eilles, the first nucleus being
a group of young, penniless refugees, soon obtained an astonishing
development. Up to the time of his 'Letter to Charles Albert,' his
exile had been so far voluntary that he might have remained in
Piedmont had he agreed to live in one of the smaller towns under the
watchful care of the police, but he declined the terms, and the first
effect of the 'Letter' was a stringent order to arrest him if he
recrossed the frontier. He was not surprised at that result. Mazzini's
attitude towards the Sardinian monarchy was perfectly well defined.
Republican himself, even to fanaticism, he placed the question of
unity, which for him meant national existence, above the question of
the republic. He did not believe that the House of Savoy would unite
Italy, but if unity could only be had under what he looked upon as the
inauspicious form of monarchy, he would not reject it. He was like the
real mother in the judgment of Solomon, who, because she loved her
child, was ready to give it up sooner than see it cut in two.

Apart from personal hereditary instincts and predilections, Mazzini
thought that he saw in the glorious memories of the Italian republics
a clear indication that the commonwealth was the form of government
which ought and would be adopted by the Italy of the future. But,
unlike most politicians, he laid down the principle that, after all,
when free, the nation must decide for itself. 'To what purpose,' he
asks, 'do we constantly speak of the sovereignty of the people, and of
our reverence for the national will, if we are to disregard it as soon
as it pronounces in contradiction to our wishes?'

He did not succeed in making the majority of his countrymen
republicans, but he contributed more than any other man towards
inspiring the whole country with the desire for unity. Herein lies his
great work. Without Mazzini, when would the Italians have got beyond
the fallacies of federal republics, leagues of princes, provincial
autonomy, insular home-rule, and all the other dreams of independence
reft of its only safeguard which possessed the minds of patriots of
every party in Italy and of nearly every well-wisher to Italian
freedom abroad?

In 1831, most educated Italians did not even wish for unity, and this
is still truer of the republicans than of the monarchists. Some, like
Manzoni, did wish for it, but, like him, said nothing about it, for
fear of being thought madmen. A flash of the true li