especially in Romagna, the secret society of the Sanfedesti flourished exceedingly; whether, as is probable, an offshoot of the Calderai or of indigenous growth, its aims were the same.  The affiliated swore to spill the last drop of the blood of the Liberals, without regard to sex or rank, and to spare neither children nor old men.  Many Romagnols had left their country after the abortive agitation of 1821, and amongst these were the Gambas.  Count Pietro died in Greece, where he had gone on the service of freedom.  Had he lived, this young man would have been sure to win a fair name in the annals of Italian patriotism; he should not, as it is, be quite forgotten, as it was chiefly due to him that Byron’s life took the redeeming direction which led to Missolonghi.

In February 1831, Romagna and the Marches of Ancona threw off the Papal Government with an ease which must have surprised the most sanguine.  The white, red and green tricolor was hoisted at Bologna, where, as far as is known, this combination of colours first became a political badge.  Thirty-six years before Luigi Zamboni and Gian Battista De Rolandis of Bologna had distributed rosettes of white, red and green ribbon; Zamboni was arrested, and strangled himself, afraid of betraying his friends; De Rolandis was hung on the 23rd of April 1796.  Such was the origin of the flag, but, until 1831, the Carbonaro red, blue and black was the common standard of the revolution.  From that year forth, the destinies of Italy were accomplished under the colours of better augury, so fit to recall her fiery volcanoes, her wooded Apennines, her snow-crowned Alps; colours which in one sense she receives from Dante, who clothes in them the vision of the glorified Beatrice.

The rising at Parma requires but little comment.  The Empress Marie-Louise neither hated her subjects, nor was hated by them, but her engagements with Austria prevented her from granting the demanded concessions, and she abandoned her state, to return to it, indeed, under Austrian protection, but without the odious corollary of vindictive measures which was generally meant by a restoration.

Much more important is the history of the Modenese revolution.  Apologists have been found for the Bourbons of Naples, but, if anyone ever said a good word for Francesco d’Este, it has escaped the notice of the present writer.  Under a despotism without laws (for the edicts of the Prince daily overrode the Este statute book which was supposed to be in force), Modena was far more in the power of the priests, or rather of the Jesuits, than any portion of the states of the Church.  Squint-eyed, crooked in mind and bloodthirsty, Francis was as ideal a bogey-tyrant as can be discovered outside fiction.  In 1822, he hung the priest Giuseppe Andreoli on the charge of Carbonarism; and his theory of justice is amusingly illustrated by the story of his sending in a bill to Sir Anthony Panizzi—­who had escaped to England—­for the expenses of hanging him in effigy.