trial
could be now laid aside; there was no question of new arrests. It was
from pure, abstract love of knowledge that the Government, or, rather,
the Emperor, desired to get at the truth. If he preferred to open his
mind to the Emperor in person, His Majesty would grant him a secret
audience. Above all, what was the real truth about the Prince of
Carignano?

All the rest was a blind; it was the wish to have some damnatory
evidence against Charles Albert, such as would for ever exclude him
from the throne, that had induced the Emperor and his astute minister
to make this final attempt.

'Confalonieri need never go to Spielberg,' said the Prince; 'let him
think of his family, of his adored wife, of his own talents, of his
future career, which was on the brink of being blotted out as
completely as if he were dead!' Confalonieri was worthy of his race,
of his class, of himself; he stood firm, and next morning, almost with
a sense of relief, he started for the living grave.

'The struggle was decided,' Prince Metternich had said in the course
of the interview, 'and decided not only for our own, but for many
generations. Those who still hoped to the contrary were madmen.'

Some years of outward quiet doubtless confirmed him in the first
opinion, while the second was not likely to be shaken by the next
attempt that was made to take up arms for freedom. On the 28th of June
1828, several villages in the province of Salerno rose in obedience to
the harangues of two patriotic ecclesiastics, Canon de Luca and Carlo
da Celle, superior of a capuchin convent. This was meant to develop
into a general insurrection, but it was nowhere followed up, and the
sword of vengeance fell speedily on the wretched villagers. Surrounded
by the royal troops, they were forced into submission, many were shot
on the spot, others were dragged in chains to Salerno, not even a drop
of water being allowed them during the journey under the scorching
sun. The village of Bosco was rased to the ground. The priest, the
monk, and twenty-two insurgents were shot after the repression. The
heads of the victims were cut off and placed in iron cages where their
wives or mothers were likely to see them. A woman went to Naples to
beg for the pardon of her two grandsons, by name Diego and Emilio. The
King, with barbarous clemency, told her to choose one. In vain she
entreated that if both could not be saved the choice should be left to
chance, or decided by someon