It was at Naples, under the encouragement of Joseph, that the art of lithography was discovered. On the 23d of May, 1808, the King, by the request of Napoleon, left Naples for France. He left his family behind him, and hastened through Turin and Lyons to meet his brother at Bayonne. His departure caused great anxiety and sadness throughout the kingdom of Naples. Who would wear the crown about to be vacated? Would the Two Sicilies be annexed to the kingdom of Italy under Eugene? Would Louis, Lucien, or one of Napoleon's marshals succeed Joseph?
On the journey Joseph met the Bishop of Grenoble, formerly the abbé Simon, his ancient professor of mathematics and philosophy in the College of Autun. Joseph had ever cherished the memory of his teacher with great affection, and, upon meeting, threw his arms around him in a tender embrace. As the bishop complimented him upon his high destiny, and congratulated him upon the probability of his immediate elevation to the throne of Spain, Joseph replied sadly,[Q]
Forebodings of Joseph.
"May your felicitations, Monsieur the Bishop, prove of happy augury to your former pupil. May your prayers avert the calamities which I foresee. As for me, ambition does not blind me. The joys of the crown of Spain do not dazzle my eyes. I leave a country in which I think that I have done some good, where I flatter myself to have been beloved, and that I leave behind me some regrets. Will it be the same in the new realm which awaits me?
"The Neapolitans have, so to speak, never known nationality. By turns conquered by the Normans, the Spaniards, the French, it was little matter to them who their masters were, provided that these masters left them their blue skies, their azure sea, their spot in the sunshine, and a few pence for their macaroni.
"Arriving among them, I found every thing to do. I stimulated their natural apathy, gave nerve to the administration, introduced some order everywhere. They were pleased with my good intentions, with my efforts. They loved me with the same fervor with which they hated the King of Sicily and his odious ministers. In Spain, on the contrary, I shall labor in vain; I can not so completely lay aside my title of a foreigner that I can escape the hatred of a people proud and sensitive upon the point of honor; of a people who have known no other wars but wars of independence, and who abhor, above all things, the French name.
"The Peninsula contains at this moment, under arms, nearly one hundred thousand national soldiers, who will excite, at the same time, against my government, the monks, the clergy, the friends (and they are still numerous) of legitimacy, the ancient and faithful servants of old Charles IV., the gold and the intrigues of England. Every thing will prove an obstacle to my plans of amelioration. They will be misrepresented, calumniated, disowned.
"In view of the insurrection of which the Prince of Asturias has recently given an example against his own father, in the midst of license and anarchy, the natural consequence of long demoralization and the disorders of a dissolute court, of a dynasty used up, will not all wise and well-moderated liberty be regarded as the equal of tyranny? Monsieur the Bishop, I see a horizon charged with very black clouds. They contain in their bosom a future which terrifies me. The star of my brother, will it always shine luminous and brilliant in the skies? I do not know; but sad presentiments oppress me in spite of myself. They besiege me; they govern me. I greatly fear that, in giving me a crown more illustrious than that which I lay aside, the Emperor will place upon my brow a burden heavier than it can bear. Pity me, then, my dear teacher, pity me; do not felicitate me."
The Brigands.
The brigands in the kingdom of Naples, and the eternal and natural enemies of repose which are to be found in all countries, availing themselves of the absence of King Joseph, and encouraged by the presence of the British fleet and the gold of the British Cabinet, redoubled their efforts in local insurrections, and committed cowardly assassinations. The bandits would land here and there, and perpetrate the most atrocious crimes, burning, plundering, murdering.