The Express.
London, England, 1859-05-28 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, MAY 28, 1859,

REMARIABLE CONSPIRACY AT NAPLES.

(Teem dry Deily Neirs.)
The thick mystery which shrouded the death-
struggle of King FIZINNAND has been suddenly rent,
lad we start back with horror at the extent of the
toupiracy revealed. Across a wilderness of treasons,
spree, from the criminal impulse of an unprincipled.
woman, and only to be fostered in the tainted
atmosphere of a profligate palace, FRANCIS 11. has
had to climb the steps of his rightful throne with
the stealth befitting a midnight thief. And, what
is most awful in casting a horoscope for the new
reign, the Neapolitan patriots have to hail this con-
stellation of crimes as the moat hopeful sign for pros-
medicating the ascendancy of a less malignant in-
fluence than has hitherto scourged their country. It
is hoped that a nature too weak and too cold to warm
to the action of generous sentiments, may yet not be
beyond the emotions that naturally cling to man's
meat inveterate puska—that of possession—with
im emsequent, sad in marrow minds ferocious hatred
stall who try to enereeek on it.
The Qt EEN-IXIWAGIR perpetuated that IniEtentiOn
of tamale ascendancy which seems to have become
a mosseary ingredient in Neapolitan rule under every
dynasty. Inferior in Frees of mind and person,
bath to the wren-like LANOLINE of NELSON time,
sad to the more illustrious CSROLINE, wife of the
gallant but giddy Metier, Mew s IlteaeSA was not
a whit behind them in personal ambition, although
tor many years she did not attain to a conspicuous
political influence. The man she had to deal with
wee, by his obstinate stitfneekedness, at least proof
against soft seduction, and it was not until disease came
to her assistance by striking him down into a state
of helplessness, that in the usurped autocracy of
the sick-ward she ventured to unmuffie the am-
bition she had until then pent up within her
breast. Her design was to deprive the legitimate
heir to the Crown of his birthright, in favour of her
own child. A plot conceived by a distorted passion
of maternity was prosecuted with the vehemence of
&eery, and a dying man's room was converted into
a busy laboratory of mischief. But there were
certain obstacles to be overcome. The heir apparent,
though hardly known, and deficient in qualities
likely to command attachment, was neverthe-
less the object of a superstitions popularity on
the part of the people, through the veneration
paid to the sainted memory of his mother,
MARIA CAROLINZ of Savoy. And the popular in-
terest had been fomented by the Liberal party, who
perceived in the coincidence between the Pied-
'wattle origin and the saintly reputation of this lady
a means for popularising the national idea, and
engaging the young PRlNst's personal predilections
in behalf of it—tactics which not improbably con-
tributed still farther to whet the Queen's passions
by the incentive of political rancour. But,
shot off completely from all free intercourse,
relegated to the gloomy companionship of
priests and spies, subjected without relaxation to an
austere discipline worthy of the Escurial, the
languid and feeble Duke of CALABRIA was per-
fectly content to vegetate, an automaton such as
would have gladdened the paternal heart of PHILIP
11. The QUEEN had, therefore, little reason to fear
his ability to counteract her machinations—all that
seemed important was to forge some plausible pre-
tence to be flaunted before the eyes of the world for
the intended usurpation, and to prepare efficient
agents for practically carrying it out. It was deter-
mined to declare the Mike of CALABRIA IlinppOlititiOnS
child, an unmasked pretender, virtuously stripped of
his false plumes, when, in fact, he was to be the
victim of a foul plot. A device so altogether out of
all keeping with right and probability carries us across
the whole interval which separates us from the age
when a PERKIN WARBECK and LAMBERT SIMNEL
could walk abroad and convulse a realm. And yet
it was put in the way of execution by this unscru-
pulous woman with the direct complicity of many
who had long figured amongst the prominent agents
of the Klee, As her chief accomplice and working
organiser, the QUEEN selected a certain MuRENA, a
leading member of the /lien's police and the depo-
sitary of much of his confidence. This man, long
noted for unscrupulous venality and profligacy, ap-
pears to have entered thoroughly into the Quam's
i proposals. Bringing to bear his ntimate acquaint-
ance with all the secret springs of the executive, and
with the emissaries and agents of the police, he
organised a conspiracy which counted amongst
its members courtier', officials, and soldiers
of all ranks, and seemed to have secured
the whole machinery of power. Nothing can give a
more lively conception of the corrupt material of
which the late KING deliberately composed his ad-
ministration, than this large desertion to a caws
of unmitigated Amory and crime.
Meanwhile, beneath the same roof with the sick
chamber which concealed the threads of this dark
treason, there existed the intended victim of these
machinations—a man only in virtue of hie year.—
receutly endowed, indeed, by his parents' kind gene-
recite, with the gift of a young wife—ostensibly in-
stalled as Vicar of the Realm, but in point of fact
a mere infant in the seclusion of a nursery. It was
hard to make any impression on one so feeble and so
dull ; appeals to assume the initiative which was his
right were heard with listlessness. Reasoning was
not intelligible to the benighted vacancy of his unedu-
cated mind; and the exhortations fervently pressed by
men grown grey in has family's service, nay, even
by some of his nearest relative'', fell bluntly upon
the PRINCE'S impassible stolidity. Bat at this mo-
went there occurred as explosion which effectually
electrified the only larking fibres of vitality in his
frame. The QCRIN'II conspiracy had been observed
and tracked, and the positive assurance of its nature
was conveyed to the PRINCE by those who
wished him well. He ryas told exactly
who possessed the whole direction of the
scheme, and how it rested with him, by an exer-
cise of the powers delegated to him, to satisfy him-
self of the truth. The shock overcame every hesita-
tion, and that same night, on a warrant signed by
the PRINCE, NICREN• wan arrested in his house, in
which were found, papers confirming the informa-
tion, and it is affirmed directly implicating the
QCEEN. What an overwhelming glare of terrible
perception must in that instant have flashed upon
the dim discernment of this poor youth! One cannot
help dwelling with pity on the thought of what
he must have felt that eight in the gloomy chambers
of Caserta, as bit by bit the irrefragable evidence
of incredible perfidy met his bewildered gaze, and
he found himself Hung, weak as a child, out of the
cradle of blank contentment into the full bitterness
of domestic malice and treason at the hearth. Bat
would he have been able to continue the same
boldness which caused the arrest of Mt its',
Would he not have quailed before the QULEN ?
Happily he was spared an effort to which he
would probably DOI have been equal. Before the
QUEEN could deal the heir to the throne a de-
structive blow, her husband's death had stripped her
in a moment of all power. Such are the incidents
which in the year of our LORI) 11119 have actually
attended as ordinary succession to the Crown in the
Kingdom of the Two &clime.
It is not unnatural to think that the shock thus
rudely given may have iastilkd into FRANCIS 11. a
hatred against hie stepmother, likely, in his slender
stock of ideas, to outweigh all other impressions.
Now, the Austrian interest is identified with her,
while the men who through their services have ap-
proached the KING person mainly incline towards
a more Italian policy. It is probable that he must, out
of sheer necessity, have recourse to their assistance ;
for where else is he to find servants on whom he
can rely? The Monarch finds himself in a
world of which he knows little more than that
it is full of inane ; his brothers face him as so
many rivals ; his stepmo•her haunts him as his vin-
dictive persecutor; and his Court he has discovered
to be a nest of perfidy and treason. What,
then, more likely than that he should resign
himself to the guidance of the men whose
troitwotthinese he has tested? Still we feel

considerable hesitation in abandoning our-
selves to confident hope,. His QtELY ought to be
Austrian in sympathy : all that we positively know
is that she is a young and dashing woman, who
from the very first shocked the austere languor of
the Neapolitan Court by her independent, o► as it
was termed, irreverent demeanour, completely set-
ting at nought all the trammels of demure etiquette.
It can hardly be doubted th►t the int :Knee of this
yeturg lady 091 her husband viii be great. We may

therefore reckon on seeing the traditiooal Egeris el
a Neapolitan palace not fail this reign; and one hops
moat be that the anger against the Austrian Ms=
Thames, which for once quickened the feeble pulse
of Pumas 11., may in conjugal sympathy likewise
hie° affected the young lady who is condemned to
pass her days in the society of a simpleton.