r this point, the thread of events becomes tangled beyond the hope
of unravelment. What were the causes which led Garibaldi into the
desperate venture that ended at Aspromonte? Recollecting his
hesitation before assuming the leadership of the Sicilian expedition,
it seemed the more unintelligible that he should now undertake an
enterprise which, unless he could rely on the complicity of
Government, had not a single possibility of success. His own old
comrades were opposed to it, and it was notorious that Mazzini, to
whom the counsels of despair were generally either rightly or wrongly
attributed, had nothing to do with inspiring this attempt. In justice
to Rattazzi, it must be allowed that, after the arrests at Sarnico,
Garibaldi went into open opposition to the ministry, which he
denounced as subservient to Napoleon. Nevertheless, with the
remembrance of past circumstances in his mind, he may have felt
convinced that the Prime Minister did not mean or that he would not
dare to oppose him by force. One thing is certain; from beginning to
end he never contemplated civil war. His disobedience to the King of
Italy had only one purpose--to give him Rome. He was no more a rebel
to Victor Emmanuel than when he marched through Sicily in 1860.

The earlier stages of the affair were not calculated to weaken a
belief in the effective non-intervention of Government. Garibaldi went
to Palermo, where he arrived in the evening of the 28th of June. The
young Princes Umberto and Amedeo were on a visit to the Prefect, the
Marquis Pallavicini, and happened to be that night at the opera. All
at once they perceived the spectators leave the house in a body, and
they were left alone; on asking the reason, they heard that Garibaldi
had just landed--all were gone to greet him! Before the departure of
the Princes next day, the chief and his future King had an
affectionate meeting, while the population renewed the scenes of wild
enthusiasm of two years ago. Some of Garibaldi's intimate friends
assert that when he reached Palermo he had still no intention of
taking up arms. He soon began, however, to speak in a warlike tone,
and at a review of the National Guard in presence of the Prefect, the
Syndic, and all the authorities, he told the 'People of the Vespers'
that if another Vespers were wanted to do it, Napoleon III., head of
the brigands, must be ejected from Rome. The epithet was not bestowed
at random; Lord Palmerston confirmed it when he s