" For this
he demanded strong reenforcements of fresh troops. But the Government of
Rome--believing that it sufficed for Republican France to know that
Republican Rome did not desire the return of the Pope; that it was not
governed by a faction--was resolved unanimously to resist all invasion;
decided against pursuit; sent back the French prisoners to the French
camp; accorded Oudinot's demand for an armistice, and entered into
negotiations with the French plenipotentiary, Ferdinand de Lesseps, for
the evacuation of the Roman territory.
The refusal was never forgotten, never forgiven by Garibaldi, and has
always been a "burning question" between the exclusive partisans of
Mazzini and Garibaldi, in whose eyes to scotch and not to kill the snake
was the essence of unwisdom. It is also maintained by many Garibaldians
that an out-and-out victory could not have been concealed from the
French Assembly as the President and his accomplices did manage to
conceal the affair of April 30th, and that had the people and the army
in France known what a humiliation had been inflicted on their comrades
they would have insisted on the recall of Oudinot, and that thus the
President's own position would have been endangered.
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