At last, when the armistice concluded on the morrow of Novara had been prolonged for five months, the treaty of peace was signed. Prince Schwarzenberg offered to further reduce the indemnity, 75,000,000 to 71,000,000, but D'Azeglio having agreed to the former figure, preferred to abide by his agreement. He thought, probably, that he would thus gain some concession as to the amnesty, and, in fact, [Pg.177] Austria finally consented to pardon all but a small number of the persons compromised in the late events. D'Azeglio still stood out, but finding that there was no shadow of a chance of obtaining more than this, he reluctantly accepted it. The great mass, the hundred thousand and more fugitives who had left their homes in Lombardy and Venetia, were, at any rate, promised a safe return. The city of Venice, as yet undominated, though on the brink of her fall, was totally excluded. The list of those whose banishment from Lombardy was confirmed, comprises the noblest names in the province; with the exception of a few who were excluded from the amnesty on the score that, before the revolution, they were Austrian functionaries, nearly every unpardoned Lombard was noble: Casati, Arese, Borromeo, Litta, Greppi, Pallavicini, and the Princess Cristina Belgiojoso of Milan, the two Camozzis of Bergamo, and G. Martinengo Cesaresco of Brescia.
It must not be imagined that this amnesty ushered in a reign of oblivion and mildness. It seemed, rather, that Austria, afraid of the moral consequences of the return of so many unloving subjects, redoubled her severity. The day following the promulgation of the amnesty was the 18th of August, the Emperor of Austria's birthday. In the morning, placards dissuading the citizens from taking part in the official rejoicings were to be seen on the walls of Milan. The persons who put these up were not caught, but in the course of the day a crowd, consisting of all classes, made what the official report called 'a scandalous and anti-politic demonstration,' raising revolutionary cries, and even saying uncomplimentary things of His Majesty, and worse still, of the Austrian soldiers. During this 'shameful scene,' [Pg.178] of which the above is the Austrian and hence the most highly-coloured description, the military arrested at hazard some of the crowd, who, by a 'superior order,' were condemned to the following pains and penalties:—
1. Angelo Negroni, of Padua, aged thirty, proprietor, forty
strokes;
2. Carlo Bossi, watchmaker, aged twenty-two, forty strokes;
3. Paolo Lodi, of Monza, student, aged twenty-one, thirty strokes;
4. Giovanni Mazzuchetti, Milanese, barrister, aged twenty-four,
thirty strokes;
5. Bonnetti, Milanese, lithographer, aged thirty-one, fifty
strokes;
6. Moretti, Milanese, domestic servant, aged twenty-six, fifty
strokes;
7. Cesana, artist, aged thirty-two, forty strokes;
8. Scotti, shopkeeper, of Monza, fifty strokes;
9. Vigorelli, Milanese, proprietor, fifty strokes;
10. Garavaglia, of Novara, aged thirty-nine, thirty strokes;
11. Giuseppe Tandea, Milanese, aged forty, twenty-five strokes;
12. Rossi, Milanese, student, thirty strokes;
13. Carabelli, workman, forty strokes;
14. Giuseppe Berlusconi, fifty strokes;
15. Ferrandi, bookseller, thirty strokes;
16. Ernestina Galli, of Cremona, operatic singer, aged twenty,
forty strokes;
17. Maria Conti, of Florence, operatic singer, aged eighteen,
thirty strokes.
There were other sentences of imprisonment in irons and on bread and water, but the roll of the bastinado, extracted from the official Gazzetta di Milano may be left to speak for all the rest, and to tell, with a laconicism more eloquent than the finest rhetoric, what the Austrian yoke in Italy really meant.
A few days after, the military commandant sent the Milanese Municipality a bill for thirty-nine florins, the cost of rods broken or worn-out, and of ice used to prevent gangrene, in the punishment administered to the persons arrested on the 18th of August. Sixty strokes with the Austrian stick were generally enough to prove fatal. Women were flogged half-naked, together with the men, and in the presence of the Austrian officers, who came to see the spectacle.
When the treaty of peace with Austria was signed, there arose a new difficulty; the Sardinian Chamber of Deputies refused to approve it. Some of the deputies asked why they should be called upon either to accept or reject it, on which they were reminded of the 75,000,000 francs indemnity, funds for the discharge of which could not be legally raised without a parliamentary vote. The reluctance to share in an odious though necessary responsibility made these novices in representative government anxious to throw away the greatest, if not the sole guarantee of constitutional freedom. Brofferio, by far the ablest man of the extreme radical party, who had opposed all peace proposals as long as Rome and Venice still resisted, now advised his friends to bow before the inevitable. But they did not comply, and the ministers had no other alternative than to resort to a fresh appeal to the country.
The crisis was serious, because no amount of loyalty on the part of the head of the state can save liberty when the representatives of a [Pg.180] nation, taking the bit between their teeth, set themselves deliberately to work to make government impossible. People are too fond of talking of liberty as if it were something locked up in a box which remains safe as long as the guardian of the box does not steal it or sell it. Liberty is in the charge of all and at the mercy of all. There were not wanting persons who blamed the new dissolution as unconstitutional, and who called the proclamation of Moncalieri which announced it an act of despotism and of improper interference with the independence of the electors. It is hardly too much to say that it was this royal proclamation that saved Piedmont. The King appealed to Italy and to Europe for judgment on the conduct of the late Chamber. Having signed, he said, a 'not ruinous' treaty with Austria, which the honour of the country and the sanctity of his word required to be faithfully executed, the majority sought to make that execution legally impracticable. He continued: 'I have promised to save the nation from the tyranny of parties, whatever be the name, scope and position of the men who constitute them. These promises I fulfil by dissolving a Chamber which had become impossible, and by convoking the immediate assemblage of another parliament; but if the electors of the country deny me their help, not on me will fall henceforth the responsibility of the future; and if disorders follow, let them complain, not of me, but of themselves. Never, up till now, has the House of Savoy had recourse in vain to the faithfulness, wisdom and honour of its peoples. I have therefore the right to trust in them on the present occasion, and to hold for certain that, united together, we shall save the constitution and the country from the dangers by which they are menaced.'
[ [Pg.181] The Proclamation produced a great effect, and the parliament which met on the 20th of December contained a working majority of men who were not only patriotic, but who were also endowed with common sense. When the ratification of the peace came on for discussion, there was, indeed, one deputy who spoke in favour of immediate war, which, in a fortnight, was to effect the liberation, not only of Lombardy and Venetia, but also of Hungary, a speech worth recalling, as it shows how far madness will go. The debate concluded with a vote authorising the King's government to fully carry out the treaty of peace which was concluded at Milan on the 6th of August 1849, the ayes being 137 against 17 noes. Piedmont had learnt the bitter but useful lesson, that if you play and lose, you must pay the cost. He who had played and lost his crown had already paid the last fee to fortune. Charles Albert was now a denizen of the Superga—of all kings' burial places, the most inspiring in its history, the most sublime in its situation. Here Victor Amadeus, as he looked down on the great French army which, for three months, had besieged his capital, vowed to erect a temple if it should please the Lord of Hosts to grant him and his people deliverance from the hands of the enemy. Five days later the French were in flight. All the Alps, from Mon Viso to the Simplon, all Piedmont, and beyond Piedmont, Italy to the Apennines, can be scanned from the church which fulfilled the royal vow.
To the Superga the body of Charles Albert was brought from the place of exile. Before the coffin, his sword was carried; after it, they led the war-horse he had ridden in all the battles. After the war-horse followed a great multitude. He had said truly that it was an opportune [Pg.182] time for him to die. The pathos of his end rekindled the affections of the people for the dynasty.
As in the Mosque of dead Sultans in Stamboul, so in the Mausoleum of the Superga, each sovereign occupied the post of honour only till the next one came to join him. But the post of honour remains, and will remain, to Charles Albert. His son lies elsewhere.