CHAPTER III.
FAITH AND LAW AGAINST DESPOTISM. 1825-1840.
Tuscany under Fossombroni.—"Il Mondo va da se."—The Antologia.—Romanticism v. Classicism.—Domenico Guerrazzi.—Giuseppe Mazzini.—His early career.—His experiences as a Carbonaro.—His plans in the fortress of Savona.—His first banishment.—Louis Philippe and the Italian Revolutionists.—Collapse of the rising of 1831.—Accession of Charles Albert.—Italian belief in him.—Mazzini's letter.—Charles Albert's position.—Mazzini's second banishment.—His influence.—La Giovine Italia.—Its enemies and friends.—Charles Albert's cruelties.—The expedition to Savoy.—Menz and Metternich v. Mazzini.—The special position of Hungary.—The County Government.—The Germanization of the nobles.—The Diet of 1825.—Szechenyi.—The Magyar language.—Material reforms.—Metternich and Szechenyi.—Wesselenyi.—The Transylvanian Diet.—Poland and Hungary.—Serfdom in Hungary.—The Urbarium.—Francis Deak.—Wesselenyi at Presburg.—Louis Kossuth.—His character.—His first work.—Arrest of Kossuth and Wesselenyi.—The protest.—Metternich's defeat.
While Piedmont and Naples had been vibrating between revolution and despotism; while the government of the popes had been steadily growing more tyrannical and unjust; and while the rulers of Parma, Lucca, and Modena had remained (with whatever occasional appearance to the contrary) the mere tools of Austria, the government of Tuscany had retained a peculiar character of its own.
The vigorous programme of reform, introduced by Leopold I. when the government first passed into the hands of the House of Austria, had not been further developed by his successors. But a tradition of easy-going liberality had been kept alive both under Ferdinand III. and Leopold II. Fossombroni, the chief minister of Tuscany, took for his motto "Il mondo va da se" (the world goes of itself); and thus a certain liberty of thought and expression continued to prevail in Tuscany that was hardly to be found in other parts of Italy.
This might have excited the alarm of the Austrian Government, and of the other princes of Italy; for conspirators condemned by them took refuge in Tuscany. But two circumstances protected this freedom. The fact that the ruler of Tuscany was a member of the House of Austria seemed to exclude him from the chance of ever becoming the leader of a purely Italian movement; and Metternich was, perhaps, not sorry to be able to show the opponents of Austria that an Austrian prince could be the most popular ruler in Italy. Secondly, Fossombroni, while so easy-going in internal matters, maintained a dignified independence in foreign affairs; and Ferdinand and Leopold had enough of the spirit of the founder of the dynasty to second the efforts of their Minister.
Thus, when the Austrian officials sent to Ferdinand a list of the Carbonari in Tuscany, with the request that he would punish them, he simply burnt the list; and when, on the death of Ferdinand in 1824, the Austrian Minister demanded that Leopold's accession should not be publicly notified until the terms of the notice had been approved by Austria, Fossombroni at once announced Leopold's accession as the only answer to this insolent demand. Lastly, in 1831, when the Austrians were trampling out the liberties of Bologna, Fossombroni prevented them from extending their aggressions in Italy by an invasion of Tuscany.
Here, then, it was natural that the thought of Italy, whether taking a literary or political form, should find its freest expression. The Conciliatore of Manzoni and Confalonieri had been suppressed in Lombardy, but its work was revived by the Florentine journal called the "Antologia." Manzoni's influence gained much ground here among the literary men, who connected the struggle between the old classicism of Alfieri, and the freer and more original writing to which the name of Romanticism was given, with the struggle for a freer life in Italy against the traditions of the past.
The writer who attracted the most attention, and whose name became most widely known among the Romantic School, was Domenico Guerrazzi. It is, perhaps, a little difficult for an Englishman to understand the attraction of this author's novels; but an Italian writer thus explains it: "The singularity of his forms and the burning character of his style, the very contradiction of principles that are perceived in his writings, gave to Guerrazzi the appearance of something extraordinary, which struck upon imaginations already excited by misfortunes and grief." Moreover, perhaps, Guerrazzi, more definitely than most of these writers, connected the literary movement with the political; and even in Tuscany he became an object of some alarm from his desire for Italian freedom.
He naturally gathered round him a knot of young men of more decided type than the ordinary contributors to the "Antologia;" and it was to him, therefore, that the proposal was addressed to revive in Leghorn a Genoese journal which had been just suppressed by the Sardinian Government. The proposal was probably made to Guerrazzi in the first instance by a young and enthusiastic Livornese named Carlo Bini; but the chief promoter of the enterprise was a young Genoese of between twenty and thirty years of age.
This youth was chiefly known as having recently sent to the "Antologia" at Florence an article on Dante which had been rejected by them, but which was subsequently inserted in another paper. Among his contemporaries at the University the new comer had already excited an enthusiasm which was not yet understood by the outer world. Such was the first appearance in public life of Giuseppe Mazzini.