169 



MAZZINI, QUJSEPPE. 



MAZZINI, GUISEPPE. 



170 



men of all professions, to whom he communicated his spirit and his 

 ideas. At first, the ardent longing with which lie waa inspired and 

 with which he inspired his friends, found vent in conversations about 

 art and literature, and the past glories of Italy in both. The contro- 

 versy between Classicism and Romanticism was then agitating intel- 

 lectual Europe ; and the friends were drawn to the side of Romanticism, 

 as that with which all their aspirations corresponded. To give effect 

 to their ideas, Mazzini established a literary journal in Qenoa, and, 

 when that was suppressed by the police, another in Leghorn in the 

 Tuscan states, where the censorship was more liberal. He wrote many 

 papers on literature and art for these journals, all breathing his 

 peculiar spirit, and though not formally political, yet clearly inculcating 

 doctrines tending to revolution. But this was not enough. Though 

 once or twice since 1815, insurrection had been attempted in Italy 

 and had failed, the example of the successful revolt of the Greeks 

 against the Turks was quoted again and again by Mazzini among his 

 friends as a proof that, if duly organised beforehand, insurrection 

 might succeed in Italy too. 



What was necessary, he said, was a ' Hetaeria ' or universal asso- 

 ciation in secret of patriotic souls, to prepare measures and watch for 

 the right time of action. For awhile, it appeared to him and his 

 friends that the requisite elements of such an association might be 

 furnished by a revived form of the BO-called Carbonarism that is, 

 that system of secret association which had sprung up among the 

 Neapolitans when struggling twelve or fifteen years before with the 

 restored Bourbons. Soon however they became disgusted with 

 Carbonarism, as an effete and mean system, and resolved to originate 

 an association on what they conceived to be purer and higher prin- 

 ciples. The French Revolution of July 1830, striking an* electric 

 shock through Europe, gave new alacrity to their desire. In the 

 midst of their hopes and consultations however, some hint of what 

 they were scheming reached the Piedmontese government ; aud 

 Mazziui was arrested. Nothing definite could be ascertained against 

 him, and after a short imprisonment, he was released on the condition 

 of leaving Italy (1831). Marseille became the place of his exile. 

 Here however he was not idle. Clinging with unabated tenacity to 

 his purpose of revolutionising Italy, and entering into relations with 

 the numerous Italian refugees whom he found already in Marseille 

 and in other parts of France, sheltered for the time by the new 

 government of Louis-Philippe, ha determined to act upon Italy even 

 from his position as an exile. The rudiments of a new organisation 

 were formed by him among the refugees, under the striking name of 

 4 La Qiovine Italia,' or ' Young Italy,' a name also borne by a 

 journal which he established in Marseille, copies of which were con- 

 veyed in great numbers, both overland, and by sea, into Italy. The 

 main idea of thU celebrated association and it is the idea to which 

 Mazzini has uncompromisingly adhered ever since, and which he has 

 never ceased to propagate was that " the freedom of Italy, both 

 from domestic and from foreign tyranny, could only be attained by a 

 union of all the separate states into one nation Romans, Pied- 

 montese, Tuscans, Neapolitans, Lombards, Venetians, &c. all merging 

 their separate interests in the one common name of Italians, and 

 under this name forming a single powerful European nation." What 

 should be the form of government of this united Italian nation, was 

 to be determined by events ; but Mazzini's own preference was for a 

 Republic. Meanwhile, he urged, the only way in which the union 

 could be effected, was by a general popular insurrection. 



These views ho communicated by correspondence to the friends he 

 had left behind him at Qenoa, urging them to prepare means for 

 putting them in practice. Charles-Felix was no longer on the Sardi- 

 nian throne ; he had been succeeded by his distant relative, Charles- 

 Albert (1831-49), who, though ho had been connected with the 

 Carbonari before his accession, gave no sign, when the government 

 came into his own hands, of any intention to alter the policy which he 

 had condemned. Accordingly, Mazzini's communications from Mar- 

 seille were eagerly received, and led to extraordinary results. " After 

 months of secret plotting, a conspiracy was organised which, from 

 Genoa as a centre, spread through all Italy, from tlio Alps to 

 the extremity of Sicily; and eveu the officers and soldiers of the 

 1'iedmontese and Neapolitan armies were concerned in it." According 

 to every account the organisation was truly formidable. Before the 

 moment fixed for the outburst however the conspiracy was dis- 

 covered ; the Piedmonteee government took steps with the other 

 government* for breaking it up ; many of the chief agents were 

 arrested aud put to death or imprisoned ; and others escaped and 

 took refuse in France, Switzerland and Italy (1833). 



From 1833 to 1848, was a period during which, with one or two 

 exceptions, Mazzini's exertions in the cause to which he had devoted 

 liU life were confined to a propagandist!! of his ideas through the 

 European press, and to a correspondence with Italy in order to repair 

 n:nl maintain the insurrectionary organisation which had been broken. 

 Kxpolled from France, at the instance of the Piedmontese ambassador, 

 by tlio gover.iment of Louis-Philippe, he and other Italian exiles 

 removed into Switzerland, where they established journals in the 

 cause of " Young Italy," and whence they made at least oue attempt 

 to tbrow insurrection into northern Italy. At length the Swiss 

 nrnent too was obliged, by threats from the menaced powers, to 

 refute them shelter; and, after persisting in remaining as long as he 



could, Maz/.ini came over to London. Here he resided for a good 

 many years, contributing articles, both political and scientific, to 

 some of the leading English and French journals, and, though 

 living in seclusion, known to many of the first men of the day. 

 His correspondence however with Italy still continued ; and the 

 Mazzinian or " Young Italy " party still continued to exist iu Italy 

 and to look to him in his exile aa their chief. In 1844 his name came 

 prominently before the British public, in consequence of the discovery 

 that his letters had been opened in the Post-office by the authority of 

 the British Home Secretary, and that, in consequence of information 

 thus derived and communicated to the Austrian government, the 

 brothers Bandiera, who were then planning au insurrection in the 

 Venetian states, lost their lives. The matter formed the subject of a 

 vehement discussion in parliament. 



After the French revolution of February 1848, Mazzini went over to 

 Paris ; and when the shock of that great event was responded to iu 

 Italy by the insurrection of Milan (March 1848), the evacuation of 

 Lombardy by the Austrians, and the concession of constitutions by 

 the native Italian princes, he waa able once more to present himself in 

 his native land. He appeared in Milan, and there, by his personal 

 exertions, strove to give a direction to the Italian movement corre- 

 sponding to the ideaa which he had always preached. As all know 

 however, the conduct of the gre;*t war into which all Italy then rushed 

 for the utter expulsion of the Austrians, was undertaken by the Pied- 

 montese King Charles-Albert, who sought this opportunity of at once 

 blotting out the remembrance of former facts in his career by a heroic 

 patriotism, and increasing his own dominions by the annexation of 

 Lombardy. Mazzini has been accused of impeding tha efforts of 

 Charles-Albert in this enterprise by preventing the republican party 

 from co-operating with him; and he has defended himaelf, aa Mauin 

 has also done, by asserting that the jealousy was on Charles-Albert's 

 side and not on that of the republican leaders, whose co-operation was 

 rejected, but who were willing to give it, and to postpone all questions 

 as to future political arrangements if Charles-Albert would have done 

 the same. Suffice it to say that, from whatever cause, or complication 

 of causes, Charles-Albert failed, and by the battle of Custoza (July 24, 

 1848) Hadetsky once more restored Austrian domination in Lombardy. 

 By this time also the reaction had begun in other parts of Italy, more 

 particularly in the Neapolitan kingdom ; and in other parts of Europe 

 the revolution was ebbing. Still the struggle was not over in Italy, 

 and Mazzini remained there to do what he could to bring it to the issue 

 he desired. After the return of the Austrians to Milan, and the other 

 Lombard cities, he wandered about as a volunteer with Garibaldi, 

 who, with his band, tried to protract the war. He made his way to 

 Tuscany, where, at Florence and other places, he laboured to bring 

 about a union between the Tuscans and the Romans. At length iu 

 February 1849 he, for the first time in his life, set his foot in Roino. 

 The moment at which he arrived was oue of the utmost importance. 

 In November 1848 the pope had fled into the Neapolitan States, 

 leaving Home and the provinces without a regular government; he 

 had refused to return ; and the Roman Constitutional Parliament then 

 sitting had resigned its functions and convened an assembly to be 

 elected by universal suffrage, and to take the responsibility of the 

 extraordinary crisis. This assembly, consisting of 150 members, had 

 met on the 6th of February 1849 ; and on the 9th of February it 

 passed two momentous decrees one, carried with only fivo dissenting 

 votes, abolishing for ever the temporal sovereignty of the pope in 

 the Roman States; the other, carried with only eleven dissenting 

 votes, constituting these states into a republic. These measures were 

 passed before Mazzini's arrival in Rome ; but as such a revolution 

 accorded with the tenor of his ideas and breathed hia spirit, it waa 

 natural that he should be received by the Romans with acclamations. 

 He was elected to the assembly, and immediately became the acknow- 

 ledged leader of the new republic. On the 30th of March Mazzini, 

 Sam, and Armellini were appointed a triumvirate, and charged with 

 full powers for the defence of tha republic against the coalition which 

 the pope at Gae'ta was forming against it. The main attack however 

 came not from Austria, Spain, or Naples, but from France. The 

 French expedition, under Oudinot, '.fitted out by the government of 

 Louis-Napoleon, then president, landed at Civita Vecchia on the 24th 

 of April 1849. It was expected that the Romans would admit them 

 into the city, and so surrender to the French government the right of 

 restoring the pope under new arrangements; but the Romans and the 

 triumvirs had prepared themselves to resist to the last. The French 

 accordingly marched against Rome, and began the fciege. For two 

 months the Romans, who had only 14,000 regular troops in the city, 

 maintained the defence with uu obstinacy which raised the astonish- 

 ment of Europe ; besides at the same time repelling a Neapolitan 

 invasion. Mazzini was the soul of this defence. At last, on the 3rd 

 of July, after great part of the city was laid in ruius, the French entered 

 it. They remained masters of it until April 1850, when the pope 

 returned and re-established his rule under the protection of a French 

 garrison left on purpose. 



On the fall of Rome Mazzini returned to England, where ho baa 

 chiefly resided since, publishing writings explanatory of the events of 

 184B-49, corresponding as before with Italy, and waiting for that now 

 explosion which he has never ceased to expect, and which it is hia 

 aim, BO far aa means offer, to bring to pass us expeditiously as 



