ction which had broken out nine
days previously.--Trans.

Orlando returned to his young wife at Milan, and for two years lived
there, almost in concealment, devoured by impatience for the glorious
morrow which was so long in coming. Amidst his fever a gleam of happiness
softened his heart; a son, Luigi, was born to him, but the birth killed
the mother, and joy was turned into mourning. Then, unable to remain any
longer at Milan, where he was spied upon, tracked by the police,
suffering also too grievously from the foreign occupation, Orlando
decided to realise the little fortune remaining to him, and to withdraw
to Turin, where an aunt of his wife took charge of the child. Count di
Cavour, like a great statesman, was then already seeking to bring about
independence, preparing Piedmont for the decisive _role_ which it was
destined to play. It was the time when King Victor Emmanuel evinced
flattering cordiality towards all the refugees who came to him from every
part of Italy, even those whom he knew to be Republicans, compromised and
flying the consequences of popular insurrection. The rough, shrewd House
of Savoy had long been dreaming of bringing about Italian unity to the
profit of the Piedmontese monarchy, and Orlando well knew under what
master he was taking service; but in him the Republican already went
behind the patriot, and indeed he had begun to question the possibility
of a united Republican Italy, placed under the protectorate of a liberal
Pope, as Mazzini had at one time dreamed. Was that not indeed a chimera
beyond realisation which would devour generation after generation if one
obstinately continued to pursue it? For his part, he did not wish to die
without having slept in Rome as one of the conquerors. Even if liberty
was to be lost, he desired to see his country united and erect, returning
once more to life in the full sunlight. And so it was with feverish
happiness that he enlisted at the outset of the war of 1859; and his
heart palpitated with such force as almost to rend his breast, when,
after Magenta, he entered Milan with the French army--Milan which he had
quitted eight years previously, like an exile, in despair. The treaty of
Villafranca which followed Solferino proved a bitter deception: Venetia
was not secured, Venice remained enthralled. Nevertheless the Milanese
was conquered from the foe, and then Tuscany and the duchies of Parma and
Modena voted for annexation. So, at all events, the