Mario Forza and his party in the Camera had striven to avert the disaster, but always the Government had been deaf to the warning. Why workers should cease work and wish to upset the established order was as much a riddle to the cabinet as to the shop-keeper and the manufacturer. The editor of the newspaper that printed the famous “punched nose” of Tarsis was asked what he thought of the situation. He defined it as a mixture of labour war and hunger begotten of incompetent, unenlightened government. At one gate the troops--most of them country lads--had to fight thousands of peasants armed with pitchforks and scythes who tried to re-enforce the rebels within the walls. Cavalry rushes and volleys from the infantry were used against them, but their barricades did not fall until cannon was discharged into them. Many of the rioters had had more experience as soldiers than the uniformed farm hands against whom they fought; a condition difficult to avoid in a country where military service is the price of citizenship. On an outer boulevard a large body of insurgents, after a company of Bersaglieri had given them a peppering from their muskets, advanced on the soldiers and showed them what could be done with stones flung by enthusiasts. They drove the soldiers into the moat that runs round the city wall, then returned to the barricades they were building of overturned carts and carriages of the gentry and an automobile they had captured. Every one arrested was heard before a court martial; all prisoners were committed to cells. From behind their bars they launched curses against their captors and defiance of authority. Some of the newspapers hailed the uprising as the birth of a new and glorious Italy. These were seized promptly. Men with swords sat at the desks where men with pens had done their work. The Queen of Holland, who was expected, was advised by the Minister of the Interior not to proceed to Milan. Wherever workmen were found grouped an unceremonious shower of bullets dispersed them. It had been all fun for the rebels the night before, when Tarsis and the Panther, in the gloom of Piazza dell’ Armi, arranged to square the account against Mario Forza. There were not enough soldiers about then to interfere with the mobs that took the ordering of pleasures into their own hands. They swept into the Dal Verme Theatre and occupied excellent seats. The manager, wise in his hour, accepted the situation and instructed his singers to do their best. It turned out as he expected. Listening to the arias of _The Huguenots_ proved tame work for revolutionists, and before the act was over they rushed into the street, following a leader who had shouted, in a voice heard above the music, “On to the bakeries, comrades! On to the meat-shops!”