and insurrection having raised its standard in 1821, Victor abdicated in favour of his brother, Charles Felix. Charles Albert, who had been educated in Paris, for a brief time regent, fell into the hands of the Carbonari, and had to fly the country. Charles Felix relied for support on Austrian bayonets. The King of Piedmont was no better than any other Italian prince; he had sunk to the rank of a mere Austrian lieutenant. The king was, indeed, a mere indolent debauchee. All that Piedmontwhich owed the wonders of Mont Cenis and the Simplon, and the fine bridge over the Po at Turin, to the French-was indebted to him for, were the bridge over the Dora, near Turin, and that at Baffalora over the Ticino. He also built the grand Teatro Carlo Felice at Genoa ; and he restored the abbey of Hautecombe, ravaged by the Jacobins in

1792.

Austria had, however, far more serious designs upon Piedmont than the assertion of imperial supremacy. The lineal dynasty of Savoy was near its extinction, and a hope was entertained of ousting the lateral branch of Carignano. There can, indeed, be no doubt but that if Italy is ever incapable of constituting a strong nationality, the peace of Europe, or the neutrality of France, which is the same thing, would be better secured by a first-rate power like Austria holding the Alps, than the same great natural frontier being in the hands of an ever-vacillating second-rate power like Piedmont. The revolution of July, 1830, came, however, to baffle the projects of Austria. Central Italy was convulsed with abortive insurrectionary attempts, and the Papal throne had to be propped up by Austrian, and a twelvemonth later even by French, bayonets. Charles Albert succeeded to the throne of Piedmont at the death of Charles Felix, who died April 27, 1831, and he sought an alliance with France against Austria. The predilections of Louis Philippe lay, however, in a totally different direction. Charles Albert had, like the French monarch, also enough to do at home at the outset. There was an insurrection, fomented by that arch-democrat Mazzini, to put down. There was a constitution clamorously demanded, and only granted when Pius IX. set the example by announcing the alliance of the Catholic religion with the cause of Italian freedom and independence. Italy was thus proceeding at a fearfully rapid rate, and that by its own impulse, when the fall of Louis Philippe was followed by insurrection in Milan and Venice. Charles Albert set himself at the head of the movement, which had this in its favour, that it was purely Italian and unaided by France. But if its origin was Italian, so also was its progress and its end. Charles Albert fought for self-aggrandisement, and not to win Italy for the Italians, which he well knew to be an impossibility. Hence was he also mistrusted by his own allies, the Lombards, and unaided by the other Italian states. The result was, Piedmont defeated and isolated, with a discomfited army, an exhausted treasury, and a brokenhearted king. As to the war of "the peoples," which Mazzini had so loftily promulgated from Lugano, notwithstanding some dashing feats of Garibaldi on the Lake Maggiore, it vanished like the mountain mist before the rising sun.

Charles Albert was defeated, but not crushed. In opposition to all diplomatic intervention, he resolved upon one more struggle. It was in

vain that Gioberti made one last effort, seconded by all the influence of France and England, to put down democracy in Central Italy: the revolution devoured its own children—a demoralised army was hastily called together the Pole Chrzanowsky was named to the commandand a campaign was entered upon which barely lasted four days. It ended March 23 at ominous Novara, the scene of so many Italian dis

asters.

Victor Emmanuel II., the hero of our own times, was enabled, by the abdication of his father, Charles Albert, to secure an armistice, till by the intercession of England and France he obtained honourable conditions. It has since been convenient to forget at whose intercession Piedmont was once more saved from being an Austrian province. But independence was not for Piedmont; saved from the clutches of Austria, it fell unresisting into the hands of France, whose projects can scarcely be doubted from the time that they forced the Pope upon the Romanswhen the two hundred millions of Catholics, on whom Pius IX. had built his hopes, decreed that the Roman people were the property of a priest, and could have no voice in their own destiny! The French republicans took upon themselves the execution of this outrageous sentence: no wonder the very stones of the old city rose against them! For the hundredth time Europe conspired to the destruction of Italy: Italy was resolved not to fall without a generous armed protest. The iniquity of the attack called forth the resistance of despair. The defence of Rome, the no less glorious but more stainless deeds of Venice, the selfimmolation of Brescia, the struggle in Sicily, ennobled in the eyes of Europe a cause which grievous errors and revolting crimes had otherwise irreparably condemned. Sad it is to think that in the present day all these toils, all these aspirations, and all these sacrifices should end in nothing but Piedmont passing once more into the hands of French despotism-its glorious plains fertilised by the blood of centuries-its swift and deep streams hallowed by many a gory combat-its fortresses and strongholds hoary with grim feudal reminiscences, or blackened by the thunder of modern warfare-all once more occupied by the troops of a foreign despot, deploying his Zouaves, Turcos, and other half-barbarian hosts against the Croats and Hulans, and other semi-barbarians engaged in defending the conquests of another despot!

Its

The lessons of history with respect to Piedmont are of the most simple teaching. It has from the most remote times been the field of contention between more powerful neighbours, whether Romans, Gauls, or Goths, Franks, Swiss, or Germans, French, Spaniards, or Austrians. alliances, whether matrimonial or political, have been equally fatal to her. If the females married into France, they set up, as in the instance of Adelaide, wife of Louis the Fat, and Joan, wife of John III. of Brittany, and even in the times of the Countesses of Provence and d'Artois, daughters of Victor Amadeus II., the most exacting pretensions. If the princes of Savoy or Piedmont wedded French princesses, they became through their wives, as in the instance of Yolande, wife of Amadeus IX., Christina, wife of Victor Amadeus I., and Margaret of Valois, wife of Emmanuel Philibert, mere vassals of France.

The political alliances of Piedmont have been ever still more untoward.

Those with Louis II. against Spain and Germany, with Francis I. and Charles V. alternately; with Henry II., Louis XIII., and Philip II. of Spain; with Louis XIV., Ferdinand, and Maria Theresa alternately; with Louis XV. and Charles VI.; with the French Republic and the First Consulate; with Austria, Russia, and England; with Napoleon the Great; and, lastly, with Louis Philippe, not to mention its numerous German, Swiss, and Italian alliances, have seldom or ever worked for the benefit, welfare, or aggrandisement of Piedmont-Emmanuel Philibert, perchance, alone excepted. Of the invasions of the country solely, it is needless to say, that whether directed against Savoy or Piedmont alone or jointly, they have ever been fatal to both, from the times of the Merovingian and Carlovingian Franks to those of Charles VIII., of Henry X., of Louis XII., XIII., XIV., XV., and XVI., of the French Republicans and the First Consulate, to those of Napoleon the Great. What reasonable or just conclusion can be derived from these historical antecedents that Napoleon III. shall invade Italy for the liberation of the Italians solely? It is manifest that if he so acts he will be the first potentate who has ever done so. He will stand alone in the history of Piedmont and Lombardy as the most disinterested and magnanimous prince that has ever yet interfered in their affairs by family or political alliances or by belligerent intercession. He will be the first of a new race of monarchs who will set the example to the rest of the world of great wars carried on for motives that are purely philanthropic and neighbourly.

Louis Napoleon III. has gone forth into Italy as the champion of liberty, to battle, according to his own averments, for the liberation of the country. If such purity and simplicity of action could be for a moment believed in, the sympathies of all right-minded men would go with him. But such a conclusion to an Italian war is as utterly opposed to the lessons of history and to the indications of the present as it is to the very nature of things. The disinterestedness of France is as utter an impossibility as is an Italian nationality. Can France afford to exhaust her treasures and spill her best blood for nothing? For what has she held Rome? for what has she united herself with the House of Carignan? for what did she hurry to peace in the Crimea, and accept those proffers on the part of Russia which England had repudiated in favour of her then "honourable ally," France? For that which she now seeks across the Alps, where the first scenes in European wars have so invariably

been enacted!

INDEX

TO THE FORTY-FIFTH VOLUME.

By Kentucky, A Frenchman in, 179
Knight Banneret, The. Uncle Henry's
Story. By Henry Spicer, Esq., 264
King's Head, The, at Tamworth, 358