In Rome still more notable events happened. Mazzini, as member of the revolutionary triumvirate, was at the head of the government. His task was hard, for the Pope had asked the Catholic Powers to restore him, and Spain, Naples, Austria, and France, hastened to obey. France interfered because Louis Napoleon, president of the new republic, wished the support of the French clerical party; nevertheless, he had to proceed cautiously in order not to vex the liberals, and pursued a wavering course. He said he would send an army to defend real liberty, and would let the Romans decide for themselves what they wanted. The French soldiers advanced to the walls of Rome (April 29, 1849); the Roman republicans were naturally suspicious and treated them as enemies. Skirmishes were fought, and the French constrained to retire. Meanwhile, an Austrian army came from the north, the Neapolitans from the south, and the Spaniards landed at the mouth of the Tiber. The French intimated to the Austrians that this was their affair; the Romans, reinforced by Garibaldi and his Legion, drove back the Neapolitans; and the Spaniards retired quietly, thus leaving France to deal with the situation as she deemed best. French reinforcements arrived, and fighting was begun again. The Italians defended themselves for three weeks; their soldiers, though brave, were raw, many of them mere volunteers, and ineffectual against regular troops. As Mazzini was the hero in council, so Garibaldi was the hero on the field of battle. The last of knight-errants, he was the very incarnation of Romance and Revolution. Bred to the sea, this Savoyard from Nice always retained the jaunty, gallant bearing of a mariner. His countenance (childlike and lionlike),--with its broad, tranquil brow, benign eye, and resolute mouth,--in youth all sparkling, gradually changed with care and disillusion, but he still kept the seaman's mien and the seaman's lightsome eye. He was the beau ideal of a romantic hero. After his unsuccessful raid into Piedmont he had gone to South America, where he lived a wild life of guerilla warfare, fighting like a Paladin on behalf of republican revolutionaries who were struggling for their freedom. All the time he was training a band of Italian adventurers, his Legion, so that they should be ready when their country had need of them. These men rushed to the defence of Rome. Their entry into the city was most picturesque. The gaunt soldiers, wearing red shirts and pointed hats topped with plumes, their legs bare, their beards full-grown, their faces tanned to copper colour, with their long black hair dangling unkempt, looked like so many Fra Diavolos. At their head Garibaldi, in his red shirt, with loose kerchief knotted round his throat, the regular beauty of his noble, leonine face set off by his waving hair, mounted on a milk-white horse, rode like a demi-god.