GARIBALDI AND THE PEASANT 255 be caught in a trap. The difficulties of the way thither were great it was necessary to cross the Tiber by the Todi bridge and scale the mountains to Prodo; but the good road that now runs that way did not exist in 1849. A roughly paved bridle-path then climbed steeply through the thin oak copses of the mountain, and enough of it still remains for the modern pedestrian to experience for himself parts of the route by which the half-starved and thirsty men made their way, driving and dragging ninety heavily laden beasts. of burden, and in the worst places walking in single file and bearing on their shoulders the beloved piece of cannon they had brought from Rome. The waggons and Forbes' two pieces of artillery were wisely left behind at Todi.? The night of July 13-14 was spent in a crevice of the naked mountain, above the thick forests that slope down into the Tiber gorge below. Here, in this 'gash of the wind-grieved Apennine,' below the old castellated hamlet of Prodo, that seems to shiver with the fear and poverty of centuries, Anita slept in the tent which she had made. Near by splashed a little fountain, and around lay the tired soldiers. Her husband, alert at daybreak, rode off to reconnoitre, and, seeing a shepherd, approached to question him as to the route. The half-savage fellow in his sheepskin shuffled off for the woods in panic. Hoffstetter would have threatened him, but Garibaldi forbade all show of force, and riding up to him soon won his friendship. 'What do you fear? Do we speak Tedesco? We are fighting for you. We are your countrymen.' New words these, full of difficult matter for the poor thick head; he and his ancestors, toiling here among the mountains for unnumbered centuries, have heard of a God and of a Lady who care for At Todi, Garibaldi learnt from his cavalry that the French were en route for Viterbo, and probably, therefore, for Orvieto. (De Rossi, 109, 111.) Hoff. 362; Bel. 46-55. Besides Hoffstetter's account of the path, see Murray's Central Italy, 1850, which calls it a bad mountainous bridle road.' See also all contemporary maps, and especially the large-scale map in the Municipio of Narni, for the absence of any great road from Todi to Orvieto. The 'great road' down the Tiber gorge spoken of in Hoff. 361, 362, as purposely avoided by them for fear of the French, only began after Prodo; it is not possible to go along the bottom of the gorge of the Tiber running south-west from Todi. their sorrows, but never before of a country that was theirs, of a cause that was the people's, of soldiers who were not the natural enemies of the poor. But this armed horseman is kind, and has a voice that is not like other voices, so the sad, frightened face of toil melts into a smile, and the poor man answers gladly in his uncouth dialect, and even offers to lead the way. Whereat, other shepherds, who have been watching from behind cover, come up, their Italian inquisitiveness conquering fear, and in a few minutes the stranger has won all their hearts, and each is clamouring to be his guide.1 After Prodo the track was no better than before, save that it began soon to turn down-hill, and that the march was cheered by the sight of old Etruscan Orvieto rising on its acropolis of tufa rock above the junction of the Paglia, the Clanis, and the Tiber, while behind lay green vistas of Tuscany and of Monte Amiata stretching into the western distance. The race had been won, and the French had not yet arrived from the south. In Orvieto, famous since the twelfth century for its internal feuds, there were two parties among the citizens; but the Democrats got the upper hand, invited Garibaldi and his staff to come up on to the rock, illuminated the city in his honour, and gave supplies and money for his army encamped in the valley below.2 But the French were close at hand; so close, indeed, that the food consumed by Garibaldi's soldiers had been prepared by order for those of General Morris. But before their arrival the retreat was resumed, on July 15, by the road that leads over the mountains to Ficulle. Garibaldi hoped to pass through Città della Pieve, but it was found by the cavalry to be closed and garrisoned by Tuscan troops, and large Austrian forces might be expected to arrive there from Perugia. He, therefore, turned west at Santa Maria, 1 Hoff. 362-365. Even in this wilderness, where there was none to bear witness if they wronged any one, a soldier was shot for stealing a hen. (Hoff 365.) 2 Bel. 55-57; Hoff. 369. THE VALLEY OF THE CLANIS 257 and on the night of July 16-17 crossed the canalised plain of the Clanis (Chiana) towards Salci. The night was pitch. black, the rain fell in torrents, the mules floundered into the ditches, the men lost their way on the miry tracks and bridges of the canals, and the inhabitants roused at midnight were hostile and unhelpful. But at last the night came to an end, and the column reunited on terra firma, at the fortified village of Salci-a curious relic of medieval life consisting of a score of peasants' houses, built in a square, with the gates and defences of a walled city.1 That morning (July 17), as they crossed the border into Tuscany, everything smiled on them. The morning was warm, sunny, and fresh after the tempestuous night, the Tuscans were friendly, and their wine was good; the landscape, bounded on the west by the ridge of Monte Cetona, and on the east by the distant hills round Lake Trasimene, was rich with fruit, and wine, and oil.' By the terrible march of the last night, Garibaldi had finally thrown off the French, whom he did not again see for ten years, and then as his allies for the deliverance of Italy. In crossing the Tuscan border he left behind all the armies of the Latin races; but there remained ahead of him a foe more formidable than the Spaniards and Neapolitans, more cruel than the French-the Tedeschi, waging their war of extermination on Italian rebels. The network of Austrian armies, stretched across Italy through Florence, Siena, Perugia, and Ancona, had yet to be passed before he could reach the Adriatic, and stand by Manin in Venice. De Rossi, 114, 115; Hoff. 377-380; Bel. 56-66. Hoff. 380, 381. S CHAPTER XIII THE RETREAT, II.-FROM TUSCANY TO THE BORDERS OF SAN MARINO-THROUGH THE AUSTRIAN ARMIES Fuga di cauto leone inseguito MARRADI.-Rapsodia Garibaldina. GARIBALDI, when he turned westward to cross the Tuscan border, hoped to rouse another revolution against the Grand Duke Leopold, and another war against the foreigner, in a State whose inhabitants had failed to do very much for Italy, even when times were far more propitious. He was quickly undeceived. When, at Montepulciano, on July 19, he issued a manifesto calling Tuscany to arms against the Austrian invaders, it met with no response. For all knew that, after Novara and the fall of Rome, a popular rising in Central Italy had no chance of success, in the face of the whole power of Austria and of France. Moreover, in spite of the unwelcome entry into Florence of the Austrian troops,' as the protectors, or rather now as the task-masters, of the restored Grand Duke, that pliable and kindly old man was not actively disliked by his subjects; indeed, Leopold still hoped to make his rule popular, in contrast to the Papal tyranny in the neighbouring State, of which he spoke with disapproval to the British Minister.2 For the entrance of the Austrian troops into Florence, see Mrs. Browning's Casa Guidi Windows, Pt. II. 2 F.O. Papers, MS. Letter of Sir G. Hamilton to Lord Palmerston, August 19, 1849. The Grand Duke was, however, in the habit of saying one thing to one man and another to another. ATTITUDE OF THE TUSCANS 259 And so the leader of revolution marched through eastern Tuscany, generously aided with money and provisions by the municipalities, and loudly welcomed by the populace, sometimes with the strange cry Viva Garibaldi, Re d'Italia, yet all the while bitterly disappointed at the absence of recruits. But the young men to whom he appealed vowed themselves to the service of their country in future years, and as he passed on he left the inhabitants of each little town devoted to the legendary hero who had ridden through their streets, drunk at their fountain, and spoken to the mothers and children thronging round him of the time to come when the motherland would need those young lives. Stories of what he had said and done, passing from mouth to mouth, worked in secret for ten years, and prepared the season when Italy was indeed created by the irresistible impulse of all her populations. Although as a military operation the retreat was foredoomed to failure, it served as a mission of political propaganda in the highest sense of the word. In this way they marched on through Cetona 2 and Sarteano, through Montepulciano, famous for its wine and its view of Lake Trasimene, through Torrita, with its pretty towers of red brick, through Bettolle and Fojano, right across the central plain of Italy, tramping to the monotonous chorus of frogs from the half-dried ditches that distribute the canalised waters of the Clanis among the vineyardson towards the north-eastern mountain wall on which hangs Cortona. The Tuscan regular troops, who might have resisted their passage of the plain, shrank away and let them pass, merely skirmishing with their scouts at Clusium. So, on July 21, they reached the edge of the mountains and entered Castiglione Fiorentino. Now that his extravagant hope of rousing Tuscany to 1 Rug. 30, 35, 38; Bel. 63, 77, 90, 91; Magherini, 13, 14. * See map at end of book for this chapter. At Cetona the Garibaldians were quartered in houses, for the first time since Rome. They were hospitably received, and some, I hope, partook of a certain brand of the white wine of the district. Here, too, Anita changed her man's dress for a woman's. |