And this is what Manin prevented. The cry was still for resistance; for the first time bitter words were spoken against the man who had served his country so well. But he, who had never sacrificed one iota to popularity, did not swerve. His great influence prevailed. The capitulation was arranged on the 22nd, and signed on the 24th of July. Manin had calculated correctly; on that day there was literally nothing left to eat in Venice. In the last sad hours that Manin spent in Venice all the love of his people, clouded for an instant, burst forth anew. Not, indeed, in shouts and acclamations, but in tears and sobs; 'Our poor father, how much he has suffered!' they were heard saying. He embarked on a French vessel bound for Marseilles, poor, worn out and exiled for ever from the city which he had guided for eighteen months; if, indeed, no spark of his spirit animated the dust which it was the first care of liberated Venice to welcome home. The Austrians broke up his doorstep on which, according to a Venetian custom, his name was engraved. Another martyr, Ugo Bassi, had kissed the stone, exclaiming: 'Next to God and Italy--before the Pope--Manin!' The people gathered up the broken fragments and kept them as relics, even as in their hearts they kept his memory, till the arrival of that day of redemption which, in the darkest hour, he foretold. CHAPTER IX 'J'ATTENDS MON ASTRE' 1849-1850 The House of Savoy--A King who keeps his Word--Sufferings of the Lombards--Charles Albert's Death. Circumstances more gloomy than those under which Victor Emmanuel II. ascended the throne of his ancestors it would be hard to imagine.