freedom and independence guarded
by the love and respect of 22,000,000 Italians than entrenched behind
25,000 bayonets.' Of Venice, the martyr-city, he said 'that public
opinion was rapidly turning against its retention by Austria, and that
when the great majority of Germans refused to be any longer
accomplices in its subjection, that subjection would be brought to a
close either by force of arms or by pacific negotiations.'

The words were strangely prescient at a time when the Prince Regent of
Prussia was making most melancholy wails over the fall of the
Neapolitan King. The Prussian Government issued a formal protest,
which Cavour met by observing that Prussia, of all Powers, had the
least reason to object, as Piedmont was simply setting her an example
which she ought to follow and would follow, the mission of the two
nations being identical. He already thought of Prussia as an ally:
'Never more French alliances,' he was once heard to say.

On the same day, the 11th of October, Victor Emmanuel crossed the
Neapolitan frontier at the head of the army which Cialdini led to
victory at Castelfidardo. The King published a proclamation, in which
he said that he closed the era of revolution in Italy. Other bodies of
Piedmontese troops had been despatched by sea to Naples and
Manfredonia. The passage of the Piedmontese troops over the Abruzzi
mountains was opposed both by a division of the Bourbon army and by
armed peasants, who burnt a man alive at a place called Isernia; but
their advance was not long delayed.

The Neapolitans now began to retire from the right bank of the
Volturno, and retreat towards the Garigliano, their last line of
defence. Garibaldi crossed the river with 5000 men, and moved in the
direction by which the vanguard of the Piedmontese was expected to
arrive. At daybreak on the 26th of October, near Teano, the
Piedmontese came in sight. Garibaldi, who had dismounted, walked up
to Victor Emmanuel and said: 'Hail, King of Italy!'

Once before the title was given to a prince of the House of Savoy--to
Charles Albert, in the bitterest irony by the Austrian officers who
saw him flying from his friends and country by order of his implacable
uncle. A change had come since then.

Victor Emmanuel answered simply: 'Thanks,' and remained talking for a
quarter of an hour in the particularly kind and affectionate manner he
used with Garibaldi, but at the end of the interview, when the leader
of the volunteers as