paign of 1813, as injurious to Eugene. But he was himself, as will be hereafter seen, the chief cause of his own downfall. He was guilty of something worse than precipitancy during his last unhappy days at Mantua, when he seized the crown from selfishness, and surrendered it from spite.

THE SECRET SOCIETY.

It is now well known, and no danger can result from the promulgation of the fact, that for some time previous to the downfall of Napoleon a widely-extended conspiracy had been formed in his Italian provinces, having for its object the long-desired, unattainable independence of the Italian peninsula. The secret, if so it may be called, was in the breasts of no less than four thousand individuals, calling themselves Freemasons, and ́ communicating by the masonic signs in use, not in France, but in England. These persons, although for ordinary purposes they acted with all the Freemasons of Italy, yet, for special political objects, were governed by rules and conducted by chiefs known only to themselves. Thus Prince Eugene was grand-master of Lombardy, but the private grand-master was the real head of the brotherhood, and of the project of which it was intended the viceroy should be the last to hear, and which was scrupulously concealed from every one supposed to be connected with French interests. When Murat passed through Milan, after the reverses of the

campaign of 1813, he repaired to the house of a merchant, from whom he borrowed a thousand louis d'ors, to enable him to return to his capital with the equipage, at least, of a sovereign, and he then confided to the lender of the money his scheme of speedily assembling an army of 80,000 men, marching northwards, raising the patriots of every province, and declaring the independence of Italy. The merchant was a Freemason, and communicated the project of Murat to the Great Lodge; the consequence was that the whole secret, just at the time that concealment was most necessary, was betrayed by to the friends of the Viceroy. From that moment discord arose between Murat and Eugene and their respective partizans, which put an end to all chance of co-operation between the Neapolitans and Lombards, and was, most probably, the real cause of the unfortunate policy adopted by the Viceroy at Mantua. The battle of Hanau afforded the Italians the last opportunity of displaying their military genius beyond the Alps; and when General Zucchi, who commanded their contingent of the French army, returned to Milan, he proclaimed publicly that he was authorized to announce that Napoleon resigned the iron crown, released his Italian subjects and soldiers from their oaths, and left the whole of their armed force to work out the independence of their common country. This certainly was, if any, the time to secure that glorious object. Eugene and his council deliberated on a declaration proclaiming the union of all the states of Upper Italy, with Eugene

for their constitutional monarch, and France for a permanent ally. The decree was written, and preparations made for sending it to all the provincial prefects; but the prince hesitated, and the decree was cancelled. He was unwilling to convoke the electoral or representative bodies, fearful lest his influence, declining daily with the disasters of his imperial step-father, should prove too weak to place the crown on his own head. The patriot Freemasons also were inactive, partly because they were aware of divisions amongst themselves, and partly because they depended on the assistance of England to secure their liberties at a general peace. Some of the bolder malcontents, amongst them Pino, opened communication with Murat, who was advancing through the Roman states with designs unknown to others, and probably not determined upon by himself. The war came at last into Italy, and, according to approved precedents, the Austrians advanced with the assurance that they came to liberate the Lombards from a foreign yoke, and had no desire to regain their ancient Cisalpine possessions. An English general officer was charged to pledge the imperial word of Francis the First to that effect. In fact, the independence of Italy had been one of the conditions proposed to Napoleon at Dresden in 1813. Not one of all the champions contending for the honour of imposing a master on this unhappy country omitted the usual ceremony of promising better days of freedom and happiness. The Austrian general, Nugent, and his English partizans disembarked at the mouth of

the Po and overran Romagna, and before they were repulsed by the French general, Grenier, near Parma, had time to proclaim themselves "disinterested liberators." Prince Eugene, in his proclamation of the 4th of February (1814), from Verona, declared that Murat had for the three past months promised to march to his aid. But Murat was now the ally of Austria; and advancing towards Lombardy, proclaimed, by the mouth of his general, Carascosa, the independence of Italy. The English, Sicilians, Calabrians, and Greeks, who landed at Leghorn under the command of Lord William Bentinck, assumed the same generous character of liberators and friends, allies in the same pious enterprisethe final emancipation of all Italy from a foreign yoke. It must seem to us, who have seen the event, very strange that the most credulous of the patriot Italians should have indulged in any hopes not derived from the acknowledged prowess of their own Italian army; nor would they, perhaps, if Eugene had adopted a decided course, and raised the national banner. This, however, he did not do; he preferred, for the time, constancy to his great benefactor; and in his declaration of the 4th of February, 1814, from Verona, FIDELITY," not "LIBERTY," was declared to be the watchword of all true Italians.

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When Eugene opened the campaign against the socalled liberators of Italy, he was at the head of 60,000 men, of whom somewhat more than a third were Italians. Several bloody, though it appears fruitless,

battles were fought, and the honour of the Italian army was upheld; but a retreat behind the Mincio was inevitable, and ought to have been adopted whilst the last native defenders of the soil were undiminished and unbroken. The Austrian general did not choose to act at once offensively, being uncertain what conduct Murat might adopt; and when the Viceroy, after the action at Vallegio, had taken up his position at Mantua, and the news of Napoleon's abdication had arrived, he readily listened to the proposal for a suspension of arms, and agreed not to cross the Mincio until an answer should be returned on the part of the deputies who were sent to the allied sovereigns at Paris. The agreement, signed at Schiavino Pizzino on the 16th of April (1814), between Eugene and Count Bellegarde, provided for the departure of the French part of the army, the cession of several fortresses, including Venice, and, as if in mockery, also for the renewal of hostilities, after due notice given. The day after the suspension of arms, Melzi, Duke of Lodi, then suffering from an attack of gout at his villa, convened, in his capacity of president, an extraordinary meeting of the senate, and addressed a message to them, avowing the real state of the kingdom, concluding with a proposal that the deputies should demand at Paris a final cessation of hostilities, the independence of Italy, and the crown of the new kingdom for Prince Eugene. The senate deliberated on the message, first in a committee of seven members, and afterwards in the whole house. The deputies named at