was the formula, repeated on entering its ranks: 'I swear to God, and
on my honour, to exert myself to the utmost of my power, and even at
the sacrifice of my life, to redeem Italy from foreign dominion.'

Knowing to what extent he was a marked man, Confalonieri would have
only exercised common prudence in leaving the country, but he could
not reconcile himself to the idea of flight. Anonymous warnings rained
upon him: most likely they all came from the same quarter, from Count
Bubna, the Austrian Field-Marshal, with whom Confalonieri was
personally on friendly terms. On the 12th of December the Countess
Bubna made a last effort to save him; her carriage was ready, she
implored him to take it and escape across the frontier. He refused,
and next day he was arrested.

Austrian legal procedure was slow; the trial of the first Carbonari,
Silvio Pellico and his companions, did not take place till 1822. On
the 22nd of February the sentence of death was read to Silvio Pellico
in his Venetian prison, to be commuted to one of fifteen years'
imprisonment at Spielberg, a fortress converted into a convict prison
in a bleak position in Moravia. To that rock of sorrow, consecrated
for ever by the sufferings of some of the purest of men, Silvio
Pellico and Pietro Maroncelli, with nine or ten companions, condemned
at the same time, were the first Italians to take the road. Here they
remained for the eight years described by the author of _Francesca da
Rimini_, in _Le Mie Prigioni_, a book that served the Italian cause
throughout the world. Even now some Italians are indignant at the
spirit of saintly resignation which breathes upon Silvio Pellico's
pages, at the veil which is drawn over many shocking features in the
treatment of the prisoners; they do not know the tremendous force
which such reticence gave his narrative. _Le Mie Prigioni_ has the