To this excellent advice and very remarkable counsel, coming as it did from a Bourbon, Ferdinand II. returned the following answer:
"To imitate France, if ever France can be imitated, I shall have to precipitate myself into that policy of Jacobinism, for which my people has proved feloniously guilty more than once against the house of its kings. Liberty is fatal to the house of Bourbon; and, as regards myself, I am resolved to avoid, at all price, the fate of Louis XVI. and Charles X. My people obey force and bend their necks, but woe's me should they ever raise them under the impulse of those dreams which sound so fine in the sermons of philosophers, and which are impossible in practice. With God's blessing, I will give prosperity to my people, and a government as honest as they have a right to; but I will be king, and always. My people do not want to think; I take upon myself the care of their welfare and their dignity. I have inherited many old grudges, many mad desires, arising from all the faults and weaknesses of the past; I must set this to rights, and I can only do so by drawing closer to Austria without subjecting myself to her will. We are not of this century. The Bourbons are ancient, and if they were to try to shape themselves according to the pattern of the new dynasties, they would be ridiculous. We will imitate the Hapsburgs. If fortune plays us false, we shall at least be true to ourselves. Nevertheless, your majesty may rely upon my lively sympathy and my warmest wishes that you may succeed in mastering that ungovernable people who make France the curse of Europe."
Here it was well remarked by a writer:
"We have the father of Francis II. exactly as he was, and exactly as his son has been after him. Out of the lips of the Bourbon it is proved that a Garibaldi was sadly wanted in Sicily. Well, the Garibaldi has come, and the necks of the people bend no more; the people have begun to have a desire to 'think;' have raised their necks 'under the impulse of those dreams which sound so fine in the sermons of philosophers,' and the 'woe's me,' which the Bourbon Ferdinand II. feared would fall upon him when the people did so rise, has fallen upon the head of the Bourbon Francis II. 'The Bourbons are very ancient,' said Ferdinand, 'and if they were to try to shape themselves according to the pattern of the new dynasties, they would be ridiculous.' Well, Francis II., penned up there in Gaeta, with a very small pattern of an army, strikes us as a very ridiculous king, and ridiculous because he did not shape himself according to the pattern of a wise and liberal monarch. This letter of Ferdinand II. is one of the most striking lessons of history that the present century has afforded."
CHAPTER XVI.
"Garibaldi! Garibaldi! thy glorious career
Is worthy thee and Italy: thy name to man is dear,
A brighter course has never a warrior true displayed:
Unsullied in the hour of peace, in danger undismayed,