Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/508

 486 ITALY [HISTORY. stored ; many suppressed monasteries were re -established ; and the mortmain laws were repealed. Elementary educa tion was narrowed in its limits, and thrown into the hands of the clergy. Professors suspected of liberal views were expelled from the universities, and the press was placed under the most rigid supervision. All persons who had taken part in the Napoleonic governments, or who were known to entertain patriotic opinions, found themselves harassed, watched, spied upon, and reported. The cities swarmed with police agents and informers. The passport system was made more stringent, and men were frequently refused even a few days leave of absence from their homes. The Code Napoleon was withdrawn from those provinces which had formed part of the Italian kingdom, while, in the papal states, the administration was placed again in the hands of ecclesiastics. Austrian This political and spiritual reign of terror, which had l&amp;gt;i-epon- f or its object the crushing of Italian liberalism, was sanc- derance. t j one( | anc | supported by Austria. Each petty potentate bound himself to receive orders from Vienna, and, in return for this obedience, the emperor guaranteed him in ths possession of his throne. The Lombardo- Venetian kingdom, powerfully defended and connected with Austria by land and sea, became one huge fortress, garrisoned with armed men, in perpetual menace of the country. Under these conditions the Italians were half maddened, and thousands of otherwise quiet citizens, either in the hope of finding redress and protection, or only from a feeling of revenge, joined secret revolutionary societies ; for it must not be supposed that the revolution had left the Italians as passive as it found them. A new spirit was astir, which was not likely to be checked by the arrangements of the European congress the spirit of national independence. During the convulsions caused by Napoleon s conquest of Italy, the allied powers had themselves fostered this spirit, in order to oppose French rule. The Austrians, the English, and Murat, in turn, had publicly invited the Italians to fight for their national independence. And now the people, who relied upon these proclamations and expected the fulfilment of so many promises, found them selves by the consent of Europe delivered over, tied and gagged, to a foreign oppressor. To take but one example : Ferdinand, when he quitted Naples in May 1815, addressed a proclamation to his subjects, solemnly engaging to respect the laws that should in his absence be decreed by a consti tution. In June he pledged himself at Vienna to introduce into his kingdom no institutions irreconcilable witlr those which Austria might establish in her own dependencies. Accordingly in 1816 he put an end to the Sicilian consti tution of 1812. Eevolu- Tyranny was met by conspiracy ; and in a short while, tionary the Carbonari societies, with Sanfedisti and many other struggles, revolutionary associations, had extended their organiza tion through the length and breadth of the peninsula. The discontent of the Italians smouldered for five years ; but in 1820 it broke into open flame. On the 1st of January in that year the Spaniards proclaimed their con stitution of the Cortes, which was modelled on the type furnished by the earlier French Revolution. Moved by this example, the royal army mutinied at Naples in July, and a few days afterwards Palermo rushed to arms. Ferdinand was so surprised by the sudden outbreak of this revolt that he hastily granted the constitution, named his son Francis vicar-general of his kingdom, and betook himself to Austria. The Austrians marched 80,000 men into Lombardy, and Great Britain and France sent their fleets down to the Bay of Naples. At a congress held in the spring of 1821 at Laybach, the allied powers authorized Austria to crush the revolution in Lower Italy. Austrian troops entered Naples on the 23d of March ; and, when Ferdinand followed them, he had nothing to do but to execute vengeance, by mock trials, on his insurgent subjects. While these events were taking place, another military insurrection broke out in Piedmont, where the Spanish constitution was proclaimed. The king felt himself bound by the congress of Laybach, and refused to make any con cessions. Therefore, on the 13th of March, he abdicated; and in the absence of his brother and heir, Carlo Felice, his distant cousin, Carlo Alberto, prince of Carignano, was appointed regent. Carlo Alberto represented a branch of the reigning house which had been separated nearly two centuries from the throne. Educated, during the French occupation, more like a private citizen than like a prince, he grew up with liberal inclinations, and there is no doubt that his concessions to the insurrectionists in Piedmont at this moment were actuated by sympathy rather than by any vulgar desire to gain power. When, however, Carlo Felice returned and declared that his brother s abdication had been forced and therefore illegal, Carlo Alberto s sense of loyalty to the dynasty overcame his liberal instincts. He submitted to the new king s authority, and the old regime was re-established in Piedmont on as absolute a basis as before. These movements were followed by state trials and executions, and the terrorism of the tyrannies augmented. Silvio Pellico, at the close of an inefficient disturbance at Milan, was sent to life-imprisonment at Spielberg. In the papal states Leo XII. adopted a coercive policy still more grinding and humiliating. For nine years the despots and the conspirators confronted each other, until the July revolution of Paris in 1830 gave new hope and energy to the latter. On this occasion the conflagration burst out at Modena, where the duke Francesco IV. had been for some time past in secret negotiation with the patriotic party headed by Giro Menotti. It appears that the secret object of this autocrat was to employ the revolution against his neighbours, and to make himself sovereign of Upper Italy by the help of the conspirators. But when the revolution declared itself, and spread to Parma, Bologna, and the Romagna, Francesco turned upon his friend Menotti, and succeeded in putting him to death. It took but little time or trouble to check this revolt, which was unsupported by armed force. Austrian troops moved into Emilia and Romagna, restored the old order, and marched on to Rome, which they occupied. Louis Philippe, now king of the French, being jealous of the Austrians at Rome, occupied Ancona for the French in 1832 ; but the cause of Italian liberty received no support from the bourgeois king, who strove to keep on good terms with established authorities. From 1831 until 1846 Italy remained discontentedly Re and uneasily tranquil. The infamous misgovernmcnt of tio Rome and Naples continued ; and in Lower Italy numerous petty insurrections, caused by the misery of the people, and the cholera which raged in 1837, were easily suppressed. Yet it was clear to all competent observers that this state of things could not last. The Italian sovereigns were seated over a volcano, which vibrated to the least stir in its neighbour, France, and which was slowly accumulating explosive material. Among the most powerful instruments now invented by the party of independence must be reckoned the scientific congress. This body, ostensibly formed for the study of science, assembled every year in some Italian city. Its meetings really served to propagate liberal opinions and to establish relations between the patriots of different districts. Meanwhile the great men who were destined to achieve the future union of Italy had appeared upon the stage, and were busy through this period with their pen and voice. Giuseppe Mazzini, born in 1808 at Genoa, made himself the recognized head of a party called by the name of Young Italy. It was his aim