118 Italy. 



which Bonaparte granted to the conquered Italian rulers cost their 

 subjects millions of money, and the loss of the finest objects of art 

 and curiosity which they possessed as national property. However, 

 that cunning and ambitious general, through his numerous private 

 friends, contrived to keep always alive in the mind of the patriots the 

 joyful hope of obtaining shortly their national independence, and in 

 this hope he often personally encouraged them by his solemn positive 

 assurance, and thus they continued to support the French, notwith- 

 standing their unparalleled extortions and depredations. 



But when that republican hero, forgetting his origin and wantonly 

 renouncing the principles which he had openly professed during his 

 glorious military and consular career, became the despotic dictator 

 of the continent of Europe, under the title of Emperor of France, 

 the Italians soon discovered the Mala parte of Bonaparte, and were 

 convinced, but too late, that he had deceived them. At length, when 

 Napoleon elected himself king of Italy, and was crowned as such at 

 Milan, all that were truly independent, patriotic, and reflecting, de- 

 plored the fate of their country, certain as they were that it had now 

 become a French province. In fact, within scarcely two years 

 Napoleon enthroned several of his relations in the peninsula, and 

 through them ransacked its treasures and oppressed and impoverished 

 its inhabitants. Italy obtained a kind of religious toleration in con- 

 sequence of the diminution of monastical influence, and of the almost 

 extinction of the temporal power of its ecclesiastical harpies; at 

 the same time, civil acid political liberty was totally extinct under 

 the lieutenants of Napoleon, whose depredations, extortions, and 

 persecutions were allowed to go on with perfect impunity, provided 

 part of the Italian spoils were forwarded to France. 



It must, however, be acknowledged, that during the French admi- 

 nistration some important ameliorations were introduced into Italy, 

 with regard to the instruction of the people, and to the financial and 

 juridical departments ; and that military habits, discipline, and valour, 

 were again revived amongst its inhabitants by forcing the Italians 

 to become partakers of the toils, dangers, and glory, of all the wars 

 of aggression and usurpation which Napoleon undertook against the 

 potentates of the continent of Europe. It is a fact, that the Italians 

 were amongst the best troops that the French army possessed during 

 the long and destructive peninsular war of Spain, and at the epoch of 

 the gigantic disastrous campaign of Russia, where they distinguished 

 themselves by their discipline, intrepidity, and courage. 



With the fall of the French empire, Italy, according to the dic- 

 tates, good-will, and pleasure of the diplomatical sages of the Con- 

 gress of Vienna, was replaced under the yoke of its ancient absolute 

 masters, who, having learned nothing during their long well-earned 

 exile, commenced again their career of misrule. The Pope and 

 clergy, whom Napoleon had humiliated, reassumed their former 

 ambitious pride and irresponsible sway. The Monks, and especially 

 the hypocritical Jesuits, who had been suppressed, were reinstated in 

 their temporal immunities and possessions, and received again the 

 absolute monopoly of the instruction and education of the nation ; and 

 ibe Italians were besides compelled to indemnify their returned 



