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 di Calabria, but was immediately captured by the police and the peasantry, court-martialled and shot.

Ferdinand to some extent maintained French legislation, but otherwise reorganized the state with Metternich’s approval on Bourbon lines; he proclaimed himself king of the Two Sicilies at the congress of Vienna, incorporating Naples and Sicily into one state, and abolished the Sicilian constitution (December 1816). In 1818 he concluded a Concordat with the Church, by which the latter renounced its suzerainty over the kingdom, but was given control over education, the censorship and many other privileges. But there was much disaffection throughout the country, and the Carbonarist lodges, founded in Murat’s time with the object of freeing the country

from foreign rule and obtaining a constitution, had made much progress (see ). The army indeed was honeycombed with Carbonari, and General Pepe, himself a member of the society, organized them on a military basis. In July 1820 a military mutiny broke out at Caserta, led by two officers and a priest, the mutineers demanding a constitution although professing loyalty to the king. Ferdinand, feeling himself helpless to resist, acceded to the demand, appointed a ministry composed of Murat’s old adherents, and entrusted his authority to his son. The ultra-democratic single-chamber Spanish constitution of 1812 was introduced, but proved utterly unworkable. The new government’s first difficulty was Sicily, where the people had risen in rebellion demanding their own charter of 1812, and although the Neapolitan troops quelled the outbreak with much bloodshed the division proved fatal to the prospects of liberty.

The outbreak of the military rising in Naples, following so shortly on that in Spain, seriously alarmed the powers responsible for the preservation of the peace in Europe. The position was complicated by the somewhat enigmatic attitude of Russia; for the Neapolitan Liberals, with many of whom Count Capo d’Istria, the Russian minister of foreign affairs, had been on friendly terms, proclaimed that they had the “moral support” of the tsar. This idea, above all, it was necessary for Austria to destroy once for all. The diplomatic negotiations are discussed in the article on the history of (q.v.). Here it suffices to say that these issued in the congress of Troppau (October 1820) and the proclamation of the famous Troppau protocol affirming the right of collective “Europe” to interfere to crush dangerous internal revolutions. Both France and Great Britain protested against the general principle laid down in this instrument; but neither of them approved of the Neapolitan revolution, and neither of them was opposed to an intervention in Naples, provided this were carried out, not on the ground of a supposed right of Europe to interfere, but by Austria for Austrian ends. By general consent King Ferdinand was invited to attend the adjourned congress, fixed to meet at Laibach in the spring of the following year. Under the new constitution, the permission of parliament was necessary before the king could leave Neapolitan territory; but this was weakly granted, after Ferdinand had sworn the most solemn oaths to maintain the constitution. He was scarcely beyond the frontiers, however, before he repudiated his engagements, as exacted by force, A cynicism so unblushing shocked even the seasoned diplomats of the congress, who would have preferred that the king should have made a decent show of yielding to force. The result was, however, that the powers authorized Austria to march an army into Naples to restore the autocratic monarchy. This decision was notified to the Neapolitan government by Russia, Prussia and Austria—Great Britain and France maintaining a strict neutrality. Meanwhile the regent, in spite of his declaration that he would lead the Neapolitan army against the invader, was secretly undermining the position of the government, and there were divisions of opinion in the ranks of the Liberals themselves. General Pepe was sent to the frontier at the head of 8000 men, but

was completely defeated by the Austrians at Rieti on the 7th of March. On the 23rd the Austrians entered Naples, followed soon afterwards by the king; every vestige of freedom was suppressed, the reactionary Medici ministry appointed, and the inevitable state trials instituted with the usual harvest of executions and imprisonment. Pepe saved himself by flight. (See .)

Ferdinand died in 1825, and his son and successor, Francis I., an unbridled libertine, at once threw off the mask of Liberalism; the corruption of the administration under Medici assumed unheard-of proportions, and every office was openly sold. The Austrian occupation lasted until 1827, having cost the state 310,000,000 lire; but in the meanwhile the

Swiss Guard had been established as a further protection for autocracy, and the revolutionary outbreak at Bosco on the Cilento was suppressed with the usual cruelty. (See .)

Francis died in 1830 and was succeeded by his son, Ferdinand II., who at first awoke hopes that the conditions of the country would be improved. He was not devoid of good qualities, and took an interest in the material welfare of the country, but he was narrow-minded, ignorant and bigoted; he made the administration more efficient, and reorganized

the army which became purged of Carbonarism, and such Carbonarist plots as there were in the 'thirties were not severely punished. Ferdinand was impatient of Austrian influence, but on the death of his first wife, Cristina of Savoy, he married Maria Theresa of Austria, who encouraged him in his reactionary tendencies and brought him closer to Austria. An outbreak of cholera in 1837 led to disorders in Sicily, which, having assumed a political character, were repressed by Del Caretto with great severity. The government tended to become more and more autocratic and to rely wholly on the all-powerful police, the spies and the priests; and, although the king showed some independence in foreign affairs, his popularity waned; the desire for a constitution was by no means dead, and the survivors of the old Carbonari gathered round Carlo Poerio, while the Giovane Italia society (independent of Mazzini), led by Benedetto Musolino, took as its motto “Unity, Liberty and Independence.” But as yet the idea of unity made but little headway, for southern Italy was too widely separated by geographical conditions, history, tradition and custom from the rest of the peninsula, and the majority of the Liberals—themselves a minority of the population—merely aspired to a constitutional Neapolitan monarchy, possibly forming part of a confederation of Italian states. The attempt of the Giovane Italia to bring about a general revolution in 1843 only resulted in a few sporadic outbreaks easily crushed. The following year the Venetian brothers Bandiera, acting in concert with Mazzini, landed in Calabria, believing the whole country to be in a state of revolt; they met with little local support and were

quickly captured and shot, but their death aroused much sympathy, and the whole episode was highly significant as being the first attempt made by north Italians to promote revolution in the south. In 1847 a pamphlet by L. Settembrini, entitled “A Protest of the People of the Two Sicilies,” appeared anonymously and created a deep impression as a most scathing indictment of the government; and at the same time the election of Pius IX., a pope who was believed to be a Liberal, caused widespread excitement throughout Italy. Conspiracy was now rife both in Naples and Sicily, but as yet there was no idea of deposing the king. Many persons were arrested, including Carlo Poerio, who, however, continued to direct the agitation. On the 12th of January 1848 a revolution under the leadership of Ruggiero Settimo broke out at Palermo to the cry of “independence or the 1812 constitution,” and by the end of February the whole island, with the exception of Messina, wasin the hands of the revolutionists. These

events were followed by demonstrations at Naples; the king summoned a meeting of generals and members of his family on the 27th of January, and on the advice of (q.v.), who said that the army was not to be relied upon, he dismissed the Pietracatella ministry and Del Caretto, and summoned the duke of Serracapriola to form another' administration. On the 28th he granted the constitution, and the Liberals Bozzelli and Carlo Poerio afterwards joined the cabinet. The