Life of Victor Emmanuel II., First King of Italy

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Preface

Many Memoirs have been written of Victor Emmanuel since his death, but none of them would answer for the purpose of translating into our language. The best work on the subject is one lately issued from the press, entitled * La Vita ed il Regno di Vittorio Emanueley by Signor Massari, and to it I am much indebted in the composition of this work. It is full of reliable information, and ably written ; but too comprehensive and diffuse for English readers, who cannot be supposed to take the same interest in all the particulars of contemporary events in Italy as the natives of the country.

Ghiron*s brief Memoir is charming as far as it goes, but it does not pretend to be a regular biography. And the author is a true hero-worshipper ; he is on his knees at the opening sentence, and never rises from that reverential attitude to the close of the book.

But it is hardly reasonable to expect at the present moment an impartial work on the subject from an Italian, any more than it would t>e to look for an impartial biography from a son of a loved father whom he •^ had just laid in the grave. While the heart of the nation ,p was still vibrating with a sorrowful emotion, some writers felt impelled to vent their excited feelings in eulogistic \ Memoirs of the deceased ; and at the same time the Papal party let loose a flood of foul invective — not so ' much in the press, for fear of popular indignation, as by

VI PREFACE.

private means and verbal reports, sent floating through society— particularly foreign society — in Italy.

I confess that I have been partly induced to undertake a Life of the Honest King, in whose career England has always taken a warm interest, by observing how English and American travellers, who do not read Italian books, and who see only the surface of things, receive as undoubted facts every false report set on foot by the malignity of a party whose defeat naturally renders them bitter.

Victor Emmanuel, from the day he succeeded his father on the field of Novara, distinguished himself by a rectitude of purpose, so strikingly at variance with the conduct of the other Italian princes, that his subjects dubbed him Rk Galantuomo — a title soon endorsed by the rest of Europe.

How did the Honest King par excellence^ who would haye resigned every foot of ground he possessed rather than break his word to his people, ever merit the , title — equally widespread in the Catholic world — of Robber King } There may be difference of opinion with regard to a man's appearance, manners, or abilities ; but surely there ought to be but one with regard to his honesty. Can black ever be white, or white black } Can a man be an honest, a remarkably honest man, and a robber, a very great robber ? He can, and is so, in the sincere opinion of those who so designate him. It all depends on the sort of spectacles through which he is regarded. I have tried to look through both spectacles with as fair an eye as possible. If I have seen unreal distorted visions through one, which vanish or change their character on investigation, I may be pardoned for preferring the glass which in the main is true, though given overmuch to beautify the object under consideration.

PREFACE. Vll

I believe that a perfectly impartial biography is an extremely difficult, almost impossible, thing to find. The sympathy which a writer naturally feels, and ought to feel, for his subject, is apt to increase as he studies his life in all its bearings, and his motives of action. To be on his guard against this sympathy, and not let it bias his judg ment, is the duty of the conscientious biographer. I have tried, in this simple record of facts, to do justice to the memory of Victor Emmanuel, without doing injustice to the opposing party.

G. S. GODKIN.

Siena : December 19, 1878.

Contents

PAGE

Introduction xi

CHAPTER

Introduction

' Italy is one sole nation : the unity of customs, of language, of literature — in some future, more or less distant — will unite all its inhabitants under one sole government . . . Rome is undoubtedly the capital which one day the Italians will select ... It is necessary to the happiness of Europe that Italy should form one sole State which will maintain the equilibrium on the Continent between France and Austria, and on the sea between France and England.'

The man who on a desert rock thus meditated on the destinies of nations, says the historian La Farina, * was not a poet guided by imagination and sentiment ; not a solitary philosopher, little practised in human affairs ; he was a man who had learned by experience how empires are made and unmade — who had studied peoples, observing them from the most humble grades in society and from the loftiest throne that for ten centuries had ever been supported in Europe ; who had experienced victories and defeats, who had overrun the world as master — from the arid deserts of Egypt, to the snowy plains of Russia.'

While the idea of Italian unity was thus working in Napoleon's brain, Italy was sunk in abject slavery under a host of petty tyrants, who, overawed and supported by Austria, dared not, if they would, institute any reforms in their respective governments. All the sovereigns without exception were despots pure and simple — their subjects at the mercy of their good or bad impulses, or the suggestions of their ghostly advisers. The rulers were divided into two classes : those conscienceless princes to whom the possession of a throne only means superior facilities of enjoyment ; and those whose consciences were in the keeping of the Jesuit Fathers, and who carried out their views in the administration of State affairs. It would be difficult to say under which of these regimes the community suffered most

When a people were permitted to live in peace without any

Xii INTRODUCTION.

intolerable exactions or injustices,, as in Tuscany and Piedmont, it was the effect of the sovereign's goodness, and he was much praised for abstaining from harassing his subjects by imprisonments, confiscations, tortures. And where, as in the Romagna, Naples, Parma, Modena, and Lucca, the princes indulged in rapacity, cruelty, and caprice, their subjects had no remedy but hopeless rebellion ; for these petty tyrants were supported by the great military power of Austria, which not only ruled Lombardy and Venetia with a rod of iron, but prevented any change of government in the other States.

In Piedmont there reigned Victor, Emmanuel I. — good, honourable, and brave, but wedded to the past, and much under priestly influence ; consequently opposed to any reforms, ■ even to a mitigation of the barbarous laws which his humanity rarely allowed to be carried out to the letter. His cousin, Charles Albert, Prince of Carignano-Savoy, heir presumptive to the throne, was known to have liberal sympathies, hated Austria, and was hated by the Austrians, who wished to break the Salic law, hitherto in force in Sardinia, and cut him off from the inheritance, in order to give the crown to the Duke of Modena, in virtue of his connection by marriage with the House of Savoy.

Francis IV., Duke of Modena, was a Bourbon prince, A^dth all the vices of his race, and perhaps an extra grain of savage cruelty. The prisons of Modena in his reign were worthy of the days of the Borgias. The loathsome dungeons in which the unhappy Liberals languished without a trial were not the worst infliction. They were drugged so as to produce delirium just before they were brought out to be examined, and everything they said in this state was noted down and used against them. An officer died of an over-dose of the poison ; and a barrister went violently mad, and had to be chained to prevent him killing himself ; while countless numbers of the most intelligent, high-minded, and well-disposed, citizens perished on the scaffold, or endured the prolonged martyrdom of the galleys, without any positive evidence against them. This ferocious prince spared neither sex nor age ; and not even the sacred office of priesthood could protect the unhappy man, no matter what his virtues, who was once suspected of Liberalism. One instance will serve to show the sort of justice that was then ^ administered in Modena. Two prisoners were sentenced to die on the same day — the one for the murder of his father ; the other, a priest, accused of Liberalism, a man of great talent, and such excellent character that he was universally beloved and respected. The parricide received the sovereign grace ;

INTRODUCTION. xiii

while the good priest was pitilessly sent to the block, though his bishop begged on his knees for his life to be spared, and refused to unpriest the condemned, which was necessary before the sentence could be executed. Another less scrupulous bishop was found to perform the office, and the victim died with the calm resignation of a Christian. The clergy were almost always on the side of despotism, and were the chief supporters and instigators of every act of tyranny perpetrated throughout the peninsula. But there were not wanting noble exceptions ; every State in Italy counts some reverend names among its martyrs of liberty, and with them must be numbered this poor Andreoli di Correggio.

In Parma the Austrian Duchess, Maria Luisa, acting in obedience to orders from Vienna and her Jesuit advisers, pursued the same course, persecuting with unrelenting animosity all enlightened thought, as tending towards disaffection.

Passing over the Duchy of Tuscany, which enjoyed a mild rule under the house of Lorraine — except when, occasionally bullied and threatened by Austria, the Grand Duke was forced into some act of severity, such as surrendering a political refugee to a neighbouring government — we come to the vast and fertile provinces stretching across Central Italy from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic. These were under the Pope's sway, and were in as miserable a condition as a government founded on corruption, and nurtured in abuses, could make them. Pius VII. was personally a respectable character, with a reputation for learning \ and he was undoubtedly an encourager of art. But he was never capable of governing the Papal States with any efficiency, and his great age left him in a state of ineptitude for years before his death.

It is anticipating the narrative somewhat to> mention his successor Leo XII., who ascended the Papal throne 1823 ; but, as we are now taking a general glance at the state of the peninsula in our hero's infancy, we may as well here give a few brief words to describe the most remarkable and powerful enemy to progress that Italy had then to struggle against. Pope Leo appeared to be in a hopeless state of health at the time of his election, and it was confidently believed that he would not survive many months. But, like Richelieu, the possession of power had a revivifying effect on him, and the new Pontiff began to display extraordinary energy as soon as the tiara was on his brow. He was a ferocious fanatic, whose object was to destroy all the improvements of modern times, and. force society back to the government, customs, and ideas

XIV INTRODUCTION.

of mediaeval days. In his insensate rage against progress he stopped vaccination ; consequently, small-pox devastated the Roman provinces during his reign, along with many other curses which his brutal ignorance and misgovernment brought upon the inhabitants of those beautiful and fertile regions. He curtailed the old privileges of the municipalities, granted new privileges to the religious communities, and enlarged the power of the clergy to the extent that bishops and cardinals had the power of life and death in their hands. He set the Inquisition to work with new vigour ; and though torture had been nominally abolished in 1815, new kinds of torment were invented, quite as effectual as the cord, the thumbscrew, and the rack of old times. He renewed the persecutions of the Jews ; drove them back into the Ghetto from whence they had begun to emerge, rebuilt its walls, and had them locked in at night like wild beasts ; and issued an edict ordering all Israelites to sell their goods within a given time on pain of confiscation. On the first day of the Carnival they were obliged to come in a deputation to the Capitol, kneel at the foot of the throne of the Senator of Rome, and petition to be let live. The Senator made a motion of his foot as if to spurn them, with the words : * Go ; for this year we will tolerate you.'

The Christians fared little better ; to use a vulgair but expressive phrase, they literally * could not call their souls their o^vn.' The Pope put all educational establishments into the hands of the Jesuits, and no other means of instruction were permitted to his holiness's subjects. He instituted a system of espionage by which he could be accurately informed of the private sins of the people, and punish them as crimes against the State. Whoever did not observe the fasts of the Church, or neglected to attend religious service on prescribed days, or failed to confess once a month — the confessors being appointed by government — or committed any offence against morality, was subject to whatever castigation the bishop or the Holy Office of the Inquisition chose to inflict. One instance will serve to show the severity of those sentences. One of the Noble Guards was accused of a misdemeanour with a woman of light fame ; without a trial he was deprived of his rank, and ordered to be imprisoned for seven years. At the same time the clergy, whose good example might have done more than these harsh laws to reform the morals of the laity, were leading scandalous lives ; but no one dared accuse them. And the real felons who preyed upon society escaped with impunity by bribing the officers of justice. Brigandage was rife throughout

INTRODUCTION. XV

the States of the Church, and it was in this reign that the famous chiefs De Cesaris and Gasparone flourished. At the head of a numerous following of malefactors they fortified themselves in the wooded mountains, making raids on the neighbouring towns and villages, committing indescribable outrages on the inhabitants, and sparing neither convents, schools, nor monasteries. The fear and horror that reigned in those neighbourhoods induced the unfortunate citizens to supplicate the Pope to put a stop to the infliction. But the Papal Government, strong to persecute, was powerless to protect. It had resort to such means as the princes of the Saxon Heptarchy tried in order to extirpate wolves from Britain ; that is, it offered a reward for a certain number of brigands' heads. It is unnecessary to point out the incentive given to crime and treachery by this irregular mode of executing justice. The system which answered very well for wild beasts could not be applied with equal success to men, inasmuch as a wolfs head could not be mistaken for anything but a wolf's head ; but who could tell whether a human head had belonged to a brigand or an honest man ? The cardinal sent by the Pope to find a remedy for these ills became infected himself with the spirit of brigandage, and was discovered in such nefarious practices that Leo hastily recalled and sent him into retirement, despatching another in his stead. This prelate opened negotiations with the bandit chief, with the view of coming to terms. After long discussion, the preliminaries of a treaty of peace were agreed upon, and the brigands capitulated on honourable conditions ; that is, life, liberty, and a pension. While these abandoned criminals were set free of all punishment, honest, brave men were dying on the gibbet, or languishing in the dungeons of the Inquisition. The papal legates who ruled the provinces were worthy representatives of their sovereign ; particularly Cardinal Rivarola in Ravenna, who decimated the surrounding country of its most intelligent and virtuous inhabitants. In one month, August 1825, the following condemnations — nearly all capital — were passed in Ravenna, all for the offence of Liberalism — Thirty nobles, one hundred and fifty farmers and shopkeepers, two priests, seventy-four employks^ thirty-eight military men, seventytwo doctors, lawyers, and men of letters, and many artisans. As may be imagined, a brief experience of this rule embittered the spirit of the Liberal party, who threw themselves without reserve into the ranks of the secret societies, and planned acts of desperate revenge. Many attempts were made on the life of Cardinal Rivarola, who at last had to fly Ravenna, and was

XVI INTRODUCTION.

succeeded by another, as bad if not worse. The prisons could not hold .all the accused ; and they had to be crammed into monasteries and such-like edifices, where they were secretly examined, condemned, and sent where their relatives might never know what had become of them.

The famous Society, or, as the Italians call it, Sect^ of the Carbonari, which had been introduced into Naples some time before, was now spreading northwards, and gaining importance and influence, as the tyranny of the governments hardened and embittered the populations. The Carbonari now counted amongst their numbers scions of the oldest families in Italy, and some of the noblest and most single-minded men that any country ever produced, who, under more favourable circumstances, would have been useful and honoured members of society. It was, however, composed for the most part of the sons of the people. The word Carbonaro^ coal-man, signifies that its founder was a man of humble rank ; and it continued to have the character of a very democratic institution, in spite of the admixture of noble blood which by degrees had been infused into it. The middle classes supplied large numbers to the society, and the professional men who belonged to it were not few. It is unnecessary to say that there were attached to this as to all such combinations a goodly number of worthless characters ; self-seeking adventurers who made a trade of politics ; light-minded, erratic youths who wanted the excitement and importance attaching to the character of conspirator ; vain and unprincipled ones, who loved to hear themselves holding forth on the subject of Liberty, and were ready for any deed that would bring them notoriety.

This faction had ramifications in all parts of Italy, but it took deeper root in the Papal States than elsewhere — the natural result of persecution. For every member immolated by the Holy Ofiice seven sprang into existence, more fierce and reckless than he, more determined on revenge. To assassinate a tyrant became an act of sublime public virtue in their eyes, and the perpetrator was regarded as a magnanimous hero, a modern Brutus.

Many suffered, however, who were innocent of any offence against the law, and who died professing the Christian faith, but protesting against its unworthy ministers. One of these, going to the scaffold, was exhorted by his conifessortoteconcile himself to the Pope, * Christ's minister on earth ; ' to which he replied, * It is a long time since Christ has had any ministers on earth, and certainly he is none such who has transformed

INTRODUCTION. Xvii

himself into an executioner.* He kissed the crucifix and exclaimed, * Lord, save me, and I shall be safe ! '

The Papal Government being unable to cope with the Carbonari, a counter-secret society was instituted, in order to overcome them by espionage. The members called themselves Sanfedisti, Holy Faithists. The following initiatory oath will sufficiently explain the object of this combination : —

Sanfedist Oath,

* In the presence of Omnipotent God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, of Mary, Immaculate Virgin, of all the celestial host, and of thee, my honoured father, I swear to let my right hand be cut off, or my throat be cut, to die of hunger, or perish in the midst of terrible torture, and I pray the Lord God to condemn me to eternal pains, sooner than I should betray one of the honoured fathers or brothers of the CathoHc Apostolic Society, to which in this moment I subscribe myself, and if I do not scrupulously obey its laws and assist my brothers in need. I swear firmly to maintain and defend the holy cause I have embraced, and to spare no individual appertaining to the infamous sect of Liberals, whatever be his birth, parentage, or fortune ; to have no pity either on children or old men, and to shed the last drop of the Liberals' blood without regard to sex or rank. I swear, in short, implacable hatred to the enemies of our holy Roman Catholic and only true religion.'

The oath was taken, kneeling, upon the Eucharist, and a blessed dagger was put into the hand of the neophyte.*

Adjoining the States of the Church was the kingdom of Naples, under the Bourbon sway. Ferdinand I. had already been driven from his kingdom by the aid of French arms, when he was reseated on the throne by the English, who compelled him to restore the ancient privileges and liberties of which he had deprived Sicily, and institute some reforms in Naples ; but he soon returned to the old rkgime again. He was coarse, illiterate, heartless, and mindless, given up to the grossest pleasures. When his dying brother, who had shown him much kindness, sent repeated messages requesting his presence, he refused to sacrifice a hunting-party or feast with his favourites to gratify the fraternal wish. And while the funeral obsequies were going on, he was revelling with shameless indecency in his favourite amusements. The English minister, having received at this time a royal invitation, replied to the effect that he had

' See La Farina, Storia d^Italia^ vol. i.

a2 xviil INTRODUCTION.

to assist at the mournful ceremony of an august funeral, and therefore could not accept it.

In 1820 an outbreak of Carbonarism shook the throne of the Two Sicilies to its foundations. Almost all the population of Naples except the old nobility attached to the Court were Carbonari ; a great part of the army fraternised with the revolutionists, and many priests and monks were seen marching in their ranks. The king and all his family made a virtue of necessity, and pretended to be quite charmed with the novel idea of a Liberal Constitution. They made a great y?/^ to celebrate the event, the princes and princesses standing on a balcony, waving their handkerchiefs to the cries of Viva il Rk e la Constituzione^ and showering tricoloured cockades amongst the people. The hoary king walked at the head of a procession to church, and, taking his place at the altar with his hand on the Bible, swore to maintain the Constitution, invoking the Deity to strike him that moment with a thunderbolt if he spoke falsely. His sons also swore, and kept the oath in the same manner as their sire.

Soon after this he fled to Laybach, at the invitation of the Emperor, and sent an Austrian army to reduce his subjects to submission. AVhen they were utterly crushed, and King Ferdinand absolute was proclaimed through the streets, he returned to his capital. We have already described how Carbonarism was punished in the States of the Church and the Duchies of Modena and Parma. We will now return to Piedmont, where all the hopes of the revolutionists began to centre, after the overthrow of the Neapolitan rebels. The King of Sardinia was absolute like all the other princes ; but he was Italian, descended from a long line of Italian fathers, while all the others were more or less foreign, and under the influence of Austria to a greater extent than he was. The heir presumptive was well known to be Liberal, and it was hoped that he would take the lead of the national party. The Carbonari were national in their aspirations, though they had but a vague plan for the future of their country when all the tyrants should be extinguished. They were not Red Republicans, being quite willing to follow the standard of any hereditary prince who would 'grant a free constitution, and engage in a war for the expulsion of the Austrians from the peninsula, as it was that Power only which held the petty tyrants on their respective thrones.

The national party in Piedmont felt their hopes of a reform rise when the enlightened and highly cultivated Count Prosper© Balbo came into power. But when he proposed some necessary

INTRODUCTION. XIX

reforms in the administration, he was overborne by the clerical party and the old nobility, who warned the king to beware of innovations, * which always brought misfortunes in their train/ The Spanish revolution and the outbreak in Naples had produced a profound impression in Piedmont ; every class was penetrated with the desire for a reform in tae government, thougli they were all loyal to the House of Savoy. In March 182 1 a general rising of the people in Turin simultaneously with one in Alessandria led by the Carbonari, in which the military joined, forced Victor Emmanuel I. to look the question straight in the face. It is probable that he would have yielded to the just desires of his people, and granted the constitution they asked, but for his fatal promise to the Emperor of Austria not to make, any change in the existing order of things. He abdicated in favour of his brother, Charles Felix, making Charles Albert regent in the absence of the new king. The regent, who was at the same time loyal and liberal, was much puzzled as to his duty in the trying circumstances in which he was placed. He yielded to the popular demand, proclaimed the Spanish Constitution, adding on his own account an oath of fealty to the new king. .

Carlo Felice was a strong upholder of absolute power, and devoted to Austria. He banished his young cousin from the kingdom in return for his fidelity, and visited the revolutionists with the severest punishments. The rebellion of Piedmont had been the result of a concerted plan with the nationalists of other States. The Lombards, particularly, were deeply involved in the conspiracy, and when it fell to the ground the temble price of the daring attempt had to be paid in blood and tears. The trials, sentences, and executions were going on at the same time in Lombardy and Piedmont ; and there were few families in either State who were not torn with anxiety and grief, if not for relatives at least for friends who had come under the law, so widespread was the sympathy with the movement in Sardinia, and so deep-rooted in Lombaidy the hatred of the Austrian rule.

The Austrian Government was rather more civilised and enlightened than that of the other States in Italy — that is, as long as there was no suspicion of disaffection towards the Imperial power ; but any oflfence that came under the head of treason was punished with merciless severity. Everyone has read Silvio Pellico's * Le Mie Prigioni \ ' but perhaps everyone does not know that it is entirely free from exaggeration, that the author was scrupulously truthful in all his statements. Orsini's * Austrian Prisons,' published in England and in the

XX INTRODUCTION.

English language, shortly before his death, is intensely. interesting, and gives a fair idea of the treatment which political prisoners received under the government of Austria. It would seem incredible, if such accounts were not corroborated by hundreds of trustworthy authorities. The acts of gratuitous brutality which Austrian soldiers perpetrated in the discharge of their duty was not the worst infliction which the poor prisoners had to complain of. Horrible calumnies were circulated about them, so as to destroy all sympathy for their fate in the hearts of the people. This, doubtless, was the work of the Jesuits, whose influence was all-powerful at Vienna ; and it was also to them the prisoners owed certain refined cruelties, such as depriving them of a valuable book, or precious souvenir^ removing the spectacles of those whose sight was defective ; and telling ihem bad* news of their companions in misfortune or of their families. They were deprived of light and air, almost starved, allowed no water to wash themselves, or any appliance of civilisation; their miserable sleep was interrupted by gaolers who came to conduct them to midnight examinations, presided over by judges who took pleasure in augmenting their unhappy condition. Of the many touching instances of Lombard courage and constancy then displayed we will cite one.

The Count Confalonieri, a young enthusiast in the cause of liberty and nationality, was in the thick of the conspiracy, and, after a prolonged and cruel imprisonment, was condemned to death with many other noblemen and gentlemen, among whom was Silvio Pellico, October 1823. The count's young wife was broken-hearted; during her husband's trial and imprisonment she touched the hearts of the severest Austrian judges by her grief. When the sentence was at last pronounced, she set out for Vienna, accompanied by her husband's father and brother, to plead his cause at the feet of the emperor. They all threw themselves on their knees, and, with tears and sobs, the old count implored grace for his unhappy son. The emperor replied that mercy was impossible ; examples must be made ; the sentence of death was already signed and on its way to Milan. The father fell insensible to the ground on hearing this, and the wife with passionate entreaties tried to touch the heart of the emperor ; but to no purpose. She almost went mad with grief that night The empress had her carried to her 6wn apartments, where she showed her the greatest attention, and, in compliance with her piteous appeals, went repeatedly to try to change the resolution of her husband. All night she stayed with the unhappy lady, going to and fro