Rome being occupied by the French, and part of the Roman territory by the Government troops, the Papal army _en masse_ could freely operate against the volunteers. The papal mercenaries, still alarmed by the recent defeats they had sustained, did not dare to confront alone the unarmed soldiers of liberty, and it was therefore determined that the French army should support the Papal troops. The Government of Florence did not think it necessary to take part in the glory of the battle of Mentana, by adding its troops to those of the French allies; or perhaps it believed, and with reason, that the Italian people would not have quite tolerated such an accumulation of villainy, although the Ministry would certainly have executed it of themselves without any remorse. It contented itself, therefore, with depriving the volunteers of their natural aids, with sowing diffidence and discouragement in the hearts of our youthful and impressible soldiers, and with giving the National Army Contingent orders to slaughter the flower of the Italian nation, their brother Italians. Well was it for the soldiers of the Pope that they were backed by those of Bonaparte. The battle of Mentana commenced at 1 p.m. on the 3d of November, between the Papal troops and the volunteers. After two hours' desperate fighting the mercenaries' lines had all fallen back, and our men marched over their corpses in pursuit of the fugitives. But the new line of Imperialists advancing, and finding our youthful volunteers in that disorder incidental under these circumstances to men little disciplined, compelled them to retreat. In this manner was accomplished two most execrable acts of treachery, to which parallels can not be found in any page of the world's history. IV. NOTES. NOTE 1. Among the cardinals nominated by Sixtus IV. was Raffaelle, who, under the direction of his great uncle, Sixtus IV., had acted the principal part in the bloody conspiracy of the Pazza. In assuming his seat among the fathers of the Christian Church, Giovanni de Medici, afterwards Leo X., found himself associated with one who had assisted in the murder of his uncle, and had attempted the life of his father. But the youth and inexperience of Riaro excused the enormity of a crime perpetrated under the sanction of the supreme pontiff. The eldest member of the college at this time was Roderigo Borgia, who had enjoyed for upwards of thirty-five years the dignity of the purple, to which he had for a long time past added that of the vice-chancellor to the holy see.