These scenes in Venice were reenacted, with unimportant modifications,
within a few months, at Rome and Turin, at Modena, Parma, and Naples.
The rolls of victims embraced the most highly endowed and heroic men of
the day. Many of them, after years of incarceration, distinguished
themselves in civil and literary life; some perished miserably in
durance; and a few yet survive and enjoy social consideration or
European fame. Among them were representatives of every rank, vocation,
and section of the land,--noblemen, professors, military officers,
advocates, physicians, priests, men of wealth, of genius, and of
character. Those known in America, either personally or by their
writings, are Count Gonfalonieri of Milan, Silvio Pellico, Castilla,
Borsieri, Maroncelli, and Foresti. The abortive revolutions of 1831 and
1848 sent other refugees to our shores, and canonized other saintly
heroes in the Calendar of Freedom; but these were the original, and, as
a body, the remarkable men, who, imbued with the intelligent and
progressive Liberalism of the nineteenth century, practically
established in Italy by Napoleon, bravely initiated the vital reaction
invoked by humanity as well as patriotism, before which European
despotism has never ceased to tremble, and which, however baffled,
postponed, and misunderstood, by the law of God as well as the
development of man, is absolutely destined to an ultimate triumph.
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