GIFT OF 
 Miss E.T.Vv 
 
SKETCHES OK ITALY. 
 
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 ON ITALY: 
 
 ITS LAST REVOLUTION, 
 
 ITS ACTUAL CONDITION, ITS TENDENCIES 
 
 AND HOPES. 
 
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 LONDON: 
 
 HAMILTON, ADAMS, & Co., PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1856. 
 

 ■■•■■■■■ : :..; .-••. 
 
 EDWARD BAINES AND SONS, PRINTERS, LEEDS. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The renewed and increasing interest felt by our 
 countrymen in Italian affairs seems to call for a 
 popular view of what may be termed " the case of 
 Italy against her oppressors," and such this little 
 work will be found to afford. 
 
 It is from the pen of one whose name unhappily 
 cannot be divulged without injury to himself, but 
 who is known by all his friends to be intimately 
 acquainted with the history, politics, and social con- 
 dition of Italy, and as a man of high honour and 
 true Christian principle. A Eoman Catholic by 
 birth, he has the conviction, shared by many, that 
 the political element in that system would be anni- 
 hilated by the overthrow of its political centre at 
 Home, and that whatever is really Christian in it 
 would readily amalgamate with the universal Church 
 of Christ, were it once set free from the despotism 
 of the Vatican. His patriotism is attested by cruel 
 wrongs inflicted on him by the enemies of free- 
 dom, and endured with heroic resignation. His 
 sources of information are unexceptionable, and his 
 
 248267 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 principles prevent his unconsciously glossing facts 
 to bolster up particular theories. 
 
 In addition to the general historical sketches in- 
 cluded in this volume, it presents in a small compass 
 a very graphic and comprehensive account of the 
 great Italian Kevolution of 1848-9. 
 
 The work was begun in the autumn of 1853 and 
 brought to a close early in the following year, since 
 which time it has been untouched. For the reasons 
 stated above, the Author has been requested to allow 
 its publication now, and has consented. He has 
 also added an After- Chapter to the seventeen of 
 which the work originally consisted, in order to 
 present to Englishmen a view of Italy not only 
 in the past but in her actual circumstances. 
 
 We most cheerfully comply with the request to 
 furnish this brief statement as an introductory re- 
 commendation of the work. 
 
 (Signed) 
 
 C. E. EAKDLEY. 
 
 C. HOLTE BEACEBEIDGE. 
 
 December, 1855. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The First French Revolution and Italy— Effects of the Fall of 
 Napoleon— Italy in 1847— The Lombardo- Venetian Kingdom- 
 Piedmont and Tuscany— Modena and Lucca— Parma— The King- 
 dom of Naples— Despotism of Ferdinand II.— States of the 
 Church .*! 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Temporal Power of the Popes the Principal Cause of the Decline 
 of their Spiritual Influence— The Papacy Doubly Fatal to Italy- 
 Its Present Decay 12 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Temporary Reaction of Opinion among the Italians in favour of 
 Pius VII.— Their short-lived Sympathy and Regard for that Pon- 
 tiff—Gregory XVI. and his Reign 19 
 
 CHAPTER IV/ 
 Death of Gregory XVI.— Accession of Pius IX, to the Pontificate- 
 Commencement of his Reign— Deception of the Italians as to 
 his Liberal Ideas and Patriotic Intentions 26 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Real Origin of the Italian Revolution of 1848— Why Italy has adopted 
 the Reforms of the French Revolution of 1789 more than other 
 Nations— Italy under the Yoke of France — Political Associations 
 in Italy— The Carbonari— The Giovane Italia— Mazzini— Imprac- 
 ticability of certain Utopian Schemes 34 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Jesuits — their Abolition and Re-establishment— Baneful Effect of 
 the latter in Italy — Their great Italian Opponents, the Abbe 
 Gioberti and Count Tasca— Atrocities of the Political and 
 • Clerical reaction instigated by the Jesuits 42 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies— Origin, Progress, and Dreadful 
 Suppression of its Revolution— its Connexion with the Cause of 
 Italian Independence 53 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. Page 
 
 The Revolution of Milan *. 64 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 The Insurrection of Venice 78 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Liberal Movement in Tuscany 85 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 The War of Independence — Its Glorious Commencement and Melan- 
 choly Close : 93 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 State of Public Feeling in Lombardy and Piedmont after the Struggle 
 for Italian Independence— Rome— Treachery and flight of the 
 Pope — Proclamation of the Roman Republic 105 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The Sicilian Revolution— Tuscany, Flight of the Grand Duke, and 
 the Republic Proclaimed— Second War between Piedmont and 
 Austria-— Battle of Novara and Abdication of Charles Albert. ... 115 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Revolt of Genoa — Siege and Heroic Defence of Brescia — Atrocities 
 of General Haynau— The Roman Republic threatened by a Roman 
 Catholic Coalition— Defeat of the French and Neapolitan Armies 126 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Siege of Rome continued— French Assaults and Political Agents— 
 The Triumvirs and the Roman Assembly— Fall of Rome- 
 Character of Garibaldi— Return to Despotic Government in 
 Central Italy K 136 
 
 CHAPTER XVL 
 Siege and Fall of Venice 147 
 
 CHAPTER XVH. 
 
 Counsels to the Italians in view of a War between England and 
 France allied and Russia— Father Ventura— Father Gavazzi— 
 Father Ugo Bassi 158 
 
 AFTER CHAPTER. 
 Present Condition of Italy 170 
 
SKETCHES ON ITALY: 
 
 ITS LAST REVOLUTION-ITS ACTUAL 
 CONDITION, &c. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The French Revolution and Italy — Effects of 
 the Fall of Napoleon — Italy in 1847 — The 
 Lombabdo-Venetian Kingdom — Piedmont and 
 Tuscany — Modena and Lucca — Pabma — the 
 Kingdom of Naples — Despotism of Febdinand II. 
 — States of the Chubch. 
 
 It is a most painful task for an Italian to describe a period 
 such as that of 1848, when a revolution, well combined 
 and happily commenced, ended in the victory of the 
 foreigner, and the triumph of the oppressor of that Italy 
 of which one can hardly say whether she is more unfor- 
 tunate or heroic. We shall endeavour to show, as briefly 
 as possible, the true causes of this revolution, its early 
 triumphs, the different circumstances which arrested its 
 progress, and the hopes which it has bequeathed, in 
 expiring, to the Italian populations. But it would be an 
 error to say in expiring — for the revolution is not dead in 
 Italy — it still breathes in the grasp of the political-priestly 
 re-action ; and in like manner as a single spark suffices to 
 B 
 
2 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND ITALY. 
 
 rekindle an ill-extinguished conflagration, so the slightest 
 conjunction of political events favourable to their country 
 will suffice to arouse the heroism now slumbering in Italian 
 hearts. But for this hope, that unfortunate people would 
 be reduced to despair, and forced to renounce their country 
 for ever rather than behold it condemned to perpetual 
 martyrdom. It would be the greatest mistake to suppose 
 that the revolution broke out suddenly, and without the 
 aid of all those previous occurrences which prepare and 
 produce the ebullitions of popular retribution, and which 
 impress on the masses movements much more durable than 
 those excited by a sudden impulse of enthusiasm. The 
 obstinacy with which the different Governments of Italy 
 persisted in disallowing the wants and demands of popula- 
 tions more or less enlightened, but all equally weary of 
 protracted tyranny, and unanimously eager for that inde- 
 pendence which ought not to be considered as the exclusive 
 privilege of one people more than of another, but as a 
 sacred right which Providence allows to every people 
 capable of appreciating and using it with dignity, — this 
 blind obstinacy was the principal agent, and, it may be 
 said, the efficient cause, of the sacred and general Italian 
 outbreak in 1848. 
 
 The first French revolution communicated to Italy all 
 its ideas and reforms ; but it transmitted them purified of 
 all the vices and defects which could not be avoided by a 
 powerful and numerous people emerging suddenly into 
 the condition of the slave become master, and who had 
 not the generosity to forgive the privileged classes for the 
 past — those classes, whose oppression had been felt through 
 so many ages, and in whose ranks were found intellects 
 sufficiently enlightened and just to have understood and 
 admitted that a radical reform had become indispensable 
 to the dignity of the French nation. Napoleon himself, 
 though by nature a despot and the enemy of all liberty, 
 contributed during his reign to convince the Italian people, 
 that, however enfeebled by many centuries of servitude, it 
 
EFFECTS OF THE FALL OF NAPOLEON. 6 
 
 still contained the frnitfnl germs of political and military- 
 science, which were the chief glory of its ancestors. The 
 kingdom of Italy, and the other forms of government 
 established by Napoleon in that peninsula, proved to 
 Europe that the Italians could, without danger, liberate 
 themselves from a foreign yoke, and govern themselves 
 happily and on their own account. An army brave and 
 well-officered, intelligent and skilful magistrates, sprang 
 up as if by enchantment in a country where, for so long 
 a time, particularly after the frightful Spanish domination, 
 nothing was to be seen but on the one side a mass of 
 slaves, on the other an aristocracy indolent and cringing 
 to the pride of the foreigner, and, to crown this monstrous 
 social edifice, the insolent presumption of the priesthood 
 domineering over all. 
 
 Through the insatiable ambition of Napoleon, the year 
 1814 saw the whole of Europe coalesced against that 
 dread Colossus, whom it succeeded in overthrowing. Italy 
 partook of the recoil produced by his tremendous fall. 
 The old dynasties recovered their paltry crowns, and were 
 reinstated on their thrones. In the division of the spoil, 
 Austria obtained the lion's share, and increased her Italian 
 possessions by the addition of all the states of the ancient 
 republic of Venice, which had expired some years pre- 
 vious in decrepitude, stifled in the embraces of the French 
 republic, which ironically called her " elder sister." But 
 if the system established in Italy by Napoleon was over- 
 thrown and annihilated by the coalition of all Europe, 
 that coalition could not also destroy there the fruits of 
 that system which had rapidly ripened. Italy was obliged 
 to submit to the new destiny which brutal force imposed 
 upon her ; but, while apparently submissive, she cherished 
 in her heart of hearts the sacred fire of independence and 
 the love of liberty. Independence and liberty, divinities 
 too dear and too powerful for those who have once pro- 
 fessed their worship and tasted of their benefit to apostatise 
 from and renounce ! The Governments re-established on 
 b2 
 
4 ITALY IN 1847. 
 
 their ancient ruins have themselves, we repeat, powerfully 
 contributed, by their blind system of re-action and hosti- 
 lity to all reform, to revive and strengthen the yearnings 
 and tendencies of the Italian people for an amelioration 
 of their political and religious condition. Chafing under 
 the curb, the Italians of Turin, Milan, and Florence, as 
 well as those of Rome, Naples, and Palermo, envied the 
 treasures of independence and liberty enjoyed by the 
 happy peoples who possessed them, and of which they felt 
 themselves unjustly disinherited ; and not confining them- 
 selves to the expression of their good wishes in favour of 
 the efforts of all such as rose for the purpose of winning 
 those treasures, they also attempted themselves on several 
 occasions to throw off the yoke that crushed them to the 
 earth. Generous efforts, but unproductive for want of 
 unanimity and seasonableness ! The limits of these sketches 
 will not allow us to enlarge on the particular facts which 
 preceded the general explosion of 1848 in Italy. Prepared 
 for many years previous in mystery and silence — the only 
 means to elude the eager and indefatigable zeal of the 
 spies of despotism — this explosion was inevitable. The 
 governments themselves hastened it by the constantly in- 
 creasing rigour of their intolerance and violence. Let 
 us cast a rapid glance at the state of each government in 
 the year 1847, on the eve of the revolution. 
 
 Without being tyrannical in the sense of the word as 
 applied to the persons of Nero, Domitian, Peter the Cruel, 
 and Christian II. (a species of tyranny impracticable at 
 the present day in any permanent or systematic form,) the 
 Austrians employed in their Italian provinces, and with 
 more or less influence over the rest of Italy, all the arti- 
 fices and stratagems of Tiberius, Philip II., Louis XL, and 
 the Borgias. Austria aimed at two principal objects in 
 Italy, — to drain the largest possible amount of gold from 
 the coffers of its well-beloved subjects, and to weaken in 
 the people every sentiment of energy, of liberalism, and 
 of national dignity. She treated the Lombardo- Venetian 
 
THE LOMBARDO-VENETIAN KINGDOM. 5 
 
 populations exactly as a pedantic and ill-conditioned tutor 
 would do an ignorant, stupid pupil ; and wounded their 
 self-love by supplying from abroad for their instruction 
 men of no merit or reputation whatever, and who in the 
 Universities became the laughing-stock of their audiences. 
 These foreign literary imports were made whilst there 
 were still living, among the great men of whom Italy 
 was proud, a Volta and an Oriani (not to mention many 
 others,) of whom the one was the discoverer of the gal- 
 vanic pile, the other of spherical trigonometry. Austrian 
 despotism, far from content with depressing Italian intelli- 
 gence, by the dictatorial power of a harassing police, (the 
 true counterpart of the Inquisition, minus the Auto dafe,) 
 by the nature of the instruction given, whether prepara- 
 tory or academical, and by a censorship of the press, 
 whose iron hand stifled in the birth every generous, patri- 
 otic, or liberal idea, was incessantly inventing new taxes 
 and new modes of oppression, in order to extort from the 
 inhabitants of these countries their natural and commercial 
 riches. The sciences, fine arts, commerce, manufactures, 
 and even medical pursuits, and the products of chemistry, 
 were all taxed, regulated, and subjected to the wants, 
 customs, climate, interests, and selfishness of Austria. In 
 the Italian provinces, placed under the paternal sceptre of 
 the Emperor, agriculture alone remained free, and that for 
 this single but sufficient reason, that the imperial clemency 
 could not deprive them of the ground they tilled ; but a 
 large share of the produce, converted into money, went 
 every quarter to replenish the Imperial treasury ; so that 
 the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom, containing only one- 
 eighth of the population of the empire, was condemned to 
 contribute the third of all the imposts borne by the state, 
 and all this to purchase the glorious privilege of being 
 assimilated and harnessed to the same car as the Croatians 
 and Pandours. It has been attributed as a merit to Austria 
 that she has not favoured the Jesuits in these Italian 
 provinces. She acted thus for this sole reason, that, being 
 b3 
 
b PIEDMONT AND 
 
 jealous of the integrity of her absolute power, she dreaded 
 their influence ; but no sooner did the Jesuits, with their 
 systematic suppleness, offer themselves as the zealous in- 
 struments of her despotism, than she gave them a sisterly 
 embrace, and took them under her protection, under the 
 shadow of which they laboured with assiduity for the 
 triumph of obscurantism, under proviso to revolt against 
 their benefactress, whenever their interest and the glory 
 of their order required it. 
 
 As to Piedmont, as well by its history as by policy, it 
 had been for ages past but slightly connected with the 
 rest of Italy ; and during the despotic reign of Napoleon 
 it was by a barbarous law absorbed into the French 
 empire, the conquests of which it assisted by the forced 
 contingent of its brave soldiers r arbitrarily disseminated 
 in the French regiments. Restored in 1814 to the House 
 of Savoy, which had been soured by privation and exile, 
 and by the new ideas which had budded in its states, that 
 House used every effort to throw the people a century 
 back, and to destroy all the shoots of modern civilisation 
 engrafted upon ancient barbarism. This family, on its 
 return from Sardinia, where it had hidden its defeat and 
 its ire, brought back with it the whole bundle of old 
 prejudices which the philosophy of the 18th century had 
 stigmatised, and which the hatchet of the revolution of 
 1799 had cut down. Along with it there reappeared the 
 separation of classes, military insolence, the influence of 
 the priesthood, the intriguing idleness of the monks, the 
 arrogance of the nobility, and all the superannuated pri- 
 vileges of the aristocracy and of the feudal system. It is 
 well known how a revolution of a liberal tendency failed 
 in 1821, and the unhappy part played on that occasion by 
 the Prince de Carignan, for which he felt himself obliged 
 to make the amende honorable at the storming of the 
 Trocadero. This same Carignan, become King of Sardinia 
 under the name of Charles Albert, granted a charter 
 (Statutoj to his people in 1847, leaving them at a loss to 
 
TUSCANY. | 7 
 
 know whether the concession was spontaneous or simply 
 torn from him by the exigencies of the age and the force 
 of circumstances. The Statuto, which from the outset was 
 very far from satisfying all the wants of the nation, was, 
 notwithstanding, sufficient to arouse the fears and alarms of 
 Austria, which beheld with aversion the appearance and 
 reality of constitutional principles in its immediate neigh- 
 bourhood. From this concession, whether voluntary or 
 forced arose the alleged grievances and the enmity of the 
 House of Hapsburg towards that of Savoy-Carignan. 
 From that moment suspicion and ill-will pervaded all the 
 international relations between these two powers. 
 
 Nearly at the same period Tuscany adopted some useful 
 reforms, amongst which figure the law for the liberty of 
 the press and the institution of a civic guard, which 
 revived in Tuscany in some measure that warlike spirit 
 which in that country, so favoured by nature, had slum- 
 bered for two centuries, and which, suddenly awakened 
 by Napoleon, had been absorbed in the exploits of the 
 French army, in which the new Tuscan levies were 
 enlisted, and whose glory and reverses they alike parti- 
 cipated. The Grand Duke Leopold II., although reigning 
 over a portion of Italy, neither would nor could forget his 
 origin, and his Austrian blood predominated over the few 
 drops of Italian which flowed through his veins. Attached 
 to the House of Austria by the ties of relationship and 
 by dynastic compacts, he was in fact but a great vassal, 
 subject to the Austrian sovereignty and absorbed in the 
 orbit of its policy. The Cabinet of Vienna was shocked 
 at the reforms in modern Tuscany, just as the predecessors 
 of Metternich in the 18 th century were at the promulga- 
 tion of the Laws of Leopold (les Lois Leopoldines,) which, 
 departing to a certain extent from the ancient routine and 
 feudal barbarity, threatened the stationary and conse- 
 quently the retrograde system of Austria. 
 
 The Duke of Modena (father of the reigning Duke) had 
 not confined himself to his natural position as a vassal of 
 
8 MODENA AND LUCCA. 
 
 Austria, but, in the interest of the Austrian policy, had 
 exercised for several years in Italy the honourable func- 
 tions of high provost, a veritable Tristan l'Hermite, for 
 the Emperor Francis the First. On his death he be- 
 queathed to his successor a treasury, the contents of which 
 greatly surpassed those of the wealthiest sovereigns. 
 "With an avarice which was justified in his own eyes by 
 the foresight of future convulsions, he had hoarded up 
 his enormous land revenues for nearly thirty years, as 
 well as the money extorted from his subjects by taxes, 
 regal dues, and the produce of the monopoly and exercise 
 of several branches of commerce. Worthy son of his 
 father, the present duke followed his steps faithfully, 
 rivalling him in his hatred of every idea not entirely 
 servile. "When in 1847 he was informed of the move- 
 ments of the Liberal party on several points of the Italian 
 peninsula, he replied with an air of mockery, that he 
 despised them as much as he hated them, and that he had 
 at his disposal 200,000 Austrian bayonets to crush the 
 Liberal party, if it ever dared to penetrate into his states. 
 In spite of these vaunts, the young Duke fled with all 
 speed when this party raised its head in his presence. 
 
 By the death of Maria Louisa (December, 1847,) the 
 Duchy of Lucca passed over to Tuscany. The Infant 
 Louis de Bourbon, more inclined to the pleasures of 
 debauchery and to sensuality than to the cares of govern- 
 ment, opposed with all his might the importation of the 
 Tuscan reforms into his petty Duchy, as they would 
 naturally have raised obstacles to his manner of life, 
 which was that of a miniature Sardanapalus. His son, 
 a worthy heir to the paternal policy, without the affable 
 and frank bearing of his father, and without that affecta- 
 tion of popularity which allowed those in his intimacy 
 to treat him as a companion, had placed himself at the 
 head of the Ducal troops to resist the first constitutional 
 symptoms which broke out in the capital ; but alarmed 
 and confounded by the rapidity of their progress, he fled 
 
PARMA — THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES. 9 
 
 abroad with his father, who succeeded soon after, by the 
 death of Maria Louisa, to the inheritance of the Duchies 
 of Parma and Placenza. 
 
 This part of Italy, so ill-governed since 1814, had fallen 
 into the greatest distress, and all its demesnes had been 
 squandered by common consent between the old Arch- 
 duchess and the Infant, her heir in expectancy. The 
 administration had for some years been in the hands of M. 
 de Bombelles, who, sent from Vienna with a mission to 
 watch over this unfortunate little state, from Grand 
 Master of the Court of the ex-Empress, had gradually 
 usurped an unlimited authority, which constituted him at 
 the same time a Merovingian Mayor of the Palace and a 
 Roman Proconsul. Informers, Jesuits, and others of 
 similar breed, had been his constant favourites, and the 
 only counsellors whose advice he followed. The new 
 Duke and his son were not of a sort to improve the condi- 
 tion of a ruined and enslaved state, and abandoned it on 
 the first cry of independence raised on its frontiers. 
 
 But of all the Italian States, the worst treated by its 
 Government (with the exception of the Papal,) was the 
 Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. To the reproach, which 
 from many quarters reached the ear of Ferdinand, of being, 
 beyond all other princes, the most virulent opponent of 
 every idea of useful reform, he only replied, with an 
 effrontery which might have been mistaken for honest con- 
 viction if it had not borne the stamp of royal imbecility, 
 that his states were in no need of it, and that all that a 
 good king could do for the advantage of his people, he 
 had already done for his beloved and trusty subjects. To 
 this insulting royal vaunt the friends of the people replied 
 by a solemn act, which, under the title of " Protest of the 
 People of the Two Sicilies," displayed before the eyes of this 
 Bourbon all the horrors, all the perjuries, all the acts of 
 injustice and extravagance, which had disgraced his dynasty 
 since 1821 ; as well as the wretched condition into which 
 every thing had fallen, — the finances, commerce, agriculture, 
 
10 DESPOTISM OF FERDINAND II. 
 
 public education, religion, and civil liberty. In the course 
 of 1847 a partial insurrection broke out in the two Cala- 
 brias, directed by Do. Romeo, an excellent patriot, and a 
 man of intellect and heart. General Nunziante, the King's 
 favourite, and one of those miserable beings destined rather 
 by nature for the functions of the hangman than those of the 
 captain, stifled this first movement by an overwhelming 
 force and with all the cruelty of a barbarian. Romeo fell, 
 traitorously assassinated, and a great number of prisoners, 
 among whom were several citizens of eminent merit, were 
 condemned to perpetual imprisonment, — a sentence much 
 more cruel than death itself, in the estimation of all who 
 are acquainted with the dungeons reserved by the royal 
 clemency for the victims of its revenge. Imagine caverns 
 excavated beneath the level of the sea, and through the 
 crevices of which the foulest water constantly trickles. 
 Deprived of air and light, these horrible dens witness the 
 death of their most robust prisoners after six or seven 
 years of anguish, despair, and slow agony. To depict by 
 a single trait the Bourbon of Naples, it may suffice to state 
 that whilst these Calabrians, thus condemned to be buried 
 alive, were being ironed, the King, who dares to profane 
 by adopting it the title of Father of the people, pre- 
 sided in concealment over that dreadful operation, which 
 would have distressed any other heart than his ; and in the 
 luxury of his glutted vengeance scrutinised his victims 
 through an opera glass, and questioned his courtiers as to 
 their names, as, one after another, were rivetted to their 
 feet and hands those chains from which death alone 
 was to deliver them. A King, the pupil of a Del Caretto 
 (who was to this Bourbon what Sejanus was to Tiberius) — 
 an absolute King, who finds his delight in the torments of 
 his subjects, can never be transformed in earnest and of his 
 own free will into a constitutional king. And, in fact, it 
 was only the force of circumstances and the dictates of 
 fear (which is the predominant feature of his character) that 
 wrested from him the semblance of a Constitution, which 
 
STATES OF THE CHURCH. 11 
 
 he conceded with regret and by scraps, reserving by a 
 Jesuitical restriction his right to annul it, at the very 
 moment when, in the midst of religions pomp, he swore 
 to its maintenance upon the Gospels, in the presence of 
 God and of men. 
 
 The States of the Church and Pius the IXth before the 
 revolution of 1848, alone remain to be treated of. But 
 since this Pope was the origin, and, so to speak, the evil 
 genius that occasioned all the misfortunes by which Italy 
 is now overwhelmed, we shall devote one or more articles 
 specially to prove, first — That the domination of the Popes 
 has always been, and still is, disastrous to Italy, incom- 
 patible with her independence and liberty: secondly 
 — That Pius IX never aimed at, or organised and encou- 
 raged by his sympathy and good wishes, the regeneration 
 of Italy ; but that, hurried on by events, and by the weak- 
 ness of his character, this Pontiff blessed with hypocritical 
 hands those tricoloured standards, which were the Labarum* 
 of our redemption, which he dreaded as Pope and detested 
 as Sovereign, and against which he reserved in petto the 
 privilege to hurl at some future period the thunderbolts of 
 the Vatican, and, what is still worse, the bayonets of the 
 foreigner. 
 
 * The Labarum was a magnificent Roman standard which Con- 
 stantine, who had been brought up in Gaul, adopted as the imperial 
 standard. He also ornamented it with a crown, a cross, and a 
 monogram with the name of Christ. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Temporal Power of the Popes the Principal 
 Cause of the Decline of their Spiritual 
 Influence — The Papacy Doubly Fatal to Italy 
 — Its Present Decay. 
 
 The incompatibility of the two powers, temporal ami 
 spiritual, in the person of the Pope, having always been, 
 and still being, the greatest obstacle to the liberty of Italy, 
 and to the establishment of its national unity and self- 
 government, we find ourselves obliged to look back to the 
 very origin of the Papacy, and thence to trace it down 
 rapidly to its present condition. 
 
 Originally the Pope was but a Bishop, elected by his 
 peers to govern the Church of Rome. Having been the 
 metropolis of Paganism, from the time when she became 
 the capital of the whole world, shortly before the Christian 
 era, Rome inspired her bishops with the first idea of an 
 universal domination and of a religious supremacy. This 
 inheritance of expiring Paganism, which Christian Rome 
 usurped in establishing for her own advantage a right of 
 entail, favoured the projects of Papal ambition by its 
 effects on the opinion of the populations, who, accustomed 
 to consider Rome as the metropolis of the world (caput 
 orbis,) favoured by their tolerance and their tacit consent 
 the accomplishment of those ambitious projects. The early 
 Roman bishops were, so to speak, presidents of a spiritual 
 republic, but by a religious coup d'etat^ they concentrated 
 in their sole persons all the executive power of Catholicism, 
 until, advancing from one usurpation to another, they 
 ended by appropriating all the legislative power also, and 
 
EARLY SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE OF THE POPES. 13 
 
 proclaimed to the world their pretended autocratical supre- 
 macy. If these bishops had contented themselves with 
 the spiritual primacy „only, this, once acknowledged and 
 admitted by all Christendom, might have lasted a con- 
 siderable time without producing those formidable attacks 
 which on several occasions have assailed and weakened it. 
 But in order to maintain unimpaired the particular supre- 
 macy to which the Christian world had just submitted, 
 they ought to have repelled all idea of temporal power, 
 and to have wholly renounced worldly riches. Far from 
 this, they accumulated wealth, in direct defiance of the 
 precepts of the Divine legislator of whom they proclaimed 
 themselves the exclusive successors, and who had so ex- 
 plicitly relinquished earthly possessions when he said, "My 
 kingdom is not of this world." Blinded by worldly am- 
 bition, they pursued a path diametrically opposed to that 
 traced out for them by the Saviour, who, after a life of 
 love, self-denial, and humility, ascended to heaven through 
 the sufferings of Calvary. 
 
 Hormisdas, by encircling the episcopal mitre with one 
 crown, Boniface VIII. by adding a second, and Benedict 
 XIII. a third, did more mischief to the Papacy than its 
 most violent opponents afterwards wrought. As a 
 spiritual chief, the Pope, favoured by the credulity of the 
 people, had no rivals, and made himself above all. As a 
 temporal chief, and the petty king of a petty state, (the 
 primitive possessor of which had, to say the least, but a 
 questionable title and doubtful rights,) the Pope appears in 
 past ages only as a sovereign of secondary rank, and at 
 the present day he can be reckoned, at most, only among 
 those of the third. It was in his capacity of Bishop of 
 Rome that Leo I. ventured to appear in the presence of 
 Attila ; when, such was the influence of superstition on the 
 one side, and the confidence in his office on the other, that 
 the conqueror retraced his steps. But had Leo gone out to 
 meet the barbarous chieftain in the quality of a king, 
 which quality the Popes assumed at a later period, that 
 c 
 
14 TEMPORAL AMBITION OF THE POPES — 
 
 stern invader would have laughed to scorn the Papal crown, 
 and, trampling upon it with disdain, would have pursued 
 his march, and at the head of his savage hordes put the 
 Eternal City to fire and sword. When, at a later period, 
 the prestige of the spiritual power of the Popes was, 
 through popular ignorance, still terrible, and Gregory 
 VIII. imposed the amende honorable upon the supplicating 
 Henry IV. of Germany from the ramparts of Canossa, 
 which that Emperor was constrained to perform upon his 
 knees, clothed with sackcloth, and with hare feet, — it was 
 not as king, but simply as spiritual chief, that the Pontiff 
 dared thus to abuse imperial majesty. 
 
 But when, through pride almost inconceivable, the Popes 
 proclaimed themselves paramount Lords over all Princes 
 whatever, and owners of all kingdoms, requiring from 
 kings homage as their vassals, and obliging emperors to 
 hold the stirrup of their palfrey, — when, blinded by mad 
 ambition, Boniface VIII. appeared in public, bearing the 
 sword in one hand, and the keys of St. Peter in the other, 
 exclaiming, u I am Pontiff and Emperor," — when Julius 
 II., in the intoxication of a first success, caused himself to 
 be represented on a medal, with the tiara on his head, and 
 a whip in his hand, driving the French before him, and 
 trampling under foot the escutcheon of the Valois, whose 
 kingdom he had just excommunicated from a political 
 motive only ; and when, exchanging his tiara for a helmet, 
 and the mystic keys for a sword, he conducted in person 
 his troops to the combat, and substituted the warlike pro- 
 pensities of a king for the pacific mission of a priest, — 
 when Alexander VI., of infamous memory, by the wiles of 
 an infernal machiavelism, utterly unworthy of the head of 
 a religion of humility and love, disturbed all the states of 
 Europe, — then the papal usurpations began to arouse the 
 jealousy, the mistrust, and the hatred of all monarchs, who 
 no longer acted towards the Popes as sons to a father, or 
 Christians to their Pontiff, but as powerful sovereigns to a 
 weaker one. From that period the relative situations were 
 
ITS EFFECTS. 15 
 
 inverted, but still the spiritual power of the Pope gained 
 nothing by the change. 
 
 Rome, simply as the see of a bishop, who had raised 
 himself to the absolute headship of the Roman Catholic 
 religion, would perhaps have remained inviolate, for no 
 power would have cared to invade and conquer it ; but as 
 the capital of a state, and the seat of princes ambitious and 
 at times quarrelsome and turbulent, Rome was repeatedly 
 invaded, sacked, and burnt by Christian and even Catholic 
 armies, who in irony and derision knelt down before the 
 vanquished Pope, demanding his blessing and the absolu- 
 tion of their crimes ! Thus the superstitious victors adored 
 as the Head of the Church the same individual whom 
 they insulted as king, whose temples they pillaged, whose 
 palaces they burned, and whose people they massacred ! 
 
 Leo X., whose munificence and protection of the fine arts 
 history loudly proclaims, by one of those base flatteries of 
 which she is so often guilty towards the great (leaving to 
 time to reveal the truth,) whilst she dares hardly whisper 
 their extortions, despotism, treacheries, and poisonings, — 
 Leo X. himself did infinite damage to Papal ascendancy, 
 notwithstanding the brilliance of the rays which sur- 
 rounded his name, and which dazzled those timorous eyes 
 that dared not scrutinise and penetrate the mysteries of 
 the Vatican. To uphold his crafty policy, to supply his 
 daily profusion, and to satisfy his princely ambition, this 
 Pope was compelled to pervert institutions which passed 
 for holy in the sight of the people, and threw open a great 
 market for benefices, pardons, exemptions, dispensations, 
 immunities, and indulgences, with which the Christian 
 world was deluged. Scandalous traffic ! barefaced simony ! 
 which disgusted all men of conscience, stirred up the 
 nations, and encouraged the Reformers, who, by free dis- 
 cussion, so fatal to Roman absolutism, undermined Papal 
 supremacy, and detached from it for ever a great part of 
 Europe ! It was thus that the pride of the Prince caused 
 irreparable injury to the dignity of the Pontiff, 
 c 2 
 
16 NEPOTISM OF THE POPES. 
 
 It is quite true that before Leo X. other Popes (and 
 chiefly those who during a century reigned at Avignon in 
 the style of Sardanapalus) had displayed the evil example 
 of their own conduct to the world, on which account 
 Petrarch, in speaking of this court of Avignon, exclaims 
 — " Gold opens the gates of heaven ; gold buys Jesus 
 Christ!" But the traffic in holy things which existed 
 under Leo X. produced the greatest scandal, for it occurred 
 in all parts of Christendom, and most largely at Rome 
 itself, on which the eyes of Europe were then fixed by the 
 surpassing splendour of the fine arts with which the ruin- 
 ous profusion of the Pontiff-King had surrounded that city. 
 
 Papal ambition did not, however, always confine itself 
 to the aggrandisement of what is so oddly styled the 
 patrimony of St. Peter. The plague of nepotism, that 
 scourge which galled the Papal states for several ages, 
 and which reacted upon all Italy, was in the cases of 
 several Popes the constant occasion of injustice and crime. 
 The desire to enrich their own families led more than one 
 Pope to acts of usurpation accomplished by corruption and 
 treachery, and plunged them into unjust and ruinous wars, 
 of which, when the Pope came off victor, all the advan- 
 tages accrued, to his family ; and when the Pope was 
 vanquished, all the disastrous consequences fell upon his 
 people. One Pope, confining himself to enriching his 
 nephews, glutted them with gold extorted from his sub- 
 jects, who had the honour of emptying their pockets in 
 order to create the rapid and enormous fortunes of these 
 upstarts. Another Pope, extending his dynastic ambition to 
 the length of coveting an independent sovereignty for his 
 nephews, sent out his armed bands, and, either by surprise 
 or by force, tore from some neighbouring state with which 
 he was at perfect peace, a town and surrounding territory, 
 erected it into a Principality or Duchy, and bestowed it 
 upon his relations for their full and entire benefit. 
 
 It often occurred, that on the death of one of these 
 robber Popes, his successor seized for his nephews the 
 
DECLINE OF THEIR SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE AT HOME. 17 
 
 offices, treasures, and lands which a predecessor had be- 
 stowed upon his own, and that the states which had been 
 -violently despoiled by these acts of nepotism, struggled to 
 recover the share of which they had been robbed. Thence 
 arose a multitude of violent recriminations, confusions, the 
 discussion of imaginary and absurd claims, and a succes- 
 sion of atrocious reprisals and bloody wars, which often 
 enticed over the mountains foreigners, who were always 
 ready to profit by the troubles and discords of unfortunate 
 Italy. Parcelled out, impoverished, and tormented, that 
 country has always had reason to attribute the greater 
 part of its misfortunes to the ambition and rapacity of the 
 Popes. The two vices just noticed were so much the more 
 fatal to Italy, from the Papal sovereignty being an elective 
 one. There was a new family to enrich on the accession of 
 every Pope ; and these accessions were naturally more 
 frequent than in hereditary monarchies, because the Popes 
 being, according to custom, chosen only from among the 
 older cardinals, enjoyed generally but very short and often 
 ephemeral reigns. 
 
 When the Mexicans, on the first landing of the 
 Spaniards, fought in defence of their native soil, invaded 
 by those adventurers, they possessed no idea of the horse, 
 hitherto unknown in America. At the first sight of the 
 Spanish Cavalry, they were consequently struck with 
 astonishment, imagining in their superstitious ignorance 
 that the horse and his rider were united by invisible ties, 
 so as to form but one body, and they believed this being to 
 be immortal. But in a skirmish the arrow of a Mexican 
 happened to kill a horse, which in falling threw its rider 
 into a slough ; where, overcome by the weight of his 
 armour, he was drowned. Attacked unawares by a force 
 immensely superior in number, the Spaniards retreated in 
 good order, but without having time to carry off the man 
 and horse that had fallen. The Mexicans, full of dread 
 and hesitation, dared not at first approach those two objects 
 lying motionless before them. But at last the boldest among 
 c 3 
 
18 RELIGIOUS INDIFFERENCE IN ITALY. 
 
 them, having pushed at both with the butt end of their 
 spears, discovered with wonder that they were not only 
 motionless but dead. Then it was that this simple and prim- 
 itive people found out their strange error as to the nature of 
 the two beings, one of which in perishing had caused the 
 death of the other. Of course from that moment the Spanish 
 cavalry, previously reckoned invincible by the Americans, 
 lost in their opinion its two-fold reputation of invulnera- 
 bility and immortality. — A word to the wise is enough. 
 
 The abuse of excommunications, no longer employed as a 
 religious anathema, (which had been hitherto respected by 
 the credulity of the mass of the people,) but as a weapon 
 exclusively political, also contributed greatly to open the 
 eyes of deluded nations, and to lessen in the opinion of 
 some, to destroy in that of others, the ancient veneration 
 for the Papacy. Although, from habit and traditionary 
 forms, and from the effect of puerile vanity, to all appear- 
 ance still devoted and submissive, Italy gradually forgot 
 this hereditary respect in a greater measure than the rest 
 of Europe ; and whilst, owing to the reforms of Luther, 
 Calvin, Zwingle, Melancthon, and Henry VIII., reverence 
 for the Papacy was in several countries transformed into 
 hatred and open war, the Italians substituted an indiffer- 
 ence, which, by a consequence altogether logical, was much 
 more injurious to the Papal authority than the animosity 
 and the fiery invectives of the Reformers ; for as a maniac 
 — (asking pardon for the comparison) — may be restored by 
 the aid of medical treatment to his primitive condition, so 
 on the other hand, a state of complete apathy and idiocy, 
 when once chronic, defies all the efforts of science. 
 
 The result could be no other in Italy, accustomed to 
 observe so closely the Court of Home ; and precisely for 
 the same reason that the decorations of a theatre, the act- 
 ing and the tricks of buffoons, which dazzle and astonish 
 spectators placed at a certain distance, lose all their effect 
 on those who behold them from the stage itself, or from be- 
 hind the scenes. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Temporary Re-action of Opinion among the 
 Italians in Favour of Pius VII.— Their short- 
 lived Sympathy and Regard for that Pontiff 
 —Gregory XVI. and his Reign. 
 
 It is not to be absolutely inferred from what we have 
 said in our preceding chapter that all the Popes were bad. 
 There were some good ones also, but even the best were 
 infected by that ambition which is the cankerworm of the 
 Papal tree, and the inherent vice of this monarchical theo- 
 cracy so fatal to Italian self-government and independence. 
 The result of all the considerations presented in the last 
 chapter is a conclusion, which, unfortunately, cannot be 
 contested, — a painful truth, which the testimony of his- 
 tory is always ready to corroborate, namely, that the 
 benefits which Italy may have derived from a few good 
 Popes is very far from counterbalancing the evils incurred 
 from the bad. 
 
 We have already shown that the ancient veneration in 
 which the Papacy was held in Italy had long since been 
 exchanged for systematical indifference ; the logical and 
 inevitable consequence of which was to create a disrespect 
 equally for its temporal and its spiritual power. Still in 
 spite of that apathy which counteracted all zeal and fervour 
 in favour of the Papacy in the breasts of the immense ma- 
 jority of Roman Catholics, the ancient respect for this insti- 
 tution appeared all at once to revive towards the close of the 
 pontificate of Pius VII. But a very slight examination 
 of the times and events is sufficient to furnish ample proofs 
 that the sympathy and regard manifested for this Pope, 
 sprung much rather from a sentiment of commiseration in 
 
20 PIUS VII. AND NAPOLEON. 
 
 the masses, on account of the persecutions exercised by 
 Napoleon towards him during several years, than from 
 any respect for the tiara. 
 
 Accustomed by the pusillanimity of mankind to see every 
 will yield to his own, Napoleon was as much surprised as 
 irritated at meeting with an unexpected obstacle to his 
 despotism in the stubborn opposition of this Pontiff. The 
 most imperturbable persistance in one course was the pre- 
 dominating feature of the character of Pius VII. This 
 quality, which may be considered, according to circum- 
 stances, as either a great vice or a great virtue, was carried 
 so far by him that it would have doubtless conducted him 
 to martyrdom, if instead of a Napoleon he had had to deal 
 with a Domitian. As it was, it transformed a personage of 
 honourable but ordinary character into a hero, in the esteem 
 of the Italian populations, who, tired of the despotism of 
 Napoleon, and disgusted with the small amount of glory 
 acquired at the price of civil and political liberty, became 
 attached to this victim of persecution out of hatred to the 
 persecutor. In consequence, when the latter fell, the for- 
 mer rose in the esteem of the people, exactly in proportion 
 to the abasement of his adversary. 
 
 It must be admitted that the return of Pius VII. to 
 Rome, after his exile, was, throughout, a triumphal pro- 
 gress. When he left Fontainebleau for his own capital 
 (1814,) the inhabitants of the south of France thronged 
 out of their cities and towns, and lined the road by which 
 he passed, and in the transports of their southern impetu- 
 osity, hailed him by the names cf Martyr and of Lamb, 
 miraculously escaped from the claws of the lion, and with 
 other flatteries of the same description. It was by these 
 same people that the ex-Emperor, before whom they had 
 so long trembled, was hooted and outrageously insulted 
 when on his way to Elba. When Pius arrived at the 
 frontier of his native land, he was welcomed by the 
 Italians, if not with all the noisiness of the Provencal 
 " farandoles" at least with joy and enthusiasm. 
 
RETROGRADE POLICY OF PIUS VII. 21 
 
 But all these demonstrations, excited in great measure, 
 and often hired by the emissaries of the Holy Alliance, for 
 the purpose of rendering more odious the name of the giant 
 just overthrown, and his memory yet more detested, were 
 proofs, to the clear-sighted, rather of admiration bestowed 
 on the firm front which a harmless priest had opposed to 
 the persecutions of a powerful emperor, than of attachment 
 or respect for the Papacy. Such ovations were only the 
 noisy expression of compassion felt by the multitude for 
 the sufferings which this Pope had endured, — sufferings 
 which, if justly appreciated, amounted only, after all, to 
 those conditions, sometimes severe, which princes who are 
 powerful and victorious are accustomed to inflict upon their 
 feeble and vanquished brethren ; but which some fanatics, 
 in the exuberance of their enthusiasm, and the Jesuits 
 in the interest of their policy, exalted to the dignity of 
 martyrdom. Admired during his exile on account of his 
 long resistance and an immobility worthy of the heathen 
 god Termes, Pius VII., after his return to Rome, proved 
 quite unequal to the wants of the church and the exigen- 
 cies of the times. The re-establishment of the Jesuits, 
 whose abolition had so greatly distinguished the pontificate 
 of Clement XIV., rendering his name popular among his 
 countrymen, and immortal in the recollections of posterity, 
 would alone suffice to demonstrate the truth of our asser- 
 tion, and to prove that the steadfast firmness shown in 
 misfortune, became in prosperity nothing less than infatu- 
 ated obstinacy. After that misdeed, followed by other 
 retrograde briefs which constituted a species of political 
 anachronism, disappointing the general expectations and 
 deceiving the hopes of those who had hitherto expected 
 useful reforms from a Pontiff tried by prolonged misfortune, 
 the popular admiration diminished by degrees, and finally 
 fell back to its starting point, viz., to complete indifference. 
 This ephemeral admiration was a mere bonfire, whose 
 dazzling flames are quickly kindled and as quickly subside, 
 leaving behind them only a few ashes and complete darkness. 
 
22 WEAKNESS OF LATER POPES. 
 
 From Pius VII. to Pius IX. there was a succession of 
 Popes, whose brief course was neither polluted by great 
 vices nor adorned by great virtues. That verse of Dante 
 may be aptly applied to them, where he describes souls as 
 wandering on the banks of the Acheron, repulsed alike 
 from Paradise and from Hell — 
 
 " Che visser senza infamia e senza lodo," 
 (who lived without infamy and without glory.) This, in 
 fact, is the sort of existence to which the Popes are now 
 condemned by the total loss of that consideration formerly 
 enjoyed by the heads of the Roman Catholic Church, and 
 by their extreme weakness as temporal princes. That ever- 
 increasing debility under which the Papacy labours, the 
 indifference of the Catholics in general, and particularly of 
 the Italians, are two irresistible causes which force it back 
 constantly towards its origin, and which must finally re- 
 duce it to its primitive simplicity. Such would be a fortu- 
 nate result for the popedom, considering the utter ruin and 
 destruction with which it is threatened. The two chronic 
 infirmities which are gradually undermining it have, in a 
 political point of view, reduced it to the rank of a power 
 of at most the third order, condemned for the future to be 
 only a satellite revolving in the orbit of a great planet, 
 sometimes styled Austria, sometimes France, and which, 
 subject to frequent oscillations, occasioned by the incon- 
 stancy of the laws of the political world, is attracted or 
 repelled according as the influence exercised by superior 
 force determines this attraction or repulsion. It might be 
 said of all the successors of Pius VII. down to the reigning 
 Pope, again quoting a line of the same divine poet — 
 
 " Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa," 
 (let us not speak of them, but just look at them and pass 
 on) were it not that Gregory XVI. deserves particular men- 
 tion, on account of the length of his reign, and the innu- 
 merable faults by which it was marked, striking a fresh 
 blow at the twofold power of the Pope. 
 
GREGORY XVI. AND THE CZAR NICHOLAS. 23 
 
 Passing by the brutal repression enforced by this Pope 
 upon all his subjects suspected of the slightest liberal ideas, 
 and his implacable hatred of all enlightened progress, his 
 shameful silence in presence of the unheard-of persecutions 
 exercised against the Catholics by the Russian Autocrat 
 throughout his empire, were sufficient to discredit him in 
 the opinion of the whole Catholic world. Posterity will 
 hesitate to give credence to such inconceivable Papal 
 apathy. An orthodox population (in the sense of the 
 Roman Catholic church) was struggling in the grasp of 
 the Russian eagle. This population had in its favour 
 political right, sanctioned by the laws of the country and 
 by the imperial promise. Its oppressor was schismatic, 
 relatively to the Pope, whom he did not acknowledge, his 
 aim and purpose being to become himself the Pope, as it 
 were, of Panslavism. Catholic priests of his empire were 
 flogged to death by the Greco-slavian knout ; entire popu- 
 lations condemned to the Schlague and to torture ; the 
 refractory villages put to fire and sword ; children torn 
 from the arms of their despairing mothers; cloisters in- 
 vaded by the Cossacks, and the nuns beaten, violated, and 
 massacred on the steps of the altar to which they clung as 
 their last refuge ! ! ! And all these horrors, all these cruel- 
 ties were perpetrated, because these unfortunate beings 
 refused to renounce the religion of their forefathers, that 
 religion which claims the Pope of Rome for its chief, whom 
 they refused to abandon for the Pope of St. Petersburgh. 
 Leo I., Gregory VIII., and Alexander VI., — yes, even the 
 infamous Borgia himself, — would, at least, have protested, 
 had they done no more, before the face of God and of 
 mankind, against these horrible persecutions ; but the 
 High Priest of Rome, secluding himself in the solitary 
 walls of the Quirinal, like Tiberius at Caprea, ate, drank, 
 and slept peaceably, allowing the blood of the victims, 
 who invoked his name as they expired, to flow without 
 proffering a single word, and stopping his ears lest the 
 cries of his slaughtered children should disturb the tran- 
 quillity of his repose and his digestion. 
 
24 BASENESS AND FEEBLENESS OF GREGORY. 
 
 Nor did the impassibility of his character confine itself 
 to this disgraceful and culpable silence. Whilst France 
 protested against the brutal fury of the Czar — whilst the 
 blood of the Polish martyrs was still reeking, the lethargic 
 Pope embraced as a brother, amid the polluted walls of the 
 Vatican, the executioner of so many thousand Catholics ; 
 pressed in his own that hand which had shed so much 
 blood, and bestowed his blessing on the author of so much 
 carnage. Rich presents even, he had the baseness to accept 
 as the reward of his ignominious silence ! Europe wit- 
 nessed with astonishment this hideous alliance. The adhe- 
 rents of the Papacy trembled, and its enemies rejoiced to 
 observe this new blow to the Papal machine, inflicted by 
 the hand of the Pope himself; — that machine, deranged 
 by time and damaged by rust, the destruction of which was 
 hastened on by this act of cowardice. How much nobler 
 was the conduct of Ambrosius, Bishop of Milan, when he 
 repelled with indignation from the gates of the temple 
 the Emperor Theodosius, who presented himself with 
 hands still reeking from the massacre of Thessalonica ! 
 But in those times the gospel was still the only code of 
 the Pontiffs, and the priesthood had not yet polluted its 
 holy mission with all the corruption and the turpitudes 
 which sprung up afterwards from the avidity, pride, and 
 ambition that converted Rome into a modern Babylon. 
 
 Gregory XVI., (a* profound theologian, it is said, but 
 above all a true type of the monk,) was ignorant of the 
 simplest elements of the art of governing. The servile 
 instrument of Austria, whose subject he had been, and 
 who required no other return for her patronage than a 
 passive obedience to her policy, he most amply responded to 
 the requirements of his protectress. Surrounded by a few 
 monks, his only advisers, he was entirely governed by his 
 barber, Gaetanino. This man was a Figaro on a large scale, 
 through whose hands passed, at fixed rates of toll, the solici- 
 tations, the favours, and all the intrigues of the palace and 
 of the state. Olivier le Dain, the barber of Louis XL, 
 amused himself by hanging up the enemies of his king ; 
 
HIS OPPRESSIVE RULE. 25 
 
 Gaetanino, the barber of Gregory XVI., confined himself to 
 plundering the friends and the enemies of his sovereign. 
 This Pontiff, fatigued by the weight of the triple crown, 
 and wanting courage to abdicate as Celestine V. had done, 
 secluded himself in his vast palace, as he had before done in 
 his monastic cell ; and there constantly occupied in hoarding 
 up his treasures, endeavoured to forget, in the pleasures of 
 the table, the anxieties arising from his false situation, and 
 the universal opprobrium which he had incurred. 
 
 It is difficult to imagine what the people of Rome had 
 to suffer under the yoke imposed by a Pontiff-King, who, 
 according to the strange formula established by his pre- 
 decessors, styled himself " servus servorum Dei" whilst 
 he was, in fact, nothing more than the most humble ser- 
 vant of the great European powers, and principally of 
 Austria, (who treated him as a lord-paramount does a 
 vassal,) and some little also of the Jew Rothschild, that 
 prince of bankers, who lent him his millions. Woe to his 
 miserable people if they dared to complain, or to raise their 
 heads ! The bayonets of the Swiss troops, sold to Papal 
 despotism by the country of "William Tell, or else the 
 Austrian grape-shot, executed prompt and summary 
 justice. This veritable Grand Mogul dethroned only 
 revealed his existence to the eyes of his children by 
 bestowing upon them, with quite a paternal profusion, 
 those favours of which despotism is often prodigal towards 
 its well-beloved subjects, — confiscation, the gibbet, and the 
 galleys. 
 
 In fine, the device of Gregory XVI. and his war-cry are 
 
 summed up in this couplet of the French poet : — 
 
 " Eteignons les lumieres, 
 Et ralluuions le feu :" 
 
 Be it our task to extinguish the lights (of intelligent 
 progress and civilisation,) and to renew the fires (the last 
 punishment employed by the inquisitor and by despotism.) 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Death of Gregory XVI.— -Accession of Pius IX. to 
 the Pontificate — Commencement of his Reign 
 — Deception of the Italians as to his Liberal 
 Ideas and Patriotic Intentions. 
 
 The death of Gregory XVI. was the occasion of rejoicing 
 and of hope for Rome, and for all the Liberal party, which 
 had been doubly persecuted and oppressed by that Pontiff, 
 actuated, as he was, by purely monastic principles and by a 
 disgraceful submission to foreign injunctions. The Jesuits, 
 public informers, priests and pontifical Shirr i, were alone 
 afflicted in the midst of universal joy. The long and justly 
 detested reign of this Pope left open the fairest field for his 
 successor, whosoever he might be. Gregory's funeral, 
 which, by exception to the general rule on such occasions, 
 was a very simple one, was honoured by no tears, not 
 even by those of his favourite barber, who, from dread of 
 the popular resentment, had fled with precipitation, carry- 
 ing off the millions of which he had robbed the Roman 
 people and the true believers of all nations. The tears 
 which human piety bestows on the burial of the poorest 
 mendicant were denied to this Pope, and were exchanged 
 for the sneers and imprecations of the people, who, unfor- 
 tunately for him, had acquired the right to execrate his 
 memory. 
 
 The Cardinals immediately shut themselves up in con- 
 clave. The jealousy, intrigues, and struggles which pre- 
 cede and accompany every new election of a Pope, had 
 already commenced and were in full play. Austria was 
 canvassing in favour of Cardinal A , a man noted for 
 
ACCESSION OY PIUS IX. 27 
 
 his retrograde views, and the bitter enemy of all innovation 
 favourable to progress and to Liberalism, — in short, exactly 
 suited to the ideas and projects of that inveterate enemy of 
 the emancipation and prosperity of Italy. Spite, however, 
 of the manoeuvres, more or less influential, of the different 
 Powers, each of which exerted itself in its own interest, 
 the Cardinal Jean Mastai was elected, after much less delay 
 than had been expected. 
 
 Besides the good fortune of succeeding to a Pope who 
 had been hated and despised, Mastai had a well-established 
 reputation in several particulars. A religious mission to 
 America and a diplomatic one to Naples, in both of which 
 he had displayed, if not eminent capacity, at least zeal, 
 energy, and tolerably liberal ideas, spoke in his favour. A 
 single one of these qualities would have sufficed to make 
 him outshine a predecessor of whose moral character we 
 have a striking resemblance in that of the last sluggard 
 kings of the Merovingian dynasty. 
 
 The accession of Pius IX. was a good omen for the des- 
 tinies of the Roman states and of all Italy. The people, 
 which allows itself to be easily dazzled by the radiance of a 
 rising sun, founded its hopes on the reputation for kindness, 
 toleration, and liberalism which the new Pope enjoyed, 
 and which popular infatuation delighted to amplify to 
 gigantic and strangely exaggerated proportions. The 
 devout believed that an election so prompt and so unani- 
 mous could only be the work of the Holy Ghost ; but those 
 among them who are still living have doubtless been long 
 since freed from their pious delusion. This election was 
 the more agreeable to the Romans that it had excited the 
 discontent and ill-concealed disapproval of Austria. It 
 was hoped that that Power, having no longer in the Pope 
 a docile instrument for its narrow views and retrograde pro- 
 jects, could not continue to oppress Rome with the whole 
 weight of its absolutism and encroaching policy, the influ- 
 ence of which, sometimes secret, sometimes avowed, had 
 tormented unfortunate Italy for so many ages. 
 D2 
 
28 EARLY HOPES OF THE ROMANS. 
 
 The Romans, who, in the midst of their modern decline 
 and the evils with which the government of the priests 
 overwhelms them, enjoy the glorious hut sterile privilege 
 of forming comparisons and drawing resemblances from 
 those annals of antiquity which belong to them, and the 
 recollection of which is their melancholy inheritance, in 
 the transports of their enthusiasm, imagined that the indo- 
 lence and insensibility of a Claudius were to be succeeded 
 by the energy of a Csesar, the clemency of a Titus, and the 
 philosophy of a Marcus Aurelius, united in one and the 
 same man ! Joy at their deliverance from the degradation 
 in which they had been plunged, joined to the prospects of 
 a new era, so completely misled their ardent imagination, 
 that they hailed in Pius IX. their tutelary angel, the saviour 
 of their country, without taking into account those funda- 
 mental institutions upon which the whole fabric of Popery 
 is established. It was hoped that Pius IX. putting him- 
 self at the head of Italian regeneration, would assist his 
 fellow-countrymen to secure the three great elements of 
 the prosperity and grandeur of a nation — independence, 
 national unity, and the liberty of their country. In the 
 person of Pius IX. the two-fold character of Prince and 
 Pope would not have been opposed to the first of these ac- 
 quisitions, but, in realising it, he would have become inevit- 
 ably the enemy of the house of Austria, the most ancient 
 Mend and the most constant ally of the Papacy ; because 
 the independence of Italy required as a sine qua non 
 the absolute and systematic exclusion of Austrian power 
 throughout the Peninsula. With respect to the other two 
 objects, it was impossible for him to effect them without 
 destroying his own double authority. As a temporal Prince, 
 he could not consent to the national unity of Italy, for he 
 would thus have lost his own states, which would have 
 been swallowed up in the unitary organisation, whether it 
 should take the form of a constitutional monarchy or of a 
 republic ; in neither case could he hope to obtain supreme 
 authority as head of the state. Without swearing reli- 
 
THE REAL VIEWS OF PIUS. 29 
 
 giously to respect the compact which was to consolidate 
 the new liberties of the people, he could neither he king of 
 the new monarchy, nor chief of the new republic : by taking 
 this oath he might perhaps have become one or the other, 
 but from that moment he would necessarily have ceased to 
 be Pope according to the inherent nature of the Papacy, 
 which cannot possibly ally itself to sincerely liberal insti- 
 tutions, without derogating from its peculiar character. 
 As Pope, he could not dare to acquiesce in the liberty of 
 Italy, because political liberty naturally brings along with 
 it the liberty of discussion; and where the latter exists, 
 Roman Catholicism is shaken in its two fundamental bases 
 — blind faith and passive obedience. The past, with its 
 religious reforms, offers sufficient evidence of this truth, 
 that from the moment when Papal absolutism ceases to be 
 unattackable, it ceases also to be invulnerable and infallible : 
 reason then overpowers mere dogmas. 
 
 It is quite certain that Pius IX., whom honest enthu- 
 siasts and men too sanguine had proclaimed (with an 
 ardour, to say the least, premature,) the liberal Prince, by 
 pre-eminence, — the apostle of a new era — the great reformer 
 of the age — the new Messiah sent for the redemption of 
 Italy, was himself very far from desiring and still further 
 from accepting and pursuing that sublime mission, for the 
 accomplishment of which he had neither the capacity, nor 
 the power, nor the will. 
 
 Pius is above all a priest, and is such in good earnest ; 
 consequently he is more attached to his sacerdotal than to 
 his princely character. It is his intimate conviction that 
 he is rigorously bound to maintain all the privileges of the 
 Roman Catholic Church established by time and ancient 
 custom ; he has made it his inviolable rule of conduct to 
 transmit to his successors the patrimony of St. Peter in the 
 same state that he himself received it. From a dread of 
 eternal damnation, he dares not change an iota of what his 
 predecessors have done and established since the days of 
 Charlemagne. His desire is that the Papacy should remain 
 D3 
 
30 POPULAR ENTHUSIASM AND PAPAL VANITY. 
 
 stationary both politically and religiously, and its code of 
 usages be. stereotyped ; and ail this, notwithstanding the 
 civilisation and progress which have more or less invaded 
 all nations, but which dare not cross the Roman frontier, 
 or if they do, must take some sort of disguise, for fear 
 of the sprinklings of holy water and of the exorcisms of 
 the priests. These, indeed, would in themselves be of little 
 consequence, had they not at their back the handcuffs of 
 the Sbirri and the dungeons of the Sacra Consulta. 
 
 At the same time the ovations, of which the new Pope 
 was the constant object after his accession to the pontifical 
 throne, flattered his vanity exceedingly ; so that when the 
 people, tired of applauding, reposed for a day, and there 
 was a pause in the acclamations under the balconies of the 
 Quirinal, Pius IX. complained of it to his confidants, and 
 inquired with anxiety in what respect he could have dis- 
 pleased his good people ! Owing to the feebleness of his 
 character, these noisy demonstrations did at length turn 
 his head and intoxicate him. For a moment he thought 
 himself designed by Providence to attain a momentous 
 object and destined to fulfil some grand event — one of 
 those events which change the face of the world ; but that 
 mysterious and confused impulse had to struggle within 
 him against the scruples of conscience ; thus the intole- 
 rance of the priest wrestled in his soul with the aspira- 
 tions of the man. Thence arose that hesitation, those doubts 
 and oscillations, which unceasingly forced him, at one time 
 forwards, at another backwards, in that track upon which 
 public opinion had thrust him, but of which he understood 
 neither the charms, nor the dangers, nor the issue. 
 
 A month after his elevation he had done nothing for the 
 people that extolled him to the skies, and who expected so 
 much. The first act of his reign was the proclamation of 
 an amnesty (17th June, 1846.) This act was required by 
 justice and humanity ; the cruelty of the preceding govern- 
 ment had indeed rendered it absolutely necessary. But it 
 would have been much more generous if granted fully 
 
IMPERFECT POLITICAL REFORMS. 31 
 
 and absolutely, instead of being clogged by conditions 
 and restrictions. Nevertheless, several thousands of 
 state prisoners, who had crowded the pontifical prisons 
 for so many years, owing to tne suspicious and stupid 
 policy of Gregory, were restored to liberty. The emi- 
 grants and political exiles, of whom great numbers were 
 dragging out an existence of privation and affliction 
 abroad, were recalled from their places of banishment 
 into the bosom of their mother country. The former, in 
 their joy at emerging into the light of day, the latter, in 
 their delight at revisiting their native land, apparently 
 just on the eve of recovering its liberty, joined in chorus 
 with the daily acclamations of their fellow-citizens. It 
 was through this increase of joyful applause that the 
 enthusiasm for the Pope, at first confined to the limits of 
 the states of the church, overflowed them ; and, like an 
 impetuous torrent, inundated all Italy from the Alps to its 
 southernmost point, and finally extended itself to the rest 
 of Europe, and even to America. Such is the influence 
 exercised by clemency — a virtue so much disregarded by all 
 the Princes (the King of Sardinia excepted) that govern, 
 or, more properly speaking, that oppress unhappy Italy. 
 
 At a later period Pius IX. abolished trial by court mar- 
 tial, that sanguinary institution bequeathed by ancient 
 barbarity to modern times — being an exact counterpart of 
 the famous secret tribunals of Westphalia — and which has 
 been since revived by the Italian princes, with this very 
 Pope at their head. He promulgated a law for the liberty 
 of the press, but, by a sudden retractation of principle, 
 powerfully seconded by the counsels and injunctions of 
 Austria, he circumscribed with new shackles that same 
 press which bad princes alone have need to dread, and 
 which terrifies them all at the present day. He had also 
 promised the formation of a civic guard throughout his 
 states, but a whole year elapsed before this promise was 
 redeemed. In the end, this institution was not so much 
 the offspring of the Pope's will as the result of the dis- 
 
32 COUNSELLORS OF THE POPE. 
 
 covery of an Austro- Jesuitic conspiracy, (1847,) which 
 convinced him of the necessity of placing himself under 
 the protection of the citizens in order to escape the snares 
 and stratagems of his enemies. He was advised to free 
 his subjects from the civil administration of the clergy, the 
 most pernicious of all scourges ; hut, either from want of 
 courage or of inclination, he never followed this salutary 
 counsel. The administration of the state remained un- 
 fortunately in the hands of the priests, and the Pope 
 confined his reforms to the dismissal of certain function- 
 aries and prelates of the worst repute, the men most 
 detested by the people. He created a Consulta, hut with 
 very limited powers, quite insufficient for a fundamental 
 reform of the commonwealth. When the deputies respect- 
 fully entreated him, on behalf of their constituents, to 
 enlarge the compass of their powers, he harshly and 
 peremptorily replied, that he had instituted the Consulta 
 as a privy council for the Sovereign, and not as a legisla- 
 tive assembly representing the people, and that he neither 
 could nor would advance a step farther in the path of 
 reform ! A reply which furnishes an exact criterion of his 
 liberal and constitutional sentiments. 
 
 Cardinals Ferretti and Gizzi and Father Ventura were 
 the persons who at the outset of his reign had most influ- 
 ence over the mind of Pius IX. ; and the few useful 
 reforms, however imperfect and inadequate, which he 
 undertook before he was forced to grant a constitution, 
 are attributable more to their advice than to any sponta- 
 neous action of the Pope himself. At a later period he 
 dismissed these counsellors one after the other, to draw 
 around him those imitators of Narcissus and Pallas, who by 
 their supple baseness succeed in making themselves masters 
 of weak Princes, and who, under the names of Antonelli 
 and Company, ruin the state and degrade the people. 
 
 This, then, was the man, in whom Italy in a moment of 
 fatal intoxication and madness placed all her confidence, 
 and from whose genius she expected to derive her redemp- 
 
THEIR OPINION OF HIS CHARACTER. 33 
 
 tion, independence, liberty, and happiness ! Foreign 
 nations, misled by deceitful appearances, and still more by 
 the unbounded enthusiasm of the Italians, valued the Pope 
 far above his real merits, believing him qualified for the 
 great mission attributed to him ; but the clear-sighted of 
 all countries have now completely recovered from their 
 mistaken judgment. 
 
 One of the three early counsellors of the Pope was a man 
 of eminent talent, and then as liberal as it is possible for a 
 Monk (however well-informed) to be, though he afterwards 
 deserted the good cause by disgraceful retractations. During 
 a whole year he was the mentor of this Pontiff. On one 
 occasion he defined to us, in the course of a friendly con- 
 versation, the intellectual capacity and the character of 
 Pius IX. by a simile equally simple and appropriate : — 
 " Pius IX.," said he, " has behaved like a little child just 
 weaned ! Placed by the enthusiasm of the people on the 
 pinnacle of a high rock surrounded by precipices, as long 
 as his nurse held him in leading strings he walked will- 
 ingly enough and without falling ; but no sooner did he 
 squabble with his nurse, and break away from her, than he 
 stumbled, slipped down, and was precipitated into the 
 gulfs which were yawning beneath him." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Real Origin of the Italian Revolution of 1848 — 
 Why Italy has adopted the Reforms of the 
 French Revolution of 1789 more than other 
 Nations — Italy under the Yoke of France — 
 Political Associations in Italy — The Carbo- 
 nari — The Giovane Italia — Mazzini — Impracti- 
 cability of certain Utopian Schemes. 
 
 We have already shewn that Pius IX. neither designed 
 nor favoured the emancipation of his country : we must 
 soon undertake the far more repulsive task of displaying 
 all the mischief that he has done to it. The real and pri- 
 mary source of the Italian revolution of 1848 is to be sought 
 as far back as the year 1789, and in another country. It is 
 well known that the French revolution of 1789 was pro- 
 duced by the efforts of human reason to establish its natural 
 rights, which had been till then disallowed, and on the 
 part of a people long weary of the arrogance of nobles, 
 the rapacity of tax-gatherers, the intolerance of the clergy, 
 and the ruinous prodigality of its kings. But it is not less 
 notorious that this victory of right over absolutism, and of 
 justice over abuses, soon degenerated into the most hideous 
 license, and into the sanguinary triumph of a lawless de- 
 mocracy, which rendered the year 1793 a most inauspicious 
 one for France, whose victories abroad could hardly com- 
 pensate for the horrors and massacres which sullied her at 
 home. 
 
 Each nation welcomed the ideas propagated by that 
 revolution, as its peculiar situation rendered them more or 
 
EUROPEAN EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 35 
 
 less necessary, and consequently more or less acceptable. 
 Russia was the only country into which they had no access, 
 -on account of the extreme severity constantly enforced 
 against their introduction by the Government, and the 
 moral degradation of the people, which made it impossible 
 for them to appreciate their value, or to calculate their 
 consequences. In Germany the new ideas were received 
 with enthusiasm, but its population, being by nature 
 meditative and visionary, immediately associated with 
 them the mystic fancies and Utopian dreams of the sect of 
 the Illuminati, with which at that period all the countries 
 beyond the Rhine were infected. In England, though at 
 first the acquisition of liberty by a neighbouring nation 
 was hailed by most persons, including some of her most 
 eminent statesmen, the alarming aspect of affairs, which 
 soon supervened in France, disgusted the body of the 
 people with the innovations across the Channel, and 
 caused the most serious re-action. Nothing could be more 
 natural. 
 
 In point of liberty the English people are more advanced 
 than all other nations. By its Magna Charta, wrung from 
 John Lackland by the barons, England had laid even at the 
 beginning of the thirteenth century the foundation of its 
 public rights and personal and national liberties. William 
 of Orange obtained the English crown on the express con- 
 dition of fresh and still more ample concessions to the 
 nation over which he was to reign. The two Houses of 
 Parliament successively accomplished the rest, and by 
 degrees advanced the British constitution to the largest 
 proportions attainable by a nation desiring to enjoy the 
 greatest share of liberty compatible with the monarchical 
 form of government, and with the maintenance of a sove- 
 reign at its head, to whom, with all the external splendour 
 of royal authority, has been left the power of accomplish- 
 ing all that is good, whilst that of doing harm has been cut 
 off. Grave and reflective by nature, the English never pre- 
 cipitate their reforms. They propose, discuss, and accom- 
 
36 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND ITALY. 
 
 plish them, — but deliberately, and after that reflection 
 which renders human conceptions fruitful, and which alone 
 can create institutions and laws having the two-fold advan- 
 tage of utility and durability. Such a nation had certainly 
 no need to learn the science of good government from revolu- 
 tionary France; and it was felt that the innovations of 
 1789, so necessary in France and elsewhere, could have 
 no other result in England than to disturb the existing 
 order of things, without any improvement in its civil and 
 political condition. 
 
 But those reasons for which the reforms of the French 
 revolution were of necessity repelled by England, unfortu- 
 nately did not exist in the case of Italy. Its political and 
 administrative policy, in diametrical opposition to that 
 which England enjoyed, and also the character of its 
 population, their traditions and historical remembrances, 
 induced it to embrace with eagerness innovations which 
 disclosed to it a new era ; and, the more readily as 
 France, ever so liberal in her promises, proposed these 
 innovations with such disinterested and fraternal ardour, 
 swearing to make them respected by their enemies, and 
 to maintain them against all attacks whatever : rhodomon- 
 tade habitual to the French nation, in other respects so 
 deserving of our esteem for many brilliant and incontest- 
 able qualities. 
 
 Driven by imperious necessity, Italy threw herself alto- 
 gether into the arms of France. The latter, instead of 
 acting as a sister, as had been promised, became at first her 
 guardian, and afterwards her mistress. She then parcelled 
 out this younger sister into little republics (transformed at 
 a later period into little kingdoms,) which she governed, or 
 at least controlled, by her proconsuls, — men for the most 
 part of unbounded rapacity, outstripping Verres himself in 
 their extortions. Leaving out of sight the rapacity of these 
 apostles of freedom, the importation of revolutionary ideas 
 into Italy produced there none of those horrible incidents 
 which disgraced the French revolution in the sight of 
 
EISE OF PATRIOTIC ASSOCIATIONS. 37 
 
 humanity, when the adoration paid to liberty degenerated 
 into the very saturnalia of license. Political changes were 
 effected with rapidity, but without violence or bloodshed ; 
 and Italy could herself perceive, and proved to other 
 nations, that the long trance in which she had lain had not 
 yet extinguished in her heart the sacred spark of liberty, 
 nor destroyed those elements which are indispensable to a 
 political regeneration. But notwithstanding this honour- 
 able revival, which placed her for the time on a level 
 with independent nations, she was, alas ! obliged to recog- 
 nise the truth of the political aphorism, that " foreign pro- 
 tection is often worse than native oppression." Driven to 
 extremity by the arrogance of the French, she began to 
 consider how to extricate herself from the stifling embraces 
 of her pretended elder sister. 
 
 From the close of the last century there existed in Italy 
 several political sects, or secret associations, which had 
 incorporated themselves for the purpose of establishing the 
 independence and national existence of their country. 
 They were of various descriptions, but the object in view 
 was always the same, the emancipation of Italy. The 
 principal among them were the Unitarians and the Raggi, 
 of which the one proposed to attain liberty only through 
 their own princes, by stimulating them to make the reforms 
 demanded by the country and the age ; while the other 
 endeavoured to accomplish its object by the assistance of 
 the principles of the French revolution, which it wished 
 to apply to Italy, intending to rid the country of all 
 the princes. These different associations exerted themselves 
 each according to its own particular views, and they were 
 for a long time hostile to one another. Having at length, 
 however, agreed together to shake off the new yoke imposed 
 by France under pretence of protection, they united in one 
 society, that of the Carbonari, which by this coalition 
 became very numerous. As it was opposed to the despotism 
 of the French, all the dispossessed Italian princes, particu- 
 larly the Bourbons of Naples and the Pope, did their utmost 
 E 
 
38 THE CARBONARI AND THE PRINCES. 
 
 to encourage it, and employed it as an instrument for their 
 future restoration. They lavished the most ample and 
 liberal promises in order to allure to their purpose this 
 powerful society, which extended its meshes like a vast net 
 over all Italy, and they excited its zeal by a solemn engage- 
 ment to effect the immediate emancipation of their common 
 mother country, as the first pledge of their gratitude. But 
 after having recovered their thrones through its influence, 
 not only did they fail to fulfil their promises, but, backed 
 by the general reactionary movement of 1815, they declared 
 a war of extermination against this society. Both in town 
 and in country, and even in the midst of forests, where the 
 unfortunate members sought an asylum, they were re- 
 morselessly hunted down like wild beasts by the sbirri of 
 those same princes, whose re -establishment they had 
 favoured and accomplished. Such is royal gratitude ! 
 Those members of this numerous society who escaped the 
 general persecution, again assembled in secrecy on different 
 points of the Italian peninsula, and cemented a fresh alliance 
 by dreadful oaths for the twofold purpose of revenge for the 
 princes' breach of faith, and to pursue the work of Italian 
 emancipation which had failed through their treachery. 
 These same princes had added ingratitude to perjury, and 
 substituted for their fair promises the gallows and the gal- 
 leys, with which they rewarded their ancient confederates. 
 No wonder that from being partisans, as they were, of 
 royalty and the Papacy, from hatred of the French domin- 
 ation, the Carbonari became finally the irreconcileable 
 enemies of both. 
 
 Among the princes who displayed the greatest virulence 
 against the Carbonari, the Pope and the King of Naples 
 stood foremost, being precisely those who had obtained 
 most assistance and reaped the greatest benefit from their 
 influence. No kind of torment, of ignominy, or of death 
 was left untried by these two sovereigns for torturing and 
 annihilating Carbonarism, of which the capital fault rela- 
 tively to Italy was the powerful support which it had given 
 
THE "GIOVANE ITALIA" ASSOCIATION. 39 
 
 to their restoration : its greatest crime in the eyes of these 
 princes was in having protested against their treachery. 
 Changing the names and the object in view, one might 
 think the persecutions of Decius and Domitian had been 
 revived. 
 
 From the blood of the Carbonari, shed by the Pontifical 
 and Neapolitan executioners, sprung up a new society, that 
 of the Giovane Italia, which developed itself and increased 
 rapidly, absorbing in its bosom the bloody remnants of Car- 
 bonarism. The members of this new association, suspected, 
 watched, and rigorously persecuted by all the governments, 
 with Austria at their head, multiplied prodigiously, in spite 
 of the stringent measures everywhere employed against 
 them by the police. They made numerous recruits in all 
 directions, even abroad ; and by means of an active secret 
 correspondence, members abroad co-operated with those 
 concealed at home for the same ends, — those of delivering 
 Italy from a foreign yoke, and from the state of bondage 
 imposed upon its unfortunate populations by their princes. 
 
 A personage, to whom we shall have occasion to revert 
 in the sequel of these sketches, and whose talents, perse- 
 verance, and activity, supported by the suffrages of the 
 party, placed him at the head of this association, then 
 began to distinguish himself as chief of the Italian Re- 
 publicans. This personage was Mazzini. Having soon 
 gained the high respect and regard of all his confederates, 
 he on several occasions directed experimental attempts, 
 which always miscarried. These, in the opinion of some 
 persons, only produced a useless effusion of Italian blood ; 
 according to others, they served to strengthen the faith 
 of those who style themselves the true believers, and 
 who apply to politics the religious maxim, that " the tri- 
 umph of a sacred cause will spring from the blood of its 
 martyrs." This maxim forms the political creed of the 
 Mazzinians ; but it is very far from sufficient to justify a 
 succession of bloody reverses in the view of those positive 
 reasoners who are desirous that the enterprises of the 
 e2 
 
40 MAZZINI AND HIS DOCTRINES. 
 
 patriots should be undertaken at fitting opportunities only, 
 and with some chances of success previously and prudently 
 calculated. The sacrifices of life imposed on his adherents 
 by the dictatorship of Mazzini have been of utility in this 
 respect alone, that the cruelties of the Papal Government, 
 and, still more, those of the Bourbons of Naples, inflicted 
 on the adherents of Mazzini who fell into their hands, have 
 served to aggravate, if possible, the disgust and hatred of 
 the Italians for their princes. The Mazzinians have made 
 an idol of their chief, and their worship of him is often 
 confounded and identified with that of their principles. 
 For our part, we firmly believe that it is possible to be 
 quite as much attached to the liberty of one's country as 
 the Mazzinians themselves, without being obliged to par- 
 ticipate completely in their doctrine, and without a blind 
 acquiescence in all the articles of their political creed. 
 We make this declaration at the risk of being taxed with 
 heresy, and, in consequence, excommunicated and con- 
 demned as heterodox ; for the Mazzinian religion, with 
 an absoluteness somewhat too Roman Catholic, admits not 
 the possibility of salvation out of the pale of its church. 
 Posterity will decide whether Mazzini, as a politician, has 
 done more good than harm to the cause of liberty in his 
 country, of which he sincerely desires the regeneration, 
 but by means at the least premature, and by theories 
 which, although they comprise all the sublimity of the 
 most humane Utopian projects, have the radical defect 
 of absolute and exclusive intolerance, and are deprived 
 of all possibility of immediate and successful applica- 
 tion ; in a word, their execution is impracticable in the 
 actual condition of the Italian populations, and according 
 to the opinion of the majority. 
 
 The masses prefer positive ideas to everything abstract, 
 for this simple reason, that, endowed with considerable 
 good sense, but with intelligence imperfectly developed, 
 they embrace at once whatever falls within the limit of 
 their intellectual powers, and consequently of their percep- 
 
THE GREAT ENDS OF ITALIAN PATRIOTISM. 41 
 
 tion, and repel from suspicion, or at least from want of 
 conviction, every principle and doctrine which is presented 
 to them enveloped in ohscurity, or in the form of a problem. 
 This applies to mankind in general, and more particularly 
 to the Italian populations. The Italians, whom their 
 oppressors would willingly degrade to the condition of 
 Helots, (and who themselves entertain the conviction that 
 they are no ways inferior to those would-be Lacedcemonians 
 who harass them,) desire eagerly, and above all things, to 
 get rid of their princes, who, like Saturn in the fable, flay 
 and devour them. The Italians wish, in the first place, and 
 before all other considerations, the accomplishment of a 
 material fact, — the conquest of their national independence, 
 leaving for the next decision the adoption of such a form 
 of government as should appear to them most suitable for 
 their future political existence. They ought to abandon 
 all abstract ideas, to occupy themselves only with realities. 
 Italians who discuss among themselves what form of 
 government to give to their country, before they have torn 
 that unfortunate and interesting country from the hands of 
 those who wrongfully hold possession of it, may not 
 unaptly be compared to brothers quarrelling among 
 themselves about the choice of a plan, which is to guide 
 them in rebuilding an old house for their own use, but 
 which they have not yet bought. It would be much better 
 to commence by making the purchase, and quite time enough 
 afterwards to dispute about the plan and the form of the 
 new edifice.. 
 
 e3 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Jesuits — their Abolition and Re-establish- 
 ment — Baneful Effect of the latter in Italy. 
 — Their great Italian Opponents, the Abbe 
 globerti and count tasca. — atrocities of the 
 Political and Clerical re-action instigated 
 by the Jesuits. 
 
 Having devoted a part of the preceding article to the 
 secret societies of Italy, it is impossible for us not to speak 
 at some length of another society, which unfortunately 
 may be termed universal, on account of its ever-renewed 
 efforts to invade and domineer over the whole world ; a 
 society which, under the cloak of religion, has pursued for 
 several ages, with indefatigable ardour, a pecuniary and 
 political object — a society, in short, which, while it 
 acknowledges in the face of the public its existence and a 
 part of its tendencies, conceals in the shades of mystery 
 the most important portion, but which, veiled from the 
 sight of the profane, constitutes the secret science of its 
 adepts. This society, according to its views of universal 
 domination, strives to arrest progress in its daily march, 
 and to shut up from humanity the road to civilisation and 
 to political and religious liberty, into which man is unceas- 
 ingly carried by a supernatural and irresistible force, 
 that of the Divine Will. It has inscribed on its banner 
 the sacred monogram of Jesus, but with what accord 
 between the name and the thing, the history of the Jesuits 
 furnishes the readiest means of information. Although 
 this mysterious association has spread itself over all 
 Europe, and even over a part of America, Italy, on account 
 
THE FOUNDEK OF THE JESUITS. 43 
 
 of the interested bigotry of the princes, the hypocritical 
 zeal of the majority of the priests, and the ambitious 
 egotism of the Court of Rome, has been obliged to submit 
 so completely to its baneful influence, that she has acquired, 
 it may be said, the melancholy privilege of considering it 
 as a local institution, although of foreign importation ; 
 just as ancient Egypt considered the mysteries of Isis as 
 a native institution, and one exclusively national, although 
 its adepts of different nations were scattered in every part 
 of the known world. 
 
 The Company of Jesus was instituted in 1534 by 
 Ignatius Loyola, who from a soldier became a priest, 
 and the founder of this order. In its origin the institu- 
 tion did not perhaps possess that inordinate ambition which 
 made it afterwards look upon the world as the object of 
 its future conquest, and which rendered it eventually so 
 powerful and formidable. The character of the founder 
 even seemed opposed to such a result in the outset. 
 Ignorant and brave as a Hidalgo of that period, jovial 
 and somewhat visionary, nothing revealed in Loyola the 
 profound thinker capable of creating, as it were, a Church 
 within the Church, to enslave Kings and to domineer over 
 the Papacy, by which they were then ruled ; nothing dis- 
 closed in him an extraordinary speculator, capable of passing 
 in review all the evil instincts, all the vicious inclinations, 
 of human nature, in order to assemble them in a body of 
 doctrine, a monstrous code, comprising all possible descrip- 
 tions of sophisms, with their practical and relative appli- 
 cation. Loyola commenced his work as a fanatic without 
 calculating its immense importance ; his successors ex- 
 panded it by degrees, dexterously turning to account all 
 circumstances, all interests, and all human weaknesses, 
 whenever such advantages offered themselves to their 
 ever-growing ambition; for the ambitious are like the 
 dropsical man, whose thirst increases as he drinks. 
 
 It does not enter into our purpose to enumerate here the 
 achievements of this order. We must refer our readers to 
 
44 MACHINATIONS AND SUPPRESSION OF THE JESUITS. 
 
 history, which displays in their true light the wiles, tricks, 
 intrigues, usurpations, bankruptcies, assassinations, abuses 
 of holy things, and in short all that machiavelian system 
 to which it owed its immense wealth, and which initiated 
 it into the secrets of all the cabinets of Europe. At dif- 
 ferent periods it directed those Cabinets at pleasure, 
 raising itself almost to the importance of a temporal 
 power ; but this very importance gave birth to the alarm 
 and jealousy of the sovereigns, which events tended so 
 much to justify, and which contributed greatly to its 
 abolition. 
 
 On the 21st July, 1773* appeared the famous brief 
 Dominus ac Redemptor which proscribed this order. After 
 having signed it, Clement XIV., (who by this act rendered 
 his name immortal and for ever dear,) exclaimed with a 
 sigh: "Behold this suppression now accomplished. Far 
 from repenting a resolution to which I have been brought 
 only after the most mature and serious reflection, were it 
 still to be done I should act in just the same manner. 
 But this suppression will kill me. Yes, it will be the cause 
 of my death !" The worthy Pope Ganganelli expired on the 
 22nd September, 1774, after six months of spasmodic pains 
 in the bowels, pains to which he had never been subject 
 previously, and which attacked him after his prophetic ex- 
 
 * No one is ignorant of the epoch of the general suppression of 
 the Jesuits, but it is not every one that knows the different par- 
 ticular orders of banishment previously issued against them at 
 different periods by various governments. Our readers will perhaps 
 find the enumeration of them interesting, as given in the table 
 below. The Jesuits were driven from 
 
 Venice in 1606 
 
 Bohemia in 1618 
 
 Naples and the Low Countries in 1622 
 
 India in 1623 
 
 Russia , in 1676 
 
 France in 1764 
 
 Spain in 1767 
 
 Portugal in 1700 
 
 Rome and all Christendom in 1773. 
 
THEIR RE-ESTABLISHMENT AND THEIR OPPONENTS. 45 
 
 clamation. We mentioned in a former article that Pius VII., 
 either from feebleness or pertinacity of character, re- 
 established the Jesuits, to the great joy of the retrograde 
 party, and to the lively regret of all who witnessed with 
 pain the efforts employed by obscurantism to force man- 
 kind back again. As was to be expected, Rome became 
 the metropolis of this order after its revival. Under the 
 shelter of the Vatican, and supported by its old traditions, 
 it recommenced its mysterious work, just as in some dark 
 corner the spider spins its new web in defiance of the 
 salutary broom that has swept away the former one. The 
 influence of the Jesuits was soon felt heavily in every part 
 of the Italian peninsula, and they employed every effort to 
 revive superstition and intrigue, their most powerful 
 weapons. 
 
 Italy has not been deficient in men of intelligence and 
 of spirit to combat this fatal influence ; but there were 
 two champions who entered the lists with head erect and 
 vizor raised, the Abbe Gioberti, a Piedmontese, and Count 
 Tasca, of Milan. The former died at Paris in 1853 ; 
 the latter has led a life of honourable exile since the 
 year 1848, — a life rendered still more painful through 
 the sequestration of his estates by Austria, after the events 
 that so unfortunately stained his native city with blood 
 in 1853, though Count Tasca was a total stranger to those 
 events. The Abbe Gioberti engaged in this glorious en- 
 counter in the most chivalrous manner, and entered the 
 tilting ground as a true Paladin on a prancing palfrey fully 
 harnessed, and armed cap-a-pie^ lance in rest. Count Tasca 
 preferred another species of warfare. Instead of encoun- 
 tering his enemy in the lists, he tracked, pursued, harassed, 
 and attacked him wherever he fell in with him, whether 
 in public places of meeting, the drawing-room, the pulpit, 
 on the missionary platform, and even in the confessional. 
 Instead of breaking the lance of chivalry with him, he 
 struck him with harlequin's bat, and flogged him with the 
 lash of ridicule. The Abbe Gioberti published in 1843 his 
 
46 THE ABBE GIOBERTI. 
 
 Prolegomeni, in which, after having briskly attacked the 
 Bourbon of Naples and Austria, he deliberately turned his 
 arms against the Jesuits, sparing neither cut nor thrust. 
 His blows were so well directed, that each gave his enemy 
 a mortal wound. But the impartial public, who were 
 present at this tournament as judges of the field, and who 
 proclaimed him victorious, could not help remarking that 
 certain incidents of the previous life of Gioberti were 
 exposed to the just censure of his adversary. By an incon- 
 ceivable aberration from his religious and political creed, 
 Gioberti, in his Primato Civile e Morale degV Italiani 
 (Civil and Moral pre-eminence of the Italians,) had two 
 years previously not only spared, but almost nattered his 
 enemy, who (piqued perhaps at not having been sufficiently 
 extolled) fell foul of the author of that work, who, in his 
 turn, charged and pushed him to extremity. Though 
 repaired by his bravery, resolution, and victory, the con- 
 tradiction in question left some blot on the escutcheon of 
 the valiant knight, who thus disclosed to his enemy the 
 only weak point of his cuirass. Notwithstanding this 
 inconsistency, the Prolegomeni (which is perhaps the best 
 work that has issued from the pen of this philosopher,) 
 enjoyed, both in Italy and abroad, a most brilliant and 
 well-deserved success. The same author published in 1847, 
 II Jesuita Modemo (the Modern Jesuit,) in which he com- 
 mitted the great fault of spinning out into five volumes 
 matter scarcely sufficient for three, and which necessarily 
 produced a prolixity, sometimes even a vacuity of thought, 
 little calculated to excite the interest and admiration of the 
 reader. The consequence is, that this work, although it 
 contains beauties of the first order, is very far from being 
 equal to the Prolegomeni in point of vigour, of style, and 
 of dialectic power. Nevertheless, the Jesuita Moderno 
 obtained the applause of the Italians, who readily excused 
 the defects of the work, on account of its author's good 
 intention ; and the sort of vacuum produced occasionally in 
 the minds of the readers was abundantly filled up by their 
 
COUNT TASCA. 47 
 
 hatred and contempt of the common enemy, against whom 
 the courageous champion renewed his attacks. Italy owes 
 much to the Abbe Gioberti, and his country pays him only 
 a just tribute of gratitude in erecting a monument to his 
 memory. In spite, however, of her admiration for this 
 illustrious son, she is not unaware that his character as a 
 politician was very inferior to that which he could claim as 
 a philosopher. 
 
 Count Tasca, whose poetical productions rendered his 
 name popular in Italy and favourably known abroad, and 
 who had the high distinction in 1848 of being proclaimed 
 the poet of the nation, published in 1846-7 several minor 
 poems, constituting a sort of skirmishing warfare against 
 Jesuitism, such as the Guerillas maintained in Spain 
 against the French Army, striking right and left, as well 
 upon the initiated and adepts as upon the brethren and Al- 
 guazils of St. Ignatius. The luxuriance of the poet's ima- 
 gination, the moderation of his principles, the precepts of 
 sound philosophy and practical morality, concealed under 
 the flowers of a brilliant and lively style, the epigram 
 which flowed from his pen with equal wit and facility, the 
 whole being constantly supported by the testimony of 
 historical facts, insured him the sympathy and favour of 
 his fellow-citizens, who beheld with satisfaction a man, 
 belonging to a class which it has been usual to style the 
 high nobility, abandoning all the conventional distinctions 
 of his position, to remain only the friend — that is to say, 
 the frank and honest friend, and never the flatterer — of 
 the people. His poetical writings against the Jesuits 
 overran all Italy from one end to the other, and were 
 extensively known abroad. Very many editions were 
 printed, and were immediately exhausted by the eager 
 multitude of readers. Count Tasca, to whom the sublime 
 muse is as familiar as the comic, in his victorious campaign 
 against Jesuitism, preferred, and with good reason, the 
 lash of ridicule to the thunders of heroic verse. In a case 
 of this description we think the course adopted by Count 
 
48 EFFECTS OF THE ATTACKS UPON THE JESUITS. 
 
 Tasca is calculated to be much more useful than that fol- 
 lowed by the Abbe Gioberti. The latter, in his volume 
 fraught with theological science (at times abstruse) and 
 profound and serious discussions, evidently wrote for the 
 superior and lettered classes, the only parties possessing 
 the means to purchase and to understand his works. But 
 persons whose minds have been cultivated by study have 
 already formed their judgment on different human institu- 
 tions, and consequently made up in their own conscience 
 their particular and independent opinion relatively to each 
 of them. If, according to their private convictions, they 
 entertain sentiments of affection and esteem for the cause 
 of Loyola, all the doctrines and argumentation of Gioberti 
 would not shake their belief ; if, on the contrary, they have 
 been brought up in antipathy and contempt for Jesuitism, 
 the works of Gioberti become useless to them. Count 
 Tasca wished to write only for the masses, and the object 
 he proposed to himself was, to display before their eyes all 
 the mysterious intrigues of Jesuitism. In order to accom- 
 plish this mission, equally dangerous and honourable, he 
 was obliged to employ a transparent style, plain logic, 
 practical and popular philosophy, a satire moderate, witty, 
 true, just, and, above all, impartial, and all this condensed 
 in cheap pamphlets within the reach of the most humble, 
 the masses being always disposed to catch at whatever 
 unites what is agreeable with cheapness. This difficult 
 object was attained by the author to such a degree, that 
 when the populations of Brescia, Cremona, and Placenza 
 revolted in 1848 against the arrogance of the Jesuits 
 parading in their sumptuous palaces, it was to the chaunt 
 of their national poet's verses that those troublesome and 
 dangerous guests were chased from their respective cities. 
 
 We must ask pardon of our readers for having occupied 
 them rather too long upon the subject of these Italian 
 writers of note, but we have done so for the sole purpose 
 of establishing that the necessity which they felt, as 
 organs of public opinion, of assailing Jesuitism, and the 
 
POLICY OF THE JESUITS. 49 
 
 enthusiastic joy with which the Italian population ap- 
 plauded each of their victories over the common enemy, 
 furnish most evident proofs of the mischief which the 
 Jesuits were doing to Italy, and of the profound hatred 
 with which it requited them. 
 
 The first steps of the Jesuits, after their re-establishment, 
 were to regain the direction of the consciences of the Italian 
 Princes, (of whose bigotry and hypocrisy they availed them- 
 selves for their own advantage,) and to take possession of 
 public instruction. However much we deplore, in accord- 
 ance with our own particular views, the ancient influence 
 and the modern re-establishment of this order, we should 
 be guilty of injustice if we denied that the sciences owed 
 much to it, for its members have always cultivated them 
 with ardour ; but the system of education adopted by its 
 adepts, for the purpose of universal domination, was much 
 more calculated to develope the powers of the intellect 
 than the better feelings of the heart. Faithful to their 
 family traditions, the modern Jesuits labour, as did their 
 predecessors, to cultivate the former and to pervert the 
 latter. This immoral alliance of the culture of the mind 
 with the depravation of the heart forms the regulating 
 principle of all privileged and ruling castes. Men of 
 science have never been wanting to this order, science 
 being a powerful instrument for its encroaching views, and 
 a means indispensable for success. Whether for the recep- 
 tion of professed members, or for strengthening the pha- 
 lanx of their secular adherents, the Jesuits have at every 
 period possessed the address to choose only such subjects as 
 in one manner or other would co-operate for the aggran- 
 disement or power of their order, and they have always 
 displayed in this choice a perfectly astonishing tact. There 
 is a well-known reply of a certain Italian Jesuit, one of 
 the most influential amongst his brethren, who, being 
 questioned, after the downfall of the order, as to the spirit 
 which presided over the distribution of the different em- 
 ployments of the adepts, said :— " Everything becomes in 
 pur hands proper for some purpose. We destine the most 
 
 F 
 
50 POLICY OF THE JESUITS. 
 
 eloquent to the pulpit, the most crafty to politics, the most 
 ambitious to the confessional of Princes, and in like man- 
 ner all others according to their natural aptitude." " But," 
 observed somebody, " among those you have allured into 
 the order, bringing with them the tribute of a great name 
 or of their riches, there must naturally have been found 
 some fools ; to what purpose did you apply these ?" " We 
 made saints of them," replied the Jesuit, with an imper- 
 turbable calmness which pointedly displayed with what 
 refinement of calculation they adapted, to different parts, 
 different individual vocations. In this respect, as in every 
 other article of their code, the successors of this Jesuit 
 follow in every point (excepting the frankness of his 
 avowal,) the traces of their predecessors. 
 
 Reason, seconded by the force of discussion, has in our 
 days entirely rent asunder before a disabused people that 
 mysterious veil, which formerly concealed from view the 
 policy of the Jesuits ; but though detected, it still exists, 
 and never ceases for an instant to labour to excavate new 
 hiding-places wherein to hatch its plots and machinations 
 safely ; just as coiners of base money, driven from one 
 subterranean cavern, conceal themselves in another, to 
 which they convey the implements of their honourable 
 calling. The policy of the Jesuits is perfidious, dissimu- 
 lating, disloyal, obstinate, almost always impenetrable ; 
 its authors are patient, supple, bartering as the occasion 
 serves the mask of Don Basil for the frank bearing of 
 liberalism. It is served with surprising zeal by its 
 hidden or avowed agents, and opens itself a free passage 
 through the midst of all obstacles to its objects of domi- 
 nation and conquest. This policy is the more formidable 
 that it shrinks from no means useful to its purpose, and 
 is the more confident of success that it never uncovers all 
 its batteries, and that the hands which give the impulsive 
 act do it with the assurance of safety. This conviction 
 rests upon the interested protection which, with the ex- 
 ception of the King of Sardinia, the Italian Princes and 
 the Court of Rome grant them. The former flatter the 
 
THE REVIVAL OF JESUITISM NOT PERMANENT. 51 
 
 Jesuits as the champions of absolutism, and the latter as 
 an army, always prepared to combat with vigour for the 
 infallibility of the Pope; all which constitutes the chil- 
 dren of Loyola the surest supporters of despotism. Such 
 is the policy which the Jesuits, driven out by Clement 
 XIV., have bequeathed to the Jesuits re-established by 
 Pius VII., and which, under the shield of Princes and the 
 Pope, seeks to domineer over Italy in our time as it did in 
 those of our forefathers. 
 
 Posterity will call to account Pius VII. for having im- 
 prudently revived an Order which the age condemned, and 
 which the Bull of a good Pope had prostrated amid the 
 applause of all Europe, not excepting the kings them- 
 selves, who had been greatly alarmed by its policy and 
 power. Let the latter bear in mind the end of Henry III. 
 and Henry IV., the pistol of Malagrida and the knife 
 of Damiens. 
 
 Reason and philosophy exert all their influence to assure 
 us that the resurrection of this society is only apparent and 
 temporary, and that all the efforts of revived Jesuitism are 
 nothing more than the convulsive struggles of a galvanised 
 corpse. Be it so : but as ghosts and vampires alarm chil- 
 dren, silly women, and fools, so there still exists — (apart 
 from those religious and political jugglers who profit by 
 every means of subduing simple minds) — there exists, we 
 say, a portion of mankind, which, condemned to perpetual 
 infancy, views with all the hallucinations and fears of 
 superstition the re- appearance of the Jesuits on the poli- 
 tical horizon and in social life. Such people allow them 
 (though against their will) to re-impose their despotic 
 yoke, as, according to the Eastern tale, the fanatical 
 young Arabs allowed themselves to be intoxicated by the 
 haschich of the Old Man of the Mountain, or, as the 
 serpents of Libya submit to the charms of the jugglery 
 and flute of the Psylli. Reason and philosophy are per- 
 fectly in the right, viewing the present state of the Jesuits 
 by the light of their own theory ; but, practically, it is too 
 f2 
 
52 FUTURE FATE OF JESUITISM. 
 
 true that Jesuitism is still powerful in Italy, and it will 
 cease to be so only when the two bulwarks by which it is 
 supported are demolished, viz., superstition and despotism. 
 It is Jesuitism which, through its ambition, and through 
 foreign influence hostile to Italy, has done its utmost to 
 prevent the Princes of that country from supporting in 
 good earnest Italian emancipation and independence ; it 
 was the same Jesuitism which undertook, both before and 
 during the last revolution, to scatter all over the peninsula 
 threats and gold, with the double purpose of terrifying the 
 weak and corrupting the depraved. As the faithful ally 
 of tyranny, it has to no small extent prompted the hideous 
 vindictive acts of the re-action, aided the sbii'ri of despotism 
 to fill their foul dungeons with victims, and the executioners 
 of the sovereigns to shed profusely the blood of liberals and 
 patriots. But if the alliance of Jesuitism with crowned 
 despotism contributed in 1848 to arouse the people of Italy 
 to conquer for themselves independence and liberty, this 
 same alliance, which interest and self-love render indis- 
 soluble, will contribute to arouse them once more, when, 
 pushed to extremity by all the misdeeds that spring from 
 it, they shall hear the hour of rescue strike. With the 
 help of Divine justice, that hour shall also be the hour of 
 their country's deliverance. 
 
 In a word, the age calls loudly for the final abolition of 
 this intolerant and pernicious society ; but in order that 
 Italy may be entirely and definitively freed, it is necessary 
 that with the Jesuits accoutred in the dress of Escobar, it 
 should also get rid of those in the attire of the courtier, 
 the magistrate, the soldier, the counterfeit liberal, and 
 even in women's clothes, — a breed still too numerous, of 
 which the one-half, more cunning, cheats and laughs at 
 the other half, more credulous. All these vegetate, stir, 
 and plot under the shade of the rotten tree of St. Ignatius, 
 of which the pestilential effluvia corrupt the soil, as that 
 of the manchineel of the West Indies destroys the impru- 
 dent beings who take shelter beneath its branches. 
 
CHAPTEB VII. 
 
 The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies— Origin, Progress, 
 and Dreadful Suppression of its Revolution — 
 its Connexion with the Cause of Italian Inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 Having in the preceding chapters described the political, 
 religions, and social state of Italy, and those enormons 
 abuses of power, of which the inevitable consequence was 
 to provoke the revolution of 1848, we are now to undertake 
 the narration of the facts. Without omitting any of the 
 most remarkable, we shall endeavour to unite historical 
 precision with as much brevity as is practicable. All who 
 feel the slightest regard for that unfortunate but inter- 
 esting country, will desire to learn its present condition, 
 tendencies, and wants, with a view to its political and reli- 
 gious regeneration, and the means which it can and ought 
 to use for their attainment. 
 
 Chronological order obliges us to commence with the 
 Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, with its series of conflicts 
 between oppressors and the oppressed. It is unfortunate 
 that the Italian blood earliest spilt in the cause of the 
 revolution was shed by the hands of brethren. We men- 
 tioned in our first chapter that a vast conspiracy against the 
 Bourbons of Naples broke out on the 2nd September, 1847, 
 at Reggio, and spread rapidly to the two Calabrias. On 
 the day before, a revolutionary movement took place in 
 Sicily, — Messina revolted in concert with Reggio ; but this 
 explosion was repressed by its numerous garrison, which, 
 however, sustained great losses in its conflicts with the 
 people. We have already related the cruelties exercised 
 by General Nunziante in Calabria, and the assassination of 
 f3 
 
54 LIBERAL ASPIRATIONS IN NAPLES. 
 
 Romeo. General Landi imitated on a small scale the atro- 
 cities of the executioner of Calabria. The Sicilians, headed 
 by the inhabitants of Palermo, had repeatedly petitioned 
 the King to grant them liberal institutions, in default of 
 which they threatened to rise in arms. The King, as usual, 
 held them in derision, and paid no attention whatever to 
 their demands. The threats of the Sicilians were rapidly 
 followed by acts. On the 12th of January, 1848, the Paler- 
 mitans, exasperated by the King's insulting silence, and 
 losing all hope of an amicable arrangement, ran to arms, 
 and commenced hostilities. The King, alarmed and enraged, 
 immediately sent a squadron conveying 5,000 troops, in- 
 tended to punish the city for its revolt : but the expedition 
 was ill-directed by its commander, General Sauget, and 
 after landing, was beaten by the Sicilians, and forced to re- 
 embark. 
 
 Naples and all the surrounding country rose, on the 
 report of the revolution of Sicily : the population of the 
 capital profited by the disorder into which the Court was 
 plunged, and obliged the King to grant, at length, the 
 Constitution which he had so often promised, and never 
 conceded. On the 27th January, the whole city was under 
 the strongest excitement. The Liberals assembled sponta- 
 neously to the number of 20,000, in the Toledo (the prin- 
 cipal street,) which they paraded, displaying the tri-coloured 
 flag, and at a slow pace, accompanied by the enthusiastic 
 acclamations of the populace, filling the air with the joyful 
 cry of " The Constitution for ever !" The King's cavalry, 
 under the orders of General Statella, advanced to stop their 
 triumphant march, but the troops and their leader, swept 
 along by a harmless and still increasing crowd, accompanied 
 it under the balconies of the royal palace, when, after a 
 clamorous demonstration, it dispersed of its own accord, 
 and retired quietly, without the occurrence of any disorder 
 or accident. On the 28th, a Liberal ministry succeeded to 
 that which had just resigned. The advocate Bozzelli was 
 sent for to take part in it, and invited to draw up the new 
 
THE NEAPOLITAN CONSTITUTION. 55 
 
 Constitution. As a Liberal of 1820, Bozzelli had endured 
 with fgrtitude imprisonment and exile for the cause of 
 freedom. Much was expected from this choice, but the 
 hopes of the public were worse than disappointed. By a 
 sudden change of opinion, this veteran of liberalism, on 
 arriving at power, became hostile to liberal ideas and to the 
 great principle of Italian independence, to which he opposed 
 himself as a determined enemy. It was he who conceived 
 and prepared the whole re-actionary movements, who 
 destroyed that very Constitution which he had himself 
 dictated, who impeded the war of independence, and who 
 (transformed into the despicable courtier of Ferdinand) 
 encouraged and maintained the doctrine of Jesuitism and 
 the influence of Austria, — the two implacable enemies, to 
 attack whom his too confident fellow-countrymen had. 
 brought him forward. 
 
 Within a few days from his entrance into the ministry, 
 the Constitution so ardently expected by the nation made 
 its appearance. It proved to be on the model of that of 
 France of 1830, the narrow principles of which Bozzelli 
 had almost literally copied. Limited, however, as it was, 
 this Constitution was doubly useful to Italy, as it served not 
 only to change the political condition of the kingdom of 
 the two Sicilies, but to communicate new vigour to consti- 
 tutional ideas throughout the whole peninsula, the different 
 fractions of which, under the influence of example, exacted 
 as much from their Governments. This unanimous consti- 
 tutional movement throughout Italy, crowned with success 
 in the outset, would have secured the object at which it 
 ought above all to aim, that of expelling the foreigner, if 
 the selfishness, bad faith, and cowardice of the Neapolitan 
 Government had not led to the inauspicious events of the 
 loth May, and the deplorable recall of the expedition on 
 the banks of the Po, which had been destined to take part 
 in the war for Italian independence. 
 
 At this period re-appeared on the political and military 
 scene General Pepe, one of those tried heroic champions 
 
56 GENERAL PEPE. 
 
 who, through all the vicissitudes and convulsions of the 
 Italian peninsula, had never despaired of establishing a 
 powerful national Government, which should restore it to 
 the rank of a great European State. At fifteen years of age 
 a soldier of freedom at Naples, his native city, he was exiled 
 by the re-action of 1799. He served the same noble cause 
 on the plains of Marengo. Thrice he had the courage to 
 conspire against Murat, to oblige him to make concessions 
 to liberty. In 1820 he appeared at the head of that glo- 
 rious insurrection which extorted a Constitution from 
 Ferdinand I. Condemned a second time to exile, after an 
 absence of twenty-seven years the events of 1848 again 
 restored him to the bosom of his country. Had this veteran, 
 but resolute, defender of Italian liberty no other title to 
 honour but his heroic defence of Venice, it would be suffi- 
 cient to immortalise his name. Gen. Pepe left Paris for 
 Naples on the 16th March. On arriving at Genoa, he heard 
 of the almost simultaneous revolutions of Berlin, Vienna, 
 and Milan. He had no sooner landed at Naples than he 
 presented himself before the King, and addressed him in 
 language, the brusque frankness of which greatly surprised 
 the despot, who had been used from infancy to the grossest 
 flattery from his courtiers. The General advised his 
 Sovereign to give larger and more liberal bases and propor- 
 tions to the new Constitution, as the only means to render 
 it really useful and durable. The King allowed him to 
 speak on, smiled, and showed no disposition to profit by 
 the advice. The English Minister at Naples was far from 
 approving of the frank discourse of General Pepe, but after 
 a private interview with him, he became convinced of the 
 accuracy of his views. 
 
 Dreading the popularity of Pepe, the King endeavoured 
 to gain him over, and notwithstanding all his dislike to 
 the man, offered him the Premiership and the portfolios 
 of the war and navy departments. The General, who was 
 not of a character to sacrifice his political convictions for 
 power, declined, and instead of becoming Premier, gladly 
 
THE PATRIOTIC EXPEDITION. 57 
 
 accepted the chief command of the Neapolitan expedition 
 against the Austrians in Upper Italy. It was only with 
 Ihe greatest aversion, and with a secret design to withdraw 
 at the earliest possible moment, that the King yielded to 
 necessity and sent his troops to the scene of war. 
 
 No intrigues were left untried by this Prince, suspicious, 
 double-dealing, and perfidious by character, under the 
 instigation of the retrograde party and the Jesuits, to 
 hinder the formation of the expedition and delay its depar- 
 ture; spite of all obstacles, however, the preparations were 
 completed. It was well fitted out in men, arms, and equip- 
 ment ; but as to the spirit of the troops, the soldiers looked 
 up entirely to their King, who, neglecting all the rest of the 
 nation, flattered the army, lavishing upon it privileges, 
 money, and favours. The consequence was that it was ex- 
 clusively for him and for his personal interests that they 
 were ready to fight. In the Italian cause they took no in- 
 terest whatever; it was indeed only understood by the 
 officers and a few subalterns. The army, with few excep- 
 tions, was deficient in good general officers. As to those to 
 whom commands in the expedition had been offered, being 
 men of the re-actionary or absolute party, and who guessed 
 beforehand that the secret intentions of the King were 
 destructive of all liberty, almost all pleaded age or infirmi- 
 ties in excuse for their refusal, which the King in private 
 commended as a proof of attachment to his Royal person. 
 It is worth mentioning, in order to show to how great a 
 depth the courtier's profession can debase human nature, 
 that the same Generals who had availed themselves of such 
 false and miserable pretexts to avoid participation in a war 
 against the enemies of Italian independence, found them- 
 selves all at once restored to vigour and health, when they 
 solicited and obtained leave from the King to assist in the 
 massacre of their fellow-citizens of Sicily. 
 
 The expedition for North Italy, amounting to 16,000 
 men, and which was to be followed immediately by 
 another of 24,000, left Naples accompanied by the bless- 
 
58 THE EXPEDITION IN NORTH ITALY. 
 
 ings and ardent good wishes of all true Italians. But 
 the intrigues of the retrograde and Jesuitical party 
 created difficulties through the whole line of road that the 
 army had to pass. The Papal Government, not daring 
 to refuse it a passage, pretended, among other things, 
 that the Neapolitan army ought not to cross its States in 
 larger numbers than by one battalion at a time, and at 
 certain intervals of distance, so that if this strange system 
 of marching had been adopted, the last battalion would 
 have arrived on the field of operations after the war was 
 over. This may be noticed, in passing, as a proof of the 
 good faith and patriotism of Pius IX. Having reached 
 Bologna, General Pepe proposed to the King Charles 
 Albert to place the troops and himself at his disposal. At 
 this conjuncture news arrived of the terrible catastrophe 
 of the 15th May, and at the same time General Pepe 
 received orders to return with his troops to Naples. The 
 General, who had accepted the command only with the 
 honourable object of co-operating in the deliverance of his 
 country, refused to submit to the fatal injunction of his 
 Government. The city of Bologna, one of the richest and 
 most populous of Italy, and of all those subject to Papal 
 absolutism, that which detests it most, celebrated this 
 generous refusal by a public illumination, and by a most 
 brilliant civic festival. In the midst of this festival, so 
 remarkable for its patriotic spirit, General Pepe received 
 from Charles Albert an order to repair with his army to 
 the Venetian provinces, where the Austrians had just 
 received considerable reinforcements. There the Roman 
 troops, commanded by Generals Durando and Ferrari, were 
 stationed, having determined to serve the good cause in 
 spite of the Pope's unwillingness. They were directed to 
 unite themselves with Pepe's forces, and to act under his 
 orders. But the Jesuitical and re-actionary parties had 
 made choice of the city of Ferrara as the centre of their 
 plots, and were there backed by the Cardinal Legate. 
 Under their influence the first division of the Neapolitan 
 
ITS RECALL TO NAPLES. 59 
 
 army sent thither revolted against its chief, deserted in 
 numbers the noble cause they had sworn to serve, and 
 returned home. Still a considerable number of officers, 
 and more particularly those of superior rank, made this 
 retrograde movement with the utmost repugnance. Colonel 
 Lahalle, obliged to accompany his brigade in this retreat, 
 preferred death to dishonour, and destroyed with his own 
 hand a life which had become a burthen to him from the 
 moment that he could no longer employ it for the liberation 
 of his country. Colonel Testa, in an agony of despair, 
 died suddenly from apoplexy. General Pepe, abandoned 
 by his.troops, bitterly lamented, not the loss of his command, 
 but that of so favourable an opportunity to exercise it for 
 the good of his country. He crossed the Po with his whole 
 staff and a few detachments, which remained faithful to the 
 good cause and followed him to Venice, whither he had 
 been ordered by the Provisional Government. He landed 
 there on the 13th June, amid the acclamations of that brave 
 population, who recognised in the veteran an illustrious 
 supporter of that liberty which they had lately won, and 
 which for three months they had been defending with 
 heroic disinterestedness and unshaken constancy. 
 
 To avoid interrupting the narrative of this expedition, 
 which so deplorably miscarried, we have hitherto merely 
 alluded to the insurrection at Naples on the 15th May. It is 
 a most painful task to describe the events of a day so horrible, 
 and which will be for ever infamous in the annals of Italy. 
 
 The ministry, then presided over by Signor Troja, found 
 all its efforts unavailing to bend the harsh and obstinate 
 character of the King to any observance of constitutional 
 principles. That Prince's thirst for absolute power was 
 more than a necessity ; it was a second nature, against 
 which the sanctity of oaths, or the happiness and honour 
 of the nation, availed nothing. The trifling amount of 
 apparent good done by Ferdinand was invariably the result 
 of fear, a sentiment which yet possesses him day and night, 
 and pursues him everywhere. 
 
60 BREACH BETWEEN THE KING AND THE CHAMBER. 
 
 Towards the middle of May, when the Legislative 
 Chamber was about to open, all the deputies had arrived 
 at Naples. In the programme of the solemn ceremony of 
 opening, published by the ministry, it was announced 
 that the deputies were to take the oath of fidelity to the 
 King and the Statuto, not the slightest allusion being 
 made to the right conferred upon the Assembly on the 
 3rd of April, " to extend and modify the Constitution." 
 While naturally provoked at this first and dangerous 
 encroachment on their rights, proceeding from the bad 
 faith of the King, the Deputies were summoned, by the 
 ex-minister Ruggiero, to assemble in the Town-hall of 
 Monte Oliveto. A debate took place on the form of the 
 oath to be taken, and a violent altercation ensued : this 
 was followed by bitter invectives against the Ministry, 
 whom the Chamber accused of connivance with the King 
 to deceive it. The people, informed of this rupture, became 
 alarmed, and took part with the Chamber, which they 
 respected as representing the nation. Already they sus- 
 pected the hostile intentions of their Prince, who, among 
 other misdeeds, had always refused to permit the reinforce- 
 ments promised to General Pepe to join him. The mine 
 was already charged, and but a spark was required to 
 explode it : the debate on the form of the oath furnished 
 that spark. Barricades were raised in the Toledo by 
 persons unknown. Several deputies, alarmed at this un- 
 expected consequence of their discussion, ran to entreat 
 the people to pull down the barricades, which threatened 
 to smother liberty in their ruins ; but the appeals were 
 in vain. It was never ascertained by what hands the 
 barricades had been thrown up ; but it is a fact that 
 neither the police nor the troops made any attempt to 
 prevent their erection. The deputy Camillo Caccace, 
 with the consent of the Ministry, having obtained the 
 Royal consent that, in order to avoid the consequences of 
 a conflict, the deputies should proceed to business with- 
 out taking any oath at all, tranquillity appeared to be 
 
MURDEROUS CONFLICT IN THE STREETS. 61 
 
 restored ; but during the night, persons, still unknown, 
 made haste to agitate and re-kindle the torch of civil 
 discord. 
 
 All this occurred on the 14th May. On the 15th, in 
 the morning, the greater part of the deputies repaired to 
 the Palace of Olive to, in the belief that they were going 
 to assist at the happy inauguration of Parliamentary 
 Government. But at eleven o'clock, the fire of musketry 
 commenced near their place of assembling. The attack 
 came from the King's troops. The few National Guards 
 under arms bravely maintained their ground under great 
 disadvantages. The King's Guards turned tail upon them, 
 but the Swiss mercenaries, intoxicated with wine and the 
 hope of pillage, immediately took their place. To the 
 musketry which decimated the people, were soon added the 
 grape-shot of the horse artillery, and the cannon balls of 
 the forts commanding the town. During the sanguinary 
 struggle, which became general, the diplomatic corps 
 repaired to the King's palace, but not one of its members 
 pronounced a single word to appease the King's wrath, 
 and to save the innocent city; not even Lord Napier, 
 though he had always shewn in public such sympathy for 
 the Liberal party. Naples was abandoned to all the horrors 
 of an enemy's town stormed by barbarous hordes, without 
 the slightest step being taken by a single member of the 
 representatives of civilised nations to arrest* the horrible 
 carnage, 
 
 On this deplorable day, the deputies conducted themselves 
 with that calm dignity and civic courage so difficult to 
 sustain in moments of extremity, and which, four years 
 after, were wanting on a larger theatre, on the part of an 
 assembly much more powerful and experienced than that 
 of Naples. The struggle continued with desperation, and 
 with great bloodshed, until evening. The National Guards, 
 consisting almost exclusively of mere youths, in vain per- 
 formed prodigies of valour. A lawless soldiery abused 
 their victory with unheard-of fury and cruelty. The unfoiv 
 G 
 
62 OUTRAGES OF THE ROYAL AGENTS. 
 
 tunate city was subjected to horrors of every description. 
 The barbarity of the executioners in the pay of Ferdinand 
 II. surpassed that of Cardinal Ruffo and his brigands. 
 Bands of Lazzaroni, excited by the police, and inflamed 
 with the desire of plunder, entered pell-mell with soldiers 
 of all arms into the houses of such citizens as were noted 
 for their liberal opinions or their wealth, and revelled with 
 them in acts of atrocity. Murder, rape, pillage, and incen- 
 diarism were the glorious exploits of these heroes of despo- 
 tism. The gayest city in Italy presented on the evening 
 of the 15th a scene of horror that it is more easy to imagine 
 than to describe. Palaces were on fire and stained with 
 blood ; the streets were strewed with corpses and with the 
 wounded, whom the agents of tyranny amused themselves 
 with despatching, and insulting in their last agonies ; men, 
 women, and children, even the aged, were heaped up in 
 death promiscuously together ; and over all this scene of 
 desolation the air was ringing with the ferocious hurrahs of 
 the populace and the soldiery, who cried out all together, 
 with all their might, " The King for ever /" The King, 
 who had shut himself up within the walls of his palace, in 
 the midst of his favourites and of the Jesuits, listened with 
 greedy ears to the groans of the victims and the shouts of 
 the victors, and, rubbing his hands joyfully, gave thanks to 
 God and St. Januarius for having granted him so glorious 
 a triumph ! • 
 
 To justify in the eyes of Europe the hideous transactions 
 of this day, the Government had the audacity, for want of 
 a better expedient, to throw the responsibility on the 
 republican party. But Europe was not the dupe of this 
 Jesuitical imposture. If it were possible to cross-examine 
 those unknown instruments who were the first to erect the 
 barricades, the truth might be discovered, and the strongest 
 refutation given to the false assertion of the Government. 
 
 In this frightful conflict the people fought for liberty, the 
 army for absolute power, and the Swiss for their pay. 
 These mountaineers themselves had become crafty in this 
 
CONDUCT OF THE SWISS GUARDS. 63 
 
 school of corruption, and kept np even to the very moment 
 of the combat, a feigned appearance of friendship for the 
 people, whom they offered and from whom they sought a 
 fraternal embrace. Some of their officers, admitted to visit 
 the barricades, swore by their national honour never to fight 
 against the citizens. All this mock display of fraternity 
 was a mere stratagem to obtain opportunities to study at 
 leisure, and without danger, the construction of the barri- 
 cades, in order to take them in flank, or to storm them more 
 easily at the moment of attack. Their ferocity as robbers 
 and assassins far exceeded that of the Neapolitan soldiers 
 and the Lazzaroni. They are a disgrace to the country of 
 William Tell and Stauffacker, whose degenerate descendants 
 have cast from them, for a shameful money-price, the hal- 
 berds and pikes rendered illustrious by their ancestors on 
 the fields of Morat and of Sempach, and have grasped the 
 knife of despotism destined to the slaughter of those popula- 
 tions which attempt the conquest of liberty. If it be true 
 that there exist mysterious ties, an invisible connexion 
 between past and living generations, the spirit of Winkelried 
 must have shuddered with holy indignation at beholding the 
 degradation and infamy of his degenerate descendants. 
 
 g2 
 
CHAPTEK VIII. 
 
 The Revolution of Milan. 
 
 History has in its annals few more brilliant pages than 
 that which records the revolution at Milan, in March, 1848. 
 We have already described in our first chapter the state of 
 oppression and discontent into which the Italian provinces 
 were plunged under the Austrian domination. It was a 
 system of suspicion, inquisition, and persecution, carried 
 out to the utmost extent. 
 
 The nomination of a Lombard to the Archbishopric of 
 Milan had gratified the feelings of the Milanese and of all 
 Lombardy. On the evening of the 1st September, 1847, 
 being the day of the investiture of the new archbishop, an 
 immense crowd was assembled in honour of the event in 
 the square before his palace, which was brilliantly illumi- 
 nated with gas. In those days Italy had still full confidence 
 in the pretended liberalism of Pius IX. ; accordingly, not 
 content with joyous outcries intended for their archbishop, 
 the people, in the exuberance of their enthusiasm, added 
 acclamations still louder in honour of the Pontiff. To the 
 cries of "Long live Pius IX.," vociferated by numerous 
 groups of the citizens, other groups, not less uuiucroue, 
 responded by popular hymns sung in his praise. To love 
 Pius IX. was then a great crime in the sight of the 
 Austrian Government, who considered, or pretended to 
 consider, him as the personification of Liberal principles. 
 Whilst the dense and peaceable crowd imagined that 
 they were assisting at a festival partly religious, partly 
 civic, on a signal from the famous Bolza, captain-in-chief 
 of the Austrian police, a numerous detachment of his 
 agents, with sabres concealed under their great coats, 
 
LEGAL APPLICATION FOR REFORMS. 65 
 
 stole out of the gates of the Archbishop's Palace, where 
 they had remained on the watch, and, without any pre- 
 vious warning, fell like so many tigers on the people, 
 who, thus taken by surprise and unarmed, were dispersed 
 with sabre strokes. In their blind fury, the swords of 
 these assassins spared neither age nor sex. The oppressors 
 of Italy thirsted for blood, and were determined, for once, 
 to satisfy themselves one way or another. By a cruel 
 irony, which placed in a still stronger light their bar- 
 barity, they had purposely awaited a moment when the 
 whole city had made a holiday, to massacre the inhabi- 
 tants and to stain its streets with blood. 
 
 But this bloodshed did not intimidate the people. The 
 outrage which had been perpetrated, on the contrary, in- 
 creased public irritation, and from that day there occurred 
 incipient demonstrations of hatred and contempt for a 
 Government which hypocritically styled itself paternal. 
 The people carried their boldness so far as to run in 
 crowds to the Cathedral, to render united thanks to the 
 Almighty for the victory of the Palermitans over the 
 Bourbon of Naples. In the midst of this popular fer- 
 mentation, the advocate Nazari, one of the deputies of 
 that illusory institution called the Central Congregation, 
 had the boldness to draw up, and to have presented to the 
 Viceroy by his colleagues, a respectful complaint as to the 
 deplorable state into which Lombardy was plunged, and 
 with it a petition to the Emperor, begging him to improve 
 its condition by some useful reforms, which were specified. 
 The Viceroy, a man of cold, dissimulating, and avaricious 
 character, treating the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom as a 
 farm to be managed to the best advantage, promised, as 
 usual, his good offices with the Emperor, his nephew, — 
 and, as usual, also, the matter went no further. 
 
 The Government began, however, to feel some uneasiness 
 at the position taken by the people, and neglected no occa- 
 sion, or even pretext, to keep down their discontent by 
 the display of force. Among the pacific demonstrations 
 G3 
 
66 UNIVERSAL DISCONTINUANCE OF SMOKING. 
 
 adopted by the population of Milan, and immediately- 
 imitated throughout the kingdom, that of discontinuing 
 to smoke was the most unanimously and scrupulously 
 observed. The intention of this total abstinence from a 
 favourite habit was to deprive Government of not a few 
 millions of revenue, accruing from the manufacture and 
 sale of tobacco. On the 3rd January, 1848, by agreement 
 with the directors of the military force, the police let 
 loose a hundred convicts (the refuse of society could 
 alone serve its purpose,) of whom one part had orders 
 to smoke in the streets to irritate the people, and another 
 part to insult all the smokers they met with, no matter 
 whether citizens or military. This was an infamous 
 stratagem, with the design of making the people suffer 
 all the consequences of these insults, viz., the assassina- 
 tions which the police wished to commit. At that hour 
 of the day, when the population were quietly thronging 
 the most public quarters of the town, several bands of 
 Hungarian Grenadiers and Austrian Dragoons, whom 
 their officers had previously inflamed with strong drink, 
 with cigars in their mouths, rushed upon the peaceable 
 inhabitants in different parts of the town, and not ven- 
 turing to attack the young men whom they suspected of 
 carrying concealed arms, they wantonly wounded with 
 their sabres, and killed women, elderly persons, and chil- 
 dren. So blinded were these barbarians by passion and 
 wine, that among the killed and wounded might be 
 reckoned persons in Government employ and friends to 
 it, with others who were their fellow-countrymen, and 
 even some police agents. 
 
 Marshal Eadetzky, who by the proclamation of martial 
 law had now become dictator, had such citizens as appeared 
 to him most violent suddenly arrested by night, and sent 
 prisoners into Austria. On the 17th March he also sent off 
 from Milan the Viceroy with his family, and the civil 
 governor, who was of a weak but moderate character. 
 Numerous patrols of horse and foot paraded the city day 
 
MARSHAL RADETZKY— HIS CHARACTER. 67 
 
 and night in all directions, disturbing and insulting citizens 
 while pursuing their occupations. Radetzky was then in 
 - the 84th year of his age. Beloved by the soldiers, and 
 having risen from their ranks, he was highly exasperated 
 against the inhabitants of Milan, for, according to his prin- 
 ciples of absolute rule, the executive force being everything 
 in the state, to resist the rule of bayonets, or even their 
 abuse, and to dare even to complain, was high treason. 
 Whatever may have been averred, Radetzky is not that 
 cowardly and ferocious tyrant which it has been endeav- 
 oured to make him appear j and those who have run him 
 down to the level of Haynau and Windischgratz, could do 
 so only in a fit of anger, possibly very excusable on account 
 of all the mischief he has done, or which he did not pre- 
 vent. The forced solitude in which he lived allowed him 
 no opportunities of intercourse with the population, whom 
 he knew only from the unjust and calumnious accounts 
 given him by military dependents, entirely composed of 
 men the systematic enemies of everything Italian, and 
 ignorant of the real character of the people among whom 
 they lived isolated and unknown, complete strangers to 
 their manners and ideas. On the other hand, the police took 
 great pains to envenom still more the Marshal's mind 
 against every thing by name or nature Italian. He had 
 served with distinction in the campaigns of 1814-15 against 
 France, under the orders of the Commander-in-Chief, 
 Prince de Schwartzenberg, whose operations he had carried 
 into effect as Quarter-Master General. He was, therefore, 
 perfectly capable of commanding an army, and he would 
 not have acted his part as military chief so miserably on 
 the occasion of this insurrection had not his sovereign 
 contempt for the people caused him utterly to mistake 
 their intentions and their courage. Military nonchalance 
 prevented him from perceiving the ear of the lion peeping 
 out from beneath the skin of the lamb. He had adopted 
 the advice given some months previously by General Fic- 
 quelmont. Commissary Extraordinary for the Emperor 
 
68 IMPORTANCE OF MILAN. 
 
 at Milan, in derision of the patriotic demonstrations. 
 " I have found out (said that officer) an excellent plan for 
 making the good people of Milan forget their enthusiasm 
 for Pius IX. and their patriotic sentiments. At the end 
 of the Carnival I will bring forward, at the theatre of 
 La Scala, the famous Elsler (a celebrated female dancer, 
 of Vienna,) and the applause, ovations, and demonstra- 
 tions will be transferred entirely to her." The sketch 
 which we have just drawn of Marshal Radetzky will 
 not, perhaps, suit the taste of all his enemies ; but 
 although we respect the opinion of others, our own motto 
 is, " The truth above all." Besides, it appears to us 
 that the military merit of this hostile chief renders our 
 victories more glorious and our defeats less humiliating. 
 
 The news which arrived from all parts respecting the 
 Constitutions granted to Naples, Florence, and Turin, 
 and the Republic, declared in France, (! ! !) contributed to 
 inflame still more the inhabitants of Milan. This city, 
 by its wealthy territory, the extent of its commerce, and 
 the character of its inhabitants, endowed with courage, 
 taste for the fine arts, and scientific knowledge, is one 
 of those places which seem destined to become still 
 greater and stronger when rising from beneath their 
 own ruins. Such was the fortune of Milan after its 
 destruction by Uraja, and its dismantling by Frederic 
 Barbarossa. In the time of the Gauls, Milan was the 
 capital of Upper Italy, — u Mediolanum Gallorum Caput." 
 Virgil styled it JEmula Romce. In the first ages of 
 the Christian era, it was the only town which resisted 
 without schism the absolute power of Papal Rome ; the 
 oriental rite established by its Bishop Ambrosius, (rito 
 Ambrosiano,) and which has ever since existed in the 
 church of Milan, remains as an irrefragable proof of it. 
 The corporation of Milan was the first in Europe that 
 drew up its infantry into compact and solid battalions 
 against the impetuosity of the feudal cavalry ; it was 
 with this infantry that it defeated the army of the 
 
DEMONSTRATION AGAINST AUSTRIAN RULE. 69 
 
 Emperor Barbarossa at Lignano. Under its Dukes, 
 Milan was very near becoming the capital of all Italy, 
 and Napoleon made it the metropolis of a new kingdom. 
 Such a city naturally possessed the consciousness of its 
 right and capability to be something more than the 
 simple head-quarters of the provincial rule of the oli- 
 garchy of Vienna, completely subservient to all its 
 caprices and interests. 
 
 On the 17th March, an immense concourse of people, in 
 defiance of the threats of Radetzky, repaired to the City- 
 hall, loudly demanding the establishment and immediate 
 equipment of the civic guard. The Podesta (Mayor,) 
 Count Casati, endeavoured to appease the multitude, but 
 hurried on by it, he repaired at its head to the Palace of 
 Government. The two grenadiers who guarded the en- 
 trance, attempting to keep back the people, fell under 
 the blows of their assailants, who disarmed the rest of 
 the company on duty, and invaded the palace as victors, 
 respecting, however, religiously the furniture and the 
 archives. All the counsellors had fled. The Governor, 
 Count O'Donnell, left alone, and terrified, granted all 
 that was required of him, signed orders, and was carried 
 off prisoner by a detachment of citizens, who, however, 
 treated him respectfully, and obliged the most ardent of 
 the crowd to respect him also. The insurrection, like 
 burning lava from a volcano, overran all the streets, its 
 partfsnne an-ying out « Independence for ever | Italy for 
 ever ! Pius IX. for ever !" Foreseeing the consequences 
 of this movement, the women, old men, and children set 
 to work to unpave the streets, and in the midst of a 
 tumult of joy carried paving-stones up to the different 
 stories of the houses, to make use of them in case of 
 attack. A thousand tri-coloured flags, saluted with enthusi- 
 astic shouts, made their appearance, as if by enchantment, 
 at all the balconies, and in the twinkling of an eye the 
 national cockades, which the ladies threw from the win- 
 dows like a shower of flowers, glistened upon every one's 
 
70 POPULAR INSURRECTIONARY PREPARATIONS. 
 
 hat and breast. In the midst of this universal joy, volleys 
 of musketry began to be fired. The guns of the castle, to 
 the number of sixty, and the batteries of the artillery 
 regiments, opened their fire upon the city, which answered 
 the attack by sounding the alarm bell everywhere. 
 Radetzky, surprised and confounded by this sudden and 
 unlooked-for explosion of popular indignation, hastened to 
 shut himself up with his staff in the castle, from whence 
 he issued a violent proclamation, threatening the town with 
 fire, pillage, ruin, and death. At the same moment a Bo- 
 hemian battalion rushed on the city-hall, dispersed the 
 people, killed some citizens, and made several prisoners, 
 who were afterwards carried off to the castle. 
 
 On the 19th the weather was wet, cold, and foggy. The 
 enemy had taken up his quarters in the immense cathedral, 
 from the roof of which the Tyrolese (capital marksmen) 
 fired upon the citizens, almost sure of their aim. He also 
 occupied some other points in the centre of the city, which 
 he fortified. The people on their side were not idle ; more 
 than seventeen hundred barricades were thrown up in a 
 few hours, and the owners of the neighbouring houses 
 carried out all their heaviest furniture to strengthen them. 
 They 'were constructed ef heavy flag-stones, surrounded 
 with bedsteads, sideboards, and gentlemen's carriages, and 
 in this promiscuous assemblage of valuable articles might 
 even be remarked costly pianos : it was with the sincerest 
 joy that the owners thus sacrificed a par* of thpir fortune, 
 for the defence of their country. Under cover of these 
 barricades, the citizens took aim, and brought down their 
 enemies with fowling-pieces ; and they sallied out from 
 time to time to attack detachments of troops, whom they 
 defeated and disarmed. It was thus that the Milanese, 
 after two days of unequal contest, got possession of several 
 thousand muskets, torn from the hands of the Austrians. 
 We may apply to the Milanese what Holy Scripture says of 
 the workmen of Nehemiah : — " They which builded on the 
 wall, and they that bare burdens, with those that laded, 
 
ATTACKS UPON THE MILITARY. <1 
 
 every one with one of his hands wrought in the work, and 
 with the other hand held a weapon." Neh. iv. 17. 
 
 As soon as they were sufficiently armed, the people 
 stormed the barracks of St. Celse and of St. Simon, where, 
 after an obstinate resistance, they defeated a numerous 
 battalion of police soldiers, the most violent of all, and 
 consequently the most detested. The palace of the Viceroy, 
 and the great guardhouse of the Piazza de' Mercanti, fell 
 also into the hands of the insurgents, in spite of the four 
 pieces of cannon which from each of those places poured 
 grape shot on the assailants. They afterwards took the 
 palace of the Criminal Tribunal, several other barracks, 
 the Cathedral, the Hotel of the General Directory of Police, 
 from which they set free the political prisoners, and the 
 Hotel of the Military Engineers. This last was defended 
 by 800 picked soldiers, who for several hours kept up a 
 well-directed and murderous fire. But a young man, a 
 cripple, of the lowest class of the people, by name Sotto- 
 corna, advanced intrepidly under a shower of bullets up to 
 the great door, which was barred, and throwing away 
 his crutches introduced some combustibles into the chinks 
 of it, and setting fire to them soon burned down the door. 
 The crowd rushed into the court yard, fortified according 
 to the most approved rules, and disarmed and made prison- 
 ers of all that remained of the numerous garrison. 
 
 All these successive advantages were the fruits of as 
 many conflicts, in which the people always came off victo- 
 rious. Observing the rapid progress of the insurrection, 
 Radetzky sent to the City Council a colonel with a flag 
 of truce to obtain an armistice, which was refused by the 
 people, who replied unanimously " We will rather die than 
 compromise with the enemy." 
 
 But, although her people were victorious, Milan re- 
 mained in a very critical situation. The hostile army, 
 though considerably weakened by the numbers of dead, 
 wounded, deserters, and prisoners, was still 16,000 strong, 
 with numerous batteries as well of cannon as mortars, 
 
72 APPEAL OF MILAN TO LOMBARDY. 
 
 which unceasingly discharged balls and bombs on the city. 
 All the gates were in the enemy's hands, so that commu- 
 nication with the country being precluded, Milan was 
 reduced to the utmost extremity. It was then that, by a 
 contrivance equally new and ingenious, the besieged let 
 off a number of small balloons, which, descending in dif- 
 ferent parts of the country, spread for many leagues around 
 the news of the insurrection and its progress, and at the 
 same time a great many proclamations invoking the popu- 
 lation to revolt and to hasten to the assistance of the city. 
 This impromptu mail-post, which the bullets of the Croa- 
 tian riflemen could not reach, produced the happiest results. 
 All the surrounding villages rose and hastened as one man 
 to the succour of the besieged capital. The Swiss of the 
 canton of Tessino, and the people of Parma and Placenza, 
 informed by the fall of these balloons of the critical state 
 of Milan, also sent assistance. On the 20th, the City 
 Council constituted itself a provisional government ; a civic 
 guard also was established, in which ail the citizens from 
 the age of twenty to sixty eagerly enrolled themselves. 
 The astronomers of Brera were charged to observe contin- 
 ually with their telescopes everything that occurred in the 
 country round the town, and to keep the Government 
 hourly informed of the results of their observations. The 
 insurgents being deficient in artillery, the lucky idea 
 struck them of making cannon of wood strongly and care- 
 fully hooped with iron, from each of which they could fire 
 a certain number of charges with good effect. As to gun- 
 powder, the chemists of the city manufactured it day and 
 night, and distributed it as fast as it was ready. 
 
 Meanwhile the other towns of Lombardy had followed 
 the example of Milan : Brescia, Bergamo, Como, Lecco, 
 Varese, Monza, Cremona, and Pavia, had all more or less 
 valiantly fought against their respective numerous garri- 
 sons, which were either put to flight or made prisoners. 
 Each of these towns had to regret the death of some 
 citizens, but everywhere the loss of the enemy was beyond 
 
UNIVERSALITY OF THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM. 73 
 
 comparison more considerable. Mantua, — Mantua the 
 strong — itself, was for an instant in the hands of the people, 
 hut the timorous and fatal moderation of its Bishop, 
 who unfortunately impressed upon the minds of the in- 
 habitants ideas of conciliation, paralysed their patriotic 
 alacrity, and thus left open a sure and almost impregnable 
 refuge for the defeated Austrian army. Two Italian bat- 
 talions, incorporated in the enemy's army, came, however, 
 to the determination of deserting in a body. All the bells 
 of the towns and villages continued their clangour unceas- 
 ingly. It is hardly possible to form an idea of the effect 
 which this universal alarm bell produced on the spirits of 
 the enemy ; their own funeral knell could not have 
 unnerved and alarmed them more. 
 
 The struggle continued without interruption. The enemy 
 levelled pieces of artillery against each gate of Milan, and 
 their frequent discharges raked the long streets beyond. 
 Idle lads amused themselves with picking up the balls, 
 which, ill-directed by the stupified artillery-men, did but 
 little harm, and mounting the barricades in bravado, they 
 sent them back again, crying out " Aim better !" It must 
 be admitted that the Austrian gunners had a terrible time 
 of it : no sooner did they come forward to reload their artil- 
 lery, than dexterous sportsmen fired upon them from the 
 windows, and shot them down beside their gun carriages. 
 Young priests disguised as sportsmen, and even ladies, took 
 arms and mixed themselves with the combatants, and 
 assisted to thin the ranks of the enemy. A single lady 
 disarmed and made prisoners of three police guards : another, 
 Signora Sassi, shot from the windows of her house several 
 Croats, whilst the bullets of the enemy always missed her. 
 At every wound that a citizen received, he cried out "Italy 
 for ever !" and continued the fight. " Italy for ever !" was 
 the last cry of the dying. A volume would be wanted to 
 describe the heroic deeds and achievements of the people 
 of Milan during these five glorious days. Never had such 
 a frank and cordial fraternal feeling pervaded all classes of 
 the citizens. As for the women, some brought provisions 
 H 
 
74 HUMANITY OF THE VICTORIOUS PEOPLE. 
 
 and ammunition to the combatants, and loaded their arms ; 
 others prepared cartridges and bullets, or lint for the 
 wounded, each rivalling the others in dressing their wounds 
 and relieving them with unaffected kindness, and without 
 any manner of distinction between friends and foes. The 
 rich distributed among the poor clothing, blankets, provi- 
 sions, and money. The churches, filled with that part of 
 the population which was incapable of fighting, resounded 
 day and night with the most ardent prayers to the Almighty 
 for protection to the cause of liberty. So noble an enterprise 
 could not be accomplished, unless sanctified by religion. 
 But what ought, above all, to excite our admiration for 
 these citizens, equally humane and courageous, is the fact 
 that, ill-used as they had been by the Austrian soldiers, no 
 sooner did an enemy fall into their hands, than he ceased 
 to be regarded as such ; they bestowed upon him the tender 
 appellation of M brother," and treated him accordingly. 
 When Bolza, the chief of the police shirr i, and the most active 
 and detested agent of Government, was taken prisoner by 
 the people, a deputation came to inquire of Charles Cattaneo, 
 member of the Council of War, whether he ought to be shot. 
 The reply was — " In killing him you will do a simple act of 
 justice ; but in sparing him, you will perform one of the most 
 exemplary virtue." Phocion and Aristides could not have 
 given a more sublime answer. 
 
 The Austrians, driven from the heart of the city, confined 
 their defence to the belt of bastions surrounding it, and to 
 the castle. It was necessary to dislodge them from the 
 bastions in order to open a communication with the surround- 
 ing country: this was the more urgent as provisions began 
 to fail. A handful of brave fellows, led on by the young, 
 rich, and valiant Manara (killed by a French bullet at Rome, 
 where he had the rank of Colonel) stormed the Porta Tosa, 
 obstinately defended by 2,000 men and six pieces of cannon. 
 This gate was carried, thanks to the invention, by a Milanese 
 engineer, of a moveable bulwark, composed of fagots and 
 other materials offering little resistance, which deadened 
 the effect of the enemy's grape-shot, and behind which the 
 
RETREAT OF RADETZKY. 75 
 
 assailants advanced without much loss. Subsequently the 
 Como-gate also was taken. It is impossible to give an 
 idea of the rapturous joy of the besieged while embracing 
 friends and brethren who had hastened to their help, and 
 who from without the walls had unceasingly harassed the 
 common enemy for two days past. 
 
 Radetzky, perceiving that the city was lost, and perhaps 
 from fear of the Piedmontese army, which was said to be 
 on its march to Milan, decided upon saving the wreck of 
 his own troops, who, weakened, disheartened, and stupified 
 at their defeat, commenced a retreat on the evening of the 
 22nd. To conceal this movement from the Milanese, the 
 sixty guns of the Castle continued their fire as usual, and 
 when the roar of the artillery ceased, smoke and flames in 
 vast volumes were seen issuing from the interior. They 
 rose from an immense pile of straw, carts, and bedsteads, 
 promiscuously heaped together, upon which the enemy 
 before his flight had thrown, with the intention of burning 
 them, his own dead, and the corpses of those citizens whom 
 he had dragged into the castle, and who had been delibe- 
 rately slaughtered. The intention was thus to conceal from 
 the victors a part both of his losses and his cruelties. The 
 Milanese and the detachments which had arrived from the 
 country, the former from their windows, and the latter from 
 the tops of trees, harassed the flying army on its retreat 
 along the bastions, and in this manner killed many more. 
 During the five days which the insurrection lasted, the 
 Milanese lost from 400 to 500 men, either in open warfare 
 or through assassination, and they had 300 wounded. On 
 the enemy's side there were 4,000 killed and wounded. Of 
 400 gunners whom he possessed on the 18th March, five 
 alone remained. The army which, according to the threats 
 of its chief, was within forty-eight hours to have cannonaded, 
 bombarded, sacked, burned, and destroyed Milan, utterly 
 beaten by the heroism of a civic population, fled for refuge 
 to the fortresses of the Mincio. 
 
 Future generations will accuse history of exaggeration, 
 H2 
 
76 BARBARITIES OF THE AUSTRIAN TROOPS. 
 
 on perusing the atrocities committed by this army during 
 its struggle with the Milanese. They will be astonished 
 upon meeting the recurrence of the horrors committed by 
 Attila, in the midst of the nineteenth century. Large 
 leaden medals, bearing the head of Pius IX., were picked 
 up, mixed with the grape-shot of the enemy, which the 
 Austrians had cast in the Castle, and fired upon the people 
 to turn into ridicule their enthusiasm for the Pope. This 
 derision of theirs covered, alas ! a most mournful pro- 
 phecy. During these five days, the soldiers pillaged and 
 burned the houses, after killing all the inhabitants who 
 had the misfortune to fall into their hands. We have 
 yet to relate incidents from the impression of which we 
 would willingly have spared our readers' feelings ; but the 
 office of historian involves the painful duty of exactitude 
 and truth above all things. Besides, the hideous picture 
 which we are obliged to exhibit will serve to explain and 
 justify to Englishmen that inextinguishable hatred which 
 must for ever separate the two nations — the oppressed and 
 the oppressors. 
 
 A priest was wantonly massacred on the steps of the 
 altar in the church of St. Bartholomew, at the moment that 
 he was explaining the Gospel. In a room in the suburbs 
 was found a group of twelve children crushed against the 
 walls still reeking with gore. Others were burnt alive 
 after being dipped in spirits of turpentine. Two were 
 discovered crucified upon a chest ; others transfixed with 
 bayonets to the trunks of trees, and expiring within sight 
 of their mothers, bound with cords, at a little distance 
 from their children. Another child was found still breath- 
 ing and carefully fastened to the breast of its young 
 mother, who had been assassinated. It still sucked the 
 corpse. Here was a refinement of cruelty worthy of 
 cannibals ! Before the half-closed eyes of several fathers 
 mortally wounded, and in order to aggravate the horror 
 of their agony, the assassins had strewn the heads of 
 their children, which they had cut off. A child torn 
 
BARBARITIES OF THE AUSTRIAN TROOPS. 77 
 
 from the womb of its mother, served as an object of sport 
 to these barbarians, who tossed it from one to another as 
 ""a ball, and the expiring mother witnessed this horrible 
 game. In the knapsack of a Croat prisoner were fonnd 
 two women's hands covered with rings. In the honse of 
 Signor Fortis, were found the mutilated corpses of eleven 
 persons, murdered in the midst of a drunken revel. In 
 the houses and gardens of the suburbs were discovered 
 many women whom these wretches, after ravishing them, 
 had deprived of sight, besides cutting off their tongues, 
 or hands and feet. Some of these victims of fearful bar- 
 barity were found in the agonies of death. Some unfor- 
 tunate persons were thrown alive into unslaked lime, or 
 into sewers ; others were smeared with pitch and slowly 
 burned to death, their dying groans accompanied by the 
 sneers of their executioners. Outside the Porta Vercellina 
 eight charred corpses were found in the oven of a public- 
 house ; and without the Porta Tosa, the entire family of 
 an innkeeper, consisting of eight persons, were swinging 
 in the air, hung up on the same tree. Two citizens, father 
 and son, were to be seen tied together, and hanging from a 
 palm-tree in the Boulevards ; and two others, brother and 
 sister, lying in a pool of blood, pierced through with the 
 same spit, and dead together, the assassins having left it 
 sticking in their corpses. 
 
 We should not yet conclude, were it not for fear of har- 
 rowing above measure the feelings of our readers ; it is 
 that apprehension alone which leads us to throw a veil 
 over scenes worthy of hell. 
 
 Eternal glory to the noble martyrs of Italian freedom ! 
 It is from their blood that, by the Divine help, shall one 
 day spring up the retribution of all these crimes, which 
 were alike the dishonour of the age and the disgrace of 
 humanity. The justice of God never fails of its object, 
 as is too often the case with that of men ! 
 
 h3 
 
CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 The Insurrection of Venice. 
 
 The insurrection of Venice, without having the grand and 
 striking proportions of that of Milan, bears in the annals 
 of history, and among those vicissitudes to which nations 
 are liable, a strange and peculiar character. 
 
 The shameful agreement by which Napoleon Bonaparte 
 yielded the Venetian provinces to Austria by the treaty of 
 Campo Formio, is well known. It was an arbitrary ces- 
 sion, made notwithstanding all those promises of inde- 
 pendence and liberty which had determined the people 
 of Venice to overturn a republic that counted fourteen 
 centuries of existence. After the battle of Austerlitz, 
 Napoleon took back from Austria these same provinces, 
 which he had no more right to appropriate than he had 
 previously to dispose of them to another. But these out- 
 rages on public rights will never cease until sovereigns 
 shall have ceased to consider nations as so many flocks 
 of sheep, to be turned to the best account, and destined 
 to be shorn, sold, and slaughtered. It is true that Napo- 
 leon endeavoured to elevate in some degree this noble and 
 unfortunate country by uniting it to those other fractions 
 of Upper Italy which then formed the Cisalpine Republic, 
 and out of the whole he created the kingdom of Italy. 
 After an existence in this form of eight years' duration, 
 which might have convinced even the enemies of the 
 Italian name of what Italy was still capable of becom- 
 ing, this kingdom was divided by the Holy Alliance, 
 which had overturned its founder, and which by its 
 despotic decisions, under the eternal pretext of putting 
 
CONSTITUTION OF THE LOMBARDO -VENETIAN KINGDOM. 79 
 
 into order the general interests of Europe, arranged 
 everything according to its own selfish views, disaffected 
 all the populations, and prepared unawares all the revolu- 
 tions which have broken out since the Congress of Vienna, 
 and which continue to menace all points of the Conti- 
 nent. The Allies, from gratitude for the services which 
 Austria had rendered them by abandoning Napoleon, 
 gave up to her Lombardy and the Venetian provinces, 
 the very garden of Europe; on the express condition, 
 however, that she should form them into a separate 
 state governed by laws in harmony with the habits and 
 manners of the Italian nation. Fearing to let slip 
 so advantageous a bargain by disputing the conditions, 
 Austria subscribed to everything, but with a mental 
 reservation not to keep her promises. On the 7th April, 
 1815, was published the Imperial proclamation consti- 
 tuting these provinces a kingdom, which, under the de- 
 nomination of Lombardo-Venetian, added a fresh stone 
 to that singular mosaic, known as the empire of Austria. 
 
 Of the promises therein made, not one was observed. 
 By it were established two Central Congregations, the one 
 at Milan and the other at Venice, on which was conferred 
 the right to represent to the Sovereign the wants and 
 wishes of the nation, with the improvements required by 
 its circumstances ; a Viceroy, to whom the Emperor was 
 to delegate full powers ; and a law of the press, which, 
 without conferring absolute liberty, gave a certain lati- 
 tude. All this was purely illusory. The Central Con- 
 gregations, composed, with some very few exceptions, 
 of creatures entirely devoted to the Government, well 
 paid, and suitably belaced, were, as to every question of 
 importance, condemned to the silence of the disciples of 
 Pythagoras, — a condition which was made the sine qud 
 non of their official existence. The Viceroy, insignificant 
 enough in the outset, gradually became a mere object of 
 parade, dependent in every respect and everywhere upon 
 the discretionary power of the police, and upon the omni- 
 
80 PARTIALITY OF THE AUSTRIAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 potent Aulic Council of Vienna. As to the latitude granted 
 to the press, those who at first imagined that they enjoyed 
 the right to use it, incurred imprisonment, exile, arid a 
 thousand persecutions as the reward of their patriotic 
 flights. 
 
 But what Austria never neglected, although of course 
 not included in the programme, was to give the best places 
 (especially in the Venetian provinces) to Austrians, who 
 invaded all branches of the political and judicial adminis- 
 tration of this kingdom. Thus the Italians found them- 
 selves deprived of all chance of employment in those 
 departments. Neither did Austria neglect to maintain 
 the taxes at the exorbitant rates to which Napoleon had 
 brought them during the last moments of his reign, when 
 he drained France and Italy to repair his tremendous 
 losses and reverses. These were now employed to glut 
 the oligarchy of Vienna, and fill up the breaches in its 
 shattered finances. The commerce of the Austro-German 
 provinces was moreover favoured, to the great detriment 
 of those in Italy* 
 
 All these abuses, which had occasioned so much injury 
 to the prosperity of the latter, bore the more heavily on 
 the Venetian provinces from their being less wealthy than 
 Lombardy, as well in agricultural as commercial resources. 
 The system of spoliation, in fact, ended by completely 
 impoverishing them. The unbounded predilection of the 
 Government for the city of Trieste, (whose docks are simply 
 the depots of the great Austrian commercial houses, as its 
 iahabitants are merely their factors and brokers,) completely 
 ruined Venice : even the tardy concession of freedom to the 
 port failed to retrieve its decline. This city, wliich before 
 the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope had been the 
 almost undisputed mistress of all the inland seas, and had 
 monopolised the commerce of Greece, Egypt, and India, 
 this once Queen of the Adriatic, was by a single stroke of 
 the pen of the Holy Alliance delivered up, bound hand and 
 foot, to Austria, who converted her into her humble vassal, 
 
VENETIAN REMONSTRANCES. 81 
 
 not to say her miserable slave. It was in this pitiful condi- 
 tion that Venice found herself in 1848. 
 
 What Nazari had done at Milan on the 7th December, 
 1847, the advocate Manin (whom we shall find at a later 
 period President of the new Republic,) did at Venice on the 
 22nd of the same month. To the respectful remonstrances 
 addressed to Government by that illustrious citizen, against 
 administrative abuses, Nicholas Tommaseo, an author of 
 distinction, added some on the abuses of the censorship. 
 As the reward of their zeal and courage these two person- 
 ages, who, as interpreters of public opinion, had trespassed 
 but little beyond their legal rights, (defined as they were by 
 the articles of the Imperial proclamation,) were thrown into 
 prison by the police, who hoped by this display of authority 
 to stifle in its birth the discontent of the people. 
 
 But the arrests produced a contrary effect. Indignant citi- 
 zens covered the walls next night with placards in honour of 
 Pius IX., invoking and saluting him as the saviour of Italy! 
 Nothing was gained by their being torn down, for they 
 immediately re-appeared in still greater numbers. Demon- 
 strations in honour of the Pope followed, in the theatre and 
 in the public squares. Fresh arrests having failed to stop 
 the popular fermentation, the Government had recourse to 
 arms, that ultima ratio of all rulers. The Austrian soldiers 
 began suddenly to attack and disperse assemblages of the 
 people with the bayonet, and the following day actually fired 
 upon them. Far from being intimidated by these acts of 
 aggression, the people prepared for resistance. They at first 
 answered the musket shots by showers of stones, the only 
 missiles at their disposal, but afterwards, carried away by 
 their courage, they boldly assailed the different detachments 
 of troops, and snatched from them their sabres, muskets, 
 and cartouche boxes. In the squares and streets children 
 of twelve and fourteen years of age might be seen defying 
 the Croat soldiers with sarcasms and grotesque gambols, 
 skipping under their very noses in the midst of the bullets. 
 When reinforcements left their quarters and crossed through 
 
82 PRETENDED ADMINISTRATIVE CONCESSIONS. 
 
 the city to assist the troops engaged in conflict, the inhabi- 
 tants, concealed in their houses, waylaid them while passing 
 through the narrowest and most crooked streets, and there 
 discharged upon them, from the roofs and windows, showers 
 of tiles, furniture, and stones, which crushed or put them 
 to flight. Whilst the mass of the people, excitedly their 
 national enthusiasm, were engaged in these chance fights, 
 men of intelligence occupied themselves in organising a 
 regular system of defence, and indicated in the first place 
 the points to be intercepted in order to disconcert the 
 tactics of the enemy. 
 
 Alarmed at the resolute posture assumed by the people, 
 the Government feigned to yield to their wishes, and 
 allowed full scope to their declamatory invectives, resolving 
 to repress and punish them as soon as it had the means. 
 At this conjuncture Count Palfy, the Governor, announced 
 to the people from his balcony that the Constitution had been 
 proclaimed at Trieste, and that it would soon reach Venice. 
 
 Upon this announcement, the people, so prone to undue 
 confidence, gave themselves up to the most lively joy. The 
 same evening the theatre, which had been for some time 
 deserted, was filled with a glad and noisy crowd. The next 
 day was borne in triumph to the square of St. Mark the 
 picture of Pius IX., (always this Pope ! Poor Italy !) This 
 they crowned with flowers, and all passers by took off their 
 hats. In their patriotic enthusiasm the people imagined a 
 banner of the Italian colours was the most fitting ornament 
 for the image of the Saviour of Italy, and a tri-coloured 
 flag was immediately unfurled by the side of the Pope's 
 portrait. These good people little foresaw what an immense 
 gulf was soon to separate the two objects which they had 
 just placed together as in effect belonging to one cause, 
 and whose union represented to their imagination the 
 truest symbols of liberty, the alpha and omega of the Italian 
 revolution. 
 
 As a proof of the good-will of the Government, the 
 citizens demanded the liberty of Manin and Tommaseo. 
 
THE INSURRECTION BEGUN. 83 
 
 The Governor was alarmed at this demand, but while 
 he deliberated on it, the people, losing patience, burst 
 open the prison doors, and carried the two generous 
 patriotic citizens on their shoulders to the great square. 
 Manin seized the first instant of his liberty to address 
 the Governor (who appeared in the balcony of his palace,) 
 entreating him to appease public agitation, and ensure the 
 re-establishment of order by conciliatory measures; but 
 the Governor, equally disgusted and surprised at language 
 so new to the ear of an Austrian functionary, shut himself 
 up in his apartments, after shrugging his shoulders by way 
 of reply. 
 
 The attitude of the people became more and more 
 threatening. On the 22nd of March, the City Council 
 called together a certain number of the most respectable 
 citizens, for the purpose of mutual deliberation on the 
 critical situation of their country. This assembly was 
 disturbed in the midst of its discussions by news of an 
 insurrection of the workmen of the arsenal, who had 
 murdered their director, the Austrian Colonel Maranovich. 
 Their object was to avenge themselves upon a superior 
 whose harshness and barbarity had long distressed and 
 irritated them. On the receipt of the news of this 
 deplorable event, a deputation, chosen among the mem- 
 bers of this assembly, and headed by the Podesta (Mayor) 
 Signor Correr, repaired immediately to the Governor to 
 endeavour for the last time to make him clearly under- 
 stand the state of things, and to prevent the effusion of 
 blood which threatened to flow in torrents. The Gover- 
 nor, confused and panic-stricken, resigned his functions 
 into the hands of General Zichy, military governor, 
 whose first act was to sign a convention, in virtue of 
 which himself and all his troops evacuated Venice, and 
 were conveyed to Trieste. The supreme power remained 
 in the hands of the City Council until the creation of a 
 Provisional Government. The civic guard having been 
 hastily formed, its commander, Mengaldo, sent a detach- 
 
84 THE REPUBLIC OF VENICE REVIVED. 
 
 ment to occupy the arsenal, and thence Manin had brought 
 to the great square an ancient standard, with the historical 
 effigy of the Lion of St. Mark. This was hailed by an 
 immense crowd with enthusiastic cries of " The Venetian 
 Republic for ever I" The next day Mengaldo drew up in 
 order of battle two battalions of the civic guard, whose 
 colours were immediately consecrated by the Cardinal 
 Patriarch of Venice. The Provisional Government, of 
 which Manin was appointed President, was proclaimed, 
 and received immediately the adhesion of all the public 
 functionaries. By degrees, as each provincial town be- 
 came free by the voluntary or forced evacuation of its 
 garrison, its people rallied to the Provisional Government 
 of Venice, which in this manner became recognised through- 
 out the provinces without the slightest opposition. 
 
 The expelled garrison fell back on Verona, the immense 
 and most costly fortifications of which city had, after many 
 years' labour, been just completed with the help of Italian 
 gold. It was thus that the Lombardo- Venetian popula- 
 tions, (as of old that of Alfort under the iron rod of 
 Gessler,) had been forced to construct, at their own 
 charge, a new and formidable fortress, destined to rivet 
 their chains, and to fix more firmly on their neck a foreign 
 yoke. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Liberal Movement in Tuscany. 
 
 It is necessary that the description of the Italian war of 
 1848 should be preceded by a few remarks on the move- 
 ments of Tuscany and Rome, the populations of which 
 participated so honourably in the campaign against the 
 Austrians. 
 
 We mentioned early in this series of chapters that the 
 movement in behalf of political freedom began in Tuscany 
 in the year 1846. Pamphlets clandestinely printed at that 
 period bore the character of a Liberal opposition, and they 
 were followed by protests written in the same sense and 
 signed by their authors. The one which made the greatest 
 sensation was the protest of the city of Pisa against the 
 establishment of a convent of nuns of the Sacred Heart, 
 already authorised by the Grand Ducal Government. The 
 professors of the University, whose signatures were the 
 most important, were admonished, and replied to this 
 warning by a fresh protest. The Government became 
 alarmed, and withdrew its permission for the establish- 
 ment of the convent. This fact, although in itself not 
 very important, gives rise to two considerations which are 
 immensely so, as exemplifying the moral, religious, and 
 political progress of the people of Italy. The first of these 
 considerations is that a manifestation on the part of the 
 professors and students of Pisa indicated the opinion of all 
 men of intelligence in Tuscany, since Pisa was then in 
 possession of an University celebrated for the talents of its 
 professors, and for the numerous students prosecuting their 
 studies within its walls ; and these, taken as a whole, con- 
 stituted the most enlightened portion of the population of 
 I 
 
86 INSTITUTION OF THE CIVIC GUARD. 
 
 Tuscany. The second consideration is, that to oppose the 
 foundation of a convent of the Sacred Heart was to declare 
 war against the Jesuits, from whom this institution pro- 
 ceeds, and by whom it is employed as a means of recruital. 
 It is an instrument for propagating their views, so much 
 the more powerful that they make use of it to instil their 
 doctrines into the hearts of young girls, all of good family, 
 and destined to become mothers. This protest proves that 
 the happy influence of knowledge, as opposed to obscuran- 
 tism, is already exerted among the intelligent classes in 
 Italy, who only wait a favourable occasion to bring it to bear 
 upon the interests of their country. 
 
 When Pius IX. on his accession published a political 
 amnesty, Pisa was the first city to open a subscription, the 
 ostensible object of which was to give relief to those among 
 the pardoned who were in a state of destitution, the real 
 object in view being to furnish a proof of national frater- 
 nity, and of a wish that the Liberal party should make 
 common cause throughout Italy. It is evident that the 
 two considerations which we have deduced from the anti- 
 Jesuitical protest of Pisa are equally applicable to this fact 
 also. 
 
 These noble examples, and the efforts of an intelligent 
 but moderate press, produced the most happy and rapid 
 effects. The newspapers, the municipal councils, and the 
 people in all parts of Tuscany, demanded in respectful 
 but firm terms the creation of the Civic Guard. The 
 Government, determined to refuse this request, commanded 
 the troops to silence the popular assemblies ; but the soldiers 
 considered themselves citizens above all and in the first 
 place, and, therefore, instead of employing their bayonets 
 for so vile a purpose, they made common cause with the 
 people. The capital and all the provinces hailed with 
 delight the institution of the Civic Guard (which was 
 rendered necessary by this fraternising of the people and 
 the soldiery,) and at the federal festival given by the city 
 of Florence to her provincial sisters, the first tri-coloured 
 
THE TUSCAN CONSTITUTION. 87 
 
 banner was unfurled with the acclamations, a hundred 
 times repeated, of " Italy for ever !" " Long life to Pius 
 IX !" Thus appears again on the stage this triple-crowned 
 puppet, who then deceived all hearts, as he afterwards 
 deceived all expectations. 
 
 In October, 1847, the abdication of the Duke of Lucca 
 hastened the union of his States with Tuscany, a union 
 stipulated for by the treaties of 1815. Lunigiana was 
 excepted, and to the great regret of its inhabitants, accord- 
 ing to the provisions of the same treaties, lapsed to the 
 Duke of Modena. Leghorn, which during the entire 
 Italian revolution was the head-quarters of the ultra-ardent 
 party, but which displayed more courage and perseverance 
 than any other town in Tuscany, set on foot the project of 
 an expedition for the incorporation of Lunigiana with 
 Tuscany. On this occasion Guerazzi and other chiefs of 
 the ardent party were imprisoned by order of the Governor 
 of the town. 
 
 The popular manifestations being unceasing, the Grand 
 Duke found himself constrained to grant a Constitution, 
 which made its appearance on the 15th February, 1848, 
 and which was modelled on those of Naples and Pied- 
 mont. It was but a small matter compared with the 
 wants of the people, but important, nevertheless, on 
 account of the obstacles which they had to overcome in 
 effecting their object ; the Grand Duke being of Austrian 
 race, connected with the Emperor by family ties and by 
 a dynastic compact, and hostile by personal character to 
 liberal progress. 
 
 On the news of the insurrection of Milan, received at 
 Florence on the 22nd of March, all the Tuscan youth 
 were in vehement agitation, demanding to be sent to 
 Lombardy. Companies of volunteers were organised as 
 by enchantment. This general movement was most dis- 
 pleasing to the Grand Duke, but under the pressure of 
 popular enthusiasm he allowed 3,000 men, partly regular 
 troops and partly volunteers, to set out. These will be 
 12 
 
88 THE MOVEMENT AT ROME. 
 
 found to have, at a later period, distinguished themselves 
 by exploits worthy of veterans, shedding the highest lustre 
 upon the expedition. 
 
 So earnest was the desire of all good Italians to free 
 their native land from a foreign yoke, that the Tuscans 
 themselves, whose ancient valour had long since, through 
 the enervating policy of their Princes, fallen asleep under 
 the shade of their peaceful olive trees, awoke at the first 
 cry for independence. They again grasped the sword that 
 had been bequeathed to them by Ferrucio, the last of those 
 free Tuscans who perished while defending the liberty of 
 Florence, which an Emperor and a Pope — those eternal 
 enemies of Italian self-government — had abolished in the 
 sixteenth century. 
 
 The Movement at Rome. 
 The enthusiasm of the people of Rome for Pius IX. was 
 beginning to yield to reason and those calm reflections by 
 which popular excitement is always followed* The more 
 clear-sighted said to each other, " We hoped to have ob- 
 tained liberty through the Pope ; but no sooner has he 
 opened the road to reform, than, becoming alarmed and 
 repenting the little good already effected, and that which 
 he had promised to do, he again closes it, abandoning the 
 undertaking altogether." In fact, that weakness of charac- 
 ter which was his natural disposition had already over- 
 powered the liberal impulses which were only (as it were) 
 borrowed by Pius IX. — a kind of aberration from his 
 genuine principles. When the news of the constitution 
 granted by the King of Naples arrived at Rome, the 
 people became agitated, and made this reflection — " How 
 comes this ? Ferdinand, who after all is but a tyrant, 
 gives his people a constitution, and Pius IX., whom we 
 call our father, and who promised us one, withholds it !" 
 From such reasonings there is but one step to revolt. The 
 multitude, more ardent and exasperated than ever, filled 
 the streets, rushed into the squares, cries for liberty rending 
 
THE ROMANS AND THE ITALIAN CAUSE. 89 
 
 the air, and re-echoing from both banks of the Tiber. 
 The request of the people had well nigh become a threat. 
 Pius IX. still hesitated, but, dreading the effects of popular 
 irritation, rather allowed to be torn from him than granted 
 the fundamental statute for the temporal government of 
 the States of the Holy Church. Thus the very charter 
 which he granted contained, even in its title, a political 
 contradiction, for it stated by implication that the temporal 
 power neither would nor could be separated from the 
 spiritual domination of the chief of the Holy Roman 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 The Roman people made the best of this concession, 
 insufficient as it was ; but when they learnt the glorious 
 insurrection of Milan and Venice, they felt the necessity 
 of following the example of the other populations of the 
 peninsula, and of giving their solemn adhesion to their 
 brethren of Upper Italy in the cause of the whole country. 
 In their meetings they exclaimed — "We are determined 
 to go to Lombardy, and join our efforts to those of our 
 brethren, to drive the foreigner out of our mother country." 
 The cry of " War ! War !" re-awakened among the antique 
 monuments of the Eternal City those warlike echoes which 
 had slumbered since the glorious but fatally barren days of 
 Cola di Rienzi, the illustrious tribune of the fourteenth 
 century. But beneath the roof of the Quirinal was a 
 heart upon which these cries fell like a funeral knell in 
 the midst of the general enthusiasm — it was the heart 
 of Pius IX. A Pope, as we have already said, is the 
 born enemy of every revolution having for its object the 
 liberty of the people, and especially when he sees this 
 political contagion on the point of gaining his own states. 
 To avert the tempest which threatened to burst over his 
 head, the Pontiff (to use a homely proverb) put a good 
 face on a bad game, and yielding to the entreaties of his 
 people, promised to declare war, with the reserve in petto 
 of his right to stop it afterwards, and to curse those same 
 tri-coloured banners which, with a mental reservation 
 13 
 
90 PIUS FORBIDS WAR WITH AUSTRIA. 
 
 worthy of a Jesuit, his voice but not his soul had just 
 blessed. 
 
 No sooner was leave to arm granted to the people, 
 than in the very States where the ranks of the Pontifical 
 troops could never be filled up without conscripts being 
 dragged to their place of destination, bound with cords 
 like thieves, and without almost as many deserters as 
 recruits, there might be seen twenty thousand men, formed 
 into well-disciplined battalions, and ready to repair to the 
 scene of -warfare under the orders of Generals Ferrari 
 and Durando. Such is the distinction made by the people 
 between the cause of despotism and that of liberty. 
 Cursing the false promises of the former, and welcoming 
 the sacrifices imposed upon them by the latter, they quit- 
 ted their paternal roofs and their families, exchanging 
 the spade, the trowel, the shuttle, the paint brush, and 
 the pen, for the sword and musket. We shall hereafter 
 have occasion to observe that the warlike spirit of the 
 Roman militia did not evaporate in mere war cries. We 
 shall meet with this militia on the battle field, where 
 they acted nobly. In the defence of Vicenza especially, 
 the Roman soldiers and volunteers proved themselves the 
 worthy children of those brave soldiers who, after 1807, 
 partook of the dangers and the glory of all the campaigns 
 of Napoleon. 
 
 Pius IX. did not long retain the mask which had served 
 to make dupes of the masses, but had not deceived men of 
 intelligence, who, amid the outburst of popular enthusiasm, 
 had sufficient experience and clear-sightedness to detect the 
 secret springs of actions which had a fair exterior, and to 
 calculate all the chances which the Papal policy gave the 
 people. By an Encyclical letter of the 29th April, Pius 
 declared before all Europe that, as Father of all the Faith- 
 ful, he could not permit his subjects to make war upon the 
 Austrians, who were also his dear children, and esteemed 
 by him as such. This desertion of the liberal cause, which 
 he had espoused with the applause of all free nations, and 
 
VACILLATION AND PERFIDY OF THE POPE. 91 
 
 of every people desirous to be free, was an act of lamentable 
 weakness, to be added to all the others which made him 
 continually stumble in the path of reform, until he fell 
 headlong never to rise again. 
 
 In spite of the solemn contradiction thus deliberately 
 given to his own conduct, this man of feeble soul still at- 
 tempted to weather the tempest that agitated the political 
 ocean into which he had conducted the vessel of the state, 
 and he persisted iri endeavouring to navigate it in company 
 with the old bark of St. Peter, without himself knowing 
 how to steer, and without a pilot capable of taking the 
 rudder. Faithful to his see-saw system, — the most danger- 
 ous of all, because it dissatisfies all parties, — he made 
 choice of a new ministry, partly composed of liberal 
 elements, and including among others Count Mamiani, 
 a clever and well-informed man, but who committed the 
 fault of attempting to save the state by mezze mesure (half- 
 measures) a policy which always betrays the weakness and 
 incapacity of the Governments which adopt it. 
 
 At this period the famous despatch in ciphers was inter- 
 cepted and published in the Milan papers, in which Cardinal 
 Soglia, President of the new Ministry, by agreement with 
 the Pontiff, ordered the Nuncio in Austria to assure the 
 Emperor that the personal policy of the Pope was in direct 
 opposition to the liberal policy of the Roman Cabinet, 
 which Pius IX. maintained only for the purpose (according 
 to him prudent and praiseworthy,) of concealing his projects 
 for the future, and of appeasing the demands of the people 
 by shams until better times should arrive. This discovery 
 entirely rent asunder the remnant of the veil which still 
 hid the disgraceful and unpardonable machiavelism of 
 Pius from the sight of his stubborn adherents ; even the 
 most faithful believers themselves were at last convinced 
 that the Pontiff possessed not even the merit, so common to 
 many of his predecessors, of resistance to Imperial presump- 
 tion. Pius IX. was neither an Alexander III., nor a Julius 
 II. ; he was merely a Clement V. He sold himself to Austria 
 
92 THE WORLD UNDECEIVED. 
 
 as Clement did to France, and became the humble subject of 
 Austria, as Clement was of Philippe le Bel. And thus a 
 man who would have been incapable of acting as chief 
 of the party of the Guelphs, had dared to accept and appro- 
 priate to himself the ovations which a people, weary of its 
 long slavery, had bestowed upon him as the future liberator 
 of Italy. The entire conduct of Pius had been a deception, 
 and had only served to confirm that fatal truth, of which 
 the Italians above all other nations are condemned to feel the 
 consequences, viz., that Papacy and Liberty are two words 
 which comprise, in the smallest compass, the greatest con- 
 tradiction in the universe, and with regard to politics form 
 the most violent antithesis that can be uttered. 
 
CHAPTEK XL 
 
 The War of Independence.— Its Glorious Commence- 
 ment and Melancholy Close. 
 
 Charles Albert waited until Milan had effected its deliv- 
 erance before marching his army into Lombardy. After 
 several days of uncertainty and hesitation he gave orders to 
 commence the campaign. Whether from an ambition to 
 conduct this war himself, or from want of confidence in his 
 generals, the King put himself at the head of his troops, 
 and the campaign was opened under his own immediate 
 direction. But in spite of his warlike propensities and the 
 best inclinations, Charles Albert possessed no real experi- 
 ence of war, his exploits previously having been confined 
 to the storming of the Trocadero (1823,) at which he had 
 only assisted as a simple volunteer, (and that under the force 
 of circumstances,) and not as a general. Not that he was 
 by any means deficient in courage, that quality being here- 
 ditary in the house of Savoy ; but it was practice that was 
 wanting, and to undertake the supreme conduct of a war 
 requires something more than to be a good general on 
 parade. Unfortunately his generals in the war of 1848 were 
 as ignorant as himself ; very possibly a good theorist might 
 have been found among them, but a peace of thirty-four 
 years had allowed them no occasion whatever for applying 
 theory to practice. Besides, the military in Piedmont for 
 several ages back had constituted a privileged caste, which, 
 as everywhere else in ancient times, considered itself infi- 
 nitely superior to all other classes of society. The officers, 
 especially the superior ones, belonged with little exception 
 to the nobility, and had accepted with repugnance a Consti- 
 tution which placed the army on its proper level, accord- 
 
94 DEFECTS IN THE MILITARY SYSTEM OF PIEDMONT. 
 
 ing to the adage so peculiarly civic — "cedant arma togce" — 
 stripping them of those privileges which could only exist 
 to the detriment of every other portion of the nation. The 
 officers were too naturally opposed to an order of things 
 which placed them on an equality with all other citizens, 
 and which the success of their own arms would tend to 
 consolidate more and more. This remark applies with the 
 greatest force to the superior officers. 
 
 As to the common soldiers, there existed in their very 
 organisation a radical defect, which, without disparaging 
 their personal bravery, (a quality in the Piedmontese always 
 considered beyond dispute, and admitted by Napoleon 
 himself,) was calculated to impair the advantages which 
 a chief derives from an army perfectly trained and inured 
 to all the fatigues of a military life. "We allude to the 
 system adopted in Piedmont of retaining the soldiers only 
 a year in the service, and then passing them to the reserve, 
 that is to say, sending them to their homes until called for, 
 leaving them at perfect liberty to marry and resume their 
 former calling and civil occupations. In case of a war, 
 this reserve is called out, and it forms at least two-thirds 
 of the whole force enrolled. But men in such circum- 
 stances, having led for several years a family life, have 
 also contracted those domestic habits and powerful ties as 
 husbands and fathers which naturally enfeeble their war- 
 like spirit, and render the life of a camp more irksome, 
 and even insupportable, when the moment of danger gathers 
 them again around their standards. 
 
 To return from this digression, Charles Albert crossed 
 the Tessino on the 25th March, 1848. This passage was 
 effected amid universal acclamation. Public enthusiasm 
 had been heightened by the proclamation, in which he 
 declared, before God and the Italian nation, that he was 
 actuated solely by the desire of becoming the liberator of 
 Italy, and the champion of its independence ; renouncing 
 all recompense w T hatever from the people, and aspiring 
 only to the glory of being the creator of a new era for 
 
EARLY MISTAKES IN THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN. 95 
 
 the benefit of their common mother country. It is very- 
 possible that his motives were sincere and conscientious 
 when he thus entered Lombardy, holding in one hand 
 the sword, and this noble declaration in the other ; and, 
 perhaps, it was only through circumstances, and at the 
 instigation of his counsellors, if, at a later period, ho 
 substituted dynastic views for an object purely Italian 
 and national. 
 
 The Piedmontese were welcomed by the Milanese with 
 every demonstration of fraternal affection, which was 
 renewed in every town and village through which they 
 had to pass on their march to the banks of the Mincio. 
 The Sardinian army when there drawn up amounted to 
 60,000 men, to which must be added 30,000 more, con- 
 sisting of the contingents, in militia and volunteers, fur- 
 nished by Tuscany, Rome, Parma, Modena, and Lombardy. 
 At the very outset of the campaign, Charles Albert com- 
 mitted two great errors, besides that of having decided 
 upon it too late : — the first was, his failing to profit by 
 the enthusiasm of his troops, and to follow to the utmost 
 the flying enemy ; the second, his failing to excite and 
 encourage a general insurrection of the Lombard pro- 
 vinces, in which the great majority of the people only 
 wanted arms to take part in the war. The King com- 
 mitted also another act of imprudence in occupying with 
 an insufficient force too extensive a line, from Peschiera 
 to Mantua. He lost much precious time in the siege of 
 the former of these fortresses, which he ought only to 
 have blockaded, (as its garrison numbered but 2,000 men,) 
 and to have continued with the main body of his army the 
 pursuit of the enemy, instead of giving them leisure to 
 rally and recover courage behind the ramparts of Verona, 
 Mantua, and Legrago. 
 
 On the 8th of April, the Piedmontese army crossed the 
 Mincio, routing the enemy at every point where he de- 
 fended the passage. Instead of driving the Austrians 
 before him as far as the Adige, Charles Albert stopped 
 
96 SUCCESSFUL CONFLICTS WITH THE AUSTRIANS. 
 
 short on the banks of the river he had just passed so 
 successfully. If he had gone beyond the fortresses where 
 the enemy had taken shelter, and effected a junction with 
 the division of the Italian army fighting in the Venetian 
 provinces, the manoeuvre would have saved Italy. This 
 junction would have produced the double advantage of 
 preventing the large reinforcements brought from Austria 
 by General Nugent from joining Radetzky at Verona, and 
 of obliging the Austrian army, which would have found 
 itself thus cut off and deprived of all resource, either to 
 capitulate and recross the Alps, or to accept a general 
 engagement, of which the issue could not be doubtful, 
 for the Italians, who had been hitherto victorious, would 
 have acquired by the junction a decisive numerical supe- 
 riority. The division of the Italian army in the province 
 of Venice was composed of militia and volunteers from the 
 countries in insurrection, and was neither' from its impor- 
 tance nor its composition in a condition to arrest and defeat 
 the 30,000 fresh troops who arrived with Nugent. Generals 
 Durando and Ferrari, who commanded the Italian army in 
 that province, maintained their ground against them on 
 several points ; but, notwithstanding the bravery of their 
 troops, the strength of the enemy gave him an advantage, 
 and Nugent continued his march. Before arriving at 
 Verona, he made an attempt upon Vicenza, which he 
 hoped to take by surprise, but he was repulsed with loss 
 by the brave Italian garrison. Irritated at this defeat of 
 Nugent, Radetzky sent back 18,000 men, with 48 pieces 
 of artillery, under the command of General Prince La 
 Tour and Taxis, with orders to take Vicenza by storm. 
 This second attempt was not more successful than the former; 
 the Austrians were a second time repulsed, with the loss 
 of 2,000 men. On the 30th of April, the Piedmontese 
 army gained the battle of Pastrengo, where the Austrians, 
 driven back on all points, lost 2,500 in killed, wounded, and 
 prisoners. By this victory the communications of the 
 Austrian army with Peschiera and Verona were cut off. 
 
THE ATTACK UPON VERONA. 97 
 
 Charles Albert's army was not equally successful in its 
 attack upon the fortifications of Verona on the 6th May. 
 The King was misled by false information, and imagined 
 that he might attempt, with some probability of success, 
 the assault of this town, which had become, within a few 
 years, a place of the greatest strength. The King and his 
 generals advanced without being well acquainted with the 
 ground and the strength of the enemy. The fortified vil- 
 lages of Croce Bianca and Santa Luccia, which formed the 
 first line of defence, were taken and retaken several times, 
 with dreadful slaughter on both sides. Charles Albert, his 
 officers, and soldiers, all performed prodigies of valour ; but 
 the superior force of the Austrians, and the want of preci- 
 sion in the orders and in the execution of the strategic 
 plans, added to the deficiency of energy and firmness on 
 the part of some of the commanders, were fatal to the Pied- 
 montese, who, in their retreat after this long and desperate 
 conflict, left upon the field 1,600 killed and wounded. The 
 Austrians, being protected by their redoubts and entrench- 
 ments, lost only 900 men, among whom were a considerable 
 number of officers and two generals. Four Italian bat- 
 talions of Radetzky's army were on this occasion suspected 
 of intending to desert to the Piedmontese army : they were 
 sent to the attack, followed by some pieces of light artillery 
 and a few squadrons of Austrian cavalry, which had 
 orders to fire grape shot upon them, and to cut them to 
 pieces, on the first sign of their intention to desert or of 
 refusal to fight. Such was the miserable extremity to 
 which these unfortunate Italians were reduced, being 
 obliged either to kill their brethren or to be themselves 
 slain. 
 
 On the 29th of May, 6,000 Tuscans, among whom were 
 some hundred Neapolitans, with only eight pieces of can- 
 non, sustained with signal courage, for four hours, the 
 tremendous charge of 20,000 Austrians, who had sallied 
 from Mantua with 24 field pieces. Overwhelmed by the 
 number of their enemies, this handful of brave men was 
 K 
 
98 ITALIAN SUCCESSES. 
 
 forced to fall back upon the main body of the Piedmontese' 
 army, leaving 2,000 killed and wounded and 1,000 pri- 
 soners on the fields of Curtalone and Mortanare, ren- 
 dered immortal by a resistance not less glorious than a 
 victory. 
 
 On the 30th, Radetzky's army having continued its 
 march, arrived before Goito, where it met that of Charles- 
 Albert. The Austrians, notwithstanding their number 
 and their desperate efforts, were valiantly repulsed with, 
 the loss of 3,000 to 4,000 men, and, being forced to re- 
 treat, re-entered Mantua and Verona, having failed en- 
 tirely in their purpose, which was to drive back the 
 Piedmontese lines, and relieve Peschiera. In this battle, 
 which was the most sanguinary of the whole campaign, 
 Charles Albert, and the Duke of Savoy, heir to the 
 throne, fought like the bravest soldiers, and were both 
 slightly wounded : the Duke of Genoa, the King's second 
 son, equally distinguished himself. The joy produced by 
 the victory of Goito was doubled by the news of the 
 surrender of Peschiera, which arrived in the camp the 
 same evening after the batfle. The enthusiasm of the 
 army was carried to the utmost pitch, and Charles Albert 
 was proclaimed by it King of Italy, as of old the Roman 
 legions saluted their general with the title of Emperor on 
 the very field of battle where he had just triumphed over 
 the enemy. Here, again, the King committed the same 
 fault of which he had already incurred the reproach, that 
 of neglecting to profit by the advantages which his victory 
 offered, and whose favours he seemed to despise, in not 
 availing himself of the ardour of his troops to pursue 
 the enemy ; choosing rather to abandon his camp for the 
 moment to take possession of Peschiera, which had fallen 
 into his power. 
 
 Whilst the Piedmontese army was engaged in pitched 
 battles in the plain, the Lombard volunteers were, on the 
 frontier of the Tyrol, maintaining that guerilla warfare 
 which is best suited to the habits of sportsmen. Enduring, 
 
SIEGE AND CAPITULATION OF VICENZA. 99 
 
 "with exemplary fortitude, hunger, cold, and every kind of 
 privation on the high ridges of the Alps, and in the midst 
 of those defiles where the ice never thaws hut in the height 
 of summer, they kept the enemy in check for four months, 
 and prevented him from penetrating into Lomhardy, con- 
 stantly repelling the different Austrian columns, which, 
 strong in numher and furnished with mountain artillery, 
 made several attempts to force the passes. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Austrian army was receiving in other 
 ways fresh reinforcements, and increasing palpably. After 
 the 30,000 men led by Nugent, 16,000 arrived under the 
 command of General Welden. Radetzky, who could not 
 brook the obstinate defence of Vicenza, sent a division 
 from Verona to join that of Welden, with orders for both 
 bodies of troops to storm the town. It was defended by 
 9,000 men, chiefly volunteers, commanded by General 
 Durando. The assailants were 32,000 strong, with seventy- 
 pieces of cannon. The place was invested by the enemy, 
 who furiously attacked it at three different points, and 
 it was defended with obstinacy by an intrepid garrison, 
 composed in great part of Romans, with whom were joined 
 2,000 Swiss in the service of the Pope, who, by % their 
 bravery, repaired in some measure the disgrace incurred by 
 their fellow-countrymen at Naples, by so many acts of 
 cruelty on the fatal 15th of May. After two days' bloody 
 fighting and a heroic defence, during which the enemy's 
 artillery poured a shower of bombs, balls, and grenades, 
 without any interval or respite, Vicenza capitulated on very 
 honourable terms. The Austrians had suffered a greater 
 loss in killed and wounded than the brave garrison. General 
 Pepe, who had then just passed the Po, retired into 
 Venice, followed by that portion of his army which pre- 
 ferred fighting for the independence of Italy to passive 
 obedience to the disgraceful orders for their recall from the 
 tyrant of Naples. 
 
 After the victory of Goito, Radetzky himself came 
 forward to engage with the Piedmdntese lines. On the 
 K2 
 
100 
 
 loth of July, the King had commenced the siege of 
 Mantua, but finding his position on the Mincio endangered, 
 he ordered the besieging troops to fall back on the centre 
 of the army. 
 
 The Piedmontese army again fought with great bravery 
 at Staffalo, Bivoli, Volta, and Custoza, opposing to the 
 attacks of the Austrians the firmest resistance, and almost 
 always with success ; but through the fault of t$eir generals, 
 Kadetzky was allowed too much time and opportunity to 
 augment his army, which was of twice the strength of 
 Charles Albert's when the attack was resumed. The 
 Piedmontese continued, however, by their valour to counter- 
 balance the superiority in number of the enemy, and might 
 have triumphed, if other causes had not contributed to shake 
 their constancy and damp their spirit. Provisions began 
 to fall short, whilst the Austrians were abundantly sup- 
 plied. Mystery still hangs over many of the faults com- 
 mitted by the commissariat of the patriots, and we leave to 
 history the painful task of penetrating them. The maga- 
 zines of stores existed, but the provisions, instead of 
 following the army through its different movements, were 
 always at considerable distances from the position occupied 
 by each division. As soon as the troops began their 
 retreat, several regiments had to fight forty-eight hours 
 without either rations of bread or a drop of spirits. Besides 
 all the privations attributable either to an ill-organised or 
 to an ill-intentioned administration, the elements them- 
 selves seemed to conspire against the retreating force. 
 Fainting under the scorching rays of a July sun, and 
 forced to quench their ardent thirst with the muddy water 
 of standing pools, the poor soldiers fell by hundreds on the 
 roadside, and expired on the banks of the nearest ditches. 
 The enemy drew courage from the misfortunes which over- 
 whelmed the patriot army, and profiting by the discourage- 
 ment which ensued, followed up the pursuit with increasing 
 ardour. Radetzky took advantage of all these circumstances, 
 and carried into effect against the Piedmontese army all that 
 
ITS ARRIVAL AT MILAN. 101 
 
 Charles Albert ought to have done, at the outset of the 
 campaign, against the Austrians. 
 
 The retreat of the Piedmontese, from the banks of the 
 Mincio to Milan, was a complete flight. Incessantly 
 harassed by the Austrian columns, they arrived on the 
 3rd day of August under the walls of Milan. Here the 
 great drama, of which the first act had been so brilliant 
 and glorious, reached its catastrophe. The population 
 of Milan beholding the enemy at their very gates, resolved 
 to perish under the ruins of the city rather than again 
 bend their neck beneath the detested yoke of Austria. In 
 return for these generous sentiments, the King pledged his 
 royal word to defend Milan to the last, and sooner to bury 
 himself under its ashes than abandon the city. This lan- 
 guage revived in his favour the sympathies of the people, 
 which had been much weakened during the campaign by 
 his procrastination and fatal hesitation, more particularly 
 after the union of the Lombardo- Venetian provinces with 
 Piedmont — a union imposed upon their respective popula- 
 tions, notwithstanding the royal promise given before the 
 Italian nation, when he declared himself its liberator. The 
 most lively enthusiasm again pervaded all ranks of the 
 people, similar to that of the six glorious days of their first 
 insurrection. 
 
 On the 4th the Austrians attacked the shattered remnant 
 of the Piedmontese army, which was posted two miles 
 from the walls of the city, and which again fought with 
 the utmost bravery, continuing to resist, though reduced 
 to the proportion of one against six. The cannonade 
 roared in the neighbourhood of the city as on a great dav 
 of battle. The King exposed himself to the enemy's fire 
 to such a degree that several of the officers of his staff fell 
 dead or wounded, as well as some soldiers of his escort, and 
 among the rest two Milanese National Guards. During 
 this engagement, the preparations for defence, the barri- 
 cades which rose above ground by hundreds as by enchant- 
 ment, the citizens crying to arms, and sallying forth from 
 k3 
 
102 ROYAL CAPITULATION WITH RADETZKY. 
 
 the place, or running to the bastions as fast as they were 
 armed, the women who prepared and distributed cartridges, 
 encouraging their husbands and their sons to conquer or 
 die, and the alarm bell sounding from all the belfries, 
 drowning with its funereal toll the immense uproar of the 
 city, altogether formed the most imposing and terrible 
 scene. In order to confirm the belief in his resolution to 
 defend Milan, Charles Albert had requested permission from 
 the corporation to burn such citizens' houses and important 
 manufactories as were situated on the lines of circumvalla- 
 tion on the side opposite the enemy. The corporation 
 consented to this, and the owners of the buildings 
 gladly offered this holocaust to their country. At evening, 
 the flames from all these edifices prevailed over the shades 
 of night, and Milan found itself in the midst of a belt of 
 fire, whose pillars, mounting towards heaven, were viewed 
 with pride and triumph by its citizens. But all this courage, 
 these efforts, and this self-sacrifice were vain and ill-re- 
 quited. On the 5th August, at the very moment when the 
 Milanese, confiding in the promises of the King, were ex- 
 pecting a final and decisive struggle, the capitulation signed 
 by Radetzky and General Salasca (of deplorable memory) 
 was published. Charles Albert, who was anxious to justify 
 this measure to the Milanese, pretended that the city was 
 deficient in ammunition and provisions. If it were so, 
 which is by no means proved, this would only be a further 
 proof of the incapacity and inexplicable negligence on the 
 part of the leaders which marked all the operations of this 
 war. To form some idea of the manner in which it was 
 undertaken, it may suffice to mention that the Piedmontese 
 generals, even those at head quarters, arrived as far as at 
 the banks of the Mincio without being provided with maps 
 of the country in which they were to fight, or plans of the 
 fortresses they had to besiege. Two other notable faults were 
 of a nature to prevent the continuation of the first suc- 
 cesses. The first was the shabby, insufficient, and dis- 
 orderly organisation of the surgical department, which 
 
INDIGNATION OF THE MILANESE. 103 
 
 caused the loss of numbers of wounded, whom well- 
 managed itinerant hospitals and skilful hands might have 
 saved. The second was the inactivity to which, by a 
 timorous policy, the Sardinian fleet was condemned, 
 although incomparably stronger and more experienced 
 than the Austrian, which it put to flight on every en- 
 counter. This fleet being absolute mistress of the Gulf 
 of Venice, and able to place itself in direct communication 
 with Hungary by Fiume, might have effected a diversion 
 of the highest importance both to the Italian and Hunga- 
 rian cause. But we must return to our melancholy task of 
 describing the political agony of Milan, and consequently 
 of the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom, which no longer 
 retained a particle of life except in the heroic city of 
 Venice. 
 
 On the promulgation of Charles Albert's proclamation, 
 the surprise and indignation of the people, who considered 
 themselves betrayed and abandoned, became intense. Some 
 hundreds of the most furious surrounded and treated with 
 indignity the house in which the King had taken up his 
 quarters. In this dreadful confusion, and amid cries of 
 anguish and of rage, a few musket shots were fired against 
 the doors of the royal abode, which was closed and barri- 
 caded. The royalists did not fail to accuse the republican 
 party of these outrages. As for ourselves, deploring as we 
 must do the unfortunate political divisions and the utter 
 want of unity of views in this revolution, arising partly 
 from the republican opinion, respectable doubtless in its 
 principles, but in this conjuncture incapable of application, 
 we protest against this calumny. The republican party 
 in Lombardy perhaps showed itself too ardent and in- 
 flexible, but was far too honourable to sully itself by an 
 assassination. 
 
 "We believe the musket shots which are asserted to have 
 been intended for the person of the King, may be thus ac- 
 counted for. The enemy, being master of Mantua, in which 
 exist the convict-establishments, had liberated a great 
 
104 DISASTROUS CLOSE OF THE CAMPAIGN. 
 
 number of the inmates, imposing upon them, as the price 
 of their freedom, an obligation to scatter themselves over 
 the different parts of the kingdom, to foment troubles and to 
 commit acts of incendiarism. Several of these were arrested 
 during the war in the immediate neighbourhood of Milan, 
 in the very act of setting fire to buildings, and were executed 
 for it. Nothing is more probable than that, under favour 
 of the tumult and confusion that prevailed in Milan, some 
 of these galley-slaves introduced themselves into it, and 
 had the audacity to commit the crime in question. 
 
 On the 6th August, the wreck of the Piedmontese army 
 passed out of one gate of the city, and the numerous Aus- 
 trian columns entered by another. Milan returned, in fact, 
 to the condition of an Austrian town. 
 
 Thus ended a campaign, which might assuredly have 
 attained an issue corresponding with its commencement. 
 But the defective organisation of the brave Piedmontese 
 army, — the inexperience of its leaders, — the hesitations of 
 Charles Albert, and his dis trustfulness, which arrested the 
 general rising in arms of the Lombard population, — the 
 criminal weakness of the Provisional Government of Milan 
 (which was completely subservient to the views of the 
 King,) together with the forced union of the two countries, 
 and deplorable political schisms, — ruined the Italian cause, 
 and converted into defeat the first brilliant successes. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 State of Public Feeling in Lombardy and Piedmont 
 after the struggle for italian independence — 
 Rome— Treachery and Flight of the Pope — 
 Proclamation of the Roman Republic. 
 
 It would require the severe style of a Tacitus and the 
 forcible sallies of a Suetonius to portray the rage, despair, 
 and desolation which succeeded to the hopes, the energy, 
 and the warlike enthusiasm of the Milanese, when, after 
 the flight of Charles Albert, they beheld re-entering in 
 triumph, on the 6th August, the same foes whom they had 
 so heroically driven beyond their walls on the 23rd March. 
 The Austrians in their pride forgot, or pretended to forget, 
 that the inexperience of the King and his generals, the 
 intrigues of the Jesuits, and the treasonable practices of the 
 retrograde Piedmontese party, had been their most power- 
 ful allies, and the main cause of their easy victories. The 
 Milanese by their deathlike silence, which on such an occa- 
 sion was the most eloquent protest they could make, dis- 
 played, however, all the dignity of a people deserving a 
 better fate, and whom brutal force had succeeded in subdu- 
 ing but not in degrading. This people might have repeated 
 in chorus what Francis I. of France wrote to his mother 
 after the battle of Pavia, " All is lost — save honour." But 
 notwithstanding the noble calm which distinguished the 
 mass of the citizens, a hundred of them, driven to despair 
 by this catastrophe so dreadful and so sudden, were in- 
 stantly deprived of their reason, and sought relief in death, 
 which had eluded them when defending the walls qf their 
 city. Another kind of protest against the return of the 
 
106 MILAN RESTORED TO THE AUSTRIANS. 
 
 Austrians, not less eloquent in the face of all Europe, 
 was the extensive emigration from Lombardy. Those 
 who had distinguished themselves most by their devotedness 
 to the Italian cause, by their courage and by their intelli- 
 gence, preferred the sorrows and privations of voluntary 
 exile, and the hospitality of foreign lands, to their mother 
 country, again enslaved, and a prey to all the enormities of 
 triumphant reaction, so blind and so implacable. Besides 
 a hundred thousand of the lower classes who quitted Milan, 
 thousands of eminent citizens, accompanied by their fami- 
 lies, relinquished their unfortunate country, sustained only 
 by the hope of revisiting it at some future period, when 
 their efforts should have restored it to dignity and inde- 
 pendence. The noble disdain of this vanquished people 
 remained unsullied, excepting only by the cowardice of a 
 few of the nobility and of some Jesuits, with or without 
 the frock, who had the effrontery to display marks of sym- 
 pathy for the victors. At the head of these cowards, the 
 very refuse of the nation, the most prominent was the 
 archbishop, the great abettor of the Jesuits, and an avowed 
 enemy of all progress, who, like a Pius IX. in miniature, 
 bestowed his benediction upon the Austrian banners, the 
 symbols of slavery, on the self-same spot where two months 
 before he had blessed the tri-coloured standards, the symbols 
 of liberty. It may be urged that this feeble prelate only 
 discharged the functions of his calling. Granted : but he 
 might have done so with less display of baseness and 
 effrontery. He invited the Austrian leaders to sumptuous 
 banquets, and they lighted their cigars in the gilded 
 saloons of the Archiepiscopal palace, puffing their clouds 
 of smoke under the very nose of the archbishop, an insult 
 much better deserved by this man, devoid of all character, 
 than that suffered by Charles I. from his gaolers. On 
 their return to Milan, the Austrians gave full scope to their 
 vindictive feelings. Fines, imprisonment, confiscation, the 
 bastinado, and the gibbet were all brought into use ; and the 
 retrograde party, confident in the duration of their triumph, 
 
INTRIGUES OF THE PIEDMONTESE ABSOLUTISTS. 107 
 
 revelled in these excesses. Europe beheld all these pro- 
 ceedings; she beheld them with astonishment and with 
 horror, but remained silent ! Rules of policy and reasons 
 of state are able, like the head of Medusa, to petrify the 
 most natural and generous sentiments. 
 
 The Piedmontese troops regained the banks of the Tessino 
 in the utmost disorder, the result of their fatal discourage- 
 ment. The scattered remnants of the army gathered them- 
 selves together on the right bank of this river, which forms 
 the common frontier of Lombardy and Piedmont. The 
 King's head-quarters were at Vigerano. No sooner were 
 the troops encamped there than a general defection per- 
 vaded their ranks. The retrograde party acquiring fresh 
 vigour from the reverses sustained by this brave and unfor- 
 tunate army, and hoping, with the aid of Austria, to restore 
 absolute power to the Sardinian throne, encouraged the 
 desertion of the soldiers, whom the misery they endured, 
 the privations and destitution into which they had been 
 brought by a faulty administration, rendered discontented 
 and the more open to corruption. Those whom a sense 
 of honour retained in the service were seduced in another 
 manner by such nobles, priests, and military chiefs, as were 
 the partisans of reaction. These parties treacherously caused 
 them to believe that Charles Albert repented the conces- 
 sions he had made, and was in danger from the intrigues 
 of the republicans, who, however, were as much attached 
 to their country as the constitutional party, and much more 
 so than the Codini, or absolutists ; and further, that he was 
 in constant danger from the anarchists, who have never 
 really existed in Italy. It was by such Jesuitical bug- 
 bears that the soldiers, attached to their King, were imposed 
 upon, and excited to murmur against the Parliament and 
 the Constitution, of the benefits of which they were still 
 ignorant, and which were represented to them as the great 
 cause of all their reverses. Misled by the deceitful elo- 
 quence of the apostles of despotism, the soldiers declared 
 that they would no longer fight for the enemies of their 
 
108 CONDUCT OF CHARLES ALBERT. 
 
 King and in defence of a constitution which they did not 
 yet understand, and the object and the advantages of which 
 were purposely misrepresented to them. 
 
 The liberal party and the Parliament employed every 
 effort to enlighten the troops whom the reactionary party 
 were taking so much pains to corrupt. In fairness to 
 Charles Albert it must be allowed that if his skill was 
 but indifferent and his convictions dubious, his hatred of 
 the Austrians was unbounded. Having transferred his 
 head-quarters to Alessand>ia, he there neglected no means 
 for restoring order among the relics of his army, and pre- 
 paring it for a last effort. Guessing the secret intrigues of 
 the reactionary party, he was so incensed at them that he 
 was heard to exclaim, in a paroxysm of anger, " If I could 
 have my revenge upon the Austrians in no other way than 
 by placing the red cap (the symbol of the republicans) upon 
 my head, I would consent to it." But such was his ex- 
 treme feebleness of character, that, however well acquaint- 
 ed with the enemies of reform, he was unable to shake 
 them off. His favourites, frequenters of ante-chambers of 
 the most servile description, had drawn around him a 
 magic circle, which, though he might perhaps have felt 
 the desire, he never possessed the strength to break through. 
 In this same circle originated, at a later period, the calami- 
 ties and disgrace which overwhelmed Piedmont, as well as 
 the miseries which have desolated, and still desolate, 
 interesting and unfortunate Italy ; for it was the traitors 
 to their country composing this circle, that prepared, a 
 year afterwards, the triumph of Austria, and, consequently, 
 of despotism. 
 
 At this conjuncture, the French and English govern- 
 ments volunteered their good offices to convert the armistice 
 of Milan into a treaty of peace. The fault committed by 
 these two cabinets was that of having secretly and indi- 
 rectly encouraged the Italian revolution, and the war 
 against Austria, without affording any assistance whatever 
 to the Italians when engaged in the struggle. They made 
 
ROSSI APPOINTED MINISTER. 109 
 
 a cat's paw of Italy. We are aware that considerations of 
 political importance prevented them from interfering in a 
 direct manner; but when a powerful nation is guided by 
 such considerations, it would act more properly in calming 
 the passions of the oppressed, than in stimulating them 
 against the oppressor. 
 
 Let us now cast a glance upon Rome. The splendid 
 days of Pius IX., or at least the days so termed by the 
 Italians in the midst of their fallacious visions, were no 
 more. That feeble Pontiff had extended one hand to 
 Austria at the very same moment that, with the other, he 
 ceded to the Romans the vain shadow of a Constitution. 
 By the secret recommendation of the Courts of Vienna 
 and Naples, he invited to Rome, Pellegrino Rossi, in the 
 capacity of Minister. Rossi was known to possess great 
 administrative talents, and it was expected that this poli- 
 tician, so eminently " doctrinaire" would raise a solid 
 bulwark against every democratic encroachment ; it was 
 even hoped that his system would tend to circumscribe the 
 limits of constitutional ideas which were constantly gaining 
 ground. Placed at the head of the Cabinet, the new 
 Minister failed to secure the sympathy of any class of the 
 citizens, even of the most moderate. Unbounded haughti- 
 ness counteracted all the good effects to be expected from 
 the strength of his genius. Proud with the Cardinals, 
 haughty with the Patricians, and insolent with the people ; 
 with all he passed with the utmost ease and promptitude 
 from disdain to insult. It is not surprising that by such 
 conduct he became universally detested. He was warned 
 in different ways that his arrogance must end in his own 
 destruction. He paid no attention whatever to the 
 warnings and advice received on all sides. So far 
 from deriving advantage from them, his imperious de- 
 meanour increased, and his contempt and insolence towards 
 the people were manifested with fresh force and pungency. 
 It is well known in what manner he perished. We hold 
 assassination in horror, and protest with the utmost energy 
 L 
 
110 THE MURDER OF ROSSI. 
 
 against its employment, under whatever disguise it may be 
 hid, and in whatever cloak it may be muffled ; but we are 
 obliged to admit that Pellegrino Rossi, thrown, as one may 
 say, suddenly into the midst of an ardent population, 
 already over-excited by the intoxicating fumes of a revolu- 
 tion, whom he daily insulted, and by whom he was hated, 
 did everything that was possible to provoke that odious 
 crime. At the very instant he was struck by an invisible 
 hand, he was braving the patience of the people by his 
 threatening aspect and imperious sneers. 
 
 On the death of Rossi, Pius IX. in his irritation gave 
 orders to the troops to disperse by force all assemblages of 
 the people, but soldiers and citizens united in one and the 
 same cry of " Italy for ever ! " A report was then spread 
 that the Pope had called in the Austrians to his assistance, 
 and the popular irritation became excessive ; delegates from 
 the people waited upon the Pope, humbly supplicating him 
 to nominate a democratic ministry which was desired by 
 the great majority of the Romans, and was the only means 
 left the Government for escaping from the pit into which 
 it had fallen. The reactionary Cardinal Antonelli shuddered 
 at such a request, and the Pope, forgetful of his dignity, 
 and overstepping all the bounds of moderation, stamped 
 with rage, declaring the Roman Constituent Assembly a 
 diabolical invention. Informed of the failure of their appli- 
 cation, the people, who then occupied unarmed the quar- 
 ters surrounding the Quirinal, could no longer restrain 
 their anger. They rushed upon the iron gates of the 
 palace. The Swiss who guarded them opposed their hal- 
 berds to the assailants, and a musket shot was fired from 
 their ranks upon the multitude. " To arms !" exclaimed 
 the crowd, who filled the square, and the cry " To arms !" 
 was repeated by the echoes of every district in Rome. The 
 inhabitants ran through the streets exclaiming, " The people 
 are betrayed. The people are assassinated!" In a few 
 hours the Quirinal was beset by such a crowd of armed 
 men that the Swiss gave ground, perceiving with terror 
 
PUBLIC AND PAPAL AGITATION. Ill 
 
 that the popular vengeance threatened to overpower them. 
 Some musket shots were exchanged, and Monsignor Palma, 
 one of the domestic prelates of the Pope, was killed at the 
 moment he appeared at one of the palace windows. The 
 insurgents then began to set fire to the doors of the 
 Quirinal, and the Papal abode was on the point of falling 
 into their hands. 
 
 Pius IX., pale and terrified, with haggard eyes and 
 trembling voice, was hurrying from one room to another, 
 cursing Rome and the Romans. A few Cardinals who sur- 
 rounded him repeated in chorus the Papal curses ; in the 
 meantime the people were constantly gaining strength and 
 ground. The ambassadors of the different Powers, who 
 were present at this terrible crisis, in vain used all their 
 efforts to obtain from the Pope and Cardinals a pacific 
 determination ; both Pope and Cardinals, calling down 
 from heaven its thunderbolts upon the heads of the people 
 of Rome, replied to their entreaties — "We prefer mar- 
 tyrdom to concession!" As, however, all the avenues 
 of the palace were in the hands of the people, who had 
 even obtained possession also of the staircases, there was 
 imminent danger of an invasion of the interior of the 
 palace. The death-knell of Pope and Cardinals was well 
 nigh striking, but so far from being desirous to hasten it, 
 all things considered, they preferred stratagem to martyr- 
 dom. The Pope gave orders that the delegates of the 
 people whom he had so ignominiously dismissed should be 
 recalled, and appearing to yield to the national wishes, he 
 named a democratic Ministry, which after all was nothing 
 of the kind, since Terenzio Mamiani was named as the 
 most democratic of the new Ministers. 
 
 Duped by Papal craft, and imagining they found in the 
 externals of the new ministry all that it really wanted in 
 substance, the people were at once appeased, generously 
 pardoned all their adversaries, made friends with the Swiss 
 soldiers, lavishing on them every kindness, and according 
 to custom embraced both friends and foes. Carried away 
 l2 
 
112 FLIGHT OF THE POPE. 
 
 by the promptings of enthusiasm, they again saluted Pius 
 IX. with the title of Father of his Country. In the midst 
 of their noisy acclamations, the Father of his Country only 
 thought how to cheat his children. With the craft of a 
 Jesuit, he managed to elude the watchfulness of his new 
 Ministers, and on the night of the 24th Nov., the supreme 
 head of Catholicism, the Pontiff King, the Vicar of God, 
 quitted Rome clandestinely, accompanied by a woman, and 
 disguised in the livery of a servant — accoutrement appro- 
 priate to the circumstance, a livery prophetic of his future 
 state of servitude to Austria and to France! The Due 
 d'Harcourt, the French Ambassador, had early notice of 
 the flight of the Pope, and flattered himself for a moment 
 that he could turn it to account for France ; but Pius IX, 
 preferred the hospitality of the Bourbon of Naples to that 
 which was offered him by the so-called French Republic. 
 After his arrival at Gaeta, the Pope was rejoined by a 
 certain number of his courtiers and of his sbirri, by the 
 Cardinals, and by the diplomatic corps. The Roman 
 delegates, commissioned by the people to supplicate his 
 Holiness to return to his States, were the only persons 
 who could never obtain permission to cross the Neapolitan 
 frontier. 
 
 The first interview between the Pope and Ferdinand was 
 the occasion of one of those ridiculous and disgusting scenes 
 of which the theatre and diplomacy alone can furnish ex- 
 amples. The King-Priest and King Bomba (a nickname 
 bestowed upon this tyrant by Italy after he had bombarded 
 several of his own towns) mingled their royal tears with 
 the most tender embraces, and thus presented to admiring 
 courtiers an affecting spectacle, which, in the opinion of the 
 clear-sighted realised the popular belief of the crocodile's 
 tears ! Pius IX., who had hurled his anathemas at Ferdi- 
 nand as a traitor to the Italian cause, and who only a few 
 days previously had publicly vented a very poor pun, chang- 
 ing the King's name Borbone (Bourbon) to Birbone (rogue,) 
 now gave him his benediction, loading him with tokens of 
 
MEETING OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. 113 
 
 paternal affection, styling him the cherished son of Holy 
 Church. He granted him, moreover, the glorious privilege, 
 coveted by this royal brute, of serving mass to him ; and 
 this betrayer and executioner of his people, kneeling down 
 before the altar of that God whose name he had so often 
 taken in vain, had the audacity to pollute the Pontifical 
 surplice and cope with his hands, still reeking with inno- 
 cent blood. Thus policy and despotism profane what is 
 most venerable in the eyes of the world, and whilst 
 expecting to beguile it with their juggles, -finish, on the 
 contrary, by rendering themselves still more detested and 
 despised. 
 
 The Pope, when flying from Rome, reckoned upon ex- 
 citing within it a civil war, and consequently upon the 
 necessity of foreign intervention. Deceived in these anti- 
 cipations, Pius IX. repelled with disdain every respectful 
 overture and every humble remonstrance from his subjects, 
 and in a fit of passion so far forgot himself as to excommu- 
 nicate the Roman National Assembly, and all who declared 
 themselves in its favour. But fortunately the time for 
 excommunications is gone by ; not only the National 
 Assembly itself, but all Rome, laughed at the thunderbolts 
 of the Vatican, which in our times have fallen nearly to 
 the level of Lucifer matches ; and, in fact, all Europe 
 laughed with them in its sleeve. 
 
 The elections for the National Assembly continued, and 
 were accomplished with much order and celerity. On the 
 5th of February, 1849, the Assembly met, and opened its 
 first session. After long and animated debates, in which 
 Mamiani by his speeches, and Gioberti by his writings 
 (which had arrived the same day at Rome, and were read 
 in full Assembly,) employed all the resources of eloquence 
 to reconcile the interests of the priesthood with those of 
 sound policy, and the interests of the Court with those of 
 liberty, with the object of upholding the temporal power 
 of the Pope, the democratic party carried the day, and the 
 sitting concluded by the proclamation of the Roman Re- 
 l3 
 
114 PROCLAMATION OF THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 public. The people of Rome — who were, perhaps, unaware 
 of the full import of this expression, and of the immense 
 sacrifices and generous self-denial which it demands from 
 every citizen who rallies under its glorious flag — welcomed 
 the proclamation with demonstrations of unbounded enthu- 
 siasm. 
 
 Unfortunate people ! With souls full of hope, they 
 imagined, in the sudden apparition of this divine Liberty, 
 something more substantial than the simple prestige of a 
 splendid dream ! They forgot that in the ears of the Holy 
 Alliance, the names of Gregory, Sixtus, Pius, and Benedict 
 sound much more sweetly than those of Scipio, Cato, and 
 Brutus ! 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The Sicilian Revolution— Tuscany, Flight of the 
 Grand Duke, and the Republic Proclaimed-— 
 Second War between Piedmont and Austria, — 
 Battle of Novara and Abdication of Charles 
 Albert. 
 
 We left the King of Naples serving mass to the Pope. 
 One word more as to the royal virtues of that adherent of 
 the Pontiff. Sicily had revolted against 1 its government, 
 and had committed the mistake of electing for its king the 
 Duke of Genoa, Charles Albert's second son ; a fatal error, 
 which only served to add to the jealousies and divisions 
 already existing among the different Italian States. Fer- 
 dinand was determined to be avenged upon the rebellious 
 island after his own fashion, and thought of nothing but 
 the gibbet and slaughter. The Sicilians entertained hopes, 
 which proved unfounded, that Admiral Parker and Vice- 
 Admiral Baudin, whose fleets were lying in the bay of 
 Naples, would intercept the naval expedition sent to carry 
 this intention into effect. General Filangeri, an old and 
 brave soldier, commanded this shameful expedition, and 
 sullied one of the most respected names in Italy by 
 becoming the instrument of the vengeance of a cowardly 
 tyrant. The fleet sailed from the Gulf of Naples, without 
 the slightest interposition on the part of the English and 
 French admirals. On the 23rd September it arrived before 
 Messina, which it briskly cannonaded. The forts of the 
 city answered with equal vigour, but such of them as 
 had remained in the hands of the Neapolitan garrison 
 poured upon Messina an incessant shower of balls, bombs, 
 shells, and rockets. This terrible attack having set fire 
 
116 SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF MESSINA. 
 
 to several parts of the city, the Neapolitan troops profited 
 by the disorder which ensued, to attempt a landing : they 
 were, however, repulsed by the militia. Night alone sus- 
 pended the carnage caused by the grape shot. Next day, 
 the conflict was renewed with increased fury. The number 
 of killed was already very considerable on both sides, when 
 Filangeri succeeded in a second landing of troops newly 
 arrived. The city still resisted and drove back the assail- 
 ants, but the latter, strengthened by reinforcements, 
 re-commenced the assault. Whilst grape shot scattered 
 death through the streets, bomb-shells and red-hot balls 
 spread fire in every quarter. Palaces, churches, convents, 
 and public monuments fell in succession to the ground with 
 a tremendous crash. The citizens, driven in from all parts, 
 and hemmed within a circle of fire, still resisted with heroic 
 perseverance, and made a rampart of every wall or heap of 
 ruins. At length, reduced to extremity, they demanded a 
 truce of twenty-four hours, which was granted by Filangeri, 
 but on such humiliating conditions, that, although driven 
 to despair, they refused to avail themselves of it. On the 
 6th and 7th, the bombardment continued without any inter- 
 mission, but the citizens, reduced by their losses in killed 
 and wounded to the impossibility of continuing the contest, 
 were finally subdued by the numerical superiority of the 
 enemy. It was then that pillage, rape, and human destruc- 
 tion were practised by the victors with an order and cool- 
 ness that dishonour humanity and civilisation. We have 
 unfortunately been so often obliged to depict similar 
 horrors in these sketches, that we may be allowed to 
 dispense with details of the murderous scenes of Messina. 
 It will suffice to mention that this important and flourish- 
 ing city was completely destroyed, and that the greater 
 part of its inhabitants were slain during the contest, 
 or shamefully put to death after the victory. The losses 
 sustained by the royal troops in the different engagements 
 were even more considerable than those of the citizens, the 
 former having been obliged to expose themselves in full view. 
 
FLIGHT OF THE GRAND DUKE LEOPOLD. 117 
 
 The flight of the Sovereign of Rome was followed by 
 that of the Ruler of Tuscany. The Grand Duke Leopold, 
 as we have before said, had an Austrian heart in his 
 breast and Austrian blood in his veins. When the day 
 of danger arrived, he became alarmed, thought it expe- 
 dient to exchange the uniform of Austria for that of Italy, 
 and embraced Jesuitically the tri-coloured flag in the public 
 square, having in his pocket at the same moment a secret 
 correspondence with Radetzky. He also embraced Monta- 
 nelli and Guerrazzi, styling them his supporters and dear 
 friends, whilst he was writing to his cousin the Emperor, 
 begging him, as soon as possible, to relieve him from all 
 these blackguards. After having assisted in Florence at 
 the publication of the Italian Constitution, he set off on a 
 frivolous pretext, and deceiving every body, for Sienna. 
 Thence he hastened to join the Pope at Gaeta. There was 
 then to be seen in that town a sort of conclave of Italian 
 Princes, all of whom had violated their oaths, and who, in 
 their privacy, attended only by their Jesuitical camarilla, 
 addressed prayers to the Almighty for the triumph of 
 despotism, and conspired against the liberty of Italy. The 
 flight of the Grand Duke struck Florence with stupefac- 
 tion, but gave the highest delight to the population of 
 Leghorn, who considered his forfeiture of the throne as an 
 inevitable consequence. Tuscany then nominated a Provi- 
 sional Government, — a fatal blunder, which is sure to prove 
 the stumbling block of every revolution. Since Tuscany 
 was determined, and had the right, to break absolutely with 
 her petty sovereign as a deserter, how much better would 
 it have been for her to have proclaimed a republic also, and 
 that immediately, extending one hand to her sister of 
 Venice, and the other to her sister of Rome ! Without 
 entering into a discussion on the most proper form of 
 government for Tuscany and the other fractions of Italy at 
 that time, and considering only the simple facts and their 
 consequences, it is incontestable that Manin, Mazzini, and 
 Guerrazzi owe a very severe account to history and to their 
 
118 PIEDMONT AND THE POPE. 
 
 nation for that want of harmony which existed among 
 themselves in presence of events of so mnch gravity and 
 urgency. The more the Italian princes conspired against 
 the emancipation and freedom of their country, the more 
 incumbent was it upon these three leaders, enjoying the 
 confidence of the people, to unite their efforts to promote 
 and effect the triumph of the good cause. 
 
 In the meantime, France, Spain, Austria, and Naples 
 had agreed to restore the Pope to his throne. The Pied- 
 montese Government having been called upon by these 
 Powers to explain itself upon the subject, the Abbe 
 Gioberti thought fit to reply evasively, although approv- 
 ing of the restoration of the Pope : the same Gioberti 
 who expressed himself in this way being president of a 
 democratic ministry. Just at that time the Parliament 
 was opened at Turin, and Gioberti declared in the outset 
 that Piedmont would never recognise the Roman constitu- 
 tion. The advocate Brofferio, the eloquent leader of the 
 democratic party in the Chamber, energetically opposed 
 the course adopted by the Abbe Minister, in defiance 
 of all the dangers which daily menaced him from the 
 reactionary party. From that period the political star 
 of Gioberti began to wane. He conceived the deplorable 
 project of sending Sardinian troops into Tuscany to 
 re-establish the authority of the deserter from Florence, 
 and with the intention of their proceeding afterwards to 
 do as much for the deserter from Rome. But he met 
 with opposition from the majority of his colleagues, and 
 consequently failed in his scheme, which was one well 
 worthy of a courtier-priest, As soon as this secret pro- 
 ject, which really deserved the name of treason, was 
 discovered by the Chamber, Gioberti was compelled to 
 tender his resignation. Charles Albert immediately ac- 
 cepted it, being delighted to get rid of his theological 
 dictator. Gioberti resigned with regret, and the popu- 
 lace, being secretly excited by his speeches, and worked 
 upon by the reactionary party, made one night a sudden 
 
PIEDMONTESE PREPARATIONS FOR WAR. 119 
 
 attack upon the house of Brofferio, who owed his life, 
 first, to his own firmness, and next to the rather dilatory- 
 interference of the police. Little was wanting to fan 
 these troubles into a civil war, which, indeed, was desired 
 by the Jesuits and the majority of the aristocracy, who 
 dreaded all liberal ideas and looked upon a Constitution 
 as the worst of evils. 
 
 On the fall of Gioberti, the uew ministry took seriously 
 into consideration the renewal of the war against Austria. 
 The victories of the Hungarians, the heroic resistance of 
 Venice, the position of Rome and Tuscany, and the bitter 
 recollection of the': unfortunate issue of the last campaign, 
 concurred to urge the renewal of warlike efforts. Foreign 
 diplomacy, however, was opposed to it, and that for special 
 motives. The nobility and the clerical party abetted, with 
 all the power of intrigue, the secret opposition of diplo- 
 matists ; but when once convinced that the Chamber, the 
 Ministers, and the King could not be turned from their 
 warlike views, they changed their tactics and cast about 
 for the means best calculated to prepare beforehand the 
 triumph of Radetzky, which was so intimately, though 
 indirectly, connected with their own. 
 
 The Piedmontese army, after its re-organisation, num- 
 bered about 130,000 men, including the corps of Lombards. 
 The infantry, the chief arm in every war, was but indif- 
 ferent (for the reasons already alleged ;) but the cavalry 
 was good, and the artillery excellent. The staff" officers, 
 all things considered, were unequal to their important 
 duties. The commissariat and medical departments were 
 both in a wretched state, and the same disorder as for- 
 merly existed in the general administration. The supe- 
 rior officers, having little confidence in themselves, could 
 not inspire much in others. Krzanowski, appointed by 
 the King as commander-in-chief, was of an amphibious 
 character, half Pole and half Russian : his talents un- 
 known, and his probity dubious, he was not qualified to 
 win respect and confidence. Instead of this officer, who 
 
120 RUPTURE OF THE ARMISTICE WITH AUSTRIA. 
 
 lacked that military reputation which gives so powerful 
 a claim to the confidence of the subordinate ranks of an 
 army, some able French General might have been easily 
 found to accept the appointment of Commander-in-chief ; 
 but Charles Albert and his Government, mistaking appear- 
 ance for reality, and the name for the thing, in their fear 
 of the French Republic, were unwilling to entrust the com- 
 mand of their army to a republican general ; a fact which 
 shows that Piedmont entertained a stronger belief in the 
 reality and duration of a French Republic than France 
 herself. As an irreconcilable enemy of Austria, the King 
 was most eager for an occasion to avenge his late defeat ; 
 but, from feebleness of character, he was constantly 
 struggling between the thirst for vengeance on the one 
 hand, and the dread of a republic and of alienating his 
 old connexions among the aristocracy on the other. 
 
 It was on the 12th March, 1849, that Piedmont notified 
 to Austria the rupture of the armistice, according to the 
 conditions of which hostilities might recommence on the 
 20th. The two governments appealed, by their proclama- 
 tions, to the judgment of Europe. That of Piedmont was 
 grave and moderate, as becomes every protest of right 
 against brutal force ; that of Radetzky was arrogant, as 
 suits the employment of brute force against right. The 
 Piedmontese army was superior in number to that of the 
 enemy, and everything seemed to justify the belief that 
 Radetzky could only act on the defensive. But those who 
 merely calculated the chances by externals were ignorant 
 of the understanding which existed between the enemies 
 of reform, who were plotting within, and Radetzky 
 threatening from without. It was from confidence in the 
 'support of these allies that the hostile General unhesita- 
 tingly ordered an attack to be made, boasting to his staff 
 officers that they had only a march to make from Milan to 
 Turin. The Piedmontese Commander, Krzanowski, who 
 could not believe that Radetzky would venture to attack 
 him, had made no preparation for defence throughout the 
 
BLUNDERS OF THE PIEDMONTESE COMMANDER. 121 
 
 lines which his army occupied on the frontier. According to 
 custom, the service of the Piedmontese scouts and spies 
 was extremely defective. Krzanowski, therefore, mistaking 
 entirely the intentions of Radetzky, whom he supposed re- 
 treating, advanced with his left wing, having the King at 
 its head, into BufTalora, on the Lombard territory, where 
 he met with no resistance. By a very rapid movement on 
 the side of Pavia, Radetzky attacked the right of the Pied- 
 montese with his own left. It was here that General 
 Ramorino, commanding the Lombard division, which was 
 most eager to attack the enemy, left open the important 
 passage of the Cava, without stirring from his post. So 
 inconceivable a fault naturally admits the imputation of 
 treachery ; but is it to be attributed to Ramorino himself, 
 or to a higher source ? That is a mystery which the pro- 
 ceedings of the court martial, which afterwards condemned 
 this general to death, by no means cleared up. When 
 Krzanowski became aware that his right was attacked, 
 instead of adopting one of those rapid and final resolutions 
 which mark the power of genius, and which may fix the 
 destiny of a nation, he manoeuvred with feebleness and 
 procrastination, and instead of advancing with all his 
 forces towards the point attacked, confined himself to 
 sending thither a few insignificant reinforcements. At 
 Sforzesca and at Vigevano the Piedmontese, though in- 
 ferior in number, made a most desperate resistance, and 
 repulsed the enemy at the point of the bayonet ; but, 
 subsequently overpowered by the repeated arrival of 
 fresh Austrian battalions, they were obliged to retreat 
 in disorder upon Mortara. It was in this place that the 
 intrigues of the Jesuits and the reactionary cabal began 
 to gain ground ; and it may be said, that from this mo- 
 ment the Piedmontese no longer appeared the same 
 soldiers. Driven back by the enemy into Mortara, they 
 there resisted but feebly ; they lost a considerable number 
 in killed, wounded, and prisoners, and on the fatal cry of 
 " Sauve qui peut" proceeding from some traitors in their 
 M 
 
122 FRESH ABSOLUTIST INTRIGUES. 
 
 ranks, a complete rout took place. The shattered rem- 
 nants of the right wing rallied in disorder to the centre 
 and left of the army near Novara ; the whole Austrian 
 army pursuing them to within sight of the Piedmontese 
 camp, of which the centre was posted at Bicocca, a farm 
 on a rising ground not far from the town, and which had 
 been hastily fortified. It was here that the King at the 
 head of his troops awaited the enemy, and in the rear of 
 this position the Dukes of Savoy and Genoa commanded 
 the reserve. The position was excellent, and the distribu- 
 tion of the different corps according to the most approved 
 rules of tactics. But, apart from these circumstances, 
 what was the spirit of the combatants ? Almost all the 
 leaders belonged to patrician families, and under pretext 
 of hatred and dread of democracy, cordially detested the 
 new institutions, and discredited Charles Albert with the 
 soldiers, because, in fact, instead of imitating the perjured 
 King of Naples, he respected his oaths. 
 
 It was these traitors who in the preceding campaign 
 restrained the ardour, loosened the discipline, and cor- 
 rupted the hearts of the soldiers. No sooner did the 
 democratic ministry (which was such only in name,) come 
 into power, than the fury of the aristocrats became so 
 blind and so insolent, that they were not ashamed to 
 persuade the soldiery that the Parliament was but a con- 
 venticle of demagogues, the Constitution an infamous 
 deception, and the so-called Italian cause only a plan for 
 annihilating Piedmont and the House of Savoy. They 
 instructed them that Charles Albert was only a poor 
 visionary, and that the liberal party desired war merely for 
 the purpose of ruining the army, and of proclaiming a 
 Republic, and with a Republic the reign of terror and the 
 guillotine. "With the subversive doctrines of their leaders 
 was united the voice of the priests, who, on the first news 
 of the renewal of war, preached in all the villages, and 
 consequently in the hearing of the conscripts and of the 
 numerous soldiers of the reserve, that the war was impious, 
 
BATTLE OF NO VARA. 123 
 
 the Austrians being friends and defenders of the Pope, so 
 that to fight against Austria was to fight against the Papacy. 
 At the very moment that Radetzky was invading Piedmont, 
 pamphlets and proclamations against the war, and against 
 constitutional liberty, were clandestinely distributed in the 
 ranks of the army. So far was this policy carried, that 
 verses defamatory of Charles Albert were sung by emissa- 
 ries of the reactionary party among the soldiers, amid the 
 sneers and jests of numerous adepts. This was the poisonous 
 seed sown by the hands of the Jesuits and the reactionary 
 party, of which the bitter fruits were reaped on the fields of 
 Mortara and Novara, the Waterloo of the Italian cause. 
 
 But it must not be inferred from this representation of 
 the state of things, that all the Piedmontese leaders parti- 
 cipated in these shameful intrigues. Many of the officers, 
 although disapproving of the late reforms, remained faithful 
 to military honour, and many of the privates, whom the 
 reactionary partisans endeavoured to seduce, proved exam- 
 ples of constancy and discipline. 
 
 At Novara, the Piedmontese army still numbered 53,000, 
 with more than 100 pieces of cannon. On the 23rd March, 
 at nine in the morning, they were drawn up in order of 
 battle, but, according to custom, the rations were deficient, 
 which increased the ill-humour of the troops, who began 
 to express their discontent loudly. The King arrived on 
 the ground, and passed along the front, but was received 
 with icy silence, which was a bad omen. At eleven o'clock 
 the outposts were attacked by the enemy, who was at first 
 vigorously repulsed ; but the assailants, reinforced by fresh 
 masses of troops, concentrated from all parts upon Bicocca, 
 drove back in their turn the Piedmontese, and took that 
 place, which was soon afterwards recaptured with horrible 
 carnage on both sides. Victory was on the point of declar- 
 ing for the Piedmontese, whose repeated charges had 
 occasioned disorder and hesitation in the Austrian columns ; 
 and the battle might have been won if Krzanowski, pro- 
 fiting by this hesitation, had charged with all his forces, 
 m2 
 
124 TOTAL DEFEAT OF THE PIEDMONTESE. 
 
 including the reserve ; but his irresolute character made 
 him miss the precious moment. Radetzky perceived the 
 fault, and turned it to his advantage ; he made a last despe- 
 rate effort with all his troops, and again checked his 
 enemy. The shock was terrible and decisive. The same 
 cries of distress and discouragement which had produced 
 the panic at Mortara, were again heard upon the field of 
 Novara, and the rout commenced. It was all in vain that 
 the King, the two Princes, and some other leaders, and 
 even battalions, which remained faithful to their colours, 
 endeavoured to arrest the disorderly flight, to rally the fugi- 
 tives, and to oppose a last resistance to the enemy. The 
 flight became general, and stopped only at the town of 
 Novara, into which the fugitives entered pell-mell, and 
 committed all kinds of excesses. The losses in killed and 
 wounded were considerable on both sides. As on all other 
 occasions, the King and the two Princes displayed the most 
 brilliant courage. A great number of valiant Piedmontese 
 officers fell on the field of honour ; the generals Passalacqua 
 and Perrone were killed while charging the enemy at the 
 head of their columns. Honour to these heroes, whose 
 illustrious names will never be forgotten by grateful Italy ! 
 There were found lying on the field of battle, and in the 
 cartouch boxes of the Piedmontese killed, printed bulletins, 
 sent from Turin shortly before the engagement, in which 
 the soldiers were urged not to fight, because the Republic 
 had been proclaimed in the capital, and were assured that 
 they would be shedding their blood, not for the king, but 
 for demagogues. 
 
 The King hastily assembled his generals in a council of 
 war. He expressed an opinion that they ought to retire 
 with the remains of the army within the fortress of Ales- 
 sandria ; but the council rejected this project unanimously. 
 He then applied for an armistice to Radetzky, who refused 
 it, replying with insolent brutality, that he could not trust 
 Charles Albert's word. Upon this reply, the latter ex- 
 claimed, " All is lost, — even honour !" and abdicated his 
 
ABDICATION OF CHAKLES ALBERT. 125 
 
 crown. Relieved from this load, the ill-fated monarch im- 
 mediately quitted the army and his States, taking the name 
 of Count De Barge, and retired to a modest retreat near 
 Oporto, seeking that repose which he had never enjoyed 
 on the throne ; hut like Charles V., he was disappointed in 
 the hope. His ambition frustrated, confidence in his con- 
 stitutional tendencies shaken, the recollections of his double 
 defeat and of the treachery of almost all his favourites, with 
 perhaps some late remorse for his conduct in 1821, disturbed 
 his solitude, until he found the repose reserved by nature 
 for the unfortunate, — that of the tomb. 
 
 By the abdication of Charles Albert, the Duke of Savoy, 
 Victor Emmanuel, ascended the throne. An armistice was 
 concluded on the 24th March between Radetzky and the 
 new King. The defeated troops having evacuated Novara, 
 the Austrians entered the town, and even they were so 
 astonished at the extraordinary havoc committed by their 
 utterly demoralised opponents, as to manifest some pity for 
 the misfortunes of the inhabitants. Thus the miserable 
 town was doomed to experience outrage from those who 
 ought to have protected it, and commiseration from foes 
 noted for their brutality. 
 
 m 3 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Revolt of Genoa — Siege and Heroic Defence of 
 Brescia — Atrocities of General Haynau — The 
 Roman Republic threatened by a Catholic 
 Coalition — Defeat of the French and Neapo- 
 litan Armies. 
 
 When news of the defeat of Novara, and of the armistice, 
 reached Turin, the people were seized with surprise and 
 consternation. The reactionary party alone were neither 
 astonished nor alarmed, because they had foreseen the issue 
 of the war. The new King made his entry into the capital 
 on the 26th of March, and the Ministry was changed. In 
 the Chamber, the Members of the Opposition offered the 
 strongest proofs of the treasonable practices of several 
 personages whom they were desirous of impeaching, but 
 such confusion prevailed that nothing was done in the 
 matter. 
 
 The city of Genoa was fired with indignation and stung 
 with shame at the conditions imposed upon the vanquished 
 by victors who owed their success to the treachery of the 
 enemies of national liberty. Her citizens flew to arms, 
 and protested against the disgrace inflicted upon the 
 nation. This demonstration, however honourable in its 
 motives, was an infraction of legal order, and was neces- 
 sarily considered by the Government as an act of rebellion. 
 The people assailed the forts, the arsenal, and the palace 
 of the Governor. They attacked the garrison, amount- 
 ing to 4,000 men, and after a conflict, in which much 
 blood was shed on both sides, the troops were defeated 
 and obliged to evacuate the town. Under these cir- 
 
SEVERE PUNISHMENT OF GENOA. 127 
 
 cumstances, General La Marmora, whose division had re- 
 mained intact, received orders to invest Genoa immediately, 
 and to employ the most severe measures against it. 
 
 On the approach of La Marmora, the Genoese formed a 
 Provisional Government, at the head of which was placed 
 General Avezzana, Commander-in-Chief of the National 
 Guard. The citizens were equipped with the arms found 
 in the arsenal. Messages were sent along the coast to 
 raise the population, and to engage the Lombard division 
 to come to the assistance of the city in this peril ; but 
 the former did not answer the appeal made to them, and 
 General Fanti, who commanded the latter, forbade it to stir. 
 In this imminent danger, the nobility, the clergy, and the 
 middle class, seized with alarm, did all in their power by 
 persuasion, seconded by the distribution of sums of money, 
 to appease the irritation of the people and to induce them 
 to lay down their arms j so that, when the attack com- 
 menced, there remained only a few hundred men under 
 the orders of General Avezzana. Thus situated, Genoa 
 could oppose no serious resistance. La Marmora might 
 easily have obtained its capitulation, but he preferred the 
 horrors of a siege to the pleasure of restoring the city to 
 his King uninjured. After a bombardment of three days 
 and three nights, and a desperate struggle, with the loss 
 of many killed and wounded on both sides, Genoa capitu- 
 lated, and then this second capital of the kingdom was 
 delivered to the licence of the exasperated soldiery, and 
 witnessed a repetition of the excesses committed at 
 Novara. In order that the unfortunate country might 
 drain the cup of humiliation to the dregs, this deplorable 
 campaign was thus closed by a frightful scene of civil war ; 
 and the soldiers who had refused to fight against foreigners, 
 performed striking acts of courage against their fellow- 
 citizens, whose misconduct, though not to be justified as 
 regards the law, had its origin in a desire to protest, in the 
 face of Europe, against the humiliations imposed upon the 
 national dignity. 
 
128 INSURRECTION AT BRESCIA. 
 
 Before the renewal of hostilities between Piedmont and 
 Austria, another insurrection had been secretly prepared 
 throughout Lombardy. It had been settled that it should 
 everywhere break out on the first announcement of a defeat 
 of the Austrian s, which was expected by everybody ex- 
 cepting Hadetzky and the partisans whom he reckoned 
 upon in Piedmont. The news of the Piedmontese reverses 
 arrived in time at Milan, Como, and Bergamo, to prevent 
 the inhabitants from rising ; but the town of Brescia, 
 misled by false reports which were spread exactly at the 
 time that the battle of Novara took place, broke into insur- 
 rection with the cries of " Piedmont for ever !" " Death 
 to the barbarians ! " The people disarmed the Austrian 
 Guard on duty, and made prisoner the commander of the 
 fort, from the walls of which powerful artillery cannon- 
 aded the town. Unable to obtain possession of this fort, 
 the people attacked a body of the enemy's reserve encamp- 
 ed within three miles of the town, and completely routed 
 them. Having taken possession of the camp, they fortified 
 themselves in it, and awaited there during two days the 
 reinforcements promised from Bergamo, but which did not 
 arrive. On the 26th March, a body of 1,000 men, with 
 two pieces of cannon, commanded by General Nogent, one 
 of the best Austrian generals, attacked this camp of the 
 Brescians. The latter, although inferior in number, main- 
 tained their ground steadily, repulsed the enemy frequently 
 with great loss, and put him to flight. The Council of 
 War recalled this handful of brave fellows to the defence 
 of the walls of the town. On the 27th, General Nogent, 
 at the head of numerous reinforcements received from 
 Peschiera, advanced to the attack of Brescia, which found 
 itself thus placed between the bombs showered down upon 
 it from the forts and the cannon balls of the besiegers. The 
 inhabitants had sworn to perish under the ruins of their 
 town rather than surrender, and with loud cries of " War ! 
 War ! Italy for ever ! " made a sally so well-conducted and 
 so valiantly sustained, that they broke through the enemy's 
 
GALLANT EXPLOITS OF THE CITIZENS. 129 
 
 lines, and drove him back with great loss as far as his 
 entrenchments, three miles distant from the town. On 
 the 28th, Nogent not having reappeared, they had the 
 audacity to attack him in his own camp. The combat 
 lasted all day. The Brescians displayed amazing courage, 
 and even rashness. Two-thirds of the citizen forces were 
 left killed or wounded on the field of battle. The loss of 
 the Austrians was beyond comparison greater. General 
 Nogent fell mortally wounded, but before expiring, sent to 
 Peschiera and Mantua for fresh reinforcements. It is said 
 that, when dying, this General left one-half of his fortune 
 to the town of Brescia, as a testimonial of his admiration 
 of the brilliant courage of its citizens. Bayard, the knight 
 without fear and without reproach, had done something 
 similar in the fifteenth century, when Brescia was taken 
 by assault by Louis the Xllth's army, and delivered up to 
 pillage ; perhaps Nogent, himself a valiant knight, was 
 desirous of imitating so distinguished a model. 
 
 On the news of Nogent's disasters before Brescia, 
 General Haynau, who had been occupied in vain efforts to 
 take Venice, advanced in all haste with a reinforcement of 
 6,000 men, well provided with cavalry and artillery. He 
 summoned the town to surrender at discretion, notifying 
 at the same time the issue of the battle of No vara, and 
 threatening total destruction in case of refusal. It was 
 very well known that in respect of fire, plunder, and the 
 gallows, Haynau was a man to keep his word. But though 
 Brescia had lost the greater part of its defenders in past 
 conflicts, the inhabitants refused submission, and that the 
 more resolutely, from suspicion that the news communicated 
 by Haynau was untrue. On the 31st March, the fight 
 began at day-break, and was maintained till after night- 
 fall. It might have been supposed that the citizens had 
 never exercised any other occupation than that of soldiers. 
 It is no undue praise of those champions of Italian free- 
 dom to say, that each citizen had become a soldier, and 
 each soldier a hero. 
 
130 SUCCESSFUL ASSAULT OF THE AUSTRIANS. * 
 
 Haynau saw his best officers fall by bis side; the 
 assailants became thoroughly disheartened, and the General 
 himself was equally astonished and annoyed. But, after 
 receiving from the banks of the Tessino and the Mincio 
 fresh battalions and supplies of artillery, he determined 
 to make a general assault upon the town. At the moment 
 when the dazzling sun of the 1st of April appeared above 
 the horizon, and the first cannon was fired to announce 
 the attack, some volunteers from Bergamo were admitted 
 into the town, and confirmed the disastrous news from 
 Novara. It was now too late. The citizens renewed 
 their promise to bury themselves under the ruins of their 
 walls, and with unanimous acclamations of "Italy for 
 ever !" prepared themselves for a desperate defence. This 
 final struggle was dreadfully bloody, as was to be ex- 
 pected from the love of liberty and the courage of 
 despair on the one side, and the thirst for vengeance on the 
 other. 
 
 Haynau, trampling upon heaps of the corpses of his own 
 soldiers, at last penetrated into the town, which he ravaged 
 with sword and fire ; but, in order to succeed in occupying 
 it entirely, he had to storm each quarter, each street, each 
 house, and buttress. Behind every ruin, every wall or 
 column, was posted some citizen, sure to bring to the ground 
 one or several enemies, over whose corpses the assailants 
 had to pass in order to gain ground. Driven into the 
 centre of the town, and hemmed in by a circle of steel from 
 which there was no escape, the citizens continued to resist, 
 having in addition to endure an incessant shower of shells 
 from the fort. 
 
 If the atrocities committed at a later period by Haynau 
 in Hungary, had not corroborated the report of those 
 perpetrated at Brescia, contemporaries might have denied 
 the latter credence, and considered the description of them 
 as the dream of a madman. He spared neither age nor 
 sex. Disabled age, women and children, were put to the 
 sword with the same fury as the combatants. The churches 
 
ATROCITIES OF GENERAL HAYNAU. 131 
 
 were polluted by pillage and rape, and the altars sullied 
 with the blood of the victims. Haynau himself took delight 
 in killing by the slowest methods, accompanied by the 
 greatest refinements of torture, the father before the eyes 
 of his children, the children before those of their father, 
 the husband in the arms of his wife, and brothers in each 
 other's arms. To complete this disgusting picture, we are 
 obliged to add that, excited by the savage encouragement 
 of their leader, these cannibals threw tar or spirits of tur- 
 pentine on their prisoners, and burnt them by slow fires, 
 in the presence of their wives and mothers. In other parts 
 of the town, prisoners were bound together with cords, 
 and witnessed the dishonour of their wives, who were 
 afterwards chopped in pieces with their children ; in some 
 instances the barbarities of the soldiery were carried to a 
 yet more revolting pitch. Some of the unhappy citizens 
 fell down and expired from horror and disgust ; others 
 went mad. We must ask pardon for recording facts so 
 revolting, but truth and the wrongs of Italy demand it. 
 
 Such were the exploits and triumphs of Haynau in 
 Italy — Haynau, whom Vienna, St. Petersburg, and Naples 
 subsequently loaded with favours and decked out with 
 orders and stars, but whom the civilised world and his- 
 tory have stigmatised as a tiger. It was reserved for the 
 brewers of London to offer to this brute, who was making 
 a tour through Europe, displaying himself as if he had 
 a just claim to its admiration, a trophy worthy of his 
 exploits. Admitting, as it could not but do, the illegality 
 of the proceeding, all Europe secretly applauded the wel- 
 come given to Haynau in Messrs. Barclay and Perkins's 
 brewery. The insults and the mud addressed to the execu- 
 tioner of Brescia and of Hungary, the flogger of women, 
 bespattered also to a certain extent all those tyrants who 
 make a sport of the misfortunes and sufferings of humanity, 
 whilst they encourage, protect, and cherish reprobates 
 who boast, as petty imitators of Attila, of being its 
 scour sre. 
 
132 RENEWED OPPRESSION OF SICILY. 
 
 The issue of the battle of Novara gave fresh encourage- 
 ment to the misdeeds of all the small Italian despots. 
 Sicily was the first to feel the effects of the relapse. 
 After the fall of Messina the hatchet of King Bomba 
 (the Bourbon of Naples) fell upon Catania, Agrigento, 
 and Syracuse. General Filangeri again undertook to 
 act the part of royal executioner. The Swiss and Nea- 
 politan troops under his orders vied with each other to 
 satisfy the fury of their King and the zeal of their 
 general. The Ministers of France and England inter- 
 posed, and employed their best efforts to stop these 
 cruelties. The Palermitans, though they had received 
 the solemn promise of a general amnesty and the pro- 
 clamation of the Constitution of 1812, were once more 
 harnessed in the yoke which they had thrown off. But 
 they had no sooner laid down their arms than the King, 
 according to his constant practice, broke his engagements ; 
 the dungeons and the gallows were again put in requisition, 
 and both were amply employed. As to the Constitution, it 
 was actually published, but at the same time with martial 
 law, which of course annulled all its effects. These fresh 
 acts of Royal treachery insured the triumph of the cour- 
 tiers, the military, public informers, and priests. 
 
 Whilst he was thus butchering his beloved Sicilian sub- 
 jects, King Ferdinand, who fears St. Januarius more than 
 God, and the liberals more than St. Januarius, joined the 
 powerful crusade organised by Austria, France, and Spain 
 for the purpose of restoring Pius IX. to the throne which 
 he virtually abdicated when he fled from his States. 
 Austria invaded the Legations, a portion of the Papal 
 territory which she has always coveted in spite of her 
 apostolical devotion to the Pope. Spain sent a few 
 hungry and ragged troops, whose exploits were confined 
 to emptying the sheep folds, plundering the farms, robbing 
 the inhabitants, and outraging the women and children, 
 all for the avowed purpose of the restoration of the Pope ! 
 King Bomba occupied with 12,000 men Albano and Velletri, 
 
INTERVENTION OF THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT. 133 
 
 where he was shortly afterwards attacked by Garibaldi at 
 the head of a few hundred followers, when he precipi- 
 tately decamped, and, seized with a panic, never halted till 
 he had reached the frontier of his own kingdom. But for 
 the fleetness of his horse, and some slight resistance offered 
 by a regiment of his cavalry, which allowed him time to 
 escape, this bragging Sovereign would have been taken 
 prisoner in the midst of his army by those very * brigands" 
 whom he had sworn to annihilate. Escaped as by a 
 miracle, Ferdinand renounced for the future all personal 
 share in such proceedings. The occupation of serving 
 mass and the fumes of incense suit him much better than 
 a soldier's life and the smell of gunpowder. 
 
 The glorious task of demolishing the Roman Republic 
 was claimed by the French Republic as its exclusive 
 privilege. The majority of the Legislative Assembly (an 
 assembly which not long afterwards most ingloriously gave 
 up the ghost,) swayed by such leaders as De Falloux and 
 Montalembert, who feigned a belief that the people of 
 Rome groaned under the oppression of a horde of demo- 
 crats, and that their secret but most ardent wishes were for 
 the return of the Pope, resolved in favour of despatching 
 an expedition of 10,000 men to Civita Vecchia, under the 
 orders of General Oudinot, who afterwards fell into dis- 
 grace in so ridiculous a manner, and was recalled on the 
 2nd December, 1852. The Romans were made to believe 
 that the object of this expedition was entirely pacific, that 
 of enforcing order and legality ; and that the restoration 
 of Pius IX. would be accompanied by institutions of the 
 most liberal nature, such as France had a right to estab- 
 lish. Though the Commander-in-Chief of the expedition,, 
 on landing at Civita Vecchia, learned the real intentions of 
 his Government, he published a proclamation, assuring the 
 Roman nation of his sympathy and that of the French 
 Republic, as well as of his firm intention to install such 
 a form of Government as should be most in harmony with 
 the wishes of the people. He professed, indeed entire 
 
 N 
 
134 FRENCH EXPEDITION BEFORE ROME. 
 
 devotion to the true interests of so noble a country as 
 Italy. 
 
 These promises deluded the inhabitants of Civita Vecchia, 
 but had not the same success with the citizens of Rome, who 
 immediately erected barricades, and prepared for an armed 
 defence of the city. On the 30th April, Oudinot arrived 
 with his army before its walls, and demanded admittance. 
 On receiving a refusal, he resolved to enter by force. The 
 French troops were directed to advance in two close 
 columns against the Cavaleggeri and Angelica gates, and 
 to occupy the Villa Panfili, whence Oudinot began to 
 cannonade the city. In this crisis Garibaldi received 
 orders to make a sally, which exactly tallied with his 
 own desire. He attacked the French in flank, charged 
 them with the bayonet, drove them back with loss, and 
 made 300 prisoners. At the same time two other detach- 
 ments of the Roman garrison, commanded by Colonels 
 Masi and Calandrelli, broke through the whole line of the 
 French army, which, after an engagement which lasted 
 seven hours, was routed, leaving in the power of the 
 Romans more than a thousand men in killed, wounded, or 
 prisoners. An eloquent lesson this, and a solemn refuta- 
 tion given to the majority of the French Assembly, who 
 had cavilled at the employment of such a force as 10,000 
 French soldiers in the expedition, pretending that one-half 
 that number was more than sufficient to put down a few 
 hundred " brigands," and adding, with stupid arrogance, 
 — " Italians do not fight." 
 
 Garibaldi was anxious to follow up his victory, in the 
 hope of driving back the French as far as Civita Vecchia, 
 and even forcing them to re-embark. But Mazzini opposed 
 the project, under the idea that this defeat would produce 
 a complete change in the determination of France respect- 
 ing the Roman Republic. Incredible delusion on the part 
 of a man who ought to have been able to appreciate better 
 both men and facts ! The majority of the French Assembly, 
 although broken up into different factions, was perfectly 
 
MISTAKEN POLICY OF MAZZINI. 135 
 
 agreed on one point, viz., that a republican form of govern- 
 ment was unsuited to France, and to be considered by the 
 French only as a state of transition. Entertaining this 
 idea, it did not suit that majority and still less the Govern- 
 ment, to protect and allow to subsist elsewhere institutions 
 which they were using their utmost endeavours to over- 
 throw at home. Mazzini, inflexible as ever in his views, — 
 which unfortunately he constantly endeavours to impose 
 upon others — preferred to employ negociations ; he loaded 
 the French prisoners with kindness and civility, (in this 
 respect acting generously and well,) and concluded an 
 armistice with Oudinot, confiding to diplomacy the denoue- 
 ment of the drama. We shall see the fruit of his want of 
 energy and excessive confidence in protocols. 
 
 N2 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Siege of Rome continued — French Assaults and 
 Political Agents — The Triumvirs and the 
 Roman Assembly— Fall of Rome— Character of 
 Garibaldi — Return to Despotic Government in 
 Central Italy. 
 
 The negotiations to which Mazzini had in his simplicity 
 trusted, came to nothing. The intervention of Lesseps, 
 the French political agent, was productive of no result 
 whatever; in fact, his policy was disavowed by his Govern- 
 ment with the greatest effrontery. Lesseps was recalled 
 and succeeded by De Corcelles, a man of violent character, 
 bringing along with him strong prejudices. This change 
 of envoys was a fresh deception upon the Romans. 
 Meantime the French Government, which had discovered 
 at last that it had to deal with something of more con- 
 sequence than a "few hundred brigands," reinforced the 
 expedition. Oudinot again made his appearance under 
 the walls of Rome, and prepared for fresh and more 
 serious assaults. 
 
 It had been agreed between the belligerent parties 
 that hostilities should not be renewed before June 4th. 
 Notwithstanding this stipulation, a French column moved 
 on the 3rd from Monte Mario, and unfairly took by 
 surprise the Ponte Molle, whilst at the same time the 
 flower of the army, composed of troops inured to war 
 in the campaigns of Africa, and just landed on Roman 
 soil, invested the city on two opposite sides. The engage- 
 ment was most severe, and lasted from morning to night. 
 The villas Corsini and Panfili were four times taken and 
 retaken, on each occasion wi£h dreadful carnage. The 
 
BRILLIANT DEFENCE OF ROME. 137 
 
 environs of Rome were strewn with corpses and covered 
 with blood. Once more the French were compelled to 
 retreat, and young Roman citizens, who had never before 
 smelt gunpowder, had the glory of repelling with loss the 
 veterans of Islin and Constantina, who were astonished at 
 their own defeat. 
 
 Convinced of the impossibility of taking Rome by a 
 coup-de-main, Oudinot had recourse to measures for sub- 
 duing it by a regular siege, which continued more than 
 a month, and during which, notwithstanding protests 
 from the different foreign consuls, incessant showers of 
 bombs were fired upon the city by day and night, without 
 the slightest respect for the temples, hospitals, monuments, 
 and all those wonders of ancient and modern art which 
 constitute Rome the metropolis of the fine arts. 
 
 The Romans were well aware that they had to deal with 
 a warlike and powerful nation, and that the forces of 
 Austria and Spain cut off all hope of succour from their 
 Italian brethren. But in spite of this conviction they 
 were resolved to maintain their resistance to the last. On 
 each fresh summons of the enemy to surrender, they replied 
 that they might be crushed by force, but they would never 
 disgrace themselves by accepting conditions destructive of 
 the liberty of the nation. We should exceed the limits of 
 our task if we undertook the description of the admirable 
 system of defence conducted by Rosselli, the impetuous 
 sallies of Garibaldi, the exploits of the whole garrison, 
 composed of a few Swiss and of volunteers from all parts of 
 Italy, and more especially the brilliant achievements of the 
 Lombards under the command of their indefatigable leaders, 
 the brave Colonel Medici and Colonel Manara, the same 
 young officer who had so greatly distinguished himself in 
 the revolution of Milan, and who was killed by the last 
 bullet fired against expiring Rome by the terrible Vin- 
 cennes rifles. Mameli, Daverio, and Dandolo, three young 
 men belonging to distinguished families in Upper Italy, and 
 whose names will ever live in the annals of their country, 
 N3 
 
138 FALL OF THE CITY AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 fell also gloriously in the defence of Roman liberty. We 
 have often had opportunities to converse on the subject of 
 this siege with French officers who had assisted at it ; and 
 all of them admitted with the frankness characteristic of 
 true bravery, that the constancy, courage, and ability of 
 the defenders of Rome, — qualities the more remarkable in 
 soldiers formed on the spur of the moment, — had exceed- 
 ingly surprised them and excited their most just admiration. 
 
 On the 30th June, the Roman Assembly having declared 
 that all hope of continuing the defence must be abandoned, 
 the Triumvirs, (Mazzini, Armellini, and Safli) abdicated, 
 and were succeeded by Saliceti, Mariani, and Calandrelli. 
 A shower of bombs was directed upon the legislative 
 palace, but the Assembly, imitating the stoicism of the 
 Roman senators in presence of the invading Gauls, re- 
 mained sitting, and pursued the transaction of business. 
 The Assembly and the Government perceived that Rome 
 could hold out no longer, but they were still unwilling to 
 treat directly for its surrender. Having, therefore, drawn 
 up a solemn protest against the abuse of a foreign force to 
 overpower them, they allowed a commission of the corpo- 
 ration to repair to the French camp to arrange the terms of 
 a capitulation. Oudinot received this commission with the 
 greatest civility, but whilst he expressed admiration of the 
 bravery of the Roman garrison, he refused to admit the 
 conditions proposed, and offered others too humiliating to be 
 accepted. The commission, therefore, retired, declaring that 
 rather than submit to dishonourable terms, they would see 
 the French enter by main force, and as conquerors. Oudinot, 
 thereupon, at the intemperate instigation of De Corcelles, 
 raised his demands, and remained perfectly inflexible. 
 
 On the 3rd of July, the French made their entrance into 
 Rome. It would have been difficult for a stranger just 
 arriving, to distinguish the victors from the vanquished by 
 their looks. The former were melancholy on account of a 
 victory so dearly bought ; the latter were far from being 
 dejected at a defeat so honourable and glorious. 
 
SLANDERS ON THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 139 
 
 Thus fell that Republic, which had shone with a lustre 
 like that of comets which, for a short time visible, disap- 
 pear in boundless space, to return to our horizon after 
 making a circuit more or less extensive. Notwithstanding 
 the well-founded regrets felt by the Italians at its over- 
 throw, we may be allowed with diffidence to express an 
 opinion that Italy is not yet ripe for a republic, which is 
 perhaps the most perfect form of government, but practi- 
 cally, and considering what kind of republic modern times 
 require, is beyond doubt the most difficult of all, as well 
 for those who govern as for the governed. The Roman 
 Republic of 1849 has been dreadfully calumniated by the 
 rancour of triumphant reaction, which, according to custom, 
 has not spared the kick of the ass at the expiring lion. No 
 credit is allowed it for benefits effected, and still less for 
 those intended ; on the contrary, it is charged with numer- 
 ous evils in which it had no share, and which it could not 
 possibly prevent. The Triumvirs were neither rapacious 
 nor sanguinary, as their enemies have thought fit to repre- 
 sent ; their administration of the commonwealth was, 
 on the contrary, upright and disinterested ; and their 
 clemency in the application of the rigorous rules of war- 
 fare approached almost to weakness. The crimes which 
 reactionary slander has imputed to them are fitter for a 
 novel or some silly romance than for the page of history. 
 
 The Republicans have impeached France of political 
 fratricide for having overthrown the Roman republic ; but 
 to establish the existence of this fratricide they start from 
 a premise quite erroneous, as if France was at that time 
 republican. It is evident that the last French Republic 
 existed as such merely in name, — an assertion corroborated 
 by all the facts. It being once admitted that France could 
 not pretend to support and protect another republic on the 
 ground of identity of origin and principles, it would remain 
 to be examined whether she possessed the right to destroy 
 the Government of which Rome had made choice. To such 
 an inquiry France might answer, that, being Catholic and 
 
140 RETURN OF THE POPE. 
 
 allied with the Pope, she had the right, and it was even 
 her bounden duty (it may be said,) to protect him, and 
 with so much the more liberty of action, that she had sub- 
 scribed to no political engagements with the new republic, 
 which she had never formally recognised. Such are the 
 ostensible reasons to be given as to the question of public 
 right ; but there existed other secret reasons, of much more 
 cogency, which determined France to act as she did ; and 
 time and events have since that period clearly revealed 
 their nature. What reflected most on France in the whole 
 of this deplorable affair was — 1st, the unfair means, so 
 unworthy a great nation, employed by her from the outset, 
 and which served to disguise the real object of this expedi- 
 tion : as well as, 2nd, the fact of the restoration of Pius IX., 
 without any previous stipulation or guarantee that the 
 reforms commenced should be continued and consolidated ; 
 and 3rd, that French troops escorted him back to the Quiri- 
 nal surrounded by sbirri, Jesuits, and public informers, to 
 re-establish a government of handcuffs, the halter, and the 
 scaffold. The chilling indifference, scarcely interrupted by 
 a few rare plaudits, either official or officious, by which the 
 people marked the re-entrance of the Pope to Rome, 
 furnishes the most palpable proof of the profound disgust 
 which the restoration occasioned, and of the coercion em- 
 ployed to accomplish it. Pius IX. entered the Quiri- 
 nal and was re-seated on his throne ;— one might have 
 supposed that the people of Rome had been assisting at 
 some great funeral. In fact, this pretended ovation was 
 really the interment of Roman liberty. 
 
 Once more subjected to the yoke of priestcraft, the worst 
 and most degrading species of slavery, and exposed to all 
 the brutal vexations of the reactionary party, Rome sup- 
 ported, with imposing dignity, the heavy burden of her 
 calamities, and, by proving herself worthy of a better lot, 
 won the interest and sympathy of all generous minds. 
 Amidst all the disgust inspired by the spectacle of ecclesi- 
 astical reaction, with its heart swollen with venom, and 
 
SUPEKSTITION OF THE FRENCH SOLDIEK8. 141 
 
 its hands reeking with blood, trampling upon Rome, Europe 
 could not restrain a smile of derision when it beheld the 
 French soldiers, the formidable descendants of the *race 
 of 1793, the contemptuous heirs of the scoffs of Voltaire, 
 kneeling down on the pavement of the public squares, in 
 order to receive from the hands of the Pope, as the reward 
 of their victory and of the pontifical restoration, scapula- 
 ries, indulgences, rosaries, relics, and other precious trea- 
 sures hallowed by the papal benediction ! The officers, 
 more fortunate than the common soldiers, were recom- 
 pensed for their zeal and valour by admission to kiss 
 the pontifical slipper, an honour of which they appeared 
 prouder than their fathers had been when they received 
 imperial rewards on the glorious battle-fields of Jena and 
 Austerlitz. 
 
 On the entry of the French army, the Roman officers, 
 formerly in the Pope's service, and who, after his flight, 
 had fought for the defence of Rome, transmitted to General 
 Oudinot a protest, in which they declared themselves, under 
 the circumstances, freed from their oaths to the Pope, and 
 broke their swords in token of their liberation by the 
 overthrow of the Roman Republic. 
 
 GARIBALDI. 
 
 Garibaldi, followed by three thousand men, issued from 
 Rome by one of its gates, at the very moment that the 
 French army entered by another. This military leader, 
 who had received from the reactionary hatred of many, and 
 from the terror he had inspired in others, the appellation 
 of " chief of the band of brigands," had distinguished himself 
 during the siege both by his deeds of valour and of daring. 
 Nothing could resemble more closely the exploits of Achilles 
 under the walls of Troy than the Homeric prowess of this 
 hero. His earlier achievements in South America had 
 already spread through Europe the fame of his impetuous 
 gallantry and of his indefatigable activity. Unequal to the 
 part of a great general, and which, indeed, he had himself 
 
142 GAKIBALDI. 
 
 invariably the modesty to decline, he was without a rival 
 as a leader of irregular troops, and even Spain, in her 
 glorious war for independence, could not produce a gueril- 
 Uro to be compared with Garibaldi. Almost idolised by his 
 soldiers, they respected and feared as much as they loved 
 him. On his part he felt towards them as to brothers, and 
 bore his full share of the privations and sufferings which 
 war entails, whilst he required that each of them should 
 share in its dangers. He exacted from his subordinates the 
 strictest discipline and the most implicit obedience ; when- 
 ever he enlisted recruits, it was his practice to give them 
 full warning on this head. During the leisure moments of 
 a garrison, he treated his men almost on the footing of 
 comrades, but no sooner were they in the presence of the 
 enemy than his severity was inflexible, and appeared to 
 verge upon cruelty. More than once has he punished with 
 his own hand, by blowing out his brains, a soldier who had 
 infringed some rule of discipline, or who winced from an 
 order given, whatever it might be ; but, however prompt 
 to punish cowardice or disobedience, he was equally so to 
 reward zeal and bravery. This discipline guaranteed that 
 1,000 men under his command should equal at least 4,000 
 under that of another. After leaving Rome with his 3,000 
 followers, he was obliged to force a passage, sword in hand, 
 across the Roman provinces and Tuscany. Chased by the 
 French and Austrian troops like wild beasts, he worsted 
 them in several encounters, until he at last arrived between 
 Rimini and St. Marino, when finding himself in want of 
 everything, above all of provisions, he was obliged to 
 disband his troops, already reduced to less than one-half 
 their original number by hunger, sickness, and all those 
 sufferings to which they had been subjected by long 
 marches, day and night, over a rugged tract of country, 
 through forests, and across the Appenines. After parting 
 from his men, Garibaldi had still much to suffer. He 
 directed his steps towards Liguria, his native land, travel- 
 ling by night, and hiding himself during the day in caves 
 
HIS RETREAT AND ESCAPE. 143 
 
 or thickets, or in the rushes of the marshes, to escape from 
 his pursuers. In the course of this long and dangerous 
 journey he had the misfortune to lose his wife, to whom 
 he was strongly attached, and who had constantly accom- 
 panied him through all his adventures. She sank beneath 
 the moral and physical sufferings of this last trial. Con- 
 fiding the charge of interring the remains of his ill-fated 
 helpmate to the piety of some country people, he continued 
 his perilous Odyssey, almost heart-broken. Escaping from 
 a hundred ambuscades, as of old did Marius when flying 
 from the proscription of Sylla, he reached at length his 
 native country, from which he returned to America, re- 
 serving his courage and his sword for better times to further 
 the cause of Italian liberty, the constant object of all his 
 wishes and all his efforts. Such of his companions in mis- 
 fortune as did not perish from want, fell, almost all of them, 
 into the hands of the Austrian soldiers or Pontifical sbirri, 
 who, according to the caprice of the moment, either shot 
 or hanged them, or sent them to the galleys to be coupled in 
 chains with assassins. 
 
 Meanwhile, Bologna, the second city of the Roman 
 States, after a courageous resistance, rendered the more 
 difficult by the absence of its principal youth at the defence 
 of Rome, was compelled to yield to a numerous force of 
 Austrians, who again imposed upon it a yoke of iron in 
 the name of his Holiness, and to complete the Papal resto- 
 ration. The Austrians bore an old grudge to this important 
 town on account of its heroic defence, in 1848, against the 
 efforts of General Welden. This is so glorious a page in the 
 history of the Italian revolution as to deserve a brief record in 
 these sketches, more particularly as it offers an encouraging 
 lesson to those Italians who despair of the regeneration of 
 their country, because of the numerical superiority of the 
 foreign forces which oppress it. 
 
 On the 28th July, 1848, General Welden, at the head of 
 a considerable body of Austrians, after having sacked and 
 burnt Sermide, a large town on the Po, and treacherously 
 
144 HEROIC DEFENCE OF BOLOGNA. 
 
 obtained possession of Ferrara, marched upon Bologna, 
 styling himself in his proclamations the " Protector of the 
 Pope," which same Pope Austria had abused and persecuted 
 only a year previously, when she considered him liberal. 
 This declaration was accompanied by a threat to treat every 
 town that did not open its gates to him in the same man- 
 ner as Sermide. The Bolognese, at the approach of the 
 enemy, in spite of the pacific and timid counsels of the 
 apostolic legate, prepared themselves for defence. Welden 
 halted outside the town, but sent in a certain number of 
 his men, as if on leave to amuse themselves, but with in- 
 structions to pick a quarrel with the inhabitants by the 
 display of impertinent airs. He hoped by this stratagem 
 to irritate the citizens to acts of violence, which would fur- 
 nish him with a pretext to inflict a heavy fine upon a city 
 noted for its wealth. The Austrian s excel in the art of 
 extorting money from the various populations they have to 
 do with. The scheme succeeded according to Welden's 
 wish. The soldiers sent into the town conducted them- 
 selves in a most insolent manner, and were driven out of it, 
 mobbed and thrashed to their hearts' content. Welden, 
 who desired no better, imposed upon the city a fine of 
 500,000 fr. (£20,000.) This the citizens refused to pay, 
 and a scuffle ensued, in which an officer and soldier were 
 killed ; the Austrians then rushed upon the town in a body, 
 but they found the gates closed. Welden brought forward 
 his twenty-four pounders against the St. Felice gate. On 
 the first cannon shot fired, all the bells of the town began 
 to toll, and filled the air with their lugubrious echoes. 
 The people sallied forth in arms, with the cry of H Italy 
 for ever ! " and attacked the enemy with so much impetu- 
 osity, that, unable to resist the shock, he abandoned his 
 post precipitately, leaving behind his dead and wounded. 
 The enemy then assailed and took Montagnola, a public 
 walk and terrace on a hill above the city, and which had 
 not been sufficiently guarded by the citizens. From this 
 post he opened a galling fire upon the city. The people, 
 
OTHER EXAMPLES OF PATRIOTIC VALOUR. 145 
 
 joined by some riflemen and artillerymen of the town, 
 resolved on another attack upon the enemy thus advan- 
 tageously posted. The assault was fierce on the one side, 
 and the resistance obstinate on the other, but after a 
 desperate engagement of four hours, the position was 
 carried, and the defeated Austrian s abandoned the struggle 
 once more, leaving behind them a considerable number of 
 dead and wounded, and fifty prisoners. Next day, "VVelden, 
 irritated and ashamed, was strongly inclined to return to 
 the attack, but receiving intelligence that the population 
 of the surrounding country were hastening to the succour 
 of the town, he thought it wisest to decamp with the 
 artillery, 2,000 infantry, and 500 cavalry that were left 
 him. 
 
 After the battle of Novara, the town of Casalmonferrato 
 made a brave defence against a numerous Austrian column, 
 commanded by General Wimpfen, which arrived before its 
 gates, and began a cannonade upon the place. Assisted 
 by some veterans in the local barracks, the towns- 
 people repelled this attack successfully, and with the 
 national cry of " Italy for ever ! " drove back their assail- 
 ants to a respectful distance, after having killed and 
 wounded great numbers. In fact, neither courage, intelli- 
 gence, nor enthusiasm was wanting to the Italians ; what * 
 was unfortunately lacking in their last revolution was a 
 mutual good understanding, with unity of principles and 
 views. The jealousy and rivalry of the different political 
 parties did far more mischief than foreign bayonets. Let 
 us hope that the lessons of the past may be profited by 
 hereafter. In Tuscany, where the Republic had been 
 unable to take root, Guerrazzi was clandestinely preparing 
 the restoration of Leopold, who, indeed returned to his 
 States preceded by that degrading safeguard, — a body of 
 Austrian troops ! The reactionary party received with 
 open arms their Grand Duke, whose first act of authority 
 was the imprisonment of Guerrazzi. That individual, who 
 ought never to have relinquished literary pursuits, in which 
 o 
 
146 GUERRAZZI. 
 
 he had acquired so high a reputation, had ventured on the 
 tempestuous sea of politics, on which he was wrecked, 
 foundered and completely lost. Attempting hy half- 
 measures to conciliate all parties, he finally managed to 
 make himself detested hy all, for all thought themselves 
 ill-used hy him. He fell into disgrace even — at least, 
 apparently — with the very Prince whose restoration he 
 had prepared. 
 
 Modena again sank into the hands of its petty Tiberius : 
 Parma and Placenza into those of their petty Sardanapalus. 
 
 Of all the offspring of this Italian insurrection, — which, 
 had it not been for the rivalry of politicians, the cabals of 
 the Jesuits, and the treasonable practices of the reactionary 
 party, might have secured the independence and the liberty 
 of the nation, — there now remained standing (putting Pied- 
 mont out of the question,) free Venice alone, the circum- 
 stances of whose astonishing resistance and inevitable fall 
 we shall next have to recount. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Siege and Fall of Venice. 
 
 After the fall of Rome, Venice still held out against the 
 Austrians, who strictly blockaded it by land. We left 
 Venice under the administration of a Provisional Govern- 
 ment of her own choice, with Manin at its head. 
 
 We should fail in the obligations imposed upon us by 
 our task if we did not devote a few lines to this celebrated 
 citizen, who sacrificed his family and his fortune to the 
 Italian cause, and who has the highest claim to the vene- 
 ration of all Italian patriots, and of all noble spirits, of 
 whatever nation, on account of the deep sorrows which, 
 as a husband and a father, have overwhelmed him in 
 honourable exile. Daniel Manin, the son of a barrister in 
 Venice, was born in 1804. Destined to the profession of 
 his father, he was educated at Padua, where he constantly 
 distinguished himself by his talents and application. 
 Being admitted a member of the University, he added 
 to his study of the law and mathematics that of the 
 Hebrew, Greek, Latin, English, French, and German 
 languages. His superiority over his fellow students was 
 always remarkable, and whilst still young he published 
 some literary works which acquired him a brilliant repu- 
 tation. He was called to the bar at the age of 27, and 
 practised his profession with all the dignity of a pure 
 conscience and perfect integrity ; his success in it increased 
 rapidly and constantly. Inspired with the most lively at- 
 tachment to his country, he let pass no occasion to oppose 
 with energy the arbitrary proceedings of the Austrians, — 
 an undertaking fraught with extreme danger under a 
 government so suspicious and despotic. 
 02 
 
148 FAVOURABLE MILITARY POSITION OF VENICE. 
 
 Before relating the story of the siege and fall of Venice, 
 it will not he irrelevant to cast a rapid glance at its topogra- 
 phical and military position. The north-western extremity 
 of the Adriatic receives the numerous rivers which flow 
 from the Rhcetian and Noric Alps. The alluvial soil 
 brought down by these streams, being driven back at their 
 mouths by the incessant action of the sea, forms extensive 
 banks, running parallel to the coast, which inclose those 
 shallow lakes of brackish water, studded with islands, to 
 which has been given the name of "Lagunes." In the 
 centre of the most remarkable of these lakes, on an archi- 
 pelago of small islands, connected together by hundreds of 
 bridges, is situated Venice, a city whose situation, origin, 
 and history are perfectly unique. He must be very igno- 
 rant or very barbarous who feels no sentiment of admira- 
 tion or respect for this ancient Queen of the Adriatic, once 
 the undisputed mistress of the world's commerce, but now 
 reduced to the condition of a slave: a poor dethroned 
 queen, sighing over and lamenting her past grandeur, seated 
 amidst those numerous and splendid monuments which still 
 bear witness to it, — the produce of the genius of her 
 children, of riches levied from the whole world, or relics 
 either of the Greece of Pericles or of Byzantine Greece. 
 
 Venice, thus separated as well from the continent as from 
 the open sea, is naturally difficult of approach ; but art has 
 superadded other means of defence to a situation already 
 strong by nature. The coast and passes are protected by 
 eight forts and several batteries, which render it almost 
 impossible to effect a landing or to make any attack from 
 the sea. The inland side of the lagune is also studded 
 with small forts, and every attempt from the continent is 
 guarded against and opposed by three important outworks, 
 Treporti to the north, Malghera to the west, and Brondolo 
 to the south. The city itself is entirely unfortified. But 
 its peculiar situation as it existed formerly has been in a 
 certain degree modified by the construction of the magnifi- 
 cent bridge which serves as a viaduct for the railroad, and 
 
ISOLATION OF THE KEPUBLIC. 149 
 
 is a complete wonder of art, consisting of 222 arches, 3,600 
 yards in length by 9 in width, and raised four yards above 
 the water. This entirely spans the lagune, and connects 
 Venice with the continent close to Mestre. To secure 
 Venice it was expedient to destroy this bridge entirely. 
 Snch was the opinion of General Pepe and the wish of the 
 whole population, but the Government opposed it, for which 
 it was much to blame. 
 
 The garrison of 21,000 men, composed of Venetians, 
 Lombards, Neapolitans, Romans, and Piedmontese, was 
 commanded by the veteran Pepe, having under his orders 
 several good superior officers, among whom were the brave 
 General Ulloa and the intelligent Colonel Cavedalis. With 
 this force he was obliged to provide for the service of the in- 
 terior of the city, and to garrison the different forts and 
 numerous posts scattered along the whole line of defence, 
 which was very extensive. 
 
 It was at this period that the enemy made trial of a new 
 contrivance for throwing bombs into Venice. The inventor 
 was an English adventurer, and his system consisted in 
 fastening bombs to balloons, which were to carry them over 
 the besieged city and then drop them. On the 12th July, a 
 frigate, anchored behind the Lido, sent up a score of these 
 bomb-balloons, but not one of them fell into Venice. Nearly 
 all either burst in the air or dropped into the lagunes ; some 
 few took the direction of the besiegers themselves. The 
 Venetians finished by turning into ridicule this experiment, 
 which in the outset had greatly alarmed them. 
 
 Under all the circumstances, when Venice constituted 
 itself a Republic, it committed, in our opinion, a political 
 error, as that form of government, (which is, of course, the 
 abomination of all kings,) by separating it from Lombardy, 
 otherwise administered, increased the differences already 
 existing in the north of Italy. This occurred too at a 
 most critical moment, when the closest union between the 
 different fractions was the most essential element and abso- 
 lute condition of that object to which the views and efforts 
 03 
 
150 ABORTIVE UNION WITH PIEDMONT. 
 
 of all Italians ought to have been exclusively directed, — 
 we mean the expulsion of the foreigner. This error was 
 ; implicitly admitted on the 3rd of July, when the Venetian 
 Assembly decreed a union with Piedmont : but it was then 
 too late, the Piedmontese army having already begun 
 to sustain that series of reverses which issued in its 
 destruction. Besides, this union wanted cordiality from 
 having been too long deferred. Manin, on resigning his 
 power as President of the Republic, made his submission 
 with dignity to the new Government emanating from 
 Piedmont. 
 
 On the 9th August, the entrance of the Austrians into 
 Milan was known at Venice. The people became restless, 
 and disturbances took place. The Piedmontese Commis- 
 saries endeavoured to appease them by disguising the 
 truth. On the 11th General Welden sent to Venice 
 official accounts of the fact. The crowd then repaired 
 to the Square of St. Mark, where the disorder and con- 
 fusion became extreme. The irritated people cried out, 
 " Down with the Piedmontese Commissaries!" "Manin 
 for ever!" Manin employed his efforts to appease the 
 popular excitement, and promised a change of govern- 
 ment by the 13th. He provided for the interval by 
 constituting himself Dictator. On the 13th the Assembly 
 nominated a dictatorial triumvirate, of which Manin 
 was President. The people hailed this revolution with 
 enthusiasm. The Dictator and Pepe ought to have 
 taken advantage of the moment, to attack with 10,000 
 to 12,000 men the Austrian troops blockading Venice, 
 but they were not aware of the numerical weakness of 
 the enemy, and by excess of prudence let the opportunity 
 pass. The Austrians then commenced a serious attack 
 upon Malghera, the most important point of the defence j 
 but the artillery of this fort returned the enemy's fire so 
 briskly and accurately that it overturned several of their 
 pieces, and killed about forty of their men, who were 
 behind the entrenchments. 
 
DISHEARTENING LOSSES OF THE GARRISON. 151 
 
 In accordance with the armistice of Milan, the Sardinian 
 fleet left the Gulf of Venice, from which the King of 
 Naples had previously recalled his own. The Venetian 
 squadron was too weak to oppose alone the Austrian 
 fleet, so that a blockade of the city was then established 
 by sea also. This circumstance deprived the inhabitants 
 and troops of all hope of supplies, the want of which, 
 indeed, was already severely felt. The Piedmontese and 
 Romans who formed a part of the garrison received orders 
 from their respective governments to quit the town, which 
 deprived it of 6,000 men. Pepe had now only 15,000 
 remaining, but he employed every possible means to main- 
 tain them in good order and discipline, which was no easy 
 task, the greater part being volunteers. With a good 
 organisation and perfect discipline this garrison might have 
 sufficed for a longer resistance, but on account of the 
 marshy nature of the district and the want of wholesome 
 provisions, one- third at least were sick and in the hospitals. 
 The barracks were insufficient, and a part of the soldiers 
 had no other shelter from the inclemency of the winter 
 than boarded sheds. The military administration was 
 deplorable, the soldiers ill-clothed and ill-fed, and the 
 hospitals in a wretched condition, notwithstanding the 
 generous assistance afforded by the citizens. 
 
 Our limits will not permit us to relate all the sallies and 
 other achievements, in which the besieged displayed their 
 intrepidity, obtaining constant advantages over the enemy. 
 But we must not pass over in silence their famous sally of 
 the 27th, against Mestre, for it led to a most serious en- 
 gagement. This town is three miles distant from Malghera, 
 and contained a garrison of 2,500 men, who had thrown up 
 entrenchments and other works to fortify themselves in 
 the place. 2,000 Italians, under the command of Pepe in 
 person, formed into three columns, of which one was des- 
 tined to land at Fusina, with the intention of getting round 
 the town and attacking it on the opposite side ; the other 
 two assaulted it boldly in front, and were received by the 
 
152 BRILLIANT SORTIE AGAINST MESTRE. 
 
 enemy with showers of grape-shot and bullets, the latter 
 being fired from the houses, which had been loop-holed. 
 The assailants were thrice most severely repulsed, but thrice 
 they returned to the assault with such valour and determi- 
 nation that they succeeded in penetrating into the town and 
 drove out the enemy, whose dead choked up the houses and 
 streets. The third column also beat the Austrians, whom it 
 encountered at Fusina, and captured their cannon, but ar- 
 rived too late to take part in the brilliant affair of Mestre. 
 The Austrians lost at this place 300 killed or wounded, 
 600 prisoners, eight pieces of cannon, and a considerable 
 quantity of baggage and ammunition. The total loss on 
 the side of the patriots amounted to 250 men. The Italians 
 displayed a courage and resolution which might be envied 
 by veteran troops. The Lombard legion, which was the 
 first to effect its entrance into the town, conducted itself 
 with remarkable gallantry. Mestre, being a post altogether 
 beyond the lines of the defence, was abandoned by the 
 victors who returned to Malghera the same evening. This 
 victory, which was the most important of those obtained 
 by the besieged, was celebrated with enthusiastic rejoicing 
 at Venice. 
 
 The Triumvirate was no sooner installed than it endea- 
 voured to improve the financial resources of the city, which 
 were in a miserable state, and its efforts were rewarded by 
 a measure of success. Both Piedmont and Rome remitted 
 sums of money to the besieged. The various classes of the 
 population vied with each other in generous and disinter- 
 ested acts. Every article of luxury was devoted to the 
 benefit of the commonwealth, and the women, as well of the 
 upper classes as of the people at large, with the greatest 
 alacrity offered on the altar of their country all their orna- 
 ments and jewels. General Pepe himself set the example, 
 by renouncing entirely the pay to which his rank entitled 
 him. 
 
 On the 15th February, a newly-elected Assembly being 
 installed, the dictatorship of the Triumvirate ceased. The 
 
MANIN AND HIS INFLUENCE. 153 
 
 new Assembly restored to the Triumvirs their executive 
 powers. This measure not satisfying the people, who knew 
 and recognised Manin alone, the crowd repaired tumul- 
 tuously to the ducal palace, where the Assembly held its 
 sittings, and demanded Manin with loud outcries and 
 threats against such of the members as they supposed to 
 be his opponents. Manin appeared, and dismissed this 
 multitude by a few words addressed to them in a tone of 
 severity ; and on the 7th March the Assembly finally con- 
 stituted a Government, of which Manin was named presi- 
 dent, with the most ample powers. 
 
 The renewed declaration of war by Piedmont against 
 Austria caused the most lively joy and sanguine hope in 
 Venice, but both joy and hope were soon destroyed by the 
 defeat of Novara. The Assembly, not suffering itself to be 
 discouraged, decreed that resistance should be maintained 
 at all risks, and again invested Manin with the dictatorship. 
 But the conclusion of peace with Piedmont enabled 
 Radetzky to send against Venice a reinforcement amounting 
 to 30,000 men. The enemy was now conscious of his supe- 
 rior strength, and determined to attack Malghera according 
 to the most approved rules of military science. 
 
 This siege is too glorious for the Italians not to devote a 
 few lines to it. Malghera contained a garrison of 2,500 
 men, commanded by the brave Ulloa, with 150 guns. The 
 enemy opened his trenches in the night of the 29th April, 
 and suddenly unmasked batteries mounting sixty pieces of 
 cannon, which poured upon Malghera a tremendous shower 
 of balls, shells, and bombs. The fort answered this fire 
 with equal fury, and it was kept up on both sides till 
 nightfall. The advantage remained on the side of the 
 Italians, whose missiles had occasioned the enemy much 
 more damage than they had themselves sustained. Radetzky, 
 who was present at the attack, thus became convinced of 
 the extreme difficulty of taking Venice. On the morning 
 of the 5th, consequently, he ordered the fire to cease, and 
 sent a flag of truce to summon the city to surrender at 
 
154 INCREASED INTENSITY OF THE SIEGE OPERATIONS. 
 
 discretion. Manin replied by a refusal. On the 6th hosti- 
 lities re-commenced, and an incessant cannonade was kept 
 up on both sides until the 11th. The besieged made re- 
 peated sallies, and destroyed the enemy's works, which, 
 however, were repaired by night. On the 24th, at five in 
 the morning, the Austrian batteries, increased to the num- 
 ber of eighteen, and mounting in all 151 cannon, began to 
 pour upon the place an overwhelming shower of projectiles 
 of every kind and size. The fort replied with not less 
 vigour. Malghera, thus assailed day and night, was re- 
 duced to extremity. Though the courage and perseverance 
 of the besieged remained unimpaired, Manin and Pepe 
 ordered its evacuation, which was effected in the night 
 between the 26th and 27th. The garrison carried off their 
 wounded, and retreated in good order to Venice. During 
 the last week the Austrians had discharged more than 
 40,000 projectiles, and had killed or wounded 400 men. 
 They themselves had lost 700. Nothing was found in the 
 abandoned fort but heaps of rubbish and ruins ; the enemy 
 was constrained to admire the bravery and constancy which 
 had been displayed by the besieged. On taking possession 
 of Malghera, the Austrians also occupied Fort St. Giuliano, 
 built upon an islet at a very short distance from it ; but 
 they had no sooner entered than a mine, which had been 
 dug under the magazine, exploded, and the whole of the 
 little garrison was either killed, wounded, or blown into 
 the lake. 
 
 The Italians in their retreat blew up the arches of the 
 viaduct at three different places. The occupation of 
 Malghera and of that part of the viaduct, connected with 
 it, permitted the Austrians to advance their batteries against 
 Venice ; but it was only on the 10th of June that they un- 
 masked them. The cannonade never ceased until the 1st 
 of July, but it did inconsiderable mischief, on account 
 of the great distance. The situation of Venice becoming 
 daily more critical and insupportable, Manin applied to 
 the Cabinets of Paris and London to take Venice under 
 
ENGLISH AND FRENCH HELP SOLICITED. 155 
 
 their protection, requesting them to save it from the 
 tyranny of Austria. But the English Government replied 
 that the right of Austria to the possession of Venice was 
 established by the treaty of Vienna, which was guaranteed 
 by England, and could not, therefore be set aside. The 
 Prench Government, by the tenor of its reply, manifested 
 in words more sympathy for this city, equally unfortunate 
 and heroic ; but, notwithstanding all the interest professed, 
 the Venetians obtained nothing more from the two Cabinets 
 than the advice to submit as soon as possible to the legiti- 
 mate power of Austria. M. de Brack, one of the Austrian 
 plenipotentiaries, who had negociated the peace with Pied- 
 mont, then entered into correspondence with Manin for 
 the surrender of Venice ; but a letter from Kossuth, con- 
 taining the most pressing exhortations to persevere in 
 holding out, and accompanied by strong promises of supplies 
 in men and money, induced the Dictator to break off all 
 negociation. 
 
 The Austrians, finding that their fire produced no effect 
 whatever upon Venice, adopted a new method with their 
 batteries, which consisted in giving a greater elevation to 
 their parapet, and an angle of 45 degrees to the inner 
 talus. Raising their guns against this talus, and fastening 
 them firmly to its timbers, after having mounted and fixed 
 them solidly on carriages made on purpose, in the form of 
 sledges, they calculated that the projectiles would now 
 take a circuitous course, and complete an immense parabola, 
 by which they would traverse, according to their different 
 calibre, a distance of 4,000 to 5,000 yards. To produce a 
 still more terrible effect, these new batteries opened their 
 fire in the midst of the night of the 28th July, after a 
 cessation of ten days, employed in the preparation of 
 this improvement, which were of a nature recalling to 
 mind the catapults of the ancients. It would be impos- 
 sible to describe the alarm and confusion of the Venetians 
 as this sudden and unexpected shower of balls, grenades, 
 rockets, shells, and bombs fell in all directions in the streets, 
 
156 BOMBARDMENT AND CAPITULATION OF VENICE. 
 
 squares, and houses. Then might be seen in the midst of 
 the darkness of the night, illuminated at moments by the 
 explosion of the projectiles, thousands of families in the 
 utmost distress and half naked, escaping hurriedly from 
 the part of the city which was exposed to these horrors, to 
 seek an asylum elsewhere, and the inhabitants of sucli 
 quarters as were further removed or more sheltered receiving 
 them like brethren, and sharing with them their bed and 
 board. During the twenty-four days that this dreadful 
 bombardment lasted, more than 24,000 projectiles were 
 fired into Venice. It is easy to imagine the damage which 
 they occasioned to a city so much adorned with monuments 
 of the fine arts. 
 
 But it was not the bombardment that most distressed this 
 valiant population. Thirst, famine, and the cholera made 
 still greater havoc among them than the Austrian batteries. 
 The deaths attributed to this dreadful epidemic disease 
 were estimated at 400 a day. Entirely worn out and 
 deprived of all further means of resistance, Venice was at 
 length reduced to the necessity of yielding to its cruel 
 destiny. Manin himself, perceiving the Italian cause to be 
 desperate, had now recourse to the mediation of M. de Bruck, 
 who simply transmitted his message to Radetzky, as the 
 only proper arbiter of the fate of the unfortunate city. 
 Radetzky declared that, as he did not recognise the Govern- 
 ment of Venice, he would not consent to treat with it on 
 the subject of capitulation. Manin was, therefore, obliged 
 to send to the enemy's camp a deputation of the munici- 
 pality to represent the city. General Gorzkowsky, whom 
 Radetzky had invested with full powers, showed himself 
 inflexible, and imposed upon Venice all those rigorous 
 conditions which an enemy irritated by so stubborn a 
 resistance, and by so many losses, conceives himself entitled 
 to exact from a rebellious town that has been vanquished. 
 
 On the 27th August, Pepc, Tomaseo, and the 40 citizens 
 excluded from the benefits of the amnesty, left the city as 
 exiles, in the deepest affliction at the ill-success of their 
 
AUSTRIAN HYMN OF TRIUMPH. 157 
 
 efforts to save this heroic and beloved city. General 
 Gorzkowsky took possession of it on the 28th, as governor, 
 at the head of his troops, and in the name of his Majesty 
 the Emperor of Austria, its sole legitimate Sovereign, and 
 Radetzky repaired in haste from Milan to enjoy this fresh 
 triumph. 
 
 The victor extolled the Imperial clemency in not deli- 
 vering to the hangman whole crowds of " worthless 
 rebels," who (as he pretended) deserved no better usage. 
 On the arrival of Radetzky a Te Deum was commanded, — 
 that conventional hymn, by which conquerors, reeking 
 with blood, dare to degrade Divine Providence, by attri- 
 buting to it a participation in the conflicts of human 
 passion. This solemn Te Deum was chanted in the 
 church of St. Mark by the same clergy who a few days 
 previously had there implored the blessing of the Almighty 
 upon the cause of Italian independence and liberty. 
 
 Thus, without forfeiting the dignity of a dethroned 
 Queen, Venice sank once again into slavery. But the 
 noble city, though abandoned entirely to itself during so 
 long a siege, had gloriously shown what self-denial, what 
 sacrifices, and what heroism a people are capable of, when 
 resolved to regain that inheritance of liberty of which 
 political treason and brutal force have deprived them. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Counsels to the Italians, in view of a Wae be- 
 tween England and France allied and Russia 
 — Father Ventura — Father Gavazzi — Father 
 Ugo Bassi. 
 
 Since the period when we began these sketches* the 
 political situation of Europe has changed to such a degree 
 that Italy, though no sharer in the preparations for that 
 great struggle which is about to commence, and condemned 
 to be a mere spectator of them, has necessarily partaken in 
 the effect of the commotion produced. This new phase 
 into which all the Powers of Europe, whether great or 
 small, have entered, has of course changed her hopes and 
 her calculations as to future prospects, although her wants 
 and aspirations remain ever the same. The principal con- 
 dition requisite for the emancipation of Italy, — the sine 
 qud non, in fact, — is the overthrow of Austrian domination ; 
 for effecting which she has always reckoned upon the 
 support of England and France. "When the political 
 horizon became overcast in consequence of the encroaching 
 pretensions of the Czar and the brutality of Prince Mens- 
 chikoff, the probability of a European war presented itself 
 to the Italians as the only plank which offered them a 
 chance of escape after their last shipwreck; and self- 
 interest, excusable enough considering the insupportable 
 condition in which they have been placed by the politico- 
 clerical reaction, prompted them to put up to Heaven the 
 most ardent prayers for the occurrence of what, under 
 other circumstances, they might have regarded as a uni- 
 versal calamity. According to those calculations of pro- 
 
 * The "Sketches on Italy" were begun in October, 1853, and 
 finished in April, 1854. 
 
AUSTRIA AND THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 159 
 
 babilities by means of which the human intellect seeks 
 to divine the course of future events, the Italians might 
 be allowed to hope that Austria, from conformity of prin- 
 ciples, and indeed as a matter of necessity, (the more 
 ingenuous thought, from gratitude also,) would be drawn 
 into the orbit of Russia, and forced to take part with her ; 
 the immediate consequence of which would have been the 
 avowed intervention of England and France in favour of 
 an insurrection of Italy. This supposition was but a 
 delusive dream. Austria took an opposite course. As 
 for ourselves, we were not in the least surprised at this, 
 for the words of Prince Schwarzenberg, when President 
 of the Cabinet of Vienna, were engraven in our recollec- 
 tion, words the utterance of which was so speedily followed 
 by his death. " We shall shortly astonish the world," 
 said he, " by our enormous ingratitude" Prince Schwarz- 
 enberg had been the leader of that opposition which 
 exerted all its efforts to prevent Russian interference in 
 Hungary. He clearly foresaw that, in accepting the Czar's 
 help, Austria was incurring his guardianship; and it is 
 characteristic of wards to detest their guardians, and 
 to endeavour to get rid of them as soon as possible. The 
 spirit of Prince Schwarzenberg seemed, but a few days 
 back, to have passed to his successor, and his prophecy to 
 be on the eve of accomplishment. 
 
 Although Austria has not yet bound herself by a formal 
 treaty of alliance with the Western Powers, she has cer- 
 tainly not declared herself in favour of Russia. France, 
 in order to gain her over more effectually to the cause of 
 the Allies, lately proclaimed before Europe its determina- 
 tion to put down and stifle insurrection on whatever point 
 it may occur ; and though the leader of the House of 
 Commons disclaims for the British Government participa- 
 tion in this intention, the ominous avowal from Paris 
 annihilates for the present all the hopes and calculations of 
 unfortunate Italy. She has now no resource but to await 
 the course of events with resignation, like that of martyrs 
 P2 
 
160 THE TRUE POLICY FOR ITALIANS — 
 
 in the midst of the flames, or in the grasp of wild beasts 
 about to tear them to pieces. Any ill-timed movement 
 would immediately be crushed, and the insatiable avidity 
 of the oppressors would turn it to their profit. The Athe- 
 nians erected an altar " to the unknown God." Independ- 
 ently of the true Deity who governs the universe, the 
 oppressed have often a secondary divinity. This "unknown 
 God " of theirs is most generally known in Europe by the 
 title of L } Imprevu. He is regarded as shrouded in the 
 mists of futurity, and presiding over those accidents and 
 events which no human sagacity can foresee or control. 
 Elmprevu — another name, after all, for Divine Provi- 
 dence — may by a single blow upset all human calculations 
 and all the contrivances of diplomacy, and in the twinkling 
 of an eye change completely the face of Europe. , 
 
 Let the Italians remain, then, calm spectators of the great 
 drama about to be enacted, and let them rest their hopes 
 on E Imprevu, which may appear in their favour when 
 least expected. Let the different populations of the Italian 
 peninsula continue to cultivate among themselves that 
 fraternal intercourse which has already succeeded in very 
 considerably diminishing, and which will at length entirely 
 obliterate, those party feuds, municipal hatreds, and old 
 provincial rivalries which have always produced the bane- 
 ful fruit of discord, and offered the key of our gates to 
 foreign invaders. Let those who have received from the 
 Supreme Being the gift of superior intelligence, employ 
 their most active endeavours, in spite of the politico-clerical 
 Inquisition, (which has a hundred eyes to watch, a hundred 
 ears to listen, and a hundred axes with which to strike) in 
 enlightening the masses on the subjects of their wants, and 
 of the political and religious reforms so indispensable to the 
 happiness of a nation, and in inculcating the duties which 
 every good citizen owes to God and his country. Let 
 them inspire the people with a salutary distrust of the 
 intrigues, cabals, and suggestions of Jesuitism, which, as 
 the faithful agent and interested auxiliary of political and 
 
MUTUAL HARMONY AND PATIENT EXPECTATION. 161 
 
 religious despotism, aims only at misleading the masses, 
 corrupting the heart of youth, and stifling, wherever they 
 shoot up, the germs of every generous idea of independence, 
 liberty, and national dignity. Whether in secret assemblies 
 or in confidential intercourse, let no time be lost or mis- 
 employed in exciting angry feelings by fatal discussions on 
 different systems to be followed, or different forms of gov- 
 ernment to be established. Let that blind idolatry, which 
 has been shown for particular individuals, be entirely laid 
 aside, and let this great maxim be adopted : — " That for the 
 regeneration of a nation particular names signify nothing ; 
 it is the idea itself which is everything." Let the Italians 
 in their present forced situation of expectancy, occupy 
 themselves with this sole care, to strengthen among them- 
 selves and to tighten those patriotic bonds which ought to 
 unite all Italians in one family of brethren. Thus will they 
 best prepare for turning to advantage every favourable 
 chance which the future may have in store for them. The 
 warrior who watches in arms, prepared for the combat, will 
 always fight better than he who allows himself to be sur- 
 prised asleep and unarmed. 
 
 Supposing even that Austria should declare herself 
 against Russia, and that in consequence the war undertaken 
 against the Czar (a just and holy war, if ever any was) 
 turn to the advantage of the Western Powers, the final 
 result of every war is peace. The allied powers have 
 declared that they take up arms solely for the humane 
 object of establishing once for all a solid and durable peace 
 throughout Europe. It is, therefore, to be hoped that the 
 conquerors, after having disposed of the chief present 
 obstacle to peace, viz., the ambition and encroaching dis- 
 position of the Czar, will also be disposed to employ their 
 best efforts in removing all other obstacles capable of 
 affecting in future, whether directly or indirectly, that tran- 
 quillity in Europe which is the summum bonum of nations, 
 and the acquisition of which will have cost these Western 
 Powers so large an expenditure of money and of life. 
 P3 
 
162 EXISTING WRONGS OF ITALY. 
 
 It is notorious that Italy (under which denomination we 
 do not include Piedmont) cannot possibly continue to exist 
 in that unnatural and truly deplorable condition in which 
 she now is. We have already depicted her wretchedness 
 and slavery, which may be summed up in a word as a 
 state of permanent martyrdom. Mr. Gladstone, whose 
 sentiments and principles are known to be so moderate, has 
 proved by his letters, circumspect as they are, all the 
 horrors committed by the Neapolitan Government, and 
 which before his publication many persons imagined to be 
 visionary, or at the least that the accusation was purposely 
 and wilfully exaggerated by disaffected parties. As to the 
 States of the Church, we will repeat for the last time what 
 all men of generous sentiments and of shrewdness, and all 
 publicists of any honesty have ever declared, that of all 
 kinds of absolute government that of the priests is by 
 many degrees the worst. That ambitious, isolated, and 
 selfish caste crushes the populations with the two-fold 
 tyranny of the throne and the altar; there is nothing 
 more hideous under the sun than cruelty backed and sus- 
 tained by hypocrisy. It would be useless to recapitulate 
 the miserable condition of the other petty Italian States, 
 subjected to all the caprices of princes the types of Helio- 
 gabalus in miniature. As to Lombardy and Venice, we 
 have more than sufficiently demonstrated that an irrecon- 
 cilable hatred, cemented by streams of blood, must for ever 
 separate the oppressed from their oppressors. Austria may 
 have it in her power, by the ascendancy of brute force, to 
 burn all the towns and hamlets, and to massacre their 
 inhabitants, but she can never hope to captivate the affec- 
 tions and sympathies of those populations whom she has 
 always affected to consider as helots, and whom, after the 
 last troubles, she treated with so much cruelty, as mere 
 vanquished slaves. She may continue to reign in this 
 manner over that unfortunate and interesting country, 
 but it will be just as death reigns over the grave. The 
 Lombardo- Venetian kingdom may remain subdued and 
 
MORAL NECESSITY FOR AUSTRIAN EXCLUSION. 163 
 
 enchained, but it will be like an ill-tamed elephant, 
 watching every opportunity to strike down its hated 
 keeper. We are well aware that Austria, consulting 
 only her pride and avarice, says, " Provided the Lom- 
 bardo-Venetians dread and pay me, I care not for their 
 affection." Such a maxim may suffice for Austria, but 
 cannot possibly satisfy England and France. Once con- 
 vinced of the utter impossibility of a reconciliation between 
 the victims and their oppressor, France, and above all, 
 England (for England has always manifested sentiments 
 of generous sympathy for this ill-used country,) might, on 
 the conclusion of peace, and on occasion of a new settle- 
 ment of the different questions of territory in Europe, per- 
 suade Austria voluntarily to renounce this inexhaustible 
 hot-bed of discord and insurrection, on receiving in exchange 
 some equivalent elsewhere. By liberating Italy from the 
 yoke and influence of Austria, the great object will be at- 
 tained of removing a perpetual source of trouble and a 
 constant occasion of disturbance to that peace with which the 
 Western Powers would permanently endow Europe. 
 
 It may be objected that no change in the present con- 
 figuration of the map of Europe is practicable ; to which 
 we reply, that such an assertion would go to revive in their 
 full force and extent the obsolete treaties of 1815, so little 
 respected on other occasions, and which in the estimation 
 of all the nations of Europe are considered as in fact 
 annulled, on account of the liberal principles and the 
 character of the Governments which now guide the affairs 
 of England and France. To prevent the Lombardo- 
 Venetian kingdom from proving hereafter, as in times 
 past, a nursery of insurrection, unless the plan we have 
 suggested be acted upon, it will be needful to stifle in 
 that kingdom every patriotic sentiment and every national 
 idea. But this is a moral impossibility, — unless, indeed, 
 Austria is disposed to imitate the philanthropy of the Czar, 
 who, in order to extirpate all national feeling in Poland, 
 caused the population of whole towns and villages to be 
 
164 GROUND OF HOPE FOR ITALY. 
 
 transported into the midst of the snows of Siberia, or to the 
 steppes and deserts of Tartary. Such a mode of proceeding 
 Austria neither could nor dare put in practice ; assuredly, 
 England and France would never permit the attempt. 
 
 One of the most powerful, and indeed an essential 
 means, to ensure the permanent peace of Europe would be 
 to deliver the whole of Italy both from the domination of 
 Austria and from its immediate influence, which during 
 so many ages have been, and must always be, a two-fold 
 source of distrust, recrimination, troubles, and wars, 
 embroiling the different powers and throwing all Europe 
 into confusion. May we not, then, hope that when the 
 opportunity arrives (as it almost certainly will,) England 
 and France will join to secure the only satisfactory settle- 
 ment of the Italian question which is possible ? 
 
 The sudden and unlooked for changes which often take 
 place in the political relations of state with state may be 
 illustrated by a single example : — On the evening of the 
 6th August, 1813, Prince Metternich, in the midst of a 
 diplomatic party at Prague, gave his word of honour to 
 the two French envoys at the congress, MM. de Narbonne 
 and de Caulaincourt, that the Emperor, his august master 
 and sovereign, would never, on any consideration what- 
 ever, abandon his dear ally and son-in-law, the Emperor 
 Napoleon ; and the two ministers forthwith despatched 
 couriers to their master with the satisfactory intelligence. 
 On the morning of the 7th August, a declaration of war 
 on the part of Austria against France was posted up on 
 the walls of Prague ! 
 
 Let Italy turn a deaf ear to the suggestions of those 
 imprudent leaders who may seek to commit her prematurely ; 
 let her remain quiet, but ever ready to take advantage of 
 the chances and favours of E Imprevu. 
 
 We must not close this series of sketches without offering 
 our readers the portraits of three men of eminence, all 
 
FATHER VENTURA. 165 
 
 ecclesiastics, and who have figured more or less remarkahly 
 on the stage of our revolution. Two of them have survived 
 that melancholy drama, and continue to attract the atten- 
 tion of the public. The first of these is 
 
 FATHER VENTURA, 
 whom we mentioned in a previous chapter. Father Ventura 
 is a man of considerable learning, well versed in the writ- 
 ings of the Fathers of the Church, and, as is affirmed, a 
 profound theologian. He first appeared on the political 
 stage at the accession of Pius IX., of whom he was for a 
 long time the intimate friend, adviser, and confessor. These 
 three-fold functions enabled him to appreciate thoroughly 
 the weak understanding and vacillating character of that 
 Pontiff. Of course, under the first impressions of his 
 disgrace he was not disposed to spare Pius IX., whom 
 he did not fail to represent as a person altogether of 
 mediocrity, spoiled by unexpected ovations, and intoxi- 
 cated by that species of deification which the people, in 
 the transports of blind enthusiasm, had awarded him, 
 and which, from extreme feebleness of mind, he had 
 finished by considering as the due recompense of his 
 merits. In Father Ventura's political writings, the 
 theocratical principle is always uppermost, as it were, in 
 spite of himself. Having emigrated to France after the 
 return of the Pope to Rome, he there exhibited a com- 
 plete and sudden change of principles, being desirous, as 
 he said, of regaining the good opinion of the French 
 clergy, whom he thought inclined to tax him with 
 heterodoxy. So completely did he wheel round that he 
 now passes for a champion of ultramontane ideas. He 
 publicly retracted certain of his works, and, among others, 
 his Funeral Oration for the victims to the cause of liberty 
 who fell at Vienna, — an eloquent composition, which had 
 done him the greatest honour. There appear in this 
 funeral oration such warmth, so natural a flow of lan- 
 guage, and sentiments so expressive, that it is impossible 
 
166 FATHER GAVAZZI — 
 
 to admit the supposition that it was dictated by a motive of 
 policy rather than by real conviction. The author's retrac- 
 tation of it had not even the excuse which Galileo might 
 plead for his, namely, that it was extorted by the horrors 
 of a dungeon, and by dread of the tortures of the Inquisi- 
 tion. On the contrary, it was spontaneous and ostenta- 
 tious. It follows that it was not in his writings, but 
 in retracting them, that Father Ventura obeyed the dic- 
 tates of policy. To such an extreme did he carry the 
 consequences of his conversion, that he shunned all inter- 
 course with fellow-countrymen, emigrants like himself, as 
 if they had been infected with the plague. Dreams he 
 still of that red hat which he missed obtaining during 
 the balmy days of Pontifical favour ? Let him at once 
 renounce all thoughts of it. Rome is rancorous in her 
 hate, and does not so easily pardon. We may point in 
 proof to the avenging knife which in the seventeenth 
 century stabbed at Venice Fra Paolo Sarpi, doomed by the 
 Vatican for having, in the rude frankness of his writings, 
 attacked the interests and the despotism of the Court of 
 Rome. 
 
 The second of our three character portraits is that of 
 
 FATHER GAVAZZI, 
 well known in England by his constant philippics against 
 the abuses of the Court of Rome. Endowed with a com- 
 manding person and a powerful voice, a dramatic style 
 peculiar to Italian preachers, and a species of eloquence of 
 singular effect upon the masses, Father Gavazzi stood for- 
 ward a sort of St. Bernard in the Italian crusade against 
 the oppressors of Italy. He joins extreme sensibility of 
 heart to an ardent imagination. He has not confined his 
 efforts to the pulpit alone. He preached both in churches 
 and in the open air, f° r the purpose of awakening in the 
 people, in the name of the Almighty, that love of liberty 
 which emanates from Him ; the rest of his time being 
 occupied in tending the sick in the hospitals, and in sue- 
 
HIS NOBLE DEEDS AND FINE QUALITIES. 167 
 
 coining the wounded on the field of battle. He escaped by 
 a miracle from the fangs of his ecclesiastical pursuers after 
 the surrender of Rome, where he had practised during the 
 entire siege his two-fold and sacred office ; he then fled to 
 England, — a country so noted for its hospitality, where 
 political exiles of all nations find an inviolable asylum. A 
 certain Italian party, whose staff-officers have their head- 
 quarters in London, and who are not remarkable for poli- 
 tical tolerance, dislike Father Gavazzi because he has not 
 thrown himself entirely into their hands, and accuse 
 him of turning his eloquence to commercial account, re- 
 tailing it at so much per hour. As to the first cause of 
 reproach, we who, while adhering to our own principles, 
 profess at the same time the most complete tolerance both 
 in politics and religion, are very far from imputing to the 
 Father as a crime his heterodox opinions on the best means 
 of redeeming Italy. With regard to the alleged traffic in 
 speeches, we can perceive no difference between the sale 
 of ideas through the instrumentality of the press, and the 
 disposal of them by declamation. "We are fully aware 
 that Father Gavazzi makes a good deal of money by his 
 orations, but we also know that he distributes his receipts, 
 without any distinction of principles or of party, among 
 Italian emigrants whom he discovers in real distress, and 
 who, were it not for his benevolent aid, would be com- 
 pletely destitute. This is a virtue which may well serve 
 to screen many faults in the courageous orator, and which 
 unfortunately finds few imitators among his adversaries 
 and detractors. 
 
 The third and most venerable figure that presents itself 
 before us, encircled with the rays of martyrdom, is that of 
 
 FATHER UGO BASSI. 
 
 On the first cries of " Liberty and Independence" which 
 resounded from the Alps to the Faro, Ugo Bassi, then in 
 the flower of his age, quitted his convent, and became the 
 Apostle of this generous national movement. Inspired 
 
168 FATHER UGO BASSI. 
 
 with divine love, and endowed with eloquence mild, warm, 
 and persuasive, he impressed upon his numerous auditors 
 both the duties which they owed to the Supreme Being, 
 and those which they owed to their country. Liberty and 
 religion were regarded by him as identical ; in fact, those 
 two sublime principles are inseparable. The adversaries 
 of Italian emancipation and those of religious liberty also 
 became in consequence his bitterest foes. His noble dis- 
 courses were redolent of the most exquisite savour of 
 virtue and Christian charity. Emulating his colleague 
 Gavazzi in acts of beneficence, he appeared in the midst of 
 the calamities and disorders which war occasions, as an 
 angel sent to console all distresses. There was this differ- 
 ence between him and most other Italian priests, that he 
 made virtue his practice, and had a right not only to say 
 " Do as I say," but also " Do as I do." Having fled from 
 Rome, when it relapsed to the Papacy and slavery, he was 
 seized on his flight by a body of Croats who dragged him 
 to Bologna, when he was tried by an Austrian court-martial 
 and condemned to death. It is with the most profound 
 horror that we recall the details of his martyrdom ; but 
 historic truth, and a desire to illustrate the character of 
 his murderers, render it necessary. On the day appointed, 
 this illustrious victim was dragged to the place of execution, 
 his head concealed beneath the black veil appropriated to 
 parricides, and he was then degraded from the sacerdotal 
 dignity with every refinement of savage cruelty. The 
 executioner branded with a red hot iron the thumbs, and 
 fore and middle fingers of each hand, in order to efface the 
 consecration formerly conferred by the holy oil according 
 to the Roman Catholic rite ; the curses applied by that 
 church to apostates and renegades were next read in 
 his hearing with a loud voice ; and he was then handed 
 over to the secular power. His fortitude under torture, 
 his calmness in the presence of death, his resignation to 
 the Divine will, and his words of forgiveness, pronounced 
 as he expired, struck even his executioners with awe, and 
 
HIS MARTYRDOM. 169 
 
 in spite of the hardness of their hearts drew tears from 
 their eyes. Suddenly, a loud report of musketry an- 
 nounced to earth that the heavens had opened to receive a 
 new martyr. Father Ugo Bassi, that angel in human form, 
 fell struck by twelve Austrian bullets. 
 
 These horrors occurred in the middle of the nineteenth 
 century, in the very States, and under the reign, of him 
 who styles himself vicar of the God of love and mercy ! 
 
AFTER CHAPTER. 
 
 Present Condition of Italy. 
 
 Between the period at which the preceding sketches were 
 undertaken and the present time, there is hut an interval of 
 two years ; hut in our age a single twelvemonth contains 
 many more events than were formerly comprised within a 
 Greek Olympiad or a Roman Lustrum. In these days we 
 see accomplished, in the space of a few months, weighty 
 facts such as our fathers saw born, grow, and ripen only 
 in the course of several years. All this is but the effect of 
 the present condition of human society ; it is the influence 
 of the past upon the present, for it is given to our century 
 to reap the harvest which former centuries, and especially 
 the 18th, have sown. 
 
 In the midst of the rapid succession of events now taking 
 place in Europe, has that unhappy yet noble Italy, which 
 forms the subject of our unpretending sketches, improved 
 in its political and social condition during the two years 
 just elapsed? We think not, so far as the present is 
 concerned ; but we hope it has with relation to the future. 
 Let us begin by casting a glance over the southern portion 
 of the peninsula, and thence, traversing the small states 
 which parcel out this unhappy country, we will ascend 
 towards those Alps which God had given as a gigantic 
 bulwark destined to defend its independence, and which 
 the degenerate sons of Rome were not able to guard 
 against the invasions of the barbarians. But the ancient 
 Romans had themselves violated the sanctity of their sum- 
 mits in order to dash down upon and to subdue the then 
 known nations of Europe. It was the punishment of reta- 
 
KINGDOM OF THE TWO SICILIES. 171 
 
 liation which the barbarians inflicted upon the Romans in 
 the decline of the Empire, by crossing the Alps to invade 
 in their turn the land of their invaders. True, the Romans 
 in their conquests destroyed that they might rebuild, bear- 
 ing with them and scattering along their path their own 
 civilisation ; while the barbarians destroyed merely for the 
 pleasure of destroying, and of converting the conquered 
 country into a desert. But in this reaction of conquest, no 
 effort of imagination is required to recognise a Divine 
 retribution. God has granted to the nations of the earth, 
 as an outflow of his justice, their own independence, — that 
 is to say, the incontestable and imprescriptible right of 
 governing themselves in their own manner and according 
 to their own laws, provided the latter are not framed so as 
 to disturb the peace and safety of other nations. On no 
 ground but that of their incompatibility with these objects 
 can the foreigner have the least right to intermeddle with 
 them, however he may, more or less plausibly, cloak his 
 intervention, which is always illegal when it is not sought. 
 But we digress, and must return to our subject. 
 
 Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. 
 
 Hardly could there be a more repulsive scene than that 
 which first rises before the eye : it is that of a king pre- 
 eminently bad, and of a people cruelly oppressed — of a 
 king like him whom Samuel, by the command of God, fore- 
 told and pictured to the Israelites. We speak of the king 
 of Naples and his unhappy subjects. Substituting the 
 name of tiger or hyena for that of fox, to no one could we 
 more properly apply than to this crowned savage, the 
 Italian proverb — " The fox loses his coat, but not his 
 vicious nature." 
 
 When a monarch, on account of his murderous and in- 
 cendiary deeds, has, by the unanimous approval of his 
 people, been decorated with the title of King Bomba, — a 
 title for ever stereotyped in this case by the sanction of all 
 Europe, — he may be sure of an immortality along with 
 Q2 
 
172 MR. GLADSTONE'S STRICTURES. 
 
 Nero and Domitian. The moderate and statesman- 
 like strictures of Mr. Gladstone, which should have acted 
 as wholesome warnings to the King of Naples, as did 
 in ancient times the admonitions of the prophets to the 
 corrupt kings of Israel, instead of restraining his brutality, 
 only increased in him the mania for ill-doing ; and the 
 thousands of victims of his perfidy, of whom the English 
 tourist had indirectly become the advocate, and who from 
 this outburst of indignant philanthropy hoped for some 
 alleviation of their sufferings, felt on the contrary the 
 chains of tyranny and the rod of the royal troopers all the 
 more heavily upon their tortured frames. On the outbreak 
 of the present war this petty Caligula, who treats his 
 subjects beyond the Italian peninsula as a conquered people, 
 and those within it as rebels, hoped that his Northern 
 exemplar (who, like all originals, was much better than 
 the copy) would come forth victorious from the great 
 struggle ; and God knows how many prayers, how many 
 pious ejaculations, this sovereign full of superstition, but 
 destitute of true religion, has addressed to St. Januarius, 
 for the triumph of the Cossack knout over English and 
 French bayonets, inferring with a logic worthy of Bluebeard 
 that the triumph of the imperial knout of the Czar would 
 give new strength to his own royal stick. Happily these 
 prayers have by the goodness of God been borne away on 
 the blast of the desert, and the calculations of his wolfish 
 madness confounded ; and, what does not always happen 
 in this lower world, victory crowns the right. King 
 Bomba, rendered furious by the reverses of his prototype 
 and patron, avenged himself for each defeat of his beloved 
 Russians by cudgelling such of his own liege subjects as, 
 in mockery of the royal grief, showed either by look, word, 
 or smile, the slightest joy at the triumph of civilisation 
 over barbarism. To console himself for the misfortunes of 
 his powerful friend, he brought over and took into his pay 
 two Russian generals, to whom he confided the duty of 
 completing the fortifications of Capua, and who, in case of 
 
THE APPREHENSIONS OF A TYRANT. 173 
 
 Heed, will be perfectly qualified to charge the people, at 
 the head of those battalions of Swiss troopers, who letting 
 out their heroism at the rate of lOd. a day, have, although 
 the free children of a free country, become the upholders of 
 tyranny. Alas! for William Tell! 
 
 In his adoration of the despotism of the Autocrat, and 
 trusting in his sympathy, Bomba actually went so far as to 
 insult France and England in the midst of their victories, 
 offering, in sacrifice to his idol, two brutal deeds, which 
 for an instant imperilled his throne and his existence as 
 u King. These great Powers took, however, but little 
 notice of an insult proceeding from a madman, imitating, 
 even too closely, the generosity of the lion, which, wearied 
 by the barking of a snappish cur, gently teaches it its 
 distance, by a slight tap of that paw whose blow would 
 break every bone in its skin. Quos Deus vult perdere, 
 prim dementat. 
 
 For the last two years the life and conduct of this King 
 of Naples have been invariably the same : constantly be- 
 sieged and tormented by fear, which, when remorse is 
 wanting, is the punishment of wicked princes, he in vain 
 changes his dwelling place, and, like a modern Pygmalion, 
 drags with him his dread of coming evil, from one palace 
 to another : this avenging fury pursues him everywhere, 
 nor leaves him a single moment's rest. He sees only a 
 concealed foe in each of his subjects, all of whom he 
 hates, with the exception of his flatterers, whom he 
 despises. The band of foreign satellites, whom he en- 
 riches by impoverishing the State, does not protect him 
 from the bloody spectacle, which night and day rises 
 before his eyes, — that of a multitude of victims slaugh- 
 tered by the hand of his executioners, and offered as a 
 sacrifice to his hate and to his political vengeance. So 
 much for his life. As to his policy, the State prisons 
 are still full : those horrible dungeons, those noisome 
 cells, in the depths of which thousands of honourable 
 men undergo a lingering death, an everyday agony, 
 Q3 
 
174 ROYAL QUARREL WITH THE JESUITS. 
 
 surrounded by all kinds of tortures. To these he would 
 fain add shame, if the hatred of a tyrant had power to 
 blast the honour of his victims, whose souls are a thousand 
 times more noble, more lofty, and although in the gloom of 
 a dungeon, a thousand times more free, than that of their 
 oppressor upon his throne. 
 
 Although General Filangeri had always been a supporter 
 of despotic government, he seemed to King Bomba too 
 humane to rule Sicily as his paternal heart intended and 
 wished, and accordingly he gave to that unhappy country, 
 in the person of Prince Castel Cicala, a successor much 
 better qualified to interpret and to execute the Royal will. 
 Scarcely escaped from the wrath of England, this insensate 
 Monarch dared again to provoke it, by calling to his pri- 
 vate councils the creature Mazza, so dear to his master on 
 account of his having revived and liberally administered 
 the bastinado to his subjects, — that chief of the sbirri who 
 had the effrontery to insult an envoy of her Britannic 
 Majesty, and whom Bomba has, in spite of himself, been 
 obliged to dismiss, in order to avoid the vengeance of Eng- 
 land, the infliction of which all his people would have 
 loudly applauded. For an instant the King took a spite 
 against the Jesuits, and seemed to bear a grudge against 
 the disciples of St. Ignatius, whom he had up to that time 
 protected, favoured, and enriched, as being the most zealous 
 instruments of his despotism : but in this he only yielded 
 for a moment to some personal caprice ; for tyrants are 
 like spoiled children, who fly into a passion, kick and 
 squall at the slightest contradiction, and throw the 
 orange into the mud, after having sucked as much of its 
 juice as sufficed to quench their thirst. The cloud con- 
 jured up by the spiritual threats of the Holy Father, who 
 is ever ready to brandish the thunderbolts of the Vatican 
 in defence of these faithful supporters of his absolute 
 supremacy, — this cloud soon disappeared from the horizon 
 of Caserta, and his Majesty cried Peccavi, humbly begging 
 the forgiveness of the Pope and of the sainted Loyola, 
 
INCREASED SEVERITY OF THE ROYAL TYRANNY. 175 
 
 whose victorious disciples were once more received into 
 his good graces, and felt more secure than ever of the 
 Royal favour. 
 
 Since the commencement of the present war, and espe- 
 cially since the victories of the Allies, and the accession 
 of Piedmont to the alliance of the Western Powers, 
 suspicions, espionage, the political inquisition, and all 
 kinds of political persecutions have redoubled in this 
 unhappy kingdom. We have seen worthy and honour- 
 able citizens bound, imprisoned, condemned to the basti- 
 nado, and some even fainting and dying under the blows 
 of the Royal cudgel, merely for having uttered cries of 
 joy, or for having betrayed by a smile of pleasure their 
 secret satisfaction, while reading in the newspapers of the 
 victories of the Alma, Inkerman, and the Tchernaya. 
 
 In the present condition of European civilisation, the 
 continuance of such a reign is an anomaly, a flagrant 
 crime against offended humanity, a loud contradiction to 
 the great Powers, who, by virtue of their strength and 
 their enlightened and liberal ideas, have declared them- 
 selves the champions of oppressed nationalities and suf- 
 fering humanity. But let us quit this unhappy State, 
 and enter a neighbouring territory, which is none the 
 more happy for being in the hands of priests. The 
 picture is even the same picture : Oppressors and the 
 oppressed. This is the mournful formula which in a few 
 words sums up the condition of all Italy, Piedmont only 
 excepted. 
 
 States of the Church. 
 This wretched country has deteriorated during the last 
 two years, both in its civil administration and in the 
 condition of its finances. Its continually increasing public 
 debt has become enormous, when contrasted with the 
 revenues of the State, whose Government, instead of 
 encouraging agriculture and commerce, allows them to 
 fall into the most miserable condition. The few liberal 
 
176 - STATES OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 institutions which, in 1853, survived the destruction of 
 all the others founded by Pius IX. in 1847 and 1848, 
 before his desertion of that cause of Italy which he had 
 himself resuscitated and urged forward, have been 
 gradually withdrawn from the people, by the influence 
 of the Jesuits and by priestly selfishness, ever ready to 
 profit by that moral weakness and those fatal hesitations 
 which characterise the present Pope. All places having 
 any influence upon public affairs, all important offices, 
 which in a momentary lucid interval, — alas ! too short, — 
 Pius IX. had wrested from the hands of the clergy, who 
 previously enjoyed and disposed of them at their pleasure 
 — all fell back into the clutches of the priesthood ; and 
 Rome, condemned by sacerdotal lust of power and wealth 
 to retrace her steps in the path of progress upon which 
 she had so happily entered in 1847, is reduced to her 
 former condition and antiquated customs, and again in- 
 volved in that hybrid condition, in that inextricable chaos, 
 which have restored in her case, in the full light of the 
 nineteenth century, the darkness of the middle ages. 
 Suspicion, espionage, political and religious persecution 
 are the order of the day. The civil administration over- 
 thrown, chicanery triumphant, justice sold to the highest 
 bidder, the finances more shattered than ever, morals 
 depraved; — these are the sad results produced by a re- 
 turn to the ancient system ; this is the handywork of 
 the priestly reaction. 
 
 To the disorders and miseries of the capital add the 
 miseries and disorders of the country, and you will have 
 before your eyes a spectacle revolting to humanity. In vain 
 does the Pope occasionally cast, from hi* own private 
 resources, some hundreds of crowns upon the wretchedness 
 of the streets and the afflictions of his people. It is not a 
 passing alms which a Prince owes to his subjects, but insti- 
 tutions favourable to national industry, and laws capable 
 of banishing for ever that indolence which is the parent of 
 misery, dejection, and demoralisation. 
 
POLITICAL SYMPATHIES OF THE POPE. 177 
 
 Urged on by the Jesuits, the active and powerful head 
 of whom in England is Cardinal Wiseman, the Pope by 
 an encroaching propaganda continues, indefatigably and 
 to the danger of the peace of that country, to abuse a 
 colourable right, which may perhaps have been impru- 
 dently conferred upon him by the recent measures for 
 the relief of the Roman Catholics, but of which he should 
 have made a better, and above all, a less dangerous use. 
 The exercise of this pretended right has been at all events 
 unseasonable. 
 
 Politically speaking, his Holiness has shown much more 
 sympathy during the last two years for Greek than for 
 English schismatics. The common bond of despotism so 
 reconciles and binds together the secretly or publicly con- 
 tracting parties, that t it not merely silences the most 
 envenomed religious hatreds, but converts them into good 
 offices and < mutual friendship ; which, however, do not last 
 beyond the period in which their interests seem to be 
 identical. 
 
 Any one who has followed, even superficially, the course 
 of events during the last two years, cannot fail to have 
 perceived the sympathy which the Pope and his coun- 
 sellors, notwithstanding all their Jesuitical reserve, have 
 felt for Russia and Austria, whilst they have disturbed by 
 their machinations the domestic peace of Portugal, used 
 all their efforts to disturb that of Belgium, and perpetually 
 intrigued, and indeed are still intriguing, in Spain and 
 Piedmont. Nor have the Papal ill-humour and ill-will 
 been exhibited in those directions only; they have betrayed 
 themselves in an ever-increasing coolness towards the 
 Government of that powerful and energetic man who has 
 been called by the votes of seven millions of people to rule 
 over France, and who, — whether rightly or wrongly is not 
 now the question — replaced the Papacy upon the throne in 
 1849 : an act which deserved some little gratitude from the 
 Court of Rome, if such a sentiment existed among politi- 
 cians, and above all, in priestly politicians. 
 
178 DOGMA OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 
 
 Of the acts which, during the interval we are now at- 
 tempting to fill up, did the most damage to the government 
 of Pius IX., was, without douht, the new dogma of the 
 Immaculate Conception, which, in spite of the opinion of 
 many ancient fathers and doctors of the church, he imposed 
 on pain of excommunication upon all Roman Catholics. 
 This dogma, which the Christian world had very well dis- 
 pensed with for so many centuries, aroused, among many 
 of the least blinded partizans of Rome, numbering among 
 them both priests and bishops, the greatest discontent, the 
 strongest objections, and learned and solemn protests. The 
 most moderate of its opponents, foreseeing all the evil 
 which a false step would bring upon the spiritual authority 
 of the Pope, already very questionable in the opinion of 
 many people, were content to exclaim : " Non erat hie locus" 
 Indeed food and work would have been gifts much better 
 adapted to the wants of the people, than the superfluity of 
 a dogma which during nineteen centuries had not been 
 necessary to enable Roman Catholics to obtain their place in 
 heaven. It was a coup d'etat of the papacy, suggested by 
 the Jesuits, to make the world believe, by a decision so un- 
 expected and peremptory, that papal absolutism and supre- 
 macy were yet in all their vigour, and that the power of the 
 sovereign Pontiff was in our days still as infallible and re- 
 sistless as in the times of Gregory VII., Alexander III., 
 and Sixtus V. But all coups d'etat are not destined to 
 succeed. In the representation of this too doubtful play, 
 although the actors and the machinery closely resembled 
 those which Rome has ever used for her stage tricks, and 
 which were worthy of the middle ages, she has on this occa- 
 sion grossly deceived herself both as to the time and the 
 audience ; and notwithstanding the interested enthusiasm 
 and deafening tumult of the numerous spectators who were 
 paid for their plaudits, the piece has fallen still-born. This 
 blunder — or, to speak more gently, this mistake — whilst 
 clearly showing the grasping, headstrong, and incorrigible 
 disposition of the disciples of Loyola, does little credit to 
 
MISERY AND CRIME IN THE ROMAN STATES. 179 
 
 their acuteness or address — two qualities proverbial in their 
 case, and which no one will dare to deny to their Order. 
 The majority even of the French bishops, who, strong in 
 the privileges acquired by the Gallican Church, might have 
 sustained a part worthy of the successors of the great 
 Bossuet in this drama, have degraded themselves by in- 
 sipid and servile adulation to the position of mere supernu- 
 meraries and figurants, adding to this sorry occupation, the 
 still more debasing one of becoming the mouth-pieces of 
 hireling applauders. Hence too all the noisy festivals, the 
 sacred bacchanalian rejoicings, which in many Roman 
 Catholic countries have followed the definitive proclamation 
 of the new dogma. The populace are everywhere and 
 always the same : u Partem et cireensesP Unhappily for 
 them, in this case the second only of these two benefits has 
 been conferred upon them. The fetes in celebration of the 
 spiritual gift granted by papal generosity have indeed 
 occupied the eyes and ears, but have failed to appease the 
 hunger of a starving people. 
 
 Surprise is occasionally expressed that in the States of 
 the Church brigandage is still of constant occurrence. There 
 is, however, nothing astonishing in this. It is rather the 
 fault of the great Powers which, notwithstanding their 
 promises, and we may add also, their wish, to ameliorate 
 the condition of Europe, allow a government to exist which 
 is so impoverished and exhausted by all kinds of priestly 
 dilapidations, and thus reduced to such a deficiency of 
 resources, that it has no longer either the power or the 
 energy to defend its own subjects and foreigners against 
 the attacks of highway robbers. The men who embrace 
 this infamous calling are, in fact, encouraged by the public 
 demoralisation, a necessary consequence of priestly govern- 
 ment, and by the impunity arising from its weakness. 
 The Pontifical Government, so haughty and implacable on 
 the least demonstration of liberal opinions, has been often 
 ' seen submitting to treat on terms of perfect equality with 
 such of the bandit-chiefs as it has not been able to put 
 
180 TUSCANY. 
 
 down. It has gone so far even as to guarantee their un- 
 molested retreat, at the same time granting them by an 
 unworthy, degrading, and contaminating engagement, 
 pensions for life which are often refused to old servants of 
 the State. 
 
 A Government reduced to such extremities, stricken with 
 an incurable decline, and allowing itself to die for want of 
 vital energy, is unworthy any longer to rank in the politi- 
 cal order of advanced Europe ; it deserves to be blotted 
 out from the European family, and to undergo the penalty 
 of perpetual ostracism. 
 
 Tuscany. 
 
 We are now on the frontiers of that Tuscan city, whose 
 existence has been rendered so bitter by foreign arrogance, 
 and which has* during the last two years paid too dearly 
 for the fatal gift of beauty, by having to endure the hated 
 presence of proud and greedy invaders. 
 
 Wretched Tuscany ! We have, perhaps, never before so 
 sadly and justly uttered as regards thee, that wish sug- 
 gested by indignation and despair which Filicaja once 
 applied to the whole of Italy, and which Lord Byron, 
 without acknowledging its source, placed in the mouth 
 of Childe Harold:— 
 
 " O God ! that thou werfc in thy nakedness 
 " Less lovely or more powerful ! " 
 
 As we have already remarked, the Austrians, from the 
 day of their entry into Tuscany in 1848, have always 
 treated it as a conquered country. Since that period the 
 Grand Duke has become, more than ever, the blind and 
 servile instrument of the wishes of Austria, of which the 
 general commanding her troops in the Grand Duchy is the 
 depositary and organ. Subjection does not sit ill upon 
 this Prince, whose sluggish and unenergetic character 
 easily reconciles itself to the requirements of his suzerain, 
 provided his Duchy be left to him, which the Austro-Lor- 
 raine branch settled in Tuscany only considers as a family 
 
RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL PERSECUTION. 181 
 
 appanage, a kind of sinecure, or a farm held on a rack- 
 rent, the niggardly and stingy management of which may 
 fill its own treasury to overflowing. 
 
 Religious, as well as political, persecution has held on its 
 course both in Florence and in the provinces. Although 
 exciting less interest and commiseration in foreign coun- 
 tries than the Madiai and the Cunninghams, other Chris- 
 tians, sufferers for their faith, have no less experienced 
 during the last two years the severity of the Tuscan 
 tribunals, controlled by the influence, the cajoleries, and 
 the threats of that reactionary party which is itself 
 patronised by the government. Imprisonment, solitary 
 confinement, and exile have, within this period, been 
 frequently inflicted upon Christian men, after tedious and 
 crafty legal proceedings, for the sole crime of having been 
 detected as the owners, possessors, or hawkers of a copy 
 of Diodati's translation of the Bible. The recent repeal of 
 the laws of Leopold having revived the ancient code, it 
 follows that every Tuscan subject, who, impelled by the 
 strength of his convictions, quits the Roman Catholic 
 religion in order to embrace any other, although he may 
 not leave the pale of Christianity, is for this offence alone 
 subject to the forfeiture of all his property and even of life 
 itself. It must, however, be acknowledged that this law, 
 which could not more closely resemble those of Draco, is 
 never applied in all its vigour to heretics and apostates ; 
 but the very want of courage on the part of the executive 
 fully to enforce it suffices to show the hateful nature 
 of the enactment — worthy of the most flourishing days 
 of the Holy Brotherhood. We may reasonably conclude 
 that if the burning pile of Savonarola has not been again 
 lighted up in the squares of Florence, it is not for want of 
 the will among our modern Torquemadas, but because they 
 dare not so far insult the 19th century and outrage its 
 public opinion, as did their predecessors of unhappy memory 
 that of their own times. We should be astounded at the 
 existence of so cruel a code in a land over which God has 
 
 R 
 
182 MODENA AND PARMA. 
 
 scattered such a profusion of natural beauties, whose lan- 
 guage is harmonious music, and whose inhabitants are 
 renowned for the softness of their manners, if we did not 
 know that religious fanaticism, and the hatred to which 
 it gives birth, can transform doves into vultures, and lambs 
 into wolves. 
 
 Like other Italian governments, that of Tuscany natur- 
 ally sees with regret the constitutional system established, 
 consolidated, and nourishing in Piedmont. It participates 
 in consequence in their antipathy towards the Sardinian 
 government. The rulers in these petty States tremble and 
 grow pale at the bare thought of the revival among them- 
 selves of the constitutional principle, which, even more 
 than Republicanism (the realisation of which is less 
 easy,) is the great bugbear of despotism, — so to speak, the 
 threatening phantom which ever haunts them. All the 
 cavils which the court of Tuscany lately raised against 
 that of Turin, on account merely of an attache to the 
 Sardinian Embassy at Florence, clearly proved the ill-will of 
 the Grand Duke, and his strong inclination to pick a quarrel 
 with that constitutional State, an inclination he would never 
 have dared to exhibit, had he not been urged on by a 
 powerful hand of whose protection he was assured, and 
 which vainly strove to hide itself from the eyes of Europe. 
 
 MODENA AND PARMA. 
 
 It would be a waste of time to speak of the Duchy of 
 Modena. This insignificant state is simply an Austrian 
 sub-prefecture, whose duke is the sub-prefect, doomed to 
 await and execute decrees issuing from Vienna. The fact 
 affords a correct idea of the liberty and happiness enjoyed 
 by his subjects. 
 
 With regard to the Duchy of Parma, upon which we 
 next enter, we have nothing to add to our former notice 
 of it, except that whilst nearly as unhappy as Modena, 
 it is also more or less subject to that Austrian influence 
 which weighs so heavily upon all the rest of Italy. 
 
ASSASSINATION OF THE DUKE OF PARMA. 183 
 
 When we spoke in one of these Sketches of the bad con- 
 duct of the late Duke, both as a prince and as a man, we 
 were far from imagining the kind of death by which he 
 would be struck down. From well-grounded principles we 
 detest assassination, whatever may be the pretext or the 
 reason which arms the hand of the assassin, and we hold 
 that it brings dishonour upon the best cause in the world. 
 But if ever such a death can be regarded as a punishment 
 decreed by heaven, we are compelled to admit that on this 
 occasion it did not fall undeservedly. The youthful actions 
 of this unfortunate Prince, and those of his short reign, 
 too loudly testify against him to require that our assertion 
 should be proved by details. The veil of mystery still 
 shrouds the perpetrator of the crime and the causes which 
 led to it. 
 
 It has been said of this affair that a celebrated party 
 leader loves, as did formerly the Old Man of the Mountain, 
 to strike from time to time, and by the hand of his Seyds, 
 some illustrious and powerful victim, for the purpose of 
 showing that his mysterious power can reach his enemies 
 even upon the very throne. We do not give too much 
 credit to this story : but let us admit it as a supposition, 
 and, for the sake of argument, put in place of the Old Man 
 
 of the Mountain, . In this case he would have 
 
 proved to the world that he can indeed strike, but that 
 he is not skilful in the choice of his victims ; for 
 what change in the present condition of Italy could be 
 produced by the disappearance from its surface of such a 
 contemptible being, such an absolute nullity ? 
 
 Others have suspected that a religious corporation for- 
 merly vanquished, but now again raised to power, wished by 
 this Wehmique execution to punish the petty sovereign for 
 certain extortions, and even for certain criminal outrages 
 committed by him against their order, — not from any 
 political feeling or regard for the human family, but 
 merely from greed of gain. But although there are 
 instances of such acts of vengeance in those parts, it must 
 R2 
 
184 MILDER RULE OF THE PRESENT REGENT. 
 
 be confessed that in this case there is absolutely no evidence. 
 It may be assumed, then, that this violent death could only 
 be the result of private revenge, for which this petty 
 Heliogabalus had, by his misconduct, given too much cause. 
 It is right to state that the present regent, to whom 
 her unexpected widowhood brought, in spite of herself, a 
 little rest and some liberty of action, has since the death of 
 her husband shown a charitable disposition and a desire to 
 ameliorate the condition of her subjects. But it is not 
 easy to repair the evils caused to the State by the last duke ; 
 and besides it is not virtues and acts of this kind (virtues 
 and acts more fit for the Lady Bountiful of a parish than for 
 a princess entrusted with the administration of a State) of 
 which Italy stands in the most urgent need. The benevo- 
 lent deeds of this princess can at most heal some of the 
 breaches caused by her husband in the commonweal from 
 Parma, but can produce no good effect on the commonweal 
 from Italy, — especially as the other princes who rule in this 
 miserable peninsula give themselves very little concern 
 about what is done beyond the narrow boundaries of their 
 own portion of this great farm. Still less are they likely 
 to imitate the small reforms, of an economical nature, of 
 this lady; whom God, in the midst of the political and 
 financial profligacy of her crowned colleagues, will we 
 hope recompense for her good intentions, although they 
 have borne but little fruit in her own small State, and are 
 quite barren as far as others are concerned. 
 
 Lombardo-Venetia. 
 We now cross the Po, that " Fluviorum Rex Eridanus " 
 of Virgil, who begins his course proud of new liberal 
 institutions, and brings it to a close under the humiliation 
 of a foreign yoke on the one side, and a clerical autocracy 
 on the other. As we enter Lombardo-Venetia, the excla- 
 mation of Dante when passing from one quarter of his 
 Inferno to another rises to our lips : — 
 
 " Nuovi tormenti e nuovi tormentati." 
 
THE LOMBARDO-VENETIAN PROVINCES. 185 
 
 (Fresh torments and new victims of torture.) To depict 
 the actual state of the Austro-Italian provinces, we might 
 repeat the contents of previous articles ; for their condition 
 is the same, plus that increase of suffering which is 
 natural in a hody subject to a chronic malady that carries 
 it slowly to the grave. In ancient history we find no 
 parallel to the state of this unhappy country so apt as that 
 of Sicily under the Romans and in the grasp of Verres. 
 
 During the last two years enormous taxation, forced 
 loans under the ironical name of " voluntary," the decay 
 (as compared with other times) into which their commerce 
 has fallen, — this sad accumulation of evils has completely 
 impoverished provinces once so rich in natural productions 
 and in the products of industry. If to all these scourges 
 we add two others, — the oidium, or vine-disease, and the 
 cholera — which, during the interval we are endeavouring 
 to fill up, have desolated this country, it lies before us re- 
 duced to absolute distress and ruin. None but families of 
 immense wealth can still live in tolerable comfort,- the 
 innumerable possessors of moderate fortunes, such as for- 
 merly constituted a population generally easy and well to 
 do, are brought down almost to beggary. Luxury and even 
 comfort, which were formerly the heritage of hundreds of 
 thousands of families, are now the exclusive privilege of a 
 few native millionaires, and of the foreign proconsuls sent 
 from Vienna into these provinces in order " y traire la 
 vache grasse dormant beaucoup de lait" — to use a rude but 
 forcible expression of the Count de Lautrec to Francis I., 
 in reference to the fertility and territorial wealth of the 
 Milanese when invaded by the French and governed by 
 himself. 
 
 "Bevon l'acque del Po gallici armenti," 
 
 (French flocks are watered by the waves of Po) said 
 Filicaja, when cursing the French invasion. For Gallici 
 in this line read Ispani or Tedeschi, and you epitomise the 
 history of Italy for seven centuries. 
 R3 
 
186 REVIVAL OF THE CENTRAL CONGREGATIONS. 
 
 Austria has lately performed an act of cheap liberality 
 by re-establishing in the Lombardo-Venetian provinces 
 those Central Congregations which she abolished in the re- 
 action of 1848. Troubled on the one hand by the bene- 
 volent intentions towards oppressed nations which the 
 Western Powers have allowed to appear as the end, the 
 consequence, and the fruit of the existing war, — and 
 alarmed on the other hand by the ever increasing disaffec- 
 tion of her Italian subjects, — she flattered herself with the 
 idea of casting dust into the eyes of Europe by means of 
 this worthless and ridiculous concession. But the press of 
 all countries, not excluding that in the hands of the con- 
 servative party, scouted this administrative jugglery, and 
 unveiled the clumsy device by analysing the pretended 
 concession, and laying bare its true nullity. 
 
 Rightly to estimate an institution which Austria parades 
 with as much self-applause as ever did John Lackland the 
 concession of his signature to Magna Charta, or as 
 William III. might have done his own acceptance of the 
 constitution imposed by the Houses of Parliament on his 
 mounting the throne of England, we must refer to the letters 
 patent of Francis I., dated the 7th and 24th April, 1815. 
 Trivial as were the privileges granted by that Emperor, it 
 is well known that at Vienna there has never been any 
 attempt to maintain them ; and when, in 1846, Manin at 
 Venice, and Nazari at Milan, — both members of the Central 
 Congregations — petitioned his Imperial Majesty to require 
 from his agents that they should be respected and observed 
 in their respective governments, those courageous citizens 
 (who had asked most deferentially for the fulfilment 
 of the Imperial promise) were treated as seditious tribunes, 
 and found in imprisonment the only answer vouchsafed to 
 their remonstrances. These two petty Assemblies — we ask 
 pardon for degrading the common meaning of this term ! — 
 are composed, that of Milan, of 31 deputies, that of Venice 
 of 25, all named by the Emperor. The Central Congrega- 
 tions are, in fact, only inferior departments of the general 
 
ILLUSORY NATURE OF THIS CONCESSION. 187 
 
 administration, having nothing to do with framing the 
 laws, settling the taxes, or managing public affairs. As 
 subordinate agents simply, their duty is to adjust among 
 the different provinces the taxes levied and fixed before- 
 hand by the government, and the military contingent 
 yearly imposed at Vienna by way of conscription. The 
 distribution of military quarters is also among the duties 
 confided to them, and if we add some other insignificant 
 work which their masters deign to impose, we shall have 
 the sum total of the great and important labours with 
 which these conscript Fathers are intrusted. It must not 
 be forgot that these embryo or rather abortive representa- 
 tives have only a consultative voice ; the result of their 
 deliberations may be annulled by the sole and peremptory 
 will of the Austrian Governor, who presides over them. 
 Their term of office is six years, but every member is capa- 
 ble of re-election for two other sections in succession, and 
 consequently is capable of sitting for twelve or eighteen 
 years, according to the good pleasure of the Emperor. 
 The most certain title to re-election is the scrupulous obser- 
 vance of the rule which in old times Pythagoras imposed 
 on his disciples, who were sentenced to absolute silence for 
 the first five years of their pupilage, or rather to employ 
 their gift of speech no further than in saying " Yes" or 
 " No" according to the will of their master. Such, then, 
 is the sham national representation by which the court of 
 Vienna hoped to dazzle and deceive, not only the Lombardo- 
 Venetian provinces (perfectly familiar with its worth ever 
 since 1815,) but those powers of Europe who are noble 
 and generous enough to show some sympathy, interest, and 
 pity for down-trodden and oppressed peoples. 
 
 Let us now see how far the administration of affairs in 
 the Austro-Italian provinces has been ameliorated of late 
 years. A new law has just put an end to military substi- 
 tution, so that every young man whose social position and 
 intellectual faculties would render him the pride or the 
 stay of his family, and possibly one of his country's best 
 
"188 ATTEMPT TO EXTIRPATE THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 examples, is deprived of the power of procuring a substi- 
 tute for money as in past times. At the most important 
 period of his education he is compelled to stop short in 
 his career, to don the Austrian uniform, and to march as a 
 private soldier hundreds of miles from his family, into the 
 midst of strange populations, speaking a strange language, 
 there to acquire the management of a weapon directed 
 against the interests and glory of his own country, — himself 
 meanwhile under daily exposure to the risk of a degrading 
 punishment for the most trivial fault. 
 
 An autograph order of the Emperor Francis Joseph, 
 (dated December 9th, 1854,) and a subsequent ordinance 
 from the Imperial ministry for public instruction (January 
 26th, 1855,) make the German language obligatory in all 
 the schools of Lombardo-Venetia up to the year 1859, 
 when every branch of instruction is to be conveyed in that 
 language. Thus from 1860, Italian will be forbidden 
 throughout the schools of these two beautiful and exten- 
 sive provinces ! Napoleon I., who wished to " Frenchify" 
 that portion of Italy which he had so arbitrarily attached 
 to the French empire, entertained for a moment the idea 
 of a similar sacrilege : but he who dared every thing durst 
 not carry out this project. Miserable country ! Stabbed 
 in that which every people holds most sacred after the 
 national honour, the language of its ancestors ! that lan- 
 guage so harmonious and classic, which, after the fall of the 
 Byzantine Empire, aided so largely with the Greek and 
 Latin, to polish the languages and manners of other 
 European nations. * * What barbarism ! 
 
 Let our oppressors at least leave us Italians of the South 
 our dear native tongue. But they could not tear it from 
 us, though they should leave us nothing else. The Emperor 
 Alexander II. has just abrogated the cruel law by which 
 his father had forbidden the use of the Finnish and Polish 
 languages in the schools of those countries. This is simul- 
 taneous with these monstrous enactments by a Power which 
 has the effrontery to chide the Czar for unlawful ambition ! 
 
AUSTRIAN CONCORDAT WITH THE POPE. 189 
 
 We have before observed that since the reforms of Joseph 
 .II., Austria had at least one incontestable merit, that of 
 religious toleration, — we may rather say, of politically 
 equalising all Christian creeds by conferring on them the 
 same rights, and protection in the free public exercise of 
 their respective worship. The Concordat which she has 
 just concluded with Home has not only absolutely 
 destroyed this merit, which her very enemies admitted, 
 but it places Austria, (heretofore so haughty and punctili- 
 ous,) under the protection of the Holy See, as in that age 
 of iron when Papal ambition made a profit of the weak- 
 ness of German emperors. Rigidly carried out, this Con- 
 cordat makes the Pope" a loftier and more powerful lord in 
 the Austrian dominions than the Emperor himself. A 
 Pontiff of the stamp of Gregory VII. is alone wanting to 
 renew before Europe the spectacle of an Emperor in sack- 
 cloth, kneeling before the Holy Father and humbly craving 
 mercy, as once did Henry IV. under the walls of Canossa. 
 In a word, it is the eleventh century revived in the midst 
 of the nineteenth. The direction and oversight of public 
 instruction, and the cognizance of criminal causes which 
 directly or indirectly interest any member of the clergy, are 
 now exclusively committed to episcopal management. 
 Through this concession and by a crowd of others made 
 to the Holy See, every Bishop has, in fact, become more 
 powerful in his own diocese than the civil or military gov- 
 ernor of the province. This new system of things will 
 convert the Austrian monarchy into an immense seminary, 
 — a monster Maynooth. By the degradation of the Impe- 
 rial dignity before St. Peter, the Emperor of Austria may, 
 perhaps, purchase for himself Paradise in the other world, 
 but it is quite certain that he will procure for his subjects 
 the torments of Hell in this ; for it is an established fact, 
 that there is nothing in the world more vexatious, more 
 intolerant, or more insolent, than a priesthood which 
 joins ministrations at the altar to the management of 
 
190 SUPPOSED MOTIVES FOR AUSTRIAN SELF-DEGRADATION. 
 
 public affairs in a State. It is an unnatural union of two op- 
 posite and incompatible powers, which can issue in nothing 
 but corruption, misfortune, persecution, and wretchedness, 
 to the populations condemned to undergo such a regime. 
 
 Since the publication of this Concordat, it has often been 
 asked why the Emperor of Austria has thus thrown 
 himself with a rope round his neck at the Pope's feet, 
 renouncing by a single stroke of the pen all the privileges 
 extorted by his predecessors, abandoning to clerical re- 
 actionists many millions of his subjects, and exciting the 
 deepest disaffection and the most just and marked resent- 
 ment among all classes in the Empire, but chiefly among 
 those most eminent for social position and intelligence. 
 Those who profess acquaintance with the secret intrigues 
 of Schoenbrunn accuse the Arch-Duchess Sophia, mother of 
 the young Emperor, of having instigated this Concordat. 
 What seems to justify the accusation is the ultra-Roman- 
 ism and reactionary fanaticism of that Princess, well- 
 known as the rabid protectress of Jesuitism and all its 
 cabals. Others, who still in vain ask themselves the mean- 
 ing of this enigma, (for so spontaneous a prostration of the 
 Imperial power is surely an enigma,) seek it in the Limbo 
 of political conjecture. They say that the Emperor of Russia 
 being the Pope of the Greeks, and the King of Prussia 
 supreme head of Protestantism in Germany, it is the interest 
 of the Emperor of Austria also to become — from a spirit of 
 opposition and to balance parties, — the supreme head of 
 Roman Catholicism in that same Germany ; and as it is out 
 of his power to make himself Pope, and as little his inclina- 
 tion to become an Anti-Pope, he limits himself to playing 
 the part of Sub-Pope. According to this theory, he would 
 fain secure for ever, at the expense of his people's liberties 
 and his own honour, the help, favour, and special protection 
 of the Holy See, to make a grand show off in the eyes of 
 his opponents, and to some extent identify himself with 
 the Papacy. But if that is his object, let his Imperial 
 
PIEDMONT. 191 
 
 Majesty take good care of Eome \ she never forgets the old 
 proverb — " A fourbe fourbe et demi." 
 
 Piedmont. 
 The Ticino, it is well known, divides the rest of Italy 
 from the kingdom of Sardinia, and while crossing it we 
 may still employ the words of onr divine poet who, when 
 leaving Hell, exclaimed : — 
 
 " E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle." 
 (Thence issuing, we again beheld the stars.) Indeed, 
 Piedmont as it has been transformed by the Constitu- 
 tion of 1848, is a paradise when compared with other 
 Italian States. The foes of every liberal idea, and conse- 
 quently tyrants and their base instruments, derided the 
 Piedmontese Statuto as a feeble imitation of the English 
 parliamentary system ; and only regarding it as an abortion, 
 declared it still-born on the very day on which, in the 
 midst of popular enthusiasm, it first made its appearance. 
 These apostles of ignorance and religious fanaticism 
 asserted, that the peoples of Italy, so long condemned to 
 slavery, could not adapt themselves to constitutional insti- 
 tutions, and were quite unfit to maintain them if once 
 granted. They were, or pretended to be, ignorant of the 
 fact, that in Italy, as in other countries, the three genera- 
 tions which have succeeded each other since 1789, and of 
 which the two last still join hand-in-hand, advancing in 
 concert, the one towards the tomb, the other towards man- 
 hood, have had the example of Prance, which has incul- 
 cated liberal theories upon them, and from time to time 
 intervals of a fleeting liberty, which have taught them the 
 practice of those theories. Yes! in spite of a double 
 oppression they have been enabled secretly to instruct 
 themselves in the art of self-government, as a clever and 
 intelligent pupil can by himself learn much, while deceiv- 
 ing the pedantic watchfulness of a snappish, jealous, and 
 ignorant tutor. In every way, Piedmont has given, and con- 
 tinues to give, a solemn and triumphant denial to the foolish 
 
192 THE "STATUTO" AND THE SOVEREIGN. 
 
 predictions and evil auguries of these false prophets, who like 
 Balaam will see, at the time appointed by Providence, all 
 their curses turned, in spite of themselves, into blessings. 
 
 We do not however, contend, that the Piedmontese 
 Statuto has been free from severe trials, threatening its 
 existence. Such there have been, originating chiefly from 
 the party which is alarmed, frets, and trembles at the very 
 name of liberty. Besides the secret plots of its external 
 enemies, it had to sustain internal attacks and to baffle 
 internal intrigues. Abroad, despotism with all its hidden 
 resources, — at home, a parliamentary opposition, small in 
 numbers, but systematic and obstinate ; " the Bed party " 
 and the other much more active and implacable, "the 
 black party," or that of the priests, carried on against it 
 an open or secret, a lawful or unlawful, but always a dan- 
 gerous warfare. The Statuto has emerged from these terrible 
 trials, pure and refined, like gold from the furnace. Whilst 
 we congratulate the immense majority of the nation upon 
 this result, it must be confessed that Piedmont owes in a 
 great measure the preservation of her new institutions, and 
 of her national flag, to the upright character, and the wise, 
 firm, and consistent conduct of Victor Emmanuel, with 
 regard to whom the English press has ratified the noblest 
 title in which a prince, and especially a Constitutional 
 prince, should glory, that of "Re galantuomo" (a king 
 and an honest man) which his grateful people have con- 
 ferred upon him. This appellation, although too homely 
 for some ears, is not on that account the less sublime. 
 Professing the greatest respect for the genealogical tree of 
 the house of Savoy, we yet think it a title name quite equal 
 to that of Hubert of the White Hands, or of Count Vert, in 
 which two of the ancestors of the present king rejoiced. 
 
 After having distinguished himself by brilliant deeds 
 in the glorious but disastrous campaigns against the 
 superior forces of Austria, Victor Emmanuel took up from 
 the bloody field of Novara, the crown which Charles 
 Albert had just abdicated in a moment of utter despair, and 
 
VICTOR EMMANUEL'S PUBLIC AND PRIVATE TRIALS. 193 
 
 which, looking at the critical circumstances of his father's 
 abdication, was a veritable crown of thorns. He assumed 
 it manfully, intending to wear it with dignity, honour, and 
 glory ; and this intention he has fulfilled. Many other 
 princes would have refused it when accompanied by so 
 enormous a responsibility. But Victor Emmanuel had 
 faith in his future, and in the love and gratitude of his 
 people ; and he was not deceived ; nor did he, on the other 
 hand, ever wish to deceive his people, as all the other Italian 
 princes had just done, whose example might have infected 
 him, if the suggestions of a blinding ambition and of selfish- 
 ness could have subdued the voice of honour and of 
 conscience in his soul. 
 
 If his courage in the field of battle was heroic, it was 
 yet greater in a struggle of a very different nature, still 
 more terrible and cruel, — in all those domestic sorrows by 
 which he was repeatedly smitten. With a heart lacerated 
 and bleeding, from the successive loss of those to whom 
 he had devoted all his tenderness and who have left a 
 frightful void in the Royal family, — grief, however pro- 
 found, never for a single instant turned him aside from 
 the pursuit of social amelioration and useful reforms. At 
 the very moment when his heart as a son, a father, a 
 husband, and a brother had been so cruelly tried, the 
 struggle between his Government and the Holy See 
 reached its highest pitch. But in vain did Rome secretly 
 inculcate upon the people through her priests that such 
 trials were only the punishments, or at least the warnings, 
 of heaven to the King for his obstinate resistance to the 
 supreme decrees of the head of the Church ; neither the 
 confidence of the people nor the constancy of the King 
 was shaken by these perfidious suggestions. 
 
 Resistance to the encroachments of the Court of Rome 
 is not a novel merit in the house of Savoy. Several 
 predecessors of Victor Emmanuel have contended with 
 courage and success against the illegal pretensions of the 
 Popes. If, then, his ancestors, who were accountable only 
 s 
 
194 ALIENATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY. 
 
 to themselves for their actions, bravely battled against 
 Papal arrogance, much more was this the duty of Victor 
 Emmanuel (a duty which he has well performed,) in his 
 character of a constitutional king, accountable for his 
 actions to the people. All the brawlings of the " black 
 band" and of the fanatics, real or pretended, who worked 
 with and for it did not intimidate him, and whilst he 
 gloriously maintained his ground against the battalions of 
 Austria, he resisted with success worthy of his courage the 
 invasions of Rome. In the course of this long contest with 
 the Holy See, he knew how to join immovable resolution 
 to ceremonious dignity and an unalterable moderation, 
 from which the violent and cavalier proceedings of the 
 Vatican never turned him aside, and which in the eyes 
 of enlightened men strengthened and increased the merits 
 of his cause. The important and difficult question of the 
 alienation of the property of the clergy, regular and 
 irregular, for the use of the State, which on its part 
 undertook to furnish the means of an honourable sub- 
 sistence to the Church and to its ministers, was resolved 
 upon by the Parliament, as a part of the new system of 
 reform, passed into a law and peaceably carried out, not- 
 withstanding the mutterings of papal thunder, which — 
 rumbling, feeble, and powerless though it be in our days — 
 had emboldened the priests, the monks, and especially 
 several bishops to a hostile and perfectly illegal opposi- 
 tion. This opposition overflowed in violent and bitter 
 protests, of which the most indecent was undoubtedly 
 that of Monsignor Fransoni, the Cardinal Wiseman of 
 Piedmont, and who well deserved banishment for his 
 intolerant, factious, and seditious conduct, which was 
 in most flagrant contradiction of the Christian spirit. 
 The Sardinian Government paid little attention to, and 
 made no reprisals upon, the sacerdotal wrath, noticing 
 it only when from high places it dared to excite the 
 people to rebellion. The nation, however, only smiled 
 with contempt and pity at the malignant and revolting 
 
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY— THE VAUDOIS. 195 
 
 language of these demoniacs in cassocks, who rejected in 
 the most scandalous manner the commandment of obedience 
 to the laws, imposed by Christ. 
 
 During the first French Empire a similar alienation of 
 ecclesiastical property took place in Piedmont, perhaps 
 accompanied by some secret murmurs, but without any 
 overt opposition. Napoleon I. knew how to put both 
 Pope and clergy in their proper place. 
 
 Another act which reflects immortal honour upon the 
 reign of Victor Emmanuel is the assimilation, as regards 
 the exercise of public worship and the enjoyment of civil 
 rights, of all Christian creeds to the Roman Catholic 
 religion, which formerly reigned supreme in the State. 
 Nor must we forget the perfect reinstatement in their 
 former rights and privileges of the poor and worthy 
 Vaudois, whose local religious reformation preceded by 
 three centuries the great continental reformation. This 
 population of nearly 25,000 souls, settled for many centuries 
 in three solitary valleys of Piedmont, between Monteviso 
 and Mount Genevre, has been always isolated, despised, 
 and persecuted like a collection of Helots or a Pariah caste. 
 The little colony — poor, laborious, patient, and living the 
 life of the primitive Christians, — was several times reduced 
 to &, condition as wretched as that of the first disciples of 
 the Apostles, whom the persecutions of the Emperors 
 forced to pray and to live in the heart of the catacombs. 
 Faithful to the reforms of their fathers, they furnished 
 victims and numerous martyrs to the intolerance of the 
 Court of Rome, which, in the matter of persecution, is a 
 worthy successor to that of Domitian and Diocletian. A 
 wise law, called for alike by humanity, justice, and the 
 age, has at length placed the Vaudois in the same position 
 as their fellow-countrymen, and has thus added 25,000 
 good citizens to the other four millions and a half of this 
 fortunate kingdom, who all, excepting the reactionaries, 
 bless as with one voice a Constitution which guarantees 
 their rights, and a Prince who religiously observes it. 
 s2 
 
196 CONTRAST BETWEEN THE PAST AND THE PRESENT. 
 
 But in the midst of civil and religious reforms, Victor 
 Emmanuel did not forget the reformation of the army. At 
 the time of his accession to the throne, it was demoralised 
 and almost dissolved by the reverses and the treachery 
 accompanying the battle of Novara, so fatal to the Italian 
 cause. He undertook its reorganisation with admirable 
 zeal and talent, and it is this able reform to which Pied- 
 mont has been indebted for its power to enter with 
 dignity into the Western Alliance against Russia, and 
 to send into the Crimea that brilliant army, which has 
 surprised its Allies by its appearance and discipline, and 
 has won the applause of Europe. 
 
 It is barely doing them common justice to acknowledge 
 that the King's ministers, especially the Count de Cavour, 
 have exerted all their efforts to second, under very difficult 
 circumstances, by their own wisdom, the paternal intentions 
 of the Prince. 
 
 The * flattering reception which France and England 
 (peoples and sovereigns alike) have just given to their 
 Italian Ally is the result of that sympathy and admiration 
 with which his solid as well as brilliant qualities have in- 
 spired them, and of that justice which two great nations 
 and their powerful rulers could never refuse to real merit. 
 It is to be hoped that the ovations so well deserved on the 
 one hand, and so loyally offered on the other, will stand 
 out from the ordinary class of those official fetes which 
 politeness and etiquette prescribe between princes, and 
 that they will not be unfruitful demonstrations, or without 
 influence on the future of that free and constitutional Italy, 
 of which Piedmont is at present the asylum and Victor 
 Emmanuel the defender. 
 
 Contrast now the present state of the kingdom of Sar- 
 dinia with that at the fatal epoch (1815,) when Thaon de 
 Revel, commissioner of another king Victor Emmanuel, 
 replied to a magistrate who recommended to him an honour- 
 able merchant as being a good citizen: — tl In Piedmont, 
 Sir, there are no citizens: there is only an absolute 
 
CONCLUSION. 197 
 
 king who commands, nobles who govern, and plebeians 
 who obey." 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 After the preceding statements, which have at least the 
 virtue of truthfulness, professing only to make known heart- 
 rending facts on the one hand, and such as afford ground 
 for hope on the other, may we not trust that this de- 
 throned Queen, this noble mother of two civilisations, 
 will at length raise her head once more, and snap for 
 ever the cruel yoke which has oppressed her through so 
 many centuries ? Oppressed, we say ; for all the efforts 
 of her tyrants have never yet succeeded in brutalising 
 her. In the whole course of their brutalising system, 
 they have encountered among the Italian populations 
 whom they would fain have reduced to the condition 
 of Helots, an intellectual force, an attachment to national 
 traditions, a consciousness of what they have been and of 
 what they may yet become, a patient resignation, inter- 
 rupted from time to time by the wakening up of that energy 
 which can give birth to men like Spartacus, and in fine 
 that fire of genius which never dies. This is an assem- 
 blage of qualities surprising after so long a slavery, which 
 has prevented the total ruin of Italy, and enables her, so to 
 speak, to live on within herself, in spite of her tormentors. 
 
 But whence can she now derive her salvation ? From 
 her own resources ? She has, indeed, a sufficiency of 
 them, both physical and moral j but how is she to 
 muster these forces, to develope and to bring them into 
 play, hemmed in and guarded as she is in the minutest 
 of her steps by 300,000 bayonets, half foreign, and half 
 yielding slavish obedience to her native tyrants ? The 
 fatal " Noi bastiamo a noi stessi" — (Our own hands suffice 
 for us,) — first uttered by Cardinal Ferretti, and after- 
 wards translated by Charles Albert into the yet more 
 fatal — " I? Italia fara da se" — (Italy can do all for 
 herself,) — is perhaps natural as a burst of enthusiasm, 
 S3 
 
198 THE EIGHTS OF ITALY — 
 
 but can certainly never result from a sober estimate of 
 her own means, or rather, of her power to make use of 
 them. If this exclamation, generous in itself, did not 
 work out the freedom of Italy in 1848, when the general 
 overthrow of thrones in Europe and the peculiar embar- 
 rassments of Austria came to her aid, still less could it 
 have that effect now, when triumphant reaction has given 
 Austria a new and prominent part to play, and has for the 
 moment strengthened the petty thrones of Italian Princes, 
 in their turn employing the sledge hammer of reaction to 
 rivet the chains of their miserable subjects. Unhappily 
 the noble but romantic " Fare da se" — (Act for your- 
 self,) — must be renounced, and foreign help and media- 
 tion be accepted. We say unhappily, for no one knows 
 better than we, the immense advantage which a nation 
 derives from itself settling its own affairs ; but in our 
 circumstances we must make a virtue of necessity. 
 
 If, then, it be clear that for the actual work of our 
 deliverance, we must seek external aid, whither shall we 
 look ? From whom can we expect it, if not from the two 
 great Western Powers, who have undertaken the noble 
 task of defending, even at incalculable sacrifices, Civilisa- 
 tion against Barbarism, and have already insured its 
 triumph by a series of splendid and well- merited vic- 
 tories ? " But what right," we may be asked, " has 
 Italy to the mediation and active help of these Powers 
 in the work of her own deliverance ?" Two kinds of 
 right : one general and admitted, the other partial and 
 acquired. The first claim which Italy presents, in the 
 face of other nations, is founded upon the sacred object 
 with which France and England have engaged in the 
 present war. While declaring in their proclamations, 
 that they meant " in no way to favour the revolutionary 
 spirit" — [for " revolutionary" read " regenerative"] — which 
 under the shadow of this war might have burst forth 
 in different parts of Europe, where it sleeps, or seems 
 to sleep, but where it is far from dead, the Allied 
 
HER CLAIMS UPON THE ALLIES. 199 
 
 Governments have acted with candour, but still more 
 with astuteness. That spontaneous declaration was in- 
 tended to flatter the German Powers chiefly, in the hope 
 of inducing them to join their policy and interests to those 
 of the Allies, which at bottom were those of all civilised 
 Europe, and of every State which aspires after civilisa- 
 tion. The last two years have sufficed to show how 
 honourably and gratefully the German Princes, with 
 Prussia and Austria at their head, have responded to 
 this generous profession of faith on the part of two 
 great Powers whom nothing could hinder from adopting 
 a tone altogether different, and even from acting as they 
 pleased, without making any professions ! 
 
 But beside this partial declaration might be noted 
 another more general and less explicit, though none the 
 less palpable and solemn on that account, and which at 
 once rallied the sympathies and aspirations of every noble 
 heart to the cause of the Western Powers. The heads of 
 those Governments surely fixed as their common object 
 in the war, and the final recompense of all the sacrifices 
 it imposes on them, not only the triumph of civilisation 
 over barbarism, but that which is its logical and necessary 
 consequence, — the amelioration of the present state of 
 Europe, above all, of those nations which groan under a 
 native or foreign yoke. The continued existence of such 
 oppression would be a perfect anomaly, a flagrant contra- 
 diction of the triumph of civilisation, and, still worse, an 
 inexhaustible source of revolutions, thus rendering illusory 
 that durable peace for which Europe longs. So much for 
 the general and admitted right which Italy claims in com- 
 mon with all her sisters, robbed, like her, of their national 
 inheritance, and subjected to the same bitter fate. 
 
 But further — Italy claims this right on a ground special, 
 exclusive, and legally acquired, — won for her by the 
 conduct of Piedmont. That power, by becoming the 
 defender and champion of Italian liberty and glory, has 
 become virtually authorised to act for all Italy, which 
 
200 SACRIFICES OF PIEDMONT FOR EUROPEAN FREEDOM. 
 
 commits her interests and destiny to its charge. Victor 
 Emmanuel was the very first to join the Western Alliance, 
 and at a moment when that step was not without danger. 
 The chances of war had not then become so decidedly 
 favourable to the arms of France and England as they 
 have since proved. The King of Piedmont shrunk from 
 no sacrifice that he might respond worthily to the appeal 
 of the Allied belligerents, and of all rulers he alone re- 
 sponded. This was surely a chivalrous act, giving in the 
 eyes of the Emperor Napoleon and Queen Victoria a double 
 value to his zeal, manliness, and faith in their magnanimity. 
 The fine Piedmontese army was subjected to a fearful 
 scourge in the diseases which attacked it on disembarking 
 in the Crimea, and the victims which it was compelled to 
 offer to the great European cause before it could even cross 
 swords with the enemy, were numerous indeed. To these 
 diseases it opposed indomitable courage, and the soldiers 
 who escaped their deadly influence, were no less heroic at 
 the bridge of Traktir, and on the banks of the Tchernaya. 
 Brave Highlanders and the formidable veterans of Africa 
 admired the valour of the Piedmontese, placed them at 
 once on a level with themselves, and fraternised with them 
 proudly as brethren. Victor Emmanuel, faithful to his 
 engagements, submitted to new sacrifices of men and money 
 to fill up the gaps which epidemics and Russian grape shot 
 had made in his battalions. And ought not conduct so 
 spontaneous, frank, and generous, which found no imitators 
 in the band of timid, mistrustful, and philo-Russian princes, 
 to meet with its recompense at the close of the war ? That 
 would be an injustice of which his great and powerful 
 Allies are wholly incapable. No ! when the conflict is over, 
 and all accounts are adjusted, those powers will doubtless 
 prove that they know how to separate the sheep from the 
 goats, and to judge every one according to his works. 
 
 If, for the sins of Europe, the Czar were to be victorious, 
 would he not punish the King of Piedmont for adopting 
 a policy which he has already publicly denounced as un- 
 
PROPOSED RE-CONSTITUTION OF NORTH ITALY. 201 
 
 grateful ? If favoured with victory, would he not dethrone 
 the house of Savoy, or at least despoil it of some of its 
 provinces, and possibly in favour of the house of Hapsburg 
 and Lorraine, with which the Court of St. Petersburg would 
 be well satisfied ? Victorious France and England then 
 may be expected to attempt from a sense of justice the 
 exact opposite of that which victorious Russia would do in 
 the spirit of revenge. 
 
 The provinces which are suggested to the mind as natur- 
 ally adapted to constitute this reward for the heavy sacri- 
 fices of Piedmont are those of Lombardo-Venetia, with, 
 perhaps, the Duchies of Parma and Modena. The reasons 
 for annexing them to the existing kingdom of Sardinia 
 are not less clear. In addition to that just stated, they are 
 to be found in the necessities of Italy and of Europe alike. 
 On neither point need we dwell at length. The sad story 
 of that misgovernment past and present, to which the 
 Lombardo- Venetian provinces have been subject, justifies 
 the demand that Austria shall abandon her Italian posses- 
 sions and retire beyond the Isonzo and the Alps, her 
 natural frontier in that direction. Even her own perma- 
 nent interests best consist with this proposal. It may be 
 said that in a commercial point of view she would lose by 
 the liberation of Venice ; but what is Venice now ? What 
 has she become in comparison with Trieste, the city favoured 
 of the mercantile and industrial aristocracy of Vienna? 
 Besides, by the arrangements certain to result from this 
 war, the mouths of the Danube will be rendered perfectly 
 free to Austrian commerce, which is likely to obtain yet 
 greater facilities in the event of the proposed canal being 
 cut between Czernavoda and Kustendje. Austria would 
 thus gain for her products an outlet to the Black Sea not 
 less valuable than that of Trieste into the Adriatic. So 
 much for material advantages: as to moral benefits, by 
 giving-up Lombardo-Venetia, she would only abandon 
 provinces over which she can never more reign except 
 by terror, and where (for reasons already stated) her 
 
202 WITHDRAWAL OF AUSTRIA— ITS CERTAIN EFFECTS. 
 
 name is detested and will be so long as her domination 
 exists. 
 
 By this withdrawal, a further advantage would be 
 secured, of incalculable value to the balance of power in 
 Europe. Italy would be freed from that influence, direct 
 or indirect, which Austria has long exercised over the 
 entire peninsula, which has been, and which will be a 
 perpetual cause of discontent, discord, and intrigue — a 
 smouldering fire certain to keep alive civil war, and to excite 
 revolutions continually. Austria once within her natural 
 frontier, and meddling no longer as of pretended right with 
 Italian affairs, her baneful influence would cease, and no 
 more torment in a thousand ways the country which even 
 now she looks upon as a grand fief, more or less at the mercy 
 of her policy and her caprice. 
 
 Such is the re-organisation of north Italy which seems 
 to be called for by regard for the well-being of the penin- 
 sula itself and the permanent peace of Europe — by the 
 rights of the oppressed and the interests of civilisation. 
 If we are asked how this re-adjustment is to be effected, we 
 can only point once more to its necessity. A European 
 Congress will doubtless sit, at the close of the war, to 
 correct the map of the continent according to the state of 
 things then existing, and with a view to a settlement con- 
 taining no seeds of future discord. Italy refers her case to 
 that high court of nations, in which the Powers now allied 
 will have peculiar weight, and she beseeches the champions 
 of national independence and public right then to secure 
 for her justice. 
 
 But to return. The Parliamentary Opposition in Pied- 
 mont refused to enter into the views of the Government 
 with respect to its alliance with the Western Powers, and 
 the contingent it should furnish. In our opinion, while 
 fully respecting the freedom of its opinions, the Oppo- 
 sition was not at that time inspired by love for the glory 
 and independence of Italy; and it either did not see, or 
 would not see, all the good which that decisive mea- 
 
THE PIEDMONTESE EXPEDITION AND THE ITALIANS. 203 
 
 sure was likely to produce, not only to Piedmont, but 
 to the country at large. Independent of the happiness 
 enjoyed by the expeditionary army of taking in the 
 Crimea, and against troops exercised in war, a glorious 
 revenge for the defeat of Novara, and thus winning 
 back its ancient glory, — not tarnished, indeed, but some- 
 what dimmed in the eyes of that too numerous class, 
 who judge all events rather by their effects than by 
 their causes, — that happiness apart, it is beyond doubt 
 that this army, covered with glory, and strong in the 
 help of France and England, once returned to the hearths 
 of its ancestors, will be more than ever the support and 
 buckler of the Statuto. Despots will never again dare to 
 attack that bugbear of despotism, under the new conditions 
 in which Piedmont is placed by her alliance with the 
 Western Powers. The Piedmontese army is the deposi- 
 tary and protector of the tri-coloured flag, which it has 
 triumphantly unfurled in the Crimea ; and towards it 
 the eyes and hearts of all good Italians will be in 
 future (let us hope, no distant future) directed as to a 
 true " sacred legion," — the nucleus and rallying point 
 for all those brave men whom their common country hides 
 in her bosom, and who only await the reveille to rise up 
 as a single man. It will be only necessary for a Pied- 
 montese soldier, in whatever part of Italy he may find 
 himself, to say, " I was in the Crimea," to obtain honour 
 from the population as a hero and a champion of Italian 
 glory ; for the rest of the Italians, chained down to home, 
 and unable to do more, have at least accompanied their 
 brethren with their ardent prayers into the midst of the 
 dangers of war. How different will these men appear as 
 they return with laurels and honourable wounds, from 
 those bands of broken-down soldiers and shirr i who, 
 always ready to sustain the despotism of other Italian 
 Princes besides their own employers, are incapable of pro- 
 tecting their fellow-citizens, and even of securing travellers 
 against the attacks of organised highway robbers ! 
 
204 KING BOMBA INCURABLE. 
 
 It will be for the Great Powers to consider what shall 
 be done with Tuscany and the Pope. Those Governments 
 cannot continue to exist as at present, if it is indeed 
 the intention, as well as profession, of the Allied Powers 
 to tolerate no longer the oppression of any people of 
 Europe, and to ensure to the world a lasting peace. 
 Heaven has assuredly not granted them so many vic- 
 tories, — victories so decided, yet so dearly bought, — that 
 they should fail of accomplishing all that noble enterprise 
 which they have taken upon themselves, before man and 
 before God. 
 
 As regards King Bomba, — putting aside the personal 
 interest which we have in his overthrow, — we cannot 
 but think that the Power which would deprive so great 
 a monster of his ability to dishonour the regal dignity 
 and human nature, would render an important service 
 to humanity. Meleager, Theseus, and Hercules, in old 
 times delivered men from similar scourges, and were 
 raised by grateful nations to the rank of demigods and 
 benefactors of mankind. Whoever may be called to 
 succeed King Bomba will have no difficult part to play, for 
 after a Nero it is easy to be a Trajan. Notwithstanding 
 his incessant fears, this monarch, who has not yet duly 
 and sincerely repaired the insults put upon France and 
 England, will assuredly soon relapse into similar acts of 
 madness : his hatred of every liberal idea and his philo- 
 Russian nature will doubtless urge him to it, and the 
 long suffering of those whom he offends will at length 
 be exhausted. " Sic est in votis" — at least for us, who 
 in addition to our private wrongs, mourn those of our 
 native country. 
 
 Happy would it be for Italy, could she form but one 
 State, ruled by Victor Emmanuel whom, as well as his 
 successors, she would obey, as long as they remained faith- 
 ful to the Constitution. But since we are compelled to 
 renounce the beautiful day-dream of Italian unity, under a 
 single head, we should be satisfied with a kingdom formed 
 
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS FOR THE FUTURE. 205 
 
 for the house of Savoy, of the whole northern portion of 
 the peninsula. The rest might be divided into a central 
 and into a southern State, the latter composed of the pro- 
 vinces now forming the kingdom of the two Sicilies; 
 and both might be confided to princes worthy to reign over 
 intelligent, active, and industrial populations. The three 
 states, governed by the same laws and the same constitu- 
 tion, might form a federation, which is the only acceptable 
 system in the absence of absolute unity. 
 
 The grand difficulty in the way of this plan would be 
 the existence of the Pope, for whom, owing to the 
 monstrous union in his person of the spiritual and 
 temporal power, every liberal constitution is impos- 
 sible. The Pope who should accept such a constitution 
 would cease by that act to be Pope ; for the meaning of 
 that title, which at first was only Father, has, in the course 
 of time, changed into that of despot and absolute dictator 
 not to be appealed from, both over Roman Catholic con- 
 sciences, and over the goods, liberty, and lives of his 
 unhappy subjects. 
 
 Once more simply bishop of Rome, preserving with a 
 rich inheritance also the spiritual supremacy over all who 
 were willing to submit to it, the Pope might well abjure a 
 temporal power incompatible with the spiritual, which 
 his predecessors usurped by little and little over the weak- 
 ness of rulers, and the unsuspicious nature of the people. 
 The Catholic faith would surfer no loss by this, while 
 mankind would gain much : among other things it would 
 gain the suppression of that Court of Rome, the ava- 
 rice, cupidity, intolerance, ambition, and dark intrigues 
 of which are the scandal of Christendom, the focus of 
 those eternal discords which have troubled and yet trouble 
 Europe — the daily scourge of the Roman people. Were 
 the temporal power of the pontiff abolished, there would 
 also be far more reason to hope for the return to Italy 
 of the religion of Christ in its perfection. It would 
 revisit that fair land, purified from all those stains with 
 T 
 
206 ADVICE TO THE ITALIANS.— CONCLUSION. 
 
 which superstition, constantly sustained and nourished by 
 the worldly ambition of the Popes, has soiled it from the 
 time of those false Decretals which have served as a 
 foundation for almost all the papal encroachments and 
 usurpations. Thus restored to its primitive purity it would 
 become what the Saviour revealed it, — the perfect law of 
 love and bond of charity. 
 
 A blessed future may, then, possibly soon open upon 
 Italy. The strict alliance of France with Piedmont, the 
 generous and ever-increasing sympathy of the English 
 people for this noble but unfortunate nation, are potent 
 auguries of Italian regeneration. But the different popu- 
 lations of Italy, — on the eve, we trust, of being blended 
 into one nation, — are bound to do their part for the realisa- 
 tion of these bright hopes. Let wisdom and prudence 
 moderate their impatience. Let them husband all their 
 energy until the moment arrive for its useful employment, 
 and hot squander it on vain and barren demonstrations, or 
 insurrectionary attempts, ever dangerous when solitary 
 and ill-timed. Finally, let them firmly resist the sugges- 
 tions of parties who might mislead them, and who, 
 whatever their colour and tendency, wage (though with 
 opposite ends in view,) a deadly warfare against Constitu- 
 tional government, the only government which, now at 
 least, is compatible with the well-being of Italy. 
 
 EDWARD BAINES AND SONS, PRINTERS, LEEDS. 
 
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