Out of 642,000 votes, only 69 were recorded against the union of Venetia with the Italian kingdom. When the plebiscite was presented to the King, he said: 'This is the greatest day of my life: Italy is made, though not complete.' On the 7th of November he entered Venice, and of all the pageants that greeted him in the hundred cities of Italy, the welcome of the Bride of the Adriatic was, if not the most imposing, certainly the fairest to see. More touching, however, than the glorious beauty of the Piazza San Marco and the Grand Canal in their rich adornment, was the universal decoration of the poorest quarters, which were all flagged and festooned so thickly that little could be seen of the stones of Venice. One poor cobbler, however, living at the end of a blind alley, had no flag, no garland to deck his abode: he had therefore pasted three strips of coloured paper, red, white and green, over his door, inscribing on the middle strip these words, which in their sublime simplicity merit to be rescued from oblivion: 'O mia cara Italia, voglio ma non posso fare più per te.' The Iron Crown of the Lombard Kings of Italy, which the Austrians had taken away in 1859, was brought back and restored to the Cathedral of Monza. Less presumptuous than Napoleon, Victor Emmanuel never placed the mystical fillet upon his head, but it was carried after his coffin to the Pantheon. CHAPTER XIX THE LAST CRUSADE 1867 The French leave Rome--Garibaldi's Arrest and Escape--The Second French Intervention--Monte Rotondo--Mentana. The words of Victor Emmanuel to the Venetian Deputation contained a riddle easy to solve: what was meant by the 'completion' of Italy was the establishment of her capital on the Tiber. In most minds there was an intense belief in the inevitability of the union of Rome with the rest of Italy, but no one saw how it was to be brought about. What soothsayer foretold Sédan?