Many of our readers may have only an indistinct idea of the causes which led to the siege of Rome in 1849; and to understand it we must turn for a moment to the history of France. The revolution of 1848, which dethroned Louis Philippe and the house of Orleans, and established a republican government in France, was the signal for a general revolutionary movement throughout Europe. The Fifth Article of the new French Constitution stated, "The French Republic respects foreign nationalities. She intends to cause her own to be respected. She will never undertake any sin for the purpose of conquest, and will never employ her arms against the liberty of any people." Prince Louis Napoleon was elected a member of the Chambers. He had fought for the Italian liberty in the year 1831, when the Bolognese revolution broke out. Louis Napoleon had taken an active part in the campaign, and, aided by General Sercognani, defeated the Papal forces in several places. His success was of short duration. He was deprived of his command, and banished from Italy, and only escaped the Austrian soldiers by assuming the disguise of a servant.* When the prince landed in France from England, where he had resided several years, he caused a proclamation to be posted on the walls of Boulogne, from which we extract the following:-- "I have come to respond to the appeal which you have made to my patriotism. The mission which you impose on me is a glorious one, and I shall know how to fulfill it. Full of gratitude for the affection you manifest towards me, I bring you my whole life, my whole soul. "Brothers and citizens, it is not a pretender whom you receive into your midst. I have not meditated in exile to no purpose. A pretender is a calamity. I shall never be ungrateful, never a malefactor. It is as a sincere and ardent Democratic Reformer that I come before you. I call to witness the mighty shade of the man of the age, as I solemnly make these promises:- "I will be, as I always have been, the child of France. "In every Frenchman I shall always see a brother. "The rights of everyone shall be my rights. "The Democratic Republic shall be the object of my worship. I will be its priest. "Never will I seek to clothe myself in the imperial purple. "Let my heart be withered within my breast on the day when I forget what I owe to you and to France. "Let my lips be ever closed if I ever pronounce a word, a blasphemy, against the Republican sovereignty of the French people. "Let me be accursed on the day when I allow the propagation, under cover of my name, of doctrines contrary to the democratic principle which ought to direct the government of the Republic. * See "Vicissitudes of Families," by Sir Bernard Burke, pp. 294, 395. See also "The Autobiography of an Italian Rebel," by Riccalde, from p. 5.