[Prussian Provincial Estates, June, 1823.]

[Redeeming features of Prussian absolutism.]

In the year 1822 Hardenberg died. All hope of a fulfilment of the promises made in Prussia in 1815 had already become extinct. Not many months after the Minister's death, King Frederick William established the Provincial Estates which had been recommended to him by Metternich, and announced that the creation of a central representative system would be postponed until such time as the King should think fit to introduce it. This meant that the project was finally abandoned; and Prussia in consequence remained without a Parliament until the Revolution of 1848 was at the door. The Provincial Estates, with which the King affected to temper absolute rule, met only once in three years. Their function was to express an opinion upon local matters when consulted by the Government: their enemies said that they were aristocratic and did harm, their partizans could not pretend that they did much good. In the bitterness of spirit with which, at a later time, the friends of liberty denounced the betrayal of the cause of freedom by the Prussian Court, a darker colour has perhaps been introduced into the history of this period than really belongs to it. The wrongs sustained by the Prussian nation have been compared to those inflicted by the despotism of Spain. But, however contemptible the timidity of King Frederick William, however odious the ingratitude shown to the truest friends of King and people, the Government of 1819 is not correctly represented in such a parallel. To identify the thousand varieties of wrong under the common name of oppression, is to mistake words for things, and to miss the characteristic features which distinguish nations from one another. The greatest evils which a Government can inflict upon its subjects are probably religious persecution, wasteful taxation, and the denial of justice in the daily affairs of life. None of these were present in Prussia during the darkest days of reaction. The hand of oppression fell heavily on some of the best and some of the most enlightened men; it violated interests so precious as those of free criticism and free discussion of public affairs; but the great mass of the action of Government was never on the side of evil. The ordinary course of justice was still pure, the administration conscientious and thrifty. The system of popular education, which for the first time placed Prussia in advance of Saxony and other German States, dates from these years of warfare against liberty. A reactionary despotism built the schools and framed the laws whose reproduction in free England half a century later is justly regarded as the chief of all the liberal measures of our day. So strong, so lasting, was that vital tradition which made monarchy in Prussia an instrument for the execution of great public ends.

[A new Liberalism grows up in Germany after 1820.]

[Interest in France.]

But the old harmony between rulers and subjects in Germany perished in the system of coercion which Metternich established in 1819. Patient as the Germans were, loyal as they had proved themselves to Frederick William and to worse princes through good and evil, the galling disappointment of noble hopes, the silencing of the Press, the dissolution of societies,— calumnies, expulsions, prosecutions,—embittered many an honest mind against authority. The Commission of Mainz did not find conspirators, but it made them. As years went by, and all the means of legitimately working for the improvement of German public life were one after another extinguished, men of ardent character thought of more violent methods. Secret societies, such as Metternich had imagined, came into actual being. [301] And among those who neither sank into apathy and despair nor enrolled themselves against existing power, a new body of ideas supplanted the old loyal belief in the regeneration of Germany by its princes. The Parliamentary struggles of France, the revolutionary movements in Italy and in Spain which began at this epoch, drew the imagination away from that pictured restoration of a free Teutonic past which had proved so barren of result, and set in its place the idea of a modern universal or European Liberalism. The hatred against France, especially among the younger men, disappeared. A distinction was made between the tyrant Napoleon and the people who were now giving to the rest of the Continent the example of a free and animated public life, and illuminating the age with a political literature so systematic and so ingenious that it seemed almost like a political philosophy. The debates in the French Assembly, the writings of French publicists, became the school of the Germans. Paris regained in foreign eyes something of the interest that it had possessed in 1789. Each victory or defeat of the French popular cause awoke the joy or the sorrow of German Liberals, to whom all was blank at home: and when at length the throne of the Bourbons fell, the signal for deliverance seemed to have sounded in many a city beyond the Rhine.

[France after 1818.]

[Richelieu resigns, Dec., 1818. Decazes keeps power.]

We have seen that in Central Europe the balance between liberty and reaction, wavering in 1815, definitely fell to the side of reaction at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle. It remains to trace the course of events which in France itself suspended the peaceful progress of the nation, and threw power for some years into the hands of a faction which belonged to the past. The measures carried by Decazes in 1817, which gave so much satisfaction to the French, were by no means viewed with the same approval either at London or at Vienna. The two principal of these were the Electoral Law, and a plan of military reorganisation which brought back great numbers of Napoleon's old officers and soldiers to the army. Richelieu, though responsible as the head of the Ministry, felt very grave fears as to the results of this legislation. He had already become anxious and distressed when the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle met; and the events which took place in France during his absence, as well as the communications which passed between himself and the foreign Ministers, convinced him that a change of internal policy was necessary. The busy mind of Metternich had already been scheming against French Liberalism. Alarmed at the energy shown by Decazes, the Austrian statesman had formed the design of reconciling Artois and the Ultra-Royalists to the King's Government; and he now urged Richelieu, if his old opponents could be brought to reason, to place himself at the head of a coalition of all the conservative elements in the State. [302] While the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle was sitting, the partial elections for the year 1818, the second under the new Electoral Law, took place. Among the deputies returned there were some who passed for determined enemies of the Bourbon restoration, especially Lafayette, whose name was so closely associated with the humiliations of the Court in 1789. Richelieu received the news with dismay, and on his return to Paris took steps which ended in the dismissal of Decazes, and the offer of a seat in the Cabinet to Villele, the Ultra-Royalist leader. But the attempted combination failed. Richelieu accordingly withdrew from office; and a new Ministry was formed, of which Decazes, who had proved himself more powerful than his assailants, was the real though not the nominal chief.

[Election of Gregoire, Sept., 1819.]

The victory of the young and popular statesman was seen with extreme displeasure by all the foreign Courts, nor was his success an enduring one. For awhile the current of Liberal opinion in France and the favour of King Louis XVIII. enabled Decazes to hold his own against the combinations of his opponents and the ill-will of all the most powerful men in Europe. An attack made on the Electoral Law by the Upper House was defeated by the creation of sixty new Peers, among whom there were several who had been expelled in 1815. But the forces of Liberalism soon passed beyond the Minister's own control, and his steady dependence upon Louis XVIII. now raised against him as resolute an opposition among the enemies of the House of Bourbon as among the Ultra-Royalists. In the elections of 1819 the candidates of the Ministry were beaten by men of more pronounced opinions. Among the new members there was one whose victory caused great astonishment and alarm. The ex-bishop Gregoire, one of the authors of the destruction of the old French Church in 1790, and mover of the resolution which established the Republic in 1792, was brought forward from his retirement and elected Deputy by the town of Grenoble. To understand the panic caused by this election we must recall, not the events of the Revolution, but the legends of them which were current in 1819. The history of Gregoire by no means justifies the outcry which was raised against him; his real actions, however, formed the smallest part of the things that were alleged or believed by his enemies. It was said he had applauded the execution of King Louis XVI., when he had in fact protested against it: [303] his courageous adherence to the character of a Christian priest throughout the worst days of the Convention, his labours in organising the Constitutional Church when the choice lay between that and national atheism, were nothing, or worse than nothing, in the eyes of men who felt themselves to be the despoiled heirs of that rich and aristocratic landed society, called the Feudal Church, which Gregoire had been so active in breaking up. Unluckily for himself, Gregoire, though humane in action, had not abstained from the rhodomontades against kings in general which were the fashion in 1793. Louis XVIII., forgetting that he had himself lately made the regicide Fouche a Minister, interpreted Gregoire's election by the people of Grenoble, to which the Ultra-Royalists had cunningly contributed, as a threat against the Bourbon family. He showed the displeasure usual with him when any slight was offered to his personal dignity, and drew nearer to his brother Artois and the Ultra-Royalists, whom he had hitherto shunned as his favourite Minister's worst enemies. Decazes, true to his character as the King's friend, now confessed that he had gone too far in the legislation of 1817, and that the Electoral Law, under which such a monster as Gregoire could gain a seat, required to be altered. A project of law was sketched, designed to restore the preponderance in the constituencies to the landed aristocracy. Gregoire's election was itself invalidated; and the Ministers who refused to follow Decazes in his new policy of compromise were dismissed from their posts.

[Murder of the Duke of Berry, Feb. 13, 1820.]

[Reaction sets in.]

[Fall of Decazes. Richelieu Minister, Feb., 1820.]

A few months more passed, and an event occurred which might have driven a stronger Government than that of Louis XVIII. into excesses of reaction. The heirs to the Crown next in succession to the Count of Artois were his two sons, the Dukes of Angouleme and Berry. Angouleme was childless; the Duke of Berry was the sole hope of the elder Bourbon line, which, if he should die without a son, would, as a reigning house, become extinct, the Crown of France not descending to a female. [304] The circumstance which made Berry's life so dear to Royalists made his destruction the all-absorbing purpose of an obscure fanatic, who abhorred the Bourbon family as the lasting symbol of the foreigner's victory over France. Louvel, a working man, had followed Napoleon to exile in Elba. After returning to his country he had dogged the footsteps of the Bourbon princes for years together, waiting for the chance of murder. On the night of the 13th of February, 1820, he seized the Duke of Berry as he was leaving the Opera House, and plunged a knife into his breast. The Duke lingered for some hours, and expired early the next morning in the presence of King Louis XVIII., the Princes, and all the Ministers. Terrible as the act was, it was the act of a single resolute mind: no human being had known of Louvel's intention. But it was impossible that political passion should await the quiet investigation of a law-court. No murder ever produced a stronger outburst of indignation among the governing classes, or was more skilfully turned to the advantage of party. The Liberals felt that their cause was lost. While fanatical Ultra-Royalists, abandoning themselves to a credulity worthy of the Reign of Terror, accused Decazes himself of complicity with the assassin, their leaders fixed upon the policy which was to be imposed on the King. It was in vain that Decazes brought forward his reactionary Electoral Law, and proposed to invest the officers of State with arbitrary powers of arrest and to re-establish the censorship of the Press. The Count of Artois insisted upon the dismissal of the Minister, as the only consolation which could be given to him for the murder of his son The King yielded; and, as an Ultra-Royalist administration was not yet possible, Richelieu unwillingly returned to office, assured by Artois that his friends had no other desire than to support his own firm and temperate rule.

[Progress of the reaction in France.]

[Ultra-Royalist Ministry, Dec., 1821.]

[The Congregation.]

Returning to power under such circumstances, Richelieu became, in spite of himself, the Minister of reaction. The Press was fettered, the legal safeguards of personal liberty were suspended, the electoral system was transformed by a measure which gave a double vote to men of large property. So violent were the passions which this retrograde march of Government excited, that for a moment Paris seemed to be on the verge of revolution. Tumultuous scenes occurred in the streets; but the troops, on whom everything depended, obeyed the orders given to them, and the danger passed away. The first elections under the new system reduced the Liberal party to impotence, and brought back to the Chamber a number of men who had sat in the reactionary Parliament of 1816. Villele and other Ultra-Royalists were invited to join Richelieu's Cabinet. For awhile it seemed as if the passions of Church and aristocracy might submit to the curb of a practical statesmanship, friendly, if not devoted, to their own interests. But restraint was soon cast aside. The Count of Artois saw the road to power open, and broke his promise of supporting the Minister who had taken office at his request. Censured and thwarted in the Chamber of Deputies, Richelieu confessed that he had undertaken a hopeless task, and bade farewell to public life. King Louis, now nearing the grave, could struggle no longer against the brother who was waiting to ascend his throne. The next Ministry was nominated not by the King but by Artois. Around Villele, the real head of the Cabinet, there was placed a body of men who represented not the new France, or even that small portion of it which was called to exercise the active rights of citizenship, but the social principles of a past age, and that Catholic or Ultramontane revival which was now freshening the surface but not stirring the depths of the great mass of French religious indifference. A religious society known as the Congregation, which had struck its first roots under the storm of Republican persecution, and grown up during the Empire, a solitary yet unobserved rallying-place for Catholic opponents of Napoleon's despotism, now expanded into a great organism of government. The highest in blood and in office sought membership in it: its patronage raised ambitious men to the stations they desired, its hostility made itself felt against the small as well as against the great. The spirit which now gained the ascendancy in French government was clerical even more than it was aristocratic. It was monarchical too, but rather from dislike to the secularist tone of Liberalism and from trust in the orthodoxy of the Count of Artois than from any fixed belief in absolutist principles. There might be good reason to oppose King Louis XVIII.; but what priest, what noble, could doubt the divine right of a prince who was ready to compensate the impoverished emigrants out of the public funds, and to commit the whole system of public education to the hands of the clergy?

[Bourbon rule before and after 1821.]

In the middle class of France, which from this time began to feel itself in opposition to the Bourbon Government, there had been no moral change corresponding to that which made so great a difference between the governing authority of 1819 and that of 1822. Public opinion, though strongly affected, was not converted into something permanently unlike itself by the murder of the Duke of Berry. The courtiers, the devotees, the great ladies, who had laid a bold hand upon power, had not the nation on their side, although for a while the nation bore their sway submissively. But the fate of the Bourbon monarchy was in fact decided when Artois and his confidants became its representatives. France might have forgotten that the Bourbons owed their throne to foreign victories; it could not be governed in perpetuity by what was called the Parti Pretre. Twenty years taken from the burden of age borne by Louis XVIII., twenty years of power given to Decazes, might have prolonged the rule of the restored family perhaps for some generations. If military pride found small satisfaction in the contrast between the Napoleonic age and that which immediately succeeded it, there were enough parents who valued the blood of their children, there were enough speakers and writers who valued the liberty of discussion, enough capitalists who valued quiet times, for the new order to be recognised as no unhopeful one. France has indeed seldom had a better government than it possessed between 1816 and 1820, nor could an equal period be readily named during which the French nation, as a whole, enjoyed greater happiness.

[General causes of the victory of reaction in Europe.]

Political reaction had reached its full tide in Europe generally about five years after the end of the great war. The phenomena were by no means the same in all countries, nor were the accidents of personal influence without a large share in the determination of events: yet, underlying all differences, we may trace the operation of certain great causes which were not limited by the boundaries of individual States. The classes in which any fixed belief in constitutional government existed were nowhere very large; outside the circle of state officials there was scarcely any one who had had experience in the conduct of public affairs. In some countries, as in Russia and Prussia, the conception of progress towards self-government had belonged in the first instance to the holders of power: it had exercised the imagination of a Czar, or appealed to the understanding of a Prussian Minister, eager, in the extremity of ruin, to develop every element of worth and manliness existing within his nation. The cooling of a warm fancy, the disappearance of external dangers, the very agitation which arose when the idea of liberty passed from the rulers to their subjects, sufficed to check the course of reform. And by the side of the Kings and Ministers who for a moment had attached themselves to constitutional theories there stood the old privileged orders, or what remained of them, the true party of reaction, eager to fan the first misgivings and alarms of Sovereigns, and to arrest a development more prejudicial to their own power and importance than to the dignity and security of the Crown. Further, there existed throughout Europe the fatal and ineradicable tradition of the convulsions of the first Revolution, and of the horrors of 1793. No votary of absolutism, no halting and disquieted friend of freedom, could ever be at a loss for images of woe in presaging the results of popular sovereignty; and the action of one or two infatuated assassins owed its wide influence on Europe chiefly to the ancient name and memory of Jacobinism.

There was also in the very fact that Europe had been restored to peace by the united efforts of all the governments something adverse to the success of a constitutional or a Liberal party in any State. Constitutional systems had indeed been much praised at the Congress of Vienna; but the group of men who actually controlled Europe in 1815, and who during the five succeeding years continued in correspondence and in close personal intercourse with one another, had, with one exception, passed their lives in the atmosphere of absolute government, and learnt to regard the conduct of all great affairs as the business of a small number of very eminent individuals. Castlereagh, the one Minister of a constitutional State, belonged to a party which, to a degree almost unequalled in Europe, identified political duty with the principle of hostility to change. It is indeed in the correspondence of the English Minister himself, and in relation to subjects of purely domestic government in England, that the community of thought which now existed between all the leading statesmen of Europe finds its most singular exhibition. Both Metternich and Hardenberg took as much interest in the suppression of Lancashire Radicalism, and in the measures of coercion which the British Government thought it necessary to pass in the year 1819, as in the chastisement of rebellious pamphleteers upon the Rhine, and in the dissolution of the students' clubs at Jena. It was indeed no very great matter for the English people, who were now close upon an era of reform, that Castlereagh received the congratulations of Vienna and Berlin for suspending the Habeas Corpus Act and the right of public meeting, [305] or that Metternich believed that no one but himself knew the real import of the shouts with which the London mob greeted Sir Francis Burdett. [306] Neither the impending reform of the English Criminal Law nor the emancipation of Irish Catholics resulted from the enlightenment of foreign Courts, or could be hindered by their indifference. But on the Continent of Europe the progress towards constitutional freedom was indeed likely to be a slow and a chequered one when the Ministers of absolutism formed so close and intimate a band, when the nations contained within them such small bodies of men in any degree versed in public affairs, and when the institutions on which it was proposed to base the liberty of the future were so destitute of that strength which springs from connection with the past.



CHAPTER XIV.

Movements in the Mediterranean States beginning in 1820—Spain from 1814 to 1820—The South American Colonies—The Army at Cadiz: Action of Quiroga and Riego—Movement at Corunna—Ferdinand accepts the Constitution of 1812—Naples from 1815 to 1820—The Court-party, the Muratists, the Carbonari—The Spanish Constitution proclaimed at Naples—Constitutional movement in Portugal—Alexander's proposal with regard to Spain—The Conference and Declaration of Troppau—Protest of England—Conference of Laibach—The Austrians invade Naples and restore absolute Monarchy— Insurrection in Piedmont, which fails—Spain from 1820 to 1822—Death of Castlereagh—The Congress of Verona—Policy of England—The French invade Spain—Restoration of absolute Monarchy, and violence of the reaction— England prohibits the conquest of the Spanish Colonies by France, and subsequently recognises their independence—Affairs in Portugal—Canning sends troops to Lisbon—The Policy of Canning—Estimate of his place in the history of Europe.

[The Mediterranean movements, beginning in 1820.]

When the guardians of Europe, at the end of the first three years of peace, scanned from their council-chamber at Aix-la-Chapelle that goodly heritage which, under Providence, their own parental care was henceforth to guard against the assaults of malice and revolution, they had fixed their gaze chiefly on France, Germany, and the Netherlands, as the regions most threatened by the spirit of change. The forecast was not an accurate one. In each of these countries Government proved during the succeeding years to be much more than a match for its real or imaginary foes: it was in the Mediterranean States, which had excited comparatively little anxiety, that the first successful attack was made upon established power. Three movements arose successively in the three southern peninsulas, at the time when Metternich was enjoying the silence which he had imposed upon Germany, and the Ultra-Royalists of France were making good the advantage which the crime of an individual and the imprudence of a party had thrown into their hands. In Spain and in Italy a body of soldiers rose on behalf of constitutional government: in Greece a nation rose against the rule of the foreigner. In all three countries the issue of these movements was, after a longer or shorter interval, determined by the Northern Powers. All three movements were at first treated as identical in their character, and all alike condemned as the work of Jacobinism. But the course of events, and a change of persons in the government of one great State, brought about a truer view of the nature of the struggle in Greece. The ultimate action of Europe in the affairs of that country was different from its action in the affairs of Italy and Spain. It is now only remembered as an instance of political recklessness or stupidity that a conflict of race against race and of religion against religion should for a while have been confused by some of the leading Ministers of Europe with the attempt of a party to make the form of domestic government more liberal. The Hellenic rising had indeed no feature in common with the revolutions of Naples and Cadiz; and, although in order of time the opening of the Greek movement long preceded the close of the Spanish movement, the historian, who has neither the politician's motive for making a confusion, nor the protection of his excuse of ignorance, must in this case neglect the accidents of chronology, and treat the two as altogether apart.

[Spain between 1814 and 1820.]

King Ferdinand of Spain, after overthrowing the Constitution which he found in existence on his return to his country, had conducted himself as if his object had been to show to what lengths a legitimate monarch might abuse the fidelity of his subjects and defy the public opinion of Europe. The leaders of the Cortes, whom he had arrested in 1814, after being declared innocent by one tribunal after another were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment by an arbitrary decree of the King, without even the pretence of judicial forms. Men who had been conspicuous in the struggle of the nation against Napoleon were neglected or disgraced; many of the highest posts were filled by politicians who had played a double part, or had even served under the invader. Priests and courtiers intrigued for influence over the King; even when a capable Minister was placed in power through the pressure of the ambassadors, and the King's name was set to edicts of administrative reform, these edicts were made a dead letter by the powerful band who lived upon the corruption of the public service. Nothing was sacred except the interest of the clergy; this, however, was enough to keep the rural population on the King's side. The peasant, who knew that his house would not now be burnt by the French, and who heard that true religion had at length triumphed over its enemies, understood, and cared to understand, nothing more. Rumours of kingly misgovernment and oppression scarcely reached his ears. Ferdinand was still the child of Spain and of the Church; his return had been the return of peace; his rule was the victory of the Catholic faith.

[The nation satisfied: the officers discontented.]

But the acquiescence of the mass of the people was not shared by the officers of the army and the educated classes in the towns. The overthrow of the Constitution was from the first condemned by soldiers who had won distinction under the government of the Cortes; and a series of military rebellion, though isolated and on the smallest scale, showed that the course on which Ferdinand had entered was not altogether free from danger. The attempts of General Mina in 1814, and of Porlier and Lacy in succeeding years, to raise the soldiery on behalf of the Constitution, failed, through the indifference of the soldiery themselves, and the power which the priesthood exercised in garrison-towns. Discontent made its way in the army by slow degrees; and the ultimate declaration of a military party against the existing Government was due at least as much to Ferdinand's absurd system of favouritism, and to the wretched condition into which the army had been thrown, as to an attachment to the memory or the principles of constitutional rule. Misgovernment made the treasury bankrupt; soldiers and sailors received no pay for years together; and the hatred with which the Spanish people had now come to regard military service is curiously shown by an order of the Government that all the beggars in Madrid and other great towns should be seized on a certain night (July 23, 1816), and enrolled in the army. [307] But the very beggars were more than a match for Ferdinand's administration. They heard of the fate in store for them, and mysteriously disappeared, so frustrating a measure by which it had been calculated that Spain would gain sixty thousand warriors.

[Struggle of Spain with its colonies, 1810-1820.]

The military revolution which at length broke out in the year 1820 was closely connected with the struggle for independence now being made by the American colonies of Spain; and in its turn it affected the course of this struggle and its final result. The colonies had refused to accept the rule either of Joseph Bonaparte or of the Cortes of Cadiz when their legitimate sovereign was dispossessed by Napoleon. While acting for the most part in Ferdinand's name, they had engaged in a struggle with the National Government of Spain. They had tasted independence; and although after the restoration of Ferdinand they would probably have recognised the rights of the Spanish Crown if certain concessions had been made, they were not disposed to return to the condition of inferiority in which they had been held during the last century, or to submit to rulers who proved themselves as cruel and vindictive in moments of victory as they were incapable of understanding the needs of the time. The struggle accordingly continued. Regiment after regiment was sent from Spain, to perish of fever, of forced marches, or on the field. The Government of King Ferdinand, despairing of its own resources, looked around for help among the European Powers. England would have lent its mediation, and possibly even armed assistance, if the Court of Madrid would have granted a reasonable amount of freedom to the colonies, and have opened their ports to British commerce. This, however, was not in accordance with the views of Ferdinand's advisers. Strange as it may appear, the Spanish Government demanded that the alliance of Sovereigns, which had been framed for the purpose of resisting the principle of rebellion and disorder in Europe, should intervene against its revolted subjects on the other side of the Atlantic, and it implied that England, if acting at all, should act as the instrument of the Alliance. [308] Encouragement was given to the design by the Courts of Paris and St. Petersburg. Whether a continent claimed its independence, or a German schoolboy wore a forbidden ribbon in his cap, the chiefs of the Holy Alliance now assumed the frown of offended Providence, and prepared to interpose their own superior power and wisdom to save a misguided world from the consequences of its own folly. Alexander had indeed for a time hoped that the means of subduing the colonies might be supplied by himself; and in his zeal to supplant England in the good graces of Ferdinand he sold the King a fleet of war on very moderate terms. To the scandal of Europe the ships, when they reached Cadiz, turned out to be thoroughly rotten and unseaworthy. As it was certain that the Czar's fleet and the Spanish soldiers, however holy their mission, would all go to the bottom together as soon as they encountered the waves of the Atlantic, the expedition was postponed, and the affairs of America were brought before the Conference of Aix-la-Chapelle. The Envoys of Russia and France submitted a paper, in which, anticipating the storm-warnings of more recent times, they described the dangers to which monarchical Europe would be exposed from the growth of a federation of republics in America; and they suggested that Wellington, as "the man of Europe," should go to Madrid, to preside over a negotiation between the Court of Spain and all the ambassadors with reference to the terms to be offered to the Transatlantic States. [309] England, however, in spite of Lord Castlereagh's dread of revolutionary contagion, adhered to the principles which it had already laid down; and as the counsellors of King Ferdinand declined to change their policy, Spain was left to subdue its colonies by itself.

[Conspiracy in the Army of Cadiz.]

It was in the army assembled at Cadiz for embarkation in the summer of 1819 that the conspiracy against Ferdinand's Government found its leaders. Secret societies had now spread themselves over the principal Spanish towns, and looked to the soldiery on the coast for the signal of revolt. Abisbal, commander at Cadiz, intending to make himself safe against all contingencies, encouraged for awhile the plots of the discontented officers: then, foreseeing the failure of the movement, he arrested the principal men by a stratagem, and went off to Madrid, to reveal the conspiracy to the Court and to take credit for saving the King's crown (July, 1819). [310] If the army could have been immediately despatched to America, the danger would possibly have passed away. This, however, was prevented by an outbreak of yellow fever, which made it necessary to send the troops into cantonments for several months. The conspirators gained time to renew their plans. The common soldiers, who had hitherto been faithful to the Government, heard in their own squalor and inaction the fearful stories of the few sick and wounded who returned from beyond the seas, and learnt to regard the order of embarkation as a sentence of death. Several battalions were won over to the cause of constitutional liberty by their commanders. The leaders imprisoned a few months before were again in communication with their followers. After the treachery of Abisbal, it was agreed to carry out the revolt without the assistance of generals or grandees. The leaders chosen were two colonels, Quiroga and Riego, of whom the former was in nominal confinement in a monastery near Medina Sidonia, twenty miles east of Cadiz, while Riego was stationed at Cabezas, a few marches distant on the great road to Seville. The first day of the year 1820 was fixed for the insurrection. It was determined that Riego should descend upon the head-quarters, which were at Arcos, and arrest the generals before they could hear anything of the movement, while Quiroga, moving from the east, gathered up the battalions stationed on the road, and threw himself into Cadiz, there to await his colleague's approach.

[Action of Quiroga and Riego, Jan.,1820.]

The first step in the enterprise proved successful. Riego, proclaiming the Constitution of 1812, surprised the headquarters, seized the generals, and rallied several companies to his standard. Quiroga, however, though he gained possession of San Fernando, at the eastern end of the peninsula of Leon, on which Cadiz is situated, failed to make his entrance into Cadiz. The commandant, hearing of the capture of the head-quarters, had closed the city gates, and arrested the principal inhabitants whom he suspected of being concerned in the plot. The troops within the town showed no sign of mutiny. Riego, when he arrived at the peninsula of Leon, found that only five thousand men in all had joined the good cause, while Cadiz, with a considerable garrison and fortifications of great strength, stood hostile before him. He accordingly set off with a small force to visit and win over the other regiments which were lying in the neighbouring towns and villages. The commanders, however, while not venturing to attack the mutineers, drew off their troops to a distance, and prevented them from entering into any communication with Riego. The adventurous soldier, leaving Quiroga in the peninsula of Leon, then marched into the interior of Andalusia (January 27), endeavouring to raise the inhabitants of the towns. But the small numbers of his band, and the knowledge that Cadiz and the greater part of the army still held by the Government, prevented the inhabitants from joining the insurrection, even where they received Riego with kindness and supplied the wants of his soldiers. During week after week the little column traversed the country, now cut off from retreat, exhausted by forced marches in drenching rain, and harassed by far stronger forces sent in pursuit. The last town that Riego entered was Cordova. The enemy was close behind him. No halt was possible. He led his band, now numbering only two hundred men, into the mountains, and there bade them disperse (March 11).

[Corunna proclaims the Constitution Feb. 20.]

[Abisbal's defection March 4.]

With Quiroga lying inactive in the peninsula of Leon and Riego hunted from village to village, it seemed as if the insurrection which they had begun could only end in the ruin of its leaders. But the movement had in fact effected its object. While the courtiers around King Ferdinand, unwarned by the news from Cadiz, continued their intrigues against one another, the rumour of rebellion spread over the country. If no great success had been achieved by the rebels, it was also certain that no great blow had been struck by the Government. The example of bold action had been set; the shock given at one end of the peninsula was felt at the other; and a fortnight before Riego's band dispersed, the garrison and the citizens of Corunna together declared for the Constitution (February 20). From Corunna the revolutionary movement spread to Ferrol and to all the other coast-towns of Galicia. The news reached Madrid, terrifying the Government, and exciting the spirit of insurrection in the capital itself. The King summoned a council of the leading men around him. The wisest of them advised him to publish a moderate Constitution, and, by convoking a Parliament immediately, to stay the movement, which would otherwise result in the restoration of the Assembly and the Constitution of 1812. They also urged the King to abolish the Inquisition forthwith. Ferdinand's brother, Don Carlos, the head of the clerical party, succeeded in preventing both measures. Though the generals in all quarters of Spain wrote that they could not answer for the troops, there were still hopes of keeping down the country by force of arms. Abisbal, who was at Madrid, was ordered to move with reinforcements towards the army in the south. He set out, protesting to the King that he knew the way to deal with rebels. When he reached Ocana he proclaimed the Constitution himself (March 4).

[Ferdinand accepts the Constitution 1812, March 9.]

It was now clear that the cause of absolute monarchy was lost. The ferment in Madrid increased. On the night of the 6th of March all the great bodies of State assembled for council in the King's palace, and early on the 7th Ferdinand published a proclamation, stating that he had determined to summon the Cortes immediately. This declaration satisfied no one, for the Cortes designed by the King might be the mere revival of a mediaeval form, and the history of 1814 showed how little value was to be attached to Ferdinand's promises. Crowds gathered in the great squares of Madrid, crying for the Constitution of 1812. The statement of the Minister of War that the Guard was on the point of joining the people now overcame even the resistance of Don Carlos and the confessors; and after a day wasted in dispute, Ferdinand announced to his people that he was ready to take the oath to the Constitution which they desired. The next day was given up to public rejoicings; the book of the Constitution was carried in procession through the city with the honours paid to the Holy Sacrament, and all political prisoners were set at liberty. The prison of the Inquisition was sacked, the instruments of torture broken in pieces. On the 9th the leaders of the agitation took steps to make the King fulfil his promise. A mob invaded the court and threshold of the palace. At their demand the municipal council of 1814 was restored; its members were sent, in company with six deputies chosen by the populace, to receive the pledges of the King. Ferdinand, all smiles and bows, while he looked forward to the day when force or intrigue should make him again absolute master of Spain, and enable him to take vengeance upon the men who were humiliating, him, took the oath of fidelity to the Constitution of 1812. [311] New Ministers were immediately called to office, and a provisional Junta was placed by their side as the representative of the public until the new Cortes should be duly elected.

[Condition of Naples, 1815-1820.]

Tidings of the Spanish revolution passed rapidly over Europe, disquieting the courts and everywhere reviving the hopes of the friends of popular right. Before four months had passed, the constitutional movement begun in Cadiz was taken up in Southern Italy. The kingdom of Naples was one of those States which had profited the most by French conquest. During the nine years that its crown was held by Joseph Bonaparte and Murat, the laws and institutions which accompanied Napoleon's supremacy had rudely broken up the ancient fixity of confusions which passed for government, and had aroused no insignificant forces of new social life. The feudal tenure of land, and with it something of the feudal structure of society, had passed away: the monasteries had been dissolved; the French civil code, and a criminal code based upon that of France, had taken the place of a thousand conflicting customs and jurisdictions; taxation had been made, if not light, yet equitable and simple; justice was regular, and the same for baron and peasant; brigandage had been extinguished; and, for the first time in many centuries, the presence of a rational and uniform administration was felt over all the south of Italy. Nor on the restoration of King Ferdinand had any reaction been permitted to take place like that which in a moment destroyed the work of reform in Spain and in Westphalia. England and Austria insisted that there should be neither vengeance nor counterrevolution. Queen Marie Caroline, the principal agent in the cruelties of 1799, was dead; Ferdinand himself was old and indolent, and willing to leave affairs in the hands of Ministers more intelligent than himself. Hence the laws and the administrative system of Murat remained on the whole unchanged. [312] As in France, a Bourbon Sovereign placed himself at the head of a political order fashioned by Napoleon and the Revolution. Where changes in the law were made, or acts of State revoked, it was for the most part in consequence of an understanding with the Holy See. Thus, while no attempt was made to eject the purchasers of Church-lands, the lands not actually sold were given back to the Church; a considerable number of monasteries were restored; education was allowed to fall again into the hands of the clergy; the Jesuits were recalled, and the Church regained its jurisdiction in marriage-causes, as well as the right of suppressing writings at variance with the Catholic faith.

[Hostility between the Court party and the Muratists.]

But the legal and recognised changes which followed Ferdinand's return by no means expressed the whole change in the operation of government. If there were not two conflicting systems at work, there were two conflicting bodies of partisans in the State. Like the emigrants who returned with Louis XVIII., a multitude of Neapolitans, high and low, who had either accompanied the King in his exile to Sicily or fought for him on the mainland in 1799 and 1806, now expected their reward. In their interest the efficiency of the public service was sacrificed and the course of justice perverted. Men who had committed notorious crimes escaped punishment if they had been numbered among the King's friends; the generals and officials who had served under Murat, though not removed from their posts, were treated with discourtesy and suspicion. It was in the army most of all that the antagonism of the two parties was felt. A medal was struck for service in Sicily, and every year spent there in inaction was reckoned as two in computing seniority. Thus the younger officers of Murat found their way blocked by a troop of idlers, and at the same time their prospects suffered from the honest attempts made by Ministers to reduce the military expenditure. Discontent existed in every rank. The generals were familiar with the idea of political change, for during the last years of Murat's reign they had themselves thought of compelling him to grant a Constitution: the younger officers and the sergeants were in great part members of the secret society of the Carbonari, which in the course of the last few years had grown with the weakness of the Government, and had now become the principal power in the Neapolitan kingdom.

[The Carbonari.]

The origin of this society, which derived its name and its symbolism from the trade of the charcoal-burner, as Freemasonry from that of the builder, is uncertain. Whether its first aim was resistance to Bourbon tyranny after 1799, or the expulsion of the French and Austrians from Italy, in the year 1814 it was actively working for constitutional government in opposition to Murat, and receiving encouragement from Sicily, where Ferdinand was then playing the part of constitutional King. The maintenance of absolute government by the restored Bourbon Court severed the bond which for a time existed between legitimate monarchy and conspiracy; and the lodges of the Carbonari, now extending themselves over the country with great rapidity, became so many centres of agitation against despotic rule. By the year 1819 it was reckoned that one person out of every twenty-five in the kingdom of Naples had joined the society. Its members were drawn from all classes, most numerously perhaps from the middle class in the towns; but even priests had been initiated, and there was no branch of the public service that had not Carbonari in its ranks. The Government, apprehending danger from the extension of the sect, tried to counteract it by founding a rival society of Calderari, or Braziers, in which every miscreant who before 1815 had murdered and robbed in the name of King Ferdinand and the Catholic faith received a welcome. But though the number of such persons was not small, the growth of this fraternity remained far behind that of its model; and the chief result of the competition was that intrigue and mystery gained a greater charm than ever for the Italians, and that all confidence in Government perished, under the sense that there was a hidden power in the land which was only awaiting the due moment to put forth its strength in revolutionary action.

[Morelli's movement, July 2, 1820.]

After the proclamation of the Spanish Constitution, an outbreak in the kingdom of Naples had become inevitable. The Carbonari of Salerno, where the sect had its headquarters, had intended to rise at the beginning of June; their action, however, was postponed for some months, and it was anticipated by the daring movement of a few sergeants belonging to a cavalry regiment stationed at Nola, and of a lieutenant, named Morelli, whom they had persuaded to place himself at their head. Leading out a squadron of a hundred and fifty men in the direction of Avellino on the morning of July 2nd, Morelli proclaimed the Constitution. One of the soldiers alone left the band; force or persuasion kept others to the Standard, though they disapproved of the enterprise. The inhabitants of the populous places that lie between Nola and Avellino welcomed the squadron, or at least offered it no opposition: the officer commanding at Avellino came himself to meet Morelli, and promised him assistance. The band encamped that night in a village; on the next day they entered Avellino, where the troops and townspeople, headed by the bishop and officers, declared in their favour. From Avellino the news of the movement spread quickly over the surrounding country. The Carbonari were everywhere prepared for revolt; and before the Government had taken a single step in its own defence, the Constitution had been joyfully and peacefully accepted, not only by the people but by the militia and the regular troops, throughout the greater part of the district that lies to the east of Naples.

[Affairs at Naples, July 2-7.]

The King was on board ship in the bay, when, in the afternoon of July 2nd, intelligence came of Morelli's revolt at Nola. Nothing was done by the Ministry on that day, although Morelli and his band might have been captured in a few hours if any resolute officer, with a few trustworthy troops, had been sent against them. On the next morning, when the garrison of Avellino had already joined the mutineers, and taken up a strong position commanding the road from Naples, General Carrascosa was sent, not to reduce the insurgents—for no troops were given to him—but to pardon, to bribe, and to coax them into submission. [313] Carrascosa failed to effect any good; other generals, who, during the following days, attempted to attack the mutineers, found that their troops would not follow them, and that the feeling of opposition to the Government, though it nowhere broke into lawlessness, was universal in the army as well as the nation. If the people generally understood little of politics, they had learnt enough to dislike arbitrary taxation and the power of arbitrary arrest. Not a single hand or voice was anywhere raised in defence of absolutism. Escaping from Naples, where he was watched by the Government, General Pepe, who was at once the chief man among the Carbonari and military commandant of the province in which Avellino lies, went to place himself at the head of the revolution. Naples itself had hitherto remained quiet, but on the night of July 6th a deputation from the Carbonari informed the King that they could no longer preserve tranquillity in the city unless a Constitution was granted. The King, without waiting for morning, published an edict declaring that a Constitution should be drawn up within eight days; immediately afterwards he appointed a new Ministry, and, feigning illness, committed the exercise of royal authority to his son, the Duke of Calabria.

[Ferdinand takes the Oath to the Spanish Constitution, July 13.]

Ferdinand's action was taken by the people as a stratagem. He had employed the device of a temporary abdication some years before in cajoling the Sicilians; and the delay of eight days seemed unnecessary to ardent souls who knew that a Spanish Constitution was in existence and did not know of its defects in practice. There was also on the side of the Carbonari the telling argument that Ferdinand, as a possible successor to his nephew, the childless King of Spain, actually had signed the Spanish Constitution in order to preserve his own contingent rights to that crown. What Ferdinand had accepted as Infante of Spain he might well accept as King of Naples. The cry was therefore for the immediate proclamation of the Spanish Constitution of 1812. The court yielded, and the Duke of Calabria, as viceroy, published an edict making this Constitution the law of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. But the tumult continued, for deceit was still feared, until the edict appeared again, signed by the King himself. Then all was rejoicing. Pepe, at the head of a large body of troops, militia and Carbonari, made a triumphal entry into the city, and, in company with Morelli and other leaders of the military rebellion, was hypocritically thanked by the Viceroy for his services to the nation. On the 13th of July the King, a hale but venerable-looking man of seventy, took the oath to the Constitution before the altar in the royal chapel. The form of words had been written out for him; but Ferdinand was fond of theatrical acts of religion, and did not content himself with reading certain solemn phrases. Raising his eyes to the crucifix above the altar, he uttered aloud a prayer that if the oath was not sincerely taken the vengeance of God might fall upon his head. Then, after blessing and embracing his sons, the venerable monarch wrote to the Emperor of Austria, protesting that all that he did was done under constraint, and that his obligations were null and void. [314]

[Affairs in Portugal, 1807-1820.]

A month more passed, and in a third kingdom absolute government fell before the combined action of soldiers and people. The Court of Lisbon had migrated to Brazil in 1807, when the troops of Napoleon first appeared upon the Tagus, and Portugal had since then been governed by a Regency, acting in the name of the absent Sovereign. The events of the Peninsular War had reduced Portugal almost to the condition of a dependency of Great Britain. Marshal Beresford, the English commander-in-chief of its army, kept his post when the war was over, and with him there remained a great number of English officers who had led the Portuguese regiments in Wellington's campaigns. The presence of these English soldiers was unwelcome, and commercial rivalry embittered the natural feeling of impatience towards an ally who remained as master rather than guest. Up to the year 1807 the entire trade with Brazil had been confined by law to Portuguese merchants; when, however, the Court had established itself beyond the Atlantic, it had opened the ports of Brazil to British ships, in return for the assistance given by our own country against Napoleon. Both England and Brazil profited by the new commerce, but the Portuguese traders, who had of old had the monopoly, were ruined. The change in the seat of government was in fact seen to be nothing less than a reversal of the old relations between the European country and its colony. Hitherto Brazil had been governed in the interests of Portugal; but with a Sovereign fixed at Rio Janeiro, it was almost inevitable that Portugal should be governed in the interests of Brazil. Declining trade, the misery and impoverishment resulting from a long war, resentment against a Court which could not be induced to return to the kingdom and against a foreigner who could not be induced to quit it, filled the army and all classes in the nation with discontent. Conspiracies were discovered as early as 1817, and the conspirators punished with all the barbarous ferocity of the Middle Ages. Beresford, who had not sufficient tact to prevent the execution of a sentence ordering twelve persons to be strangled, beheaded, and then burnt in the streets of Lisbon, found, during the two succeeding years, that the state of the country was becoming worse and worse. In the spring of 1820, when the Spanish revolution had made some change in the neighbouring kingdom, either for good or evil, inevitable, Beresford set out for Rio Janeiro, intending to acquaint the King with the real condition of affairs, and to use his personal efforts in hastening the return of the Court to Lisbon. Before he could recross the Atlantic, the Government which he left behind him at Lisbon had fallen.

[Revolution at Oporto, August 1820.]

The grievances of the Portuguese army made it the natural centre of disaffection, but the military conspirators had their friends among all classes. On the 24th of August, 1820, the signal of revolt was given at Oporto. Priests and magistrates, as well as the town-population, united with officers of the army in declaring against the Regency, and in establishing a provisional Junta, charged with the duty of carrying on the government in the name of the King until the Cortes should assemble and frame a Constitution. No resistance was offered by any of the civil or military authorities at Oporto. The Junta entered upon its functions, and began by dismissing all English officers, and making up the arrears of pay due to the soldiers. As soon as the news of the revolt reached Lisbon, the Regency itself volunteered to summon the Cortes, and attempted to conciliate the remainder of the army by imitating the measures of the Junta of Oporto. [315] The troops, however, declined to act against their comrades, and on the 15th of September the Regency was deposed, and a provisional Junta installed in the capital. Beresford, who now returned from Brazil, was forbidden to set foot on Portuguese soil. The two rival governing-committees of Lisbon and Oporto coalesced; and after an interval of confusion the elections to the Cortes were held, resulting in the return of a body of men whose loyalty to the Crown was not impaired by their hostility to the Regency. The King, when the first tidings of the constitutional movement reached Brazil, gave a qualified consent to the summoning of the Cortes which was announced by the Regency, and promised to return to Europe. Beresford, continuing his voyage to England without landing at Lisbon, found that the Government of this country had no disposition to interfere with the domestic affairs of its ally.

[Alexander proposes joint action with regard to Spain, April, 1820.]

It was the boast of the Spanish and Italian Liberals that the revolutions effected in 1820 were undisgraced by the scenes of outrage which had followed the capture of the Bastille and the overthrow of French absolutism thirty years before. [316] The gentler character of these southern movements proved, however, no extenuation in the eyes of the leading statesmen of Europe: on the contrary, the declaration of soldiers in favour of a Constitution seemed in some quarters more ominous of evil than any excess of popular violence. The alarm was first sounded at St. Petersburg. As soon as the Czar heard of Riego's proceedings at Cadiz, he began to meditate intervention; and when it was known that Ferdinand had been forced to accept the Constitution of 1812, he ordered his ambassadors to propose that all the Great Powers, acting through their Ministers at Paris, should address a remonstrance to the representative of Spain, requiring the Cortes to disavow the crime of the 8th of March, by which they had been called into being, and to offer a pledge of obedience to their King by enacting the most rigorous laws against sedition and revolt. [317] In that case, and in that alone, the Czar desired to add, would the Powers maintain their relations of confidence and amity with Spain.

[England prevents joint diplomatic intervention.]

This Russian proposal was viewed with some suspicion at Vienna; it was answered with a direct and energetic negative from London. Canning was still in the Ministry. The words with which in 1818 he had protested against a league between England and autocracy were still ringing in the ears of his colleagues. Lord Liverpool's Government knew itself to be unpopular in the country; every consideration of policy as well as of self-interest bade it resist the beginnings of an intervention which, if confined to words, was certain to be useless, and, if supported by action, was likely to end in that alliance between France and Russia which had been the nightmare of English statesmen ever since 1814, and in a second occupation of Spain by the very generals whom Wellington had spent so many years in dislodging. Castlereagh replied to the Czar's note in terms which made it clear that England would never give its sanction to a collective interference with Spain. [318] Richelieu, the nominal head of the French Government, felt too little confidence in his position to act without the concurrence of Great Britain; and the crusade of absolutism against Spanish liberty was in consequence postponed until the victory of the Ultra-Royalists at Paris was complete, and the overthrow of Richelieu had brought to the head of the French State a group of men who felt no scruple in entering upon an aggressive war.

[Naples and the Great Powers.]

[Austria.]

[England admits Austrian but not joint intervention.]

But the shelter of circumstances which for a while protected Spain from the foreigner did not extend to Italy, when in its turn the Neapolitan revolution called a northern enemy into the field. Though the kingdom of the Two Sicilies was in itself much less important than Spain, the established order of the Continent was more directly threatened by a change in its government. No European State was exposed to the same danger from a revolution in Madrid as Austria from a revolution in Naples. The Czar had invoked the action of the Courts against Spain, not because his own dominions were in peril, but because the principle of monarchical right was violated: with Austria the danger pressed nearer home. The establishment of constitutional liberty in Naples was almost certain to be followed by an insurrection in the Papal States and a national uprising in the Venetian provinces; and among all the bad results of Austria's false position in Italy, one of the worst was that in self-defence it was bound to resist every step made towards political liberty beyond its own frontier. The dismay with which Metternich heard of the collapse of absolute government at Naples [319] was understood and even shared by the English Ministry, who at this moment were deprived of their best guide by Canning's withdrawal. Austria, in peace just as much as in war, had uniformly been held to be the natural ally of England against the two aggressive Courts of Paris and St. Petersburg. It seemed perfectly right and natural to Lord Castlereagh that Austria, when its own interests were endangered by the establishment of popular sovereignty at Naples, should intervene to restore King Ferdinand's power; the more so as the secret treaty of 1815, by which Metternich had bound this sovereign to maintain absolute monarchy, had been communicated to the ambassador of Great Britain, and had received his approval. But the right to intervene in Italy belonged, according to Lord Castlereagh, to Austria alone. The Sovereigns of Europe had no more claim, as a body, to interfere with Naples than they had to interfere with Spain. Therefore, while the English Government sanctioned and even desired the intervention of Austria, as a State acting in protection of its own interests against revolution in a neighbouring country, it refused to sanction any joint intervention of the European Powers, and declared itself opposed to the meeting of a Congress where any such intervention might be discussed. [320]

[Conference at Troppau, Oct. 1820.]

Had Metternich been free to follow his own impulses, he would have thrown an army into Southern Italy as soon as soldiers and stores could be collected, and have made an end of King Ferdinand's troubles forthwith. It was, however, impossible for him to disregard the wishes of the Czar, and to abandon all at once the system of corporate action, which was supposed to have done such great things for Europe. [321] A meeting of sovereigns and Ministers was accordingly arranged, and at the end of October the Emperor of Austria received the Czar and King Frederick William in the little town of Troppau, in Moravia. France had itself first recommended the summoning of a Congress to deal with Neapolitan affairs, and it was believed for a while that England would be isolated in its resistance to a joint intervention. But before the Congress assembled, the firm language of the English Ministry had drawn Richelieu over to its side; [322] and although one of the two French envoys made himself the agent of the Ultra-Royalist faction, it was not possible for him to unite his country with the three Eastern Courts. France, through the weakness of its Government and the dissension between its representatives, counted for nothing at the Congress. England sent its ambassador from Vienna, but with instructions to act as an observer and little more; and in consequence the meeting at Troppau resolved itself into a gathering of the three Eastern autocrats and their Ministers. As Prussia had ceased to have any independent foreign policy whatever, Metternich needed only to make certain of the support of the Czar in order to range on his side the entire force of eastern and central Europe in the restoration of Neapolitan despotism.

[Contest between Metternich and Capodistrias.]

[Circular of Troppau, Dec. 8, 1820.]

[The principle of intervention laid down by three Courts.]

The plan of the Austrian statesman was not, however, to be realised without some effort. Alexander had watched with jealousy Metternich's recent assumption of a dictatorship over the minor German Courts; he had never admitted Austria's right to dominate in Italy; and even now some vestiges of his old attachment to liberal theories made him look for a better solution of the Neapolitan problem than in that restoration of despotism pure and simple which Austria desired. While condemning every attempt of a people to establish its own liberties, Alexander still believed that in some countries sovereigns would do well to make their subjects a grant of what he called sage and liberal institutions. It would have pleased him best if the Neapolitans could have been induced by peaceful means to abandon their Constitution, and to accept in return certain chartered rights as a gift from their King; and the concurrence of the two Western Powers might in this case possibly have been regained. This project of a compromise, by which Ferdinand would have been freed from his secret engagement with Austria, was exactly what Metternich desired to frustrate. He found himself matched, and not for the first time, against a statesman who was even more subtle than himself. This was Count Capodistrias, a Greek who from a private position had risen to be Foreign Minister of Russia, and was destined to become the first sovereign, in reality if not in title, of his native land. Capodistrias, the sympathetic partner of the Czar's earlier hopes, had not travelled so fast as his master along the reactionary road. He still represented what had been the Italian policy of Alexander some years before, and sought to prevent the re-establishment of absolute rule at Naples, at least by the armed intervention of Austria. Metternich's first object was to discredit the Minister in the eyes of his sovereign. It is said that he touched the Czar's keenest fears in a conversation relating to a mutiny that had just taken place among the troops at St. Petersburg, and so in one private interview cut the ground from under Capodistrias' feet; he also humoured the Czar by reviving that monarch's own favourite scheme for a mutual guarantee of all the Powers against revolution in any part of Europe. Alexander had proposed in 1818 that the Courts should declare resistance to authority in any country to be a violation of European peace, entitling the Allied Powers, if they should think fit, to suppress it by force of arms. This doctrine, which would have empowered the Czar to throw the armies of a coalition upon London if the Reform Bill had been carried by force, had hitherto failed to gain international acceptance owing to the opposition of Great Britain. It was now formally accepted by Austria and Prussia. Alexander saw the federative system of European monarchy, with its principle of collective intervention, recognised as an established fact by at least three of the great Powers; [323] and in return he permitted Metternich to lay down the lines which, in the case of Naples, this intervention should follow. It was determined to invite King Ferdinand to meet his brother-sovereigns at Laibach, in the Austrian province of Carniola, and through him to address a summons to the Neapolitan people, requiring them, in the name of the three Powers, and under threat of invasion, to abandon their Constitution. This determination was announced, as a settled matter, to the envoys of England and France; and a circular was issued from Troppau by the three Powers to all the Courts of Europe (Dec. 8), embodying the doctrine of federative intervention, and expressing a hope that England and France would approve its immediate application in the case of Naples. [324]

[Protest of England.]

There was no ground whatever for this hope with regard to England. On the contrary, in proportion as the three Courts strengthened their union and insisted on their claim to joint jurisdiction over Europe, they drove England away from them. Lord Castlereagh had at first promised the moral support of this country to Austria in its enterprise against Naples; but when this enterprise ceased to be the affair of Austria alone, and became part of the police-system of the three despotisms, it was no longer possible for the English Government to view it with approval or even with silence. The promise of a moral support was withdrawn: England declared that it stood strictly neutral with regard to Naples, and protested against the doctrine contained in the Troppau circular, that a change of government in any State gave the Allied Powers the right to intervene. [325]

France made no such protest; but it was still hoped at Paris that an Austrian invasion of Southern Italy, so irritating to French pride, might be averted. King Louis XVIII. endeavoured, but in vain, to act the part of mediator, and to reconcile the Neapolitan House of Bourbon at once with its own subjects and with the Northern Powers.

[Conference at Laibach, Jan., 1821.]

The summons went out from the Congress to King Ferdinand to appear at Laibach. It found him enjoying all the popularity of a constitutional King, surrounded by Ministers who had governed under Murat, exchanging compliments with a democratic Parliament, lavishing distinctions upon the men who had overthrown his authority, and swearing to everything that was set before him. As the Constitution prohibited the King from leaving the country without the consent of the Legislature, it was necessary for Ferdinand to communicate to Parliament the invitation which he had received from the Powers, and to take a vote of the Assembly on the subject of his journey. Ferdinand's Ministers possessed some political experience; they recognised that it would be impossible to maintain the existing Constitution against the hostility of three great States, and hoped that the Parliament would consent to Ferdinand's departure on condition that he pledged himself to uphold certain specified principles of free government. A message to the Assembly was accordingly made public, in which the King expressed his desire to mediate with the Powers on this basis. But the Ministers had not reckoned with the passions of the people. As soon as it became known that Ferdinand was about to set out, the leaders of the Carbonari mustered their bands. A host of violent men streamed into Naples from the surrounding country. The Parliament was intimidated, and Ferdinand was prohibited from leaving Naples until he had sworn to maintain the Constitution actually in force, that, namely, which Naples had borrowed from Spain. Ferdinand, whose only object was to escape from the country as quickly as possible, took the oath with his usual effusions of patriotism. He then set out for Leghorn, intending to cross from thence into Northern Italy. No sooner had he reached the Tuscan port than he addressed a letter to each of the five principal sovereigns of Europe, declaring that his last acts were just as much null and void as all his earlier ones. He made no attempt to justify, or to excuse, or even to explain his conduct; nor is there the least reason to suppose that he considered the perjuries of a prince to require a justification. "These sorry protests," wrote the secretary of the Congress of Troppau, "will happily remain secret. No Cabinet will be anxious to draw them from the sepulchre of its archives. Till then there is not much harm done."

[Ferdinand at Laibach.]

[Demands of the Allies on Naples.]

Ferdinand reached Laibach, where the Czar rewarded him for the fatigues of his journey by a present of some Russian bears. His arrival was peculiarly agreeable to Metternich, whose intentions corresponded exactly with his own; and the fact that he had been compelled to swear to maintain the Spanish Constitution at Naples acted favourably for the Austrian Minister, inasmuch as it enabled him to say to all the world that negotiation was now out of the question. [326] Capodistrias, brought face to face with failure, twisted about, according to his rival's expression, like a devil in holy water, but all in vain. It was decided that Ferdinand should be restored as absolute monarch by an Austrian army, and that, whether the Neapolitans resisted or submitted, their country should be occupied by Austrian troops for some years to come. The only difficulty remaining was to vest King Ferdinand's conduct in some respectable disguise. Capodistrias, when nothing else was to be gained, offered to invent an entire correspondence, in which Ferdinand should proudly uphold the Constitution to which he had sworn, and protest against the determination of the Powers to force the sceptre of absolutism back into his hand. [327] This device, however, was thought too transparent. A letter was sent in the King's name to his son, the Duke of Calabria, stating that he had found the three Powers determined not to tolerate an order of things sprung from revolution; that submission alone would avert war; but that even in case of submission certain securities for order, meaning the occupation of the country by an Austrian army, would be exacted. The letter concluded with the usual promises of reform and good government. It reached Naples on the 9th of February, 1821. No answer was either expected or desired. On the 6th the order had been given to the Austrian army to cross the Po.

[State of Naples and Sicily.]

[The Austrians enter Naples, March 24, 1821.]

[Third Neapolitan restoration.]

There was little reason to fear any serious resistance on the part of the Neapolitans. The administration of the State was thoroughly disorganised; the agitation of the secret societies had destroyed all spirit of obedience among the soldiers; a great part of the army was absent in Sicily, keeping guard over a people who, under wiser management, might have doubled the force which Naples now opposed to the invader. When the despotic government of Ferdinand was overthrown, the island of Sicily, or that part of it which was represented by Palermo, had claimed the separate political existence which it had possessed between 1806 and 1815, offering to remain united to Naples in the person of the sovereign, but demanding a National Parliament and a National Constitution of its own. The revolutionary Ministers of Naples had, however, no more sympathy with the wishes of the Sicilians than the Spanish Liberals of 1812 had with those of the American Colonists. They required the islanders to accept the same rights and duties as any other province of the Neapolitan kingdom, and, on their refusal, sent over a considerable force and laid siege to Palermo. [328] The contest soon ended in the submission of the Sicilians, but it was found necessary to keep twelve thousand troops on the island in order to prevent a new revolt. The whole regular army of Naples numbered little more than forty thousand; and although bodies of Carbonari and of the so-called Militia set out to join the colours of General Pepe and to fight for liberty, they remained for the most part a disorderly mob, without either arms or discipline. The invading army of Austria, fifty thousand strong, not only possessed an immense superiority in organisation and military spirit, but actually outnumbered the forces of the defence. At the first encounter, which took place at Rieti, in the Papal States, the Neapolitans were put to the rout. Their army melted away, as it had in Murat's campaign in 1815. Nothing was heard among officers and men but accusations of treachery; not a single strong point was defended; and on the 24th of March the Austrians made their entry into Naples. Ferdinand, halting at Florence, sent on before him the worst instruments of his former despotism. It was indeed impossible for these men to renew, under Austrian protection, the scenes of reckless bloodshed which had followed the restoration of 1799; and a great number of compromised persons had already been provided with the means of escape. But the hand of vengeance was not easily stayed. Courts-martial and commissions of judges began in all parts of the kingdom to sentence to imprisonment and death. An attempted insurrection in Sicily and some desperate acts of rebellion in Southern Italy cost the principal actors their lives; and when an amnesty was at length proclaimed, an exception was made against those who were now called the deserters, and who were lately called the Sacred Band, of Nola, that is to say, the soldiers who had first risen for the Constitution. Morelli, who had received the Viceroy's treacherous thanks for his conduct, was executed, along with one of his companions; the rest were sent in chains to labour among felons. Hundreds of persons were left lying, condemned or uncondemned, in prison; others, in spite of the amnesty, were driven from their native land; and that great, long-lasting stream of fugitives now began to pour into England, which, in the early memories of many who are not yet old, has associated the name of Italian with the image of an exile and a sufferer.

[Insurrection in Piedmont, March 10.]

There was a moment in the campaign of Austria against Naples when the invading army was threatened with the most serious danger. An insurrection broke out in Piedmont, and the troops of that country attempted to unite with the patriotic party of Lombardy in a movement which would have thrown all Northern Italy upon the rear of the Austrians. In the first excess of alarm, the Czar ordered a hundred thousand Russians to cross the Galician frontier, and to march in the direction of the Adriatic. It proved unnecessary, however, to continue this advance. The Piedmontese army was divided against itself; part proclaimed the Spanish Constitution, and, on the abdication of the King, called upon his cousin, the Regent, Charles Albert of Carignano, to march against the Austrians; part adhered to the rightful heir, the King's brother, Charles Felix, who was absent at Modena, and who, with an honesty in strong contrast to the frauds of the Neapolitan Court, refused to temporise with rebels, or to make any compromise with the Constitution. The scruples of the Prince of Carignano, after he had gone some way with the military party of action, paralysed the movement of Northern Italy. Unsupported by Piedmontese troops, the conspirators of Milan failed to raise any open insurrection. Austrian soldiers thronged westwards from the Venetian fortresses, and entered Piedmont itself; the collapse of the Neapolitan army destroyed the hopes of the bravest patriots; and the only result of the Piedmontese movement was that the grasp of Austria closed more tightly on its subject provinces, while the martyrs of Italian freedom passed out of the sight of the world, out of the range of all human communication, buried for years to come in the silent, unvisited prison of the North. [329]

[The French Ultra Royalists urging attack on Spain.]

Thus the victory of absolutism was completed, and the law was laid down to Europe that a people seeking its liberties elsewhere than in the grace and spontaneous generosity of its legitimate sovereign became a fit object of attack for the armies of the three Great Powers. It will be seen in a later chapter how Metternich persuaded the Czar to include under the anathema issued by the Congress of Laibach (May, 1821) [330] the outbreak of the Greeks, which at this moment began, and how Lord Castlereagh supported the Austrian Minister in denying to these rebels against the Sultan all right or claim to the consideration of Europe. Spain was for the present left unmolested; but the military operations of 1821 prepared the way for a similar crusade against that country by occasioning the downfall of Richelieu's Ministry, and throwing the government of France entirely into the hands of the Ultra-Royalists. All parties in the French Chamber, whether they condemned or approved the suppression of Neapolitan liberty, censured a policy which had kept France in inaction, and made Austria supreme in Italy. The Ultra-Royalists profited by the general discontent to overthrow the Minister whom they had promised to support (Dec., 1821); and from this time a war with Spain, conducted either by France alone or in combination with the three Eastern Powers, became the dearest hope of the rank and file of the dominant faction. Villele, their nominal chief, remained what he had been before, a statesman among fanatics, and desired to maintain the attitude of observation as long as this should be possible. A body of troops had been stationed on the southern frontier in 1820 to prevent all intercourse with the Spanish districts afflicted with the yellow fever. This epidemic had passed away, but the number of the troops was now raised to a hundred thousand. It was, however, the hope of Villele that hostilities might be averted unless the Spaniards should themselves provoke a combat, or, by resorting to extreme measures against King Ferdinand, should compel Louis XVIII. to intervene on behalf of his kinsman. The more violent section of the French Cabinet, represented by Montmorency, the Foreign Minister, called for an immediate march on Madrid, or proposed to delay operations only until France should secure the support of the other Continental Powers.

[Spain from 1820 to 1822.]

[Ferdinand plots with the Serviles against the Constitution.]

The condition of Spain in the year 1822 gave ample encouragement to those who longed to employ the arms of France in the royalist cause. The hopes of peaceful reform, which for the first few months after the revolution had been shared even by foreign politicians at Madrid, had long vanished. In the moment of popular victory Ferdinand had brought the leaders of the Cortes from their prisons and placed them in office. These men showed a dignified forgetfulness of the injuries which they had suffered. Misfortune had calmed their impetuosity, and taught them more of the real condition of the Spanish people. They entered upon their task with seriousness and good faith, and would have proved the best friends of constitutional monarchy if Ferdinand had had the least intention of co-operating with them loyally. But they found themselves encountered from the first by a double enemy. The clergy, who had overthrown the Constitution six years before, intrigued or openly declared against it as soon as it was revived; the more violent of the Liberals, with Riego at their head, abandoned themselves to extravagances like those of the club-orators of Paris in 1791, and did their best to make any peaceable administration impossible. After combating these anarchists, or Exaltados, with some success, the Ministry was forced to call in their aid, when, at the instigation of the Papal Nuncio, the King placed his veto upon a law dissolving most of the monasteries [331] (Oct., 1820). Ferdinand now openly combined with the enemies of the Constitution, and attempted to transfer the command of the army to one of his own agents. The plot failed; the Ministry sent the alarm over the whole country, and Ferdinand stood convicted before his people as a conspirator against the Constitution which he had sworn to defend. The agitation of the clubs, which the Ministry had hitherto suppressed, broke out anew. A storm of accusations assailed Ferdinand himself. He was compelled at the end of the year 1820 to banish from Madrid most of the persons who had been his confidants; and although his dethronement was not yet proposed, he had already become, far more than Louis XVI. of France under similar conditions, the recognised enemy of the revolution, and the suspected patron of every treason against the nation.

[The Ministry between the Exaltados and Serviles, 1821.]

[Attempted coup d'etat, July 6, 1822.]

[Royalists revolt in the north.]

The attack of the despotic Courts on Naples in the spring of 1821 heightened the fury of parties in Spain, encouraging the Serviles, or Absolutists, in their plots, and forcing the Ministry to yield to the cry for more violent measures against the enemies of the Constitution. In the south of Spain the Exaltados gained possession of the principal military and civil commands, and openly refused obedience to the central administration when it attempted to interfere with their action Seville, Carthagena, and Cadiz acted as if they were independent Republics and even spoke of separation from Spain. Defied by its own subordinates in the provinces, and unable to look to the King for any sincere support, the moderate governing party lost all hold upon the nation. In the Cortes elected in 1822 the Exaltados formed the majority, and Riego was appointed President. Ferdinand now began to concert measures of action with the French Ultra-Royalists. The Serviles, led by priests, and supported by French money, broke into open rebellion in the north. When the session of the Cortes ended, the King attempted to overthrow his enemies by military force. Three battalions of the Royal Guard, which had been withdrawn from Madrid, received secret orders to march upon the capital (July 6, 1822), where Ferdinand was expected to place himself at their head. They were, however, met and defeated in the streets by other regiments, and Ferdinand, vainly attempting to dissociate himself from the action of his partisans, found his crown, if not his life, in peril. He wrote to Louis XVIII. that he was a prisoner. Though the French King gave nothing more than good counsel, the Ultra-Royalists in the French Cabinet and in the army now strained every nerve to accelerate a war between the two countries. The Spanish Absolutists seized the town of Seo d'Urgel, and there set up a provisional government. Civil war spread over the northern provinces. The Ministry, which was now formed of Riego's friends, demanded and obtained from the Cortes dictatorial powers like those which the French Committee of Public Safety had wielded in 1793, but with far other result. Spain found no Danton, no Carnot, at this crisis, when the very highest powers of intellect and will would have been necessary to arouse and to arm a people far less disposed to fight for liberty than the French were in 1793. One man alone, General Mina, checked and overthrew the rebel leaders of the north with an activity superior to their own. The Government, boastful and violent in its measures, effected scarcely anything in the organisation of a national force, or in preparing the means of resistance against those foreign armies with whose attack the country was now plainly threatened.

[England and the Congress of 1822.]

When the Congress of Laibach broke up in the spring of 1821. its members determined to renew their meeting in the following year, in order to decide whether the Austrian army might then be withdrawn from Naples, and to discuss other questions affecting their common interests. The progress of the Greek insurrection and a growing strife between Russia and Turkey had since then thrown all Italian difficulties into the shade. The Eastern question stood in the front rank of European politics; next in importance came the affairs of Spain. It was certain that these, far more than the occupation of Naples, would supply the real business of the Congress of 1822. England had a far greater interest in both questions than in the Italian negotiations of the two previous years. It was felt that the system of abstention which England had then followed could be pursued no longer, and that the country must be represented not by some casual and wandering diplomatist, but by its leading Minister, Lord Castlereagh. The intentions of the other Powers in regard to Spain were matter of doubt; it was the fixed policy of Great Britain to leave the Spanish revolution in Europe to run its own course, and to persuade the other Powers to do the same. But the difficulties connected with Spain did not stop at the Spanish frontier. The South American colonies had now in great part secured their independence. They had developed a trade with Great Britain which made it impossible for this country to ignore their flag and the decisions of their law courts. The British navigation-laws had already been modified by Parliament in favour of their shipping; and although it was no business of the English Government to grant a formal title to communities which had made themselves free, the practical recognition of the American States by the appointment of diplomatic agents could in several cases not be justly delayed. Therefore, without interfering with any colonies which were still fighting or still negotiating with Spain, the British Minister proposed to inform the Allied cabinets of the intention of this country to accredit agents to some of the South American Republics, and to recommend to them the adoption of a similar policy,