"The mercenary army of General Lamoricière (as the "London Times" remarked) was the last hope of the Pope. Lamoricière, whom the last accounts had described as seeking a junction with the Royalist Neapolitan troops, and threatening a southward movement upon the Garibaldians, had appeared suddenly before Ancona. Cialdini accepted the offered battle, and the event has been that the African general was totally and entirely routed. Those bands, from whom so much was expected, seem to be of no avail whatever against the Sardinian soldiers. This fire-eating and pious soldado, who had fulminated such dreadful threats, and who was known to have done such strong deeds among the Arabs, has really done nothing in Italy which might not have been done by one of the College of Cardinals. With eleven thousand men, and the vigorous aid of the garrison of Ancona, he has simply marched up to a signal defeat." Ancona was soon after besieged, blockaded, bombarded, and captured. The Sardinian navy and army displayed great skill as well as discipline and courage in this operation. The particulars of this must be omitted, as well as most others connected with the march of Victor Emanuel on his triumphant course toward Naples. The city of Spoleto was besieged and soon taken. The besieged had three guns, two on a platform above, overlooking the town, and one below, placed in an embrasure on the left of the outer gate of the _enceinte_, so as to command the road leading up to it. They were iron guns of no great range, but still serviceable. The smallest of the three, in the embrasure by the gate, was the only one that did any execution. The Piedmontese arrived at Spoleto in the morning. They were between two thousand and three thousand strong, and had one battery of field artillery, consisting of six guns. The fact is, that the whole thing was a farce; there was very little attack, and still less defence. The report of the commandant of Spoleto is an enormous exaggeration. The Piedmontese, on their part, did not press the siege with much vigor. The Italians were positively disaffected, and threatened their foreign comrades to blow up the powder magazine if they did not give in. Most of the Irish asked nothing better than to escape from the service and from the country, and the rest of the garrison—the motley crew of German, French, Swiss, and Belgians—they were few in number and of little worth. The whole loss of the Piedmontese was, according to the evidence afterward obtained, under one hundred men. The loss of the garrison is stated at three killed and ten wounded.