VIII. 1821. CHAP. of the certain support of the Austrians, made the members of the junta lend a willing ear to the proposals of the Count Mocenigo, the Russian minister, who suggested, in the name of the emperor, a submission to the king on the condition of a general amnesty, and the hope of a constitution which should guarantee the interests of society. 83. Total de feat of the April 8. But, as often happens in such convulsions, the ardour of the extreme and enthusiastic of the insurgents defeated insurgents all the efforts of the more moderate of their party, and at Agogna. left to the Piedmontese the exasperation of civil war and the bitterness of foreign subjugation. The majority of the junta continued to hold out; and their eyes were not opened to the declining circumstances of their cause even by the disbanding of several battalions of the militia, who, instead of joining the general rendezvous at Alessandria, left their colours, and returned home. At length, seeing no prospect of an accommodation, the Count de la Tour, who had joined the royal army at Novarra, and was at its head, having concerted measures with the Austrian general, advanced to Vercelli. Here, however, he was met by a considerable body of the insurgents, and not deeming himself in sufficient strength to encounter them, he fell back to Novarra, where he was joined, on the 7th April, by the Austrians, who had crossed the Ticino at Buffalora and Mortera. Their junction, which took place at two in the morning of the 8th, was unknown to the insurgents, who, driving the light troops of the royalists before them, appeared, at ten in the morning, in front of the bastions of the place, anticipating its speedy capture, and an easy victory. But they were soon undeceived. Suddenly a terrible fire of grape and musketry opened from the bastions; as the smoke cleared away, the Austrian uniform and shakos were seen above the parapets, and the insurgents found themselves engaged with the combined Austrian and Piedmontese forces, nearly triple their own, supported by the guns of the place. The effect of this unexpected apparition was immense upon the spirits of April 8. VIII. 1821. the assailants, who immediately fell back towards Vercelli. CHAP. The retreat was conducted at first with more order than could have been expected, as far as the bridge of Agogna, at the entrance of a long defile formed by the chaussée, where it traverses the marshes. There, however, the rearguard was charged vigorously by the Austrian horse, and thrown into confusion; the disorder rapidly spread to the troops engaged in the defile, who were already encumbered with their artillery and baggage-waggons; and ere long the whole dispersed, and sought their 1 Ann. Hist. homes, leaving their cannon, baggage, and colours to the iv. 355, 356. enemy.1 84. of the capi mination of This affair terminated the war, although it had cost only a few killed and wounded to the defeated party; SO Submission swift had been their flight that very few prisoners were tal, and tertaken. The junta at Turin, upon hearing of this defeat, the war. gave orders to evacuate the capital, and fall back to April 8. Genoa, where they declared they would defend themselves to the last extremity. But it is seldom, save in a single city, that the cause of an insurrection can be maintained after a serious defeat. The constitutionalists melted away on all sides; every one hastened to show not only that he was loyal now, but had been so throughout, and in the worst times. Finding the case hopeless, the junta surrendered their powers, on the day following, to a com- April 9. mittee of ten, invested with full power to treat. They immediately sent a deputation to General La Tour, offering him the keys of the capital, and entreating that it should be occupied only by the national troops. This was agreed to, and it was promised that the Austrians should not advance beyond Vercelli. On the 12th, April 12. General La Tour, surrounded by a brilliant staff, and followed only by the national troops, made his public entrance into Turin, where the royal authority was immediately re-established. The revolutionary journals disappeared; the clubs were closed; and the public funds, which had lately been at 69, rose to 77. On the follow VIII. 1821. CHAP. ing day, the Austrian troops took possession of Alessandria, and other fortresses on the frontier; and as the old king, Victor Emmanuel, persisted in his resolution to April 19. abdicate after he had become a free agent, and his sincerity could no longer be suspected, his brother, the Duke de Genevois, assumed the title, and began to exercise the powers of royalty. A commission was appointed to examine the conduct of the chiefs of the insurrection the leaders had, for the most part, escaped into Ann. Hist. France; but the effects of forty-three were put under 370. sequestration, and themselves executed, happily only in iv. 357, 359, 85. action in Italy. April 12. May 15. effigy.1 The violent repression of the revolution in Italy, by Violent re- the Austrian bayonets, was followed by a great variety of harsh and oppressive measures on the part of the conquerors, which augured ill for the peace of the peninsula in future times. A general disarmament of all the provinces of the Neapolitan territories where Austrian soldiers had been assassinated was decreed, and enforced by domiciliary visits; the whole irregular corps, raised since 5th July 1820, were disbanded; foreign journals loaded with such heavy taxes as amounted to a prohibition; and the most rigorous inquiry made into the books, many of them highly dangerous, which had been put into the hands of the young at schools. The king, on his return, published a decree, engaging to "stifle all personal resentment, and make the nation forget, in years of prosperity, the disastrous events which have stained the last days of Neapolitan history;" but within three days after, measures of severity began. Four courts-martial were constituted, to take cognisance of the military who had taken part in the revolts which ended in the revolution, and several of the leading deputies of the assembly were sent into confinement in Austria. By a decree on July 1, which commented, in severe but just terms, on their treacherous conduct, the army, which had been the chief instrument of the revolution, was disbanded, and reorganised anew on a different July 1. VIII. 1821. footing.* The finances were found to be in so deplorable CHAP. a condition, that loans to the amount of 3,800,000 ducats (£850,000) alone enabled the king to provide for immediate necessities, and heavy taxes were levied to enable him to carry on the government. Finally, a treaty was signed on 28th October, by which it was stipulated that the army of occupation should consist of forty-two thousand men, including seven thousand cavalry, besides troops stationed in Sicily; and that it should remain the Neapolitan territory for three years, entirely at the 651. charge of its inhabitants.1 1 Colletta, Treaty, Oct. in Ann. Hist. ii. 459, 481; the 28, 1821; iv. 360, 367, The Reaction in Piedmont, tria. Piedmont did not fare better, after the dissolution of 86. the revolutionary forces, than Naples had done. prosecutions against the principal authors of the revolt, and treaty both civil and military, were conducted with vigour, and with Ausgreat numbers of persons were arrested, or deprived of July 26. their employments. Happily, however, as the whole chiefs of the conspiracy had escaped into France, there were no capital executions, except among a few of the most guilty in the army. To tranquillise the fears of Austria, and give stability to the restored order of things in Piedmont, a treaty between the two powers was concluded on the 26th July, by which it was stipulated July 26. that an imperial force of twelve thousand men should continue in occupation, until September 1822, of Stradella, Voghera, Tortona, Alessandria, Valencia, Coni, * "L'armée est la principale cause de ces maux. Factieuse, ou entretenue par des factions, elle nous a abandonnés au moment du danger; et nous a par la, privés des moyens de prévenir les malheureuses conséquences d'une révolution. S'étant livrée à une secte qui détruit tous les liens de la subordination, et de l'obéissance, l'armée, après avoir trahi ses devoirs envers nous, s'est vue incapable de remplir les devoirs que la révolte avait voulu lui imposer. Elle a opéré elle-même sa destruction, et les chefs qu'elle s'était donnés, n'ont fait que présider à sa dissolution; elle n'offre plus aucune garantie nécessaire à l'existence d'une armée : le bien de nos états exige cependant l'existence d'une force protectrice, nous avons été obligés de la demander à nos Alliés ; ils l'ont mise à notre disposition. Nous devons pourvoir à son entretien, mais nous ne pouvons pas faire supporter à nos sujets, le pesant fardeau des frais d'une armée qui n'existe plus, parce qu'elle n'a pas su exister. Ces motifs nous ont déterminés à dissoudre l'armée, à compter du 24 Mars de cette année."Décret, 1 Juillet 1821. Annuaire Historique, iv. 364. VIII. 1821. Sept. 30. Oct. 5. CHAP. and Vercelli. Its pay, amounting to 500,000 francs (£20,000) a month, and its maintenance, extending to thirteen thousand rations daily, was to be wholly at the charge of the Piedmontese government. A general amnesty, disfigured by so many exceptions as to render it applicable only to the mass of the insurgents, was published on 30th September; and a few days after, a very severe decree was fulminated against the secret societies, which had brought such desolation and humiliation on Italy. The king made his public entry into Turin shortly after, assumed the reins of government, and appointed a royalist ministry; but every one felt that it was a truce only, not a peace, which had been established between the contending parties, and that beneath the treacherous surface there lurked the embers of a conflagration which iv. 370, 379. would break out with additional violence on the first favourable opportunity.1 Oct. 17. 1 Ann. Hist. 87. regiment of guards at St Petersburg. Sept. 28, 1820. The Emperor Alexander found, on his return to St Revolt in a Petersburg after the closing of the Diet of Warsaw, that the danger had reached his own dominions, and infected even the guards of the imperial palace. During his absence in Poland a serious mutiny occurred in the splendid regiment of the guards called Semenoff, which had been established by Peter the Great, and was much esteemed by the present emperor. It was occasioned by undue severity of discipline on the part of the colonel, who was a Courlander by birth, and enamoured of the German mode of compelling obedience by the baton. The regiment openly refused to obey orders, broke the windows of its obnoxious colonel, and was only reduced to obedience by the courage and sang froid of the governor of St Petersburg, General Milaradowitch, at whose venerated voice the mutineers were abashed, and retired to their barracks. It was ordered by the Czar to be dissolved, and the officers and men dispersed through other regiments, and the most guilty delivered over to courts |