FAITH AND LAW AGAINST DESPOTISM. 1825-1840.
Tuscany under Fossombroni.--"Il Mondo va da se."--The
Antologia.--Romanticism v. Classicism.--Domenico
Guerrazzi.--Giuseppe Mazzini.--His early career.--His experiences
as a Carbonaro.--His plans in the fortress of Savona.--His first
banishment.--Louis Philippe and the Italian
Revolutionists.--Collapse of the rising of 1831.--Accession of
Charles Albert.--Italian belief in him.--Mazzini's letter.--Charles
Albert's position.--Mazzini's second banishment.--His
influence.--La Giovine Italia.--Its enemies and friends.--Charles
Albert's cruelties.--The expedition to Savoy.--Menz and Metternich
v. Mazzini.--The special position of Hungary.--The County
Government.--The Germanization of the nobles.--The Diet of
1825.--Szechenyi.--The Magyar language.--Material
reforms.--Metternich and Szechenyi.--Wesselenyi.--The Transylvanian
Diet.--Poland and Hungary.--Serfdom in Hungary.--The
Urbarium.--Francis Deak.--Wesselenyi at Presburg.--Louis
Kossuth.--His character.--His first work.--Arrest of Kossuth and
Wesselenyi.--The protest.--Metternich's defeat.
While Piedmont and Naples had been vibrating between revolution and
despotism; while the government of the popes had been steadily growing
more tyrannical and unjust; and while the rulers of Parma, Lucca, and
Modena had remained (with whatever occasional appearance to the
contrary) the mere tools of Austria, the government of Tuscany had
retained a peculiar character of its own.
The vigorous programme of reform, introduced by Leopold I. when the
government first passed into the hands of the House of Austria, had
not been further developed by his successors. But a tradition of
easy-going liberality had been kept alive both under Ferdinand III.
and Leopold II. Fossombroni, the chief minister of Tuscany, took for
his motto "Il mondo va da se" (the world goes of itself); and thus a
certain liberty of thought and expression continued to prevail in
Tuscany that was hardly to be found in other parts of Italy.
This might have excited the alarm of the Austrian Government, and of
the other princes of Italy; for conspirators condemned by them took
refuge in Tuscany. But two circumstances protected this freedom. The
fact that the ruler of Tuscany was a member of the House of Austria
seemed to exclude him from the chance of ever becoming the leader of a
purely Italian movement; and Metternich was, perhaps, not sorry to be
able to show the opponents of Austria that an Austrian prince could be
the most popular ruler in Italy. Secondly, Fossombroni, while so
easy-going in internal matters, maintained a dignified independence in
foreign affairs; and Ferdinand and Leopold had enough of the spirit of
the founder of the dynasty to second the efforts of their Minister.
Thus, when the Austrian officials sent to Ferdinand a list of the
Carbonari in Tuscany, with the request that he would punish them, he
simply burnt the list; and when, on the death of Ferdinand in 1824,
the Austrian Minister demanded that Leopold's accession should not be
publicly notified until the terms of the notice had been approved by
Austria, Fossombroni at once announced Leopold's accession as the only
answer to this insolent demand. Lastly, in 1831, when the Austrians
were trampling out the liberties of Bologna, Fossombroni prevented
them from extending their aggressions in Italy by an invasion of
Tuscany.
Here, then, it was natural that the thought of Italy, whether taking a
literary or political form, should find its freest expression. The
Conciliatore of Manzoni and Confalonieri had been suppressed in
Lombardy, but its work was revived by the Florentine journal called
the "Antologia." Manzoni's influence gained much ground here among the
literary men, who connected the struggle between the old classicism of
Alfieri, and the freer and more original writing to which the name of
Romanticism was given, with the struggle for a freer life in Italy
against the traditions of the past.
The writer who attracted the most attention, and whose name became
most widely known among the Romantic School, was Domenico Guerrazzi.
It is, perhaps, a little difficult for an Englishman to understand the
attraction of this author's novels; but an Italian writer thus
explains it: "The singularity of his forms and the burning character
of his style, the very contradiction of principles that are perceived
in his writings, gave to Guerrazzi the appearance of something
extraordinary, which struck upon imaginations already excited by
misfortunes and grief." Moreover, perhaps, Guerrazzi, more definitely
than most of these writers, connected the literary movement with the
political; and even in Tuscany he became an object of some alarm from
his desire for Italian freedom.
He naturally gathered round him a knot of young men of more decided
type than the ordinary contributors to the "Antologia;" and it was to
him, therefore, that the proposal was addressed to revive in Leghorn a
Genoese journal which had been just suppressed by the Sardinian
Government. The proposal was probably made to Guerrazzi in the first
instance by a young and enthusiastic Livornese named Carlo Bini; but
the chief promoter of the enterprise was a young Genoese of between
twenty and thirty years of age.
This youth was chiefly known as having recently sent to the
"Antologia" at Florence an article on Dante which had been rejected by
them, but which was subsequently inserted in another paper. Among his
contemporaries at the University the new comer had already excited an
enthusiasm which was not yet understood by the outer world. Such was
the first appearance in public life of Giuseppe Mazzini.
Under the influence of a very earnest and remarkable mother, he had
early been interested in the cause of Italian liberty, and he dated
his first impression of the importance of this cause from an interview
with one of the exiles who was about to leave Italy on account of his
share in the struggle of 1821.
Mazzini had been intended by his father for the profession of the law;
but he had already shown a decided preference for literature and
politics; and while still at the University he had been influenced by
the gloomy romance of Jacopo Ortis. But, though that strange book had
deepened his feeling for the miseries of his country, the scepticism
and despair which were its keynote could not long hold him in slavery.
On him, as on all the greatest minds of Italy, Dante soon gained a
powerful hold; and while he profoundly admired the "Divina Commedia,"
he learned from the "De Monarchia" that mystic enthusiasm for Rome
and that belief in the theological basis for political principles
which was to colour so deeply his later career.
The journal which, with Guerrazzi's help, Mazzini started at Leghorn
was called the "Indicatore Livornese." It soon became so alarming even
to the mild Tuscan Government that after some warnings it was
suppressed.
Shut out for the moment from the literary expression of his faith,
Mazzini turned to more directly political action. He felt that it was
his duty to make use of whatever existing machinery he could find for
carrying on the struggle for Italian freedom; and he therefore joined
the Carbonari. The very formula of the oath which was administered to
him, on entering this Society, seemed to suggest the inadequacy of
this body for stirring up the faith of a people. For, instead of
speaking of work to be done for the freedom or unity of Italy, the
words of the oath merely exacted implicit obedience to the Order.
Mazzini's spirit revolted alike against this slavery, and against the
solemn buffooneries with which the rulers of the Order tried to
impress those who joined it with the sense of its importance.[3] His
irritation at the uselessness and tyranny of the Carbonari brought on
him the stern rebuke of some of their leaders.
The July Insurrection of 1830, in France, woke new hopes in Mazzini, as
in other Italians; but before he could join in any active movement, he
was arrested at Genoa, and, without trial, was soon after imprisoned in
the fortress of Savona. The explanation given to Mazzini's father, by
the Governor of Genoa, of the reasons for this arrest affords a striking
picture of the despotism of the time. The Governor said that Giuseppe
was a young man of talent, very fond of solitary walks by night, and
habitually silent as to the subject of his meditations; and that the
government was not fond of young men of talent the subject of whose
musings was unknown to it. The real cause of the arrest was Mazzini's
connection with the Carbonari, which had been betrayed by a pretended
member of the Society, who, however, declined to support his charge in
public.
It was during this imprisonment that Mazzini came to the conclusion
that the Society of the Carbonari had failed to accomplish the purpose
for which it was founded, and that some new organization was required
in its place. While he was considering the objects which such an
organization should set before itself, there arose before his mind the
idea of Italian unity. The failure of the local efforts of 1821 and
1831 had been due to the want of common action between the different
Italian States; and the mystic enthusiasm for Rome supplied a poetical
argument in favour of the practical conclusion which he drew from
these failures. While too the treachery of Charles Albert and of
Francis of Modena had left on Mazzini a deep-rooted distrust of kings,
and inclined him to believe that a republic was necessary to solve the
difficulties of his country, he was willing, as will presently appear,
to accept any leader or form of government which should bring about
the unity of Italy. Anarchy he loathed with all his heart. He
thoroughly disliked the French doctrine of the Rights of Man; and he
desired to assert authority when legitimately established.
But the great distinction between Mazzini and the other political
leaders of his time was, that his aim was not merely to establish a
form of government, but to imbue the people with a faith. The unity of
Italy was not with him a mere political arrangement, but the working
out of God's government over the world, a development of a nobler and
better life.
This affected his attitude to the question both of the relation of
classes to each other, and of the relation of Italy to the rest of
Europe. Though he appealed to the working men of Italy with an effect
that no previous politician had produced, he never appealed to them on
the ground of purely selfish interests; for he felt that the special
motives for improving their condition should always be subordinated to
the general welfare of the nation. And it is a striking proof of the
extent to which this side of his teaching has taken hold of his
followers, that, in the demonstration to his memory at Genoa in the
year 1882, among the banners borne in the procession, and inscribed
with quotations from his works, was one on which were written the
words "Fight not against the bourgeoisie, but against egotism,
wherever it grows, under the blouse of the workman, as under the coat
of the capitalist."
Italy too was to help in the regeneration of Europe, but not after the
manner of the French Republic, by merely establishing a foreign
tyranny, calling itself Republican, in the place of native kings.
Patriotism, with Mazzini, was not the hard, narrow thing which it
became in the minds of too many of the leaders of the revolution. The
Peoples were to help each other in developing their own national life
after their own fashion, and to respect each other's national claims
as they claimed respect for their own.[4]
After long delay Mazzini was acquitted of the charge laid to him, no
evidence being brought forward against him. Thereupon the Governor of
Genoa appealed to Charles Felix to set aside the decision of the
judges, and to condemn Mazzini. The King consented; and Mazzini was
ordered to choose between banishment from Italy and confining himself
to a place of residence in one of the small towns in the centre of
Piedmont. He believed that the former alternative would offer him
freer scope for action; and he sailed for France.
The hopes of the Italian exiles had been roused, first by the July
Revolution in France, and secondly by the risings at Modena and
Bologna. General Regis, who had played such an important part in the
Piedmontese insurrection of 1821, was organizing with other exiles an
expedition, composed of Italians and French, to go to help the
insurgents who were still holding out in Bologna.
But the hopes of the insurgents were doomed to disappointment. Louis
Philippe, after playing with them for some time, came to the same
sagacious conclusion about Revolution that he afterwards announced
with regard to war, viz., that to talk about assisting a Revolution,
and to assist a Revolution, were two different things.[5] Just as the
expedition was on its march, orders were issued to abandon it, and a
body of cavalry were sent to enforce the command. Some abandoned the
attempt; but Mazzini and a few friends escaped to Corsica, which was
still Italian in feeling, though French in government; and there they
hoped to organize an expedition to help the Bolognese.
The Bolognese, however, though gallant enough in their own struggles,
were unwilling to commit themselves to a wider programme than the
defence of their own State. So they refused to send to Corsica the
money which was necessary for the expeditionary force. The Austrians
soon after entered the Papal territory; and when they had crushed out
the insurrection they were in many cases welcomed by the inhabitants
as a protection against the cruelties of the Papal troops.
Two other points in the insurrection alone need notice. One was, that
at the surrender of Ancona Terenzio Mamiani, already known as a
philosophic writer, refused to sign the conditions of capitulation,
and was consequently forced to go into exile. The other was that,
while the representatives of the Pope showed themselves, as a rule,
utterly reckless in violating the conditions under which the surrender
of the towns was made, one honourably distinguished himself by keeping
his word. This was the Governor of Imola, Giovanni Mastai Ferretti,
afterwards Pius IX.
The movement, however, in spite of its scattered and disconnected
character, had excited attention in Piedmont, and several leading
Piedmontese Liberals had determined to press Charles Felix to grant a
Constitution. Of these Liberals, the most remarkable were Angelo
Brofferio, the future historian of Piedmont; Augusto Anfossi,
hereafter to play so brilliant a part in the rescue of Milan from
Austria; and Giacomo Durando, whose book on Italian nationality was
afterwards to hold an honourable place among the writings which
stirred up Italian feeling. The conspiracy was, however, discovered;
the leaders of the movement were arrested; and, while the prisoners
were still awaiting their trial, Charles Felix died, and Charles
Albert succeeded to the throne.
During the time between the failure of the insurrection of 1821 and
his accession to the throne, Charles Albert's only important public
act had been his service in the French Army, which was suppressing the
liberties of Spain. Yet, in spite of this act of hostility to the
Liberal cause, and in spite of the recollections of his previous
desertion in 1821, the Liberals still had hopes that he would become
their champion.
This is a fact which requires more explanation than can be found in
the mere desire on the part of the reformers of Italy to choose some
King to lead them against Austria. After the treachery of Francis of
Modena, no Liberal expected _him_ to return to the cause which he had
deserted; and, when Francis of Naples had succeeded Ferdinand I., none
of the passing hopes, which had pointed him out in earlier life as a
possible constitutional champion, could save him from the hatred which
his tyranny deserved.
Nor must we be misled by the subsequent history of Italy into the
theory that there was anything special in the traditions of the
kingdom of Sardinia which should lead Liberals to fix their hopes on a
ruler of that country. Victor Amadeus of Sardinia had been the
foremost of the allies of Austria in the war against the French
Republic; and though there were continual causes of irritation between
the aggressive House of Austria and the rulers of the little monarchy,
these were not of a kind to have attracted the sympathy of any large
body of Liberals outside Piedmont. The only movement for the unity of
Italy, previous to the movement of 1821, had come from Naples; unless,
indeed, Eugene Beauharnais had intended Lombardy to be the centre of a
similar attempt.
When we take all these points into consideration we must come to the
conclusion that there was something in the personal character of
Charles Albert which riveted the attention of Italian Liberals almost
in spite of themselves; nor could any appearances to the contrary
induce them to doubt that he had at heart a desire for the liberty
and unity of Italy such as no previous Italian Prince had entertained.
It was, perhaps, the greatest proof of this strange fascination that
Mazzini, Republican as he was, yet thought it well to yield to the
strong feeling of the Liberals of Italy, and to give Charles Albert
one more chance of playing the part of a leader.
Mazzini, therefore, addressed to the new King a letter in which he
called his attention to the enthusiasm with which his accession was
greeted. "There is not a heart in Italy whose pulse did not quicken at
the news of your accession. There is not an eye in Europe that is not
turned to watch your first steps in the career now open to you." He
told him that the Italians were ready to believe that his desertion of
their cause was the mere result of circumstances; and that, being at
last free to act according to his own tendencies, the new King would
carry out the promises that he had first made as a Prince. He warned
him that a system of terror would only provoke reprisals; and that a
system of partial concessions would not only fail to satisfy the
wishes of the people, but would have an arbitrary and capricious
character which would increase the existing irritation. "The people
are no longer to be quieted by a few concessions. They seek the
recognition of those rights of humanity which have been withheld from
them for ages. They demand laws and liberty, independence and union.
Divided, dismembered, and oppressed, they have neither name nor
country. They have heard themselves stigmatised by the foreigner as
the Helot Nation. They have seen free men visit their country, and
declare it the land of the dead. They have drained the cup of slavery
to the dregs; but they have sworn never to fill it again." Mazzini
then calls on Charles Albert to put himself more definitely at the
head of a movement for Italian Independence, and to become the King of
a united Italy. The letter concludes with these words: "Sire, I have
spoken to you the truth. The men of freedom await your answer in your
deeds. Whatever that answer be, rest assured that posterity will
either hail your name as the greatest of men, or the last of Italian
tyrants. Take your choice."
Before we consider Charles Albert's answer, we must call to mind, once
more, his position. He came to the throne in the very crisis of a
conspiracy against his predecessor, and had hardly been able to
realize what had been the intention of the conspirators towards
himself. The Duke of Modena, who had plotted to remove him from the
succession (a proposal discussed at some length in the Congress of
Laybach), had just recovered his own Dukedom by Austrian help, and was
no doubt watching with eager eyes any false step which his rival might
make. Charles Albert, with all his liberal sympathies, was proud of
being a prince of the House of Savoy; and he was surrounded by the
courtiers of Charles Felix, who must have persuaded him that the
dignity and independence of that House could only be maintained by
opposition to the movement for reform.
There was, too, another influence which must never be forgotten in
estimating the difficulties of Charles Albert. He was a strong Roman
Catholic, at a time when the connection between reverence for the Pope
and reverence for the Church was, perhaps, closer than it had been at
most previous periods of the history of the Papacy. The commonplace
tyrannies of Leo XII. and Pius VIII. had not wholly dispelled the halo
which the heroic attitude of Pius VII.'s early days had shed round the
Papacy; and it seems highly probable that the most puzzling act of
Charles Albert's life, his share in the French invasion of Spain, had
been due, to a large extent, to that strong religious sentiment which
gathered in so peculiar a manner round the kings of Spain. A man
influenced by such sentiments could not fail to remark that the most
vigorous and determined of the insurgents of 1831 had directed their
attacks against the Papacy; and it might well seem to him that a
letter which called on him to oppose the Austrian restorers of the
papal power was the utterance of an enemy to the religion of the
country.
But the fact was, as Mazzini afterwards confessed, that any king who
was to undertake the work which he had suggested to Charles Albert
must possess at once "genius, Napoleonic energy, and the highest
virtue. Genius, in order to conceive the idea of the enterprize and
the conditions of victory; energy, not to front its dangers--for to a
man of genius they would be few and brief--but to dare to break at
once with every tie of family or alliance, and the habits and
necessities of any existence distinct and removed from that of the
people, and to extricate himself both from the web of diplomacy and
the counsels of wicked or cowardly advisers; virtue enough voluntarily
to renounce a portion at least of his actual power; for it is only by
redeeming them from slavery that a people may be roused to battle and
to sacrifice."
If such were the qualities required by any prince who undertook this
office, what must have been needed from one who had to contend with a
Power which had ten years before helped to crush out the aspirations
of his people, and which was just then triumphantly ruling in the
centre of Italy? A man of genius might have undertaken the task;
Charles Albert was only a man who "would and would not." But, if
Charles Albert refused to listen to Mazzini's appeal, he had no
alternative but to protest against it; and he did so by banishing
Mazzini, under pain of imprisonment if he should return to Italy.
Nevertheless, the letter had produced its effect on the nation. The
demand for the unity of Italy had been openly and definitely made, and
put forward as a boon to be struggled for by Italians, and not to be
conferred by a foreign conqueror. The attention of the youth of Italy
was at once attracted to the writer of the letter, and none the less
that he was an exile. The personal fascination which he exercised even
over casual observers may be gathered from the following letter,
which seems to refer to this period. It was written by one of his
fellow-exiles, describing his first sight of Mazzini in the rifle
ground at Marseilles.
"I went into the ground, and, looking round, saw a young man leaning
on his rifle, watching the shooters, and waiting for his turn. He was
about 5ft. 8in. high, and slightly made; he was dressed in black Genoa
velvet, with a large Republican hat; his long curling black hair,
which fell upon his shoulders, the extreme freshness of his clear
olive complexion, the chiselled delicacy of his regular and beautiful
features, aided by his very youthful look, and sweetness and openness
of expression, would have made his appearance almost too feminine, if
it had not been for his noble forehead, the power of firmness and
decision that was mingled with their gaiety and sweetness in the
bright flashes of his dark eyes, and in the varying expression of his
mouth, together with his small and beautiful moustache and beard.
Altogether, he was at that time the most beautiful _being_, male or
female, that I had ever seen, and I have not since seen his equal. I
had read what he had published; I had heard of what he had done and
suffered, and the moment I saw him I _knew_ it could be no other than
Joseph Mazzini."
It was under such auspices that the Society of Young Italy was
founded. The general drift of the principles of that Society has
already been sufficiently indicated in the account of Mazzini's
meditations in the fortress of Savona. It was to make Italy free,
united, Republican, recognizing duty to God and man as the basis of
national life, rather than the mere assertion of rights. But the great
point which distinguished it from all the other societies which had
preceded it was that, instead of trusting to the mysterious effect of
symbols, and the power of a few leaders to induce the main body of
Italians blindly to accept their orders, it openly proclaimed its
creed before the world, and even in the articles of association set
forth the full arguments on which it grounded the defence of the
special objects which it advocated. And the principles were further to
be preached in a journal which was to be called, like the Society,
"Giovine Italia."
But while he put forward a definitely Republican programme, Mazzini
never fell into the French mistake of thinking that a knot of men,
monopolizing power to themselves, can, by merely calling themselves
Republicans, make the government of a nation a Republic. While he
fully hoped, by education, to induce the Italians to accept a
Republican Government, he was quite prepared to admit the possibility
of failure in that attempt, and to accept the consequence as a
consistent democrat. This is distinctly stated in the first plan of
Young Italy.
"By inculcating before the hour of action by what steps the Italians
must achieve their aim, by raising its flag in the sight of Italy, and
calling upon all those who believe it to be the flag of national
regeneration to organize themselves beneath its folds--the association
does not seek to substitute that flag for the banner of the future
nation."
"When once the nation herself shall be free, and able to exercise that
right of sovereignty which is hers alone, she will raise her own
banner, and make known her revered and unchallenged will as to the
principle and the fundamental law of her existence."
Plentiful as was the scorn and misrepresentation showered upon Mazzini
and his doctrines, the two years from 1831 to 1833 brought a vast number
of supporters to the Society of Young Italy; and the revolutionary
movement in other countries gained organization and definiteness of
purpose from this model. In the meantime, the Government of Louis
Philippe was becoming more and more definitely committed to the cause of
reaction; and every kind of slander was being circulated by Frenchmen
against the Society of Young Italy. The theory that this Society
undertook to exterminate all who disobeyed its orders was supported, by
attributing to its action any casual violence which might take place in
the streets of Paris; and though Mazzini prosecuted one of these
slanderers for defamation a few years later, and compelled him to make a
complete retractation in the law courts, the slander was too convenient
to be allowed easily to drop.
On the other hand, men of the older type of revolutionist, who had
drawn their ideas from the first French Republic, and had afterwards
hoped to find their realization in the methods of the Carbonari,
objected to Mazzini as "too soft and German" in his ideas.
But nevertheless some who were afterwards known in other ways came
forward to contribute to the Journal of Young Italy. Amongst them may
be mentioned the historian Sismondi and a future opponent of Mazzini,
the Abate Vincenzo Gioberti. By 1833 the Society had established
centres in Lombardy, Genoa, Tuscany, and the Papal States, and it was
resolved to attempt an invasion of Savoy.
For, in spite of the promises which Charles Albert had held out of
reforms in the government, the prosecutions for the conspiracy of 1831
were being carried on with renewed rigour, and the prisons of some of
the chief towns of Piedmont were filled with men in many cases
arrested on the barest suspicion, and who were threatened with death
if they would not reveal the secrets of their fellow-conspirators.
Such cruelties were used to extort confessions that Jacopo Ruffini, a
young friend of Mazzini's, committed suicide in prison for fear he
should be compelled to betray his friends.
The news of these acts quickened the eagerness of the Italians for the
invasion of Savoy, and they desired to co-operate with men of other
countries. Among these, there were few from whom they expected so much
sympathy as the Poles. Unable to organize successful insurrections in
their own country, the Poles were scattered over Europe, a revolutionary
element in every land in which they were to be found. They, like the
Italians, had at first expected sympathy from the July monarchy in
France. They, too, had been bitterly disappointed. But this had not
prevented them from maintaining a centre at Paris; and many of those who
had fought in vain in 1830 for the liberty of Poland came back to Paris
to learn there what further was to be done.
Amongst these came a man named Ramorino, a Savoyard by birth, who had
acted as a general in the Polish struggle of 1830. The part which he
had played in that insurrection was only known very indistinctly to
most of the Italians who were organizing the new expedition; but the
mere fact that he had been a leader in a war for liberty was enough to
make them desire his help. Mazzini had gathered from the Polish exiles
the opinion generally held of Ramorino by those who knew the facts of
the insurrection of 1830. He found that the reputation which Ramorino
had held at that period was very low, both for trustworthiness and
military ability; and he opposed his election as leader of the
expedition to Savoy. The only result of the opposition was a charge
against Mazzini of personal ambition.
The expedition had already been weakened by the opposition of one of
those fanatical revolutionists who had before denounced Mazzini as too
soft and German in his ideas. This man, who bore the honoured name of
Buonarotti, had complained of the members of the expedition for
admitting men of noble rank and some wealth to the position of
leadership in it, and he had succeeded in detaching from the movement an
important section of its supporters. Mazzini, therefore, saw that,
under these circumstances, to lose the friends of Ramorino would ruin
the chances of the expedition; and, feeling that any further opposition
would only excite division, he consented to act with Ramorino.
The new leader soon showed his true character by hindering the
expedition as long as possible; but in February, 1834, he yielded to
the pressure of Mazzini and began the march. Unfortunately, Mazzini
was seized with a fever on the route, and Ramorino, finding this
obstacle to his treachery removed, ordered the columns to be dissolved
and rode away.
Plenty of scorn was heaped upon the failure of this first expedition
of Young Italy. But Metternich, at any rate, judged more truly. In
April, 1833, he had written to the chief of his spies in Lombardy to
warn him against the growth of a new revolutionary party, and
particularly against the advocate Mazzini, one of the most dangerous
men of the faction; and he told him to procure copies of the journal
called "La Giovine Italia," and two copies also of Mazzini's pamphlet
about guerilla warfare. Menz, the spy in question, while believing
that the journal of Young Italy was losing ground, yet considered that
it was the most dangerous of the newspapers which circulated in
Lombardy.
This request of Metternich's was, indeed, made a few months before the
actual invasion of Savoy, and Menz, no doubt, began to think that
after that failure the power of Mazzini would decline; but it is
tolerably clear that Metternich did not share that delusion, and kept
his eye steadily on the new leader. Nor did even Menz believe that
mere repression would now suffice to win the sympathies of the
Lombards to Austria, and he proposed to divert the intellectual zeal
of disaffected Lombards into a direction favourable to the State by
offering prizes for the solution of questions in different branches of
human knowledge. From the winners of these prizes, he thought, might
be chosen professors, inspectors, and directors of studies, and
encouragement might be given to compositions of poems and paintings,
of which "the subject, and even the colour," was to be dictated by
Government.[6]
He further proposed that, with this object, an Academy of Poetry
should be founded in Lombardy, under the absolute direction of the
Austrian Government, who are to see that the nation should take part
in an intellectual movement "with a correct view, and that these
productions of the imagination, bearing the impress of a tendency
profitable to the well-being of society, would, in their turn, act in
a very favourable manner on the public spirit."
Further, as "the Circus was in the time of the Romans the secret means
of the State for rendering the people submissive to the Government,"
... so "the Austrian Government should give a very generous subsidy to
the theatre of La Scala (at Milan); but it would be also desirable
that it should make some sacrifice for the provincial theatres." A few
modifications of the Austrian code, some reduction on customs duties,
and lessening of the restrictions on passports, are also suggested in
the Report. Such were the means by which the trusted servant of
Metternich hoped to counteract the influence of Mazzini and Young
Italy.
But in the meantime another form of opposition to the power of
Metternich was growing up in a country very different from Italy, both
in its circumstances and the character of its people.
While, in all other countries of Europe, Metternich looked upon every
approach to self-government with suspicion, and tried to crush it out
either by force or diplomacy, both he and Francis recognized that in
Hungary there were reasons for maintaining and even encouraging
Constitutional feeling.
For here the Constitutional rights did not rest upon any revolutionary
basis; at any rate, not upon any revolution of modern times. They were
not connected with the sort of national aspirations which made the
movements in Italy and Germany so alarming to Metternich. There was,
as yet, no desire here to redistribute the country according to
popular aspirations; all rights rested on clearly defined laws handed
down from a distant past, and in many cases these rights had been the
subject of a peaceable contract between the previous rulers of the
country and the House of Austria. So much was this felt by Francis
that he even appealed on one occasion to the Hungarian Diet for
sympathy against the revolutionary methods of Liberal leaders of other
countries.
But, indeed, had the liberty of the Hungarians depended, like that of
other nations, on the assertion of the power of a central parliament,
they might have been crushed as the other peoples had been; for from
1813 to 1825 no Diet met in Hungary. But the full force of Hungarian
liberty dwelt in the organization of those county assemblies which
the Magyars had probably derived from the conquered Slavs. The
Government could not enforce its laws except through the county
officers, all of whom, with one exception, were elected by the
landholders of the district. That one Government official was bound to
call together once a year a meeting of the nobles and clergy of the
county. _There_ the wants and grievances of the district were
discussed, and orders were sent to the representatives of the county
in the Diet at Presburg to introduce bills to remedy those grievances.
These county assemblies could raise taxes and levy soldiers; and they
not only possessed, but exercised the right to refuse to obey the
orders of the King himself if, after discussion, such orders proved
illegal.
In the county elections all freeholders of Hungary had votes; and in
the smaller village elections the suffrage was still wider. The
electors in the villages chose, not only legislators, but judges of
their village concerns. The non-freeholding peasantry were, indeed,
often oppressed; the towns were in a backward state as regards
self-government; but yet this system of county organization secured a
wider diffusion of general interest in political affairs than
prevailed in any other country of Europe.
At the same time, there were elements in Hungary which might give
Metternich some hopes that he could drain out the forces of Hungarian
liberty. The Magyar nobles were drawn more and more to Vienna; and a
process of Germanization was going on of so effective a kind that many
of the nobles had almost forgotten their own language. Thus, though the
Magyar aristocracy had more often acted as champions of independence
than the nobles of any other country in Europe, they were gradually
being drifted away from the main body of the people, and were becoming
absorbed in the ranks of Austrian officialism. But when the Spanish
Revolution of 1820 began to stir men's minds, the discussions in the
Hungarian county assemblies took a wider range, and representations were
made to Francis which he could not long resist. He did not at first,
indeed, realize the full force of the opposition, and in 1822 he tried
to levy new taxes on the Hungarians without summoning the Diet. But this
attempt failed, and in 1825 the Diet at Presburg was once more called
together.
It seemed, indeed, to some of those who afterwards played a prominent
part in the struggles of 1848 as if little was gained by this Diet;
and as if it was even less satisfactory than its predecessor of 1791.
But a movement was inaugurated on this occasion which, though it may
have contained in it the seeds of future misunderstanding, and even of
civil war, was yet in its beginning as noble in its intention as it
was necessary to the welfare of Hungary; and, had it been pursued in
the spirit of its first leader, might have produced in time all the
blessings which have since been secured to Hungary, without any of
those terrible divisions and bitternesses that hinder those blessings
from producing their full effect.
The leader of this new movement was Count Stephen Szechenyi, a
member of one of the great families of Hungary. His father had held
office at the Court of Vienna, but had grieved over the process of
denationalization which was going on among the nobles of Hungary.
Count Stephen was early trained to sympathize with the desire for the
restoration of Hungarian life. He saw that the withdrawal of the great
nobles from Hungary to Vienna led to the mismanagement of their
estates, the growth of an evil class of money-lenders, and the
separation between the aristocracy and the rest of the nation.
The abandonment of the Magyar language was, in his eyes, the great
source of all evil; and the Diet of 1825 afforded him the first
opportunity of protesting against it. While the Hungarian nobles
talked German in private, they used Latin in the management of public
affairs; and Szechenyi, as a protest against this practice, spoke in
the Magyar language in bringing forward a question in the House of
Magnates.
But, before the Diet had risen, he gave a much more solid proof of his
zeal for his native tongue. On November 3rd, 1825, he offered, in the
House of Magnates, to give a whole year's income, 60,000 gulden, to
found a Society for promoting the Study of the Magyar Language. His
example was followed, with more or less zeal, by other nobles; and in
1827 a Hungarian Academy was established by Royal Decree.
The movement which Szechenyi had stirred up was in danger of being
brought to ridicule by some of its supporters, for Count Dessewfy
actually proposed that a law should be passed forbidding the marriage
of any Hungarian maiden who did not know her native tongue; but this
was resisted as too strong a measure.
But though Szechenyi opposed these wilder schemes of his supporters,
he was none the less ready to use all possible attractions for
carrying out his chief object, the drawing Hungarian nobles back to
their country. As one of these means, he established a horse-race at
Pesth, and founded a union for training horses. He promoted, too, the
material advantages of Hungary by introducing steamships on the
Danube.
The work to which he devoted most attention was the erection of a
suspension bridge, to connect Pesth with Buda. Szechenyi's enthusiasm
in this matter seemed to many ludicrously disproportionate to the
result to be obtained; but the fact was that he intended this work to
give the opportunity for the first blow at that great injustice, the
exemption of the Hungarian nobles from taxation. If he could induce
the Magnates to consent that the burden of so important a national
undertaking should fall in part upon them, they might be willing
hereafter to accept a more just distribution of the whole burdens of
the State.
While, however, Szechenyi was labouring to promote Hungarian national
life, and was willing to sacrifice personal comfort, and any unjust
privileges of his order, for the sake of that object, he remained
essentially the Conservative Magyar Magnate. He not only shrank from
any movement for Constitutional reform, but even hoped to accomplish
his ends with the sympathy of the Austrian Government.
It was not indeed that he was deficient in courage, or in the tendency
to speak his mind plainly in private conversation. He said boldly that
"the promises of the King are not kept, that the law is always
explained in favour of the King to the disadvantage of the people;
and, to speak plainly, affairs just now have the appearance as if the
Constitution were being overturned." And in the same conversation he
further nettled Metternich by suggesting to that statesman that his
high position might prevent him from seeing some things.
Yet it was not merely offended vanity that irritated the ruler of
Europe against Szechenyi. Metternich seems always to have had a
preference for the thorough-going men among his opponents. He might
hate and desire to crush them; but what pleased him was that he
understood the logic of their position and, as he supposed, their
motives. The moderate and Constitutional Liberals were always a puzzle
to him. But when a man like Szechenyi actually thought that he could
work with him, while undermining the centralization which was the
essence of his schemes, and appealing to that positive form of
patriotism which it was the object of Metternich to crush out, so
inconsistent a position drove the Prince beyond the bounds of ordinary
courtesy.
Taking advantage of his own high position and Szechenyi's youth, he
told him that he was a man lost through vanity and ambition, asked him
if he could really confess to his friends the kindly feeling to the
Austrian Government which he had expressed to Metternich; and, on
Szechenyi making some admission of the difficulties of such a course,
"Then," said Metternich, "you must be a traitor either to me or to
your friends, that is to yourself."
But if Szechenyi's position was unintelligible to Metternich, he found
it far easier to understand another nobleman who came forward a little
later and played a different, but hardly less important, part. This was
Nicolaus Wesselenyi, the descendant of a family of nobles who had
constantly held their own against both king and People. The father of
Nicolaus had been a fiery, overbearing man, who had indulged in private
feuds, and who had fought scornfully for the special privileges of the
nobles. His son had all the fire of his family, and the same love of
opposition, but directed by the circumstances of the time into healthier
channels.
It was not, however, at Presburg that the Wesselenyis had hitherto
played their principal part, but at the Diet which met at Klausenburg,
in Transylvania. The circumstances and organization of that peculiar
province will be more naturally considered in connection with the
movements which arose a few years later. For the present, the
important point to remember in connection with Wesselenyi's position
is, that the Austrian Government tolerated an unusual amount of
freedom in the Transylvanian Diet, in the hopes thereby of weakening
that larger Hungarian feeling which gathered round the central Diet at
Presburg. When both the Hungarian and the Transylvanian Diets were
called together in 1830, and a demand was made by the Emperor for new
recruits for the army, the House of Magnates in Transylvania showed,
under Wesselenyi's leading, a bolder and firmer opposition than the
House of Magnates at Presburg. In the central Diet, indeed, the chief
opposition to the Emperor came from the Lower House, and the nobles
were disposed to yield to the demands of Francis. But Wesselenyi, with
his splendid bearing and magnificent voice, stirred up a far more
dangerous opposition in Transylvania; and the Government at Vienna
began to mark him out as their most dangerous opponent.
But in the meantime new questions were coming to the front in Hungary,
and new leaders were being called forth by them. The Polish insurrection
of 1830 had roused more sympathy in Hungary than probably in any other
country of Europe; and a connection between the two nations was then
established which had a not unimportant influence on the subsequent
history of Hungary.
The wiser men among the Hungarian leaders saw the great defect which
marred all struggles for liberty in Poland. Whatever aspirations may
have been entertained by the Polish patriots of 1791, certain it is
that, when Poland fell before the intrigues of Russia and Prussia, the
new Constitution had not had time to bring about any better feeling
between noble and peasant; and the Polish peasantry looked with
distrust and suspicion on movements for freedom inaugurated by their
oppressors.
The Hungarian reformers saw that, if they were to make the liberties
of Hungary a reality, they must extend them to the serf as well as to
the noble. In spite of the air of freedom of discussion which the
County Assemblies of Hungary spread around them, there were, at this
time, out of the thirteen millions of Hungarians, about eleven million
serfs. These were not allowed to purchase an acre of the soil which
they cultivated; they paid all the tithes to the clergy and most of
the taxes to the State, besides various payments in kind to their
landlords; their labour might be enforced by the stick; while for
redress of their grievances they were obliged, in the first instance,
to apply to the Court over which their landlord presided.
The reigns of Maria Theresa and Joseph II., while modifying the evils
of the position of the serf, had taught him to look to the Court of
Vienna, rather than to the Diet of Presburg, for help in his troubles.
The Edict of Maria Theresa, called the Urbarium, had granted the
peasant the right of leaving the land when he pleased, or of remaining
if he liked, while he complied with certain conditions; and by this
act he was allowed to bequeath the use of his land to his descendants.
Further, a right of appeal had been granted from his landlord's
decision to the official court at Buda, known as the Statthalterei. By
the same law the labour to be performed by the peasantry had been
fixed, instead of being left to the will of the lord, as heretofore.
The reforms of Joseph II. had, like most of his attempts, been too
vigorous to be lasting; but he had done enough to strengthen in the
minds of the oppressed peasantry of Hungary the desire to look to the
Emperor as their liberator. Thus the satisfaction of the claims of
humanity had tended to weaken Constitutional freedom.
The bitter feeling between noble and peasant was illustrated most
painfully in the year 1831, when an outbreak of cholera in Hungary was
attributed by the peasantry to the poisoning of the wells by the
nobles. Agrarian risings had followed, and more than fifty peasants
had been hung without trial.
Such was the state of feeling when the Diet of 1832 met at Presburg.
Had the leader of the movement for agrarian reform been a mere
champion of Constitutionalism, the work of drawing together the
peasant and noble might have been more difficult. But fortunately the
work fell into the hands of a man who, though not deficient in powers
of oratory, was far less a popular leader than a thoughtful and humane
student of affairs. This was Francis Deak, then thirty years of age,
trained, like so many leaders of the time, for the bar, and already
known as a speaker in the County Assembly of Zala. He was not a man of
the delicate, cultured type of Szechenyi; nor did he possess the
commanding figure and lion voice of Wesselenyi. He was broad and
sturdy in figure, his face was round and humorous, and his eye
twinkled with fun. Yet he was not without a deep shade of melancholy.
He was a man who inspired in all who came near him a sense of entire
trust in his honesty and steadiness of purpose; and this feeling,
though unlike the enthusiasm which is roused alike by the highest
genius and by merely popular gifts, was yet exactly the form of
confidence needed to enable Deak to do the special work which lay
before him.
The question of the reform of the Urbarium he at once made his own.
Besides the miseries of the peasantry above mentioned, they were
continually exposed to all kinds of petty tyrannies. Their horses were
liable to be seized by tourists through the country, and soldiers were
billeted upon them. Deak demanded the extension to the peasant of the
right of buying land, and better security for person and property.
But it soon became evident that, whatever exceptions there might be to
the rule, the Magnates of Hungary were not prepared to surrender their
privileges. The point which the reformers specially insisted on in the
new Urbarium was a clause enabling the peasant to free himself from
his feudal dues by a legal arrangement with the landlord. Thirteen
times the Lower House of the Diet passed the clause; thirteen times
the House of Magnates rejected it; and when at last that House
consented to pass it, the Emperor vetoed it.
The reformers were now clearly justified in calling on the people to
recognize them as their champions against both nobles and sovereign.
But in order to prevent this recognition the Government had forbidden
any publication of the debates.
Wesselenyi had met this difficulty in the Transylvanian Diet by
introducing a private press of his own, with the help of which he
circulated a report of the proceedings. This so alarmed the Government
that they dissolved the Transylvanian Diet and established an absolute
ruler in that province. Wesselenyi then transferred his eloquence to
the House of Magnates in Presburg, where he thundered against the
Government for opposing the liberties of the peasantry, denouncing
them in the following words: "The Government sucks out the marrow of
nine million of men (_i.e._, the peasantry); it will not allow us
nobles to better their condition by legislative means; but, retaining
them in their present state, it only waits its own time to exasperate
them against us. Then it will come forward to rescue us. But woe to
us! From freemen we shall be degraded to the state of slaves."
But the work which Wesselenyi had half done for Transylvania was to be
carried out for Hungary more thoroughly by a man who had been
gradually rising into note. This was Louis Kossuth, of whom it may be
said that, more than any other man in Europe, he was the author of the
Revolution of 1848. He was a few years older than Francis Deak, and,
like him, was trained as a lawyer. He had been appointed, in the
exercise of his profession, arbitrator between several wealthy
proprietors and their dependants. In this position he gained the
confidence of many of the peasantry, and he was also able to give them
help in the time of the cholera.
He possessed a quick and keen sensibility, which was the source of
many of his faults and of his virtues. A curious illustration of this
quality is shown in his renunciation of field sports, in consequence
of reading a passage in a Persian poet on the duty of humanity to all
living things. No doubt it was to this sensibility that he owed a
large part of that matchless eloquence which was to be so powerful an
engine in the revolutionary war. It was connected, too, with the keen
statesmanlike instinct which enabled him to see so often the right
moment for particular lines of action; and which, had it been united
with a wider sympathy, stronger nerves, and a more scrupulous
conscience, might have made his career as useful as it was brilliant.
[Illustration: KOSSUTH LAJOS.]
This instinct it was which enabled him to see at this crisis that
nothing could be effected for Hungary until the work done in the Diet
was better known to the main body of the people. The private press
which he now started may have been suggested to him by Wesselenyi's
attempt in Transylvania; but its work was carried out with an
ingenuity and resourcefulness which were altogether Kossuth's own. The
Government became so alarmed at this press that they wished to
purchase it from him, but, wherever print was hindered, he circulated
written correspondence. Nor did he confine his reporting to the
debates in the Diet of Presburg, for he circulated also reports of the
county meetings.
The Count Palatine, the chief ruler of Hungary, tried to hinder this
work; but the county officials refused to sanction this prohibition,
and thus deprived it of legal force.
The Government was now thoroughly roused; and in May, 1837, Kossuth
was indicted for treason, arrested, and kept for two years in prison
without any trial.
But great as was the indignation excited by this arrest, it was as
nothing compared to the storm which was aroused by the prosecution and
imprisonment of Wesselenyi. The Government had marked him out during
the Transylvanian debates as an enemy who was to be struck on the
first opportunity. The printing of the Transylvanian reports would
have been followed very speedily by a prosecution, had he not escaped
into North Hungary; but his speech against the Government in the
Presburg Diet gave a new opportunity for attack.
The enthusiasm which his prominent position, impressive manner, and
high rank had caused had been strengthened in Transylvania by the
extreme personal kindness which he had shown towards his peasantry;
and one of them walked all the way from Wesselenyi's Transylvanian
estate to Vienna to petition, on his own behalf and that of one
hundred fellow-peasants, that their landlord might be restored to
them.
Had Francis been still on the throne, it is possible that Metternich
would have offered further resistance to the popular demands. But
Francis had died in 1835, the year before the closing of the Diet. His
successor, Ferdinand, though, chiefly from physical causes, too weak
to hold his own against Metternich, was a kindly, easy-tempered man,
not without a sense that even kings ought to obey the law.
But whether Metternich or Ferdinand were to blame in the matter, the
concessions of the King were made in a hesitating and grudging manner
which took away their grace, and made the defeat more vividly apparent
both to victors and spectators.
A more popular Chancellor of Hungary, Anton Mailath, was appointed;
another member of the same family was made chief justice; and about the
same time the Transylvanian Diet was restored. Hoping that he had now
conciliated popular feeling, Metternich, in 1839, called together the
Diet of Presburg and demanded four million florins and thirty-eight
thousand recruits.
But the members of the Assembly had been instructed by their
constituents to oppose any demands of the Government until Wesselenyi,
Kossuth, and the members of a club who had been arrested at the same
time, were liberated. And while Deak still led the opposition in the
Lower House, Count Louis Batthyanyi came forward as the champion of
freedom in the House of Magnates. Finally, the Emperor consented, not
only to grant an amnesty to Wesselenyi, Kossuth, and others, but to
pass that clause about the peasants' dues which he had vetoed in 1836.
The Diet then voted the money, and was dissolved.
Thus, while in Italy a new faith was springing up which was to supply a
force to the struggles for liberty that they had previously lacked,
in Hungary the different, but hardly less effective, power of old
traditions of Constitutional freedom was checking Metternich in his full
career of tyranny, and forcing him to confess a defeat inflicted, not
by foreign diplomatists, but by that very people who had rallied round
Maria Theresa in her hour of danger, and who had sternly rejected the
advances of Napoleon when he had invited them to separate their cause
from that of the House of Austria.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] "He congratulated me on the fact that circumstances had spared me
the tremendous ordeals usually undergone; and seeing me smile at this,
he asked me severely what I should have done if I had been required,
as others had been, to fire off a pistol in my own ear, which had been
previously loaded before my eyes. I replied that I should have
refused, telling the initiators that either there was some valve in
the interior of the pistol into which the bullet fell--in which case
the affair was a farce unworthy of both of us--or the bullet had
really remained in the stock: and in that case it struck me as
somewhat absurd to call upon a man to fight for his country, and make
it his first duty to blow out the few brains God had vouchsafed to
him."--_Life and Writings of Mazzini, Vol. I._
[4] As an instance of his way of carrying out this idea may be mentioned
his feeling to Savoy. He felt that in race, language, and possibly in
sympathy, Savoy might naturally gravitate towards France, while its
geographical position and the modes of life of its inhabitants might
naturally connect it with Switzerland. He therefore desired that by the
deliberate vote of an elected Assembly, not by a fictitious Napoleonic
plebiscite, Savoy should decide the question of its connection with
Italy, France, or Switzerland. Mazzini expressed a hope that it would
decide in favour of Switzerland.
[5] "Mais M. Bulwer parler de faire la guerre, et faire la guerre sont
choses bien differentes."
[6] Document 158 to Gualterio Gli Ultimi Rivolgimenti Italiani.