On the twenty-eighth of June the Neapolitans were forced to evacuate Messina, and a few days later the “red shirts,” whose force had now increased to about twenty thousand men, camped in the streets of that city, from Taormina to Capo del Faro. Sicily was won. Garibaldi now turned his glances toward the mainland, whose mountains towered threateningly above him across the straits, and on the evening of the twenty-first of August the banner of Italy floated above the fortifications of Reggio, the strongest post in Calabria. The defence of Reggio was the last effort of the royalist army south of Naples. Defeated and disheartened, they retreated northward, leaving the fortified towns to vie with one another in throwing open their gates to the conquerors. The fleet, too, seemed paralyzed. It made no effort to prevent the passage of Garibaldi’s men from Sicily, but proceeded northward to Naples without having fired a gun. Europe was dumb with amazement at the audacity of these champions of liberty. Garibaldi’s march from the southern extremity of Italy to Naples appeared at that time, as it still does, like a tale of the imagination. It seemed incredible that the splendid army created by King Ferdinand with the labors and sacrifices of thirty years could go to pieces like a building in an earthquake. Of course there were many reasons for this, but the chief one was Garibaldi himself. No man could have been better fitted for the leadership of such a movement. Glowing with patriotism and love of liberty, inspired with the idea of Italian unity, yet at the same time a true democrat, friend of the oppressed and foe to tyranny, disinterested, self-sacrificing, bold, and daring, a knight without fear and without reproach, he seemed created to be an ideal popular hero. Wherever he appeared in his red shirt and black felt hat he aroused the wildest enthusiasm; and popular fancy soon invested him with a halo of glory almost equal to that of William Tell in Switzerland or Joan of Arc in France. By forced marches Garibaldi continued his triumphant progress, giving the royal troops no time to recover themselves. Twenty days after he had first set foot on the shores of Naples, he was at Salerno, only a few miles from the capital. Everywhere he was hailed as a liberator, his army welcomed with flowers and recruits where they had expected to find only foes. Well might he have said with Cæsar, “I came, I saw, I conquered!” These events created the greatest consternation at the court of Naples, and many royalists fled the country in terror. The dowager Queen’s father, Archduke Charles of Austria, had advised King Ferdinand many years before to fortify Gaeta and Capua strongly, so as to have a safe retreat in case of revolution; and mindful of her father’s words, Maria Theresa immediately betook herself to Gaeta with all her children.