out. On the 13th of June Ruffo and his hordes reached Naples,
and after a desperate battle at the Ponte della Maddalena,
entered the city. For weeks the Calabresi and lazzaroni continued
to pillage and massacre, and Ruffo was unable, even if willing,
to restrain them. But the Royalists were not masters of the city,
for the French in Castel Sant’ Elmo and the Republicans in
Castelnuovo and Castel dell’ Uovo still held out and bombarded
the streets, while the Franco-Spanish fleet might arrive at any
moment. Consequently Ruffo was desperately anxious to come
to terms with the Republicans for the evacuation of the castles,
in spite of the queen’s orders to make no terms with the rebels.
After some negotiation an armistice was concluded and a capitulation
agreed upon, whereby the castles were to be evacuated,
the hostages liberated and the garrisons free to remain in Naples
unmolested or to sail for Toulon.
While the vessels were being prepared for the voyage to Toulon all the hostages in the castles were liberated save four; but on the 24th of June Nelson arrived with his fleet, and on hearing of the capitulation he refused to recognize it save in so far as it concerned the French. Ruffo indignantly declared that once the treaty was signed, Nelson at Naples. not only by himself but by the Russian and Turkish commandants and by the British captain Foote, it must be respected, and on Nelson’s refusal he said that he would not help him to capture the castles. On the 26th Nelson changed his attitude and authorized Sir William Hamilton, the British minister, to inform the cardinal that he (Nelson) would do nothing to break the armistice; while Captains Bell and Troubridge wrote that they had Nelson’s authority to state that the latter would not oppose the embarcation of the Republicans. Although these expressions were equivocal, the Republicans were satisfied and embarked on the vessels prepared for them. But on the 28th Nelson received despatches from the court (in reply to his own). in consequence of which he had the vessels brought under the guns of his ships, and many of the Republicans were arrested. Caracciolo, who had been caught whilst attempting to escape from Naples, was tried by a court-martial of Royalist officers under Nelson’s auspices on board the admiral’s flagship, condemned to death and hanged at the yard arm. For the part played by Nelson in these transactions see the articles Caracciolo and Nelson.
On the 8th of July, King Ferdinand arrived from Palermo, and the state trials, conducted in the most arbitrary fashion, resulted in wholesale butchery; hundreds of persons were executed, including some of the best men in the country, such as the philosopher Mario Pagano, the scientist Cirillo, Manthonè, the minister of war under the republic, Bourbon vengeance. Massa, the defender of Castel dell’ Uovo, and Ettore Caraffa, the defender of Pescara, who had been captured by treachery, while thousands of others were immured in horrible dungeons or exiled.
War with France continued until March 1801, when peace was made, and after the peace of Amiens in 1802 the court returned to Naples, where it was well received. But when the European war broke out again in the following year, Napoleon (then first consul) became very exacting in his demands on King Ferdinand, who consequently played a double game, appearing to accede to these demands while negotiating with England. After Austerlitz Napoleon revenged himself by declaring that “the Bourbon dynasty had ceased to reign,” and sent an army under his brother Joseph to occupy the kingdom.
Ferdinand and Maria Carolina fled to Palermo in January 1805; in February 1806 Joseph Bonaparte entered Naples as king. A cultivated, well-meaning, not very intelligent man he introduced many useful reforms on basis of benevolent despotism, abolished feudalism and built roads, but the taxes and forced contributions which Joseph Bonaparte. he levied proved very burdensome. Joseph’s authority did not exist throughout a large part of the kingdom, where royalist risings, led by brigand chiefs, maintained a state of anarchy, and a British force under Sir John Stuart, which landed in Calabria from Sicily, defeated the French at Maida (July 6th, 1806). Both the French and the royalists committed atrocities, and many conspirators in Naples were tried by the French state courts and shot.
In 1808 Napoleon conferred the crown of Spain on Joseph, and appointed Joachim Murat king of Naples. Murat continued Joseph’s reforms, swept away many old abuses and reorganized the army; and although he introduced the French codes and conferred many appointments and estates on Frenchmen, his administration was more or less Joachim Murat. native, and he favoured the abler Neapolitans. His attempts to attack the English in Sicily ended disastrously, but he succeeded in crushing brigandage in Calabria by means of General Manhès, who, however, had to resort to methods of ferocity in order to do so. The king, owing to his charm of manner, his handsome face, and his brilliant personality, gained many sympathies, and began to aspire to absolute independence. He gradually became estranged from Napoleon, and although he followed him to Russia and afterwards took part in the German campaign, he secretly opened negotiations with Austria and Great Britain. In January 1814 he signed a treaty with Austria, each power guaranteeing the dominions of the other, while Sicily was to be left to Ferdinand. The following month he proclaimed his separation from Napoleon and marched against Eugene Beauharnais, the French viceroy of Lombardy. But no important engagements took place, and when Napoleon escaped from Elba, Murat suddenly returned to the allegiance of his old chief. He marched at the head of 35,000 men into northern Italy, and from Rimini issued his famous proclamation in favour of Italian independence, which at the time fell on deaf ears (March 30th, 1815). He was subsequently defeated by the, Austrians several times and forced to retreat, and on the 18th of May he sailed from Naples for France (see Murat, Joachim). Generals Guglielmo Pepe and Carrascosa now concluded a treaty with the Austrians at Casalanza on favourable terms, and on the 23rd the Austrians entered Naples to restore Bourbon rule.
Ferdinand and Maria Carolina had continued to reign in Sicily,
where the extravagance of the court and the odious Neapolitan
system of police espionage rendered their presence
a burden instead of a blessing to the island. The king
obtained a subsidy from Great Britain and allowed
British troops to occupy Messina and Agosta, so that
The Bourbons
in Sicily.
The English constitution.}}
they might operate against the French on the mainland. A
bitter conflict broke out between the court and the parliament,
and the British minister, Lord William Bentinck, favoured the
opposition, forced Ferdinand to resign his authority and appoint
his son regent and introduced many valuable reforms. The
queen perpetually intrigued against Bentinck, and
even negotiated with the French, but in 1812 a more
liberal constitution on British lines was introduced, and
a Liberal ministry under the princes of Castelnuovo
and Belmonte appointed, while the queen was exiled in the
following year. But after the fall of Napoleon Sicily ceased to
have any importance for Great Britain, and Bentinck, whose
memory is still cherished in the island, departed in 1814.
Ferdinand succeeded in getting a reactionary ministry appointed,
and dissolved parliament in May 1815, after concluding a treaty
with Austria—now freed by Murat’s defection from her engagements
with him—for the recovery of his mainland dominions
by means of an Austrian army paid for by himself. On the
9th of June Ferdinand re-entered Naples and bound
himself in a second treaty with Austria not to introduce
constitutional government[1]
but at first he abstained
from persecution and received many of Murat’s old
officers into his army in accordance with the treaty of Casalanza.
The restorat-ion in Naples.
In October 1815 Murat, believing that he still had a strong
party in the kingdom, landed with a few companions at Pizzo
- ↑ The secret article of the treaty of June 12, 1815, runs as follows: “H.M. the King of the Two Sicilies, in re-establishing the government of the kingdom, will not agree to any changes irreconcilable either with the ancient institutions of the monarchy or with the principles adopted by H.I. and R. Austrian Majesty for the internal regime of his Italian provinces.” It is to be noted that this did not involve the obligation of interfering with the ancient constitution of Sicily, which Metternich desired to see remain undisturbed.
