to guard against the danger of the ascendency of either, by conforming to the general principles which the Revolution had impressed upon the nation. As the legislative body continually thwarted the government, it was determined to alter the composition of the representatives by a coup d'etat, or arbitrary ordinance of the king; and accordingly, on the 5th of September, 1816, a royal ordinance was published, which dissolved the Chamber of Deputies, arbitrarily di minished the number of representatives, and secured the election of a majority of those who were attached to the measures of the ministerial party.

16. The royal ordinance of September, although conferring the right of suffrage upon only one hundred thousand out of thirty millions of the population of France, was far more democratic than accorded with the wishes of the Royalists, who feared that the new representatives, chosen mostly from the middle classes of landed proprietors, would incline towards a republican form of government, under which they might most effectually secure their own rights, and divide among themselves the honors and emoluments of office. And such, indeed, was the result. The electoral law proclaimed by the king, and the subsequent creation b of a large body of peers taken from the Liberals and Bonapartists, soon placed the control of govern ment in the hands of the democratic party, which was naturally antagonistic to the power which had given it influence; but the Royalists, who at the restoration had seemed the ruling party, were unwilling to resign the control of the government; and the struggle continued to increase in violence between them and the Liberals, until it finally resulted in the Revolution of 1830, and the overthrow of the mon archy.

II. REVOLUTIONS IN SPAIN, PORTUGAL, NAPLES, PIEDMONT, GREECE, FRANCE, BELGIUM, AND POLAND: 1820-1831.

I. SPAIN. 1. During the period of general peace, from 1815 to 1820, Spain, under the rule of the restored Ferdinand, was in a state of constant political agitation; and in 1820 an insurrection of the soldiery compelled the king to restore to his subjects the free and almost republican constitution of 1812. The Republicans, however,

a. By the ordinance of Sept. 5th, 1816, the right of suffrage was established on the basis of the payment of three hundred francs direct taxes to the government.

b. March 5th, 1819.

who thus obtained the direction of the government, showed little wisdom or moderation; and a large party, directed by the monks and friars, and supported by the lower ranks of the populace, was formed for the restoration of the monarchy. Several of the European powers, in a congress held at Verona, adopted a resolution to support the authority of the king in opposition to the constitution which he had granted; but England stood aloof, and to France was intrusted the execution of the odious measure of suppressing democratic principles in Spain.

2. Accordingly, early in the year 1823, a French army of a hundred thousand men, under the command of the Duke d'Angouléme, entered Spain: the patriots made but a feeble resistance, and the king was soon restored to absolute authority, on the ruins of the constitution. The remainder of the reign of Ferdinand, who died in 1833, was characterized by the complete suppression of all liberal principles in politics and religion, and the revival of the ancient abuses which had so long disgraced the Spanish monarchy. England and the United States severely censured the interference of France in the domestic affairs of the Spanish nation, and showed their sympathy with the cause of the oppressed by recognizing, at as early a period as possible, the independence of the Spanish South American republics, which had recently renounced their allegiance to Spain.

II. PORTUGAL. 1. The adjoining kingdom of Portugal was a prey to similar commotions. The emigration of the king and court to Brazil during the peninsular war, has already been mentioned, (p. 488.) The nation being dissatisfied with the continued residence of the court in Brazil, which in fact made Portugal a dependency of the latter, and desiring some fundamental changes in the frame of government, at length in August 1820 a revolution broke out, and a free constitution was soon after established, having for its basis the abolition of privileges, the legal equality of all classes, the freedom of the press, and the formation of a representative body in the national legislature. This constitution, being violently opposed by the clergy and privileged classes, who formed what was called the apos tolical party, at the head of whom was Don Miguel, the king's younger son, was suppressed in 1823, and a state of anarchy continued until the death of the king in 1826, when the crown fell to Don Pedro, emperor of Brazil.

2. Don Pedro, however, resigned his right in favor of his infant ' daughter Donna Maria, at the same time granting to Portugal a

constitutional charter, and appointing his brother Don Miguel regent. Although the latter took an oath of fidelity to the charter, he soon began openly to aspire to the throne, and by means of an artful priesthood caused himself, in 1829, to be proclaimed sovereign of Portugal, while the charter was denounced as inconsistent with the purity of the Roman faith. The friends of the charter, aided by Don Pedro, who repaired to Europe to assert the rights of his daughter, organized a resistance, and after a sanguinary struggle, during which they were once driven into exile, they obtained the promise of support from France, Spain, and England, who in 1834 entered into a convention to expel the younger brother from the Portuguese territories. Soon after, Don Miguel gave up his pretensions, and the young queen was placed upon the throne, since which time the country has remained comparatively tranquil.

III. NAPLES. 1. The kingdom of Naples, embracing Sicily and southern Italy, nearly identical with the Magna Græcia of antiquity, had been erected into an independent monarchy in 1734, under the Infante Don Carlos of Spain, who took the name of Charles III. It continued under a succession of tyrannical or imbecile rulers of the Bourbon dynasty till 1798: the Italian portion of the kingdom was then overrun by the French, who held it from 1803 till 1815, when it reverted to its former sovereign Ferdinand, who, during the French rule, had maintained his court in the Sicilian part of his kingdom.

2. Under the rule of Ferdinand, popular education was wholly neglected; the roads, bridges, and other public works which the French had either planned or executed, were left unfinished, or fell into decay; and yet the people were oppressively taxed, and a representative government was denied them. At length, on the 2d of July, 1820, the growing discontents of the people broke out in open insurrection, and a remonstrance was sent to the government de manding a representative constitution. One based on the Spanish constitution of 1812 was immediately granted, and the Neapolitan parliament was opened on the 1st of October following; but on the same month a convention of the three crowned heads who formed the Holy Alliance, attended by ministers from most of the other European powers, met at Troppau;' and it was there resolved by the

1. Troppau, the capital of Austrian Silesia, is situated on the Oppa, a tributary of the Oder, thirty-seven miles north-east from Olmutz. From 20th October to 20th November, 1820, it was the place of meeting of the diplomatic congress, which afterwards removed to Laybach. (Map No. XVIL)

CHAP. VI.]

NINETEENTH CENTURY.

sovereigns of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, to put down the Neapolitan constitution by force of arms.

3. France approved the measure, but the British cabinet remained neutral. The old king Ferdinand, who had been invited to visit the sovereigns at Laybach,' was easily convinced that his promises had been extorted, and therefore were not binding; and Austrian troops An immediately prepared to execute the resolutions of the congress, while the aid of a Russian army was promised, if necessary. Austrian force of forty-three thousand men entered the Neapolitan territory, heralded by a proclamation from Ferdinand, calling his subjects to receive the invaders as friends. A few slight skirmishes took place, but the country was quickly overrun; foreign troops garrisoned the fortresses; the king's promise of complete amnesty was forgotten; and courts martial and executions closed the brief drama of the Neapolitan Revolution.

IV. PIEDMONT. 1. Piedmont is the principal province of the Sardinian monarchy; and the latter, first recognized as a separate kingdom by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, comprises the whole of northern Italy west of the Tessino, together with the island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean. The Piedmontese, never considering themselves properly as Italians, had been proud of their annexation to France under the rule of Napoleon; and on the restoration of the monarchy they were the first of the Sardinian people to exhibit the liberal principles of the French Revolutionists, and to complain of the oppressive exactions imposed upon them by the government.

2. Scarcely had the Neapolitan Revolution been suppressed, when an insurrection, beginning with the military, broke out in Piedmont. On the 10th of March, 1821, several regiments of troops simultaneously mutinied; and it is believed that the malcontents were secretly favored by Charles Albert, a kinsman of the royal family, who

1. Laybach, the capital of Austrian Illyria, (which latter embraces the duchies of Carinthia and Carniola,) is situated on a navigable stream, a tributary of the Save, fifty-four miles northeast from Trieste. It is celebrated in diplomatic history for the congress held here in 1821. (Map No. XVII.)

2. Sardinia (Kingdom of) embraces the territory of Piedmont, Genoa, and Nice, and the adjacent duchy of Savoy on the west side of the Alps, together with the island of Sardinia. Savoy, which was governed by its own counts as early as the tenth century, was the nucleus of this monarchy. Genoa was annexed to the Sardinian crown at the peace of 1815. (Map No. XVII.)

3. The Tessino or Ticino (anciently Ticinus, see p. 158,) having its sources in Mount St. Gothard, flows southward, and after traversing the Lago Maggiore in its entire length, and forming the boundary between Lombardy and Piedmont, falls into the Po at Pavia. (Map No. XVII.)

afterwards became king of Sardinia. The seizure of the citadel of Turin, on the 12th, was followed, on the 13th, by the abdication of the king Victor Emanuel, in favor of his absent brother Charles Felix, and the appointment of Prince Albert as regent. While ef forts were made to organize a government, an Austrian army was assembled in Lombardy to put down the Revolution: the new king repudiated the acts of the regent, who threw himself on the Aus trians for protection on the 8th of April the insurgents were overthrown in battle; and on the 10th the combined royal and Austrian troops were in possession of the whole country. In Piedmont, as in Naples, Austrian interference, ever exerted on the side of tyranny, suppressed every germ of constitutional freedom.

I. 1821.

V. THE GREEK REVOLUTION. 1. In the year 1481, Greece, the early and favored seat of art, science, and literature, was conquered by the Turks, after a sanguinary contest of more than forty years. The Venetians, however, were not disposed to allow its new masters quiet possession of the country; and during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was the theatre of obstinate wars between them and the Turks, which continued till 1718, when the Turks were confirmed in their conquest by treaty. Although the Turks and Greeks never became one nation, and the relation of conquerors and conquered never ceased, yet the Turkish rule was quietly submitted to until 1821, when, according to previous ar rangements, on the 7th of March Alexander Ypsilanti, a Greek, and then a major-general in the Russian army, proclaimed, from Moldavia, the independence of Greece, at the same time assuring his country men of the aid of Russia in the approaching contest. But the Russian emperor declined intervention; the Porte took the most rigorous measures against the Greeks, and called upon all Mussulmen to arm against the rebels for the protection of Islamism: the wildest fanaticism raged in Constantinople, where hundreds of the resident Greeks were remorselessly murdered; and in Moldavia the bloody struggle was terminated with the annihilation of the patriot army, and the flight of Ypsilanti to Trieste,' where the Austrian government seized and imprisoned him.

1. Islamism, from the Arabic word salama, “to be free, safe, or devoted to God," is the term which the followers of Mahomet apply to their religion. The term "Mohammedism" is as objectionable as the term "popery."

2. Trieste, a seaport town of Austrian Illyria, is near the north-eastern extremity of the Adriatic, seventy-three miles north-east from Venice. During the middle ages Trieste was the capital of a small republic. (Map No. XVII.)