Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/446

462 of the church. Of the ultra-liberals there were also many shades of color, but they increased more and more under the banner of Mazzini, which—whether rightly or not—was called that of the red republicans. Both parties were united in demanding constitutional liberty for the people of Italy. And they demanded it by fair means or by foul. Constitutions were granted by the rulers, with good will by some, by compulsion from the greater number. Delirious rejoicings succeeded. On the 11th of February, 1848, was granted, or rather forced from the government, the Neapolitan constitution. That of Turin was given on the 4th of March; of Rome on the 14th of March; of Florence on the 17th of March. On the 18th of March began the insurrection in Milan; and on the 19th, Carlo Alberto ordered the Piedmontese army to assemble at Ticino. On the 23d, the King of little Piedmont, with its four and a half millions of souls, declared war, alone and without allies, against the powerful Emperor of Austria, sovereign over thirty-six millions.

Thus stood affairs in Italy in the spring of the year 1848.

I now return to Carlo Alberto. It was the insurrection in Lombardy, and the cry of the whole of Italy which caused him to open the war—the war of liberation. Piedmont possessed a brave and well-armed military force. This was known to all. The whole of Italy called upon Piedmont to place itself at the head in the war for the liberation of Italy from Austria. Piedmont did so chivalrously.

Carlo Alberto who at the prophetic exhortations of