In December 1856, a soldier named Ageslao Milano attempted to assassinate the King of the Two Sicilies at a review. He belonged to no sect, but he had long premeditated the act. A few days later an earthquake occurred in the kingdom of Naples, by which over ten thousand persons lost their lives. Ferdinand II. grew morose, and shut [Pg.209] himself up in the royal palace of Caserta. The constant lectures of France and England annoyed him without persuading him to take the means to put a stop to them. Not till 1859 did he open the doors of the prisons in which Poerio, Settembrini and their companions were confined. Many plans were made, meanwhile, for their liberation, and English friends even provided a ship by which they were to escape; but the ship foundered: perhaps fortunately, as Garibaldi, with characteristic disinterestedness, had agreed to direct the enterprise, which could not have been otherwise than perilous, and was not unlikely to end in the loss of all concerned.
Disaster attended Baron Bentivegna's attempt at a rising at Taormina in 1856, and Carlo Pisacane's landing at Sapri in the summer of the following year had no better result. Pisacane, a son of the Duke Gennaro di San Giovanni of Naples, had fought in the defence of Rome and was a firm adherent of Mazzini, in conjunction with whom he planned his unlucky venture. Pisacane watched the growing ascendency of Piedmont with sorrow; he was one of the few, if not the only one of his party to say that he would as soon have the dominion of Austria as that of the House of Savoy. But if he was an extremist in politics, none the less he was a patriot, who took his life in his hands and offered it up to his country in the spirit of the noblest devotion. He had the slenderest hope of success, but he believed that only by such failures could the people be roused from their apathy. 'For me,' he wrote, 'it will be victory even if I die on the scaffold. This is all I can do, and this I do; the rest depends on the country, not on me. I have only my affections and my life to give, and I give them without hesitation.'
[ [Pg.210] With the young Baron Nicotera and twenty-three others, Pisacane embarked on the Cagliari, a steamer belonging to a Sardinian mercantile line, which was bound for Tunis. When at sea, the captain was frightened into obedience, and the ship's course was directed to the isle of Ponza, where several hundred prisoners, mostly political, were undergoing their sentences. The guards made little resistance, and Pisacane opened the prisons, inviting who would to follow him. The first plan had been to make a descent on San Stefano, the island where Settembrini was imprisoned, but that good citizen had refused to admit the liberation of the non-political prisoners, which was an unavoidable feature in the scheme. With the addition of about three hundred men, Pisacane left Ponza for the mainland and disembarked near the village of Sapri, in the province of Salerno. From information received, he imagined that a revolutionary movement was on the point of breaking out in that district. Nothing could be further from the fact. The country people did all the harm they could to the band, which, after making a brave stand against the local militia, was cut to pieces by the royal troops. Pisacane fell fighting; those who were not killed were taken, and amongst these was Nicotera, who was kept in prison till set free by Garibaldi.
The Cagliari was captured and detained with its crew. As two of the seamen were British subjects, the English Government joined Sardinia in demanding its restitution, which, after long delays, was conceded.
In 1857, the Emperor of Austria relieved Field-Marshal Radetsky, then in his ninety-third year, of the burden of office. He was given the right of living in any of the royal palaces, even in the Emperor's own residence at Vienna, but he preferred to spend the one remaining year [Pg.211] of his life in Italy. At the same time, the Archduke Maximilian was appointed Viceroy of Lombardy and Venetia. A more naturally amiable and cultivated Prince never had the evil fate forced upon him of attempting impossible tasks. Just married to the lovely Princess Charlotte of Belgium, he came to Italy radiant with happiness, and wishing to make everyone as happy as he was himself. Not even the chilling welcome he received damped his enthusiasm, for he thought the aversion of the population depended on undoubted wrongs, which it was his full intention to redress. He was to learn two things; firstly, that the day of reconciliation was past: there were too many ghosts between the Lombards and Venetians, and the House of Hapsburg. Secondly, that an unseen hand beyond the Brenner would diligently thwart each one of his benevolent designs. The system was, and was to remain, unchanged. It was not carried out quite as it was carried out in the first years after 1849. The exiles were allowed to return and the sequestrations were revoked. It should be said, because it shows the one white spot in Austrian despotism, its civil administration, that on resuming their rights of ownership the proprietors found that their estates had not been badly managed. But the depressing and deadening influence of an anti-national rule continued unabated. Lombardy and Venetia were governed not from Milan, but from Vienna. Very small were the crumbs which the Viceroy obtained, though he went on a journey to Austria expressly to plead for concessions. It is sad to think what an enlightened heir to the great Austrian empire was lost, when Napoleon III. and his own family sent Maximilian of Hapsburg to Queretaro.
While Cavour had come to the conclusion that the aid which he believed [Pg.212] essential for the expulsion of the Austrians could only come from the French Emperor, this sovereign was regarded by a not inconsiderable party of Italians as the greatest, if not the sole, obstacle to their liberation. All those, in particular, who came in contact with the French exiles, were impressed by them with the notion that France, the real France, was only waiting for the disappearance of the Man of December to throw herself into their arms. Among the Italians who held these opinions, there were a few with whom it became a fixed idea that the greatest service they could render their country was the removal of Napoleon from the political scene. They conceived and nourished the thought independently of one another; they belonged to no league, but for that reason they were the more dangerous; somewhere or other there was always someone planning to put an end to the Emperor's life. It is not worth while to pause to discuss the ethics of political assassination; civilisation has decided against it, and history proves its usual failure to promote the desired object. What benefit did the Confederate cause derive from the assassination of the good President Lincoln, or the cause of Russian liberty from that of Alexander II.? What will Anarchy gain by the murder of Carnot? It is certain, however, that never were men more convinced that they were executing a wild kind of justice than were the men who plotted against Napoleon III. They looked upon him as one of themselves who had turned traitor. There is a great probability that, in his early days when he was playing at conspiracy in Italy, he was actually enrolled as a Carbonaro. At all events, he had conspired for Italian freedom, and afterwards, to serve his own selfish interests, he extinguished it in Rome. The temporal power of the Pope was kept alive through him. [ [Pg.213]
A true account of the attempts on Napoleon's life will never be written, because the only persons who were able and willing to throw light on the subject, ex-police agents and their kind, are authorities whose word is worth a very limited acceptance. It is pretty sure that there were more plots than the public ever knew of, and that in some cases the plotters were disposed of summarily. Most of them were poor, ignorant creatures, but in January 1858 an attempt was made by a man of an entirely different stamp, Felice Orsini.
Born at Meldola in Romagna in 1819, he was of the true Romagnol type in mind and body; daring, resourceful, intolerant of control. From his earliest youth all his actions had but one object, the liberation of his country. His youthful brain was enflamed by Alfieri and Foscolo, who remained his favourite authors. He hated Austria well, and he hated the Papal government as no one but one of its own subjects could hate it. 'When the French landed in Italy' (he told his judges) 'it was hoped that they were come as friends, but they proved the worst of enemies. For a time they were repulsed, then they resumed the cloak of friendship, but only to wait for reinforcements. When these arrived they returned to the assault, a thousand against ten, and we were judicially assassinated.' A succinct and true narrative. During the republic Orsini was sent to Ancona, where anarchy had broken out; by vigorous measures he restored perfect order. In 1854 he was arrested in Hungary and condemned to death, but he escaped from Mantua under romantic circumstances and reached England, where the story of his audacious flight won for him many sympathisers. He was often seen in society. On one occasion he was asked to meet Prince Lucien Buonaparte. Orsini knew Mazzini, but he was impatient of his [ [Pg.214] mystical leanings, and he disapproved of such enterprises as Pisacane's, by which, as he thought, twenty or thirty men were sacrificed here or there without anything coming of it. He finally repudiated Mazzini's leadership, and in March 1857 he wrote to Cavour, asking him for a passport to return to Italy, and placing at the disposal of the Sardinian government 'the courage and energy which it had pleased God to give him,' provided that government left wavering behind, and showed its unmistakable will to achieve the independence of Italy. Cavour sent no reply, 'because,' he said later, 'the letter was noble and energetic, and I should have had to pay Orsini compliments which I did not deem fitting. 'Unlike Victor Emmanuel, who in after years carried on regular negotiations with Mazzini, Cavour, while ready to make an alliance with the Radicals in the Chamber, was extremely loth to have anything to do with actual revolutionists. His not answering Orsini's letter certainly led up to the attempt of the 14th of January 1858.
Having quarrelled with Mazzini, and receiving no encouragement from Cavour, Orsini evolved the plan which on that day he endeavoured to put into execution. He would have preferred to act alone, but since that was impossible, he sought and found without much difficulty two or three accomplices. One of these, Pieri, a teacher of languages, was arrested by the police, who recognised him as an old conspirator, before he threw the bomb which he was carrying. The other bombs were thrown just as the carriage containing the Imperial party drove up to the opera house. A number of people in the street were killed or injured, but the Emperor and Empress escaped unhurt. When they entered the theatre the Rutli scene of the conspirators in Guillaume Tell was being performed. Not a breath of applause greeted them, though [Pg.215] everyone knew what had happened. Napoleon III. had a striking proof of how little hold he possessed on the affections of his subjects.
When at his trial Orsini was asked what he expected would happen if he had succeeded in killing the Emperor he answered: 'We were convinced that the surest way of making a revolution in Italy was to excite one in France, and that the surest way of making a revolution in France was to kill the Emperor.' There is a good deal of curious evidence to show that very elaborate preparations had been made for a revolution in Paris. The French police had orders, however, to keep all this aspect of the affair out of sight. It was to be made to appear the isolated act of a misguided Italian patriot. 'The world possesses an Orsini legend,' writes the late Duke of Saxe-Coburg, who was present at the event, having been invited to join the Emperor at the opera, 'which is quite at variance with facts.' The duke clearly thinks that the conviction of the instability of his throne which was brought home to the Emperor on this occasion, was one of the causes which decided him to try the diversion of public opinion into other channels by means of a foreign war.