Italy. 121 



Carbonarism has extended its ramifications all over the peninsula 

 and even in France, and at present the Italian Carbonari amount to 

 above 400,000. In 1831 the Carbonari of central Italy, instigated 

 and encouraged by their brethren of France, followed the example 

 of the Parisians, dethroned the petty tyrants of Modena, Massa, 

 Parma, and Lucca, and put an end to the absolutism of the court of 

 Rome, and all the Italian despots would have soon experienced the 

 same fate had not the mock citizen-king of the French perfidiously 

 betrayed the cause of the patriots by allowing to Austria the brutal 

 right of crushing them with its powerful armies. 



During the last six years poor unhappy Italy has been in a state 

 of unparalleled oppression; 180,000 Austrians keep in a permanent 

 state of siege all the great cities in their possessions, and are always 

 ready to assist their neighbours. Sardinia has 80,000 men under 

 arms, and 12,000 armed spies. Parma, Placentia, Modena, and 

 Massa, are watched, not only by national troops, but by mercenary 

 Swiss and German guards. Tuscany is well stocked with national 

 troops, and well supported by the permanent Austrian camp of Ve- 

 rona. The Roman States are under the surveillance of Austria, and 

 watched by numerous papal soldiers and gendarmes. The kingdom 

 of Naples is kept in obedience by 70,000 national troops, and the 

 king's person is confided to the fidelity of 8000 Swiss mercenaries. 

 The press is under the censorship both of the civil and ecclesiastical 

 power. Only eight daily periodicals are published throughout the 

 whole peninsula, and they are the organs of the government, for 

 whose interest they are printed. The universities are almost deserted, 

 the students being continually in dread of being arrested on suspicion. 

 The monks and priests, the richest and the only beings free from 

 taxation, amount to nearly half a million, and, living in idleness and 

 ignorance, by their example render the lower orders of that country 

 idle and superstitious. However, the middle and instructed classes 

 of Italy, although apparently very quiet and passive, are all conspir- 

 ing, and a secret permanent correspondence is kept up between the 

 patriots of all the great towns, and undoubtedly Italy cannot remain 

 much longer in its present wretched, distracted, and degraded state. 

 What has lately occurred in Spain and Portugal will shortly have its 

 effects. Italy is on the eve of momentous events, but its convulsions 

 will be very violent in consequence of its having to contend with 

 extraordinary difficulties, and to struggle at once both for its unity 

 and independence against a deeply rooted ecclesiastical and monas- 

 tical government, against the blind ignorance and superstitions of a 

 vast number of its inhabitants, and against powerful military corps. 

 The modern Italians, however, are by no means deficient either in 

 the love of liberty or the feelings of patriotism ; they will exert their 

 natural magnanimity, and availing themselves of their natural advan- 

 tages, as one people, they will frustrate the intrigues of foreign 

 powers, and counteract the influence of their crafty priesthood, by 

 whose means they are kept in a state of too great dissension between 

 themselves. The Italian patriots, imitating the ancients, their noble 

 progenitors, and recollecting that they have still in their veins some 

 of the blood of those who imposed laws upon the universe, will at 



