ight that succeeded the battle of Novara, King Carlo Alberto,
who had risked all for the freedom of the rest of Italy--for it must be
remembered that his own kingdom of Sardinia was independent of
Austria--discouraged, mortified, and impoverished, abdicated in favour
of his son, Victor Emmanuel. It was no longer possible to continue
hostilities, and Carlo Alberto hoped that his son, whose wife, Maria
Adelaide, was the daughter of an Austrian grand-duke, might obtain more
favourable conditions from Austria for his unhappy country. On the
following day the young King and Field-Marshal Radetzky met, and a peace
was signed, the conditions of which Victor Emmanuel found great
difficulty in persuading his parliament to ratify. But in the end
Piedmont paid Austria an indemnity of seventy-five million francs.

Victor Emmanuel had not, however, abandoned the idea of United Italy,
and could say with Massimo D'Azeglio: We will begin over again, and do
better! Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, one of the greatest statesmen of
modern times, stood by the King from the first. They immediately turned
their attention towards bettering the condition of their impoverished
country, and soon succeeded in rendering the little capital, Turin, one
of the brightest and most prosperous cities of the Continent. The
patriots, the best men in Italy, flocked to Turin from all those states
where Austria or her tools held sway. The Piedmontese government granted
subsidies to some of these refugees, and found employment for others,
receiving all with open arms.

Meanwhile, Mazzini and Garibaldi were working, sometimes at home,
sometimes in exile, while in Mantua brave patriots, among them several
saintly priests, were suffering torture and death at the hands of the
Austrians. The records of their trials revealed such palpable and
flagrant violation of all justice, all law, that when the Austrians were
at last expelled from Mantua, they were careful to remove these to
Vienna, where they are still preserved. The aged mother of one of the
priests who suffered execution appealed to the young Empress Elisabeth,
begging that her son's body might be restored to her, and receive burial
in consecrated ground. But Elisabeth was deaf to the unhappy woman's
prayers. During the long and desolate years of her own affliction, how
often must the unfortunate Empress have thought of the tears of blood
the mothers of Italy had shed! It was Field-Marshal Haynau of inglorious