rid Italy at once of the French. All along the ridge of the Apennines, the bold peasantry of the mountains were armed against the remains of their armies. out, and the ancient governments soon recovered from their illusion. worse enemies than the French. ed more insupportable than the military despotism of Napoleon. The invader being driven reinstalled, the Italians had They found the Austrians The new governments prov The Carbonari rallied; and, with a talent for conspiracy peculiar to the countrymen of Machiavello, laid deep mines under the thrones of their princes. Spain, equally deceived, equally betrayed, had already shaken off those fetters, which she had incautiously cemented with her best blood, and forced Ferdinand the Seventh to sanction by oath her free institutions. The astonishing success of liberty in Spain encouraged the efforts of Italy; Naples in 1820, and Piedmont in 1821, rose in open rebellion. The King of the Two Sicilies, and the King of Sardinia, were both compelled to receive laws from their subjects. Those two revolutions, however, took place at different periods, and without concert. The perjured monarchs, at the head of Austrian armies, marched against the rebels while yet discordant and unarmed; and the torch of revolt, kindled in those two provinces without resistance, without resistance was quenched. Rome, Milan, and the petty states of Central Italy, had stood awaiting events. Prevented by circumstances from taking an open part in the movement, they had secretly seconded the efforts of the Neapolitans and Piedmontese for the national cause, and were in consequence involved in their fate. The active police of Austria exposed plots and conspiracies, where they were, and where they were not. Everywhere prisons were filled, and scaffolds erected. The days of terror had come. In that emergency, the government of Maria Louisa proceeded with its usual clemency. General Neipperg refused his countenance to any effusion of blood. A few Carbonari were cast into prison; a few others exiled. Some examples were made of young men of high rank and high expectation, who were chained hand to hand with ruffians and highwaymen, and sent to the galleys of Genoa. Scaffolds, dungeons, and banishments had their usual effect. The passions of the indolent multitude were awakened; they started with horror; they looked on with sympathy. What had been at first a timid conspiracy, became rebellion; what had been the opinion of a few, be passion of all; the spirit of resistance pervaded all m march of the governments was checked at every all controversies, public opinion always pronounc power. The victims were followed in their exile wi benedictions; their prisons were visited as the shrin tyrs; their blood was gathered at the foot of the sca thrown towards heaven with prayers for a speedy h venge. Politics had become the favorite topic of a They preyed upon the heart like a consumptive Pleasure had lost its zest; theatres and masquerades traction. The abodes of vice, deserted, mourned improvement of morals. Such was the state of Italy at the epoch of the Fr olution of 1830. The first tidings of the stormy day had the effect of an electric shock. France, that nat destined to drag all Europe after her, had again raise cry. Belgium had followed her example; Poland h the gauntlet to her northern oppressor; now or neve moment for Italy to start from her torpor. The m old political associations rallied; the scattered links tional bond were soldered anew; the friends of the met with, and recognised each other at a glance, and others' faces radiant with pride and confidence. Pri were forgotten; private interests sacrificed; the d of rank were levelled, ancient prejudices were la The dawn of liberty everywhere manifests itself by symptoms; it is a universal reconciliation, a reform, a tion. The men in power looked sad and pale; their manifestly lowered; they put on their kindest look, smile. The minds of numbers thus disposed, what was, to give the reëxcited energy a favorable directi this the secret societies provided, and the people, looked towards them for a signal. Having studied t of the unfortunate issue of their attempts in 1820, th nari were carefully extending their correspondence prepare all elements for an instantaneous general e They knew that the greatest effect was to be expec Naples and Piedmont, the two largest sections of the and, by their standing armies, the main strength of th The Italian soldiery, brave and well trained, impatie severe discipline and of the stagnating life of their garrisons, had always been, and were now, impatient for a new state of things. A revolution at Naples and Turin was now easier than ever; and the principal actors in the conspiracy spoke of it with a boldness, which nothing but the certainty of success could inspire. An unexpected incident, however, occurred to impede the regular march of affairs, and the impatience of the friends of liberty hurried on the project to its injury. Charles Felix, King of Sardinia, was on his deathbed; his heir apparent was that Charles Albert, Prince of Carignano, who had already espoused the popular party in 1821, and, in that first effervescence, had been hailed King of Italy. His subsequent treasons and his cowardly apostasy had somewhat dishonored his name; still it was a general belief, that at his accession, through ambition at least, he would stand at the head of the movement. The immediate death of the old king would thus have prevented in Piedmont all effusion of blood, and its armies, sound and untouched, would have marched over Lombardy, where the great contest with Austria was to be waged. France, meanwhile, had already succeeded in arming Belgium, Poland, and a good part of Germany in the cause of its own newly-adopted principles. Italy alone was still silent; and her apparent indolence, and the slow and cautious proceedings of her Carbonari, excited the discontent of the French court, which wished to see Austria engaged in some different work from that of watching its own policy. Towards the end of December, 1830, under the administration of Perier and Sebastiani, the French government announced, that France assumed not to be the propagandist of liberal doctrines; that she would never, directly or indirectly, conspire against the peace of her neighbours, or take part with the people against their legitimate governments; but that, in return, no government, under the pretext of alliance, should interfere with the political revolutions which might take place in other countries, France being determined to use all her power to secure fair play for the two parties, in case of political differences between sovereign and subjects. This proclamation, too well known in Europe under the name of non-intervention, determined the course of the Italian revolutionists. The existence of every one of the existing governments of Italy depended exclusively upon the overbearing influence of That influence withdrawn, they could not s Austria. an hour. The smallest states of central Italy, certain cess, since the question was now to be decided wi limits of their own territory, could not be induced longer.. One fair morning of February, 1831, a few days accession of the present Pope, the students of the U of Bologna, assembling in haste in a coffee-house in t without arms, marched in a crowd to the palace of th nal Legate, and peremptorily signified their deter no longer to acknowledge pope, cardinal, or prie temporal ruler. The Cardinal had nothing to re called for his carriage, and bade the postilions take towards Rome. The Bolognese disarined the Pope and carabineers; pulled down the keys of St. Pe sang ribald verses against him; created a national mi stalled a provisional government, and cried, “Huzza fo Faenza, Rimini, Ravenna, and all the towns of followed the example with as much rapidity as the m bring them the tidings, and liberty ran wild and victo the walls of Ancona. The garrison of that citadel their post, and joined the insurgents. The ardent Romagna, with arms and artillery, and with experien ers, set out for the capital. In less than a fortnight rived in sight of the Vatican. Here the French am came to meet them, and enjoined on them to procee ther. The insurgents obeyed. While the revolution was thus stopped in the sou behest of France, it came in contact with Austr north. The Duke of Modena, the most extravaga of tyrants, was already at war with his subjects. discovered a conspiracy in his little capital; and, as that the insurgents were assembled in the house of a citizen, he led his battalions and artillery against sieged and bombarded the house, and took it by stor hours. He had hardly taken breath from this exploit, wh reached him of the events of Bologna. The Duke self at the head of his victorious force, took his his children, and his prisoners under its escort, and beyond the Po, to place himself under the shield of His unfortunate subjects, recovered from their ter hearty execration after him, and hoped they were to have no more of his company. Thus had the insurrection reached the confines of the territory of Maria Louisa. The animosity between this lady and her subjects was now at its highest pitch. The public revenues being totally exhausted, the successors of General Neipperg, worthless emmissaries of Austria, had had recourse to the desperate expedient of paper currency. A tremendous riot of the laboring people had forced the government to abandon that measure. Tumults and mutinies sprang up among the students of the University, and several young men of the best families were arrested, and sent to a fortress in the heart of the Apennines. The pride of the highest and the interests of the lowest classes were thus equally wounded, when the national tricolor standard appeared on the bridge of the Enza, on the Modenese boundary, five miles east of Parma. The roads to the bridge were covered with people of all ranks, men, women, and children, walking, riding, driving to salute the rainbow of liberty. The young women cut up green, red, and white ribands, to make tricolored cockades and scarfs. The young men loaded their guns, and whetted the point of their poniards. Maria Louisa armed her twelve hundred grenadiers, levelled her six cannon, and harangued her troops on the square of her palace. Day and night her dragoons, with drawn swords and lighted torches, ran madly in different directions to clear the streets. There was a dead silence; no movement of the people betokened that they had any thing at stake. But horses cannot run, nor soldiers watch, for ever. After three days of such vigorous patrolling, men and beasts were exhausted and sleepy. Maria Louisa asked a reinforcement of the Austrian garrison at Placentia; the Austrian garrison replied, They had no orders. The people peeped out at the windows. From the windows they began to shoot the dragoons as they passed; then they sallied out into the streets, and, joining in formidable bands, drove those weary squadrons before them; square after square, and row after row, the ducal troops lost ground, and the scene of the skirmishing was transferred to the doors of the palace. There the two factions stood confronting each other, each in their ranks, each under leaders measuring with their eyes the chances of the day. In that dreadful suspense, the Duchess, terrified, all bathed in tears, ap VOL. XLVI. - No. 99. 52 |