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The general was no less explicit, a few days later, at Loretto, when conversing with Count Bourbon Busset and other prisoners taken at Castelfidardo. “You astonish me, gentlemen,” said he; “how could you for a moment entertain the idea that we would have occupied the Pontifical State without the full consent of the government of your country!” As one of the bystanders, in reply to Cialdini, alluded to the fact which was announced, of the disembarkation of a new French division at Civita Vecchia, “And to what purpose?” answered one of the higher officers of Cialdini’s staff. “France has no need to re-inforce her army of occupation.
After the victory of Castelfidardo, the Sardinian attack was concentrated on Ancona. Admiral Persano brought the squadron from Naples to co-operate with Fanti's land forces, and the fortress capitulated on the 29th of September. The campaign had lasted eighteen days. The Piedmontese held Umbria and the Marches, and a road was thus opened for the army of Victor Emmanuel to march to Naples.
The news must have just reached Paris that the King had called upon General Menabrea to undertake the task which had been abandoned by Cialdini, whose name recalled Castelfidardo too strongly to have a sound welcome either in the Vatican or at St Cloud.
A veteran of Castelfidardo, Lieutenant-Colonel de Charette, the same who was destined afterwards to immortalize himself at Patay and at Mans, understood that nothing was to be gained by a fusillade. “Forward,” he cried, “my Zouaves! charge with the bayonet; and, remember, the French army is looking on.” The Zouaves reply: “Live Pius IX!” and spring forward with their leader.
Pius IX. never ceased to entertain a high opinion of the good Catholics of Holland. “Ah!” said he to visitors from that country, “could we ever forget that these single-minded, loyal, patient Hollanders formed the majority of our soldiers, who were not native Italians, at Castelfidardo and Mentana.”
The last line of the book, evidently written to check imperial ambition, is: "Humanity wants no more war." In 1861, after Garibaldi's expedition and the battle of Castelfidardo, Proudhon immediately saw that the establishment of Italian unity would be a severe blow to European equilibrium.
These misleading assurances encouraged Lamoricière, but in any case he would probably have thought it incumbent on him to make what stand he could. He was defeated by Cialdini on the heights of Castelfidardo "yesterday unknown, to-day immortal," as Mgr. Dupanloup eloquently exclaimed. Ancona fell to a combined attack from land and sea.
I say this in the face of the fact that one has only to step across the cathedral of Nantes to stand in the presence of one of the purest and most touching of modern tombs. Catholic Brittany has erected in the opposite transept a monument to one of the most devoted of her sons, General de Lamoricière, the defender of the Pope, the vanquished of Castelfidardo.
He learned, unexpectedly, that the frontier on the side of Piedmont was violated at every point of attack at the same time; that an army corps, commanded by General de Sonnaz, was marching on Perugia; another, led by Brignone, on Spoleto; another, under the Garibaldian Mazi, on Orvieto; finally, that Cialdini was advancing on Sinigaglia, thence on Torrede Jesi, Castelfidardo and Loretto, and that his object was Ancona, the only city except Rome which was capable of making any resistance.
On the same day, the 11th of October, Victor Emmanuel crossed the Neapolitan frontier at the head of the army which Cialdini led to victory at Castelfidardo. The King published a proclamation, in which he said that he closed the era of revolution in Italy. Other bodies of Piedmontese troops had been despatched by sea to Naples and Manfredonia.
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