GARIBALDI'S TRAGIC ROMANCE

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 148, 22 June 1918, Page 15

GARIBALDI'S TRAGIC ROMANCE

WBCE HE ABANDONED HIS BEAUTIFUL BKIDE. A tragic romance in the life of Garibaldi is recalled by the death of his erstwhile wife, Marchlonees Gluseppina Raimondi. which took place on April _9 in her villa at Blrago, Lake Como. The Liberator of Italy first met her as a beautiful girl of 18, when in June 1859 he was encamped with his Alpine troops at Robarello, near Varese. Her father, a veteran patriot, had transferred his residence from Milan to the comparative security of the Italian lake district, to escape tbe vexation of the Austrian secret police, and his daughter's bold, adventurous spirit led her to place her services at Garibaldi's disposal for the carrying of confidential dispatches, revolutionary literature, and firearms athwart the Austrian lines in n double-bottomed four-in-hand, which she herself used to drive. Garibaldi fell madly in love with the heroine, and shortly afterwards, while staying at the Marquis' castle at Fiuo, sought and obtained Gluseppina's hand in marriage. BRIDE ABANDONED. The civil ceremony had been performed, and an arrangement for the bestowal of senator rank upon the father already had been negotiated when, on the return from the wedding function. Garibaldi found a young officer named Cnroll waiting an interview with him, who revealed the fact that a liaison had for some time existed between himself and the bride. Garibaldi thereupon packed his baggage and abandoned both castle and spouse the same evening. The enraged father confined the girl to his palace at Como, whence she seized the first opportunity of escaping to rejoin her officer-lover at Fribourg.

After some months' wanderings in Switzerland, Carol! deserted her to fight for the freedom of Poland, where he met his death. The marchioness thenceforth consented to return to the paternal hearth, and lead a solitary life on her father's estates. Finally, on January 19, ISBO, the aged general bad the joy of obtaining the annulment of the hapless union, and was further enabled to legalise the status of his son Manlio and daughter Clelia, and thus fulfil what he described as "the last duty of my life." Soon after, the wife with whom he had never cohabited married a hoary GaribaldTan cavalier, Ludovico Mancini. whom she has outlived to the ripe age of 80,