In 1805, as we have seen, Napoleon appointed Eugène Beauharnais, son of Josephine, viceroy; later he made him his successor in the kingdom of Italy, with the order to govern it after the simple system: “The emperor wills it!” The new ruler himself wrote to Napoleon that the kingdom of Italy would pay 30,000,000 francs to France yearly. Eugène married the daughter of King Max of Bavaria, with whom he shared Tyrol in the division suggested by their nationality.
Two days after the wedding, the 16th of January, 1806, Napoleon adopted Eugène. Ancona and all Venice being now added to it, the “kingdom of Italy” numbered 6,500,000 souls to 1,530 square miles. Even the courts, or rather their counsellors, worthy of the necessities of the time, observed that from the union of all these fragments the idea of nationality was slowly arising.
[1806-1813 A.D.]
Balbo[e] says of this time: “It was vassalage, no doubt; but a vassalage that shared the pride, the joys, the triumphs of the ruler. It was a time of universal self-respect, and from it dates the first utterance by the people of the name of Italy with increased love and honour; all over Italy the petty municipal and provincial jealousies which had taken root centuries before, and flourished even in the Utopian republic of a day, began to decline.”
We must not forget that Balbo belonged to the Piedmontese; hence the highest military nobility. The families whose sons had to pass through fire and be sacrificed to the Moloch of Napoleon’s ambition, could not then have shared his sentiments. Out of 30,000 Italians scarcely 9,000 returned from Spain. It caused a still more painful impression when Napoleon announced that of the 27,000 men of the kingdom of Italy who had gone to Russia, scarcely a thousand remained, especially as he made the announcement dryly, without a word of acknowledgment, and only ordered the raising of a new army. The remainder of Italy, partly incorporated to France and partly Neapolitan, had similar losses to bear.[f]
THE FALL OF NAPOLEON
In the winter of 1812 the emperor’s great army perished among the snows of Russia. Germany rose against him as one man; the battle of Leipsic completed his ruin; and before the end of 1813, he retained none of his foreign territories but Italy. As he had used the influence of religion to strengthen his rising power, so he now again caught at its support to arrest his fall. Calling the imprisoned pope to Fontainebleau after his return from the fatal campaign in the north, he prevailed on him to subscribe a concordat, which yielded some of the disputed points, and gave again to the French Empire the patronage of the see of Rome. But the advisers of Pius in this step had been Cardinal Ruffo and men who, like him, watched the times from a secular point of view: and different sentiments were suggested to the pontiff by those other friends, the cardinals Pacca, Gabrielli, Litta, and De Pietro, who were next admitted to his closet. He retracted his consent, and Napoleon lost the hold which he had thus hoped to gain both on France and Italy.
In the meantime, the nation had been called on to take an active share in the closing struggle maintained by their conqueror; the kingdom of Italy, except the sullen aristocracy of Venice, came forward with cheerfulness and spirit to furnish extraordinary contributions of men and money. Piedmont was equally zealous and active. Little was done to aid Napoleon, and nothing whatever to secure the independence of Italy after his dethronement. Jealousies, local and personal, though they had been lulled asleep, were not destroyed; opinions and desires differed by innumerable shades; and, above all, there was no chief, no man that could have led the nation into battle, defying the fearful odds which would have been brought against it. Neither for the establishment of an independent peninsular monarchy, nor for that of a federation or a single republic, were there materials among those who guided the destinies of the country; Murat and Eugène Beauharnais were equally ill-fitted to sustain the part of Robert the Bruce; and among all their Italian generals there was no Kosciuszko.
[1813-1815 A.D.]
In the summer of 1813, the Austrian armies defiled from the southern passes of the Alps; and after several indecisive engagements with the forces of Eugène, they had gained, before the end of the campaign, a great part of northern Italy. Meanwhile, King Joachim, marching his troops northwards, seized the papal provinces, and astonished Europe by proclaiming himself the ally of Austria. He had concluded a bargain, by which Francis, on condition of receiving his assistance, guaranteed the Neapolitan throne to himself and his heirs. In the ensuing spring, a body of English and Sicilians took Leghorn (Livorno) and were thence led by Lord William Bentinck against Genoa, which surrendered without resistance.