Monti fell into a state of deplorable destitution. He had left his wife and young daughter in Italy, and he roamed alone and friendless among the mountains of Savoy. His sufferings during the brief period of his exile were frightful. He wandered about, subsisting on the fruit he picked up under the trees. Often seated on the rugged banks of a torrent, he satisfied his hunger with roots and nuts, and wept as he thought of Italy and his ruined fortunes. The benevolence of his heart manifested itself in the midst of this adversity. It is related of him, that, as he was wandering one evening in a narrow lane, near Chamberi, a stranger accosted him and asked charity, relating that he had a sick mother and five children. Monti's heart was moved: two sequins was all that he possessed in the world; he gave one of them to the suppliant. His health failed through the hardships that he endured; the labour of collecting his food became intolerable, and he forced himself to gather at one time sufficient for two days, so as to secure himself one of uninterrupted rest. His wife, who had remained to put their affairs in some order, now joined him. She found him stretched on a wretched bed, weak from inanition, but disdaining to apply to any one for relief in his need. She brought money with her, and proper food soon restored his strength; nor did he again fall into such an extremity of disaster, though it was long before the fickle goddess smiled upon him. The minister, Mareschalchi, invited him to Paris; and the new victories of Bonaparte in Italy, on his return from Egypt in the following year, revived his hopes of better times. Mareschalchi obtained that he should be employed to write a hymn and an ode in celebration of the victory of Marengo, which had driven the allies from Italy and restored it to the French. He was to have been paid 1500 francs for these two poems, with the further reward of the professorship of Italian literature in the French university. But fortune was not weary of persecuting him; and this remuneration was withheld, on its being represented to government that he was, at heart, inimical to the French. Mareschalchi continued to befriend him, and obtained 500 francs, or about 20_l_. "No small relief to me," he writes, "in my necessitous circumstances." He was very eager to return to Italy, and he writes to his brother,--"Of the many thousand refugees who were here, almost all have returned to their country, because all have instantly received the necessary succour from home. I alone find myself abandoned by my relations, in a strange country, without friends, and without resources; unless, indeed, I can make up my mind to renounce my country for the sake of earning my bread in some office. But an irresistible sentiment is linked to the name of my native land. I possess in Italy the objects dearest to my heart--my child, my mother, brothers, friends, studies, habits; all, in short, that renders life dear.