Читать книгу The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany - C. Edmund Maurice - Страница 9

Table of Contents

Effect of Napoleonic Wars on Italian Feeling.—Austrian promises and performances in Lombardy.—Vincenzo Monti.—Ugo Foscolo.—Alessandro Manzoni.—Federigo Confalonieri.—Position of Sardinia.—Relations of Sardinia with Austria.—Reaction under Victor Emmanuel.—Ferdinand I. of Naples.—The Carbonari.—The Spanish rising.—The Spanish Constitution.—The Neapolitan rising.—Guglielmo Pepe.—The Conference at Troppau.—Palermo and the Constitution of 1812.—Divisions in the Liberal Camp.—Ferdinand's attitude.—The movement in Piedmont.—Santa Rosa.—Charles Albert.—"Voleva e non voleva."—The Students' rising.—The rising in Piedmont, and causes of its failure.—Reaction in Italy.—The first martyr.—The Greek rising.—Alexander of Russia.—George Canning.—Breaking of the Holy Alliance.—The Movements of 1830–31.—The Frankfort Decrees.—Metternich's second triumph.

Of all the countries of Europe, none had been more affected than Italy, both for good and evil, by the Napoleonic wars; and in no part of Italy were the traces of these wars so evident as in Lombardy. Though settled liberty had been unknown there since the cities of the Lombard League had fallen under their petty tyrants; though any sense, even of national independence, must have ceased since the sixteenth century; yet the real misery of the position of a conquered country, the sense of an absolutely alien rule, seems hardly to have been fully realised by the Lombards, until the Peace of Utrecht, in 1713, had substituted the Austrian rule for that of the Spaniards. The Spanish tyranny, however cruel, had been softened to the Italians by the sense of community of race and similarity of language; and the readiness of the conquerors to inter-marry with the conquered had given hopes of an ultimate amalgamation between the races. But under the German rule there were no such modifications of the evils of conquest. The new rulers held aloof from the Italians; and the latter were reminded at every moment that they were not merely slaves, but slaves to an alien and unsympathetic master.

When, then, an Italian, at the head of a French army, offered the Lombards deliverance from German rule; when he organized them into a separate legion, and showed special trust in them throughout his wars; when he established the Government of the Cis-Alpine Republic, and held out before their astonished eyes the vision of an united Italy, it was natural that such appeals should awaken hopes of a newer life, and a prouder position in the councils of Europe.

It was true that their confidence had received terrible shocks. The horrible treachery of the Treaty of Campo Formio, the manipulation of the Constitution of the Cis-Alpine Republic, the gradual changes which tended to absorb it into the French Empire; these had been tolerably clear signs to the Lombards of what they might ultimately expect from their so-called liberator.

Yet amid all these acts of violence and treachery, Napoleon had still kept before them the idea of a separate kingdom of Italy, if not in the present, then in the not distant future. If Napoleon failed them, Eugène Beauharnais might realise the ideal with which his step-father had mocked them; if Eugène Beauharnais proved false, King Joachim of Naples might lead them to freedom.

And then, most wonderful of all! came the announcement that the Austrian might become, in his turn, the liberator. In 1809, Archduke John had promised to the Italians, in the name of the Emperor Francis, "a Constitution founded on the nature of things, and a frontier inaccessible to any foreign rule. Europe well knows," continued the Archduke, "that the word of this Prince is sacred, and that it is as unchangeable as it is pure. It is Heaven that speaks by his mouth."

General Nugent, the leader of the Austrian forces, followed up this proclamation, at a later time, by equally strong promises of Italian independence, and as late as April 26, 1814, Lord William Bentinck, the founder of the Sicilian Constitution of 1812, had added his guarantee for the liberty, prosperity, and independence of Italy.

The Italians, therefore, had some hopes of justice from the Powers of Europe. These were shaken by the Congress of Vienna; and the Lombards received a new shock when they found how unreal were even the seeming concessions made by that Congress. A central Congregation of Lombardy, which had no power of initiating reforms, and hardly leave to utter complaints, was the sole embodiment of the principle of Italian independence; and the "frontier guaranteed against the foreigner" was unable to exclude, not only Austrian soldiers from the garrisons of Lombardy, but even Austrian judges from her tribunals, and Austrian professors from her universities; secret tribunals tried Lombards, who were arrested for they knew not what cause; taxes out of all proportion to the size of Lombardy drained the country for the benefit of other parts of the empire; and police dogged the footsteps of the most distinguished citizens.

Nor could Lombardy be even certain of her own sons. The wisest Lombards might well have been confused by the rapid changes of government which had taken place in the short space of eighteen years. They had seen Austrian tyranny give place to a Cis-Alpine Republic; they had passed from republican rule by somewhat confused stages under the despotism of Napoleon, a despotism which had in its turn to give way to the freer rule of Eugène Beauharnais; and lastly they had seen Beauharnais overthrown, and Austrian rule restored in a more crushing form than before.

Not merely their political judgment, but their sense of right and wrong had been unsettled by such changes. When men of high genius, like the poet Vincenzo Monti, could begin his literary career by a fierce poem against France, continue it by songs in praise of the French conquerors as promoters of liberty, then write eulogies on Napoleon's empire, and finally join in the inauguration of a library, which was to be the means of reconciling the Italians to their Austrian conquerors, it can scarcely be wondered at if men of lower intellect found themselves equally ready to worship each new ruler as he rose into power, and to trample on the memory of fallen heroes.

A man of nobler type than Monti expressed, perhaps still more clearly, the sense of despair which seemed likely to become the keynote of Italian feeling. Ugo Foscolo was, from his very birth, an embodiment of the confused state of Italy at that period. He was born in 1778, in the Isle of Zante, then a colony of the Venetian Republic, and in a condition of the utmost lawlessness. He was sent from thence to study at Padua, and thus grew up to manhood during the period of those continual changes in Lombardy which marked the period of the struggle against France. At one time he thought of becoming a priest, but soon devoted himself to literature.

The sole models for the Italian dramatists, at that period, were the writings of Vittorio Alfieri, whose feelings and literary taste had led him to adhere, as closely as he could, to the old classical traditions. At the age of nineteen Foscolo chose, as his first subject for a drama, the horrible story of Thyestes; but though this work was received with great applause, his literary career was, for a time, cut short by the Treaty of Campo Formio.

His political convictions seem already to have been strongly developed, for he was forced to leave Venice to escape the persecution of the new Government. Yet the creation of the Cis-Alpine Republic revived his hopes, and he hastened to Milan to take a share in the new life. There he became acquainted with the two leading poets of the day, Vincenzo Monti and Giuseppe Parini. From the former he gained several hints in style; from the latter he learnt the nobler lesson of hatred of corruption and servility. But the growing tyranny of Napoleon, the sense of the fickleness of his own countrymen, and the loathing of the rule of the Austrians, produced in Foscolo a bitter tone of cynicism and despair.

It was while in this state of mind that he fell in with Goethe's romance of Werther; and on this he modelled the strange rhapsodical story of Jacopo Ortis, in which the hero, disappointed in love and politics, takes refuge, like Werther, in suicide. But while the German romance was merely the expression of a passing feeling, which the author took pleasure in throwing into an artistic form, the Italian story was the deliberate expression of Foscolo's most permanent state of mind, and was accepted as the embodiment of the feelings of many other Lombard youths.

Foscolo, after fighting for the independence of Italy against the Austrian invasion of 1815, withdrew in disgust to England; but some of those who would gladly have welcomed him as a fellow-worker still remained in Lombardy, and tried to form a nucleus of free Italian thought.

Of these, the most remarkable was Alessandro Manzoni, best known to foreigners as the author of "I Promessi Sposi." Manzoni's influence was more widely felt in Italy at a later period; but the presence of such a man among the Lombard patriots of 1816–20 is too remarkable a fact to pass without notice. He, like so many other young nobles, had gone through a phase of eighteenth-century scepticism. But in 1808 he had been attracted by a beautiful Protestant lady, who, after her marriage to Manzoni, drifted into Roman Catholicism, and eventually led her husband to accept the same faith. Many of his old comrades denounced his conversion, and some even attributed it to evil motives. But they soon discovered that his new faith, far from weakening his Italian feeling, had strengthened, while in some sense, it softened it. The hard classicism of which Alfieri had set the fashion, and which Foscolo could not shake off, was repugnant to Manzoni, who desired to become the sacred poet of Italy, and who was recognized by Goethe as being "Christian without fanaticism, Roman Catholic without hypocrisy."

Manzoni disliked Eugène Beauharnais for wishing to derive his title to the kingdom of Italy from Alexander of Russia; but he sympathized with the attempt of Murat, and was ready to act with those Lombards who wished to rouse Italian feeling in literature and politics.

But though men like Foscolo and Manzoni had a wider and deeper influence in all parts of Italy, the person who most attracted the hopes of the Lombards and the fear and hatred of Metternich, at this period, was a man whose name is now little remembered outside his own country. This was Count Federigo Confalonieri. He, like so many of the better men of his country, had become equally disgusted with French and Austrian rulers; and, when a proposal was made by the Italian Senate in 1814 to secure from the allies an independent kingdom of Italy, to be governed by Eugène Beauharnais, Confalonieri headed a protest against the proposal. The Austrian spies seized the opportunity to stir up a riot against the Senate; and in this disturbance Prina, one of the ministers, was seized by the mob and murdered, in spite of Confalonieri's indignant protest.

The Senate fled; and the new Provisional Government of Lombardy sent Confalonieri to Paris, to plead for an independent kingdom of Lombardy. His appeal, however, was in vain; and, when the Austrians recovered their rule, Confalonieri was banished from Milan. He soon, however, returned, and devoted himself to developing in all ways the resources of his country. He had studied in London and Paris the principle of mutual instruction; and he founded schools for that purpose in Lombardy. He succeeded in getting the first steamboat built in Milan, introduced gas light, and encouraged all kinds of improvements, both artistic and industrial.

But his great work was the gathering round him, for literary and political purposes, of the great writers of Lombardy; and he founded a journal called "Il Conciliatore," to which contributions were sent by the poet Silvio Pellico, by the historians Sismondi and Botta, by Manzoni and Foscolo, and, amongst others, by a certain Lombard exile, who was afterwards to earn a short and sad celebrity in Italian history, Pellegrino Rossi. Thus, as a great noble encouraging the material growth of his country, as the centre of a literary movement, and above all as a known champion of freedom, Confalonieri riveted the attention of all who knew him.

But, however zealous this small knot of Lombards might be for the progress and freedom of their country, none of them supposed that Lombardy could throw off the yoke of Austria without assistance from other Powers. The question therefore was, to whom they should look for help.

Their nearest neighbour, the King of Sardinia, had some special grounds for grievance against the Emperor of Austria, besides the tradition of dislike which he had inherited from Victor Amadeus. That unfortunate king had had reason to regret the prominent part which he had taken in defying the French Republic in 1796. For he found that Francis of Austria was eager on every occasion to take advantage of the weakness of his ally. When Savoy was hard pressed by the French, the Austrians had demanded that, in return for any help that they might give to the King of Sardinia, he should surrender to them part of the territory in Lombardy which had been secured to him by recent treaties. Victor Amadeus endeavoured to resist this proposal as long as he could; but he was induced by the pressure of English diplomatists to consent that, if in the war any lands were taken from Austria, he would compensate the Austrians by part of the territory which they demanded.

Victor Emmanuel found in 1815 that alliance with Austria cost him as dear as it had cost his predecessor in 1796. For, even in the last desperate struggle against Napoleon, the Austrians demanded that the treaty of alliance between Austria and Sardinia should contain a clause for the destruction of the fortifications of Alessandria; and in the Congress of Vienna they tried to take from Victor Emmanuel the district of Novara. By the help of Alexander of Russia these intrigues were defeated; but the Austrians, in revenge, made all the delay that they could devise in evacuating Piedmont; and, when they finally left it in 1816, they destroyed the fortress outside Alessandria. Under these circumstances it was natural enough that the King of Sardinia should bear a bitter grudge against the House of Austria.

But, on the other hand, there was great reason to doubt whether Victor Emmanuel could be persuaded to take the lead in any war that savoured of revolution. For, hostile as he was to the claims of Austria, the newly-restored king resented yet more strongly the changes which had been introduced during the French occupation. On his restoration in 1814, he abolished by one sweeping Act all laws passed since 1800 in Piedmont; primogeniture, aristocratic privileges, ecclesiastical tribunals, tortures, secret inquisitions, were all restored. Even at the universities learned men were deposed, as likely to be friendly to the French, and were replaced by men who had no claim but their social rank. A system of espionage was introduced, at least as inquisitorial and degrading as that of Metternich, and it was soon found that to maintain that system it was necessary to sacrifice national dignity, and to have recourse to the great master in the art of tyranny. Thus it came about that Austrian officers were chosen to control the police in Turin.

In two important respects the government of Victor Emmanuel was even worse than that of Austria. Clerical injustice and oppression were as distasteful to Francis and Metternich as they had been to Joseph and Leopold; while in Piedmont, on the contrary, friars and monks were allowed a licence which speedily became a new source of evil. The other point of difference was that, tyrannical and unjust as the Austrian tribunals were in cases where political questions were involved, they were perfectly pure in cases between man and man unconnected with politics; whereas in Piedmont judicial decisions were sold to the highest bidder.

Under these circumstances, the eyes of the champions of Italian liberty naturally turned to that kingdom from which the last effort had been made for the unity of Italy.

Naples had contributed a very large proportion of those who had died for the cause of liberty in the earlier struggles, and even before that time had produced at least one man who had left his mark on sciences which tended to promote good government. Gaetano Filangieri had been one of the most distinguished writers on law and political economy, and had gained great influence at one period over Ferdinand I. of Naples. Ferdinand himself, though intensely weak, and capable of cruelty under certain circumstances, was not a man of habitually cruel character, nor even of so despotic a temperament as Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia.

But, like most of the sovereigns of Italy, he found himself compelled to rely more and more on Austria for the re-establishment of his power. He appointed Nugent, the Austrian general, as the head of his army, and a central council interfered with the liberties which had grown up in Naples. His refusal to carry out the promises of liberty which he had made in his time of difficulty naturally irritated his people against him, while the recollections of Murat stirred in them the desire for new efforts for freedom.

But the great ally which Naples supplied at this time to the cause of liberty was the Society of the Carbonari. Connected by vague traditions with some societies of the past, Carbonarism had received its first distinct political shape in the year 1811, when Murat was reigning in Naples. In 1814, when Murat had shown signs of a despotic spirit, it transferred its allegiance to King Ferdinand, then reigning only in Sicily. When Ferdinand had been restored to the throne of Naples, he found Carbonarism a dangerous element in his kingdom, and he began to prosecute the members of the Society. This had not, however, deprived the Carbonari of their monarchical sympathies; they merely transferred them from Ferdinand to his son Francis, who, having assisted at the establishment of the Constitution of 1812 in Sicily, was supposed to be committed to the cause of liberty.

A vague talk about equality, and a more definite demand for the independence of Italy, constituted the programme of the Carbonari. But the Society was surrounded by various symbols of an impressive character, and its rules were enforced by a secret and vigorous discipline. It was evident that, in some way, it was suited to the wants of the time; for it spread rapidly from Naples to other parts of Italy, and took root both in Lombardy and Piedmont. In Lombardy it speedily attracted the attention of the Austrian police, and in 1818 several arrests were made; but such attempts merely strengthened the growth of the movement, and Carbonarism soon appeared in Spain.

In the latter country the betrayal of the Constitutional cause had been, perhaps, baser than in any other part of Europe.

With the exception of Frederick William of Prussia, no sovereign had owed more to the zeal of his people in the struggle against Napoleon than Ferdinand of Spain. In 1812, before he had been restored to his throne, he had been forced to grant a Constitution to his people, which, on recovering full power, he had abolished; and anyone who ventured to speak of liberty had been exiled or imprisoned. Among those who had been forced to fly from the country was Rafael del Riego, who had been one of the earliest to rise on behalf of Ferdinand against Napoleon. He had succeeded, by the help of the Carbonari, in establishing relations with many of the discontented soldiers in the Spanish army; and in January, 1820, he suddenly appeared at Cadiz and proclaimed the Constitution of 1812.

His success was rapid, and Ferdinand was compelled once more to swear to maintain the Constitution.

This, the first Constitution proclaimed since the downfall of Napoleon, was remarkable for its democratic character. Parliament was to have the power of making laws in conjunction with the king, and if they passed a law three times, the king was to lose the right of vetoing it. Ministers were to be responsible to Parliament. Freedom of the press was to be secured, and a Council of State was to advise the king on questions of peace or war and the making of treaties. At the same time, the nation was to prohibit the practice of any but the Roman Catholic religion.

The news rapidly spread to Naples; for not only was there continual communication between the Carbonari of Spain and those of Naples, but even official duty would make speedy communication necessary, since Ferdinand of Naples was the next heir to the Spanish throne, and it was therefore held that this Constitution would be binding on him. The Carbonari were ready for the emergency; and while some of them, in the city of Naples, were demanding concessions, the more revolutionary districts of Calabria and Salerno had already risen in open insurrection. Ferdinand was able to arrest some of the leaders in the city; but he soon found that the insurrectionary spirit had spread even among the generals of his army. Officer after officer declared for the Constitution; and even those who were not ready to take that step were suspected by, and suspicious of, their fellows. Guglielmo Pepe, known as a supporter of the previous movement of Murat, and at one time sentenced to death for his opposition to the Bourbon rule, was marked out by the Carbonari as their leader. He at first hesitated to join them, and was even chosen by Nugent to lead the king's forces against the insurgents; but Ferdinand distrusted him, and opposed his appointment, and Pepe was finally driven to accept the leadership of the revolution. On July 5th he gathered round him a great body of the officers and soldiers, and led them to Naples; and Ferdinand, finding that he had no one to rely upon, yielded to the insurgents and consented to the appointment of a provisional Junta (composed to a great extent of the previous supporters of Murat), and swore to accept the Spanish Constitution.

Metternich was greatly startled at the completeness of this popular victory. He had been convinced that, with a people like the Neapolitans, blood would flow in streams; and he was alarmed to find that the leading Carbonari were men of high character. He at once assumed that Alexander of Russia was at the bottom of the conspiracy; and he set himself to convert him once more to the side of order. But that fickle Prince seems never to have seriously resumed the championship of liberalism in Europe, after the death of Kotzebue; and though he may have wished occasionally to play with the Carbonari, and may have been flattered by their appealing to him, he was much more anxious to put in force those principles which M^me de Krüdener had taught him, which forbade kings to keep faith with those subjects to whom they had granted liberties. He therefore readily consented to come to Troppau, to consider the best means of checking the Neapolitan insurrection.

In the meantime, suspicions had arisen between the Carbonari and the old followers of Murat, and the want of organization in their forces seemed to doom the insurrection to failure.

But a still more fatal cause of division was the attitude of Sicily. The news of the proclamation of the Spanish Constitution had, at first, been welcomed there; but the nobles of Palermo cherished the recollection of that short time of independence when Ferdinand, driven out of Naples, had ruled Sicily as a separate kingdom; the Sicilian Constitution of 1812, which was welcome to the nobles of Palermo, as more aristocratic in its character than the Spanish Constitution, was acceptable to all the Palermitans as the symbol of Sicilian independence. The cry, therefore, of "the Constitution of 1812" was raised in Palermo, in opposition to the cry of "the Spanish Constitution."

A Neapolitan intriguer, named Naselli, did his best to fan the flame of this division; riots arose; and the news spread to Naples that the Sicilians were enemies of Naples, and were opposing the Spanish Constitution. The Palermitans, on their part, appealed to the King by the memory of the old fidelity which the Sicilians had shown him when he was in exile. The King, and some others, might have responded to this appeal; and General Florestano Pepe, who was sent to suppress the rising, ended by conceding to the Sicilians the right of deciding by popular vote between the two Constitutions. But the Neapolitan pride was excited; a cry arose that the King was surrendering an important part of the kingdom, and thereby violating the Constitution.

In the meantime, however, it had become clear that the preference of the Palermitans for the Constitution of 1812 was not shared by the whole body of the Sicilian people. Messina, followed by other towns, rose on behalf of the Spanish Constitution; and, while the Neapolitans were preparing new forces to suppress the rising in Palermo, the Palermitans were sending their troops against Messina.

During this state of confusion the news arrived that the representatives of the Powers at the Congress of Laybach had urged pacific means of intervention, but at the same time had advised the Neapolitans to modify their Constitution.

Under these circumstances, considerable alarm was caused by the news that the King intended to go to Laybach. Ferdinand, to check this alarm, declared to the Parliament that, whatever happened, he would defend the fundamental principles of the Constitution, freedom of the press, equality before the law, sole right of representatives to vote taxes, independence of judicial power, and responsible ministry. This speech, instead of calming the fears of the people, raised new alarms; for it seemed as though the King were meditating already some changes in the Government; and the people declared that they could only allow him to depart if he went to defend the Spanish Constitution. But Ferdinand earnestly assured them that he had meant nothing against the Constitution, and that, if he could not defend the rights of the people and the crown by his words at Laybach, he would return to defend them by his sword.

The Duke of Ascoli, an old friend and confidant of the King, asked him privately for more specific directions; and Ferdinand urged him to try to maintain peace; but, if it should be necessary, to prepare for war. With such promises, Ferdinand left Naples for Laybach in January, 1821.

In the meantime, the work of the Carbonari had been spreading in Piedmont; and other sects of a similar character, and with more definite objects, had sprung up by their side. Unlike the Neapolitans, the Piedmontese Liberals had no French political traditions, either to encourage or to hamper them. Although the House of Savoy was French in its origin, both rulers and people had been forward in their resistance to the aggressions of the French Republic. Their ideas of liberty were derived, not from France, but from their own poet, Vittorio Alfieri; and these ideas had been strengthened by the love of independence which they had developed in the struggle against France, and which was now wholly directed against Austria.

The risings in Spain and Naples had attracted the sympathies of the Piedmontese; and it was even rumoured that Victor Emmanuel I. himself had said that if his people demanded a Constitution he would grant it. His minister, Prospero Balbo, who had previously served under Napoleon, was supposed to have Liberal leanings.

But while all these circumstances tended to connect the desire for liberty in the minds of the Piedmontese with the support of monarchical principles, and while the absence of any interest in political affairs on the part of the peasantry, or the artizans, prevented any strong democratic organization, it was yet necessary, if the movement was to be successful, that there should be some leader who was not afraid of revolutionary measures. Such a man was Santorre di Santa Rosa, an officer who had fought in the royal guard against the French, and who was now a major of infantry in Turin. His sympathies were not only monarchical, but in some respects even aristocratic; and when the Spanish Constitution was first proclaimed, he was inclined to prefer some other Constitution like that of Sicily, or even the charter which had been granted in France. But, with keen insight, he quickly perceived that the Spanish Constitution had become a watchword which was thoroughly understood by the people, and that any new cry would only cause division.

Nor were the designs of Santa Rosa limited to his own State. He knew that no struggle for Piedmontese liberty could be successful which did not aim at throwing off the yoke of Austria; and that that could only be done by combining with the other States, which were groaning under the same oppression. The patriots of Lombardy were willing enough to act with the Piedmontese, for Confalonieri was already in communication with the Neapolitans and other Italian Liberals, and was ready to provide arms for the rising.

But there was still needed a figure-head who must be placed in front of the movement, if it was to retain any appearance of monarchical Constitutionalism.

Whatever casual remarks Victor Emmanuel may have let fall, it soon became evident that he was disposed to resist the Constitutional movement, and he even began to increase the guards about his palace. Charles Felix, his brother, the next heir to the throne, was known to be a yet sterner champion of despotism than the King himself; and it was under these circumstances that the eyes of the Liberals of Piedmont were for the first time turned to the head of the younger branch of the House of Savoy, Charles Albert, Prince of Carignano.

He had been brought up as a simple citizen in a public school, and had specially attracted attention by the favour which he had shown to Alberto Nota, whom he had made his secretary. Nota was a writer who had set himself to restore the national comic theatre in Piedmont, who had excited the suspicion of the courtiers of Victor Emmanuel by his Liberal principles, and who had at last been banished from Turin.

But, though the favour shown by Charles Albert to Nota was the fact in the Prince's life which had most impressed the Piedmontese, other influences had already been brought to bear on him; for he had also studied at Paris under an Abbé, who had impressed on him a loathing for the French Revolution. He was only twenty-three, and was still hesitating between the lessons of these rival teachers.

But before Santa Rosa and his friends could carry out their schemes, the first sign of protest against tyranny in Turin was given from a different quarter. Although the desire for liberty had not yet penetrated to the poorer classes of Italy, and though the leadership of these movements naturally fell into the hands of men of noble birth, like Confalonieri and Santa Rosa, yet there was another class in the State which was already full of the new ideas, and which was eventually to play an important part as a link between the more intelligent members of the aristocracy and the still silent classes of the community. The University students of Germany, Austria, and Italy, from the time of the gathering at Jena in 1816 down to the fall of Venice in August, 1849, were to hold a position in the great movements of the time which affected considerably the character of those movements, both for good and evil.

The share of the Turin students in the Piedmontese rising of 1821 was touched with a certain character of boyish frolic. On January 11th, some of the University students appeared at the theatre at Turin in red caps. The police at once arrested them. But their companions rose on their behalf and demanded that they should be tried by the tribunals of the University. In this demand they hoped that the professors would support them; but the rector of the college was opposed to the movement, and the professors were unwilling to interfere. Thereupon the students took matters into their own hands, took away the keys of the University from the door-keeper, placed guards at all the entrances, defended the two principal gates with forms and tables, tore up the pavements, and barred the windows. Then they despatched two delegates to Count Balbo, to entreat him to set free their comrades, or to hand them over to the authorities of the University.

The representatives of the provincial colleges flocked to the assistance of the Turin students; and the sight of the soldiers, who were called out to suppress their rising, only roused them to more determined resistance.

The delegates returned speedily, followed by Count Balbo himself, who promised to defend the cause of the students before Victor Emmanuel, if they would in the meantime remain quiet. The students, therefore, consented to wait for further news; but the soldiers remained encamped outside the University. Suddenly the attention of the soldiers was attracted by some boys coming out of school; and, irritated presumably at some boyish mischief, they attacked the children with bayonets. The students, indignant at the sight, threw stones at the soldiers, who thereupon charged the barricades of the University, and a general massacre followed.

The news of this massacre caused the most furious indignation in Turin, and tended to swell the growing revolutionary feeling. Charles Albert paid a special visit to the hospitals to console those who had been wounded by the soldiers.

But in the meantime the proceedings at the Congress of Laybach were alarming the lovers of liberty. The King of Naples, by all sorts of pretences, had tried to lull to sleep the vigilance of the Junta at home; but it soon became known that the Powers had resolved to suppress the Neapolitan Constitution, and in February, 1822, their forces were on the march to Naples. The Piedmontese Liberals were eager to protest against this violation of national independence; and their fears were further roused by a rumour that Austria was renewing her demands for the surrender of the Piedmontese fortresses. These rumours were specially rife in Alessandria, which had known the degradation of an Austrian occupation; and Victor Emmanuel in vain tried to convince the Alessandrians of the unreasonableness of this panic.

On March 6th, Santa Rosa and his friends went to Charles Albert and asked him to put himself at the head of the movement; and it was now that Santa Rosa discovered the character of the man with whom he had to deal, and left on record that saying which summed up the whole life of that unhappy Prince—"Voleva e non voleva" (He would and would not). On March 6th, says one writer, "I do not know if Charles Albert consented, but he certainly assented" to the proposals of Santa Rosa.

The rising was fixed for the 8th, but on the 7th Charles Albert had changed his mind and wished to delay the movement. Again Santa Rosa and his friends urged him to act with them, but without telling him on which day the insurrection was to break out.

There was, indeed, no time to be lost; for suspicions had already arisen of the designs of the Liberals, and arrests were being made. On March 10th, therefore, Count Palma seized on the citadel of Alessandria and proclaimed the Spanish Constitution. Almost at the same time Captain Ferrero occupied the little town of San Salvario and unfurled the Italian flag in the church. Students and soldiers readily joined the insurgents, and both King and Ministers in Turin were seized with panic. Orders came from the Powers at Laybach that Victor Emmanuel should march to Alessandria, and Balbo called on all loyal soldiers to return to Asti.

But Santa Rosa was as firm in his purposes as the Royalists were undecided. The Spanish Constitution was proclaimed in the fortress of Turin, and the soldiers, who were sent to attack the people, fled after a few shots; Charles Albert represented to the King the wishes of the people; and on the night of March 14th, Victor Emmanuel abdicated in favour of his brother Charles Felix, appointing Charles Albert Regent in Turin. On the following day Charles Albert, in his capacity of Regent, swore to accept the Spanish Constitution.

But it was soon apparent that one vigorous man could not make a revolution successful, when he had to depend on a nobility many of whom were servile admirers of Austria, and on a Regent who "would and would not." Men were appointed to posts in the new administration who had no claim to their office except their rank. The leaders in Alessandria suspected the leaders in Turin; while the hopes of persuading Charles Albert to declare war on Austria grew fainter and fainter.

In the meantime, the new King, Charles Felix, was residing in Modena, under the protection of the Grand Duke. Francis IV. of Modena had shown himself the most distinctly tyrannical of all the princes of Italy; while his extravagance and indifference to the welfare of his people had startled even Metternich. His relationship to the House of Savoy had led him to sympathise at first with Victor Emmanuel in his irritation at the arrogance of Austria; but that very same relationship now led him to hope that he might succeed to the throne instead of Charles Albert, if the latter offended the ruling Powers. He therefore readily supported Charles Felix in his protest against the proceedings of the new Regent.

Charles Felix, on his side, was a man of more rugged and narrow spirit than Victor Emmanuel, and had none of the sense of national dignity which occasionally interfered with the despotic inclinations of his brother. When, therefore, he issued from Modena a denunciation of the new Government, he did not scruple to add that, if order were not soon restored, his august allies would come to his rescue. In the same letter he ordered Charles Albert to go to Novara and place himself under the orders of Della Torre. "I shall see by this," said Charles Felix, "if you are still a Prince of the House of Savoy, or if you have ceased to be so." Charles Albert concealed this letter from his Ministers; and, after a few days of hesitation, fled secretly to Novara.

The feeble officials of Turin would have at once deserted the cause; but, in defiance of their opinion, Santa Rosa published a proclamation declaring that the King was a prisoner in the hands of the enemy, and that he, as Minister of Charles Albert, called on them to stand by the Constitution and declare war on Austria. One or two of the generals fled to Della Torre, at Novara; but at the same time the Genoese rose on behalf of the Spanish Constitution. Della Torre sent orders to Santa Rosa, in the name of the King, to resign his authority. Santa Rosa refused to recognize the King while he remained in a foreign country, and despatched a force against Novara.

But, in the meantime, the news came that General Pepe had in vain tried to rally his forces in defence of the Neapolitan Constitution; that his bands had been dispersed at the first attack of the Austrians; and that the Austrians, having crushed out the freedom of Naples, were marching northwards. The Russian Ambassador thereupon entreated the Junta to modify the Spanish Constitution. Some of the Ministers were inclined to consent; but Santa Rosa knew that to lose the Spanish Constitution was to lose the watchword of the Revolution; and no doubt he felt the indignity of yielding to a foreign ambassador. He therefore refused this proposal, and once more despatched forces against Della Torre, who was now preparing to march on Turin.

Colonel Regis, the leader of the Constitutional forces, succeeded in reaching Novara before Della Torre had begun his advance. The armies met outside the town; but in the middle of the battle the news arrived that the Austrians had crossed the Ticino and were marching into the country. Regis and Ferrero fought gallantly; but the double forces against them were too strong; and though they once or twice repelled the Austrian attack, the want of discipline of the Piedmontese soldiers, combined with the superior force of the enemy, led to a crushing defeat. Santa Rosa, finding it impossible to defend Turin, retreated first to Alessandria and then to Genoa; but the men on whom he relied had lost courage and hope; and he and such of his friends as were fortunate enough to reach Genoa were soon obliged to leave it again and to fly from Italy, most of them to fight in foreign countries for the liberty which they had lost at home.

The reaction set in with the greatest fury. In Piedmont the system of espionage was resumed with double force. The University was closed. Under the influence of favouritism, and in the absence of any free expression of public opinion, corruption of tribunals revived, and the Jesuits, who had lost power during the Liberal interregnum, speedily recovered it. In Naples, the Austrians, after recommending mildness to Ferdinand, yielded to his demands for the right to punish; and the sense of his dishonourable position seems to have called out in him a savagery which he had not previously shown; while the presence of the Austrian troops irritated the country into a state of intermittent insurrection.

Lord William Bentinck attempted a protest in the English House of Commons against a second destruction of Sicilian independence; but Castlereagh defeated the motion, and Sicily fell back under Neapolitan rule.

Metternich specially devoted himself to restoring order in Lombardy. He established an Aulic Council at Vienna to superintend the affairs in that province, so as to crush out still further any local independence. At the same time a special committee was formed at Milan to enquire into the conspiracy. Several leading conspirators were arrested. One tried to save his friends by confessing his own fault; but the confession was used as a new clue by the police. Confalonieri was urged to save himself by flight; but he answered, "I will not retire in face of the storm which I wish to confront. Let what God will become of me!" He was soon after arrested; and, after being kept in doubt of his fate for nearly two years, he was condemned to death. His case excited sympathy even in Vienna, where the Empress interceded for his life; and at last, after long entreaty, his sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life in the fortress of Spielberg. There Metternich in vain tried to extort from him the betrayal of his fellow-conspirators. But the crafty statesman little knew the result of this treatment. One of those who suffered imprisonment about the same time describes the effect of Confalonieri's influence by contrasting him with the head of the Austrian police in Lombardy. "Confalonieri and Salvotti seemed to represent, in the eyes of the Milanese, the angel of Liberty and the demon of Slavery, striving not more for the success of their respective causes than for the triumph of their individual personalities. About Confalonieri gathered the prayers of honest people, of men of feeling hearts, who saw in him an unfortunate persecuted being whom adversity clothed with all the lustre of devotion and courage."

This passage strikingly exhibits that noble, but illogical, popular instinct which so often confuses the hero and martyr with the mere victim of unjust oppression. Confalonieri had undoubtedly organized an insurrection, and his arrest and imprisonment might fairly be justified by the ordinary rights of self-defence which exist in every Government. Yet the instinct of horror and pity for this imprisonment had a truth deeper than logic. Under the system of government then prevailing, the prison or the scaffold was the natural place for such men; but the pity of it was that a system of government should prevail which logically necessitated the imprisonment of Confalonieri and the triumph of Metternich. And it was a sign of the deep folly of the latter that he called the attention of the public to this fact, and provided the cause of Italian unity with its first prominent martyr. The stories of Confalonieri's imprisonment spread from mouth to mouth, and were preserved as tender memorials. It was told, for instance, how, when his wife had visited him, he had tried to preserve the cushion on which her tears had fallen, and how the guards had insisted on taking it from him; how his friends had devised a plan for his escape, and he had refused to avail himself of it because his fellow-prisoners would not be able to escape with him; and lastly, of the continual pressure which had been brought to bear upon him to reveal the secrets of his fellow-conspirators, and his steady refusal to purchase health and liberty by their betrayal.

The defeat which despotism had sustained by the imprisonment, and still more by the persecutions, of Confalonieri would hereafter be plain. At present Metternich might think that he had conquered in Lombardy; but elsewhere he could not feel sure of victory, for there came to him at this time two unmistakeable warnings that he was no longer to be allowed to reign undisturbed in Europe.

Even at that very Congress of Laybach which succeeded in crushing out the independence of Naples, the question of Greece, which could not be so easily disposed of, came before the Powers, and puzzled considerably the mind of Metternich. The pietistic maunderings of Alexander might be made use of in defence of the rights of Roman Catholic kings, but he could not be persuaded that the principles of the Christian religion justified him in supporting the tyranny of the Turks over Christian populations. He had indeed abandoned the Wallachian leader, Alexander Ypsilanti, when he discovered that the rising in Wallachia was simultaneous with the risings in Naples and Piedmont; but the Greeks could not so easily be persuaded that their patron, the Czar of Russia, had deserted their cause.

The Hetairiai of Wallachia and Greece had done the same work which the Carbonari had accomplished in Spain and Italy; and on April 4, 1821, the Greeks suddenly rose at Patras and massacred the whole Turkish population. In three months the southern part of Greece was free; and by January, 1822, a Provisional Government had been formed, with Alexander Mavrocordatos at its head.

Religious feeling, classical sentiment, and the loathing of the barbarous rule of the Turks combined to rouse in Europe an amount of sympathy which Metternich could not afford to disregard. He admitted the right of Alexander of Russia to sympathise with the Greeks, both on the ground of Christian sentiment and on the pretext of rights granted by previous treaties with Turkey; and he even intervened diplomatically to secure concessions from the Porte to its Christian subjects.

But, though he felt the danger of the precedent which even this amount of concession to the revolutionary spirit would cause, Metternich yet believed that, by timely compromise and judicious diplomacy, he could bring back Alexander to sounder principles. The influence of Capo d'Istria was indeed an antagonistic power in the Court of St. Petersburg; but, on the other hand, Tatischeff, the rival minister at the Russian Court, seems to have been a mere tool of Metternich, and could be used effectively for the interests of Austria.

So successfully did this diplomacy work, in Metternich's opinion, that on May 31, 1822, he writes exultingly in his memoirs, that he has "broken the work of Peter the Great, strengthened the Porte against Russia, and substituted Austrian and English influence for Russian in Eastern Europe." So he wrote in May; in August of the same year "that upright and enlightened statesman," Lord Londonderry, committed suicide. Then George Canning became Minister for Foreign Affairs, and hastened to cut the knot which linked the interests of Austria with those of England.

The change in England's policy soon became evident. No doubt the feeling of dislike to Metternich had been gradually growing in that country. Its representatives had held aloof even from the Congress of Laybach; and when, in 1822, the Powers met again at Verona to encourage the French Cabinet in their attempt to restore Ferdinand of Spain, England entered a decided protest against the proceedings of the Congress. Nor did the protest remain a barren one. The invasion of Spain by the French was followed by the recognition of the independence of the Spanish colonies by England; and when the absolutist movement threatened to spread to Portugal, Canning despatched troops to protect the freedom and independence of that country.

It is amusing to note the growth of Metternich's consciousness of the importance of the opponent who had now arisen. "A fine century," he writes at first, "for these kinds of men; for fools who pass for intellectual, but are empty; for moral weaklings, who are always ready to threaten with their fists from a distance when the opportunity is good."

But in the following year he writes: "Canning's nature is a very remarkable one. In spite of all his lack of discernment, the genius which he undoubtedly has, and which I have never questioned, is never clouded. He is certainly a very awkward opponent; but I have had opponents more dangerous, and it is not he who chiefly compels me to think of him." And in 1824 he sums up this difficulty, satisfactorily to himself, in these words: "What vexes me with the English is that they are all slightly mad. This is an evil which must be patiently endured, without noticing too much the ludicrous side of it."

This outburst of insanity on the part of England naturally drove Metternich back into the arms of Russia; and this change became more congenial to him when, in 1825, the fickle Alexander died and was succeeded by the stern despot Nicholas.

It seemed, too, as if the Greek rising might end about that time in the success of the Turks. Ibrahim, the Pasha of Egypt, had come to the rescue of the Sultan, and was carrying all before him. Marco Botzaris, the chief general of the Greeks, had been killed in battle; and in 1826 the garrison of Messolonghi blew up their fortress and themselves to avoid surrendering to the Egyptian forces.

But Metternich soon found that, whatever objection Nicholas might have to revolution elsewhere, he felt as much bound to protect the Greeks as had Alexander before him; and in August, 1827, Nicholas consented to Canning's proposal that England, France, and Russia should send a fleet to the Bay of Navarino to enforce an armistice between the Greeks and the Turks. Then followed the celebrated battle which Wellington afterwards described as "that untoward event." This convinced even Metternich that the results of the Greek insurrection would have to be recognized by the Powers, and perhaps even secured by force. The Russian war of 1828 followed, and Metternich had to admit that the European alliance of 1814–15 was practically broken.

But though the effect of the Greek insurrection in weakening the chances of Metternich's system was certainly important, it soon began to be doubtful whether the change would be permanent. England, indeed, in spite of the death of Canning and the short rule of Wellington, was evidently hopelessly lost to the cause of despotism. But the revolutionary movements of 1830–31 seemed to leave far less trace of freedom in Europe than the previous risings of 1820–22. The July monarchy of Louis Philippe was soon forced to become Conservative; and the Belgian revolution seemed to have little connection with the other movements of Europe. The Polish rising and its sudden collapse only secured Nicholas to the side of despotism. The treachery of Francis of Modena to Ciro Menotti destroyed for a time the tendency to believe in revolutionary princes. The rising in Bologna, by compelling the intervention of the Austrians, strengthened their hold over the Papacy, and even enabled Metternich cheaply to pose as the adviser of reforms which, out of respect for the independence of the Papacy, he would not enforce.

But his greatest triumph of all was in Germany. There Constitutions had been proclaimed in Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Saxony; and Metternich resolved to follow up the Carlsbad Decrees by a still more crushing enactment. So it was decided at the Federal Diet of 1832 that a German prince was bound, "as a member of the Confederation, to reject petitions tending to the increase of the power of the Estates at the expense of the power of the Sovereign," and further, "that the internal legislation of the States belonging to the German Confederation should in no case be such as to do prejudice to the objects of the Confederation."

Thus Metternich had again triumphed; but it was for the last time. Two forces of very different kinds were already in motion, to undo the work of his life. Two men were about to cross his path, very different from each other in moral calibre, in width of sympathy, and in the means at their disposal, but alike in that power of reaching the heart of a People, for want of which the leaders of the previous Liberal movements had failed in their objects. These men were Giuseppe Mazzini and Louis Kossuth.