When the guards and servants rushed into the room, they found that Pius IX's once-pristine white robes were stained with blood.
The cannonball had not actually wounded the Pope. He merely looked bewildered and disbelieving.
"Your Holiness! We must flee! The Consultative Committee and the Civic Guard have rebelled. They're about to storm in!"
The commander of the guard, Stefan Capella, shouted. Though he was a Swiss mercenary, he had served the Papal States for thirty years, and several popes had treated him well. So at that moment, Captain Stefan was speaking from the heart.
But Pius IX refused. He did not want to leave.
"Dress me. I want to see my flock! No—my people!"
Though Pius IX's clothes were in disarray, his bearing was that of a true pope.
Several servants were swept up by his presence. They moved quickly, and before long Pius IX had changed into clean robes, and the blood on his face and hair had been wiped away.
Outside the palace, the Swiss mercenaries—foreigners—were defending the grounds, while the attacking force was Rome's Civic Guard.
The fighting between the two sides was little different from a large-scale gang brawl. The Swiss mercenaries took cover behind flower beds and marble statues, while the Roman Civic Guard could only overturn peddlers' handcarts or stalls to use as barricades.
That balance was shattered the moment the Civic Guard brought in a cannon. But with no trained artillerymen, the cannonball sailed right over the Swiss mercenaries' line and into the palace.
Cannons were not something that could be brought in at a moment's notice. In other words, the Liberals had brought one along with them in the procession from the very beginning. They were determined to drive Pius IX from power.
Angelo Nebuti was the driving force behind Rome's