t, when as an exiled and crownless king he
found rest, at last, at Oporto.

There were deeper reasons than any which appear on the surface for the
failure of the revolutionary movements of this period. North and
south, though the populations exhibited a childish delight at the
overthrow of the old, despotic form of government, their effervescence
ended as rapidly as it began. They did not really understand what was
going on. 'By-the-bye, what _is_ this same constitution they are
making such a noise about?' asked a lazzarone who had been shouting
'Viva la Costituzione' all the day. Within a few weeks of the
breakdown at Novara, Count Confalonieri wrote wisely to Gino Capponi
that revolutions are not made by high intelligences, but by the masses
which are moved by enthusiasm, and for a possibility of success, the
word Constitution, the least magical of words, should have been
replaced by the more comprehensible and stirring call: 'War to the
stranger.' But this, instead of sounding from every housetop, was
purposely stifled at Naples, and kept a mysterious secret in
Piedmont.

CHAPTER III

PRISON AND SCAFFOLD

1821-1831

Political Trials in Venetia and Lombardy--Risings in the South and
Centre--Ciro Menotti.

The Austrians fully expected a rising in Lombardy in the middle of
March, and that they were not without serious fears as to its
consequences is proved by the preparations which they quietly made to
abandon Milan, if necessary. The Court travelling-carriages were got
ready, and the younger princes were sent away. Carbonarism had been
introduced into Lombardy the year before by two Romagnols, Count
Laderchi and Pietro Maroncelli. It was their propaganda that put the
Austrian Government on the alert, and was the cause of the Imperial
decree which denounced the society as a subversive conspiracy, aiming
at the destruction of all constituted authority, and pointed to death
and confiscation of property as the penalty for joining it. There was
the additional clause, destined to bear terrible fruit, which declared
accomplices, punishable with life-imprisonment, all who knew of the
existence of lodges (_Vendite_, as they were called) or the names of
associates, without informing the police. In the autumn of 1820,
Maroncelli and many others, including Silvio Pellico, the young
Piedmontese poet, were arrested as Carbonari, while the arrest of the
so-called accomplices began with Count Giovanni Arrivabene o