return to Parma, when Lucca would be handed over to Tuscany.
The pope, Pius VII., who had long been kept under restraint
by Napoleon at Fontainebleau, returned to Rome in May 1814,
and was recognized by the congress of Vienna (not without
some demur on the part of Austria) as the sovereign of all the
former possessions of the Holy See. Ferdinand IV. of Naples,
not long after the death of his consort, Maria Carolina, in Austria,
returned from Sicily to take possession of his dominions on the
mainland. He received them back in their entirety at the hands
of the powers, who recognized his new title of Ferdinand I. of
the Two Sicilies. The rash attempt of Murat in the autumn of
1815, which led to his death at Pizzo in Calabria, enabled the
Bourbon dynasty to crush malcontents with all the greater
severity. The reaction, which was dull and heavy in the
dominions of the pope and of Victor Emmanuel, systematically
harsh in the Austrian states of the north, and comparatively
mild in Parma and Tuscany, excited the greatest loathing in
southern Italy and Sicily, because there it was directed by a
dynasty which had aroused feelings of hatred mingled with
contempt.
There were special reasons why Sicily should harbour these feelings against the Bourbons. During eight years (1806–1814) the chief places of the island had been garrisoned by British troops; and the commander of the force which upheld the tottering rule of Ferdinand at Palermo naturally had great authority. The British government, which awarded a large annual subsidy to the king and queen at Palermo, claimed to have some control over the administration. Lord William Bentinck finally took over large administrative powers, seeing that Ferdinand, owing to his dulness, and Maria Carolina, owing to her very suspicious intrigues with Napoleon, could never be trusted. The contest between the royal power and that of the Sicilian estates threatened to bring matters to a deadlock, until in 1812, under the impulse of Lord William Bentinck, a constitution modelled largely on that of England was passed by the estates. After the retirement of the British troops in 1814 the constitution lapsed, and the royal authority became once more absolute. But the memory of the benefits conferred by “the English constitution” remained fresh and green amidst the arid waste of repression which followed. It lived on as one of the impalpable but powerful influences which spurred on the Sicilians and the democrats of Naples to the efforts which they put forth in 1821, 1830, 1848 and 1860.
This result, accruing from British intervention, was in some respects similar to that exerted by Napoleon on the Italians of the mainland. The brutalities of Austria’s white coats in the north, the unintelligent repression then characteristic of the house of Savoy, the petty spite of the duke of Modena, the medieval obscurantism of pope and cardinals in the middle of the peninsula and the clownish excesses of Ferdinand in the south, could not blot out from the minds of the Italians the recollection of the benefits derived from the just laws, vigorous administration and enlightened aims of the great emperor. The hard but salutary training which they had undergone at his hands had taught them that they were the equals of the northern races both in the council chamber and on the field of battle. It had further revealed to them that truth, which once grasped can never be forgotten, that, despite differences of climate, character and speech, they were in all essentials a nation. (J. Hl. R.)
E. The Risorgimento, 1815–1870
As the result of the Vienna treaties, Austria became the real mistress of Italy. Not only did she govern Lombardy and Venetia directly, but Austrian princes ruled in Modena, Parma and Tuscany; Piacenza, Ferrara and Comacchio had Austrian garrisons; Prince Metternich, the Austrian chancellor, believed that he could always secure the election of an Austrophil pope, and Ferdinand of Naples, reinstated by an Austrian army, had bound himself, by a secret article of the treaty of June 12, 1815, not to introduce methods of government incompatible with those adopted in Austria’s Italian possessions. Austria also concluded offensive and defensive alliances with Sardinia, Tuscany and Naples; and Metternich’s ambition was to make Austrian predominance over Italy still more absolute, by placing an Austrian archduke on the Sardinian throne.
Victor Emmanuel I., the king of Sardinia, was the only native ruler in the peninsula, and the Savoy dynasty was popular with all classes. But although welcomed with enthusiasm on his return to Turin, he introduced a system of reaction which, if less brutal, was no less uncompromising Reaction in the Italian States. than that of Austrian archdukes or Bourbon princes. His object was to restore his dominions to the conditions preceding the French occupation. The French system of taxation was maintained because it brought in ampler revenues; but feudalism, the antiquated legislation and bureaucracy were revived, and all the officers and officials still living who had served the state before the Revolution, many of them now in their dotage, were restored to their posts; only nobles were eligible for the higher government appointments; all who had served under the French administration were dismissed or reduced in rank, and in the army beardless scions of the aristocracy were placed over the heads of war-worn veterans who had commanded regiments in Spain and Russia. The influence of a bigoted priesthood was re-established, and “every form of intellectual and moral torment, everything save actual persecution and physical torture that could be inflicted on the ‘impure’ was inflicted” (Cesare Balbo’s Autobiography). All this soon provoked discontent among the educated classes. In Genoa the government was particularly unpopular, for the Genoese resented being handed over to their old enemy Piedmont like a flock of sheep. Nevertheless the king strongly disliked the Austrians, and would willingly have seen them driven from Italy.
In Lombardy French rule had ended by making itself unpopular,
and even before the fall of Napoleon a national party,
called the Italici puri, had begun to advocate the
independence of Lombardy, or even its union with
Sardinia. At first a part of the population were
Austrian
rule in Italy.
content with Austrian rule, which provided an honest
and efficient administration; but the rigid system of centralization
which, while allowing the semblance of local autonomy,
sent every minute question for settlement to Vienna; the
severe police methods; the bureaucracy, in which the best
appointments were usually conferred on Germans or Slavs
wholly dependent on Vienna, proved galling to the people, and
in view of the growing disaffection the country was turned
into a vast armed camp. In Modena Duke Francis proved
a cruel tyrant. In Parma, on the other hand, there was
very little oppression, the French codes were retained, and
the council of state was consulted on all legislative matters.
Lucca too enjoyed good government, and the peasantry were
well cared for and prosperous. In Tuscany the rule of Ferdinand
and of his minister Fossombroni was mild and benevolent,
but enervating and demoralizing. The Papal States were
ruled by a unique system of theocracy, for not only the head of
the state but all the more important officials were ecclesiastics,
assisted by the Inquisition, the Index and all the paraphernalia
Reaction
in Rome.
of medieval church government. The administration
was inefficient and corrupt, the censorship uncompromising,
the police ferocious and oppressive, although
quite unable to cope with the prevalent anarchy and brigandage;
the antiquated pontifical statutes took the place of the French
laws, and every vestige of the vigorous old communal independence
was swept away. In Naples King Ferdinand retained
some of the laws and institutions of Murat’s régime, and many
Naples.
of the functionaries of the former government entered
his service; but he revived the Bourbon tradition,
the odious police system and the censorship; and a degrading
religious bigotry, to which the masses were all too much inclined,
became the basis of government and social life. The upper
classes were still to a large extent inoculated with French ideas,
but the common people were either devoted to the dynasty or
indifferent. In Sicily, which for centuries had enjoyed a feudal
constitution modernized and Anglicized under British auspices
in 1812, and where anti-Neapolitan feeling was strong, autonomy
