DISCOVERY 



33 



alone ; an hour later the Cacciatori ^ arrived .md Varest- 

 was won for Victor Emmanuel. 



The North Italian campaign did not always fare so 

 miraculously, and on June i, after the failure of the 

 attempt to surprise the Austrian fort of Laveno b\ a 

 night attack, Garibaldi, returning disappointed to hi-- 

 headquarters at Varese, flung himself wearily down 

 on the grass at Robarello to snatch a brief rest — a 

 saddle for his pillow, his covering a poncho, sabre 

 and map by his side. After an hour's sleep he rose 

 and, with an officer of his staff, rode along the way to 

 S. Ambrogio. An open carriage met them ; in it a 

 priest and a young Italian girl of rare beauty, radiant 

 in her bloom of sixteen years. 



" WTiat lovelv scouts the enemy sends us ! " ex- 

 claimed Garibaldi, as with a firm, resolute air the girl 

 alighted, strode towards him, and began to speak. 

 The general leaped from his horse and entered a wayside 

 mn. There, having hastily scribbled a letter, he 

 handed it to the beautiful messenger with the words : 

 " Sa\- they are to hold fast till to-morrow, when I will 

 relieve them with my Cacciatori." 



The fair dispatch-carrier was Donna Giuseppina, 

 daughter of the Marchese Giacomo Raimondi, head 

 of a patrician house of Como — a patriot who had been 

 exiled to the canton Ticino in 1849 ^^ a suspect to 

 the Austrian police. Giuseppina' s part, and a perilous 

 one it was, had been to bear from her banished father's 

 retreat proclamations and instructions across the 

 frontier to the brethren in Italy. With ardent zeal 

 for the cause she had now assumed the still more 

 perilous mission of bearing secret and confidential 

 information through the enemy lines to Garibaldi. 

 Como was then menaced by Austrians without and 

 pro-.\ustrians within, and Giuseppina brought priceless 

 uiformation of the enemy's movements, and appeals 

 for help from the hard-pressed Italians. The patriotic 

 priest was Don Luigi Giudici, who had risked his life 

 by accompanying her. 



Having written the letter. Garibaldi placed it in 

 Giuseppina's left hand, for her right hand, wounded 

 by a fall, was swathed in bandages. The letter was 

 directed to Emilio Visconti \'enosta, Cavour's repre- 

 sentative, and gave details of the military situation 

 in Varese, with an appeal to the men of Como to hold 

 on, for he was hastening to their relief. " Send away 

 those who are afraid, and the women and children, and 

 let the male population, supported by our Camozzi.= 



' In order to remove any ambiguity as to the military status 

 of Garibaldi's volunteers Cavour incorporated them in the 

 regular army as a corps of Chasseurs {Caccintori] and appointed 

 Garibaldi their general. 



- Gabriele Camozzi, a patriot of Bergamo, at whose villa in 

 December 1858 the poet Mercantini composed and sang the 

 famous Garibaldian hymn : "Si scuopran le tombe : si levano 

 i morti." 



the two companies of regulars, and the volunteers, 

 sound the tocsin and look for me." 



Garibaldi, always susceptible to the attraction of 

 the eternal feminine, appears to have been smitten by 

 the grace, beauty, and fortitude of the girl messenger 

 of Como ; but the vicissitudes of the campaign left 

 him small opportunity for sentiment. 



A little more than a month passes since the meeting 

 at Robarello, and the scene changes to the Villa 

 Raimondi at Fino Mornasco. near Como. Bitter 

 disappointment had followed on the Varese campaign 

 and on the Franco- Italian alliance of 1859 — the 



G.\RIB.\LDI AT ABulT Ml TV YUAkS Ul' AGE 

 {By coitrtssy nf G. M. Trevslyan, Esq.) 



betrayal of Villafranca. .\t the Mlla Raimondi the 

 politically betrayed hero — for such he stoutly believed 

 himself to be — found sympathy and repose. The old 

 marquis welcomed him uith enthusiasm ; walks, 

 drives, rides in the lovely surroundings of the villa ; 

 picnics amid the entrancing beauty of woods, the 

 hills, the lake of Como, accompanied by the Marchese, 

 the Marchesa, and, not the least attraction, Donna 

 Giuseppina and her two sweet sisters, were as balm to 

 the wounded spirit of the disappointed Liberator. He 

 was fascinated, saj's Guerzoni, by the bewitching mirage 

 of the fair Amazon, and, forgetting his half-century of 

 years, a renewal of the heroic idylls of the pampas, 

 associated with the memory of Anita, floated before 

 his fancy. 



But — enter the dramatic muse on the idyllic scene. 

 The general, proud of his horsemanship — and who 



