and the Abruzzi swarmed with sectarians; the society was rapidly propagated throughout the kingdom of Naples, whence it spread to Romagna, Piedmont, and Lombardy; Vendite[1] were even established in fair and tranquil Tuscany. Every Vendita was a permanent conspiracy,—every Carbonaro an enemy to the reigning authority;—yet even sovereigns were their accomplices, since they had made use of the society to overthrow the dominion of the French in Italy.
The early Carbonari were men who were actuated by deep-rooted love of their country, and detestation of the vice, ignorance, and slavery into which Italy had fallen; they entertained the belief that means terrible and unflinching could alone regenerate a people sunk in superstition and slavery. The triumph of the Carbonari was the proclamation of the constitutional government at Naples. But even then the sect was no longer the same. It had transgressed against the great and permanent moral laws by which society ought to be governed; it had been guilty of crimes—now it sunk into feebleness. Its results fell miserably short of its proud promise; for its work had
- ↑ The spots where the Carbonari assembled were called Vendite—or Places for Sale—in accordance with the fiction of their being sellers of charcoal. Thus, as we should write over a shop “Charcoal sold here;” in Italian, the phrase is, “Vendita di Carbone.” Where there was one Vendita, there could be no other within four miles;—if another was established within these limits, a schism ensued, and every endeavour was made to put it down.
