an offshoot of Freemasonry, but, in spite of sundry points of resemblance, such as the engagements of mutual help assumed by members, there seems to have been no real connection between the two.  Political Freemasonry remained somewhat of an exotic in Italy, and was inclined to regard France as its centre.  As far as can be ascertained, it gave a general support to Napoleon, while Carbonarism rejected every foreign yoke.  The practical aims of the Carbonari may be summed up in two words:  freedom and independence.  From the first they had the penetration to grasp the fact that independence, even if obtained, could not be preserved without freedom; but though their predilections were theoretically republican, they did not make a particular form of government a matter of principle.  Nor were they agreed in a definite advocacy of the unity of Italy.

A Genoese of the name of Malghella, who was Murat’s Minister of Police, was the first person to give a powerful impetus to Carbonarism, of which he has even been called the inventor, but the inference goes too far.  Malghella ended miserably; after the fall of Murat he was arrested by the Austrians, who consigned him as a new subject to the Sardinian Government, which immediately put him in prison.  His name is hardly known, but no Italian of his time worked more assiduously, or in some respects more intelligently, for the emancipation of Italy.  Whatever was truly Italian in Murat’s policy must be mainly attributed to him.  As early as 1813 he urged the King to declare himself frankly for independence, and to grant a constitution to his Neapolitan subjects.  But Malghella did not find the destined saviour of Italy in Murat; his one lasting work was to establish Carbonarism on so strong a basis that, when the Bourbons returned, there were thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Carbonari in all parts of the realm.  The discovery was not a pleasant one to the restored rulers, and the Prince of Canosa, the new Minister of Police, thought to counteract the evil done by his predecessor by setting up an abominable secret society called the Calderai del Contrapeso (Braziers of the Counterpoise), principally recruited from the refuse of the people, lazzaroni, bandits and let-out convicts, who were provided by Government with 20,000 muskets, and were sworn to exterminate all enemies of the Church of Rome, whether Jansenists, Freemasons or Carbonari.  This association committed some horrible excesses, but otherwise it had no results.  The Carbonari closed in their ranks, and learnt to observe more strictly their rules of secrecy.  From the kingdom of Naples, Carbonarism spread to the Roman states, and found a congenial soil in Romagna, which became the focus whence it spread over the rest of Italy.  It was natural that it should take the colour, more or less, of the places where it grew.  In Romagna, where political assassination is in the blood of the people, a dagger was substituted for the symbolical