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THE RISORGIMENTO] was suppressed, the constitution abolished in 1816, and the island, as a reward for its fidelity to the dynasty, converted into a Neapolitan province governed by Neapolitan bureaucrats.

To the mass of the people the restoration of the old governments undoubtedly brought a sense of relief, for the terrible drain in men and money caused by Napoleon’s wars had caused much discontent, whereas now there was a prospect of peace and rest. But the restored governments in their terror of revolution would not realize that the late régime had wafted a breath of new life over the country and left ineffaceable traces in the way of improved laws, efficient administration, good roads and the sweeping away of old abuses; while the new-born idea of Italian unity, strengthened by a national pride revived on many a stricken field from Madrid to Moscow, was a force to be reckoned with. The oppression and follies of the restored governments made men forget the evils of French rule and remember only its good side. The masses were still more or less indifferent, but among the nobility and the educated middle classes, cut off from all part in free political life, there was developed either the spirit of despair at Italy’s moral degradation, as expressed in the writings of Foscolo and Leopardi, or a passion of hatred and revolt, which found its manifestation, in spite of severe laws, in the development of secret societies. The most important of these were the Carbonari lodges, whose objects were the expulsion of the foreigner and the achievement of constitutional freedom (see ).

When Ferdinand returned to Naples in 1815 he found the kingdom, and especially the army, honeycombed with Carbonarism, to which many noblemen and officers were affiliated; and although the police instituted prosecutions and organized the counter-movement of the Calderai, who may be compared to the “Black Hundreds” of modern Russia, the revolutionary spirit continued to grow, but it was not at first anti-dynastic. The granting of the Spanish constitution of 1820 proved the signal for the beginning of the Italian liberationist movement; a military mutiny led by two officers, Silvati and Morelli, and the priest Menichini, broke out at Monteforte, to the cry of “God, the King, and the Constitution!” The troops sent against them commanded by General Guglielmo Pepe, himself a Carbonaro, hesitated to act, and the king, finding that he could not count on the army, granted the constitution (July 13, 1820), and appointed his son Francis regent. The events that followed are described in the article on the history of (q.v.). Not only did the constitution, which was modelled on the impossible Spanish constitution of 1812, prove unworkable, but the powers of the Grand Alliance, whose main object was to keep the peace of Europe, felt themselves bound to interfere to prevent the evil precedent of a successful military revolution. The diplomatic developments that led to the intervention of Austria are sketched elsewhere (see : History); in general the result of the deliberations of the congresses of Troppau and Laibach was to establish, not the general right of intervention claimed in the Troppau Protocol, but the special right of Austria to safeguard her interests in Italy. The defeat of General Pepe by the Austrians at Rieti (March 7, 1821) and the re-establishment of King Ferdinand’s autocratic power under the protection of Austrian bayonets were the effective assertion of this principle.

The movement in Naples had been purely local, for the Neapolitan Carbonari had at that time no thought save of Naples; it was, moreover, a movement of the middle and upper classes in which the masses took little interest. Immediately after the battle of Rieti a Carbonarist mutiny broke out in Piedmont independently of events in the south. Both King Victor Emmanuel and his brother Charles Felix had no sons, and the heir presumptive to the throne was Prince Charles Albert, of the Carignano branch of the house of Savoy. Charles Albert felt a certain interest in Liberal ideas and was always surrounded by young nobles of Carbonarist and anti-Austrian tendencies, and was therefore regarded with suspicion by his royal relatives. Metternich, too, had an instinctive dislike for him, and proposed to exclude him from the succession by marrying one of the king’s daughters to Francis of Modena, and getting the Salic law abolished so that the succession would pass to the duke and Austria would thus dominate Piedmont. The Liberal movement had gained ground in Piedmont as in Naples among the younger nobles and officers, and the events of Spain and southern Italy aroused much excitement. In March 1821, Count Santorre di Santarosa and other conspirators informed Charles Albert of a constitutional and anti-Austrian plot, and asked for his help. After a momentary hesitation he informed the king; but at his request no arrests were made, and no precautions were taken. On the 10th of March the garrison of Alessandria mutinied, and its example was followed on the 12th by that of Turin, where the Spanish constitution was demanded, and the black, red and blue flag of the Carbonari paraded the streets. The next day the king abdicated after appointing Charles Albert regent. The latter immediately proclaimed the constitution, but the new king, Charles Felix, who was at Modena at the time, repudiated the regent’s acts and exiled him to Tuscany; and, with his consent, an Austrian army invaded Piedmont and crushed the constitutionalists at Novara. Many of the conspirators were condemned to death, but all succeeded in escaping. Charles Felix was most indignant with the ex-regent, but he resented, as an unwarrantable interference, Austria’s attempt to have him excluded from the succession at the congress of Verona (1822). Charles Albert’s somewhat equivocal conduct also roused the hatred of the Liberals, and for a long time the esecrato Carignano was regarded, most unjustly, as a traitor even by many who were not republicans.

Carbonarism had been introduced into Lombardy by two Romagnols, Count Laderchi and Pietro Maroncelli, but the leader of the movement was Count F. Confalonieri, who was in favour of an Italian federation composed of northern Italy under the house of Savoy, central Italy under the pope, and the kingdom of Naples. There had been some mild plotting against Austria in Milan, and an attempt was made to co-operate with the Piedmontese movement of 1821; already in 1820 Maroncelli and the poet Silvio Pellico had been arrested as Carbonari, and after the movement in Piedmont more arrests were made. The mission of Gaetano Castiglia and Marquis Giorgio Pallavicini to Turin, where they had interviewed Charles Albert, although without any definite result—for Confalonieri had warned the prince that Lombardy was not ready to rise—was accidentally discovered, and Confalonieri was himself arrested. The plot would never have been a menace to Austria but for her treatment of the conspirators. Pellico and Maroncelli were immured in the Spielberg; Confalonieri and two dozen others were condemned to death, their sentences being, however, commuted to imprisonment in that same terrible fortress. The heroism of the prisoners, and Silvio Pellico’s account of his imprisonment (Le mie Prigioni), did much to enlist the sympathy of Europe for the Italian cause.

During the next few years order reigned in Italy, save for a few unimportant outbreaks in the Papal States; there was, however, perpetual discontent and agitation, especially in Romagna, where misgovernment was extreme. Under Pius VII. and his minister Cardinal Consalvi oppression had not been very severe, and Metternich’s proposal to establish a central inquisitorial tribunal for political offences throughout Italy had been rejected by the papal government. But on the death of Pius in 1823, his successor Leo XII. (Cardinal Della Genga) proved a ferocious reactionary under whom barbarous laws were enacted and torture frequently applied. The secret societies, such as the Carbonari, the Adelfi and the Bersaglieri d’America, which flourished in Romagna, replied to these persecutions by assassinating the more brutal officials and spies. The events of 1820–1821 increased the agitation in Romagna, and in 1825 large numbers of persons were condemned to death, imprisonment or exile. The society of the Sanfedisti, formed of the dregs of the populace, whose object was to murder every Liberal, was openly protected and encouraged. Leo died