The newspaper stated that the remains of the patriot Mansana had been
exhumed from the Cemetery of the Malefactors in Rome, at the petition
of the inhabitants of his native town, and that in the course of the
next few days, they were to be received by the town council and
escorted by deputations from various patriotic associations in Rome and
the neighbouring cities to A----, Mansana's birthplace. A monument had
been prepared there, and a ceremonial reception awaited the remains:
the deeds of the martyred hero were at length to receive tardy
acknowledgment.
It was in the house of this Mansana that I had lodged thirteen years
before; his wife and his younger brother's wife had been my hostesses.
Of the two brothers themselves, one was at that time in prison in Rome,
the other in exile in Genoa. The newspaper recapitulated the story of
the elder Mansana's career. With all, except the latter portion, I was
already pretty well acquainted, and for that reason I felt a special
desire to accompany the procession, which was to start from the
Barberini Palace in Rome the following Sunday, and finish its journey
at A----.
On the Sunday, at seven o'clock in the morning of a grey October day, I
was at the place of assembly. There was collected a large number of
banners, escorted by the delegates, who had been selected by the
various associations: six men, as a rule, from each. I took up my
position near a banner that bore the legend: "The Fight for the
Fatherland," and amongst the group which surrounded it. They were men
in red shirts, with a scarf round the body, a cloak over the shoulders,
trousers thrust into high boots, and broad-leaved plumed hats. But what
faces these were! How instinct with purpose and determination! Look at
the well-known portrait of Orsini, the man who threw bombs at Napoleon
III.; in him you have the typical Italian cast of countenance often
seen in the men who had risen against the tyranny in Church and State,
braving the dungeon and the scaffold, and had leagued themselves
together in those formidable organisations from which sprang the army
that liberated Italy. Louis Napoleon had himself been a member of one
of these associations, and he had sworn, like all his comrades, that
whatsoever position he might gain, he would use it to further Italy's
unity and happiness, or in default that he would forfeit his own life.
It was Orsini, his former comrade in the Carbonari, who reminded
Napoleon of his oath, after he had become Emperor of the French. And
Orsini did it in the manner best calculated to make the Emperor realise
the fate which awaited him if he failed to keep his pledge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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