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Believe me, Madame, art is easier than, nature, and painting is simpler than theology." Maria Consuelo listened to Gouache's extraordinary remarks with a smile. "You are either paradoxical, or irreligious, or both," she said. "Irreligious? I, who carried a rifle at Mentana? No, Madame, I am a good Catholic." "What does that mean?" "I believe in God, and I love my wife.
He concluded by conjuring the deputies to cling to the government which gave the battle of Mentana as a pledge of its sincerity. This declaration was greeted with prolonged applause, and it could no longer be doubted that the vote would be almost unanimous.
He mounted his horse, put it to a gallop, which he rarely did, and, riding down the ranks of the column, took his place at its head. When he arrived at the village of Mentana, he heard that the Pontificals were close by, and he waited to give them battle. Mentana lies in a depression commanded by the neighbouring mounds, not a good configuration for defence.
And is it not a significant fact that the terrible chassepot, which made its first bloody experiment upon the halfarmed Italian patriots without the walls of Rome, has failed in the hands of French republicans against the inferior needle-gun of Prussia? It was said of a fierce actor in the old French Revolution that he demoralized the guillotine. The massacre at Mentana demoralized the chassepot.
Over that passion a kind of repose had fallen now, but the gloomy and lowering brows showed that it was not the tranquillity of content. And it was probable enough, though there were no medals to testify to that fact, that the history of their lives would have revealed their share in the day of Mentana.
As if nothing that is glorious should be wanting to the field of Mentana, it had also its martyrs of charity. The Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul went and came among the wounded and the dying, giving their aid alike to all, no matter what their uniform. There was need of water. A Pontifical Zouave, Julius Watts Russell, ran to find some for a Garibaldian who was at the point of death.
It remained only to provide against the attacks of banditti such as had been just defeated at Mentana. In this important matter the Holy Father was not left to his own resources. The whole Christian world was in sympathy with him, and anxious for his safety. Volunteers from all Catholic countries hastened to Rome. Even remote Canada, so early as 1868, had sent her three hundred.
"I trust you will do nothing of the kind, my dear Gouache," answered Giovanni Saracinesca. On the Saturday afternoon preceding the battle of Mentana, Sant' Ilario was alone in his own room, trying to pass the weary hours in the calculation of certain improvements he meditated at Saracinesca.
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