The Fall of Gaeta--Political Brigandage--The Proclamation of the Italian Kingdom--Cavour's Death CHAPTER XVII 'ROME OR DEATH!' Cavour's Successors--Aspromonte--The September Convention--Garibaldi's Visit to England CHAPTER XVIII THE WAR FOR VENICE The Prussian Alliance--Custoza--Lissa--The Volunteers--Acquisition of Venetia CHAPTER XIX THE LAST CRUSADE The French leave Rome--Garibaldi's Arrest and Escape--The Second French Intervention--Monte Rotondo--Mentana CHAPTER XX ROME THE CAPITAL M. Rouher's 'Never!'--Papal Infallibility--Sédan--The Breach in Porta Pia--The King of Italy in Rome LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI (Frontispiece) GIUSEPPE MAZZINI KING VICTOR EMMANUEL COUNT CAVOUR CHAPTER I RESURGAM Italy from the Battle of Lodi to the Congress of Vienna. The unity of Italy, which the statesmen of Europe and all save a small number of the Italians themselves still regarded as an utopia when it was on the verge of accomplishment, was, nevertheless, desired and foreseen by the two greatest intellects produced by the Italian race. Dante conceived an Italy united under the Empire, which returning from a shameful because self-imposed exile would assume its natural seat in Rome. To him it was a point of secondary interest that the Imperial Lord happened to be bred beyond the Alps, that he was of Teutonic, not of Latin blood. If the Emperor brought the talisman of his authority to the banks of the Tiber, Italy would overcome the factions which rent her, and would not only rule herself, but lead mankind. Vast as the vision was, Dante cannot be called presumptuous for having entertained it. The Rome of the Cæsars, the Rome of the Popes, had each transformed the world: Italy was transforming it for a third time at that moment by the spiritual awakening which, beginning with the Renaissance, led by inevitable steps to the Reformation. The great Florentine poet had the right to dream that his country was invested with a providential mission, that his people was a chosen people, which, by its own fault and by the fault of others, had lost its way, but would find it again. Such was Dante's so-called Ghibelline programme--less Ghibelline than intensely and magnificently Italian. His was a mind too mighty to be caged within the limits of partisan ambitions. The same may be said of Machiavelli. He also imagined, or rather discerned in the future, a regenerate Italy under a single head, and this, not the advancement of any particular man, was the grand event he endeavoured to hasten. With the impatience of a heart consumed by the single passion of patriotism, he conjured his fellow-countrymen to seize the first chance that presented itself, promising or unpromising, of reaching the goal. The concluding passage in the _Principe_ was meant as an exhortation; it reads as a prophecy. 'We ought not therefore,' writes Machiavelli, 'to let this occasion