He had
been arrested for a supposed share in applause supposed revolutionary
at the theater; he boldly denied that he had been at the play. "If
you were not at the theater, how came your name on the list of the
accused?" demanded the logical commissary. "Perhaps," answered Giusti,
"the spies have me so much in mind that they see me where I am not....
Here," he continues, "the commissary fell into a rage, but I remained
firm, and cited the Count Mastiani in proof, with whom the man often
dined,"--Mastiani being governor in Pisa and the head of society. "At
the name of Mastiani there seemed to pass before the commissary a long
array of stewed and roast, eaten and to be eaten, so that he instantly
turned and said to me, 'Go, and at any rate take this summons for a
paternal admonition.'" Ever since the French Revolution of 1830, and
the sympathetic movements in Italy, Giusti had written political
satires which passed from hand to hand in manuscript copies, the
possession of which was rendered all the more eager and relishing by
the pleasure of concealing them from spies; so that for a defective
copy a person by no means rich would give as much as ten scudi. When a
Swiss printed edition appeared in 1844, half the delight in them was
gone; the violation of the law being naturally so dear to the human
heart that, when combined with patriotism, it is almost a rapture.
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