Milan, early afternoon. Radetzky mobilized his troops with seven cannon shots. When the soldiers arrived, it took nothing to provoke an incident: a Hungarian grenadier fired a shot, wounding a protester. In the tumult, a young seminarian in a cassock, Giovan Battista Zaffaroni, lunged at the gunman and stabbed him in the chest with a dagger. He had received the weapon from Countess Giulia Suardi, a buxom and attractive young woman, who also instructed him on how to use the dagger: “Go and wound the aggressor, who is insulting our beautiful Italy.” Then a gunshot killed another soldier. The gate of the Governor’s Palace in Monforte was forced open, and the building was ransacked.
