Carlo Poerio.”
On the 22nd of May, 1859, Ferdinand II., King of the Two Sicilies, died. The news of his death was not received with that universal burst of lamentation which follows when the world at large has suffered an irreparable loss. Indeed, it is painful to relate that throughout a considerable portion of the Christian and civilized world the sad tidings were even welcomed, and with an unseemly manifestation of rejoicing; not a few seeming even to be of opinion that a great obstacle of Christianity and civilization had at length been mercifully removed.
CHAPTER XXIII
Italian Unity; Victor Emmanuel II; War of 1859; Farini; Cavour; Correspondence; Poerio on Southern Italy; Sir James Lacaita; Visit to Turin; The Biographer.
Perhaps only when Italy shall have given proof of her fitness to hold her own amongst the Powers of Europe will the chain of events which has led to the accomplishment of Italian Unity be fully appreciated. True, these events are recent, and require the mellowness of time to impart to them due historical importance. As time progresses, however, the story of United Italy will attain significance; and there is reasonable hope that the new kingdom, hitherto not too harshly tried, will also attain that healthy maturity of which its youth has given promise. To forge the links to bind these discordant States into one, wars, external or internal, have succeeded each other; but, whilst assigning due weight to fortune without, it would be ungracious to stint the praise of the workers from within, whether we regard the mild wisdom of the school of patriots, whereof Poerio, Settembrini, and Panizzi were examples, or the reckless valour of more ardent revolutionists, valour which, it must be granted, was not without its uses when occasion demanded, and which in its excess was skilfully controlled by one of whom it were but faint commendation to say that amongst all the records of eminent statesmen, his superior could not easily be found.
Our observations have shown that Panizzi did not confine his love of country to that part of Italy wherewith he himself was most intimately connected. Having achieved his mission in favour of liberty in the South, we now (1859) find him turning his attention to the North of the Peninsula. By way of introduction to our account of his proceedings in this quarter, it may be well to give a short epitome of the events of the year in question, when the first foundations of Italian unity may be said to have been laid.
Victor Emmanuel, on succeeding to the throne in consequence of his father’s abdication, enjoyed the reputation of an experienced and intrepid soldier, yet was not in other respects a general favourite with his people. Nor was unpopularity at home the only difficulty in his way. When, after the fatal day of Novara, he received the crown from Charles Albert, who resigned it not until he had vainly sought honourable death in battle, he swore to avenge the wrongs of Italy, and to uphold the free institutions of his own realm. For this he had to reckon both with Austria and Naples, who, with unparalleled effrontery, called upon him to govern his kingdom in such a manner as should be in conformity with the mode of government in the other States of the Peninsula. To such a demand the King did not deign to listen, and his opponents were forced to be content with denouncing Sardinia as a hot-bed of sedition and revolutionary agitation. In the beginning of 1859 Victor Emmanuel, who, in his speech to Parliament, had remarked on the threatening appearance of the political horizon, commenced preparations for war against Austria. The circumstances which precipitated the war are too fresh in the recollection of our readers to be dwelt on here to any length. Cavour, on the part of Sardinia, was under promise to England to make no hostile demonstration against Austria. France had declared that she would aid Sardinia only in the case of the latter being attacked. The preliminaries to an European Congress were actually under discussion, when the Emperor of Austria suddenly broke off all negotiations, and demanded of Sardinia an immediate disarmament, a summons which was treated by Cavour with contempt. At this juncture, Austria, with that peculiar aptitude for blundering which has so characterised her action, sent, in the night of April 28-29, 1859, her armies across the Ticino, thus affording an occasion of action whereof the two allies were not slow to avail themselves. The French troops hastened to cross the Alps. Battle followed battle with uniform success to the allied arms, when, like a thunderbolt, news of the Peace of Villafranca fell on Europe. Unexplained at the time, the reasons for it soon came within the range of tolerably accurate conjecture. In the first place the eagerness with which people of the other States in Italy prepared to unite themselves with Sardinia (which Cavour had foreseen, but which had failed to strike Louis Napoleon,) was hardly to the taste of the French Emperor. Whatever were his objects in the war, the unity of Italy was certainly not one of them. He had employed his army, and thereby diverted his people; he had gained a satisfactory amount of glory, though perhaps not so much as his ambition led him to hope for. In his victories, (though it were hard to apply to them the epithet Pyrrhic,) he had undoubtedly sustained greater loss than his adversary; and he possibly thought it as well to refrain from following the Austrians to the strong position to which they had retired, and from whence not all the armies of Italy, Sardinia, and France united could in all probability have succeeded in dislodging them. His fortitude and forbearance were, however, as all know, not without their substantial reward.