement from
Cavour, Orsini evolved the plan which on that day he endeavoured to
put into execution. He would have preferred to act alone, but since
that was impossible, he sought and found without much difficulty two
or three accomplices. One of these, Pieri, a teacher of languages, was
arrested by the police, who recognised him as an old conspirator,
before he threw the bomb which he was carrying. The other bombs were
thrown just as the carriage containing the Imperial party drove up to
the opera house. A number of people in the street were killed or
injured, but the Emperor and Empress escaped unhurt. When they entered
the theatre the Rutli scene of the conspirators in _Guillaume Tell_
was being performed. Not a breath of applause greeted them, though
everyone knew what had happened. Napoleon III. had a striking proof of
how little hold he possessed on the affections of his subjects.

When at his trial Orsini was asked what he expected would happen if he
had succeeded in killing the Emperor he answered: 'We were convinced
that the surest way of making a revolution in Italy was to excite one
in France, and that the surest way of making a revolution in France
was to kill the Emperor.' There is a good deal of curious evidence to
show that very elaborate preparations had been made for a revolution
in Paris. The French police had orders, however, to keep all this
aspect of the affair out of sight. It was to be made to appear the
isolated act of a misguided Italian patriot. 'The world possesses an
Orsini legend,' writes the late Duke of Saxe-Coburg, who was present
at the event, having been invited to join the Emperor at the opera,
'which is quite at variance with facts.' The duke clearly thinks that
the conviction of the instability of his throne which was brought home
to the Emperor on this occasion, was one of the causes which decided
him to try the diversion of public opinion into other channels by
means of a foreign war.

Everything was done to make Orsini a hero in the eyes of the French
public, and to excite sympathy in his cause. Jules Favre by his
eloquent defence in which he pleaded not for the life, but for t