Pius IX to Italy; of that God who, by such wondrous impulses, has placed her in a condition to act for herself.”  And if she acted for herself, if her deeds had been commensurate with her glorious words, the Austrian would never again have trodden any portion of the peninsula with the step of a master.  But the zeal of the Italians for independence seemed all to evaporate in high-sounding manifestoes, and in a few excesses of the populace in the great cities.  The inactivity of the Italian sovereigns may be explained by their imputed treachery or lukewarmness in the cause.  But what prevented the people themselves from crowding the camp of Charles Albert with volunteers at a time when not a crowned head in Italy dared offer the least open opposition to such a movement?  The King of Naples, sorely against his will, sent his regular army, consisting of about fourteen thousand men, to fight for the cause, and withdrew them in about six weeks, as soon as a base act of treachery had given him the victory at home.  General Pepe, their commander, wished to disobey the order and move forward; but “nearly the whole army turned its back on the Po and on him, and moved backward in the direction of the Neapolitan Kingdom.”  Two hundred volunteers had previously set out from Naples for Upper Italy, under the guidance and at the expense of an enthusiastic woman, the Princess Belgioioso.  “She had lived as an exile in France, and was at first enthusiastic for the Giovine Italia; she afterward became averse to it, and sided with Guizot, Duchatel, and Mignet, her intimate friend.  She was well versed—­or mixed herself much—­in literature, politics, the study of theology, and journalism; a woman that had some of the feelings and anxieties of men, together with all those of her own sex, and who was now travelling through Italy intent upon manly business, but after woman’s fashion.  Other volunteers afterward started, and a vessel set sail for Leghorn, which carried them, along with the Tenth Regiment of the line.”  The Sicilians at the same time determined to separate entirely from Naples and the rest of the peninsula; “and thus all the ability and spirit, the arms and wealth, of that powerful island were applied to the effort for insular independence, and drawn off from that for the independence of the nation.”  From Tuscany there went to this national war “about three thousand volunteers, and perhaps as many more regulars”—­a number so small that Farini apologizes for it, and endeavors to prove that it ought “not to be imputed to any lukewarmness in the affection for Italy.”  The army from the Roman States, which the Pope had set on foot, but hoped to retain as a defensive force within the northern boundary of his dominions, numbered about sixteen thousand, of whom more than half were volunteers.  The conduct of the people of Lombardy, who though the conflict raged on their own soil, and their own freedom was immediately at stake, wasted their strength in quarrelling with one another instead