FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. A.D. 187O

‘ A Roma ci siamo e ci resteremo.’

Towards the end of the year 1867 Plus IX. called the famous Ecumenical Council which was to promulgate the doctrine of his infallibility ; and in the beginning of the new year the fathers of the Church came from ail parts of the Christian world to the Eternal City. The government resolved to abstain from any interférence in ecclesiastical matters and to afford every facility to the bishops to pass through Italian territory on their way to Rome, so long as no offence was given to the civil power. On this occasion Victor Emmanuel appealed to the Liberal bishops who stopped to visit him in Florence, to use their influence for the sake of the country’s peace and in the interests of religion, to end the strife between Church and State. They did make an effort to bring about an amicable arrangement, but to no purpose, being in a minority ; while the Pope’s party, and the Pope himself, were resolute in holding out to the last.

On March 24, 1870, there occurred an incident at

WHO WAS BARSANTI? 169

Pavia which, so far as we know, has not been related by any Italian writer, and yet, though none of Victor Emmanuers biographers hâve thought it of sufficient importance to mention, which, ‘ read by the light of subséquent events,’ has a certain significance. Since the attempted assassination of the reigning sovereign, and the conséquent agitation for the suppression of disloyal societies, the public has heard a good deal about the Circoli Barsanti. What was the origin of the associations, and who was Barsanti ? the inquiring foreigner asks ; and in reply he hears ail sorts of romantic stories — none of them true and most of them absolutely false. It is curious that a public event which happened only eight years ago should be so shrouded in mystery that hardly any Italian can tell the facts of the case. Even Signor Lanza, who was then Minister of the Interior, in lately contradicting a false version in the Italie, himself gave an inaccurate account of the affair. The joumals hâve had every variety of story but the true one. Some said Barsanti was a sergeant, who in a republican riot turned treacherously upon his commanding officer and killed him ; others that he was a corporal, and had only drawn upon or slightly wounded his superior, under extenuating circumstances. Others again excited the sympathies of the sentimental by describing Barsanti as a most attractive young hero, who, having somehow mistaken his duty, was cruelly sacrificed by the government of the day, who would not permit the petitioners for royal clemency to approach the king. That Barsanti was twenty years of âge, golden-haired, and had a mother,

seemed convincing arguments in his favour ; and last December one deputy in his place in the Chamber pronounced the execution of this renegade soldier ‘an infamy.’ It is true he was called to order by the president for the expression ; but the fact of a member of Parliament being so ignorant of the merits of the case as such an opinion implies, seems strange to us. It can only be accounted for in this way. The Italians not being yet habituated to the use of a free press, hâve not brought theirs quite up to the mark ; joumalists hâve not a sufficient sense of their responsibilities, and private individuals shrink from telling what they know, because they object to be quoted as authorities. It is the cautions, secretive habit engendered by oppressive governments, now happily passed away.

A writer in the Nazione of Florence, a respectable and trustworthy daily paper, at last undertook to clear up the disputed question ; and on December i6 there appeared an article in that journal, entitled ‘ Who was Pietro Barsanti ? ’ in which the accusation and sentence were reproduced in their entirety, and the testimony cited of the officers and men of Barsanti’s régiment. AU goes to prove the baselessness of the theory that he was an ill-used hero.

According to the Nazione the story of the riot in which he took part is briefly this : —

There was much discontent because of the comgrinding tax, and the republicans thought it a good opportunity to stir up a rébellion ; so they oiganised an attempt on the two barracks of Pavia, on the night of