Nor is the question an easy one to resolve; for though Garibaldi with a few followers sufficed to overthrow a dynasty, the whole force of a mighty army, backed by a powerful public opinion, has not succeeded in firmly establishing a successor.
Piedmont is not loved in the South. There is not a trait in the Piedmontese character which has not its antitype in the Neapolitan; and they whose object it was to exhibit the sub-Alpine Italian in the most unfavourable colours, could not lack opportunity to do so. The severities practised towards the brigands—which were not always, nor could they be, exercised with discrimination—furnished ample occasion for these attacks. Many of these assumed a Garibaldian, or even Mazzinian tone, and affected indignation at cruelties of which the people—the caro popolo—were always the victims. One of the chief brigands, Chiavone, pretended to imitate Joseph Garibaldi; and in dress, costume, and a certain bold, frank manner, assumed to represent the great popular leader. Amongst his followers he counted Frenchmen, Spaniards, Germans, Belgians, and, it is said, Irish. One of these foreigners was a man of high rank and ancient lineage, Count Alfred de Trazégnies—a near relative of M. de Merode’s: he was taken prisoner and shot. Another was the famous Borjès, from whom was taken the instructions given him by General Clary, and, more interesting still, a journal written in his own hand.
Though his “instructions” are full of grandiloquent descriptions of battalions and squadrons and batteries—horse, foot, and dragoons—with exact directions given as to the promotions, the staff appointments, the commissariat,—let us hear how he himself describes the first steps of his enterprise.
Having with great difficulty succeeded in obtaining about twenty muskets at Malta, he saw himself in some embarrassment as to getting away from the island, where intimations as to his project were already about. He succeeded, however, in getting on board of a small coasting vessel with his officers, and landed after a two days’ voyage at Brancaleone. “The shore,” he says, “was totally deserted, no trace of habitation to be seen; and, directed at last by the glimmer of a solitary light, we came upon the hut of a shepherd, who received us kindly and hospitably. The next day he guided us to the little town of Precacore, where we were met by the curate, and amidst cries of Viva Francesco Secondo conducted into the Piazza. I was cheered by this,” says he, “and deemed it a lucky augury. About twenty peasants enrolled themselves here under my command, and we moved on to Caraffa, where I was told a friendly welcome awaited me. On passing, however, near St Agata, a company of the mobilised National Guard, about sixty in number, opened a sharp fire on us, and my new recruits took to their heels, leaving me alone with my officers. Sustained, however, by a strong position, we held our own for an hour and a half, after which a deputation from Caraffa came to offer me the hospitality of that city—an offer I was fortunate enough to refuse, for another and far more serious ambuscade was prepared for me there.”
At Cirella he came up with a Bourbon partisan named Mittica, with one hundred and twenty men under him, but who refused to accept him as a leader, and in fact treated him and his officers as spies and prisoners.
After many dangers and much suffering, deserted by Mittica and his band, Borjès found himself in Tovre, “where an old soldier of the 3d Cacciatori offered to accompany me—the only follower I have met with up to this day.”
His narrative, simply and unaffectedly written, is one of the most extraordinary records of suffering, privation, and peril, and at the same time of devotion to his enterprise and zeal in the cause of the ex-King. He firmly believes that the mass of the people are “royalist,” that he only needs five hundred men, well armed and disposed to obey him, to “overthrow the revolution” and restore the sovereign.
He met his death like a brave man. He was surprised with some of his followers at a farmhouse in the very last village before crossing the Roman frontier, to which he was hastening. A young Piedmontese Major, Franchini, with a detachment of Bersaglieri and some mounted gendarmes, surrounded the house and at last set fire to it, on which Borjès surrendered and was immediately shot. “I was on my way to tell the King,” said he with his last words, “that he has nothing but cowards and scoundrels to defend him—that Crocco is a villain and Langlais a fool.” Then turning to the Major he added, “Thank fortune for it that I did not start one hour earlier this morning, for I should have gained the Roman frontier, and you would have heard more of me.”
The Piedmontese have been severely blamed for the execution of Borjès. Indeed he has found no less an advocate than Victor Hugo, who would not consent to have him ranked with Crocco, Ninco Nancho, and the rest, mere brigands and robbers on the highway. That the popular sentiment of Italy was not disposed in his favour may be assumed from the indignation felt by all the villages of the frontier when General Lamarmora consented that the body of Borjès should be exhumed and conveyed to Rome. There is little doubt, however, that his being a Spaniard influenced this feeling. In no country of Europe is the foreigner regarded with the same jealousy and distrust.
While the report of General Lamarmora shows that no disparity of force, not even ninety thousand to four hundred, is sufficient to deal with the Neapolitan Brigandage, it affects to explain why. In fact, the report is one insinuated accusation of the French, who by their occupation of Rome supply arms and money to the reactionists, and feed a movement which, if left to its own resources, must perish of inanition. The report shrinks from the avowal that the whole inhabitants of two great provinces are friends and sympathisers with the brigands; that however little political reasons enter into the issue, the priests have contrived to give a political colouring to the struggle, and by contrasting the immunities of the past with the severities of the present, have made the peasant believe that the rule of the Bourbon was more favourable to him than that of the House of Savoy. It is not merely in the conscription for the regular army that the pressure is felt, but in the very enrolment for the National Guard, which, liable as it is to being “mobilised,” exacts all the services and all the privations of soldiering. So much as 3000 francs have been paid for a substitute, rather than serve in a force which compels the shopkeeper to desert his business or the farmer his fields for eight or ten months of the year!