LAST WEEK.
THE TWO SICILIES v. BOURBON.
Many Englishmen may not know why the Sicilians and the Neapolitans dislike the Bourbons. A few words upon the subject just now may not be amiss, for the chances are, before these lines are published, the warning on the wall may have received practical fulfilment. Young Francis II., the pitiless son of a most pitiless father, has been weighed in the balance long since, and has been found wanting. The ships are waiting in the offing to take him away to Austria, the asylum of deposed kings. Empire has passed from his hands.
Now, in talking of Neapolitans and Sicilians, we are not speaking of people like ourselves. This quick, impulsive, sensuous race does not breed Hampdens and Sidneys. Northern nations are gluttonous, metaphysical, and hard to guide. The old Viking blood moves in our veins still, and the sturdy Saxon spirit fires us to action. Englishmen are discontented, and a Cromwell expounds their grievances, or they seek a home on the other side of the globe—say in North America, or in Australia. We are an unmanageable set. Not so with these warmer and more comfortable fellow-creatures of ours, who are content to bask all day under a Calabrian sun, and to wander about at night under the great moon which silvers over their beautiful bays and creeks, or to watch the fiery play of Vesuvius or Ætna. Give the peasant in these regions a handful of maccaroni and a slice of melon to sustain his body, and a little image of the Virgin all over spangles to inspire his poor soul with devout thoughts, and you have done enough for him. The maccaroni is his here—the little doll his hereafter. Of course this description does not apply to the number of highly intellectual and highly educated men whom Naples has produced. England and France might be proud to insert the names of many of the Neapolitan historians and men of science on their bead-roll of worthies. The tyranny of the Bourbons, however, has been so impartial that it has struck at both classes. It has paralysed the intellect and tortured the mere muscle of the country. With the story of Poerio and his companions so freshly before us no one would attempt to deny the cruelties that have been systematically practised by the Government of Naples upon the educated classes. But it has been the fashion to say that, however harsh the Government of the late and the present king has been wherever they found or suspected brains, still, on the whole, and as far as the peasantry were concerned, it was a good, sympathetic, rollicking sort of rule enough. Had this been so, both Ferdinand and Francis might have snapped their fingers at the advocates and men of letters. A hundred Garibaldis would not have sufficed to drive the young Bourbon from his throne if he had the peasantry of the country on his side. To say the least, there would have been two parties in the country; but the only Royalists in the country known as The Two Sicilies—leaving the Camarilla and the mere hangers-on about the court out of the question—have turned out to be Austrian recruits, and the rump of the Swiss regiments. This requires explanation.
Now a few words may not be amiss as to the causes of the discontent which seems to be universal. The mission of the Bourbons apparently is to put loyalty out of fashion. In France, in Spain, and now in Naples it is the same thing. When Murat had been disposed of at Pizzo, by the easy process of putting half-a-dozen balls through his head, the restored Bourbons had it for a while all their own way. Their own was to trust the management of their affairs to one of the vilest scoundrels who ever disgraced the human form. The name of this wretch was Canosa; he was the head of the secret police. To be sure, not much could have been expected from a royal race, who in the temporary eclipse of their fortunes had suffered Cardinal Ruffo to organise assassination into a system within the dominions which had been theirs yesterday, and might be theirs again to-morrow. Fra Diavolo was their trusted agent. This robber and cut-throat is a very romantic personage, when introduced upon the operatic stage: but in reality he was a most sanguinary ruffian. In the year 1821, Canosa caused the Sicilians to be murdered by hundreds for alleged complicity with the Carbonarist societies. Del Carretto was the successor of Canosa; now, here, upon very trustworthy authority—namely, that of the historian Colletta, is an account of what this man did in Sicily, in the year 1837—twenty-three years ago. “Order had been restored in Sicily, but he instantly instituted courts martial to try the offenders. A thousand of the Sicilians were summarily sentenced to death, and more than a hundred executed. The leaders had escaped, or fallen in conflict, but Del Carretto hoped, by the number of his victims, to strike terror, prove the magnitude of the revolt to Europe, and justify the subsequent acts of the Government, which had been already decided upon. Such was the haste with which the executions were conducted, that in one instance there was found one too many among the dead. A lad of fourteen perished, besides many priests and women, while to add to the horror of the scene, a band of music was ordered to play during the executions. Del Carretto passed his time in feasting and dances to which he invited the wives and daughters of those who had fled, or been compromised.” It is needless to say what was the object of these invitations. Now after 1848, these horrors were renewed. Can any one wonder that Garibaldi found so hearty a welcome in Sicily?
For forty long years this sort of work has been going on, both in the island and upon the mainland. For a few years after the Congress of Vienna, the Neapolitan Bourbons were kept quiet by the public opinion of civilised nations. But with 1820, the hanging, shooting, imprisonment in loathsome dungeons, and bodily torture, commenced. From 1820 to 1830, Ferdinand I., and Francis I., under the dark shade of the Austrian banners, had it all their own way. Then barricades were erected in Paris, and the nations of Europe had a short breathing-time. As a set-off against this, the late King of Naples, Ferdinand II., succeeded to the throne; and in the year 1833, when the revolutionary spirit had been somewhat stamped out in Europe, he opened