“The general will tell thee what has happened. Have no fear for that. All will go right. It will not alter our plans a bunch of grapes. Be perfectly easy about this country. No Italian soldier will ever cross the frontier except to combat the French. Write that on thy heart. Are other things as well? Other places? My advices are bad. All the prelates are on their knees to him—with blessings on their lips and curses in their pockets. Archbishop of Paris is as bad as any. Berwick is at Biarritz—an inexhaustible intriguer; the only priest I fear. I hear from one who never misled me that the Polhes brigade has orders to be in readiness. The Mary-Anne societies are not strong enough for the situation—too local; he listens to them, but he has given no pledge. We must go deeper. ‘Tis an affair of ‘Madre Natura.’ Thou must see Colonna.” “Colonna is at Rome,” said the general, “and cannot be spared. He is acting president of the National Committee, and has enough upon his hands.” “I must see him,” said Theodora. “I had hoped I had heard the last of the ‘Madre Natura,’” said the general with an air of discontent. “And the Neapolitans hope they have heard the last of the eruptions of their mountain,” said Theodora; “but the necessities of things are sterner stuff than the hopes of men.” “Its last effort appalled and outraged Europe,” said the general. “Its last effort forced the French into Italy, and has freed the country from the Alps to the Adriatic,” rejoined Theodora. “If the great man had only been as quiet as we have been,” said the general, lighting a cigar, “we might have been in Rome by this time.” “If the great man had been quiet, we should not have had a volunteer in our valley,” said Theodora. “My faith in him is implicit; he has been right in every thing, and has never failed except when he has been betrayed. I see no hope for Rome except in his convictions and energy. I do not wish to die, and feel I have devoted my life only to secure the triumph of Savoyards who have sold their own country, and of priests whose impostures have degraded mine.” “Ah! those priests!” exclaimed the general. “I really do not much care for any thing else. They say the Savoyard is not a bad comrade, and at any rate he can charge like a soldier. But those priests? I fluttered them once! Why did I spare any? Why did I not burn down St. Peter’s? I proposed it, but Mirandola, with his history and his love of art and all that old furniture, would reserve it for a temple of the true God and for the glory of Europe! Fine results we have accomplished! And now we are here, hardly knowing where we are, and, as it appears, hardly knowing what to do.”