himself lying in prison under sentence of death. Mr. Cowen once told me
that it was he who provided the funds for carrying out Orsini's plot
against Louis Napoleon's life, but he did so in absolute ignorance of the
fact that this was the purpose to which the money was to be appropriated.
He understood that it was wanted for the equipment of another
insurrectionary expedition against the Austrians in Italy, and he
willingly subscribed the amount asked for.

As for Orsini, he met his death like a hero; but it is well known that
before dying he succeeded, as a leading member of the Carbonari, in
extracting from the French Emperor, who had himself belonged to that
society, a promise that he would free Italy from Austrian oppression. By
giving that promise, Louis Napoleon was delivered from the fear of
violent death at the hands of the Carbonari, whilst his fulfilment of it
in the war of 1859 gave Italy her first great step towards unity and
freedom. Even the romantic page of history has never recorded a more
notable transaction than that which thus took place in a condemned cell
between an assassin lying under sentence of death and a reigning Emperor;
nor would it be possible to denounce regicide so absolutely as most of us
do if there were many instances in which it had proved so successful as
it did in the case of Orsini.

I have dwelt at undue length on an episode which my readers probably
think altogether outside the scope of this narrative, but it does not lie
quite so far apart from it as they may imagine. It was my association as
a boy with Mr. Cowen's enthusiastic assertion of the rights of oppressed
nationalities, and the stirring of my spirit which necessarily resulted
from contact, however slight, with men like Kossuth and Orsini, that
first made me a real Liberal in politics.