Part 16 (1/2)
In Piedmont the king, loyally welcomed home, put back everything to the position in which it was before the disturbances; the old dispossessed n.o.bles were restored to their places in the civil and military service, and the _carrire ouverte aux talents_ was closed. In Lombardy and Venice Austrian officials held a tight rein, and a watchful secret service (_sbirri_) prowled about ready to pounce on plotting youth like owls upon field mice. In Parma and Modena the eye of the Austrian government was always peering and peeping. In Tuscany Austrian influence also was dominant; but the Grand Duke was a gentle, kindly, paternal person, and his subjects were placidly content, for the old Tuscan fire had died out, and no Tuscan was so crazy as to dream of revolution or of a united Italy. In the Papal States the reaction was complete; the Inquisition was restored, the Jesuits recalled, the civil service limited to priests. But in Naples the reaction was worst. The despicable Ferdinand, who dropped his number IV of Naples to become Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, restored the old rgime, and swept away the autonomy of Sicily, which had had a separate parliament for hundreds of years, and since 1812 a const.i.tution also. Ferdinand humbly followed every hint from Austria. The will of Austria was supreme from Venice to Naples, and behind Austria was the conservative judgment of the ruling cla.s.ses of all Europe, still frightened by the Revolution. European n.o.bles and landowners agreed that the riotous desires of the middle cla.s.s and proletariat for political privileges must be crushed down.
CHAPTER x.x.xV
THE REAWAKENING (1820-1821)
Outwardly despotism had been triumphantly restablished, and Popes, princes, and privileged persons in general made a gallant attempt to pretend that the French Revolution and the Napoleonic upheaval had never taken place. Nevertheless, the quiet on the surface did not extend underneath. Inwardly the new ideas and aspirations were fermenting from Piedmont to Calabria. The _Carbonari_ (Charcoal-burners), a secret society organized against despotism, plotted for freedom and for const.i.tutions. Their members were thickest in the Kingdom of Naples, but spread throughout Italy. The spark necessary to set ablaze this hidden discontent came from Spain. There a successful rebellion obtained a const.i.tution. The thrill stirred Naples. A company of soldiers under two young lieutenants rebelled (1820), many joined them, a general put himself at their head. The army would not fight them. The insurgents demanded a const.i.tution, with a parliament, a free press, trials according to law, etc. The dastardly king was frightened into promises, but as the insurgents were not content with promises, he granted a const.i.tution, and solemnly swore to maintain it. These revolutionary tumults, however, had alarmed the comfortable, conservative ruling cla.s.ses and their leaders, the Emperors of Austria, Prussia, and Russia.
An Imperial conference was held at Laybach (1821), and Ferdinand attended. The new const.i.tution, indeed, forbade him to leave the kingdom without permission from parliament, but he had obtained leave by promising to argue in favour of the new rgime. Whatever his arguments were the Holy Alliance disregarded them, and charged Austria with the duty of restoring despotism in Naples. Austria obeyed. An overpowering army easily scattered the Neapolitan const.i.tutionalists and put Ferdinand back. The const.i.tution, parliament, free press, and all the other obnoxious revolutionary inst.i.tutions were brushed away, and Ferdinand, having hung up in church a lamp of gold and silver as an offset to his perjury, inflicted punishment on the late rebels as fast as he could.
Meanwhile the North had felt the thrill. In Lombardy the hawk-eyed government pounced down on possible conspirators. Silvio Pellico, the pathetic author of ”Le Mie Prigioni” (My Prisons), and his friend Maroncelli, were arrested and put into prison (1820), there to stay for ten years. A little later Confalonieri, head of the Milanese n.o.bility, and a group of gentlemen were seized and sent to prison. They were set free only in 1836, on the accession of a new Emperor. Some of them, Castillia, Foresti, and Albinola, then sought refuge in the United States. I quote from the unpublished diary of an American to show what kind of men these conspirators were: ”Castillia is an Italian, of an honourable Milanese family. At the age of twenty-three he, with other n.o.ble and brave Italians, lovers of their country, was thrown into the dungeons of Spielberg (Moravia) by Austrian despots, and there chained and confined, sometimes in total solitude, enduring the sharpest privations and basest ignominies for seventeen years. Then on the accession of a new Emperor they were released and exiled to America--they were men of superior intelligence and education, honourable gentlemen, true-hearted, loving men--Castillia possessed all the virtues that one can name and in their most attractive forms.”
What these gentlemen suffered for love of their country may be read in ”Le Mie Prigioni.” Pellico himself was a Christian saint. After years of solitary confinement he and Maroncelli were put together. Maroncelli had a tumour on his leg, which grew so painful that whenever it was necessary to move Pellico helped him. ”Sometimes to make the slightest s.h.i.+ft from one position to another cost a quarter of an hour of agony.”
The wound was frightful and disgusting. I quote from Pellico: ”In that deplorable condition Maroncelli composed poetry, he sang and talked, and did everything to deceive me and hide from me a part of his pain. He could not digest, or sleep; he grew alarmingly thin, and often went out of his head; and yet, in a few minutes gathered himself together and cheered me up. What he suffered for nine months is indescribable.
Amputation was necessary; but first the surgeon had to get permission from Vienna. Maroncelli uttered no cry at the operation, and when he saw the leg carried off said to the surgeon, 'You have liberated me from an enemy, and I have no way to thank you.' By the window stood a tumbler with a rose in it. 'Please give me that rose,' he said to me. I handed it to him, and he gave it to the old surgeon, saying, 'I have nothing else to give you in testimony of my grat.i.tude.' The surgeon took the rose and burst into tears.” Such was the character of the men who plotted for the freedom of Italy.
The Papal States likewise had been quivering. Lord Byron was in Ravenna at the time. He enrolled in the _Carbonari_, and sent a thousand louis to the Neapolitan Const.i.tutional Government with an offer to serve wherever and in whatever capacity they should desire. His letters and diary help us to understand the situation.
BYRON TO MURRAY, HIS PUBLISHER
November 23, 1820.
Of the state of things here it would be difficult and not very prudent to speak at large, the Huns [Austrians] opening all letters. I wonder if they can read them when they have opened them; if so they may see in my most legible hand that I think them d.a.m.ned scoundrels and barbarians, and their Emperor a fool, and themselves more fools than he; all which they may send to Vienna for anything I care. They have got themselves masters of the papal police and are bullying away, but some day or other they will pay for all; it may not be very soon because these unhappy Italians have no consistency among themselves; but I suppose that Providence will get tired of them at last.
SAME TO SAME
December 9.
I open my letter to tell you a fact which will show the state of this country better than I can. The commandant of the troops is now lying dead in my house. He was shot about two hundred paces from my door.... As n.o.body could or would do anything but howl and pray, and as no one would stir a finger to move him for fear of consequences, I had the commandant carried upstairs to my own quarters.... Poor fellow, he was a brave officer but much disliked by the people.
EXTRACTS FROM BYRON'S DIARY
January 6, 1821.
To-night at the theatre, there being a prince on his throne in the last scene of the comedy, the audience laughed and asked him for a const.i.tution. This shows the state of the public mind here as well as the a.s.sa.s.sinations. It won't do.
There must be a universal republic, and there ought to be.
January 7.
The Count Pietro Gamba took me aside to say that the Patriots had had notice from Forl [twenty miles away] that to-night the government and its party mean to strike a stroke, that the Cardinal here has had orders to make several arrests immediately, and that in consequence the Liberals are arriving and have posted patrols in the streets, to sound the alarm and give notice to fight. He asked me ”what should be done.” I answered, ”Fight for it, rather than be taken in detail;” and offered if any of them are in immediate apprehension of arrest to receive them in my house (which is defensible), and to defend them with my servants and themselves (we have arms and ammunition) as long as we can, or to try to get them away under cloud of night. On going home I offered him the pistols which I had about me.
January 8.
Rose and found Count Pietro Gamba in my apartments. Sent away the servant. He told me that according to the best information, the government had not issued orders for the arrests apprehended; and that as yet they are still only in apprehension. He asked me for some arms of a better sort, which I gave him. Settled that in case of a row the Liberals were to a.s.semble here (with me) and that he had given the word to the others for that purpose. Concerted operations. I advised them to attack in detail and in different parties, in different places, though at the same time, so as to divide the attention of the troops, who though few yet being disciplined would beat any body of people (not trained) in a regular fight, unless dispersed in small parties and distracted with different a.s.saults. Offered to let them a.s.semble here if they chose. It is a strongish post--narrow street, commanded from within--and tenable walls....
I wonder what figure these Italians will make in a regular row. I sometimes think that like the Irishman's crooked gun they will do only for shooting round a corner; at least this sort of shooting has been the late tenour of their exploits.
And yet there are materials in this people and a n.o.ble energy if well directed. But who is to direct them? No matter. Out of such times heroes spring. Difficulties are the hotbed of high spirits and Freedom the mother of the few virtues incident to human nature.