Of all the countries of Europe, none had been more affected than Italy, both for good and evil, by the Napoleonic wars; and in no part of Italy were the traces of these wars so evident as in Lombardy. Though settled liberty had been unknown there since the cities of the Lombard League had fallen under their petty tyrants; though any sense, even of national independence, must have ceased since the sixteenth century; yet the real misery of the position of a conquered country, the sense of an absolutely alien rule, seems hardly to have been fully realised by the Lombards, until the Peace of Utrecht, in 1713, had substituted the Austrian rule for that of the Spaniards. The Spanish tyranny, however cruel, had been softened to the Italians by the sense of community of race and similarity of language; and the readiness of the conquerors to inter-marry with the conquered had given hopes of an ultimate amalgamation between the races. But under the German rule there were no such modifications of the evils of conquest. The new rulers held aloof from the Italians; and the latter were reminded at every moment that they were not merely slaves, but slaves to an alien and unsympathetic master.
When, then, an Italian, at the head of a French army, offered the Lombards deliverance from German rule; when he organized them into a separate legion, and showed special trust in them throughout his wars; when he established the Government of the Cis-Alpine Republic, and held out before their astonished eyes the vision of an united Italy, it was natural that such appeals should awaken hopes of a newer life, and a prouder position in the councils of Europe.
It was true that their confidence had received terrible shocks. The horrible treachery of the Treaty of Campo Formio, the manipulation of the Constitution of the Cis-Alpine Republic, the gradual changes which tended to absorb it into the French Empire; these had been tolerably clear signs to the Lombards of what they might ultimately expect from their so-called liberator.
Yet amid all these acts of violence and treachery, Napoleon had still kept before them the idea of a separate kingdom of Italy, if not in the present, then in the not distant future. If Napoleon failed them, Eugène Beauharnais might realise the ideal with which his step-father had mocked them; if Eugène Beauharnais proved false, King Joachim of Naples might lead them to freedom.
And then, most wonderful of all! came the announcement that the Austrian might become, in his turn, the liberator. In 1809, Archduke John had promised to the Italians, in the name of the Emperor Francis, "a Constitution founded on the nature of things, and a frontier inaccessible to any foreign rule. Europe well knows," continued the Archduke, "that the word of this Prince is sacred, and that it is as unchangeable as it is pure. It is Heaven that speaks by his mouth."
General Nugent, the leader of the Austrian forces, followed up this proclamation, at a later time, by equally strong promises of Italian independence, and as late as April 26, 1814, Lord William Bentinck, the founder of the Sicilian Constitution of 1812, had added his guarantee for the liberty, prosperity, and independence of Italy.
The Italians, therefore, had some hopes of justice from the Powers of Europe. These were shaken by the Congress of Vienna; and the Lombards received a new shock when they found how unreal were even the seeming concessions made by that Congress. A central Congregation of Lombardy, which had no power of initiating reforms, and hardly leave to utter complaints, was the sole embodiment of the principle of Italian independence; and the "frontier guaranteed against the foreigner" was unable to exclude, not only Austrian soldiers from the garrisons of Lombardy, but even Austrian judges from her tribunals, and Austrian professors from her universities; secret tribunals tried Lombards, who were arrested for they knew not what cause; taxes out of all proportion to the size of Lombardy drained the country for the benefit of other parts of the empire; and police dogged the footsteps of the most distinguished citizens.
Nor could Lombardy be even certain of her own sons. The wisest Lombards might well have been confused by the rapid changes of government which had taken place in the short space of eighteen years. They had seen Austrian tyranny give place to a Cis-Alpine Republic; they had passed from republican rule by somewhat confused stages under the despotism of Napoleon, a despotism which had in its turn to give way to the freer rule of Eugène Beauharnais; and lastly they had seen Beauharnais overthrown, and Austrian rule restored in a more crushing form than before.
Not merely their political judgment, but their sense of right and wrong had been unsettled by such changes. When men of high genius, like the poet Vincenzo Monti, could begin his literary career by a fierce poem against France, continue it by songs in praise of the French conquerors as promoters of liberty, then write eulogies on Napoleon's empire, and finally join in the inauguration of a library, which was to be the means of reconciling the Italians to their Austrian conquerors, it can scarcely be wondered at if men of lower intellect found themselves equally ready to worship each new ruler as he rose into power, and to trample on the memory of fallen heroes.
A man of nobler type than Monti expressed, perhaps still more clearly, the sense of despair which seemed likely to become the keynote of Italian feeling. Ugo Foscolo was, from his very birth, an embodiment of the confused state of Italy at that period. He was born in 1778, in the Isle of Zante, then a colony of the Venetian Republic, and in a condition of the utmost lawlessness. He was sent from thence to study at Padua, and thus grew up to manhood during the period of those continual changes in Lombardy which marked the period of the struggle against France. At one time he thought of becoming a priest, but soon devoted himself to literature.