mined to exterminate the Carbonari, and to this end his minister of
police, the prince of Canosa, set up another secret society called the
_Calderai del Contrappeso_ (braziers of the counterpoise), recruited
from the brigands and the dregs of the people, who committed hideous
excesses against supposed Liberals, but failed to exterminate the
movement. On the contrary, Carbonarism flourished and spread to other
parts of Italy, and countless lodges sprang up, their adherents
comprising persons in all ranks of society, including, it is said, some
of royal blood, who had patriotic sentiments and desired to see Italy
free from foreigners. In Romagna the movement was taken up with
enthusiasm, but it also led to a certain number of murders owing to the
fiery character of the Romagnols, although its criminal record is on the
whole a very small one. Among the foreigners who joined it for love of
Italy was Lord Byron. The first rising actively promoted by the
Carbonari was the Neapolitan revolution of 1820. Several regiments were
composed entirely of persons affiliated to the society, and on the 1st
of July a military mutiny broke out at Monteforte, led by two officers
named Morelli and Silvati, to the cry of "God, the King and the
Constitution." The troops sent against them, under General Pepe, himself
a Carbonaro, sympathized with the mutineers, and the king, being
powerless to resist, granted the constitution (13th of July), which he
swore on the altar to observe. But the Carbonari were unable to carry on
the government, and after the separatist revolt of Sicily had broken out
the king went to the congress of Laibach, and obtained from the emperor
of Austria the loan of an army with which to restore the autocracy. He
returned to Naples early in 1821 with 50,000 Austrians, defeated the
constitutionalists under Pepe, dismissed parliament, and set to work to
persecute all who had been in any way connected with the movement.

A similar movement broke out in Piedmont in March 1821. Here as in
Naples the Carbonari comprised many men of rank, such as Santorre di
Santarosa, Count San Marzano, Giacinto di Collegno, and Count Moffa di
Lisio, all officers in the army, and they were more or less encouraged
by Charles Albert, the heir-presumptive to the throne. The rising was
crushed, and a number of the leaders were condemned to death or long
terms of imprisonment, but most of them escaped. At Milan there was only
the vaguest attempt at con