excuses are to be made for this, the last male descendant, whose father
in his youth had been an Imperial page, and who had been nursed in the
conception that Italy (or at least Lombardy) was a natural fief of
Austria, allied by instinct and by interest to the holders of the Alps.
Count Serabiglione mixed little with his countrymen,--the statement might
be inversed,--but when, perchance, he was among them, he talked willingly
of the Tedeschi, and voluntarily declared them to be gross, obstinate,
offensive-bears, in short. At such times he would intimate in any
cordial ear that the serpent was probably a match for the bear in a game
of skill, and that the wisdom of the serpent was shown in his selection
of the bear as his master, since, by the ordination of circumstances,
master he must have. The count would speak pityingly of the poor
depraved intellects which admitted the possibility of a coming Kingdom of
Italy united: the lunatics who preached of it he considered a sort of
self-elected targets for appointed files of Tyrolese jagers. But he was
vindictive against him whom he called the professional doctrinaire, and
he had vile names for the man. Acknowledging that Italy mourned her
present woes, he charged this man with the crime of originating them:--
and why? what was his object? He was, the count declared in answer, a
born intriguer, a lover of blood, mad for the smell of it!--an Old Man of
the Mountain; a sheaf of assassins; and more--the curse of Italy! There
should be extradition treaties all over the world to bring this arch-
conspirator to justice. The door of his conscience had been knocked at
by a thousand bleeding ghosts, and nothing had opened to them. What was
Italy in his eyes? A chess-board; and Italians were the chessmen to this
cold player with live flesh. England nourished the wretch, that she
might undermine the peace of the Continent.

Count Serabiglione would work himself up in the climax of denunciation,
and then look abroad frankly as one whose spirit had been relieved. He