THE LIBERALS OF PRATO 313 Here Sequi made one of his friends take him at once to Antonio Martini, the chief of the Liberal party in Prato, whom they found at his midday meal. It was arranged then and there that the two fugitives should be carried southwards in a closed carriage across the Val d'Arno, and over the hills near Volterra to a solitary point on the Maremma of Tuscany, where there were good patriots who would ship them off to Piedmont. This scheme, actually accomplished during the ensuing week, speaks much for the energy and faithfulness of these Tuscan Liberals, for it was a plot in which, before all was over, a score of persons took an active share, and of which many more were cognisant. Nets of conspiracy, when they are as widely spread as that, usually become tangled or break at some one point. Meanwhile, in the mill of Cerbaja, taking his meals with the jolly miller and his family, who seem to have suspected nothing, Garibaldi confidently awaited the return of the stranger, whom he had trusted to the death on no other security than that of his honest face and bearing. And surely after sunset the young man came back-without the police and drove Garibaldi and Leggiero down the river towards the Val d'Arno, to the rendezvous with his friends. In the dead of night the various parties to the plot met in the Prato railway station on the outskirts of the town, under the nose of an Austrian sentry. There the last plans were made, the greetings and farewells were exchanged, and the two wanderers, having been transferred into an excellent four-wheeled carriage, were driven off along the outside of the city walls. Going round by the flattest road, they crossed the Arno at Empoli about dawn, and ascending the Elsa valley reached Poggibonsi at eight in the morning of the 27th, having accomplished in six hours a drive of nearly forty miles from Prato.1 After a short rest, they started on again at midday with a new carriage, and travelled for eleven anxious hours, with coachmen who were not in the secret. At the first 1 Sequi, 10-14. Guelfi, 11-27, 40. Ricciardi, 6-8. Mem. 257-258. short stage, Colle d' Elsa, they sat through a bad quarter of an hour, suffering much from the inquisitive habits of their countrymen, who happened to be collected there in great numbers for a festa. 'Our journey from Prato to the Maremma was indeed singular. We passed over a great extent of country in a closed carriage, stopping every now and then to change horses. Our halts in some places were rather longer than was absolutely necessary, some of our drivers being much less careful of us than others. In this way time was given to the curious to surround the carriage; sometimes, too, we were obliged to leave it for meals, instead of having them brought to us, to conceal in some degree our exceptional situation. In small towns, our vehicle was, of course, turned into a species of pillory by the idlers of the place, who offered aloud a thousand conjectures as to who we were, and were naturally disposed to gossip about people whom they did not know, and who, therefore, in those difficult and terrible times of reaction, seemed doubtful or even dangerous characters. At Colle, in particular, nowadays quite a patriotic and advanced place, we were surrounded by a crowd, from whom our faces, certainly not those of peaceful and indifferent travellers, drew manifest tokens of suspicion and dislike. However, nothing took place beyond a few abusive epithets, which, as was to be expected under the circumstances, we pretended not to hear.' 1 From Colle they left the valley of the Elsa and travelled westward, until their carriage had by three in the afternoon climbed onto the far-seen table mountain of 'lordly Volaterræ, Where scowls the far-famed hold For godlike kings of old.' Passing under the colossal masonry of its Etruscan gate and walls, they dared not look out at the town-nor even at the view which would have been to them more thrilling, of the distant western sea-but sat well back in the carriage with their hats pulled over their eyes, until they felt themselves rattling down the mountain on its southern side." 1 Mem. 258–259. Guelfi, 34. 2 Mem. 259. Ricciardi, 8. Guelfi, 36. TO THE MAREMMA 315 On hearing that the village of Saline was full of soldiers, they crossed the Cecina river a little further down, making a détour which clearly showed the coachman that they were not the innocent merchant farmers they pretended to be. From the valley bottom they again mounted the hills by the high road that leads through Pomarance, straight southwards for the Maremma. An hour before midnight (August 27) they entered the local health resort of Bagno al Morbo, and drew up at the door of Girolamo Martini, a sturdy old Liberal, who looked hard at their letters of introduction from his namesake and relation of Prato, mysteriously recommending the two nameless travellers to his good offices. At last one of them said, 'I am General Garibaldi and this is my companion, Leggiero.' 'Courage, General,' answered the old man, all will come right again.' 1 Girolamo Martini now took matters in hand. Several days would be required to communicate with the Liberals of the Maremma, who were to make all ready for a speedy embarkation in the neighbourhood of Follonica. Meanwhile, the fugitives, who could not safely be left to the tender mercies of the gossips and invalids of Bagno, now at the height of its season, were transferred off the high road to the remote and high-lying village of San Dalmazio, and lodged in the house of one Serafini, specially chosen for its facilities of escape into the mountain. Here Garibaldi remained more than four days, enjoying his first holiday since the siege of Rome began, while a dozen devoted adherents were guarding his neighbourhood, or at work down in the Maremma procuring a fishing boat with a faithful crew, who should carry him to the ports of Piedmont. On the evening of September 1, all was ready for the last rush to the sea. At nine o'clock they left their mountain fastness, armed to the teeth for whatever might befall, walked over a few hundred yards of broken ground to their horses, rode by stony paths back to the high road at Castelnuovo, mounted a carriage that was waiting for them a 1 Ricciardi, 8-9. Guelfi, 37-44. For incidents at Bagno di Morbo and S. Dalmazio, Ricciardi is the primary authority. little farther to the south, and were driven, during the darkest hours of night, at a smart pace down towards the coast. After diverging a short while from the road, in order to avoid passing through the town of Massa Marittima, they entered the plain of the Maremma, and, at two in the morning of September 2, drew up at the door of the Casa Guelfi, a large and solitary farmhouse prepared as their headquarters, whence the final venture was to be made.1 1 Ricciardi, 10-20. Guelfi, 51-117. CHAPTER XVII1 THE EMBARKATION—SEPTEMBER 2, 1849 'Push hard across the sand, For the salt wind gathers breath; Push hard as the push of death. Out to the sea with her there, Out with her over the sand; Let the kings keep the earth for their share! 'They have tied the world in a tether, The kingdoms are less by three. " All the world has its burdens to bear, And the salt sweet foam in our lips. In the teeth of the hard, glad weather, The kingdoms are less by three.' SWINBURNE, A Song in Time of Order. THE Casa Guelfi, a square house of three stories, rising high by the side of the road that leads from Pisa to Grosseto, is far seen as a landmark in the partly reclaimed marshlands that stretch between the port town of Follonica and the wooded hills of Scarlino. In 1849 the upper stories of the Casa Guelfi were inhabited by the inmates of the farm, while the ground floor, then as now, was used for For this chapter see inset in large map at end of book. My authority for the incidents recorded in the remainder of the book is Guelfi, 117-147. See also Guerzoni, i. 386–387 (Azzarini's narrative), and Mem. 259-260. I have visited all the scenes. |