Mack was now concentrating his troops in an entrenched camp before Capua. The whole country was rising against the invaders; and, in spite of lost battles and abandoned fortresses, the Neapolitan Government if it had possessed a spark of courage, might still have overthrown the French army, which numbered only 18,000 men. But the panic and suspicion which the Government had fostered among its subjects were now avenged upon itself. The cry of treachery was raised on every side. The Court dreaded a Republican rising; the priests and the populace accused the Court of conspiracy with the French; Mack protested that the soldiers were resolved to be beaten; the soldiers swore that they were betrayed by Mack. On the night of the 21st of December, the Royal Family secretly went on board Nelson's ship the _Vanguard_, and after a short interval they set sail for Palermo, leaving the capital in charge of Prince Pignatelli, a courtier whom no one was willing to obey. [70] Order was, however, maintained by a civic guard enrolled by the Municipality, until it became known that Mack and Pignatelli had concluded an armistice with the French, and surrendered Capua and the neighbouring towns. Then the populace broke into wild uproar. The prisons were thrown open; and with the arms taken from the arsenal the lazzaroni formed themselves into a tumultuous army, along with thousands of desperate men let loose from the gaols and the galleys. The priests, hearing that negotiations for peace were opened, raised the cry of treason anew; and, with the watchword of the Queen, "All the gentlemen are Jacobins; only the people are faithful," they hounded on the mob to riot and murder. On the morning of January 15th hordes of lazzaroni issued from the gates to throw themselves upon the French, who were now about nine miles from the city; others dragged the guns down from the forts to defend the streets. The Republican party, however, and that considerable body among the upper class which was made Republican by the chaos into which the Court, with its allies, the priests, and the populace, had thrown Naples, kept up communication with Championnet, and looked forward to the entrance of the French as the only means of averting destruction and massacre. By a stratagem carried out on the night of the 20th they gained possession of the fort of St. Elmo, while the French were already engaged in a bloody assault upon the suburbs. On the 23rd Championnet ordered the attack to be renewed. The conspirators within St. Elmo hoisted the French flag and turned their guns upon the populace; the fortress of the Carmine was stormed by the French; and, before the last struggle for life and death commenced in the centre of the city, the leaders of the lazzaroni listened to words of friendship which Championnet addressed to them in their own language, and, with the incoherence of a half-savage race, escorted his soldiers with cries of joy to the Church of St. Januarius, which