664 Mr. Walter Frewen Lord [Marcli 11, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, Marcli 11, 1898. 



Sir Fhederick Bramwell, Bart. D.O.L. LL.D. F.R.S. 

 Honorary Secretary and Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Walter Frewen Lord, Esq. 

 "MarJced Unexplored.'^ 



The small area of unexplored history that I shall ask your leave to 

 open up this evening is that curious backwater of Mediterranean 

 history which I have called Murat's dream. It was an early attempt 

 to unify Italy, and was defeated by Lord William Bentinck and Louis 

 Philippe (afterwards King of the French) when Due d'Orleans. 



In order to facilitate my exposition of this highly comj^licated 

 period I will ask your attention to these four maps. The first repre- 

 sents Murat's dream ; the second represents what actually happened 

 to Italy when that dream ceased to be even an asj^iration ; the third 

 represents Italy at tlie present moment : I will speak of the fourth 

 map presently. As regards the first map I need hardly remind you 

 that after the battle of Austerlitz the ancient kingdom of tho Two 

 Sicilies was conferred upon Joseph Bonaparte by his brother Napo- 

 leon. This was a simple operation in so far as the mainland 

 dominions were concerned ; but Sicily, being an island, and pro- 

 tected by the British fleet, was beyond Napoleon's reach, and never 

 passed out of the hands of the Neaj^olitan Bourbons. Joseph, when 

 presented to the throne of Spain, was succeeded by Joachim IMurat, 

 Napoleon's brother-in-law, and at the time that our story opens Murat 

 was de facto King of Naples. To that kingdom he had recently added 

 the States of the Church. He w^as in military occupation of the 

 Grand Duchy of Tuscany. His brother-in-law, Prince Borghese — 

 not a warlike or an ambitious person — was in occupation of Piedmont ; 

 the King of Sardinia having retired to the island from which he took 

 his title. Sardinia was at this epoch, all that remained to the 

 present Eoyal House of Italy. It is obvious that this is the largest 

 homogeneous dominion actually and potentially (for there would 

 have been no difficulty about Lucca, Parma and Modena) ever carved 

 out in Italy since the fall of the Roman Empire until the year 1861. 

 Murat proposed to make this a permanent settlement ; leaving 

 Ferdinand of Bourbon in Sicily, the House of Savoy in Sardinia, 

 England in Corsica, and Austria in her dominions of Northern Italy. 

 England and Austria assented to this plan ; and before we come to 



