Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/656

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646 rr. Miller what he intended to do with it, he rephed : Consci~i'0)is-la couiine un eclianiillon dc rcpubliquc. He despatched Monge to San Marino to assure the government of " the fraternity and affection of the French Republic," and his envoy, in a high-flown speech, still preserved in the archives, offered them provisions, cannon and an extension of frontier. Fortunately, the Republicans had at that time as one of their captains Antonio Onofri, a descendant of the Onofri of Alber- oni's day, and the wisest of all these peasant statesmen. Onofri politely declined in their name any territorial aggrandizement, and this refusal saved the republic after the fall of Napoleon. The lat- ter, on Monge's return, wrote them an affable letter, in which he promised freedom from contributions to all their citizens in any part of the French Republic, and a few years later Onofri was able to obtain a treaty of commerce with the Cisalpine Republic. When in 1805 Napoleon assumed the iron crown at Milan, Onofri was re- ceived in audience by him with great affability. Eugene de Beau- harnais and Murat treated San ]_Marino with equal favor, and the only effect which the revolutionary wave had upon the repubhc was the abolition of the order of nobility in 1797 ; even this was restored three years later, so that the commonwealth emerged from the turmoil of the Napoleonic period intact. All went well with San Marino until 1823, when a violent attack upon the state and its government was circulated in Rome with the same object which had animated Alberoni's libels. Leo XII., the new Pope, had never loved the republic, and it needed the good offices of various foreign diplomatists before Onofri could obtain an audience of the pontiff. At last Leo yielded, and wrote an affec- tionate letter to the captains, assuring them of his friendship and re- newing the ancient conventions with them. Charles X. of France, Louis Philippe, Pius VIII., Metternich, and the Austrian emperor Ferdinand ' all wrote amiable letters to the little republic, and Chateaubriand declared that, if he was "a monarchist in France," he was "a republican at San Marino." The disturbances of 183 1 and 1845 in the Romagna led to the extension of the Common- wealth's traditional hospitality to some of the conspirators, but the most serious affair of this kind was the sudden arrival of Garibaldi at San Marino, when, after the fall of the Roman Republic of 1 849, he was on his way with his wife, Ugo Bassi, and his devoted band of followers, from Rome to Ravenna. It was on July 3 i of that year that he entered the gate, to the consternation of the captains, and informed them that, hard pressed by the Austrians, he had entered the Republican territory in order to have " bread and rest." 1 Delfico, III. App.