It is a fact, incredible as it may seem, that the Austrians used, in the ‘fifties, to torture their Italian subjects in prison. It is a fact that they flogged, and sometimes executed, Italian civilians for “failing in outward respect” towards the Austrian soldiery. It is a fact that they flogged women for the comments which they passed on such proceedings. It is a fact that they shot a butcher, found in possession of a butcher’s knife, for carrying forbidden arms, and a lunatic for going through the motions of drill in a public thoroughfare. It is a fact, finally, that, exasperated at the manner in which every official Austrian institution was boycotted, they notified the public that “if anybody by criminal political obstinacy persisted in not frequenting the theatre, such conduct would be regarded as the silent demonstration of a criminal disposition, which merited to be sought out and punished.” The policy was as childish as it was savage, and as savage as it was childish. Gladstone had it in mind when he made his famous remark that nowhere on the map of Europe could one lay one’s finger and say: “Here Austria has done good.” His mistake lay not in offering that criticism, but in afterwards apologising for having offered it. What the Italians themselves thought of the matter is best shown by the written declaration which one of their victims handed in to his judges after his condemnation to death:— “I declare” (he said) “that, rather than deny the sacred principles on which the cause of Italian liberty and independence repose, rather than adhere to the rapacious policy of Austria, rather than sanction its claims by any act which might seem to concede them, or by any submission to its authority, I, Pietro Fortunato Calvi, once officer of the Austrian Army, and late Colonel of the Italian Army during the War of Independence, now condemned to death for the crime of high treason, go joyfully to this death, declaring from the scaffold that what I have done I have done knowingly, and that I would be ready to do it again in order to drive the Austrians out of the States which they have infamously usurped.” His judges asked him, in their arrogance, whether he would ask the pardon of the Austrians for his disloyalty to them. His reply was that he desired neither their pardon nor any other favour: “I hate, and will always hate, the Austrians, until the end of my life, for all the ill they have done to Italy.” The Austrians, that is to say, behaved as shamefully in Italy as in Hungary; and this time Francis Joseph was held responsible. When he took his bride to pay his Italian dominions a ceremonial visit, the Italians made it clear to him, as they subsequently made it clear to the Archduke Maximilian and the Archduchess Charlotte, that what was desired was not his condescension, or that of any member of his family, but both his and their ejection.