Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 2.djvu/178

 even as desirable. The French came next, and the tendency of their government was always to destroy the nationality of any people subdued by them. But this had a certain good effect in Italy. The curse of that country is its divisions,—while the other nations of Europe, in the middle ages, became divided into feudal tenures, and possessed by nobles, who, unable to maintain their independence, at last became mere courtiers of an absolute monarch,—Italy was divided into municipal republics, or small states,—the mutual rivalry and quarrels of which were the fatal causes that France and Spain disputed alternately, making Italy their field of battle, and Italian met Italian in opposing fight; and Pisa was willing to abase Florence; and Bologna gloried in the misfortunes of Ferrara:—the union of the whole of northern Italy under the French was the first circumstance that checked a spirit so inimical to all prosperity,—all improvement.

When the French were driven from Italy the peninsula became politically Austrian. The Austrian cabinet directed all the councils, and guided every act of the various states. If Ferdinand contrived to maintain a more beneficent internal government, it was only because the Tuscans shewed no inclination to join in the revolutionary movement. But while Austria substantially ruled the