Kingdom of Naples

On July 8 King Ferdinand arrived from Palermo and the State trials resulted in hundreds of persons being executed, including some of the best men in the country, such as the philosopher Mario Pagano, the scientist Cirillo, Massa, the defender of Castel dell' Uovo, and Ettore Caraffa, the defender of Pescara. After the peace of Amiens in 1802 the court returned to Naples, where it was well received. But when the European war broke out again in the following year King Ferdinand played a double game, ap pearing to accede to Napoleon's demands while negotiating with Britain. After Austerlitz, Napoleon declared that "the Bourbon dynasty had ceased to reign" and sent an army under his brother Joseph to occupy the kingdom.

Joseph Bonaparte and Murat.

Ferdinand and Maria Carolina fled to Palermo in 18o5; in Feb. 18°6 Joseph Bonaparte entered Naples as king. A cultivated, well-meaning, not very in telligent man, he introduced many useful reforms and abolished feudalism, but the taxes and forced contributions proved very burdensome. Joseph's authority did not exist throughout a large part of the kingdom, where royalist risings, led by brigand chiefs, maintained a state of anarchy, and a British force, under Sir John Stuart, defeated the French at Maida in Calabria (July 6, 1806).

In 18o8 Napoleon conferred the crown of Spain on Joseph and appointed Joachim Murat king of Naples. Murat continued Joseph's reforms and reorganized the army; and although he in troduced the French codes and conferred many appointments and estates on Frenchmen, his administration was more or less native and favoured the abler Neapolitans. The king gained many sympathies; he gradually became estranged from Napoleon and secretly opened negotiations with Austria and Great Britain. In Jan. 1814 he signed a treaty with Austria, and the following month proclaimed his separation from Napoleon. But when Napoleon escaped from Elba, Murat suddenly returned to the allegiance of his old chief, marched into northern Italy, and from Rimini issued his famous proclamation in favour of Italian independence (March 3o, 1815). He was subsequently defeated by the Aus trians several times and on May 18 sailed from Naples for France (see MURAT, JOACHIM). On the 23rd the Austrians entered Naples to restore Bourbon rule.

The Restoration.

Ferdinand and Maria Carolina had con tinued to reign in Sicily, where the court's extravagance and the odious Neapolitan system of police espionage rendered their presence a burden instead of a blessing to the island. A bitter con flict broke out between the court and the parliament, and the British minister, Lord William Bentinck, forced Ferdinand to resign his authority and appoint his son regent and introduced many valuable reforms. In 1812 a constitution on British lines was introduced, and the queen, who was perpetually intriguing against Bentinck, was exiled. Bentinck, whose memory is still cherished in the island, departed in 1814. Ferdinand dissolved parliament in May 1815, after concluding a treaty with Austria for the recovery of his mainland dominions by means of an Austrian army. On June g Ferdinand re-entered Naples and bound himself in a second treaty with Austria not to intro duce a constitutional government. At first he abstained from persecution and received many of Murat's old officers into his army. In Oct. 1815 Murat, believing that he still had a strong party in the kingdom, landed with a few companions at Pizzo di Calabria, but was immediately captured by the police and the peasantry, court-martialled, and shot.

Ferdinand proclaimed himself king of the Two Sicilies at the congress of Vienna, incorporating Naples and Sicily into one state, and abolished the Sicilian constitution (Dec. 1816). In 1818 he concluded a Concordat with the Church, by which the latter• re nounced its suzerainty over the kingdom, but was given control over education, the censorship, and many other privileges. But there was much disaffection throughout the country, and the Carbonarist lodges had made much progress, especially in the army (see CARBONARI), In July 1820 a military mutiny broke out at Caserta, the mutineers demanding a Spanish constitution although professing loyalty to the king. Ferdinand, feeling him self helpless to resist, acceded to the demand. The new govern ment's first difficulty was Sicily, where the people had risen in rebellion demanding their own charter of 1812, and although the Neapolitan troops quelled the outbreak with much bloodshed the division proved fatal to the prospects of liberty.

This outbreak seriously alarmed the Powers responsible for the preservation of the peace in Europe. At the congress of Troppau (Oct. 1820) the famous protocol was issued affirming the right of collective "Europe" to interfere to crush dangerous internal revolutions. Both France and Great Britain protested against this dangerous principle; but by general consent King Ferdinand was invited to attend the adjourned congress, fixed to meet at Laibach in the spring of the following year. Under the new constitution the permission of parliament was necessary be fore the king could leave Neapolitan territory. This was weakly granted, after Ferdinand had sworn the most solemn oaths to maintain the constitution. He was scarcely beyond the frontiers, however, before he repudiated his engagements, as exacted by force. The powers authorized Austria to march an army into Naples to restore the autocratic monarchy. General Pepe com mander of the Constitutional forces, was sent to the frontier at the head of 8,000 men, but was completely defeated by the Austrians at Rieti on March 7. On the 23rd the Austrians entered Naples, followed soon afterwards by the king. Every vestige of freedom was suppressed, and the inevitable State trials instituted with the usual harvest of executions and imprisonment. Pepe saved himself by flight. (See FERDINAND IV., king of Naples.) Ferdinand died in 1825 and was succeeded by his son Francis I., an unbridled libertine, under whom the corruption of the adminis tration assumed unheard-of proportions. (See FRANCIS I., king of the Two Sicilies.) He died in 183o and was succeeded by his son, Ferdinand II., who at first awoke hopes that the conditions of the country would be improved; but on the death of his first wife, Cristina of Savoy, he married Maria Theresa of Austria, who encouraged him in his reactionary tendencies and brought him closer to Austria. The desire for a constitution was by no means dead, and the survivors of the old Carbonari gathered round Carlo Poerio, while the Giovane Italia society (independent of Mazzini) promoted a few sporadic outbreaks easily crushed. The following year the Venetian brothers Bandiera, acting in concert with Mazzini, landed in Calabria, believing the whole country to be in a state of revolt ; they met with little local sup port and were quickly captured and shot, but their deaths aroused much sympathy, and the whole episode was highly significant as being the first attempt made by Italians from other parts of the country to promote revolution in the south.