[1806-1814 A.D.]
To the Neapolitan[24] as well as the papal states, no change of masters or of polity could at the time of the Revolution have been an evil; the Venetian provinces, likewise, were then ill-governed and oppressed; upon Lombardy, the leaden hand of Austria had again begun to lie heavy; and in Tuscany itself there was much that required amendment, both in the character of the new rulers and in that of the people. The spirit of local jealousy, too, and the total want of military spirit not less than of national pride, were things that the Revolution aided powerfully in rooting out, although the Italians paid dearly for the benefit. The resources of the country, in agriculture and in manufactures, were developed with a success which nothing in its modern history had yet paralleled; and the prosperity was checked only, and driven into new channels, by that unwise and revengeful policy by which Napoleon for years, beginning with the Berlin decree of 1806, attempted to place the British Empire and its colonies in a state of blockade.
Even that arbitrary temper which, in the later years of his reign, converted his rule into an unmixed despotism, was never shown on the south of the Alps with the same fierceness which it assumed in the other provinces of his kingdom. In his secret soul, Napoleon Bonaparte was proud of that southern pedigree which, by every artifice down to the petty trick of misspelling his family name, he strove to make his transalpine subjects forget; himself an Italian in feeling, much rather than a Frenchman, he understood and sympathised with the character of his countrymen, in its weakness as well as in its strength, in its capacities for improvement as well as in its symptoms of decay; he flattered the populace, he breathed his own fiery spirit into the army, he honoured the learned and scientific, he employed and trusted those intelligent men who panted for a field of political action. He taught the people to feel themselves a mighty nation; and those whom he so ennobled have not yet forgotten their stern benefactor. If Napoleon chastised Italy with whips, he chastised France with scorpions; and the one region not less than the other has profited by the wholesome discipline.
After the fall of the popedom, an attempt was made to give unity and a show of independence to the Italian provinces of the empire, by uniting them into one general government, the administration of which, conferred at first on Louis Bonaparte, was afterwards given to the prince Borghese, the head of a noble Roman family of the first rank, who had married Pauline, one of the emperor’s sisters. The French scheme of taxation was introduced, with very slight modifications; and in 1812, the Italian provinces (excluding Nice) yielded to the exchequer fully half as much as was contributed by all the other territories lately added to the empire, including as these did some of the richest commercial cities in Europe. The gross sum raised by taxes of all kinds during that year was 95,712,349 francs, or nearly four millions sterling, which gave 62,644,560 francs as the net return to the treasury; and it is worthy of notice, likewise, that the cost of collection here was considerably less, in proportion, than in the other recent acquisitions. The revenue was liberally spent in organising efficient courts of law (whose text-book was of course the Code Napoléon), in executing works of usefulness as well as pomp, such as roads, bridges, and public buildings, in investigating the antiquities of Rome and other places, and in advancing arts and manufactures, by premiums and similar encouragements.
Arbitrary as was his method of imposing the new law-book, nothing which Napoleon did for Italy was half so distinguished a benefit. Another importation from France was the military conscription, which, in some particulars advantageous, was in most respects a severe evil. The annual levies ordered during the six years which ended with 1814, amounted in all to ninety-eight thousand men, rising from six thousand in 1806, to fifteen thousand, which was the demand during each of the last four years; but only a portion of these troops were ever called into active service. Still the emperor’s foreign wars, especially those in Spain and Russia, cost to his Cisalpine provinces the lives of thousands. That restoration of hereditary aristocracy which was effected in France, took place in Italy likewise, by a decree of 1808, bestowing on the sovereign the power of conferring titles, and allowing the nobles so created to institute majorats, or devises of lands in favour of their eldest sons, or others whom they might select to transmit their honours.
We have yet to survey the finances of the kingdom, that branch of its polity which, in both its departments, the receipt and the expenditure, has been more loudly blamed than any other. Part of the censure is fully deserved; but very much of it is overcharged, and not a little is utterly unfounded. Two heavy faults pervaded the whole system: first, that multiplication of taxes, both in number and amount, which Napoleon, constantly immersed in foreign wars, imposed with a more direct view to the filling of his own exchequer than to the comfort or prosperity of his subjects; secondly, that dependent situation of Lombardy which caused her interests to be sacrificed in several instances to those of France.
THE ISLANDS OF SICILY AND SARDINIA
[1801-1814 A.D.]
In the meantime, while the whole peninsula was subject to the French emperor, or to his vassal-princes, the English had preserved Sicily for King Ferdinand.