The stranger kept his word: on the ensuing day he came to our dwelling. Making, he said, a tour through the north of Italy, the picturesque scenery tempted him to prolong his sojourn at St. Michael. In his excursions, he had chanced to hold random converse with my father, whom he professed to value as the worthy descendant of an independent and intelligent people.

I had forborne to grieve my family by the story of my disgrace, nor had it yet been detailed to them by the officious communicativeness of pretended friends. Our visitor made no allusion to it, but expatiated very agreeably on topics of general interest. He described the passes of the Alps with the accuracy of a mountaineer, and displayed an intimacy with the localities of the cantons that filled my parents with pleasure and surprise. In pursuit of knowledge he had traversed the most remarkable sections of the globe; and his observations, affluent in instruction, proved that his wanderings had been of a different order from the capricious migrations of sight-seeking wealth.

The warmth with which I seconded some of his sentiments appeared to please him. He complimented my father on my education; adding, that the judgment with which I developed its resources designated me for a wider sphere of action than belonged to a tiller of the soil of Lombardy. I had been vain enough to entertain the same opinion; and its confirmation by a competent authority was balm to my spirit. Gladly I acceded to his request, of guiding him to the Baron's Font, a romantic cascade, where, to use his own language, he sighed to offer allegiance to Nature.

My companion noted the peculiarities of the route, and committed to writing the information I furnished respecting the district. We rested on the summit of a steep, skirted by the foaming stream of the cascade, beyond which rose wooded grounds in bold acclivity, mellowing, with their dusky greenness, the gloomy grandeur of a mouldering tower.

The stranger abruptly adverted to the hateful humiliation of the preceding day. He descanted on the contumely I had suffered, with a vehement bitterness that chafed my young blood to flame. I denounced endless hostility against the count and his minions. He calmly commented on the futility of the threat. In the frenzy of exasperation, I insinuated the possibility of resorting to the darkest means of accomplishing revenge. He replied, that in cooler moments I would spurn the idea of Italian vengeance. Requiring a pledge of secrecy, he proceeded to point out an honorable mode of lowering the crest of the oppressor.

“My name,” he said, “is Philippon—my profession, a military engineer, in the service of the French Republic. The armies of Liberty only await the capture of Toulon to sever the chains of Italy. I am terminating a secret journey of observation through Piedmont and the Milanese. Come with me to Paris, and join the standard of Freedom. In France, no parchment barrier excludes untitled youth from fame and fortune; draw a blade in her cause, and relieve the place of your nativity from the thralldom of its petty tyrant. These brutal and stolid Austrians must be driven to their land of hereditary bondage—justice demands it. The time has gone by for insulted and injured Humanity to shed tears in secret. Five dreary years I pined in the dismal solitudes of the Bastile—I saw it fall, amid the curses of my countrymen; and never shall the spirit of a liberated nation taste repose, until every stronghold of remorseless power is patent to the winds of heaven as yon grim old fortress, where the Count Rainers of the past outraged with impunity the natural equality of man!”

The majesty of generous indignation irradiated his brow: the eloquent thunders of the Roman forum seemed to roll around me. I agreed to attend him to the capital of the young Republic.