Alessandro’s brother, Nino Bixio, played a prominent part in Garibaldi’s Sicilian expedition, having commanded one of the two ships which sailed from Genoa. This adventure he related in detail to Juliette some time later. Nino Bixio was one of the most fearless of men; he was said to have plucked a bullet out of his own flesh, saying to his men, “See, such things are quite harmless.” When Juliette in conversation with his brother, referred to Nino’s intrepidity, “Yes, by my faith,” exclaimed Alessandro. “Did I not bring him up not to know fear? Did I not, when he was a boy, hold him by one foot and let him dangle from the balcony over the street?” Juliette eagerly and sympathetically followed Garibaldi’s adventures. She collected all the details she could glean about her hero, and, in 1859, published a pamphlet[71] which caused her to be regarded as an authority on the Italian liberator. Her admiration for Garibaldi did not prevent her from appreciating the services rendered to Italian liberty by the more judicious Cavour. The tidings of Cavour’s illness, broken to Mme. d’Agoult in a letter from Turin, cast a gloom over the salon of the Rue Presbourg. “Cavour,” wrote the Countess’s correspondent, “is _in extremis_, the Italian doctors are killing him. They are butchers. They have bled him fourteen times.”[72] “Alas,” adds Juliette, “they bled him once more, and he died on the 6th of June” (1861). Almost as fruitless as the Italian War was Napoléon III’s expedition to Syria on behalf of the Christians of Mt. Lebanon, threatened with extermination by a neighbouring Mussulman tribe, the Druses. This expedition, which was much discussed in Mme. d’Agoult’s salon, had ended in the French, as the result largely of Lord Palmerston’s intervention, evacuating Syria and leaving the cause of the persecuted Christians to the Sultan’s somewhat uncertain championship. Renan, appointed to an archæological mission in Syria by the French Government, had chanced to sail with the expedition. As soon as he came back, and returned to the Rue Presbourg, he was eagerly questioned by Juliette and her friends as to his opinion of the settlement. “What do you think of it?” inquired Dupont-White, referring to the Sultan’s protectorate and the French evacuation of Syria. “I think well of it,” replied Renan. “It will put an end to the massacres.” “What,” exclaimed Dupont-White, “then do I understand that you were sent there to stir up religious fanaticism? I knew you received your mission through Prince Napoléon, so I thought your object would be rather to come to an understanding with the infidels. For I regard your prince and you as being two of the finest specimens of infidelity in the world.” “But Prince Napoléon is a deist,” said Renan. “Very well. And you?” * * * * * “I have no objection to saying _Mon Dieu_,” replied Renan. “But ...”