Austria, the Venetians attempted to lynch the royal commissioners, whose lives Manin saved with difficulty. An assembly was summoned, and a triumvirate formed with Manin at its head. Towards the end of 1848 the Austrians, having been heavily reinforced, reoccupied all the Venetian mainland. The citizens, however, hard-pressed and threatened with a siege, showed the greatest devotion to the cause of freedom, all sharing in the dangers and hardships and giving what they could afford to the state treasury. Early in 1849 Manin was again chosen president of the Republic, and conducted the defence of the city with great ability. After the defeat of Charles Albert's troops at Novara in March, the Venetian assembly voted "Resistance at all costs!" and granted Manin unlimited powers. Meanwhile, the Austrian forces closed around the city. Manin showed a good capability of organization, in which he was ably seconded by the Neapolitan general, Guglielmo Pepe, who led the Neapolitan army to defend Venice against his king's order. But on 26 May the Venetians were forced to abandon Fort Marghera, halfway between the city and the mainland; food was becoming scarce, on 19 June the powder magazine blew up, and in July cholera broke out. The Austrian batteries, subsequently, began to bombard Venice itself, and when the Sardinian fleet withdrew from the Adriatic the city was also attacked by sea, while demagogues caused internal trouble. At last, on 24 August 1849, when all provisions and ammunition were exhausted, Manin, who had courted death in vain, succeeded in negotiating an honourable capitulation, on terms of amnesty to all save Manin himself, Pepe and some others, who were to go into exile. On 27 August Manin left Venice forever on board a French ship. Exile and last years His wife died at Marseille, and he himself reached Paris broken in health and almost destitute, having spent all his fortune for Venice. In Paris, he maintained himself by teaching and became a leader among the Italian exiles. There he became a convert from republicanism to monarchism, being convinced that only under the auspices of King Victor Emmanuel could Italy be freed, and together with Giorgio Pallavicini and Giuseppe La Farina he founded the Società Nazionale Italiana with the object of propagating the idea of unity under the Piedmontese monarchy. His final years were embittered by his daughter's illness, who died in 1854. He died on 22 September 1857