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It could be argued now with more force than in 1860 that Garibaldi and Ricasoli were right in contending that the best government for the southern populations, only just released from a demoralising yoke, would have been a wise, temporary despotism.

As the chaplain reached a certain word in the Service, the seamen stationed at the lanyards were ordered to cut them. This was done, and the stages sinking from under their feet, the miserable men were launched into eternity. A barge was then brought alongside, into which the bodies were lowered, and carried to Fort Ricasoli, at the entrance of the great harbour.

Ricasoli telegraphed to him: "The master stroke would be to proclaim the dictatorship of the king." The Iron Baron told Victor Emmanuel to his face that it was humiliating for him to accept half Italy as the gift even of a hero.

The case for the volunteers was opened, and this is worthy of note, by Baron Ricasoli, aristocrat and conservative.

Such was the wrathful disappointment of the Italians at their defeats by land and sea, that if a vote had been taken they would possibly have decided for a renewal of the struggle. Ricasoli was inclined to risk war rather than bow to the Austrian demand that the evacuation of the Trentino should precede the conclusion of an armistice.

On the 8th of May, Baron Ricasoli took office under the Provisional Government as Minister of the Interior, and for nearly twelve months he was the real ruler of Tuscany. He had an ally of great strength, though of humble origin, in Giuseppe Dolfi, the baker, of whom it was currently said that any day he could summon 10,000 men to the Piazza della Signoria, who would obey him to the death.

When La Marmora went to the front, Baron Ricasoli took his place as Prime Minister; Visconti-Venosta became Minister of Foreign Affairs; and the Ministry of the Marine was offered to Quintino Sella, who refused it on the ground that he knew nothing of naval matters.

Agata's "Si?" was like a flute-note, and the two women loved to see her moving about their rooms. It was like having Hebe wait on them. Anne turned to Hayden eagerly. She wished his opinion of a piece of tapestry an antiquarian in the Via Ricasoli wished to sell her. Would he go and look at it with her? And there was an old lamp she fancied but of the genuineness of which she wasn't sure.

Cavour, who heard Ricasoli speak for the first time, said with generous approbation, "I have understood to-day what real eloquence is." But it was not likely that the debate would continue on this academic plane.

All the palaces too were hung with arras, flags fluttered everywhere, church bells were ringing. Gemma passed down a side street and went a little out of her way to avoid the Piazza del Campo, but she had to cross the Via Ricasoli, and the crowd was so dense there that she was forced to stand on a doorstep for a while before she could get by.