[133] George IV. King of Great Britain and Ireland (1762-1830) was crowned on the 19th of July 1821. Queen Louise of Prussia died on the 19th of July 1810.—B.
[134] The Queen of Prussia.—Author's Note.
[135] Napoleon died on the 5th of March 1821.—T.
[136] Eginhard (d. circa 839), secretary to Charlemagne: the reference is to his more or less legendary adventures with Charlemagne's daughter Emma, whose hand Eginhard is supposed to have obtained. The family of the Counts of Erbach claim to be descended from Emma and Eginhard.—T.
[137] Queen Frederica of Hanover died in July 1841; Chateaubriand lived until the 4th of July 1848.—T.
[138] 14 December 1822.—B.
[139] A military revolution had broken out in Naples on the 2nd of July 1820. The army had been won over by the Carbonari, a vast secret society which covered a large part of Italy with its network. General Pepe had obliged Ferdinand I. King of the Two Sicilies to proclaim a constitution modelled on that which the Revolutionaries had lately established in Spain. The Austrians entered Naples on the 23rd of March 1821. The principal actors in the movement took refuge on foreign ships. The Parliament broke up, and the supreme council of the Carbonari pronounced its own dissolution. Ferdinand I., who had been forced to leave his capital on the 10th of December 1820, entered it again on the 15th of May 1821.—B.
[140] Ferdinand VII. King of Spain (1784-1833) had been compelled to grant a Constitution to his subjects in 1820, but revoked it, with the material aid of the King of France, in 1823. It was owing to Ferdinand's unconstitutional repeal of the Salic Law, without the consent of the Cortes, that the present Alphonsist Branch occupies the throne of Spain, to the prejudice of the Legitimist, or Carlist, Branch, and as the result of a long series of bloody civil wars.—T.
[141] John VI. King of Portugal and Brazil (1767-1826) was proclaimed Regent of Portugal in 1792, when his mother, Mary I., became insane. In 1807, attacked by the French, he withdrew with the Royal Family to the Colony of Brazil, which he raised to a kingdom. In 1816, on the death of his mother, he was proclaimed King of Portugal, but did not return to Europe until 1821. On his arrival, he found himself obliged to accept a Constitution, which he abolished two years later. Meanwhile, Brazil had declared her independence (1822) and proclaimed John's son, Peter I. (IV. of Portugal), Emperor. Civil wars, curiously similar in their origin to those in Spain, broke out in Portugal soon after his death, in 1826.—T.
[142] Troubles broke out in Piedmont so soon as the Neapolitan revolution had died away. On the 10th of March, the garrison at Alessandria mutinied. Turin, Pinerolo and Ivrea followed suit. On the 13th, King Victor Emmanuel I. abdicated in favour of his brother, Charles Felix. In the absence of the latter he gave the regency to Charles Albert, the King's cousin, who promptly proclaimed the constitution of the Spanish Cortes, but, at the end of a few days (21 March), he was obliged to fall back before the Austrian intervention. The conspirators of Alessandria and the Italian "federates" were dispersed at Novara, and the victorious army entered Turin on the 10th of April. Victor Emmanuel maintained his abdication and Charles Felix restored the old government.—B.