bear her child in seclusion, pleading ill health, while Giovanninstayed with his regiment in Rome.nHorace Greeley was not sympathetic. It was the spring ofn1848 and all Europe was exploding with revolution. In FrancenLouis Philippe fell and Metternich was chased from Vienna.nThe Austrian hold over northern Italy was shaken. Milan andnVenice declared themselves republics and King Carlo Albertonof Piedmont was doing his clumsy best to liberate the northnfrom Austria. Ferdinando II, Bourbon King of Naples and thenTwo Sicilies, granted his people a constitution. Pius IX was excitednto see foreign rule disappearing from Italy but not enthusiasticnabout the rise of republicanism. Giovanni procuredna leave to be with Margaret at the birth of their son, Angelon(April 1848). In the fall, Margaret left Angelino with a wetnnurse and returned to Rome. There was much to write about,nand Margaret’s dispatches for the Tribune in 1848-49 are importantnhistorical documents. Perry Miller thought them hernbest writing.nThe Pope’s chief minister was a layman, the cultured, eloquentnCount Pellegrino Rossi, but he was widely hated for ansimple reason: he was opposed to both reaction and revolution.nFor him as for his Pope, the road to progress and freedom involvednslow reform that maintained continuity and tradition.nThe followers of Mazzini called Rossi a “tyrant.” Their leadernwas the huge demagogue Angelo Brunetti, better known as Ciceruacchio,nthe big, fat, filthy Cicero. On November 15, 1848,nRossi rode to the Cancelleria, the beautiful High Renaissancenbuilding near the Campo dei Fiori where the popular assemblynwas to meet. As the count stepped out of his coach, Giceruacchio’snson Luigi stabbed him to death. The noisy crowdnfell silent. The Papal troops did nothing. Margaret Fuller rejoiced.n”For me,” she wrote her mother, “I never thought tonhave heard of a violent death with satisfaction, but this actnaffected me as one of terrible justice.” Garibaldi noted in hisndiary his pleasure at the death of the “tyrant,” then recallednthat he was opposed on principle to capital punishment. Suchnsecond thoughts were rare among the Mazzinians, whonmarched through Rome arm in arm, hymning the death ofnmoderation. (In distant Concord, Henry Thoreau was composingnthe lecture later published as “Civil Disobedience.”)nThat evening a crowd marched on the Pope’s residence, thenQuirinal Palace, and in panic the Swiss Guard opened fire.nPius IX wanted to be neither murderer nor victim. On thenevening of November 24, disguised as a simple priest, he flednto Gaeta on the coast halfway between Rome and BourbonnNaples. Margaret was furious. There were two types of peoplenwho would not go along with Mazzini, the weak and thenwicked. In her gentler moments, she called Pio Nono weak.nShe was also indignant because the American ambassadornrefused to recognize the newly constituted Roman Republic. Ifnonly she were ambassador, but she was a woman. In a centurynthings would be different. (Indeed, in 1953 President Eisen­n22/CHRONICLESnnnhower appointed Clare Boothe Luce ambassador to Italy.nWhat would Margaret have thought of “The Women?”)nRecognition was hardly enough for Margaret Fuller. She wantednthe United States to intervene to support the Roman Republic.nHer radicalization was proceeding apace. She even hadna kind word for the Abolitionists, whom she admitted shencould not stand when forced to live among them. Meanwhile,nMazzini entered Rome in triumph.nWhile this was going on, the French people voted, by annenormous majority and by universal adult suffrage that didnnot exist in England or the United States, to elect LouisnNapoleon their president. Napoleon had no intention of leavingnRome in the hands of Mazzini and Garibaldi and soonnFrench troops were approaching the walls of Rome. The treesnof Rome were chopped down to prevent sniper fire. (“I couldnnot, could not,” sobbed Margaret.) Famous villas were destroyednbefore and during the fighting. Resistance seemednhopeless, but Mazzini wanted Rome martyred and he got hisnwish. The city fell in June 1849 for many reasons, amongnthem Garibaldi’s insubordination and reckless though courageousntactics. Mazzini and Garibaldi went into exile; Pius IXnreturned. Margaret, Giovanni, and little Angelino fled northnto Florence, which she detested. (“It seems like Boston tonme.”) As impoverished exiles, their only hope was to sail tonAmerica. It was time to tell people about the baby.nThe Storys were thunderstruck. How had she kept the secretnso long from them? Margaret had told only one closenfriend. She had written to her brother Richard, but burnt thenletter. In one letter to her mother, she had compared herself tonMary Magdalene and asked forgiveness “because she had lovednmuch.” It was not just that she was a “Fallen Woman.” ThenOssoli family chapel was in the baroque church of la Maddelena,na short block from the Pantheon. In the end she hadnnot been able to write the words and had to write them now, innlate 1849 from Florence. Giovanni was doing his best to learnnEnglish, without much success. Margaret tried to prepare hernfamily and friends. During her pregnancy she had correspondednwith him in Italian. She, who read so many languagesnso fluently, made every kind of mistake in speakingnand writing. We can deduce from her Italian letters whatnGiovanni’s English was like.nAmid all the unhappiness she felt the joys of family life.nEdgar Allan Poe, news of whose death reached her in Florence,nhad quipped that the human race was divided intonthree sexes: men, women, and Margaret Fuller. Italy hadnturned Margaret into a woman, a mother, and a wife. More ornless a wife, at any rate. One of the many mysteries surroundingnMargaret Fuller is her marriage. Did she and Giovanni ever tienthe knot and if so, when? Evelyn Story says she was shown thenmarriage certificate and no one doubts that she thought shensaw it. Margaret was convinced that her new family’s lovenand her now completed history of the Roman Republic wouldnenable them to weather all storms. One storm she did notnforesee: just off Fire Island, within sight of New York, a hurricanenhit their vessel and sank it with all on board. Margaret,nGiovanni, and her precious manuscript were never found. Onlyna baby’s body, little Angelino, was recovered, to find peacenat last in American soil.nHer Transcendentalist friends breathed a sigh of relief.nThey were not ready for George Sand in America, and hernhusband was no De Musset or Chopin. They were sure thatn