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Updated: May 13, 2025
The garrison at Aversa had capitulated after a heroic resistance, and it was known only too well that if the King of Hungary could get so far as the walls of Naples, he would not have to endanger his life in order to seize that city. Happily the Provencal galleys had reached port at last. The king and the queen had only just time to embark and take refuge at Gaeta.
Louis XII. hastened to levy and send to Italy, under the command of Louis de la Tremoille, a fresh army for the purpose of relieving Gaeta and recovering Naples; but at Parma La Tremoille fell ill, "so crushed by his malady and so despairing of life," says his chronicler, John Bouchet, "that the physicians sent word to the king that it was impossible in the way of nature to recover him, and that without the divine assistance he could not get well."
With the exception of a short halt, which afforded the travellers time for an early dinner at the Albergo di Cicerone, which is about half a mile from the Molo di Gaeta, they prosecuted their journey without intermission, till arrived within sight of their resting place. This bore the aspect of an extensive, but dilapidated mansion, evidently designed for some other purpose.
* It was on November 24, 1848, that the Pope fled to Gaeta, consequent upon the insurrection which had broken out nine days previously. Trans. Orlando returned to his young wife at Milan, and for two years lived there, almost in concealment, devoured by impatience for the glorious morrow which was so long in coming.
Meanwhile Masséna, after reducing the fortress of Gaëta to surrender, marched southward with a large force, and the British and Bourbon forces re-embarked for Sicily, leaving the fierce peasants and bandits of Calabria to the mercies of the conquerors. But Maida was not fought in vain.
Don Carlos being proclaimed, and acknowledged king of Naples, created the count de Montemar duke of Bitonto; reduced Gaeta, and all other parts of the kingdom which were garrisoned with Imperial troops; and resolved to subdue the island of Sicily.
He was a devout Catholic his enemies said 'a bigoted Papist' he was the child of bad luck from his cradle; he had borne many disappointments, and he was never the man to win back a kingdom by the sword. He had married a Polish princess, of the gallant House of Sobieski, and at Gaeta his eldest son, though only a boy, showed that he had the courage of the Sobieskis and the charm of the Stuarts.
No wonder every Italian glories in the name of Garibaldi! Such men are few and far between. I have mentioned the formation of a British volunteer legion. Probably there have been few more mismanaged affairs than this British contingent, from the first conception of it on the field of Melazzo to the disbandment of the remnants of it after the surrender of Gaeta.
I could remember nothing but fine Italian oaths, and these he doubtless took to mean that I wished him to win. And win we did by a neck as we came to the dazio consume, the octroi post outside Formia. And below me I saw Formia's lights, at the foot of the hill, and the Bay of Gaeta stretched out before me. That night I slept in a little Italian inn by the verge of the quiet sea.
Gaeta, the refuge of the Pope and the fugitive Princes in 1848, now became the ultimate rock of defence of the Bourbon dynasty. The position of the fortress is extremely strong and not unlike Gibraltar in its main features. A headland running out into the sea and rising to a height of three or four hundred feet, it is divided by a strip of sand from the shore-line.
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