34 



DISCOVERY 



would not be before so fair an audience ? — insisted one 

 morning on mounting a restive, almost unbroken horse 

 from the Marquis' stables. Riding in furiously, his 

 knee struck against a stone pillar at the entrance to 

 the grounds. Now an injury to the knee (as those 

 well know who, like the writer, have suffered from 

 housemaid's knee) is an obstinate matter. There was 

 no help for it. Even heroes must to bed and be exiled 

 to the land of counterpane on such occasions. And 

 who so gentle and tender a nurse as the fair Giusep- 

 pina ? Pity and admiration wrought their way, and 

 there were intimate talks in that patrician sick-chamber 

 — words that 



Spake of most disastrous chances : 



Of moving accidents by flood and field. 



Of hairbreadth 'scapes in the imminent deadly breach. 



This to hear would Giuseppina seriously incline. But 

 was it love or only the admiration of a high-spirited 

 girl for a soldier ? The sequel will show. 



II 



Seductive visions now hovered before the heads of 

 the Raimondi household. The old Marquis beheld 

 himself father-in-law of Italy's darling hero ; the 

 prestige of his house exalted by an alliance with the 

 great chieftain. Political considerations also inter- 

 vened. Garibaldi was a difficult ally, and his republican 

 tendencies a source of grave concern to Cavour. Could 

 not the fiery guerrilla leader be shorn of his republican 

 intransigency if safely united by marriage to the 

 daughter of a great and illustrious Lombard patrician 

 house, more docile to high considerations of monarchi- 

 cal statecraft ? Cavour was delighted, and a marriage 

 was decided on. True, there was a difference of 

 thirty-two years between bridegroom and bride, but 

 had not the Princess Clothilde, the fifteen-year-old 

 child of Victor Emmanuel, been sacrificed to that 

 blase old roue. Prince Napoleon ? The raison d'etat 

 laughs at sentiment, and who among the daughters of 

 Italy could hesitate, or resist the glory of becoming 

 the wife of a Garibaldi, hero, not only of Italy, but of 

 a thousand lands ? What child disobey an honoured 

 father whose unhoped-for ambition could thus be 

 realised ? On January 24, i860, by special dispensa- 

 tion of the Bishop of Como, the marriage ceremony 

 took place in the family church of the Villa Raimondi, 

 and Giuseppina Raimondi became the wife of Giuseppe 

 Garibaldi. 



Ill 



Again the scene changes. The ceremony ended, 

 bride and bridegroom and the small bridal procession 

 issue from the chapel. They are arrested by the 

 arrival of a horseman riding in hot haste. It is a 

 Garibaldian officer who hands a letter to the general. 



Garibaldi seizes the letter, opens, reads, stands a 

 moment as if dazed. Then, turning to his newly 

 wedded wife, said: " Allow me, I must speak with 

 you a moment." Giuseppina, with a chiU at her 

 heart, but with full self-command, answered : " I will 

 follow you." Near-by was a little rustic shelter, 

 reminiscent of many an intimate talk as they had 

 been wont to rest in its grateful shade. They enter. 

 Garibaldi hands her the letter. 



"Is it true ? " he demands. " Is what this letter 

 says true ? ' ' 



Calmly, unhesitatingly, the answer came : " Yes, it 

 is true." 



" Then you are only a ," here a bitter word. 



Steadily, with commanding dignity, came the retort : 

 " I believed you were a chivalrous hero. I see you are 

 only a coarse soldier." 



Garibaldi flung the garden chair, on which his hand 

 was resting, out of the arbour, strode forth to the 

 stables, had his horse saddled, and, amid the astonished 

 spectators of the scene, dashed away. 



The old Marquis, whose name had figured in a new 

 list of Senators, never sat in the Senate House of 

 Italy. 



What had happened ? There was another. There 

 always is. . . . He was a dashing young Garibaldian 

 officer, brave, handsome, ardent, Enrico Cairoli by 

 name, whom Giuseppina had met in her patriotic 

 journeyings, one of those sons of Adelaide Cairoli who 

 were to give their lives for Italy — the Signora Cairoli 

 of whom Swinburne sang ■ 



Four times art thou blest • 



At whose most holy breast 

 Four times a god-like soldier saviour hung : 



And thence a four-fold Christ ^ 



Given to be sacrificed 

 To the same cross and the same bosom clung. 



Poured the same blood to leave the same 



Light on the many-folded mountain-skirts of fame. 



Garibaldi always belie^•ed that he had been the 

 victim of a political manc^uvre, and never forgave 

 Cavour's confidant for the part he had taken in the 

 negotiations. But the expedition of May i860 was 

 soon in hand, and Garibaldi sailed with the Thousand 

 to win half Italy for Victor Emmanuel. 



IV 



And Giuseppina ? Wliat of her ? Giuseppina with- 

 drew, the secret locked in her heart, to a dignified 

 retirement. No word of complaint, no word of her 

 wrongs. For twenty long years she allowed gossip, 

 scandal, invention full play as to the nature of her 

 relations with the young Cairoli. Not a word escaped 

 her as to the real cause of the dramatic rupture of the 

 marriage tie in that romantic arbour of the Villa 



