The Sun.
London, England, 1860-06-28 00:00:00

THE KING OF NAPLES.

If every man is not the absolute master of his
destiny, he has far more control over it than is gene-
rally admitted. Who is there so prosperous that
he cannot look back to a period in his life when a
single false step would Save marred all his pro-
sperity ? Who is there so unhappy that he can
look back upon a life which afforded no opening to

brighter or better fortune ? We are the creatures of
opportunity. As we use it or as we neglect it we
rise into happiness or sink into misery. What better
instance can we have than the short and calamitous
reign of the present King of Naples ? He had the
advantage of succeeding to a father whose every act
wa3 a warning, and who, by the detestation which
he himself incurred, laid open to his son the readiest
and easiest course to popularity. He had but to
study what his father was, and to make every act
of his own life the exact contrary of the acts of his
predecessor. His father withheld every constitu-
tional concession till his people rose in armed rebel-
lion to demand it—a pregnant hint against deferring
favours till their grace is destroyed by the manifest
pressure of compulsion. His father trusted much
to spies and Jesuits, and little to the attachment of
his people. He laid the most flourishing cities of
his kingdom in ruins, and tortured the noblest and
bravest of his subjects with unrelenting hatred and
ferocity; therefore he lived detested, and died amid

the execrations of a people whom he had cheated by
false oaths and deluded by sham constitutions, but
whose confidence he never strove to acquire, and
whose affections he never wished to conciliate.

To succeed to such a father was in itself no
slight piece of good fortune. Faults that might
have been fatal under any other circumstances
would have been easily forgiven when compared
with the enormities of his predecessor. The nega-
tive merit of a cessation from tyranny and cruelty
would have appeared as positive virtue to a people
ground down by a despotism which more resembled
the Italian tyrannies of the middle ages than the
monarchies of the present century. A little, a very
little, intermission of cruelty and oppression
would have broaght to the feet of the son a people
to whom even tyranny would seem tolerable after
the perfidies and tortures of the father. But this
great opportunity the young King recklessly flung
away. He is the Rehoboam of modern history.
Whether his counsellors were young or old they
counselled him to his destruction, and he followed
their advice with a literal exactness which leaves
the historical parallel quite complete. He did all
that was in his power to make his little finger as
heavy as his father's loins. He might have inau-
guarated a new reign with the proclamation of an
amnesty to men whose only fault was that they had
suffered themselves to be deceived by his father's
oaths and protestations. He might have given back
to his people that constitution out of which they
had by most unkingly and unmanly arts been de-
frauded ; he might have called to his side those able
counsellors to whom his father was ever willing to
have recourse in the moment of danger, but who
were cast aside and disgraced in the moment of
imaginary security. Had he been able to prevail
over his narrow and cruel nature thus to sacrifice
the semblance for the reality of power, and to seek
in the confidence and affection of his people that
support which he could never expect from their
reluctant and terrified obedience, how brilliant was
the career which opened itself to his young ambi-
tion ! He might have been the Victor Emmanuel
of the South, with fewer dangers to overcome, fewer
obstacles to surmount, fewer discordant elements to
conciliate. The Romagna would have fallen into
his hands far more easily and far more naturally
than into the hands of the King of Piedmont. He
might have been the second founder of his race, the
focus of a new development of European civilisa-
tion,
the idol of a people which knows little medium
in its affections or its hatred. This he might have
been ; he had but to will it, and it was done.
So plain was the path before him that it seemed
a hundred times easier to go right than wrong.
But the young King of Naples has made
his election. He clung to the traditions of his
race, and the vengeance which had long been
accumulating seems likely to fall with full weight
upon his head. Sicily is lost with a rapidity which
outstri▪
ps the imagination, and every account that
we receive shows us more and more clearly how
precari▪
ous is the situation of affairs at Naples. The
army, to whose support everything is intrusted,
seems to be better suited for plundering than for
fighting. The officers are deeply inoculated with
the prevalent disorder of Liberalism, and the readi-
ness to desert does much to excuse the Neapolitan
Generals for the capitulation into which they have
entered, since that capitulation will at least have
the effect of removing the troops from the over-
powering presence of Garibaldi and the contagious
influence of his followers.
Naples, which but a little while ago would listen
to no counsels, and repudiated them with an inso-
lence which the consciousness of impunity allows
to the weak, has wearied every Court in Europe
with its supplications, and been repelled from every
Court in Europe with the same contemptuous re-
fusal; and now at last, when the duration of his
monarchy may probably be computed by days, or
at any rate by weeks, King Francis proclaims sud-
denly to his people the gift of a new constitution,
with representative institutions on national Italian
principles, the tricoloured flag, and analogous in-
stitutions for Sicily under the government of a
Viceroy. The best comment we can offer on this
proceeding would be the words of the Roman Em-
peror to the Centurion who strove with his cloak to
stanch the blood which was flowing from his throat,
—4, It is too late is this fidelity." Months, perhaps
weeks ago, such a step might have averted the fall
of the Bourbon dynasty; now it is too late. The
whole proceeding is a poor plagiarism, which will
li deceive no one. Europe has not forgotten—and
least of all is Naples li▪ kely to forget—that only 12
years ago the father of this very King put the Italian
colours in his hat, and solemnly swore to just such a
constitution as this; nay, more, that he carried his
hypocrisy to the extent of sending Neapolitan
troops into Lombardy for the ostensible purpose of
making
war against Austria, to which he was
then, and remained to the day of his death, the
most devoted of slaves. When we see the son
thus closely copying the father we may well ask
with the Roman, "Is this fidelity, is this re en
will -
tance, real ? How longit last ? By what will
it be followed ?" The King of Naples seeks, like
his father, to engage honourable and upright men
to undertake the office of his Ministers. Does he
suppose that they have forgotten the fate which
awaited those who accepted a similar office in
1848 ? The ri▪
sing of the Lazzaroni, the sham
trials, the cruel imprisonments, and the long sus-
pension of law and justice, which even yet has not
passed away ? It is indeed too late. It is possible
that some devi▪
ce mi▪
ght have been hit upon by
which Naples could be once more cheated of her
liberties, but that device can hardly be the same
threadbare expedient which succeeded 12 years
ago. There is a poverty of conception about it
which marks out this notable manoeuvre for
certain failure. Priestly casuistry will be at hand
to support Royalperfidy, and any number of mira-
cles can be commanded to sanction a perjury ex-
torted by fear and ;justified by necessity. In the
meanwhile Garibaldi seems to be acting, so far as
we can judge, with prudence and moderation. He
refuses the immediate annexatien. of Sicily to Pied-
mont, feeling, very justly, that the moment he
places the island under the control of a regular
Government, accessible to the influences of Euro-
pean diplomacy, his own power and the fierce energy
of the revolution it wields would come to an end
together, and feeling also, we cannot question, that
his work is but half done, and that is not in Paler-
mo, but in Naples itself, that
,t.he ultimate destiny
of Sicily must be decided.--Tvnes.