But after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, Italy was still as little constituted as before to command the respect or the fear of the world. Her people for the most part cherished no attachment for rulers to whom they were indebted neither for benefits nor happiness, in whose success they could feel no community of interest, and whose aggrandisement could reflect no glory on themselves.
The condition of Italy after the nominal restoration of her independence, offers, as a philosophical writer has well remarked, a striking lesson of political experience. The powers of Europe, after having in some measure annihilated a great nation, were at length awakened to a sense of the injury which they had inflicted upon humanity, and upon the general political system of the world. They laboured sincerely to repair the work of destruction; there was nothing which they did not restore to Italy, except what they could not restore—the extinguished energies and dignity of the people. Forty years of profound peace succeeded to their attempt; and these were only forty years of effeminacy, weakness, and corruption—a memorable example to statesmen that the mere act of their will can neither renovate a degraded nation, nor replenish its weight in the political balance; and that national independence is a vain boon, where the people are not interested in its preservation, and where no institutions revive the spirit of honour, and the honest excitement of freedom.
During these forty years of languid peace (from the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle to the epoch of the French Revolution) the general history of Italy presents not a single circumstance for our observation; and it only remains for us to pass in rapid review the few domestic occurrences of any moment in the different Italian states of the eighteenth century. The affairs of the Sicilies, of the popedom, of the states of the house of Savoy, of the duchies of Tuscany and Modena, of the republics of Genoa and Venice, and of the Milanese and Mantuan provinces, may each require a brief notice. But the obscure or tranquil fortunes of Lucca, and of the duchies of Parma and Piacenza, would scarcely merit a separate place in this enumeration.
The duchies of Parma and Piacenza, which had once more been separated from that of Milan to form the independent appanage of a Spanish prince, relapsed into the deep oblivion from which the dispute for their possession had alone drawn them. Don Philip reigned until the year 1765, and his son, Don Ferdinand, succeeded him. The administration of both of these princes was, in a political sense, marked by no important event; but the literary and scientific tastes of Don Philip entitle him to be mentioned with respect, and shed some beneficial influence on his ducal states.
THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES AND SICILY
[1738-1765 A.D.]
The transition of the crowns of Naples and Sicily, from the extinguished Spanish branch of the house of Austria to the collateral line of Germany, and from that dynasty again to a junior member of the Spanish Bourbons, has already been noticed; and we take up the annals of the Sicilies from the epoch only at which the infante Don Charles was confirmed in the possession of their throne by the Treaty of Vienna. This sovereign, who reigned at Naples under the title of Charles VII, but who is better known by his later designation of Charles III of Spain, governed southern Italy above twenty-one years.
The general reputation of his character has perhaps been much over-rated; but, as the monarch of the Sicilies, he undoubtedly laboured to promote the welfare of his kingdom. The war of the Spanish Succession paralysed all his efforts during the first half of his reign; but after the restoration of tranquillity in 1748, he devoted himself zealously and exclusively to the pacific work of improvement. He was well seconded by the virtuous intentions, if not by the limited talents, of his minister Tanucci. The principal error of both proceeded from their ignorance of the first principles of finance; and the cultivated mind and theoretical knowledge of Tanucci fitted him less for the active conduct of affairs than for the station of professor of law, from which the king had raised him to his friendship and confidence.
It has been objected as a second mistake of Charles, or his minister, that the system of government which they adopted contemplated only the continuance of peace, and contained no provision against the possibility of war. No attempt was made either to kindle a martial spirit in the people, or to rouse them to the power of defending themselves from foreign aggression and insult. The army, the fortifications, and all warlike establishments were suffered to fall into utter decay; and the military force of the kingdom, which was nominally fixed at thirty thousand men, was kept so incomplete that it rarely exceeded half that number. The only security for the preservation of honourable peace at home was forgotten in a system which neglected the means of commanding respect abroad; but Charles occupied himself, as if he indulged the delusive hope of maintaining his subjects in eternal tranquillity. He studiously embellished his capital; and the useful public works, harbours, aqueducts, canals, and national granaries, which preserve the memory of his reign, are magnificent and numerous.
The laudable exertions of Charles were but just beginning to produce beneficial effects, when he was summoned by the death of his elder brother, Ferdinand VI of Spain, who left no children, to assume the crown of that kingdom (1759). According to the spirit of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, his next brother, Don Philip, duke of Parma, should have succeeded to the vacant throne of the Sicilies; but Charles III was permitted to place one of his own younger sons in the seat which he had just quitted. His eldest son betrayed such marks of hopeless idiocy that it was necessary to set him altogether aside from the succession to any part of his dominions; the inheritance of the Spanish throne was reserved for the second, who afterwards reigned under the title of Charles IV; and it was to the third that the sceptre of the Sicilies was assigned.