The Pope Who Would Be King, page 21
Impetuous and inexperienced, the French president forged ahead despite having only the vaguest of plans. On the same day that Antonelli convened the first four-power conference in Gaeta, the French prime minister, Odilon Barrot, himself no more sympathetic than Louis Napoleon to the pope’s rule, stood before the French National Assembly. He had come to ask for over a million francs to send an expeditionary corps to Italy for a three-month period. His explanation for its mission was anything but clear. “Before the Assembly,” a colleague advised him, “be vague.” Barrot took the advice.34
On April 16, as the motion authorizing the military mission was about to come to a vote, Barrot made his final plea to the National Assembly: Austria was on the march in Italy. Having crushed King Charles Albert, the Austrians now aimed to restore Tuscany’s grand duke—uncle of the Austrian emperor—and would then move south on Rome. “France cannot remain indifferent,” Barrot told them. “The right to maintain our legitimate influence in Italy, the desire to help ensure that the people of Rome obtain a good government founded on liberal institutions,” all required the French to act without delay.
The leader of the radical left in France, Alexandre Ledru-Rollin, who had come in a distant third in the recent presidential election, angrily accused the prime minister of duplicity. Beneath all his fine-sounding democratic rhetoric, said the opposition leader, Barrot was seeking to use French military might to restore the pope to power in Rome. Ledru-Rollin and his colleagues on the left were, however, in the minority, and so the motion passed in the end, 395 to 283. French troops would soon be on their way to Italy, but what exactly they would do when they got there remained far from clear.35
Drouyn informed Austria’s ambassador of France’s decision to send an expeditionary force to Rome’s port city of Civitavecchia. The reasons he gave for taking this step without first consulting Austria, observed the Austrian in his subsequent report to Vienna, were a mass of illogical and contradictory arguments.36
Drouyn meanwhile sent word of the military mission to his ambassadors in Gaeta. The goal, he explained, “is neither to impose any regime on the Romans that they would not freely accept, nor constrain the pope, when he is recalled, to adopt one form of government or another.” The French government was convinced, he explained, “that Pius IX, in returning to his States, will bring back the generous, enlightened, liberal policies” that he had previously championed.
Harcourt was told to inform Antonelli of the French expedition and to explain that, for the pope to profit from it, “the Holy Father must hurry to publish a Manifesto that, in guaranteeing liberal institutions conforming to the people’s wishes as well as to what the times demand, causes all resistance to crumble. This Manifesto, appearing at the very moment that our forces appear on the coast of the Papal States, would be a signal of a conciliation that would include all but a very small number of malcontents….You cannot insist strongly enough,” concluded Drouyn, “on the utility, the necessity for such an act.”37
Édouard Drouyn de Lhuys, French foreign minister
The instructions that the French foreign minister sent at the same time to General Charles Oudinot, the man chosen to lead the expedition, show how far removed from reality the government was in imagining the reception the French army could expect. “All the information we have received give us reason to believe that…you will be received eagerly, by some as a liberator, by others as a useful mediator against the dangers of reaction.” But, advised Drouyn, should there be any attempt to prevent him from landing, “you should not be stopped by the resistance made in the name of a government that no one in Europe has recognized and that maintains itself in Rome, against the wishes of the immense majority of the population, only by the audacity of a small number of agitators, who for the most part are foreigners.”
Only two days after assuring the French Assembly that the force they were proposing was not being sent to occupy Rome, the foreign minister made clear to the general that this was exactly his mission. “You will judge if the circumstances are such that you can enter there with the certainty not only of not encountering any serious resistance, but being welcomed so that it is clear that in entering there you are responding to the people’s appeal.” What he was to do if the people did not open their arms to the French army, the foreign minister did not say.38
Along with his official note of instructions, Drouyn sent a confidential addendum. Oudinot was to maintain good relations with the Austrian commanders in the Papal States. Should Austrian troops move into Bologna and Ancona, no move should be made to oppose them. As for the pope, it was important that he remain in Gaeta as briefly as possible. It would be better if he came to Marseilles or, once the French troops were landed, to Rome or Civitavecchia. “Avoid,” he added, “having him go anywhere on the Adriatic coast. The Mediterranean is French. The Adriatic is Austrian.”39
Three infantry brigades, totaling twelve thousand men, 250 horses, sixteen cannons, and two companies of engineers prepared for their mission. The first of the many ships required to carry them left France late at night on April 21, 1849. Of the disaster that lay ahead, they had no inkling.40
* In A.D. 563 a huge wave in Lake Geneva, caused by a landslide, swept away churches, houses, and bridges in the city and killed a good part of the population.
All sorts of rumors raced through Rome, although few had to do with the French. The Austrians were headed south from Lombardy. The Neapolitan king was readying his troops to march north. Thousands of Spanish troops had recently landed and were joining them. In desperate need of more defenders, Mazzini called on patriots from throughout Italy to come to Rome. He needed an army of fifty thousand. The triumvirate asked the nearby coastal town of Fiumicino to provide sand to fill thousands of sacks so they could barricade Rome’s streets.1
“Rome is very peaceable,” reported a visiting Brit, who added that, while he had seen little enthusiasm for the Roman Republic, “neither do I hear as much complaint as might be expected.” The visitor, Arthur Clough, a thirty-year-old poet, was surprised to find, on meeting Mazzini, that he was “a less fanatical fixed-idea sort of man than I had expected,” and that he seemed remarkably at ease. But, Clough added, he had no illusions. With all the foreign armies headed toward Rome, Mazzini “of course thinks it likely enough that the Roman Republic will fall.” He had spent his entire life dreaming of this moment, and if it came to it, it would be much better to die as a martyr for the Italian cause than to shrink in fear from those who would try to restore the papal regime by force.2
* * *
—
THE POPE’S SALVATION, it seemed, might finally be at hand, for now that France had decided to send troops, all four of the Catholic powers were on the move. Schwarzenberg had ordered the Austrian army under Radetzky to enter Tuscany to restore the grand duke, then march on to restore papal rule to the northern provinces of the Papal States. From the Kingdom of Naples, Ferdinand, at the head of five thousand men, had crossed northward into the Papal States and was sending back reports that the people were applauding his arrival amid shouts of Viva Pio Nono! On April 29 a Spanish flotilla docked on the southern coast of the Papal States, and thousands of Spanish troops began to disembark.3
A few days earlier, on Tuesday, April 24, the French steamship Panama, armed with sixteen cannons and carrying twelve hundred soldiers, set anchor in the Mediterranean harbor of Civitavecchia, as a crowd filled the beach to watch. A rowboat brought a French diplomat and two senior officers to land, where the city’s republican governor nervously awaited them. “Animated always by a very liberal spirit, the government of the French Republic,” proclaimed the diplomat, reading from a script he held in his hands, “declares its desire to respect the view of the majority of the Roman population, and comes on their land in friendship….It is committed to not imposing on these people any form of government that they would not choose for themselves.” Having read this misleading preamble, he asked permission for the troops to come ashore.
Under orders from the triumvirate not to allow any foreign military force to land, the governor asked for twelve hours so he could consult with Rome. This the Frenchman refused to grant. The governor hurriedly convened a meeting of civil and military leaders in Civitavecchia, but the overwhelming French force, and the panic in the population at the suicidal prospect of taking up arms against it, convinced them they had little choice but to yield.
It would take twenty-four hours for all eight thousand French troops aboard the twelve steam-powered warships that had followed the Panama into port to set up camp. A hundred horses, two dozen pieces of heavy artillery, and an immense quantity of foodstuffs, ammunition, and wine were unloaded. “The people of Civita Vecchia,” reported a British journalist who witnessed the scene, “looked on with stupid amazement, and not one word of approbation or disapprobation was heard. There were no vivas for the French or for Pio Nono.” French intentions were far from clear. Although they had said they had come in friendship, the French lost no time imprisoning the city’s governor. But while they hoisted their own flag, they left the flag of the Roman Republic flying alongside it. If they carried a papal flag with them, they did not raise it.4
* * *
—
BY NIGHTFALL, ROME’S WALLS were covered with the surprising news. “Romans!” began the notice, signed by the triumvirate. “A number of French soldiers have appeared at Civitavecchia.” The next day Mazzini and colleagues addressed a longer message to the Romans:
A foreign invasion threatens the territory of the Republic….The Republic will resist. The people must show France and show the world that they are not children, but men….Let no one say: the Romans wanted to be free, but they did not know how to be. By our resistance the French nation must learn…our inalterable resolution never again to subject ourselves to the abhorrent government that we have overthrown.
Until this moment, popular support for the republic had been uneven. People resented government by the priests, but after centuries of papal rule, identification with the papacy still ran deep. Now, although fearful, people were also angry. In the face of foreign invasion, Romans began to rally behind Mazzini’s government. Four thousand partisans of the republic gathered outside the Chancellery Palace, urging the Assembly to stand firm in the face of the new threat. “Respect for religion!” shouted Charles Bonaparte, haranguing the crowd. “Eternal hatred for the government of the priests!”5
On the morning of April 26, amid great tension, Mazzini rose to address the Assembly. The previous evening, he told them, General Oudinot, commander of the French troops, had sent a delegation to meet with the triumvirate. The French claimed that they had been welcomed by the population of Civitavecchia and hoped for the same fraternal welcome when they came to Rome. When asked what their mission was, they replied that it was twofold. They had come first of all to save the people from an invasion from Austria or Naples. Their other goal was to determine the will of the people and, on that basis, to find a way to mediate the dispute with the pope so that a peaceful resolution could be found.
If the French had come to prevent the Austrians and Neapolitans from invading them, replied Mazzini, they were going about it in a strange way. Why would they not first declare publicly that they were determined to block such an attack and so perhaps prevent it from happening at all? And why, if this was why they had come, had they not contacted Rome’s government in advance? As for determining the people’s will, Mazzini asked, were the French unaware that the Assembly in Rome had been elected by universal suffrage? For the first time in the thousand years of the Papal States, it could now be said that Rome was in fact ruled by the will of its people.
Before reading their final resolution, the deputies opened the doors of the hall so that the large, anxious crowd waiting outside could come in. “After the communications received from the triumvirate,” the resolution read, “the Assembly commits itself to saving the Republic and responding to force with force.” Hats flew into the air amid shouts of Viva la Repubblica!
Of all the preparations Mazzini made to defend the city, none would prove more important than summoning Garibaldi. In the absence of an effective regular army, Garibaldi’s legion, its core the men who had fought with him in South America, was the most effective fighting force the republic had. But until then, Mazzini had not been eager to have the shaggy-haired warriors in Rome. Although the Hero of Two Worlds had been elected to the Assembly and had attended its first session, he was no politician; nor, as a military leader, was he comfortable taking orders from others. Most of the exploits that would give him his worldwide fame were still ahead of him, but he was nothing if not confident. “In a hundred battles,” he informed the triumvirate, “I have never lost one.”
At six p.m. on April 27, Garibaldi led his fifteen hundred legionnaires on horseback through Porta Maggiore into the Eternal City. It was a memorable sight. The wild-looking men, sunburnt, wearing conical hats with black plumes, their bearded faces covered with dust, their lower legs bare, crowded around their leader. Word spread quickly through the city. “He has come! He has come!” No one had ever seen such a sight. The whole company, observed a British sculptor living in Rome, looked more like a bunch of brigands than a disciplined military force. They wore loose-fitting jackets, with black knapsacks on their back. Some carried long lances, others rifles. In their belts, rather than the swords worn by the regular soldiers, they carried large daggers.6
The hero himself, on his magnificent white horse, was impossible to miss. Of medium height, Garibaldi had wide shoulders and a broad chest. His blue eyes seemed almost violet and for many had a mesmerizing effect. His chestnut-colored hair flowed down, unkempt, to rest on his shoulders. He had a bushy mustache together with a thick reddish beard that came down into two points. His darkly tanned face and large leonine nose were covered with freckles. He wore a red jacket with a short tail and a small black felt hat, from which two ostrich feathers stuck out. From his left hip hung a saber.7
Giuseppe Garibaldi
Garibaldi’s arrival electrified the anxious city. “When I saw him on his beautiful white horse in the market-place, with his noble aspect,” recalled an Italian who enlisted in the defense forces on the spot, “his calm, kind face, his high, smooth forehead, his light hair and beard…reminded us of nothing so much as of our Savior’s head in the galleries….We all worshipped him.” Or as another of his followers enthused, Garibaldi was “a man of war, of rare bravery….The soldiers love him like a father, because he is just, human, severe, terrible…in his ardor to do good.”
Adding to Garibaldi’s mystique was the distinctive figure who was always at his side. Andrea Aguyar’s black skin, along with his considerable height and muscular build, could not fail to draw people’s eyes to him. Born to slave parents around Montevideo, he had committed his life to Garibaldi from the time he joined him in South America. Aguyar dressed no less dramatically than Garibaldi himself, in a dark blue poncho over a red tunic, a beret atop his head, wearing blue trousers with green stripes. He carried a long lance adorned just below its point with a red streamer. A lasso from the pampas of South America hung from his belt. The imposing, ebony-skinned legionnaire atop his jet-black charger, alongside the golden-haired Garibaldi, wearing his white poncho on his white horse, made an unforgettable sight. When Garibaldi and Aguyar rode through the streets, hundreds of people rushed to see them, women lifting their small children on their shoulders so they, too, could witness history.8
Also at Garibaldi’s side was a bushy-bearded, forty-seven-year-old Barnabite monk from Bologna, Ugo Bassi. He cut a dramatic figure himself, with kind eyes and a high forehead, set off against his dark beard and thick dark curly hair that hung in long waves from his head. A passionate and wildly popular preacher as well as poet, Bassi had long railed against the corruption of the upper clergy that plagued the church. He had been a strong early supporter of Pius IX and the causes of Italian independence and liberty. When the pope crushed the hopes of the Italian patriots with his address in April, Bassi, crestfallen, initially defended him. In a dramatic sermon in Bologna’s massive central church, he urged the huge crowd not to turn on the pontiff. Pius, said the monk, was not a villain but a victim of the villainy of the prelates around him. But by the end of the year, Bassi was calling for an end to papal rule. His sermons and writings in early 1849 had helped galvanize popular support for the Constituent Assembly.
Garibaldi and his comrade-in-arms, Andrea Aguyar
When he first met the legionnaires outside Rome in April, Bassi quickly came under their leader’s spell. “Garibaldi is the Hero most worthy of poetry of any I can ever hope to meet in my entire life,” the Barnabite wrote. “Our souls have been conjoined, as if we had been sisters in Heaven before finding ourselves living on earth.” From that moment, Bassi became the chaplain of the legionnaires and the religious sidekick of the fiercely anticlerical Garibaldi. 9
Passing through Rome’s streets, Garibaldi and his ragtag troops made their way to the Convent of San Silvestro, designated by the triumvirate to be their quarters. As they arrived, the last of the nuns who lived there were packing up their belongings and hurrying away.10
* * *
—
RAYNEVAL AND HARCOURT RECEIVED news of the French expedition along with urgent instructions from Paris. The success of the French military mission rested on their shoulders, they were told. If the pope would announce his intention to return to his reforming path, the Romans would greet the French army with open arms. If not, the result could be disastrous.11
On April 16, as the motion authorizing the military mission was about to come to a vote, Barrot made his final plea to the National Assembly: Austria was on the march in Italy. Having crushed King Charles Albert, the Austrians now aimed to restore Tuscany’s grand duke—uncle of the Austrian emperor—and would then move south on Rome. “France cannot remain indifferent,” Barrot told them. “The right to maintain our legitimate influence in Italy, the desire to help ensure that the people of Rome obtain a good government founded on liberal institutions,” all required the French to act without delay.
The leader of the radical left in France, Alexandre Ledru-Rollin, who had come in a distant third in the recent presidential election, angrily accused the prime minister of duplicity. Beneath all his fine-sounding democratic rhetoric, said the opposition leader, Barrot was seeking to use French military might to restore the pope to power in Rome. Ledru-Rollin and his colleagues on the left were, however, in the minority, and so the motion passed in the end, 395 to 283. French troops would soon be on their way to Italy, but what exactly they would do when they got there remained far from clear.35
Drouyn informed Austria’s ambassador of France’s decision to send an expeditionary force to Rome’s port city of Civitavecchia. The reasons he gave for taking this step without first consulting Austria, observed the Austrian in his subsequent report to Vienna, were a mass of illogical and contradictory arguments.36
Drouyn meanwhile sent word of the military mission to his ambassadors in Gaeta. The goal, he explained, “is neither to impose any regime on the Romans that they would not freely accept, nor constrain the pope, when he is recalled, to adopt one form of government or another.” The French government was convinced, he explained, “that Pius IX, in returning to his States, will bring back the generous, enlightened, liberal policies” that he had previously championed.
Harcourt was told to inform Antonelli of the French expedition and to explain that, for the pope to profit from it, “the Holy Father must hurry to publish a Manifesto that, in guaranteeing liberal institutions conforming to the people’s wishes as well as to what the times demand, causes all resistance to crumble. This Manifesto, appearing at the very moment that our forces appear on the coast of the Papal States, would be a signal of a conciliation that would include all but a very small number of malcontents….You cannot insist strongly enough,” concluded Drouyn, “on the utility, the necessity for such an act.”37
Édouard Drouyn de Lhuys, French foreign minister
The instructions that the French foreign minister sent at the same time to General Charles Oudinot, the man chosen to lead the expedition, show how far removed from reality the government was in imagining the reception the French army could expect. “All the information we have received give us reason to believe that…you will be received eagerly, by some as a liberator, by others as a useful mediator against the dangers of reaction.” But, advised Drouyn, should there be any attempt to prevent him from landing, “you should not be stopped by the resistance made in the name of a government that no one in Europe has recognized and that maintains itself in Rome, against the wishes of the immense majority of the population, only by the audacity of a small number of agitators, who for the most part are foreigners.”
Only two days after assuring the French Assembly that the force they were proposing was not being sent to occupy Rome, the foreign minister made clear to the general that this was exactly his mission. “You will judge if the circumstances are such that you can enter there with the certainty not only of not encountering any serious resistance, but being welcomed so that it is clear that in entering there you are responding to the people’s appeal.” What he was to do if the people did not open their arms to the French army, the foreign minister did not say.38
Along with his official note of instructions, Drouyn sent a confidential addendum. Oudinot was to maintain good relations with the Austrian commanders in the Papal States. Should Austrian troops move into Bologna and Ancona, no move should be made to oppose them. As for the pope, it was important that he remain in Gaeta as briefly as possible. It would be better if he came to Marseilles or, once the French troops were landed, to Rome or Civitavecchia. “Avoid,” he added, “having him go anywhere on the Adriatic coast. The Mediterranean is French. The Adriatic is Austrian.”39
Three infantry brigades, totaling twelve thousand men, 250 horses, sixteen cannons, and two companies of engineers prepared for their mission. The first of the many ships required to carry them left France late at night on April 21, 1849. Of the disaster that lay ahead, they had no inkling.40
* In A.D. 563 a huge wave in Lake Geneva, caused by a landslide, swept away churches, houses, and bridges in the city and killed a good part of the population.
All sorts of rumors raced through Rome, although few had to do with the French. The Austrians were headed south from Lombardy. The Neapolitan king was readying his troops to march north. Thousands of Spanish troops had recently landed and were joining them. In desperate need of more defenders, Mazzini called on patriots from throughout Italy to come to Rome. He needed an army of fifty thousand. The triumvirate asked the nearby coastal town of Fiumicino to provide sand to fill thousands of sacks so they could barricade Rome’s streets.1
“Rome is very peaceable,” reported a visiting Brit, who added that, while he had seen little enthusiasm for the Roman Republic, “neither do I hear as much complaint as might be expected.” The visitor, Arthur Clough, a thirty-year-old poet, was surprised to find, on meeting Mazzini, that he was “a less fanatical fixed-idea sort of man than I had expected,” and that he seemed remarkably at ease. But, Clough added, he had no illusions. With all the foreign armies headed toward Rome, Mazzini “of course thinks it likely enough that the Roman Republic will fall.” He had spent his entire life dreaming of this moment, and if it came to it, it would be much better to die as a martyr for the Italian cause than to shrink in fear from those who would try to restore the papal regime by force.2
* * *
—
THE POPE’S SALVATION, it seemed, might finally be at hand, for now that France had decided to send troops, all four of the Catholic powers were on the move. Schwarzenberg had ordered the Austrian army under Radetzky to enter Tuscany to restore the grand duke, then march on to restore papal rule to the northern provinces of the Papal States. From the Kingdom of Naples, Ferdinand, at the head of five thousand men, had crossed northward into the Papal States and was sending back reports that the people were applauding his arrival amid shouts of Viva Pio Nono! On April 29 a Spanish flotilla docked on the southern coast of the Papal States, and thousands of Spanish troops began to disembark.3
A few days earlier, on Tuesday, April 24, the French steamship Panama, armed with sixteen cannons and carrying twelve hundred soldiers, set anchor in the Mediterranean harbor of Civitavecchia, as a crowd filled the beach to watch. A rowboat brought a French diplomat and two senior officers to land, where the city’s republican governor nervously awaited them. “Animated always by a very liberal spirit, the government of the French Republic,” proclaimed the diplomat, reading from a script he held in his hands, “declares its desire to respect the view of the majority of the Roman population, and comes on their land in friendship….It is committed to not imposing on these people any form of government that they would not choose for themselves.” Having read this misleading preamble, he asked permission for the troops to come ashore.
Under orders from the triumvirate not to allow any foreign military force to land, the governor asked for twelve hours so he could consult with Rome. This the Frenchman refused to grant. The governor hurriedly convened a meeting of civil and military leaders in Civitavecchia, but the overwhelming French force, and the panic in the population at the suicidal prospect of taking up arms against it, convinced them they had little choice but to yield.
It would take twenty-four hours for all eight thousand French troops aboard the twelve steam-powered warships that had followed the Panama into port to set up camp. A hundred horses, two dozen pieces of heavy artillery, and an immense quantity of foodstuffs, ammunition, and wine were unloaded. “The people of Civita Vecchia,” reported a British journalist who witnessed the scene, “looked on with stupid amazement, and not one word of approbation or disapprobation was heard. There were no vivas for the French or for Pio Nono.” French intentions were far from clear. Although they had said they had come in friendship, the French lost no time imprisoning the city’s governor. But while they hoisted their own flag, they left the flag of the Roman Republic flying alongside it. If they carried a papal flag with them, they did not raise it.4
* * *
—
BY NIGHTFALL, ROME’S WALLS were covered with the surprising news. “Romans!” began the notice, signed by the triumvirate. “A number of French soldiers have appeared at Civitavecchia.” The next day Mazzini and colleagues addressed a longer message to the Romans:
A foreign invasion threatens the territory of the Republic….The Republic will resist. The people must show France and show the world that they are not children, but men….Let no one say: the Romans wanted to be free, but they did not know how to be. By our resistance the French nation must learn…our inalterable resolution never again to subject ourselves to the abhorrent government that we have overthrown.
Until this moment, popular support for the republic had been uneven. People resented government by the priests, but after centuries of papal rule, identification with the papacy still ran deep. Now, although fearful, people were also angry. In the face of foreign invasion, Romans began to rally behind Mazzini’s government. Four thousand partisans of the republic gathered outside the Chancellery Palace, urging the Assembly to stand firm in the face of the new threat. “Respect for religion!” shouted Charles Bonaparte, haranguing the crowd. “Eternal hatred for the government of the priests!”5
On the morning of April 26, amid great tension, Mazzini rose to address the Assembly. The previous evening, he told them, General Oudinot, commander of the French troops, had sent a delegation to meet with the triumvirate. The French claimed that they had been welcomed by the population of Civitavecchia and hoped for the same fraternal welcome when they came to Rome. When asked what their mission was, they replied that it was twofold. They had come first of all to save the people from an invasion from Austria or Naples. Their other goal was to determine the will of the people and, on that basis, to find a way to mediate the dispute with the pope so that a peaceful resolution could be found.
If the French had come to prevent the Austrians and Neapolitans from invading them, replied Mazzini, they were going about it in a strange way. Why would they not first declare publicly that they were determined to block such an attack and so perhaps prevent it from happening at all? And why, if this was why they had come, had they not contacted Rome’s government in advance? As for determining the people’s will, Mazzini asked, were the French unaware that the Assembly in Rome had been elected by universal suffrage? For the first time in the thousand years of the Papal States, it could now be said that Rome was in fact ruled by the will of its people.
Before reading their final resolution, the deputies opened the doors of the hall so that the large, anxious crowd waiting outside could come in. “After the communications received from the triumvirate,” the resolution read, “the Assembly commits itself to saving the Republic and responding to force with force.” Hats flew into the air amid shouts of Viva la Repubblica!
Of all the preparations Mazzini made to defend the city, none would prove more important than summoning Garibaldi. In the absence of an effective regular army, Garibaldi’s legion, its core the men who had fought with him in South America, was the most effective fighting force the republic had. But until then, Mazzini had not been eager to have the shaggy-haired warriors in Rome. Although the Hero of Two Worlds had been elected to the Assembly and had attended its first session, he was no politician; nor, as a military leader, was he comfortable taking orders from others. Most of the exploits that would give him his worldwide fame were still ahead of him, but he was nothing if not confident. “In a hundred battles,” he informed the triumvirate, “I have never lost one.”
At six p.m. on April 27, Garibaldi led his fifteen hundred legionnaires on horseback through Porta Maggiore into the Eternal City. It was a memorable sight. The wild-looking men, sunburnt, wearing conical hats with black plumes, their bearded faces covered with dust, their lower legs bare, crowded around their leader. Word spread quickly through the city. “He has come! He has come!” No one had ever seen such a sight. The whole company, observed a British sculptor living in Rome, looked more like a bunch of brigands than a disciplined military force. They wore loose-fitting jackets, with black knapsacks on their back. Some carried long lances, others rifles. In their belts, rather than the swords worn by the regular soldiers, they carried large daggers.6
The hero himself, on his magnificent white horse, was impossible to miss. Of medium height, Garibaldi had wide shoulders and a broad chest. His blue eyes seemed almost violet and for many had a mesmerizing effect. His chestnut-colored hair flowed down, unkempt, to rest on his shoulders. He had a bushy mustache together with a thick reddish beard that came down into two points. His darkly tanned face and large leonine nose were covered with freckles. He wore a red jacket with a short tail and a small black felt hat, from which two ostrich feathers stuck out. From his left hip hung a saber.7
Giuseppe Garibaldi
Garibaldi’s arrival electrified the anxious city. “When I saw him on his beautiful white horse in the market-place, with his noble aspect,” recalled an Italian who enlisted in the defense forces on the spot, “his calm, kind face, his high, smooth forehead, his light hair and beard…reminded us of nothing so much as of our Savior’s head in the galleries….We all worshipped him.” Or as another of his followers enthused, Garibaldi was “a man of war, of rare bravery….The soldiers love him like a father, because he is just, human, severe, terrible…in his ardor to do good.”
Adding to Garibaldi’s mystique was the distinctive figure who was always at his side. Andrea Aguyar’s black skin, along with his considerable height and muscular build, could not fail to draw people’s eyes to him. Born to slave parents around Montevideo, he had committed his life to Garibaldi from the time he joined him in South America. Aguyar dressed no less dramatically than Garibaldi himself, in a dark blue poncho over a red tunic, a beret atop his head, wearing blue trousers with green stripes. He carried a long lance adorned just below its point with a red streamer. A lasso from the pampas of South America hung from his belt. The imposing, ebony-skinned legionnaire atop his jet-black charger, alongside the golden-haired Garibaldi, wearing his white poncho on his white horse, made an unforgettable sight. When Garibaldi and Aguyar rode through the streets, hundreds of people rushed to see them, women lifting their small children on their shoulders so they, too, could witness history.8
Also at Garibaldi’s side was a bushy-bearded, forty-seven-year-old Barnabite monk from Bologna, Ugo Bassi. He cut a dramatic figure himself, with kind eyes and a high forehead, set off against his dark beard and thick dark curly hair that hung in long waves from his head. A passionate and wildly popular preacher as well as poet, Bassi had long railed against the corruption of the upper clergy that plagued the church. He had been a strong early supporter of Pius IX and the causes of Italian independence and liberty. When the pope crushed the hopes of the Italian patriots with his address in April, Bassi, crestfallen, initially defended him. In a dramatic sermon in Bologna’s massive central church, he urged the huge crowd not to turn on the pontiff. Pius, said the monk, was not a villain but a victim of the villainy of the prelates around him. But by the end of the year, Bassi was calling for an end to papal rule. His sermons and writings in early 1849 had helped galvanize popular support for the Constituent Assembly.
Garibaldi and his comrade-in-arms, Andrea Aguyar
When he first met the legionnaires outside Rome in April, Bassi quickly came under their leader’s spell. “Garibaldi is the Hero most worthy of poetry of any I can ever hope to meet in my entire life,” the Barnabite wrote. “Our souls have been conjoined, as if we had been sisters in Heaven before finding ourselves living on earth.” From that moment, Bassi became the chaplain of the legionnaires and the religious sidekick of the fiercely anticlerical Garibaldi. 9
Passing through Rome’s streets, Garibaldi and his ragtag troops made their way to the Convent of San Silvestro, designated by the triumvirate to be their quarters. As they arrived, the last of the nuns who lived there were packing up their belongings and hurrying away.10
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RAYNEVAL AND HARCOURT RECEIVED news of the French expedition along with urgent instructions from Paris. The success of the French military mission rested on their shoulders, they were told. If the pope would announce his intention to return to his reforming path, the Romans would greet the French army with open arms. If not, the result could be disastrous.11
