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answer: "Prince Napoleon and I embark to-morrow evening at Marseilles. Marshals Canrobert and Niel will arrive by way of Luga. General MacMahon will rejoin me with 40,000 Africans at Genoa, where Marshal Baraguay d'Hilliers will disembark to-day." When I had finished it the Count asked

"What do you think of this telegram ? "

"Your Excellency," said I, "it is the execution of the second article signed at Plombieres by the two parties! Next comes the third, since the first was carried out long ago."

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE RICASOLI WAR AND CONSPIRACY.

SOME days later His Highness Prince de Carignan, Count de Cavour, General de Lamarmora, Rattazzi, and I left for Genoa to welcome the powerful allies. His Imperial Majesty, Prince Napoleon, Marshal Vaillant, and a crowd of Generals, Colonels, and Orderly Officers disembarked to the sound of bells, the firing of cannon, and the frenzied cries of an entire population who had thronged to the harbour to salute France, who was sacrificing her money and her blood that she might free a nation which, under the First Empire, had shared in her glories and triumphs, and, from 1815 to 1850, her reverses and humiliations as well.

I hope I am mistaken, but I believe that some day, led by the men who govern her, this kingdom of twenty-four millions of inhabitants, which we founded, will turn against us and requite us with ingratitude.

Pride prevented my assisting officially at any reception, fête, or ball given at Genoa in honour of the French army. To avoid finding myself face to face with those whom I had served, and with whom I had even been too intimately connected, I contented myself by following in a private capacity the principal actors of the great military drama which began at Montebello to the sound of the cannon, and ended at Villafranca with a pen stroke.

Mingling with the crowd, I saw, as I had already seen, that the King of Piedmont, Victor Emmanuel, had only the title, and that the promoter and executor of public opinion was really the man whom the Emperor of the French summoned to Plombieres, and whom he never ceased to consult from the moment of his entry into Genoa until the battle of Solferino.

When Napoleon established his headquarters at Alexandria and the Minister returned to Turin, I received the order to leave for Florence with a certain number of carabineers, dressed as civilians, to make an arrangement with Ricasoli and Boncompagni, who were pressing the Cabinet of Turin to act, because, as they said, the people were tired of waiting, now that they felt themselves backed up by the French.

In a deliberation which I held with the heads of the sections at the quarters of the directors of the

plot, we decided unanimously that my eighty Piedmontese should scatter the next morning through the principal squares of the city, and try to arouse the passers-by.

When the Florentines were ripe for revolt they were to assemble before the Pitti Palace and cry: "Down with Leopold! Down with the Duke! Long life to Italy! Long life to Independence!"

This converging movement was executed like a military manoeuvre, and when the crowd had gathered in the Place du Chateau, Ricasoli, who had himself opened the doors to him in 1848, mounted the staircase rapidly, presented himself to the reigning Duke, and, in the name of the people who demanded his abdication, requested him to leave at once.

Instead of putting himself at the head of his army-15,000 men-and charging the vile mob, the Duke asked his executioners for an escort beyond the frontier of his States. An hour later the Sardinian flag was floating on every building in the city of the Medicis.

All the banks were pillaged. My agents, who had come from the Alps in sabots, so to speak, were walking about the Casino like lords two days afterwards.

Those who felt that they would never be anything installed themselves, on their own authority, at the

post and telegraph offices, the Ministers' offices, the Prefecture, the Mayors' offices, etc. Fortunately the heroes of the barricades in Rome, Milan, Genoa, Leghorn, etc., came, by Cavour's order, to replace those who had thought fit to remain in Florence under the administration of Ricasoli, who had made himself Governor General of Tuscany, and Boncompagni, who had created himself the King of Piedmont's Commissioner.

The Provisionary Government was as follows:Monsieur Boncompagni, President of the Council and King's Commissioner.

Monsieur le Baron Ricasoli, Minister of the Interior.

Monsieur Fabrizzi, Chief Justice.

Monsieur Corsi, President of the Board of Trade. Monsieur Silvagnoli, Director of Public Instruction.

Monsieur Peruzzi, Chancellor of the Exchequer. Monsieur Bianchi, Chief Secretary to the Council. As there was neither army nor navy, there was neither Minister for War nor Lord of the Admiralty.

At four o'clock in the afternoon the city of Florence was as quiet, as indifferent, as on the day before. The Corsican shepherd, who had received six thousand francs for his twenty-four hours' job, said to himself

"Who could ever believe that Boncompagni, the

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