whole country is on his side, and ready to do anything he asks for. He does not understand that the crowds go, for the most part, out of curiosity; that they represent no policy or action whatever, and that they will have forgotten all about him by the day after to-morrow. Of those who went to hear Orsini, and who applauded him so liberally, not one in ten probably had any distinct idea as to who he was or what cause he represented. He was an Italian exile who had escaped from tyranny of some sort somewhere, and he was a good-looking man; and that was enough for many or most of his audiences. But Orsini was thoroughly deceived. He convinced himself that he was forming public opinion in England; that he was inspiring the people, that the people would inspire the Government, and that the result would be an armed intervention on behalf of Lombardy and Venetia. At a meeting which he held in Liverpool, a merchant of that town, who sympathized cordially with Orsini's cause, had the good-sense to get up and tell Orsini that he was cruelly deceiving himself if he fancied that England either would or could take any step to intervene on behalf of the Italian provinces then held by Austria. Orsini at first thought little of this warning. After awhile, however, he found out that the advice was sound and just. He saw that England would do nothing. He might have seen that even the English Liberals, with the exception of a very few enthusiasts, were entirely against his projects. They were, in fact, just as much opposed to the principle of intervention in the affairs of other States as the Conservatives. But Orsini set himself to devise explanations for what was simply the prudent and just determination of all the statesmen and leading politicians of the country. He found the explanation in the subtle influence of the Emperor of the French. It happened that during Orsini's residence in this country the Emperor and Empress of the French came on a visit to the Queen at Osborne; and Orsini saw in this a conclusive confirmation of his suspicions. Disappointed, despairing, and wild with anger against Louis Napoleon, he appears then to have allowed the idea to get possession of him that the removal of the Emperor of the French from the scene was an indispensable preliminary to any policy having for its object the emanci pation of Italy from Austrian rule. He brooded on this idea

until it became a project and a passion. It transformed a soldier and a patriot into an assassin.

On January 14th, Orsini and his fellow-conspirators made their attempt in the Rue Lepelletier in Paris. As the Emperor and Empress of the French were driving up to the door of the Opera-House in that street, Orsini and his companions flung at and into the carriage three shells or bombs shaped like a pear, and filled with detonating powder. The shells exploded, and killed and wounded many persons. So minute were the fragments into which the bombs burst that five hundred and sixteen wounds, great and little, were inflicted by the explosion. This attempt at assassination was unfavorably distinguished from most other attempts by the fact that it took no account of the number of innocent lives which it imperilled. The murderers of William the Silent, of Henry IV., of Abraham Lincoln, could at least say that they only struck at the objects of their hate. In Orsini's case the Emperor's wife, the Emperor's attendants and servants, the harmless and unconcerned spectators in the crowd, who had no share in Austrian misgovernment, were all exposed to the danger of death or of horrible mutilation. Ten persons were killed; one hundred and fifty-six were wounded. For any purpose it aimed at, the project was an utter failure. It only injured those who had nothing to do with Orsini's cause, or the condition of the Italian populations. We may as well dispose at once, also, of a theory which was for a time upheld by some who would not, indeed, justify or excuse Orsini's attempt, but who were inclined to believe that it was not made wholly in vain. Orsini failed, it was said; but nevertheless the Emperor of the French did soon after take up the cause of Italy; and he did so because he was afraid of the still living confederates of the Lombard Scaevola, and wished to purchase safety for himself by conciliating them. Even the Prince Consort wrote to a friend on April 11th, 1858, about Louis Napoleon: "I fear he is at this moment meditating some Italian development, which is to serve as a lightning-conductor; for ever since Orsini's letter he has been all for Italian independence." Historical revelations made at a later period show that this is altogether a mistake. We e now know that at the time of the Congress of Paris Count Cavour had virtually arranged

with the Emperor the plans of policy which were afterward carried out, and that even before that time Cavour was satisfied in his own mind as to the ultimate certainty of Louis Napoleon's co-operation. Those who are glad to see Italy a nation may be glad, too, to know that Orsini's bombs had nothing to do with her success.

Orsini was arrested. Curiously enough, his arrest was made more easy by the fact that he himself received a wound from one of the fragments of shell, and he was tracked by his own blood-marks. Great as his crime was, he compelled a certain admiration from all men by the manner in which he bore his fate. He avowed his guilt, and made a strenuous effort to clear of all complicity in it a man who was accused of being one of the conspirators. He wrote from his prison to the Emperor, beseeching him to throw his influence into the national cause of Italy. He made no appeal on his own behalf. The Emperor, it is believed, was well inclined to spare his life; but the comprehensive heinousness of the crime which took in so many utterly blameless persons, rendered it almost impossible to allow the leading conspirator to escape. As it was, however, the French Government certainly showed no unreasonable severity. Four persons were put on trial as participators in the attempt, three of them having actually thrown the bombs. Only two, however, were executed-Orsini and Pierri; the other two were sentenced to penal servitude for life. This, on the whole, was merciful dealing. Three Fenians, it must be remembered, were executed in Manchester for an attempt to rescue some prisoners, in which one police officer was killed by one shot. Orsini's project was a good deal more criminal, most sane persons will admit, than a mere attempt to rescue a prisoner; and it was the cause not of one but of many deaths. Orsini died like a soldier, without bravado, and without the slightest outward show of fear. As he and his companion Pierri were mounting the scaffold, he was heard to encourage the latter in a quiet tone. Pierri continued to show signs of agitation, and then Orsini was heard to say, in a voice of gentle remonstrance, "Try to be calm, my friend; try to be calm."

France was not very calm under the circumstances. An outburst of anger followed the attempt in the Rue Lepel

letier; but the anger was not so much against Orsini as against England. One of the persons charged along with Orsini, although he was not tried in Paris, for he could not be found there, was a Frenchman, Simon Bernard, who had long been living in London. It was certain that many of the arrangements for the plot were made in London. The bombs were manufactured in Birmingham, and were ordered for Orsini by an Englishman. It was known that Orsini had many friends and admirers in this country. The Imperialists in France at once assumed that England was a country where assassination of foreign sovereigns was encouraged by the population, and not discouraged by the laws. The French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Count Walewski, wrote a despatch, in which he asked whether England considered that hospitality was due to assassins. "Ought English legislation," he asked, "to contribute to favor their designs and their attempts, and can it continue to shelter persons who, by their flagrant acts, put themselves outside the pale of common rights, and under the ban of humanity ?" The Duc de Persigny, then Ambassador of France in England, made a very foolish and unfortunate reply to a deputation from the Corporation of London, in which he took on himself to point out that if the law of England was strong enough to put down conspiracies for assassination, it ought to be put in motion; and if it were not, it ought to be made stronger. Persigny did not, indeed, put this forward as his own contribution of advice to England. He gave it as an expression of the public feeling of France, and as an explanation of the anger which was aflame in that country. France,” he said, "does not understand, and cannot understand, this state of things; and in that lies the danger, for she may mistake the true sentiments of her ally, and may cease to believe in England's sincerity." Talk of that kind would have been excusable and natural on the part of an Imperialist orator in the Corps Législatif in Paris; but it was silly and impertinent when it came from a professional diplomatist. That flavor of the canteen and the barrackroom, which the Prince Consort detected and disliked in the Emperor's associates, was very perceptible in Persigny's harangue. The barrack-room and the canteen, however, had much more to say in the matter. Addresses of congratula

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tion were poured in upon the Emperor from the French army, and many of them were full of insulting allusions to England as the sheltering-ground of assassination. One regiment declared that it longed to demand an account from "the land of impurity which contains the haunts of the monsters who are sheltered by its laws." This regiment begged of the Emperor to give them the order, "and we will pursue them even to their stronghold." In another address it was urged that "the infamous haunt (repaire infáme) in which machinations so infernal are planned "-London, that is— "should be destroyed forever." Some of these addresses were inserted in the Moniteur, then the official organ of the French Government. It was afterward explained that the official sanction thus apparently given to the rhodomontades of the French colonels was a mere piece of inadvertence. There were so many addresses sent in, it was said, that some of them escaped examination. Count Walewski expressed the regret of the Emperor that language and sentiments so utterly unlike his own should have found their way into publicity. It is certain that Louis Napoleon would never have deliberately sanctioned the obstreperous buffoonery of such sentences as we have referred to; but anyhow the addresses were published, were read in England, and aroused in this country an amount of popular resentment not unlikely to explode in utterances as vehement and thoughtless as those of the angry French colonels themselves.

Let us do justice to the French colonels. Their language was ludicrous; nothing but the grossness of its absurdity saved it from being intolerably offensive. But the feeling which dictated it was not unnatural. Foreign countries always find it hard to understand the principles of liberty which are established in England. They assume that if a State allows certain things to be done, it must be because the State wishes to see them done. If men are allowed to plot against foreign sovereigns in England, it can only be, they argue, because the English Government likes to have plots carried on against foreign sovereigns. It would be impossible to deny that people in this country are singularly thoughtless in their encouragement of any manner of foreign revolution. Even where there are restrictive laws,