r 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CAL(F«|pNIA 
 SAN DIE60
 
 C/1
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI
 
 Br THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE OLD ROME AND THE NEW, 
 and other Studies. Crown 8vo. 5s. 
 
 LITTLE BERTHA : A Story for Children. 
 i8mo. los. 6d. 
 
 'A perfect example of its rare and diffi- 
 cult kind, the fairy story the children want.' 
 — The World. 
 
 ■ A delightful little book for a father or 
 mother to read aloud in the nursery.' — 
 Pall Mall Gazette.
 
 F. CRISPI, 1863 
 
 Proiii!s/>iecc.
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 Insurgent, Exile, Revolutionist 
 and Statesman 
 
 
 J 
 
 BY 
 
 W/J/STILLMAN, L.H.D. (Concordia) 
 
 LATE CORRESPONDENT TO THE ' TIMES ' IN ROME J 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'the UNION OF ITALY'; ' THE CRETAN INSURRECTION OF 1 866' J 
 
 'HERZEGOVINA AND THE LATE UPRISING (1878)'; ' THE OLD 
 
 ROME AND THE NEW,' ETC., ETC. 
 
 iLontion 
 
 GRANT RICHARDS 
 
 BOSTON, U.S.A., HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 1899
 
 Printed by R, & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh,
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI : A CHARACTER STUDY 
 
 The day after Crispi had, on the death of 
 Depretis, assumed the presidency of the 
 Council with the portfoHo of Foreign Affairs, 
 I found myself climbing the slope which leads 
 to the Consulta, the palace of Foreign Affairs, 
 
 in company with the Editor of the X , 
 
 one of the Roman journals of the Left, a 
 journalist whom I had known for years, and 
 who was one of my colleagues in the Monte- 
 negrin campaigns. He was full of faith in 
 Crispi and his own paper as the official organ 
 of the new order of things. " I will guarantee 
 
 that in six weeks the X will be the 
 
 official organ," said the Editor, my friend. 
 He had his audience — a short one — and then 
 came my turn. What I had to say, beside the 
 formal congratulation over the accession, was 
 that my chief had ordered me to learn the 
 Mediterranean policy of the new ministry in 
 order that we might support it. I delivered 
 my message, and waited. Crispi made no 
 
 B
 
 2 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 reply for a moment, but looked at me with a 
 severe, repelling half-frown, did not ask me to 
 sit down, and when, after the lapse of several 
 minutes, the silence was not broken, I begged 
 him to believe that I had not come from 
 journalistic curiosity, but in pursuance of 
 orders from the Editor in order that the paper 
 might give his policy its support. Always 
 looking me in the eyes with the expression of 
 a suspicious watch -dog, he finally replied 
 curtly, " The Government has no need of the 
 support {appoggio) of the Press." " In that 
 case. Excellency," I replied, " I have the 
 honour to say good morning," and, turning on 
 my heel, I walked out with my back to him, 
 and not saluting. 
 
 The next week the X came out in 
 
 the most savage opposition, and for six weeks 
 I abstained from all intercourse with the Con- 
 sulta, notwithstanding that I had among the 
 officials of the ministry some of my best 
 friends, ignoring it as completely as if it did 
 not exist. At the end of that time there was 
 in The Times a telegram from Suakim, telling 
 of a collision between some Italian and English 
 officers, and a difficulty about a question of 
 delimitation. I then received a message from 
 the Consulta, to request me to call on the 
 Minister, with the assurance that " I should 
 not make antechamber." Crispi had found 
 that his independence of the Press was not so
 
 INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 absolute as he supposed, and he treated me 
 with consideration, and, having charged me 
 with assurances of the disposition of the 
 Government to remove any cause of difficulty 
 on the frontiers, he did all that his always 
 brusque manner permitted to remove the im- 
 pression of our former interview. 
 
 From that time I was always received with 
 courtesy, but not with the least invitation to 
 intimacy, nor was it till long after, on the 
 occasion of the Naples convention for the de- 
 limitation of the Kassala frontiers (which I 
 attended) towards the end of his first ministry, 
 that he became satisfied that I was a friend 
 of Italy, by the efforts I made to remove 
 misunderstandings that occurred in the settle- 
 ment of certain questions through the mis- 
 chievous misrepresentations regarding Sir 
 Evelyn Baring (Lord Cromer) on the part of 
 the Italian commissioners, who had persuaded 
 Crispi that Baring was hostile to any arrange- 
 ment with Italy. This falsehood did not 
 come to my knowledge till after the breaking 
 off of the negotiations, so that, though I had 
 been able to remove some minor difficulties, 
 the worst was not removed, and Sir Evelyn 
 left for Cairo, leaving Crispi persuaded that he 
 had to do with an enemy of Italy, with whom 
 every inch of advantage was to be fought for. 
 It was in the course of these negotiations that 
 Crispi became convinced that I was a real
 
 4 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 friend of Italy, and from that time forward 
 he was accustomed to communicate to me 
 confidentially such matters as were of public 
 interest for publication ; but there was, neither 
 then nor later, the intimacy between us which 
 English and French journals supposed, and on 
 the strength of which supposition all my views 
 of Italian politics were believed to be the re- 
 flection of those of Crispi. The fact was, that 
 there was never any other intimacy between 
 us than that of an honest minister towards 
 an honest journalist, for Crispi is not a man 
 to make an intimate amongst journalists, for 
 whom in general he had a strong aversion, 
 which was natural under the circumstances, 
 for, except La Riforma, there was not a paper 
 in Italy, so far as I know, which did not oppose 
 him. With regard to The Times, he had had 
 reason for discontent, as my predecessor had 
 been distinctly obsequious to the Vatican, 
 and had compromised the tone of the paper. 
 He came to regard me as a loyal friend of 
 Italy, and treated me as such, but beyond that 
 there was on neither side a desire for intimate 
 personal relations. His domestic surroundings 
 were to me unapproachable, and I have never 
 broken bread under his roof; and often when 
 affairs were uneventful I did not see him for 
 weeks. I supported him for his English policy. 
 During his first administration his attitude 
 towards the Press was one of persistent antag-
 
 INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 onism, or worse. He paid the expenses of 
 La Riforma, the only journal which supported 
 him, but, so far as I could learn, he subsidised 
 no other, and to the foreign Press — French, 
 German, or English — he was either con- 
 temptuous or indifferent, even to rudely re- 
 fusing interviews. So far as The Times was 
 concerned, after our first brush he was respect- 
 ful, but never made the slightest advance to- 
 wards a private understanding as to my tone in 
 my correspondence, or hinted, either personally 
 or through another, at any favour to be granted 
 on account of it, nor did he ever attempt to 
 influence me in what I should write, further 
 than by giving me authentic information which 
 he did not give to other correspondents, which 
 was natural, considering the importance of The 
 Times. From my first interview to my resig- 
 nation in 1898 I never heard from him, or 
 any friend or subordinate, a word, or saw 
 an indication which indicated a desire to 
 influence me. After he became, during the 
 convention of Naples, convinced that I was 
 really a friend of Italy, he gave me the Cross 
 of the Crown of Italy, more as an admission, I 
 supposed, of his having misjudged me in the 
 past than from any other motive, but neither 
 to him nor me had this a serious value, for 
 distinctions of that kind are empty honours to 
 him as to me. I made no overture for it, and 
 could not in courtesy refuse it — I was, in fact,
 
 6 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 indifferent to it, and it was only given just 
 before he fell. 
 
 The critics of my Union of Italy have 
 charged me with abasing the great figure of 
 Cavour in comparison with Crispi. The 
 reader will see in the following pages what I 
 think of the affairs in which they came in 
 contact, but a comparison between them 
 is impossible. Cavour was a parliamentary 
 statesman, perhaps the ablest of his day in 
 Europe, but he believed in parliaments and 
 diplomacy alone, this side the ultima ratio of 
 nations, and abhorred insurrections and the 
 revolutionary element. Crispi was a revolu- 
 tionary statesman, born and bred to conspiracies, 
 and as such the greatest Italy has produced in 
 our times, and, after Cavour, Crispi has the 
 greatest intellectual political ability amongst 
 the makers of Italy, who are — Cavour, Vittorio 
 Emanuele, Garibaldi, Mazzini, Ricasoli, Farini, 
 and Crispi. Cavour had always with him 
 wind and tide. King, Court, wealth, nobility, 
 in short, every element in the state which 
 could strengthen his position. Crispi had 
 poverty, exile, imprisonment, and the hostility 
 of King, Court, and every conservative interest ; 
 and while Cavour, with the aid of all the 
 forces of the kingdom, brought under the flag 
 of Savoy — Tuscany by the aid of Ricasoli, 
 Lombardy by the gift of France, the central 
 provinces by the aid of Farini and his asso-
 
 INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 ciates, paying for them with Savoy and Nice, 
 Crispi and Garibaldi brought the larger half 
 of Italy, scarcely aided except by the private 
 patriotism of all Northern Italy. I w^ill not 
 anticipate what has to be said later in these 
 pages on the regrettable conflict between men 
 who loved Italy with equal, if different, devo- 
 tion. No comparison, but contrast, is to be 
 drawn between Cavour and Crispi. Cavour 
 towered over everybody with whom he worked, 
 and absorbed the individuality of all. Gari- 
 baldi and Crispi, in the expedition of the 
 Thousand, were like Castor and Pollux ; where 
 one was wanting the other was competent, 
 equally patriotic, equally disinterested, and 
 equally ready to efface themselves before each 
 other and Italy. With all his disadvantages, 
 Crispi stands next to Cavour in the history of 
 the making of Italy. What he might have 
 done or been with the favour of King, Court, 
 and the support which Cavour had on all sides 
 can only be conjectured. 
 
 But, owing to this antagonism and the 
 prejudice which has grown out of it, Crispi 
 has been misunderstood and misrepresented as 
 no Italian, or even European, statesman has 
 ever been. To a certain extent this is due to 
 the character of the man, a conspirator by 
 evolution if not by birth, secretive, reticent, 
 conscious to excess of his own abilities, and 
 contemptuous of the common ways of making
 
 8 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 them known ; taciturn, moody, and indifferent 
 to the opinion of others to an extraordinary 
 degree, he paid no court to success and only 
 begged for Italy — for himself any hardship 
 was more grateful than dependence on those 
 who did not trust him. Liberal Europe only 
 knew Italy for good in Piedmont, and for ill 
 in Naples, and in the early stages of revolu- 
 tion Crispi was conspicuous in neither. 
 Compelled to secrecy in all his earlier life, he 
 was condemned to obscurity later, because he 
 was considered dangerous to the ideas of men 
 who were able to keep him there, and who 
 would, had it been possible, have kept him for 
 ever out of public life. Lost to the English 
 sight, in the crowd of conspirators and schemers ; 
 averse to proclamations and words, he only 
 emerged from the mass of the Italians of the 
 Regeneration when the other great luminaries 
 of it had gone below the horizon. Not to be in 
 office is for a politician not to be known out of 
 one's own country, and Crispi was late in coming 
 to office — the reasons for which do him honour 
 but do not affect the fact. Insignificant men 
 preceded, and followed him, partly on account 
 of his qualities and partly on account of the 
 defects of them, and when he came to the 
 front he was a survival of another and more 
 heroic epoch. His life until i860 was that of 
 a conspirator, dreaded as much by the con- 
 servatives who were in power, as a radical and
 
 INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 republican, as for his abilities, and when his 
 convictions had brought him over to the 
 support of royalty, and he had uttered the 
 memorable v^ords, " The Monarchy unites us, 
 the Republic v^ould divide us," and accepted 
 the King, he was regarded by his new allies 
 with distrust, and by his old friends with the 
 bitterest animosity or indignation, as a deserter 
 from the principles of the Republic. 
 
 But it is largely due to his irrepressible 
 individuality, which revolts against being com- 
 pressed into the mould of a party, or into irre- 
 sponsible subordination in politics, that he has 
 always stood alone, and much of the animosity 
 with which he appears always to have been 
 regarded by many of his contemporaries seems 
 to have been due to this tendency, and to the 
 fact that he never gives his confidence entirely 
 to any man. His sense of personal dignity is 
 morbidly acute, and he savagely repels any 
 question which seems to impeach his sincerity 
 in politics or the honourableness of his motives. 
 His dearest friend would hardly dare to ask him 
 for an explanation which implied a reproach to 
 his honour or public integrity, certain to receive 
 at best a contemptuous denial. I remember 
 him saying once in the Chamber, in reference 
 to some such imputation, " I do not discuss 
 any question assailing my honour. Let my 
 life answer for that." 
 
 He is at once the best loved and the most
 
 lo FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 hated of Italian statesmen, and the unquestion- 
 able superiority he possessed over all the heads 
 of the factions at times opposing, and at times 
 favouring him, intensified the vicissitudes of 
 his political life ; at one time the dictator of 
 the destinies of Italy, and at another a chief 
 without a party, compelled to look on and see 
 all his work undone and his adherents divided 
 between the factions, and following other 
 leaders ; for to this does the condition of 
 Italian politics lead, that through default of 
 party discipline or organisation, the only tie 
 between the representatives of the people is 
 the possession of office. 
 
 In the regard of the great majority of the 
 Italian people Crispi holds a position which is 
 secure, that of the first of the now living 
 statesmen of the peninsula and the last of her 
 great makers ; but in the corruption of their 
 politics, and the want of political organisation 
 and education, the verdict of the election is not 
 decisive of the character of the legislatures 
 issuing from it ; fidelity of the deputy to his 
 pre-election professions having no place amongst 
 the virtues of the Italian politician, so that 
 nothing secures the popular approbation from 
 being followed by a defeat in the Chamber of 
 Deputies. This condition of political anarchy 
 is in part the fault of Crispi himself. Holding 
 for the last twenty years the undisputed pos- 
 session of the chieftainship of the democratic
 
 INTRODUCTION ii 
 
 element, he has never asserted his position by 
 attempting to organise the forces of it in attack 
 on the antagonistic parties, but when he has 
 met with a reverse, he has retired to his tent 
 and waited for the moment when the country 
 should recognise the need of him. Political 
 parties, like armies, are most solidly organised 
 by offensive operations, and Crispi has not 
 been willing to lead the opposition in attack 
 and so secure its allegiance, but with a self- 
 assertion which too closely resembles arro- 
 gance, has, when out of office, withdrawn to 
 nearly complete isolation and inaction. While 
 neglecting in this way the means of organising 
 a party for the support of his ideas of govern- 
 ment, he was yet excessive in his individual 
 attacks on the factions, especially on the 
 surviving fraction of the old Right which had 
 for so many years and with such indignities 
 hunted him on all occasions, and which were, 
 when the opportunity offered, united in hostility 
 to him to the last. At times he broke out in 
 rancorous Philippics, bitter and personal beyond 
 the just limits of parliamentary decorum, and 
 received the compensation in return of aggra- 
 vated hostility whenever occasion offered to 
 annoy him. 
 
 Of this war, which did equal harm to 
 Crispi and to the healthy and greatly-needed 
 development of constitutional life in Italy, the 
 Right was doubtless primarily responsible.
 
 12 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 As the first political factor of the movement 
 which brought Naples and Sicily into the 
 kingdom of Italy, and even preceding Garibaldi 
 in the real shaping of the event ; as a frank 
 and courageous adherent to the Monarchy 
 w^hen all his former political associations had 
 attached him to the Republic — adherence 
 which cost him the political support of his 
 old friends, with few exceptions — he deserved 
 the confidence of the Royalists to whose in- 
 terests he had given unreserved support ; while, 
 in fact, he met only with distrust, hostility, 
 and ostracism, applied in every case in which 
 it was possible. Excluded by official pressure 
 from the representation of Palermo in the first 
 Italian Parliament, he only entered the Cham- 
 ber he had been the first to move in the 
 possible formation of (that of the Kingdom of 
 Italy, accomplished by the plebiscite of an- 
 nexation of Southern Italy), by the chance of 
 having been almost clandestinely nominated 
 in a second electoral college unknown to the 
 Piedmontese ministry ; and at every turn he 
 was met by distrust and hostility equal to that 
 shown to Mazzini himself. It would have 
 been strange if to his fiery and vindictive 
 Sicilian temper this shameful persecution had 
 not left permanent effects in undying hatred 
 of the party which was responsible for it, and 
 which maintained it unrelentingly down to 
 the epoch of his second ministry, and which
 
 INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 even at the present time shows that its rancour 
 has not been exhausted. But the heat of 
 Crispi's indignation carried him at times be- 
 yond the limits of just resentment, and added 
 to the partisan malevolence which he would 
 have done better to leave for reprobation to the 
 judgment of posterity, and at others led him, 
 from the spirit of antagonism, to the denun- 
 ciation of the measures he had previously 
 supported, finding them advocated by his 
 opponents. And beyond the lines of the old 
 party antagonisms there were cases in which 
 he attacked with the same bitterness those of 
 his own side of the Chamber from whom he 
 happened to differ as to the measures of the 
 day. This mental condition is no doubt re- 
 sponsible for a part of the opposition which 
 Crispi has always provoked, and for much of 
 the rest the influences of the Court are answer- 
 able, for Crispi was always intensely obnoxious 
 to the world about the throne, whether from 
 his ancient republicanism or a certain hostility 
 he always cherished against the Court influ- 
 ences which had been against him in the 
 beginning, and which he regarded with 
 animosity for their effect on the administration 
 of affairs, being, in his conception of govern- 
 ment, unconstitutional and illegitimate. In 
 this he was undoubtedly right, for the in- 
 fluences of the Court have never been other 
 than disastrous to the best interests of con-
 
 14 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 stitutional government in Italy, and they are 
 largely responsible for the demoralisation in 
 it, and for the reaction appearing of late 
 towards radical republicanism. 
 
 The scandal arising out of Crispi's divorce 
 was dexterously employed by the Court against 
 him, and the most exaggerated accusations of 
 immorality were drawn from it, and had no 
 doubt a great influence on his position for the 
 time ; but if in the single transaction which 
 that represents, his conduct was open to re- 
 proach, the conclusion drawn by his accusers 
 of a general immorality is absolutely without 
 justification. Crispi never was a licentious 
 man ; his temperament prevents it, and those 
 who know him personally know that in the 
 mingled fire and ice of his temperament there 
 is little place for licentiousness. The passion 
 of his life has been the liberty of Italy, and 
 from the day when he buried the romance of 
 his young life in the grave of his first wife, 
 conspiracy and affairs of State have absorbed 
 his energies completely, and women, or even 
 society at large, have been merely incidental. 
 In the scandalous general condition of sexual 
 morality in the world he moved in, Crispi is 
 almost a manifestation of purity and continence. 
 
 Crispi's reticence and an extreme preoccu- 
 pation gave him socially the credit of a 
 moroseness which does not exist, for his 
 nature is of the kindliest, but he has no
 
 INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 patience with people who come merely to 
 talk and have no serious business with him. 
 He does not invite confidence, and with im- 
 portune visitors he may be very peremptory ; 
 but his patience is unlimited in cases of in- 
 justice done. The arts of political conciliation 
 being little known to him, no doubt he has 
 often lost support for the want of them ; but, 
 as he has never sought power or seemed over- 
 anxious to arrive at it, there was the less 
 reason for the cultivation of them. He, of 
 course, expected, and doubtless desired, to be 
 called to the Government long before he was ; 
 but he never showed impatience, and when 
 some one taunted him with his early unsuccess 
 he replied, " lo mi chiamo Domani " — I call 
 myself To-morrow. Petrucelli di Gattina says 
 that one day he asked Crispi if he was a 
 Mazzinian. " No ! " he replied. " A Gari- 
 baldian ? " " No more." " And what are 
 you, then ? " " I am Crispi," was the reply. 
 
 The savage, and politically as well as 
 morally unprincipled, campaign of scandal 
 against Crispi of 1891-93 made entirely in the 
 interests of France and by the least responsible 
 group of the Italian politicians, may perhaps 
 be considered as demanding notice by one who 
 pretends to write an unbiassed life of the 
 statesman, and I give it all the attention it 
 deserves, so far as public knowledge enables 
 me to form an opinion. It would be rash in
 
 i6 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 the extreme to pronounce positively on a 
 question of public morality in the state of that 
 virtue w^hich prevails in Italy, but what one 
 may safely say is that no evidence worth 
 serious consideration of Crispi's venality or 
 corruptibility has ever been presented, and the 
 a priori conclusion which we are entitled to 
 draw from a life of exile and poverty, repelling 
 all concessions of principle and refusing all 
 offers of interested advancement, is that the 
 man against whom, at the age of seventy, no 
 accusation of a similar character had ever 
 been maintained, though he held at times the 
 revenues of a province in his hands, is most 
 unlikely in his later years to fall before a 
 miserable temptation to barter the honour of 
 his country. And it needs some recognition 
 of the honesty and morality of the men who 
 coin such accusations, to give them weight, 
 and grounds for this recognition exist nowhere ; 
 for, whether in sexual or fiscal morality, the 
 state of things in Italy throws Crispi into 
 high relief. The intense desire in certain 
 political quarters to remove from the field of 
 active politics the man on whose ability and 
 perspicacity Italy could most count at the 
 present moment, if international difficulties 
 were to arise, accounts fully for the campaign 
 of slander ; but to one who has known Crispi 
 ever since he came to power, and who has no 
 motive to bias in judging him, the extra-
 
 INTRODUCTION 17 
 
 parliamentary war on Crispi which occupied 
 the attention, more or less, of Europe so long, 
 is the most unscrupulous and unwarranted 
 political campaign in the politics of Europe 
 or America, in which I have been an observer 
 for more than forty years. Personal impres- 
 sions are liable to error, but at the age which 
 has passed the Psalmist's limits they are worth 
 something, and after twelve years of study of 
 Crispi's political conduct I am free to say that 
 much more evidence than anything I have 
 ever heard or seen must be brought forward 
 to induce me to question for one moment 
 Crispi's honesty or the purity of his patriotism. 
 But, like other Italian ministers, he has often 
 paid for the dishonesty of his supporters. 
 
 It may not be amiss that I inform my 
 readers that I have received no assistance from 
 Signor Crispi in the compilation of the follow- 
 ing sketch, for it hardly deserves a more serious 
 title. He, probably wisely, seems to have 
 preferred to avoid any possibility of being 
 considered accessory to either praise or blame 
 of himself, and it seems difficult to avoid the 
 one or the other when cognisant of one's own 
 biography. It would have been a great ad- 
 vantage to me to have had access to some of 
 the full and contemporary accounts of the 
 transactions in which the Italian statesman 
 has taken part, and which are recorded in 
 diaries which in the future will be of great 
 
 c
 
 i8 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 interest to the historian, but which were 
 rigidly refused me. But the biography of 
 Crispi must wait for younger men than I am 
 to be rendered full justice. Hate and devotion 
 have too much hold on his present to permit 
 entire justice to be done him in his political 
 lifetime. For what I have written I owe 
 most to the series of articles in the Revue 
 Internationale, by Edmond Mayor, long time 
 private secretary to Crispi ; to a charming and 
 important little book by the same, M. Crispi 
 chez. M. de Bismark ; and to the little book 
 of my friend Vincenzo Riccio, / Meridionali 
 nella Camera, for the earlier periods, and some- 
 what to the life of Crispi by Narjoux ; but 
 for the later period I depend on my own 
 observation and knowledge of his public acts. 
 
 Vincenzo Riccio, in / Meridionali nella 
 Camera, has drawn Crispi's character at his 
 first entry into the premiership (1887) in the 
 following words, true then, but not complete, 
 for they fail to recognise how large a part of 
 the traits there depicted were due to the state 
 of acute conflict and unmeasured persecution 
 in which he had passed the greater part of his 
 life, and which still endured, and which now 
 must be taken as having become a part of his 
 character : — " Too clearly has the fact proven 
 that the temperament of Francesco Crispi is 
 stronger than his will. In many occasions he 
 has allowed himself to be dragged into acts
 
 INTRODUCTION 19 
 
 and words neither fitting nor convenient to 
 one who is chief of the government in a free 
 state. Add a pride unmeasured and unreason- 
 able. It seemed pride in the opposition deputy, 
 and therefore a virtue. It is shown to be 
 arrogance, and is a vice and a danger in the 
 minister, since it regards a man on whom 
 depend the most important public interests, 
 and who despatches them without taking 
 counsel of any one, following the impulses of 
 his own mind." Nor was the latter part of 
 this entirely true even in his first ministry. 
 In his own department he asked no advice of 
 his colleagues, perhaps, but he left them the 
 responsibility in theirs. In the banking ques- 
 tion and crisis he allowed his better judgment 
 to be overruled by his colleagues, Giolitti and 
 Grimaldi ; and when in the crisis of the African 
 question he found his colleague in the ministry 
 of war. General Bertole-Viale, disposed to push 
 operations on a scale beyond the resources of 
 the country, he took the colony from that 
 ministry and transferred it to that of Foreign 
 Affairs, which he himself held. In this, as in 
 all the questions which composed the foreign 
 policy of Italy, he held a wise and far-reaching 
 policy, which he often failed to carry out 
 with diplomatic tact, and which in manner 
 rather than in matter caused needless friction. 
 
 Of the problems which gave him most 
 thought I think the ecclesiastical question was
 
 20 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 the most grave and perhaps the only really 
 difficult one per se, and in respect to this 
 he showed himself considerate to all beliefs 
 and all sincere prejudices, conciliatory to the 
 Papacy as far as the inviolate rights of the 
 nation permit, but ready to face any opposi- 
 tion where they are menaced from within 
 or without. In religion he is a freethinker 
 with a profound sense of the immanent Deity, 
 sympathetic with the Orthodox Church 
 in which he was born and bred, but with 
 antipathy to no other ; he is respected be- 
 yond all the other statesmen of Italy by the 
 lower clergy, especially in the southern pro- 
 vinces, and in the Vatican he has more and 
 warmer friends than any other minister. In 
 ecclesiastical crises, as in all others, he had to 
 encounter the implacable hatred of France, no 
 matter what regime controls that country, but 
 in this matter his policy was one of passive 
 resistance to any resumption of old privileges 
 by the Church, and firm maintenance of the 
 compact made, although he had opposed it 
 when made. With the lower clergy and 
 their influence in general, he was in full 
 sympathy, for it was his profound conviction 
 that a people without religion is doomed to 
 decay of all national virtues, and whatever may 
 be the depth or soundness of the Roman 
 Catholic religion as it is held by the masses in 
 Italy, it is the best they know, and there is
 
 INTRODUCTION 21 
 
 little probability of its ever being changed for 
 any other form. With the Temporal power 
 and the immixtion of the Church in politics 
 he was always in inflexible antagonism, and to 
 him absolute liberty of belief was a condition 
 sine qua non of healthy national existence. Of 
 his sincere religious conviction I am profoundly 
 and with good grounds convinced, for I have 
 on several occasions been able to see in un- 
 guarded moments his real convictions, nor has 
 he ever hesitated to avow his belief in a con- 
 trolling Deity when there was opportuneness 
 in the declaration. On the occasion of the 
 raising of the statue to Giordano Bruno he 
 refused to take part in a professedly atheistic 
 demonstration, saying, " I am not an atheist." 
 In the evening after the last attempt on his 
 life, I called to congratulate him on his escape, 
 and in the course of the conversation I remarked 
 that it seemed almost like a providential inter- 
 ference that a man should fire a pistol at him 
 so near that it would have burned his hair off 
 if it had been pointed right (the pistol was 
 thrust into the carriage and the assassin had 
 his hand on the carriage door), and that he 
 should not have been harmed. He looked up 
 from his papers into my face and with an un- 
 accustomed solemnity which there was no mis- 
 taking, for there is not a trace of the hypocrite in 
 him, he said, " I believe it was providential — 
 it was a miracle." With all his official severity
 
 22 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 and maintenance of discipline, he is one of the 
 kindest-hearted men I ever knew, and without 
 the least ostentation, and his charity is as large 
 and genuine as it is secret, with that secretive- 
 ness which is one of the dominant traits of his 
 character. One of the superior magistrates 
 who has had much experience, and complete 
 knowledge of the working of the law of public 
 security of 1893, which has been the basis of 
 the charges of despotic severity against Crispi, 
 assured me that he reviewed every case of 
 condemnation under it, and where any mitigat- 
 ing circumstances existed, he cancelled the con- 
 demnation, although it had passed through a trial 
 before a mixed commission, and had a hearing 
 on appeal to a higher commission, so that no 
 innocent man could have been punished beyond 
 the preventive imprisonment, and many who 
 were guilty escaped. On the other hand, he 
 was of Rhadamanthine severity against any 
 revolutionary attempt ; and especially the 
 men who attempt to mislead the masses by 
 schemes socialistic or political, found no mercy 
 in him. This has been even made a subject 
 of reproach, that he, a revolutionary of the 
 most desperate dye, should now crush those 
 who imitate him, but he replies, " We rebelled 
 against tyrants and government without law, 
 but revolution now is against the existence of a 
 government in which all share and the majority 
 governs — it is a crime."
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Crispi was born at Ribera, a little town on 
 the southern coast of Sicily, October 4, 18 19, 
 of an Albanian family which had immigrated 
 from Northern Albania, after the defeat of 
 the last Christian hero of the Skipetar race, 
 Skander Beg, whose adherents migrated to 
 Italy in thousands after the final struggle 
 between the Cross and the Crescent, in the 
 latter part of the fifteenth century. The 
 grandfather of Francesco was a priest in the 
 Orthodox Church (commonly and incorrectly 
 called the Greek Catholic), in which the parish 
 priests are necessarily married men, and the 
 Albanian was the family language down to 
 the lifetime of the statesman. To those who 
 know the race of Skander Beg, its intellectual 
 force, tenacity, craftiness, and curious mix- 
 ture of passionless temperament with volcanic 
 temper ; cold, calculating, and deliberate when 
 something has to be planned, and patient and 
 tenacious in the carrying out of the plan ; 
 faithful to death where faith is due ; honest 
 as day where personal fidelity demands it, and
 
 24 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 crafty as a red Indian where an enemy is to 
 be guarded against, the character of Crispi 
 will be the cropping out of the typical 
 individuality of the race. The roots of the 
 nature were Skipetar, and the training Sicilian, 
 with neither of which has the Italian tempera- 
 ment anything to do, though the southern sun 
 and its quickening have probably their share 
 in the result. 
 
 Crispi's education was made in the " Greek- 
 Albanian " seminary of Palermo, and in the 
 university of the same city, which became 
 later the seat of his professional career. At 
 the age of eighteen he took his degree of 
 Doctor of Laws. The education of that day 
 was the traditional, based on the classics, and 
 Crispi has not at the age of eighty forgotten 
 his Tacitus and Cicero. But the practical 
 studies which his subsequent life made so 
 important to his success, he made in the 
 harder school of experience. His father's 
 intention was that he should enter into the 
 magistracy, which was then, as it is now, not 
 only in Italy, but in some other countries of 
 Europe, a separate career, the preparation for 
 which differs from that for the bar in many 
 details, but as his age on leaving the university 
 was not that demanded for entering the 
 magistracy, he was admitted to the bar for 
 the interval. Sicily was then under the full 
 reaction from a defeated constitutional move-
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 25 
 
 ment, and the Divine Right of the Bourbons 
 dictated the law and regulated justice. It 
 was the school in which a man disposed to 
 absolutism would be at home in the magistracy, 
 but one who at heart was a revolutionary 
 would only find the suggestion of revolt 
 against the system in which he lived. The 
 short career at the bar of Palermo was only 
 a nominal occupation. Crispi became a 
 journalist as journalism then was understood 
 because it gave him opportunity for the safe 
 expression of his sympathies with freedom. 
 He founded a journal called the Oreteo, from 
 a little river which empties into the sea not 
 far from Palermo. Discussion of politics being 
 forbidden in the realms of the Bourbon, Oreteos 
 laudation was limited to the ancients, or was 
 incidentally extended to the modern Greeks, 
 who were then the heroes of the day, the 
 glamour of their struggle for emancipation 
 still resting on them. The Grand Turk was 
 the pretext for the abuse of tyrants which 
 every good subject of any Christian power 
 could employ freely, and excite no suspicion 
 of liberalism. In Oreteo, Crispi wrote poetry, 
 essays on literary subjects, and even went so 
 far as to denounce tyranny in the abstract and 
 tyrants in general, but the day of revolt and 
 conspiracy had not yet dawned, and Platonic 
 aspirations did not disturb authority. 
 
 Crispi's early romance, more influential on
 
 26 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 his mature life than the world suspects, Is 
 worth telling as a part of his character. 
 During his second year at the university he 
 lodged with a family of the Palermitan middle 
 class, composed of a widow, one son, and four 
 daughters. To the second daughter, Rosina, 
 Crispi became strongly attached, and the 
 attachment being reciprocated, he proposed 
 to marry her, an imprudence for a youth of 
 eighteen which the parents on both sides 
 opposed, and on his side with practical vigour, 
 for his father coming to Palermo, carried him 
 away and promptly broke off all communica- 
 tions between the lovers. Francesco was 
 sent to a farmhouse which belonged to the 
 family at Sciacca, on the sea coast not far from 
 Ribera, and kept under a sort of domestic 
 guard. To those who know the passionate, 
 filial devotion of the Skipetar and kindred 
 Greek races, it will be no surprise that this 
 relegation to bounds was an effective inter- 
 diction to intercourse between the lovers, but 
 during this time the cholera, which had been 
 spreading through Europe, reached Sicily and 
 became intense at Palermo, under the effect 
 of the ancient prejudices as to pestilence, 
 involving seclusion and abandonment of the 
 infested quarters to what might happen in 
 them. One quarter, itself infected, arms in 
 hand, forbade access to the inhabitants of 
 others, and the dead were hardly numbered ;
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 27 
 
 from hundreds they grew to thousands daily. 
 At Sciacca, Crispi learned of the terrible 
 character of the disease at Palermo, and unable 
 to get any news of his Rosina, took the horse 
 of his father's tenant and stole away to Palermo. 
 He found Rosina with one of her sisters only 
 alive, the mother and the other children 
 having died of the cholera ; and having no 
 means of his own, he sold the horse and 
 devoted himself and the proceeds to the 
 sustenance of the sisters. He was mourned 
 as dead, and only after a lapse of many days 
 through the chance recognition of the horse, 
 sold to the postal service, was a clue given to 
 his whereabouts. He was found and recalled, 
 and consent was given to the marriage. Rosina 
 died two years later, leaving a young daughter 
 who also died after a few months, and the 
 romance of Crispi's life was ended. From 
 that day until the declaration of Italian unity 
 in i860, his existence was that of a conspirator, 
 in exile and poverty, accepting no occupation 
 which restricted his liberty to change con- 
 spiracy to insurrection, and living with his 
 eyes always turned towards Sicily. He has 
 never loved another woman, though the 
 irregular relations with the sex which are 
 almost universal amongst his Italian con- 
 temporaries, have been unusually disastrous to 
 him. A lady who knew him well at Turin, 
 told me that he was always absolutely
 
 28 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 indifferent to women, although they used to 
 " throw themselves at him." He has a 
 daughter by his later marriage, to whom, 
 and to Italy, he has given the absolute 
 devotion of his maturer life. 
 
 He practised at the bar of Palermo until 
 the age of twenty-three, when, according to 
 the decision of his father, he made the formal 
 application to be admitted to the magistracy, 
 and, although he still lacked two years to the 
 legal age for the entry into the lower grade, 
 he passed a brilliant examination, and the 
 authorities were easily induced to overlook 
 the deficiency of his years. According to the 
 law, he was required to spend three years 
 in a course of instruction under a superior 
 magistrate, and he was placed with Filippo 
 Craxi, procureur - general of the Court of 
 Cassation of Palermo. Beyond the functions 
 of this office, Craxi was charged with the 
 presidency of the commission for the exaction 
 of overdue taxes, and in the questions arising 
 from the execution of this office, the political 
 convictions of the young magistrate found 
 their expression, which decided him in the 
 abandonment of the imposed career. One of 
 the Sicilian magnates, the Prince of Castel- 
 nuovo, a rigid constitutionalist, had refused, 
 after the abolition by decree of the Sicilian 
 Parliament, to pay any taxes, on the ground 
 that taxation without the vote of the Parlia-
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 29 
 
 ment was illegal. Crispi sympathised with 
 the Prince ; his chief with the pretensions 
 of Divine Right to impose on the subject 
 whatever burthens it saw fit ; and in the 
 discussions which grew out of the case, the 
 conviction seems to have established itself on 
 Crispi that he could not serve the King, and 
 he abandoned the magistrature, deciding on 
 that course with the rapidity and firmness 
 which have always marked his action in 
 important junctures, and, finding the field of 
 activity offered him in Palermo too limited, 
 determined to go to Naples and enter at the 
 bar. 
 
 He reached the capital without recom- 
 mendations or influential acquaintances. The 
 admission to the bar of Palermo was no quali- 
 fication for that of Naples, so complete, in 
 spite of the formal union of the two king- 
 doms, was their real separation. Sicily had 
 always maintained a higher level of political 
 and even civil condition — the assertion of 
 independence, however unsuccessful, of the 
 island population was never quite crushed, 
 and an opportunity to breathe the air of 
 freedom and constitutional institutions was 
 never lost. What in Naples was only chafing 
 at restraint, was in Sicily the assertion of old 
 and unforgotten rights ; and of all the Italian 
 lands Sicily has always been the greatest 
 centre of revolutionary activity. There was
 
 30 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 no sentiment in common until the idea of the 
 common mother, Italy, was recognised by 
 both. A Sicilian was a foreigner in Naples, 
 and Crispi had to make his way as one. But 
 the necessity of submitting himself to the 
 primary steps of the preliminary examination 
 of a young advocate, after his two years of 
 practice at Palermo and his brilliant exam- 
 ination for admission to the bench, seemed 
 derisory, and he declined to submit to it. He 
 addressed himself to the procureur- general, 
 Paolo Cumbo, to obtain for him the exemp- 
 tion from this, to him, rather humiliating 
 formality, but only met a rebuff, the formality 
 being considered obligatory to Neapolitans, 
 much more to foreigners. He went further 
 and applied to the Minister Parisio. Here he 
 was met, the minister recognising the abilities 
 of the young man, not by a refusal to the bar, 
 but by a solicitation to return to the magistracy, 
 but there had been in Palermo no reason for 
 sacrificing his independence which did not 
 equally exist at Naples, and he firmly refused 
 though promised a rapid advancement, and the 
 minister yielded to his insistence, and he was 
 admitted to the bar without examination. 
 
 In the Neapolitan procedure in certain cases 
 of administrative appeal the last word was 
 pronounced by the King, and it was necessary 
 for an advocate to be at least on friendly terms 
 with the Court, a harder task for the embryo
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 31 
 
 republican than that of conciliating a tribunal, 
 but he at least succeeded professionally, the 
 King being, as Crispi has always maintained, 
 a just man in spite of his political education in 
 the straitest sect of despotism and contempt of 
 popular rights. The Bourbon could only reign, 
 he never learned the secret of good government. 
 Crispi's liberal sympathies were not weakened 
 by the conditions of his career, and there were 
 not wanting occasions when he could make 
 them effective. About 1 845 the Sicilian village 
 of Belmonte, near Palermo, was the scene 
 of a political assassination, the victim being a 
 functionary of police. The general who com- 
 manded at Palermo, Vial, proceeded to arrest 
 entire families of those accused — old men, 
 women, and children — and banished them 
 en masse. Amongst the victims of this blind 
 rigour was the father of a young friend of Crispi, 
 a colleague at the bar, who flew to Naples and 
 demanded the help of Francesco. The political 
 prosecutions cared little about forms of law, 
 the effectiveness of the repression being all 
 that was thought of, and no process of law had 
 any force against the military authority. The 
 only help was in the King and a fortunate 
 presentation of the case to the Royal considera- 
 tion. Amongst the friends whom Crispi's 
 liberal tendencies had obtained him was 
 Marchese Ruffo, the minister of the Two 
 Sicilies at Florence, and through him he
 
 32 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 obtained an audience for his friend at one of 
 the more select receptions accorded to the 
 favoured, at which the company were ranged 
 round the hall of audience, as is now the custom 
 at the Quirinal, the King entering from his 
 cabinet and passing along the line, addressing 
 a few words to each of the presented in turn, 
 listening with affability to all complaints, and 
 accepting all the petitions directly. Crispi 
 had instructed his friend in what to say, to ask 
 firstly the liberty to tell his whole story, then 
 to ask the King to examine the affair himself. 
 The hearing was given, and two days after 
 orders were given to recall the banished families 
 and to hasten the trial. On another occasion 
 Crispi had to defend a commune in the vicinity 
 of Messina against the pretensions of the arch- 
 bishop. He obtained an audience and began 
 to state his case, when the King interrupted 
 him and finished the story. Crispi said, " I 
 see that your Majesty knows the facts com- 
 pletely ; will he permit me to state the law 
 of the case ? " The King heard the law, 
 thought it over and decided in favour of Crispi's 
 clients. 
 
 Crispi has always rendered justice to the 
 amiable personal qualities of the King, who, 
 had he been otherwise educated, might have 
 been the founder of the unity of Italy. But 
 he was apathetic, good-natured, and only hated 
 change of any kind that compelled him to
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 33 
 
 move. Somebody reproached him with being 
 indifferent to the great question of Italy, and 
 quoted the example of Carlo Alberto of 
 Sardinia. Ferdinand replied that " the King 
 of Sardinia may begin his crusade for the unity 
 of Italy when he likes, he will only meet at 
 last the supreme obstacle, the Papacy ; it is 
 not so for me, I shall meet it in the begin- 
 ning," in which he showed the shrewdness of 
 a politician if not the ambition of a king. He 
 was a cynic and a pessimist, a kind-hearted 
 man who did not care to find occasions to try 
 his heart, and who would govern mildly so 
 long as the people would be docile, but who 
 entertained no question of limits to divine 
 rights. He had no faith in honesty, and when he 
 was told one day that the syndic of Naples was 
 poor, he said to him, " What ! you are syndic 
 of Naples two years and still poor ! " When, 
 on the eve of being deposed, he yielded and 
 granted the constitution, he said, " What I have 
 been spending for troops I will spend on the 
 deputies." He despised the Neapolitans but 
 feared the Sicilians, whose restless activity was 
 always a menace to his repose, and whom he 
 attempted to keep down in the only way he 
 could trouble himself to try or conceive to be 
 effective — by bayonets. 
 
 The intellectual life of Naples was at this 
 time more vigorous in relation to the rest of 
 Italy than now. It was the capital of a king- 
 
 D
 
 34 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 dom whose comparative importance in Italy we 
 now forget, and drew to it the flower of what 
 intellectual life the corrupted church and the 
 pestilential influences of unmitigated despotism 
 allowed to exist, of all that its intellect pro- 
 duced, for the Papal States were more stifling ; 
 Tuscany less inviting as a field of activity for 
 the ambitious ; and Piedmont was a foreign 
 state, with which the Neapolitan had less sym- 
 pathy than even with the Sicilian. We can 
 hardly now appreciate the change between the 
 condition of the peninsula, divided into states 
 separated by every tradition of government or 
 revolt against government, as foreign to each 
 other as if there were no community of language 
 or history, and without the even incomplete 
 assimilation between provinces widely separ- 
 ated, which we now recognise. At the time 
 that young Crispi entered on his career, Naples 
 was the most brilliant centre of political 
 activity in Italy, though everywhere in the 
 peninsula there was the beginning of the great 
 ferment which was to make the state. Tuscany, 
 better governed, had not the same causes of 
 discontent, and the Piedmontese monarchy, 
 equally despotic, and scarcely more Italian, 
 kept an efl^ective control of the revolutionary 
 tendencies by the profounder loyalty of the 
 people. The warmer southern temperament 
 brought the seeds of the doctrines of liberty 
 planted by Mazzini, Gioberti, Tommasseo,
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 35 
 
 Mamiani, and their northern colleagues to a 
 quicker germination, if a less robust growth. 
 In 1843 began an agitation in the kingdom of 
 the two Sicilies, which had for its immediate 
 object the formation of a community of feeling 
 and action in the two still separate countries. 
 These had only lately been shut into the same 
 strong box of absolute rule, and Sicily was in 
 revolt as much against her loss of nationality as 
 against the abolition of her constitution and 
 liberties. The committee which directed this 
 movement was composed of Mariano d'Ayala, 
 the brothers Assanti, Marchese Ruffo, and 
 Crispi, Sicilians ; Giovanni Raffaelle, a physi- 
 cian, and friend of Crispi and his god-father 
 in the movement, Bozzelli, Carlo Poerio, and 
 other Neapolitans. Their first work was to 
 mitigate the race hostility between the two 
 kingdoms, for the subjection of Sicily to 
 Naples was not only the offence of the 
 Bourbons, but of all Neapolitans, by implica- 
 tion. Sicily had been left in neglect, and under 
 rigours of government which perhaps the fiery 
 and indomitable character of the islanders made 
 necessary in a system of government like that 
 of the Bourbons, but which embittered them 
 against even their fellow -sufferers on the 
 mainland, and the jealousy was the greatest 
 obstacle to the necessary unity of action. 
 These causes of separation and paralysis were 
 not removed by the earlier movements, and
 
 36 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 perhaps had much to do with the failure of 
 them. 
 
 The Siculo-Neapolitan revolutionary com- 
 mittee could not long escape the notice of the 
 police in a country where every element of 
 government was made subordinate to the system 
 of espionage, and the public funds were most 
 readily expended for treachery. Spies got ad- 
 mission, the leading members were all denounced 
 to the chief of Police, and all the plans were 
 reported day by day. When the insurrection 
 of Cosenza, on the 15th of March 1844, broke 
 out, the chiefs were arrested, but it chanced 
 that Crispi, being a stranger to Calabria and 
 having taken no part in the preparations for 
 this rising, was not denounced or arrested. 
 His work was mainly in preparing the Sicilians 
 for the hoped-for co-operation with the Nea- 
 politan committee, and for this purpose he 
 made frequent journeys to the island, as his 
 profession, and especially his speciality of 
 pleading cases for Sicilians in the courts of 
 Naples, enabled him to do without exciting 
 suspicion. When Pius IX. came to the papal 
 throne, the liberalism of Italy and especially 
 of Naples received a new stimulus, and 
 Ferdinand II. fulminated against him as a 
 Jacobin and Freemason endowed with all the 
 qualities a good absolutist must detest, with 
 the natural consequence that he became the 
 hope of the Neapolitan liberals, as well as of
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 37 
 
 other dreamers of Italy. In the latter part of 
 1847 the Neapolitan movement, ill restrained 
 by the arrests of the principal members of the 
 committee, broke into manifestation in Naples, 
 by the publication of the "protest of the 
 people of the Two Sicilies," in which Luigi 
 Settembrini and RafFaelle, the sponsor of Crispi, 
 had been the most prominent workers ; and in 
 Messina by an insurrection on the ist of Septem- 
 ber, with the watchwords " Long live Pius IX., 
 Italy, and the Constitution." On the same day 
 the people in Reggio of Calabria rose, followed 
 by Gerace. Messina was quickly put down 
 and Reggio only resisted three days, to be 
 followed by Gerace, and the repression was 
 after the Bourbon taste. The Neapolitan 
 police arrested Poerio, d'Ayala, Domenico 
 Mauro, Francesco Trinchera, Baron Stocco, 
 and Marsino Cozzolini. Crispi was indicated 
 for arrest but owed his escape to a chance. In 
 the same house where he had his lodgings 
 lived a police agent and some officers of the 
 navy. Opposite dwelt a woman of easy virtue, 
 the beautiful mistress of the commissary of 
 police of the quarter, to whom the order to 
 arrest Crispi had been given. The commissary 
 delayed his duty in his dalliance, and the son 
 of the mistress, who was employed in the 
 printing office at which Crispi had his legal 
 documents printed, being one day too far in 
 wine to contain so important an item of infor-
 
 38 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 mation from his companions, betrayed the plan. 
 The head of the printing office made a pretext 
 to call on Crispi and warned him that his 
 arrest was impending, so that he had time to 
 burn all compromising papers and warn his 
 fellow - conspirators not to visit him ; and 
 when the commissary came he not only found 
 no reason to arrest Crispi, but even made a 
 favourable report of him, which served for a 
 long time to avert the attention of the police. 
 The Sicilian preparations continued, in spite 
 of the repression of the partial movements of 
 November, in Naples and Palermo, and in the 
 latter part of December Crispi went to Palermo 
 to prepare the great rising, which was fixed 
 for the 1 2th of January 1848. All being ready 
 he returned to Naples to inform the committee, 
 and having seen the imprisoned conspirators, 
 he set out to return for the rising at Palermo. 
 In those days communication was precarious, 
 and no vessel sailed from Naples for Palermo 
 on the iith or 12th. But if Crispi had no 
 steamer, the King had no telegraph, and the 
 anxiety of one was not felt by the other. On 
 the 13th Crispi sailed, and landed on the second 
 day of the fighting. He found the city in the 
 power of the people, who exercised the most 
 brutal vengeance on the police, the troops 
 having retired to the fortress after the first 
 day's fighting. The insurrection was some- 
 thing sui generis ; — the intention was known to
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 39 
 
 all the world of Palermo, and the night of the 
 iith of January was spent in preparations for 
 fighting on the next day, which, being the 
 birthday of the King, was a regularly observed 
 holiday ; the royal salutes opened the ball, for 
 the call to arms followed immediately. The 
 women took their places in the distribution 
 of colours and cockades, the priests exhorted 
 the people to rise, and harangued them in 
 the squares. Giuseppe La Masa, an exile just 
 returned, was called to the command, and the 
 bells rang out their alarm all over Palermo. 
 A detachment of cavalry fell into an ambuscade 
 and lost two men, on which they turned bridle 
 and escaped, throwing the other troops into a 
 panic ; and, at the end of the day, the troops 
 had ten killed, the people two, and that night 
 both sides rested on their arms, the people in 
 the open squares, while a committee was formed 
 to provide for the contest. There were but 
 forty muskets amongst them, but the city was 
 illuminated and the crowd went through the 
 streets shouting for liberty, Sicily, and Pius IX ! 
 The next day the villages around sent in their 
 contingents of combatants, arms, and ammuni- 
 tion, and while the royal troops hesitated and 
 sent semaphoric messages to Naples for help, 
 the people organised, and before night had 
 three hundred muskets at their command. 
 The military retired to the citadel and opened 
 fire on the city, to which the insurgents replied
 
 40 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 with an old cannon they had got, bound round 
 with ropes to prevent it from bursting, and 
 which made only a report which persuaded 
 the troops that they had a battery. One 
 battalion passed over to the insurrection. On 
 the 14th Crispi arrived, and the provisional 
 government was formed, barricades thrown up 
 and special committees formed for the various 
 needs of the movement — that for the army and 
 navy being presided over by the Prince of 
 Pantellaria with Crispi as secretary. After 
 twenty-four days of active hostilities the forts 
 capitulated. 
 
 In the work of the organisation which 
 followed, — of an army sufficient to meet the 
 forces which the King was sure to send from 
 Naples, — Crispi had the larger part. The 
 Parliament which was created included him 
 amongst the deputies, and his uncle, Monsignor 
 Crispi, bishop of Lampsacus and Sygea, pre- 
 sided over the Upper Chamber. The political 
 tendencies Crispi then showed are those to 
 which he has adhered all his life. He sat in 
 the extreme Left, and when the article of the 
 constitution which declared the religion of the 
 state to be the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman 
 was discussed, he opposed any declaration on 
 the subject of religion, it being arrogant to 
 impose a faith. He proposed the formula 
 declaring the King culpable of high treason, in 
 place of that which simply deposed him, but
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 41 
 
 only on condition that he should employ force 
 to subjugate the nation. In the discussions 
 which followed the organisation of the Parlia- 
 ment, and which involved the principles of 
 constitutional liberty, Crispi showed in a re- 
 markable degree a combination of foresight as 
 to the dangers of the position and prudence in 
 the advocacy of measures which might prevent 
 wise compromises and a reconciliation with 
 the throne. There was no question of the 
 republic, it was not in the traditions of Sicily, 
 but when the Bourbon King was found to be 
 irreconcilable the son of the King of Sardinia 
 Alberto-Amedeo was elected King. 
 
 Meanwhile the Bourbon King had been 
 preparing in silence for the reduction to obedi- 
 ence of the island. The English and French 
 Governments had practically recognised the 
 Sicilian independence and saluted the national 
 flag on the day when the Sicilian King was 
 declared, but the recognition was only platonic, 
 for when the Neapolitan army entered the 
 island, and it became a practical question if 
 Sicily should be supported or not, the eternal 
 jealousies broke out between the two Govern- 
 ments, and while France was inert, fearing 
 that Sicily, as having been at one time in 
 the past greatly under the English influence, 
 would be an instrument in the hands of that 
 power, Palmerston advised the reconciliation 
 of the island with the kingdom of Naples and
 
 42 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 the status quo^ with plenty of good counsels as 
 to concessions to be made, no doubt, though 
 no one hoped that any would be made except 
 under the compulsion oi force majeure ; the two 
 Governments having agreed to abandon Sicily 
 to its fate if this were refused. Sicily refused 
 it. The Parliament which was inaugurated 
 with such enthusiasm on the 25th of March 
 1848 was prorogued on the 17th of April 
 1849, as the Neapolitan army was marching 
 on Palermo. It had landed, 24,000 strong, at 
 Messina, the citadel of which city had always 
 been held by the royal troops, and after a siege 
 of eight days, the city, reduced to ruins by the 
 bombardment, surrendered. The Neapolitan 
 army, commanded by Filangieri, moved slowly 
 westward, Milazzo, Barcelona, and the inter- 
 vening towns along the north coast being 
 taken one by one, the war on the part of the 
 Sicilians seeming purely defensive, as if they 
 hoped that some just and humane intervention 
 of the powers would arrest the Neapolitans. 
 
 While Filangieri marched, conquering in 
 detail the small forces of the local defence, the 
 Sicilians were debating, hoping, and listening 
 to the persuasions of Admiral Baudin, sent by 
 the French Government to induce the island 
 to give over its resistance. He brought no 
 positive engagements, but excited many ex- 
 pectations, in which the Sicilians shared more 
 or less as they knew little or much of the
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 43 
 
 King. There was a want of unity and initi- 
 ative on the part of the islanders, and they 
 adopted the fatal policy of a passive defence, 
 in the hope that Europe would see that they 
 were righted. The military forces of the 
 island were sufficient to have driven Filangieri 
 into the sea, had they been led by a man of 
 resolution, supported by a Government with a 
 definite plan ; but the Government was discon- 
 certed, the most of the deputies timid, after 
 the long, undecided struggle, so different in 
 its results from what the anticipations of a 
 year before had painted them, and instead of 
 collecting the troops in various parts of the 
 island, and attempting a vigorous defence by 
 direct attack, the detachments were allowed to 
 remain in garrison, waiting on events. Dis- 
 sensions arose, the authorities, by their in- 
 decision and vacillation slowly sapping the 
 courage of those who desired to act, and 
 who only waited for orders ; the bourgeoisie 
 wanted to secure their material interests, and 
 the general impression grew that there was no 
 sortie from the difficulty except in a submis- 
 sion, which the veiled promises of the French 
 admiral of concessions and amnesty made 
 easier ; the committee even refused the arms 
 and ammunition that were sent to carry on the 
 struggle with, and in effect the end came for 
 want of vitality in the movement, more than 
 from want of courage. But it came.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 On the 20th of April the Neapolitan army 
 was at the gates of Palermo. Such deputies 
 and senators as still were willing to assume 
 responsibility met at the house of the Marquis 
 of Torrearsa to decide what was to be done — 
 fight or surrender ; Crispi being for fighting. 
 But in the night fear gained ground amongst 
 the members of Parliament, and many went 
 on shipboard, others into the interior, where 
 there were still garrisons in a state of defence. 
 On the 22nd Ruggiero Settimo, who had been 
 the head of the Government, abdicated, and 
 on the 25th embarked, and a few days later 
 the Neapolitan army entered Palermo, having 
 previously issued a proclamation promising an 
 amnesty to all Sicilians except forty-three, 
 amongst whom was Crispi, whom Filangieri 
 had in one of his earlier despatches denounced 
 as the most dangerous of the enemies of the 
 King. The promise was utterly disregarded, 
 and the prisons were filled with the insurgents, 
 while numbers escaped to France, Italy, and 
 Malta. Crispi remained in hiding till the
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 45 
 
 7th, when he embarked with Rosolino Pilo 
 and the brothers Orlando, all of whom we 
 shall find later in history associated again 
 with him. 
 
 Landing at Marseilles, he went by land to 
 Turin. Here he addressed himself to that 
 dernier resort of intellect in difficulties, of 
 ambition with talent, and of the patriot and 
 philanthropist with a purpose — journalism, 
 uniting all these motives in his resolutions. It 
 was the opening of the career which never 
 rested or accepted any solatium until, in i860, 
 he finally saw his native island free and united 
 to Italy, as he had always determined, as far 
 as in him lay, it should be. When, in the 
 Sicilian Parliament, he had discussed the 
 organisation of the island, it was always with 
 the distinct and expressed provision that it 
 was to be Italian, a part of the mother-land, 
 and in this faith he laboured in whatever way 
 his hands found open to him. He took a 
 place on the staff of a democratic journal. La 
 Concordia^ conducted by Lorenzo Valerio, and 
 remained on it till Cesare Correnti founded the 
 Progresso^ then the journal which was, in what 
 pertained to style and correctness of manage- 
 ment, at the head of Italian journalism, as 
 Correnti was at the head of journalists, and 
 even of conspirators. He had taken part in 
 the organisation of the Five days of Milan, 
 and in the most important movements of the
 
 46 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 brilliant failure of the Italian awakening of 
 1848-9. On the staff of the Frogresso with 
 Crispi were Depretis and Seismit-Doda, after- 
 wards his colleagues in the ministry. The 
 Italian press is, even to-day, probably the 
 worst paid and the most feebly supported of 
 all Europe, and in those days was evidently 
 much worse off, for the pay of Correnti, then 
 reckoned one of the most polished writers of 
 Italian, was, for writing the leading articles, 
 90 francs a month. Depretis, who wrote the 
 reports of the Parliament, had the same, and 
 Crispi, as administrator and chronicler, with 
 the charge of the minor matters, had 60 francs 
 a month. But he also wrote for the Corriere 
 di Milano, the Gazzetta di Toritio^ the Archivio 
 Storico, and the Panteone dei Martiri del/a 
 Libertd Italiana^ besides writing studies on 
 various political topics for future use and 
 elaborating his conceptions of government for 
 when he should be called, as his spirit told 
 him he should be some day, to help govern 
 the country he was labouring to form. 
 Amongst the papers which then gave expres- 
 sion to his nervous activity and febrile passion 
 of production is a memoir on the last events 
 of the Sicilian Revolution, dated 20th De- 
 cember 1849, a cold, impartial, at times 
 sarcastic, analysis of the causes of the failure 
 of the movement and the part England and 
 France had taken in it, evidently written under
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 47 
 
 the influence of the emotions of the day after 
 the event, when the passion has subsided, and 
 when one sees more clearly and understands 
 many things which at first were puzzles. He 
 says there that Louis Napoleon, in July 1848, 
 proposed himself as King of Sicily, and gives 
 in detail the promises of a constitution and an 
 independent Sicilian Government, made by the 
 representatives of the French Government, and 
 which so much weakened the resistance of the 
 Sicilian population and caused division in their 
 councils. The document is confused, as if 
 there was too much to be said, and the ideas 
 crowded themselves too fast on the mind of 
 the writer to be put in order, but the tone is 
 dispassionate and didactic, as a history of events 
 almost forgotten, ^nd reminds one of Crispi's 
 manner in the Chamber of Deputies when 
 discussing a law. One can imagine him saying 
 to himself as he wrote it : " This shall be 
 put on record for the times when Sicilians can 
 understand their history and the cause of their 
 misfortunes ; this shall serve to render justice 
 to those who suffered, as to those who did, the 
 wrongs. Whatever may happen to me, the 
 real causes of the failure of the insurrection of 
 Sicily in 1848 shall be known in all their 
 bareness, and the lesson stand for good." He 
 says not a word of himself or the measures he 
 urged, the policy he advocated — the whole 
 story is told as one might tell it who looked
 
 48 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 on and understood the secret springs of action 
 of all the participators. 
 
 There does not exist, so far as I can learn, 
 a document by him of this time which betrays 
 impatience or resentment. His life of hard 
 work and severe temperance strengthened the 
 natural gravity of his temperament, and he 
 had a future to think of which obscured the 
 dreary present and the sadder past. In his 
 garret at the top of a lodging - house, he 
 received his colleagues of the Progresso^ com- 
 bining their frugal provision for supper, one 
 bringing the bread, another the cheese or 
 whatever he had to contribute — on sixty 
 francs a month, one does not frequent the 
 restaurants much, as we know who have tried 
 it. One of the comrades of these entertain- 
 ments. Revere, an occasional contributor to 
 the journal, has left this record of Crispi as 
 he then was : " He was a republican and did 
 not conceal it, republican by temperament, 
 reason, and conviction, without ostentation or 
 tendency to make converts. He spoke little, 
 and never told all that he thought. With all 
 that, he was proud, thoughtful, settled in his 
 ideas, incapable of any compromise with his 
 conscience or his principles. It was proposed 
 to Crispi, to write on liberal terms for the 
 Risorgimento^ a journal of moderate - liberal 
 opinions founded by Count Cavour. He 
 replied indignantly ' Do you think that a
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 49 
 
 publicist is like a shoemaker who makes shoes 
 for all feet ? ' " He refused to write for 
 Cavour, because his principles were opposed 
 to those of the Count, but he did not hold 
 his republicanism so severely that he could 
 not accept a half-way measure when the whole 
 was unattainable, as he voted for the Duke 
 of Genoa for King of Sicily in 1848, and as 
 subsequently, and at a far more important 
 period of his life, and when his action was 
 in a measure decisive of the shape of Italian 
 institutions, he saw that the Republic in the 
 hands of Italian republicans meant the revival 
 of the divided state, the old provincial lines 
 redrawn, and Italian unity inevitably abolished 
 in favour of a new scheme of federation of 
 the old states under new and untried conditions 
 of government, he went over to the Monarchy 
 with his memorable saying, which has been 
 the watchword of Italian unitarian politics 
 ever since, " The Monarchy unites us, the 
 Republic would divide us." 
 
 Crispi's condition must have been intoler- 
 able at this time, for he was willing to abandon 
 journalism for the wretched position of com- 
 munal secretary to a little village of Piedmont, 
 Verolengo, where a vacancy had occurred. 
 What the stipend was, I do not know, but no 
 position of that kind in Italy gives more than 
 a bare living to a frugal man, and this little 
 movintain village could not have offered more 
 
 £
 
 50 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 than fifty or sixty pounds a year. The follow- 
 ing is the letter in which he asks for the 
 appointment : — 
 
 Mr., the Syndic — Imperious circumstances which 
 it is useless to describe here, hinder me from coming 
 to your commune to present myself to you and the 
 honourable members of the communal council of 
 Verolengo. Nevertheless, you will find in my 
 memoir and the documents I enclose, the indications 
 of the qualities I possess. I believe that you will 
 with difficulty find amongst my competitors the 
 recommendations I offer. It is a singular thing — it 
 must be attributed to the exceptional position in 
 which I have been thrown by the events of 1848 — 
 that a man who has held elevated positions, who has 
 been advocate at the Court of Appeal of the most 
 populous city of Italy, should present himself as 
 candidate for a position as communal secretary. 
 This fact is itself my recommendation. My request 
 indicates the manner in which I wish to employ the 
 leisure which political changes have brought on me ; 
 in giving my studies and my labour to the commune 
 which you so worthily administer, and gaining 
 honourably my bread by my work. 
 
 I do not come to you with letters of recommenda- 
 tion, which would be an affront to me and to the 
 distinguished citizens who would honour me by 
 their votes. My recommendations can be justly 
 estimated without the authority of great names. In 
 its good sense, the municipal council has no need to 
 be prompted to do what it ought. 
 
 Would you be so courteous as to read this letter 
 to the Council, and believe me your very devoted 
 servant, Advocate F. Crispi-Genova.
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 51 
 
 The custom in Sicily then was (and to a 
 certain extent still is) to add the name of the 
 mother to that of the father, and Crispi's 
 mother was of the family Genova. 
 
 One wonders if any of the municipal coun- 
 sellors of Verolengo, in the years that have 
 followed, ever learned that the last of the 
 line of the great makers of Italy had begged 
 for the poor place of secretary to his council ; 
 and one can but think what must have been 
 his straits, with his unfaltering confidence in 
 his future and his sense of his abilities (for he 
 has never wavered in an estimate of himself 
 and his political destinies which approaches 
 arrogance) to induce him, so proud by nature, 
 to ask for a place in the humble language of 
 a servant, but which yet betrays his inde- 
 pendence in refusing to ask for recommenda- 
 tions which no doubt he could have had from 
 his friends in Turin, could he have bent him- 
 self to ask and disclose his needs. He was 
 then a man of thirty, and had only to accept 
 the place on the journal of Cavour to secure 
 his position, financially and politically, for 
 Cavour recognised his abilities and his inflexi- 
 bility as well ; but we are asked to believe 
 that in later times he has lost his independence 
 and his honesty together ! 
 
 But harder things were in store for the 
 Sicilian exile. Mazzini, in the spring of 1853 
 attempted to raise an insurrection in Lombardy.
 
 52 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 The ground was ill prepared, and most of the 
 revolutionary chiefs were opposed to the under- 
 taking. Kossuth, who was preparing a move- 
 ment in Hungary, which in the original plan 
 of the movement was to be simultaneous with 
 the rising in Lombardy, was unable to make 
 his preparations in time to act with Mazzini, 
 and attempted to dissuade him from it ; but as 
 Mazzini persisted, fearing that his hold on the 
 insurrectional element was being weakened by 
 the long inaction, Kossuth sent orders to the 
 Hungarian regiments in Milan not to fire on 
 the people if they rose. This was all he could 
 do, for, as he said at the time to me, " I cannot 
 play with the blood of my people." Of course 
 the insurrection failed as had been foreseen, 
 but while Mazzini, who was in Milan at the 
 rising, escaped, all the leading republicans in 
 Turin were arrested, suspected of complicity, 
 and amongst them was Crispi. In prison he 
 made the acquaintance of Agostino Bertani. 
 The police found nothing to charge Crispi with, 
 but he was exiled from the Sardinian kingdom, 
 and went to Malta, where he founded a journal, 
 the Valigia^ which afterwards became the 
 Staffetta^ a paper naturally of advanced liberal 
 sentiments. He lived for a time at Valetta, but 
 afterwards took a cottage in a little village 
 near the town. Mayor {Revue Internationale^ 
 1890-91) gives an incident of this sojourn 
 which shows that he never lost his faith in the
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 53 
 
 coming unity of Italy. He contracted a friend- 
 ship for the Sardinian consul at Malta, to whom 
 he foretold that he would be one day consul 
 for that Italy which as yet had only existence 
 in the dreams of her children. But even 
 Malta was disturbed by his presence and his 
 active correspondence with the other Italian 
 refugees, and he was again driven out on his 
 wanderings. An English man-of-war gave him 
 passage to London ; here he made the personal 
 acquaintance of Mazzini, with whom he had 
 long corresponded but whom he had never 
 met. For Mazzini Crispi had, and always 
 retains, the most profound reverence and 
 affection, as the Apostle of Italy and Liberty, 
 the man who never faltered or lost his faith in 
 the success of his mission, and who, if he was 
 often mistaken in his choice of means, was 
 never selfish or mistaken in the ultimate result 
 he aimed at. Both were republicans, and both 
 desired the unity of Italy — if in the later phase 
 of the development of the unity they differed 
 as to details of action, at this time there was 
 no difference, liberty being the first step, after 
 which the form would come. To rid Italy of 
 the incubus of foreign intervention was the 
 first condition of any Italian government, and 
 Mazzini was ready to accept any means, and, 
 in spite of all the denials of his friends in later 
 days, I am satisfied that even regicide was to 
 him an acceptable instrument of coercion. He
 
 54 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 did not hesitate to provoke insurrection when, 
 if he was as wise as we believe him, he must 
 have known that the only result would be to 
 make martyrs, and water the tree of Liberty 
 with the blood of her worshippers ; and why 
 should the blood of a tyrant who made the 
 sacrifices imperative be more sacred ? But at 
 this time, in the year of our Lord 1853, the 
 prospects of freedom were so dark that even 
 men who hesitated about shedding blood by 
 private sanction might well be pardoned if 
 they accepted the murder of a wholesale 
 murderer of nations as a righteous sacrifice. 
 The horrible suppressions in Hungary, after 
 1849, ^^^ slaughter of Paris in 1852, the 
 tortures of Cayenne, and the great crimes 
 against human rights of the later French 
 empire, seemed enough to justify the execu- 
 tion of a tyrant on the individual responsibility 
 of a man who believed that he was the heaven- 
 appointed liberator of his compatriots. Maz- 
 zini ordered an insurrection as a general ordered 
 an attack ; it mattered not if it succeeded so 
 long as it was a part of a comprehensive plan 
 which in the end must succeed. The insur- 
 rection of Milan of 1853 was of this nature — 
 but Mazzini was no general, but a theorist and 
 enthusiast, blindly confident in his own judg- 
 ment — there was no hope of success, and so 
 Kossuth had solemnly declared when Mazzini 
 communicated his plans for the Milanese rising ;
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 55 
 
 but the Italian replied that it was necessary to 
 do something to keep up his authority — the 
 fire must be kept up. In this manner of 
 thinking Crispi did not agree with him — the 
 theory of liberty had always to yield to the 
 prospects of success, and he took no part in the 
 movement of Milan, though probably in full 
 possession of the plan. In Sicily he had been 
 one of the most sanguine and the most obstinate 
 to hold out when all hope seemed gone, because 
 he had not then learned the futility and falsity 
 of diplomacy ; and when the English and 
 French Governments had recognised the justice 
 and success of the movement, and the ancient 
 kingdom of Sicily was set on its legitimate 
 basis, he had the naivete to suppose that the 
 official action of those governments would 
 follow the lines of their diplomacy ; but in 
 this, as in later movements, he looked to their 
 practical solution and took no part in those 
 which promised none. But, Sicilian above all, 
 he waited and planned for Italy, and during his 
 exile in England, while he studied English, 
 he sought any occupation by which he could 
 support himself, for the pittance his father 
 could allow him was not enough to keep soul 
 and body together. He gave lessons, he kept 
 the books of a countryman in business who 
 profited by his necessities and helplessness in a 
 strange land, but after a year of struggle which 
 left him in debt, he decided to go to Paris,
 
 56 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 where at least he was at home in the language, 
 and where a compatriot, Giacinto Carini, who 
 managed the Courrter Franco- It alien had in- 
 vited him to assist in the management. The 
 liberality of his chief being in default, in spite 
 of his previous urgent invitations, Crispi 
 accepted a position in a bank, kept by a Parisian 
 whom Mazzini believed to be a confederate 
 and fellow -conspirator, but who was really 
 an intriguant who made use of Mazzini's 
 friendship and made no return. This engage- 
 ment ended, like the others, in disappointment, 
 and the exile had, like so many others, to live 
 by chance labour, writing for the journals, 
 frequenting the society of the members of the 
 bar, and gaining a bare livelihood. He kept 
 up his relations with Mazzini, and was the 
 channel through which many of his documents 
 were circulated, but he was never implicated 
 in any local movement. In 1856 he was 
 arrested but found guiltless of any offence and 
 remained unmolested until the attempt of 
 Orsini, when all the Italians in Paris, and Crispi 
 amongst them, were arrested. The rigorous 
 perquisition to which he was subjected dis- 
 covered nothing incendiary or compromising 
 amongst his papers or effects, and after a 
 detention of a few hours and a thorough 
 searching of his papers, he was released. His 
 habit of seclusion and study which kept him at 
 home through the evenings served him in
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI ^1 
 
 good stead, for the investigation dispelled all 
 the preventions of the police against him as 
 Italian, and in fact he had never held any 
 relations v\^ith the conspirators against the 
 French Government, unless the dissemination 
 of the proclamations sent him by Mazzini 
 could be called such. He dreamed of his 
 native Sicily, and his plans for her v^ere the 
 basis of the hopes for Italy. Where indeed 
 should he have hoped more for the beginning 
 of the regeneration ? The proud, high-spirited 
 island, accustomed to the constitutional regime 
 v^hen all Italy beside was under absolutism, 
 innoculated v^ith the English ideas of govern- 
 ment during the occupation of the Napoleonic 
 wars, alone of the Italian provinces never sub- 
 jected to the French rule, and preserving all its 
 strong individuality therefore as none other 
 had, sensitive as to the preservation of its 
 ancient privileges and laws, was then the point 
 at which the movement for Italian emancipa- 
 tion would most rationally and easily com- 
 mence ; and this was always in the mind of 
 Crispi, to whom his country was the pou sto 
 of the liberator. 
 
 And in the revolutionary evolution this 
 was the natural order. Sicily had always been 
 the kindling point of insurrection and the 
 refuge of constitutional forms in Italy, and if 
 it were only a question of popular revolt, the 
 island was the natural spring of agitation.
 
 58 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 From Sicily to Naples was but a passage, and 
 Naples, so far from Austria and so important 
 to England under the old state of things, was 
 at all times ready for a movement. Then 
 Crispi's experience of north- Italian freedom, 
 the domination of the Piedmontese system and 
 ruling class, exclusive in their own privilege 
 of emancipation, as if Italy were only and 
 finally to be annexed to the sub-Alpine state 
 and not be Italy but a great Piedmont ; all this 
 made the plans of northern conspirators of less 
 interest to a Sicilian, and still less did he 
 interest himself in the plotting of French re- 
 publicans. He laboured to establish himself 
 in Paris, to make a position at the bar, and to 
 wait there for the day when Sicily should 
 renew the struggle. But his hard fortune 
 followed him still. In August 1858 he 
 received an order to leave France in forty-eight 
 hours. He had friends who did what was 
 possible to obtain the revocation of the order, 
 but all in vain, he was obliged to leave for 
 England, the only European state then open 
 to him. 
 
 Mayor tells an incident of this expulsion 
 which is interesting as an example of the 
 manner in which Crispi has always inspired 
 confidence in those who have to deal with him. 
 He had only shortly before purchased the 
 furniture of his apartment on the system of 
 periodical payments, and had only half paid for
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 59 
 
 it. He went to his creditor and telling him 
 that he was exiled again, and that he could not 
 pay what was owing, proposed to him to take 
 the furniture and so cancel the debt. Megissot, 
 the furniture dealer, replied, "I will do nothing 
 of the kind, you are expelled from France ; 
 this is a misfortune which I regret, but you 
 are an honest man. The furniture you have 
 purchased is yours, even if you have not 
 finished the payments. Take it with you, it 
 is your right ; you will pay me when you can." 
 And Crispi did not succeed in moving him 
 from his resolution. He went to London 
 again, and there he suffered the old deprivations 
 and was unable to pay the remnant of the 
 debt. Then came 1859 and the movements 
 in Italy ; i860 and the expedition of Marsala, 
 and it was only in 1862 that Crispi began to 
 improve his situation by the exercise of his 
 profession and was the master of his fortunes 
 again. He revisited Paris, and the first visit 
 he made was to the furniture dealer. " Do 
 you know me. Monsieur Megissot ? " he said. 
 " Do I know you, indeed ? Certainly I know 
 you. I know whom I trust. Monsieur Crispi. 
 I have followed your career, applauded your 
 successes, and it is as much as your friend as 
 your creditor that I am glad to see you again." 
 Crispi was still in London when the pro- 
 positions of Napoleon HL to Cavour brought 
 the emancipation of Italy again into the field
 
 6o FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 of practical politics. The Italian exiles, united 
 in London, drew up a manifesto against the 
 treaty with the Emperor, and declared that 
 they would take no part in any war against 
 Austria under such auspices. The document 
 was drawn up by Mazzini, and bears, amongst 
 its signatures, that of Crispi. It says : 
 
 " The war, if carried on under the plans 
 and with the alliance of Louis Napoleon 
 Bonaparte, cannot have for object and result 
 the unity of Italy, which is opposed, and ob- 
 noxious, to his ambitious designs, and declared 
 by him impossible. 
 
 " To provoke insurrection in, and make war 
 for, a single fraction of Italy, leaving the other 
 portions dismembered prey to the tyranny of 
 the worst of governments, would be the for- 
 feiture of honour, country, and ourplighted faith, 
 and betray at the same time the future. . . . 
 
 " We declare consequently that so far as the 
 Piedmontese Monarchy is concerned, it is not 
 a question with the exiled Italian of the Re- 
 public, but of unity and national sovereignty. 
 
 " Abhorring equally the Austrian in Lom- 
 bardy and every foreigner in Rome or any 
 other point of Italy ; loving with the same 
 affection the Italian of Sicily or the Italian of 
 the Alps, we wish and ardently desire war, but 
 not a war of slaves, not a war like those of 
 the Middle Ages, against one stranger for the
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 6i 
 
 advantage and profit of another ; not a war 
 for a fraction of Italy, a war of mere dynastic 
 aggrandisement, but a war of freemen, a war 
 for all, founded on a national principle held as 
 sacred in Europe — the war of a people which, 
 faithful to the traditions of its geniuses and its 
 martyrs, wishes to reconquer a country, a flag, 
 a common social pact."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The war of 1859 ended, as the exiles had fore- 
 seen, in a compromise and a fraud practised on 
 Italy by the Emperor. Italy lost Savoy and 
 Nice, and was cheated out of Venice, but the 
 agitation which it left in Italy, and the hopes 
 raised and which no Imperial-Royal treaty or 
 pacification could henceforth subdue, developed 
 the determination on the part of the exiles to 
 continue the work which the war had begun. 
 They decided to return to Italy and agitate for 
 the rejection of the conditions of the treaty of 
 Villafranca and a continuance of the movement, 
 Crispi, with his friends Rosolino Pilo and La 
 Masa undertaking Sicily. Crispi left England 
 with a passport in the name of Manuel Pareda, 
 Argentine, disguised as a merchant ; and by 
 the way of Genoa, Civita Vecchia and Naples 
 he finally landed at Messina. He has kept a 
 minute diary of the voyage, which was sent by 
 post at frequent intervals to London, both for 
 security to himself and that the information 
 should not be lost in case of his arrest. He 
 at once renewed acquaintance with former
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 63 
 
 associates and began the organisation* of a new 
 insurrection. He carried the method of manu- 
 facturing explosive bombs, Orsini bombs, they 
 were then called, and taught it as he went, for 
 the benefit of the people in the next rising. 
 At Palermo the plans were combined for the 
 insurrection, in which Palermo as usual was to 
 lead, and the part of each of the confederates 
 was arranged, and the date was fixed for the 
 4th of October following ; and to complete the 
 arrangements, obtain the arms and co-operation 
 from the mainland, with whatever other com- 
 binations might be found necessary, Crispi set 
 out on his return voyage. Reading his diary, 
 minute in all details of meetings and plan, one 
 is struck with the tone of security and convic- 
 tion in the success of the scheme which prevails 
 in it all, as if no failure were possible, and not 
 a little with the confidence in which the visits 
 were made to so many compatriots, in the 
 assurance of the trustworthiness of so large a 
 part of the population as became aware of his 
 identity, as well as with the confidence he 
 seemed to inspire in his colleagues. But 
 reaching Florence, where all was then in the 
 provisional state of the months succeeding the 
 peace of Villafranca, with the dictature of 
 Farini at Modena and Ricasoli at Florence, 
 where Mazzini was in hiding, he finds it 
 necessary to continue to London, whence he 
 could operate in greater security than from
 
 64 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 Italy, change his passport, identity, and take a 
 new departure, for his genius for conspiracy 
 never neglected the most insignificant pre- 
 caution against discovery. He only remained 
 one day in Tuscany, and by way of Paris left 
 for England. At Genoa he received the 
 following letter from Mazzini, which it is 
 useful to quote since the impression has ob- 
 tained that he was the organiser of the con- 
 spiracy which determined the Expedition of 
 The Thousand. 
 
 Friend — Listen ! If you arrive before — and if 
 they persist in the day — send me first a telegraphic 
 despatch which says : " the account has been paid," 
 to Sig. Giovanni Lagrange, Lugano, Ticino, Switzer- 
 land. It is very important. Send it ten, five hours 
 before. If there is delay do not telegraph but write. 
 
 If there is no way of avoiding that they offer 
 themselves (the Sicilians to Piedmont) let it be done 
 with dignity, demanding acceptation unconditionally, 
 yes or no. If at that time he (the King) should have 
 given the customary reply to Parma, Modena, 
 Bologna, in truth it would be a pity to ofi^er them- 
 selves. Then insist on the provisional government, 
 the declaration of belonging to Italy when Italy shall 
 be ; and send messages of fraternity to the Centre 
 etc., etc. 
 
 If the day should come in which they have no 
 fear of my secret stay, or if discovered, telegraph. 
 
 Your first telegram will give me means to send 
 people immediately ; some Italian soldiers, and some 
 Hungarians. 
 
 If there is occasion, write me as soon as you can a
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 65 
 
 letter in which you will give the particulars and tell 
 me something of the tendencies of the men who shall 
 have been elected — it is important. 
 
 Addio ! I confess that I would be with you : but 
 I will seek to aid you, urging immediately over there 
 as you know. I think of Naples and do what I can 
 there. — Entirely yours, Gius. 
 
 ibth September. 
 
 For the second voyage Crispi's faithful 
 Maltese friend Tamajo, had procured him the 
 passport of one Tobias Glivau, Maltese, of the 
 age of forty-five, which was easily exchanged 
 for a new and clean one from the Foreign 
 Office. Before the day of starting Crispi 
 received a telegram from Tamajo, saying that 
 the day of the rising had been postponed to 
 the 1 2th, signs of timidity already beginning 
 to obtain. He left on the 6th via Paris, 
 Marseilles, and by direct boat to Messina. 
 Arriving at Messina he was met by the news 
 that the friends have lost all desire to revolt, 
 and that he is enjoined not to come there, — 
 there is nothing ready and his presence might 
 compromise everything, and that he must not 
 even remain in Sicily but continue his voyage 
 on the steamer which was destined for Peiraeus, 
 etc. The few friends who came to see him 
 on board showed that the panic had spread 
 amongst the conspirators, and that the resolu- 
 tion which had responded to Crispi's faith and 
 energy had evaporated with his departure. 
 
 F
 
 66 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 He notes that all whom he met, whether of 
 the Government party or not, seemed to ap- 
 prehend a catastrophe as if the movements and 
 the war in Upper Italy had shaken the founda- 
 tions of the political organisation. He is not 
 persuaded that his friends are right, and makes 
 in his diary this comment. " All these things 
 and others, spoken to me with trepidation, and 
 as if by men who do not know what they 
 want, give me the persuasion that even those 
 who feel the necessity of action, fear to decide 
 on it. The leaders of the national cause lack 
 the force of mind necessary to men who must 
 serve for example and guide. The revolution, 
 mature in the country, and which a little spark 
 might kindle, may delay long and perhaps be 
 abortive." 
 
 Amongst so many apprehensions and in 
 view of the inexplicable apathy of his con- 
 federates he could not persist in forcing on 
 them a movement which they protested against, 
 and he decided to go on to Greece. The diary 
 of his stay at Athens shows his Philhellenic 
 sympathies, but has no political interest other- 
 wise, and is a resume of the ordinary interested 
 tourist, and his recollections of ancient history. 
 On his return he stopped at Malta, where he 
 learns that on the day last appointed for the 
 rising, the 12th of October, a rising was at- 
 tempted, but from the timidity of the men 
 who ought to have been the leaders, or from
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 67 
 
 the want of the one who might have given 
 confidence to the rest, it was not seconded, and 
 after three days' inefficient struggle it was sup- 
 pressed entirely. From Malta he wrote to 
 Mazzini two letters, in the first of which he 
 gives a general account of the events and the 
 condition of affairs, declaring his conviction 
 that without the presence of men from the 
 mainland there will be no possibility of raising 
 the island successfully. In the second he dis- 
 cusses the general political situation at length, 
 in which he shows that from Piedmont there 
 had been letters written to the Sicilians to 
 check any movement. Also from Malta he 
 writes to the committee of Palermo to reproach 
 them for their inaction and to show the im- 
 portance of the action of the two Sicilies for 
 the success of a general Italian movement. 
 Arriving at Malta on the 29th of October, he 
 was at once ordered to leave the island, and 
 could only remain until the 6th of November, 
 when the first steamer for Gibraltar sailed. 
 Landing at Gibraltar, he travelled overland to 
 Italy and went at once to Modena, where Luigi 
 Carlo Farini was dictator of the new state of 
 Emilia, of which Modena was capital. 
 
 Farini is described by Crispi in his diary, 
 in the following terms: — "Farini is a true 
 Romagnolo. A revolutionary nature, he is, 
 amongst the moderates, the one who best 
 comprehends the present situation of Italy."
 
 68 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 Received at once by the dictator, he narrates 
 the experiences of his journeys and conspiracies, 
 the failure and the state of Sicily, and his con- 
 viction that with a little aid from without 
 they might throw off the yoke of the Bourbons. 
 Farini listened to the narration, and after think- 
 ing in silence over it, said " I am ready to help 
 you, and for my part, if it is a question of 
 money, I will give a million francs." " The 
 money I accept," replied Crispi, " but it is not 
 enough. I want something more." " Say 
 what, then." " Hear me," said Crispi ; " the 
 Government of Emilia had to send away the 
 body of volunteers which it feared would cross 
 the Catholica frontier. I do not pass judgment 
 on the fact which irritated Garibaldi who, 
 disgusted, since November, has retired to 
 Caprera. The volunteers disbanded are an 
 embarrassment to you. I would find a way to 
 gather them together in the island of Elba, 
 and having formed a body of two thousand 
 men, I would promise at a given moment to 
 have them led by Garibaldi, and in two or 
 three steamers, conduct them to Sicily." Farini 
 replied, " But for that project I could do nothing. 
 It would be necessary to obtain the co-opera- 
 tion of Commendatore Rattazzi and Baron 
 Ricasoli. How do you stand with them .? " 
 " Rattazzi I knew in 1853 when I was expelled 
 from Piedmont. For Ricasoli you must find 
 me a way." " Very well. I will give you a
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 69 
 
 letter for Col. Malenchini who is at Florence. 
 Come to an understanding with him. He is 
 an ardent patriot, can put you in communica- 
 tion with Baron Ricasoli, and can personally 
 aid you in the execution of your project. To 
 secure its success it is necessary above all that 
 you go to Turin and that you come to an 
 agreement with Rattazzi. If the Government 
 of the King does not consider your enterprise 
 opportune it is useless to persist, and I could 
 do nothing for you." And Farini took a sheet 
 of paper and wrote the following letter to 
 Malenchini : 
 
 Dear Cencio — See and receive with confidence 
 this gentleman, who will talk with you on important 
 subjects. Having spoken with him, and with a few 
 prudent and secret persons, we can then come to an 
 understanding. Meanwhile I salute you — Your 
 
 Farini. 
 
 The last entry of the diary is this — 
 "December 10. I leave for Turin." 
 
 This was on the eve of the opening of the 
 negotiations for the preparation of the expedi- 
 tion of The Thousand, the most splendid 
 achievement of Young Italy, and the most 
 brilliant success of Garibaldi. 
 
 The interview with Rattazzi led to nothing. 
 Crispi again detailed his plans and hopes, 
 Rattazzi accepting in principle, but making 
 difficulties of the manner, called in La Farina, 
 a Sicilian who had been one of the ministry of
 
 70 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 Palermo In 1849, and with him Crispi had 
 to discuss anew the projected movement. La 
 Farina, as was shown by subsequent events, 
 was a man of timid and narrow views, and 
 found objections to all that Crispi proposed. 
 The negotiations ended in nothing, and Rattazzi 
 finally refused what Crispi asked, which was 
 simply that the Sardinian ministry should see 
 nothing and give him the means for arming 
 his expedition. Rattazzi fell, and Cavour 
 returned to office. Enemy of all " Mazzinian '* 
 plans and influences as Cavour was, his advent 
 to power dispelled the last hope of any assist- 
 ance from the Government of the King, and 
 Crispi turned elsewhere for aid. Put under 
 police surveillance in Turin, he at once went 
 to Genoa, where at that moment arrived his 
 friend and right hand, Rosolino Pilo, with 
 whom he set himself to finding new allies. 
 They appealed to Bertani, and he to Garibaldi, 
 and communicated their projects to him. The 
 General promised that if the Sicilians rose, he 
 would aid them, adding, " In case of action, 
 remember that the programme must be, * Italy 
 and Vittorio Emanuele.'" In these negotiations 
 the winter passed and the time to begin opera- 
 tions had come. Assured of the co-operation 
 of Garibaldi, the two Sicilians hesitated no 
 longer to commit themselves to the adventure, 
 and while Crispi remained to organise and 
 conduct the volunteers, Rosolino and another
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 71 
 
 Sicilian named Carrao hired a sailing craft, and 
 with such arms as they had and some money 
 provided by Mazzini, they landed at Messina. 
 They began with a misfortune ; Crispi's letter 
 to his correspondent at Messina found him in 
 prison, and no warning of their arrival had 
 been given to the confederates, but finding 
 that the insurrection had broken out in the 
 vicinity of Palermo, they decided to join it, 
 but only arrived to find that after a desperate 
 struggle the insurgents had been put to flight 
 and had dispersed into the mountains south of 
 Palermo, where Rosolino and his companions 
 joined them and kept up the insurrection in 
 the country. By the 7th of April the in- 
 surrection was known at Genoa, and Crispi, 
 Bertani, and Bixio met and decided to call on 
 Garibaldi for the fulfilment of his promise. 
 Garibaldi, nothing loath, asked a day's delay 
 for news from Palermo through Sir James 
 Hudson, English minister at Turin, and a 
 constant friend of Garibaldi and of Italian 
 liberty. The reply received through Sir James 
 being in accordance with the information of 
 Crispi, Garibaldi sent Bixio to Genoa to charter 
 a steamer, and Crispi to Milan to receive the 
 arms and money collected by the committee 
 which had been formed at the appeal of the 
 General for the purchase of a million rifles. 
 Most of the friends of the General dissuaded 
 him from the attempt ; the influences that beset
 
 72 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 him were such that he was almost shaken 
 in his resolution ; Massimo d'Azeglio, then 
 governor of Lombardy, confiscated the rifles, 
 and even Farini, now become Minister of the 
 Interior of the Sardinian kingdom, had changed 
 his disposition. Volunteers flocked in and 
 arms were got by stratagems which were not 
 without danger, and the embarkation from 
 Genoa was opposed by the authorities. The 
 difficulties were very great, and probably the 
 faith and tenacity of Crispi saved the expedi- 
 tion. 
 
 On the 2nd of May Garibaldi, harassed by 
 the urgencies of his friends, and even of many 
 friends of Italy who considered the undertaking 
 certain to bring disaster on Italian liberation 
 and worse to Sicily, hesitating, conferred with 
 Crispi alone. Garibaldi said, " You are the 
 only one who encourages me to undertake the 
 expedition to Sicily ; why .? every one else 
 discourages me." " If I do so," replied Crispi, 
 " it is because I am convinced that it will be 
 useful to our country and glorious for you. I 
 have only one apprehension — the uncertainty 
 of the sea." " I answer for the sea," replied 
 the General. " And I for the land," said 
 Crispi. The expedition was then practically 
 determined. There was a cipher telegram 
 received from Fabrizi at Malta, which, based 
 on the news from Palermo, according to which 
 the insurrection was at an end, and which, had
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 73 
 
 it been credited by Garibaldi, would have 
 possibly suspended the expedition, but Crispi 
 had fuller information, according to which, 
 and this was the truth, the insurrection was 
 in vigour in the mountains, where Pilo and 
 his band were in undisturbed possession, and 
 the telegram was deciphered by the light of 
 the direct information of Crispi. Fabrizi, at 
 Malta, had knowledge of the city only, and 
 there it was true that the insurrection was 
 stifled. Crispi knew that the whole island 
 was practically in insurrection*, and only wanted 
 a flag and a leader to rally round, and the flag 
 and leader were secured. The question de- 
 cided, no time was lost in making the prepara- 
 tions for the voyage, which Garibaldi assumed. 
 He put Bixio in charge. The number of 
 volunteers was less than had been hoped for ; 
 the arms were not in hand ; the opposition of 
 the officials was effective, and made it very 
 difficult to operate ; Cavour was silent, which 
 was all that could be expected of him, and 
 aflfected to know nothing, but his subordinates 
 threw every obstacle in the way. On an old 
 hulk in the harbour of Genoa, Bixio embarked 
 the nucleus of the force, and when the moment 
 came these boarded the two steamers, which, 
 by the fiction of the circumstances, were to be 
 supposed to be taken by force, and, having 
 amongst their numbers the engineers, the 
 pilots, and the crew necessary, the steamers
 
 74 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 were at once ready to sail. The volunteers 
 were rapidly embarked and put to sea. But 
 arms were intercepted, and as those which the 
 men carried with them were insufficient for 
 the needs, some treachery having intervened, 
 the expedition promised failure on the thres- 
 hold. It had been arranged that the rifles, 
 etc., should be shipped on two barges, which 
 were to meet the steamers outside the port, 
 but they never appeared, and the steamers 
 steered for Quarto. Garibaldi had gone too 
 far to retreat, and knowing that, at Orbetello, 
 in the ancient Tuscan fortress, there was a 
 deposit of arms and ammunition, perhaps some 
 artillery as well, ordered the course to be 
 made for that place, and sent General Turr 
 with an order to the commander of the fortress 
 to give him all that he might require " for an 
 expedition that we are undertaking for the 
 glory of Piedmont and the grandeur of Italy." 
 The commander. Colonel Giorgini, doubtless 
 aware that he risked a court-martial and being 
 shot, yielded to the magic of the name of 
 Garibaldi, and allowed the expedition to take 
 the arms it needed. 
 
 The landing-point of the expedition had 
 not been decided, and in the consultation 
 between Garibaldi and those who did not 
 know the island, and Crispi who did, the 
 opinions differed. The pilot advised Trapani, 
 Garibaldi preferred Marsala, and Crispi a little
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI js 
 
 port on the south side of the island, Porto 
 Palo, where was no garrison or fortification. 
 Trapani was rejected for various reasons, and 
 the steamers held for Marsala, tentatively- 
 doubtful whether the port might not be 
 occupied by the Neapolitan men-of-war. A 
 fishing-boat assured them of the presence of 
 two English steamers in the harbour and no 
 troops in the city, and the order for full speed 
 was given, and the landing effected in the 
 dramatic way that all the world knows, with 
 the arrival immediately after of the Neapolitan 
 squadron, the traditional English men-of-war in 
 the line of fire and preventing the royal ships 
 from firing on the volunteers as they went 
 ashore. There has never been any evidence of 
 an understanding having been arrived at between 
 Sir James Hudson and Garibaldi that the land- 
 ing should be at Marsala, and the English 
 men-of war should be present at the landing 
 for all the contingencies that might arise. 
 Otherwise, it was said, why should Garibaldi, 
 who knew not a foot of the coast, insist on 
 Marsala against the opinions of the pilot and 
 of Crispi, who knew it well, and especially 
 Crispi, who had studied for this effect, and 
 who pointed out a spot where no interference 
 of the Neapolitan fleet was to be apprehended, 
 and from which the way to Palermo was at 
 least as short as from Marsala ? Of course 
 the intervention of the English steamers is an
 
 76 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 invention. As they had taken their anchorage 
 before the arrival of the Neapolitan vessels, 
 the latter had free choice of position and line 
 of fire. It is probable that they feared the 
 possible action of the English ships, and so 
 delayed their own until too late. The English 
 commander could not know where Garibaldi 
 would decide to land, but Garibaldi was not 
 the man to play the comedy of a council 
 where he had already decided. Garibaldi 
 ordered Crispi to land and take possession of 
 the city. With a guard of fifty riflemen from 
 Pavia, he took possession of the municipality, 
 issued his orders to the functionaries, and pre- 
 pared for the occupation of a day. Garibaldi 
 sent a telegraphist to take the telegraph, with 
 orders to reply to inquiries from Palermo 
 whether there were any steamers in sight, that 
 there were none, that the sea was calm, and 
 then ordered the wires to be cut. The next 
 morning began the march on Palermo, almost 
 unanimously indicated by the stafi\, Crispi in- 
 cluded, as the object of the first attack. Crispi 
 was appointed assistant chief of staff, Sirtori 
 being the chief, and the first night the army 
 halted at the village of Rampagallo, where 
 the first of the Sicilian bands joined them. 
 The next day they arrived at Salemi, and here 
 the real work of Crispi began, for here the 
 organisation of the Government was decided 
 on definitely. The Sicilians, Crispi, Carini,
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI jj 
 
 La Masa, Castiglia, Orsini, and other notables 
 counselled a dictature, and the proclamation of 
 it was drawn up at Salemi by Crispi in the 
 following terms : — 
 
 Salemi, \\th of May i860. 
 
 Italy and Victor Emmanuel. 
 
 Giuseppe Garibaldi, commander-in-chief of the 
 national forces in Sicily ; 
 
 On the invitation of the notable citizens and the 
 deliberations of the free communes of the island ; 
 
 Considering that in time of war it is necessary 
 that the civil and military powers should be concen- 
 trated in one person ; 
 Decrees : 
 
 To assume, in the name of Vittorio Emanuele, 
 King of Italy, the dictatorship in Sicily. 
 
 The Dictator — G. Garibaldi. 
 F. Crispi.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The story of the Revolution of i860 is outside 
 my limitations except as it involves Crispi in 
 the narrative, and while all the members of 
 the expedition were combatants by necessity, 
 in face of the enormous superiority of the 
 forces of the Bourbon Government, the services 
 rendered by Crispi as sub-chief of staff, and 
 the one best acquainted with the topography 
 of the island from boyhood, became, after the 
 taking of Palermo, entirely subordinate to 
 those which he rendered as Secretary of State 
 to the Dictator and as designer of all the 
 political measures which were required to re- 
 organise the island, thrown for the moment 
 by the invasion and overthrow of the Bourbon 
 Government into confusion. He took his 
 part as combatant in the battle of Calatafimi, 
 where the royal troops made their first stand, 
 and which was the hardest fight of the cam- 
 paign and the most brilliant of all Garibaldi's 
 victories, defeating four times the number of 
 his own army of disciplined troops under an 
 able commander, posted in strong defensive
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 79 
 
 positions, which had to be carried by direct 
 assault, one after the other, and the last with 
 a bayonet charge, the ammunition being nearly 
 exhausted. Here Crispi distinguished himself 
 in the combat, and, the fighting over and the 
 army of General Lanza in retreat, he set to 
 work to organise the ambulance service with 
 the tireless activity which is the chief trait of 
 the man. Finding one of the men, after an 
 operation, shirtless, his shirt having been cut 
 away by the surgeons, and the night being 
 fresh, Crispi divested himself of his only 
 undergarment, for extra clothing in the im- 
 pedimenta of The Thousand was limited, and 
 gave it to the wounded man. Years after, as 
 he was walking in the streets of Leghorn, he 
 was accosted by a stranger in words of affec- 
 tionate reminder, but Crispi in vain tried to 
 recall his face. He was the volunteer to 
 whom he had given his shirt at Calatafimi. 
 At Alcamo there was a beginning of organisa- 
 tion of government, and Crispi appears as the 
 Secretary of State to the Dictator, appointing 
 governors of provinces and providing for the 
 nomination of officers of public security and 
 civic councils. The years of Crispi's isolation 
 and solitary reflection on the affairs of his 
 Sicily had been largely spent in the study of 
 the details of constitutional government, and 
 the papers which puzzled the inquisitors 
 of Turin when they searched his quarters.
 
 8o FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 expecting to find the details of plots for insur- 
 rection, and found only embryo constitutions 
 and projects of laws, were now to be applied 
 to practical organisation. At Partinico a 
 decree was issued authorising the communes 
 to compensate the population for the damages 
 caused by the royal troops, to be refunded to 
 the communes after the restoration of peace, 
 a measure which threw the interests of the 
 population on the side of the Revolution and 
 gave courage to the friends of it. Other 
 decrees constituted a council of war for the 
 army and promulgated the civil code of the 
 kingdom of Sardinia for the civilians, abolish- 
 ing as far as possible the Bourbon regime from 
 the beginning. 
 
 At Monreale the Neapolitan army, in strong 
 positions and in largely superior strength, 
 blocked the road to Palermo, and the chiefs 
 were divided in their opinions as to the course 
 to be taken. Most of them advised the direct 
 attack on the positions of Monreale, some the 
 withdrawal into the interior and making a 
 harassing campaign against the Government. 
 Crispi almost alone, knowing every foot of 
 the ground and the strength and difficulties 
 of the position, advised turning it and attacking 
 Palermo from the other side. Garibaldi yielded 
 to the considerations of his assistant chief of 
 staff, and leaving Rosolino Pilo and his bands 
 of Sicilians to keep up the appearance of an
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 8i 
 
 attack from that side, and making a feint of 
 moving his main body in the same direction, 
 fell back, and by night commenced his march 
 by the mountains round to the eastern side of 
 the city. The troops followed, and, being 
 deceived by a ruse of Garibaldi — the sending 
 of his artillery w^ith a small detachment by a 
 mountain road into the interior — pursued that, 
 while Garibaldi with the bulk of the force 
 turned northward, and, marching all night, 
 arrived before the eastern gates of Palermo 
 before day. Crispi was at the head of one of 
 the three columns which entered the city and 
 met in the streets, where for four days the 
 fighting went on, ending in the retreat of the 
 troops to the fortress and, after a short delay, 
 their embarkation for Naples. The Cabinet 
 of the Dictator was composed of Crispi, with 
 the portfolios of finance and the interior ; 
 Colonel Orsini, of war ; Guarnieri, of justice, 
 instruction, and worship ; Ugdulena, of foreign 
 affairs and commerce ; Baron Casimir Pisani, 
 of commerce. The first work of the new 
 Government was to restore in the main the 
 constitution and general condition of the island 
 under the regime of 1849. 
 
 History has recorded the remarkable period 
 of tranquillity and legality which prevailed in 
 the island during the dictatorship of Garibaldi, 
 an interregnum of order between the turbulence 
 of the Bourbon rule and the deplorable state 
 
 G
 
 82 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 into which it fell in the later times, when the 
 union with Italy was 2. fait accompli. It seemed 
 as if the pride of the islanders was so thoroughly- 
 enlisted in the preservation of legality that 
 even the ancient and traditional brigandage 
 was suppressed by the universal pressure of 
 the public opinion, not often in any part of 
 Italy south of the Appenines enlisted on the 
 part of the authorities, but in Sicily especially 
 hostile to the ruling powers from time im- 
 memorial. Crispi was left as the Secretary of 
 State to conduct the Government established 
 at Palermo, while Garibaldi carried on the 
 military operations in a march eastward, meet- 
 ing at Milazzo a determined and for a moment 
 successful resistance. His genius and tenacity 
 triumphed, and the Neapolitan troops, driven 
 into the fortress, took ship for Naples, and, 
 except Messina, Sicily was liberated. One of 
 the first measures of Crispi was for the distri- 
 bution of the feudal and ecclesiastical domains 
 amongst the men who took part in the Revolu- 
 tion, and another was for the adoption of the 
 children of all who fell in the struggle. The 
 temporary adoption of the Sardinian code sub- 
 sequently gave place to one which was shaped 
 by the needs of the population, and all the 
 ruling agents were men who knew and sym- 
 pathised with them ; and every Sicilian who 
 hated the old regime felt himself a part of the 
 new Government. This is not an isolated
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 83 
 
 phenomenon in Italian and revolutionary 
 epochs, and it may be that much of the 
 orderly deportment of the islanders was 
 simply due to the novelty of liberty and the 
 pride in what they had done. The Govern- 
 ment itself worked smoothly, and while 
 Garibaldi organised the forces which gathered 
 to him for the pursuit of his ulterior plans, 
 Sicily was restored to order and tranquillity, 
 the Bourbon authorities only holding some of 
 the fortified places. 
 
 But the opposition which had failed to 
 prevent the expedition, and the distrust which 
 had followed it, soon began to work mischief. 
 The plan of Garibaldi, in which Crispi had 
 from the beginning supported him, was to 
 make of Sicily a base for his operations against 
 Naples, and then from Naples to work against 
 the states of the Church, retaining each province 
 under his own authority until the whole were 
 free, when by a general movement Italy was 
 to be united under the King of Sardinia as 
 King of Italy. The plan of Cavour was, 
 probably, rather to annex it part by part, as 
 liberated, to Piedmont. Cavour evidently had 
 apprehensions of the Republican propaganda ; 
 he distrusted and even hated Mazzini and all 
 Mazzinians, Crispi included, and the proclama- 
 tion of " Italy and Vittorio Emanuele " with 
 which the liberators opened the campaign, 
 and carried it on to the last, did not allay his
 
 84 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 antipathies. They crop out in his correspond- 
 ence ; to those who study events which are 
 complete in themselves and in their conse- 
 quences, it is easy to criticise and show what 
 would have been better, as it is difficult to 
 assign to their proper source the responsibility 
 for mistakes which have happened. Cavour 
 was apprehensive that the influence of Gari- 
 baldi might give place to that of Mazzini, 
 and that there might determine a Republican 
 tendency which it would be impossible to 
 combat, once the organisation of Sicily and 
 Naples had been even provisionally completed. 
 He did not know Crispi or he would have 
 understood that his influence could only be in 
 the direction of the unity of Italy, and would 
 never have been factiously employed. But 
 the comprehensiveness of Garibaldi's plan of 
 operations probably inspired in Cavour an 
 apprehension that they meant disaster in the 
 long run. He writes to the Countess de 
 Circourt (24th October i860) : "Austria, it 
 seems, thinks of profiting by the absence of 
 the King and of our best divisions to attack us. 
 We are preparing to ofl^er a desperate resistance. 
 If Cialdini and Fanti are at Naples [this was 
 during the campaign of Gaeta] we have here 
 La Marmora and Sonnaz, who are not fright- 
 ened at Benedek and the Archduke Albert." 
 With this feeling of new dangers to be appre- 
 hended from that side it was explicable that
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 85 
 
 he should view with the greatest anxiety an 
 uhimate attack on the states of the Church by- 
 Garibaldi, and that he should be urgently- 
 moved to get the control of the movement in 
 Sicily and in Naples at the earliest moment. 
 But with all this he chose his measures and 
 his men badly. He sent to the island a man 
 who he must have known could only disagree 
 with Crispi and probably with Garibaldi, La 
 Farina, who had at the outset done all he 
 could to make the plan of the expedition 
 abortive. He arrived on the 7th of June, 
 after the administration of the affairs of the 
 island was in a good way, on a Sardinian 
 frigate. Garibaldi had already conceived a 
 dislike of him through his having taken no 
 part in the new movement and from his want 
 of courage, for the Dictator could conceive no 
 man as worthy of respect who was not brave, 
 so that his reception was anything but warm. 
 Had Garibaldi sent him back to Turin he 
 would have saved much trouble. He remained, 
 in constant correspondence with Cavour, to 
 whom he represented Garibaldi as worn out 
 and in the hands of Crispi, who makes light 
 of his authority, etc., and after a few days 
 ventured to remonstrate to the Dictator on 
 the manner of government of his ministry, to 
 which Garibaldi replied that all went on 
 excellently well and " that Crispi and the 
 Government enjoyed the entire confidence of
 
 86 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 Sicily." A Sicilian himself, the emissary of 
 Cavour knew how to excite trouble in the 
 city, and had his partisans, who were excited 
 to make a street demonstration against Crispi 
 and the ministry, which made Garibaldi 
 furious, so that La Farina wrote to Cavour, 
 in effect, that " the Dictator says that Crispi 
 is a distinguished patriot ; that the expedition 
 is due in great part to him, and that he will 
 never send him away." Crispi's impatient 
 and independent temper revolted at being 
 made the subject of the attacks of the agent 
 of the Government of the King, and he offered 
 his resignation, which Garibaldi refused, but 
 finally yielded to, on Crispi's insistence, on 
 condition that he remained his private secretary; 
 whereupon La Farina writes to Cavour : "They 
 say that Garibaldi has chosen Crispi for his 
 private secretary : a grave difficulty for the 
 new ministry, because the General is accus- 
 tomed to issue his decrees without consulting 
 the ministers. This morning the General, 
 coming on horseback to the hotel to see 
 Carini, who is seriously wounded, was accom- 
 panied by Crispi " ; and again, " Garibaldi 
 leaves to Crispi, whom he has made his private 
 secretary, all the real power." To show 
 Crispi his good-will. Garibaldi appointed him 
 Procureur- General to the High Court of 
 Accounts, an honour which Crispi declined, 
 saying, " You know, General, that we have
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 87 
 
 not come to the island to gain high offices 
 and good salaries. We came to help the 
 brave population to break their chains and 
 co-operate with them in constituting a free 
 and united Italy, that Italy the idea of 
 which has been the consolation of our exile." 
 And at this time Crispi was a poor man, and 
 for his services as Secretary of State in Sicily 
 accepted no compensation. The result of La 
 Farina's operations was that, finding Garibaldi 
 inaccessible to his incitements to get rid of 
 Crispi, he entered into an intrigue for the 
 annexation of the island to Italy by royal 
 decree, discovering which, Garibaldi expelled 
 him from the island. 
 
 Carrying on to their completion his vast 
 plans, Garibaldi had to appoint a Prodictator 
 for Sicily, and had fixed on Depretis for the 
 office, pending whose arrival he appointed 
 Sirtori, with Crispi as Secretary of State. 
 Depretis arrived on the 20th of July, and, 
 accompanied by Crispi and Sirtori, went at 
 once to Milazzo, where Garibaldi was halting 
 after his great victory which completed the 
 expulsion of the Bourbon forces from the open 
 country. Depretis had come with the same 
 purpose, and instructed by the same influence 
 as those which sent La Farina, but, being a 
 far shrewder man, he did not expose himself 
 so quickly to detection. When he saw Gari- 
 baldi, he, however, attempted to urge the
 
 88 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 advantages of a speedy annexation, but received 
 a peremptory repulse, v^hich hardly left him a 
 pretext to renew the subject. Depretis W2.s 
 a subtle, plausible, and able intriguant, versed 
 in all the slippery devices of politics and the 
 court, and he had come, called by Garibaldi, 
 but sent by Cavour, with the deliberate 
 intention of thwarting all the plans of the 
 Dictator. Why Garibaldi should have chosen 
 him was a mystery, but Depretis was a very 
 Proteus of politics, without any principle and 
 only the policy of getting ahead on his own 
 account. He had the reputation amongst my 
 colleagues in Rome of never by any chance 
 telling the truth, but in my personal experience 
 with him I found him at times perfectly frank, 
 though it was clear enough that the frankness 
 was such as suited the circumstances. Gari- 
 baldi took the precaution, however, to leave 
 him with Crispi as Secretary of State, in spite 
 of the latter's earnest request to be allowed 
 to accompany the General in the remainder 
 of the campaign, and Crispi yielded to the 
 considerations urged on him. But he only 
 accepted the position of Secretary of State for 
 the Interior with the most complete statement 
 of his conditions, chief of which was that 
 Depretis should accept the policy laid down 
 by Garibaldi without reserve, viz. that 
 nothing should be done to precipitate an- 
 nexation. He pointed out that during the
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 89 
 
 execution of Garibaldi's complete scheme for the 
 conquest of Naples, etc., Sicily was necessary 
 as a base of operations, and that the annexation 
 by throwing it under the Royal Government 
 would at once stop his work and oblige him 
 to return to his Caprera home. In case of a 
 defeat in the Neapolitan campaign, he would 
 be deprived of his necessary line of retreat 
 and recruitment, and at the same time ran 
 the risk of compromising Piedmont in his 
 schemes. Besides those considerations, Sicily 
 was not yet prepared for annexation to Italy, 
 and required time to become so, and to 
 become habituated to the exercise of its 
 freedom and ready to pass under a regime of 
 a totally different nature from that under 
 which it has existed. This he knew was 
 the judgment of Garibaldi, with which he 
 perfectly agreed, and without a pledge from 
 Depretis that he would undertake nothing to 
 precipitate the annexation, he refused to accept 
 any place with him. Depretis engaged to 
 observe this condition, and they returned to 
 Palermo to assume the government. And at 
 this time Depretis had in his pocket a royal 
 decree which, in view of the immediate 
 annexation, named him royal commissioner, 
 and from the day he arrived he did not cease 
 to intrigue for the purpose of thwarting the 
 intentions of the Dictator, and violating his 
 promise to Crispi.
 
 90 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 Such steps as could be taken for the 
 assimilation of Sicily to the rest of Italy, 
 without too precipitate changes, were accom- 
 plished. A Prodictatorial decree was issued 
 with the following considerations : — 
 
 Considering that by the vote given in the glorious 
 revolution of the 4th of April, with the unanimous 
 voice of the insurgents of Palermo, to which that 
 of all the other communes has responded, the Sicilians 
 have affirmed their will to be reunited to the consti- 
 tutional and Italian kingdom of the august monarch 
 Vittorio Emanuele II. King of Italy : 
 
 Considering that the vote thus expressed is con- 
 formed to the national law, superior and eternal, 
 which leads the people forming one and the same 
 nation to unite ; and that the vote is consecrated by 
 the blood of those who, fighting under the order 
 of General Garibaldi, have carried in triumph and 
 crowned with new laurels the tri-coloured flag where 
 shines the cross of Savoy : 
 
 Considering that the other provinces and all 
 civilised nations have saluted with admiration the 
 programme "Italy and Vittorio Emanuele," and the 
 banner of the Sicilian revolution : 
 
 Considering that, if the extraordinary powers of 
 the dictature, which have no other purpose than to 
 consolidate the new order of things, tend towards 
 the ends which the revolution proposes, but do not 
 permit putting into immediate effect the fundamental 
 law of the Italian monarchy ; it is nevertheless 
 necessary to hasten its promulgation since that 
 fundamental law is the basis on which repose, and 
 are founded, the provisions of the new legislation,
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 91 
 
 all the jurisdictions and administrations of which 
 have entered or must enter into force : 
 
 The Prodictator decrees that the constitutional 
 statute of 4th March 1848, in force in the kingdom 
 of Italy, is the fundamental law of Sicily, etc.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 This decree, bearing the signature of Crispi 
 at the head of the ministry of the Prodictator, 
 was followed by others, which by degrees 
 assimilated the legal status of Sicily to that 
 of Piedmont. But this gradual approach to 
 the union left too many opportunities for a 
 miscarriage to suit Cavour, and Depretis, in 
 conformity with his instructions and in viola- 
 tion of his promises, busied himself with 
 intrigues for the fomentation of a precipitate 
 annexation. Crispi, in the latter part of 
 August, received a letter from a friend in 
 Caltanisetta, which stated that Depretis was 
 deceiving him and betraying the Dictator by 
 urging an energetic propaganda for immediate 
 annexation, enclosing a copy of a circular to 
 that effect in the name of the Dictature. It 
 urged that motives of high policy demanded 
 it, and that it was the duty of patriots to urge 
 it ; that the Piedmontese Government would 
 not fail to recompense those who contributed 
 to it, etc. Other copies of the circular from 
 other parts of the island came to confirm the
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 93 
 
 warning, and Crispi went to Depretls and, 
 recalling the promises made and the conditions 
 of his co-operation, asked him the meaning 
 of these incitements. Depretis denied all ; 
 he had never had the intention to betray the 
 confidence of the Dictator. " Read these 
 letters then, since you so affirm, and these 
 circulars. Both bear the mark of their origin, 
 both come from the cabinet of the Prodictator. 
 What mean these provocations, and what do 
 your promises mean ? Depretis continued to 
 deny, to assert his ignorance of what was done, 
 and asserted that the letters had been sent with- 
 out his knowledge. " That is possible," said 
 Crispi, " but you are responsible for what is 
 done in your cabinet, and the most daring of 
 your dependants would never have sent a 
 circular of that sort without, I will not say, 
 your order, but not without your consent. 
 You know my ideas ; you have accepted my 
 conditions. What has passed frees me from 
 the charge I had assumed at the desire of 
 the Dictator and on your urging ; I resume 
 my liberty and only re-enter the Ministry of 
 the Interior to prevent an interruption in the 
 management of the business. But from this 
 moment consider me as having resigned and 
 look after my successor." Depretis begged 
 him to reconsider his decision, but those who 
 know Crispi will anticipate that he was 
 immovable. A compromise with his dignity
 
 94 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 or with an engagement, resignation to being 
 a victim of a trick, or a withdrawal from a 
 deHberate decision, are not in his nature. Much 
 less would he then accept an indignity for 
 the sake of remaining in any office. Crispi 
 waited several days for the appointment of 
 his successor, which never came. Depretis 
 feared the consequences of a rupture, and he 
 thought to wear out the indignation of Crispi 
 by delay. After a few days Crispi again went 
 to him to warn him that he had abandoned 
 the ministry, and that it had no longer a head. 
 Depretis urged, begged, conjured him with 
 tears in his eyes to recall his decision and 
 remain in the ministry. Crispi only replied, 
 " I have been deceived and may be again." 
 Depretis then asked what he meant to do. 
 Crispi replied that he should go to Naples at 
 once and inform Garibaldi of what was being 
 done. " I will go with you," said the Pro- 
 dictator. " As you please." They went by 
 the same steamer. As Crispi had always the 
 entree to Garibaldi's presence, he preceded 
 Depretis and had told his story before Depretis 
 was admitted, and the responsibility of the 
 intrigue to thwart the plans of Garibaldi was 
 discussed by the three ; the facts were clear, and 
 the Prodictature was responsible. Several days 
 passed before Garibaldi came to a decision. 
 One day when the three were in the cabinet 
 of the General, Depretis came close to Crispi
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 95 
 
 and whispered, " I am going back to Palermo, 
 will you come ? " Crispi only looked him in 
 the eyes. At that moment a deputation of 
 Sicilians was announced, and Garibaldi made 
 a sign to them to withdraw, and ordered the 
 deputation to be admitted. After an interval, 
 Depretis was called in, and after a short 
 interview came out and said to Crispi, " I 
 have resigned." Garibaldi called Mordini, 
 one of The Thousand, to succeed him and 
 went over to the island himself to see what 
 was the state of public feeling. There was 
 no question that the island was with Crispi, 
 and the new ministry was composed of men 
 friendly to him. 
 
 But Crispi refused to return. It seems like 
 an excessive amour propre which restrained him 
 from yielding to the urgent solicitations of 
 Garibaldi, who felt lost in the intricacies of 
 Sicilian politics without him ; but those who 
 know him will hardly consider that he acted 
 merely from indignation at what had passed. 
 His pride is excessive and his temper a fiery 
 one, but he in all probability felt that the 
 machinations of which Depretis was an instru- 
 ment and he the object, would follow him 
 whoever was Prodictator, and that in any case 
 the tenacity of Turin would outwear the resist- 
 ance of Garibaldi and whoever was in his 
 place. If so, events proved that he was right. 
 Mordini, who succeeded Depretis, was in
 
 96 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 honesty, patriotism, and independence of char- 
 acter, worthy the choice and the confidence 
 of Garibaldi, but the network of intrigue was 
 too close for any one but the Dictator himself 
 to break. "The refusal of Crispi was definite, 
 and not even his attachment for Garibaldi 
 could turn him. The Dictator insisted, em- 
 ployed all the considerations which the situa- 
 tion permitted, but to no effect. " No," said 
 Crispi, " I ought not to accompany you. If 
 I go, it will be me whom you place at the 
 head of the Government of the island. That 
 may be your intention, I suppose, and you will 
 be so advised. But, they will say that I have 
 imposed myself on you, and that you have 
 imposed me on Sicily." " You are wrong," 
 said the General, "we entered Palermo together 
 on the 27th of May, in the midst of bullets and 
 balls, and it is together that we will return." 
 " They could understand my presence with 
 you on the 27th of May ; it explained itself. 
 It will not be so to-day." Garibaldi finally 
 grew angry and at last ordered Crispi to come, 
 regardless of all his protests. He yielded, but 
 contrived to miss the steamer which carried 
 Garibaldi and remained in Naples. 
 
 On his return from Palermo, where he had 
 installed Mordini, Garibaldi appointed two 
 Secretaries of State, one for Naples and the 
 Continent and the other for Sicily. Crispi 
 filled the former post, but if he had believed
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 97 
 
 that the presence of Garibaldi, and his general 
 control of affairs would shelter him from the 
 attacks which he had to submit to in Palermo, 
 he was mistaken. The hostility which was 
 too shameful to be aimed at Garibaldi, was 
 aimed at all who were engaged in the work he 
 desired done. It mattered not who was there, 
 the object was to prevent the plan of the 
 General from being carried out. His own 
 popularity made it dangerous to make the 
 attack personal, but it was necessary to prevent 
 him from making Naples the new base for a 
 march on Rome and therefore to cripple him 
 indirectly. Bertani, one of the noblest and 
 most honest of the regenerators of Italy, who 
 was Garibaldi's secretary-general, i.e. chief of 
 the cabinet, was, equally with the others who 
 were faithful to Garibaldi, the object of the 
 calumnies of the Piedmontese party and finally, 
 weary of an official existence which only won 
 obloquy from those whom the liberators had 
 supposed to be the leaders in Italian liberation, 
 he resigned and resumed his place in parlia- 
 ment. Crispi was appointed his successor and 
 succeeded to all the hostility. The Nazionale^ 
 the organ of the Moderates and conducted 
 by Bonghi, turned its worst fire on him : ac- 
 cused him, as La Farina had, of usurping the 
 authority of the Dictator, of opposing his 
 intentions ; called him " the evil genius of the 
 brave General, he who perverted the most 
 
 H
 
 98 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 noble intentions of Garibaldi, he who troubles 
 the public mind — he was Bertani, he calls 
 himself to-day Crispi." To all this warfare 
 Crispi made no reply. This has always been 
 his habit, and with one formal exception,^ until 
 the attack in 1893 regarding the bank scandals, 
 he has never, so far as I know, paid any attention 
 even to the most libellous political attacks, a 
 policy which had made the libelling safe and 
 common. 
 
 The same system of petty hostilities which 
 had made the position of Bertani untenable, was 
 now directed against Crispi, and the Cavourian 
 formula of attack was " No transaction with 
 the Mazzinians ; no weakness towards the 
 Garibaldians, but for their chief, extreme con- 
 sideration." And this formula implied any 
 kind of molestation for Crispi. At this junc- 
 ture arrived Giorgio Pallavicini, a Lombard 
 liberal, known for his prominence in the move- 
 ment of 1 821 and imprisonment in Spielburg, 
 and whom Garibaldi had selected for the 
 Prodictatorship of Naples. Pallavicini had 
 received the instructions of Cavour before 
 leaving Turin, and in pursuance of them 
 he proposed an agreement between the 
 Dictator and the Piedmontese Government. 
 This included as one of its conditions, the 
 
 ^ He afterwards brought a libel suit with liberty of proof 
 against the publisher of La Farina's letters against hira, and 
 gained his cause.
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 99 
 
 expulsion of Crispi, Bertani, and Mazzini from 
 the kingdom. Garibaldi refused to accept 
 these terms which seemed to him, as they 
 were, humiliating and indeed degrading, as 
 involving the repudiation of the men who had 
 so powerfully aided him, and in Crispins case, 
 even guided him in his undertaking, and he 
 declined the services of Pallavicini on the 
 conditions sought to be imposed. Again 
 Crispi, aided by Cattaneo, insisted on the 
 appointment, the expulsions being ignored, 
 and the decree was issued naming Pallavicini 
 to that function on the 3rd of October, followed 
 on the 5th by a Prodictatorial decree sup- 
 pressing the secretaryship for Sicily and leav- 
 ing Crispi the functions of secretary-general 
 for the Prodictature, and secretary of foreign 
 affairs. But the hostility against him was 
 irrevocable, and decreed to reappear at every 
 possible juncture. Cavour had no faith in any 
 one who had ever been tainted with republican 
 doctrine, and the malefic influence of the 
 incompetent and treacherous La Farina had 
 so taken possession of the mind of the states- 
 man, that Crispi's constant self-effacement and 
 devotion to the cause produced no effect, 
 and were perhaps taken as evidences of his 
 duplicity and the danger which his recognised 
 abilities might expose the kingdom to if he 
 were left in power. The curious phenomenon 
 of the man who had played the chief part in
 
 loo FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 the only successful conspiracy ever carried out 
 by the Italians, and who, that the success 
 might not be a danger for that unity of Italy 
 which Cavour himself made the object of all 
 his activity, had consented to separate himself 
 from the political associates and sacrifice his 
 political convictions, should be pursued with 
 such malignity by the minister of the King 
 for whom he was so largely instrumental in 
 winning a new kingdom, is one of the most 
 extraordinary of the incidents of this unique 
 history. It is at once a tribute to the import- 
 ance of Crispi in the affairs of Italy, and an 
 evidence of the prescriptive and prejudiced 
 character of Cavour in all that had to do with 
 his dealing with his instruments. He had no 
 insight into the South- Italian character — an 
 unflinching conspirator through diplomacy, he 
 had no confidence in revolutionary characters 
 or methods. If he dared he would have 
 snuffed out Garibaldi .as readily as Crispi — what 
 pleased him was entire subordination to his 
 own ideas. 
 
 It is difficult to understand the war which 
 has always been waged on Crispi from the 
 moment he entered the sphere of Italian politics 
 down to the present time. It was begun by 
 the monarchists under the apprehension of 
 danger to the crown, and was later carried on by 
 the republicans under various and specious pre- 
 texts. In the beginning he was persecuted and
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI loi 
 
 imprisoned as a follower of Mazzini, and later 
 denounced as a traitor to Mazzini. In fact 
 he was never a Mazzinian pure and simple, 
 but always regarded the question of form of 
 government as a secondary one, while Mazzini 
 held the Republic as the only finality. After 
 having practically controlled the government 
 of Sicily and Naples during all the time that 
 the Dictature lasted, Crispi left his functions 
 under Garibaldi in a state approaching desti- 
 tution. The little remnant of his paternal 
 estate which survived 1848 had long been spent 
 and he had never accepted any pay for his 
 services. If money could have made him con- 
 form, or office have tamed his Albanian inde- 
 pendence, Cavour might have foregone the 
 proscription which, surviving his government, 
 kept Crispi out of the councils of Italy till 
 1878. The hostility to him was tenacious, 
 unrelenting, and until the union of the 
 Neapolitan provinces with the northern was 
 completed, it was merciless. When Pallavicini 
 had been installed as Prodictator, the dismissal 
 of Crispi being waived as a condition not to 
 be mentioned, the opposition to all measures 
 which were attributed to him was continued. 
 The plan of a constituent assembly, to which 
 Garibaldi held strongly and in which he was 
 supported by Crispi, was considered at Turin 
 as a road to the Republic, and was violently 
 opposed by Pallavicini, and the subtle policy
 
 I02 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 of Cavour determined on bringing the matter 
 to a direct vote of the people, and to the 
 plebiscite by which the people of the southern 
 provinces should declare their desire that Italy 
 should become one and indivisible under Vittorio 
 Emanuele and his descendants, as a constitu- 
 tional monarchy, but Garibaldi would not 
 forego the idea of an assembly, and the follow- 
 ing project was drawn up by Crispi : — 
 
 Italy and Vittorio Emanuele. 
 
 The Dictator of Southern Italy, with the object 
 of completing the dispositions of the decree of 
 October 8th, which convokes the people for a plebis- 
 citary vote — to verify the regularity of the relative 
 acts and to decide the incorporation of Southern 
 Italy in Italy united and indivisible, decrees : 
 
 Art. I. An assembly of deputies of the con- 
 tinental provinces of Southern Italy is convoked for 
 the 1st of November in the city of Naples ; 
 
 Art. 2. The deputies will be named by universal 
 suffrage ; 
 
 Art. 3. The Prodictator of Naples will fix the 
 number of deputies to be named, establish the electoral 
 districts, and prepare the reunion of the assembly ; 
 
 Art. 4. The Prodictator and the ministers are 
 charged with the execution of the present law. 
 
 The project was sent to Pallavicini with 
 these words written in Garibaldi's own hand, 
 " Here, it seems to me, is what we had agreed 
 on. The project has my entire approbation.
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 103 
 
 If you are of the same opinion, send me a 
 signed copy. I will sign it in turn." Palla- 
 vicini, suspicious of conventions and schemes of 
 Crispi, saw there only a constttuante^ which 
 was possibly the cloak for a republican pro- 
 nunciamiento, and in a furious temper he started 
 for Caserta, where the General was. Attack- 
 ing Crispi in his anger, he was interrupted 
 by Garibaldi, who insisted on his employing 
 language in accordance with the position. 
 " Crispi is the man who makes trouble ; if he 
 does not leave, I will," said he. Crispi was 
 silent. Garibaldi spoke, " Never will I sacri- 
 fice my friends to your antipathies, above all 
 when they are friends whom I know to be 
 men of courage and disinterestment like Crispi. 
 It is him whom I have chosen, and not you." 
 Pallavicini stammered, " I retire," and in his 
 confusion, not finding the door, but seeing that 
 some one ofifered his arm to assist him, he saw 
 it to be Cattaneo, and ofifered him his hand. 
 Cattaneo refused it, saying, " You do not know 
 the real friends of Garibaldi, or how to respect 
 them." Pallavicini sent in his resignation at 
 once, and Garibaldi gave Crispi the charge of 
 forming a new ministry, that which had served 
 under Pallavicini going out with him. The 
 Moderates at once began organising hostile 
 demonstrations in Naples, and in the end Gari- 
 baldi, worn out by the annoyances of the con- 
 stant and rancorous hostility to all his inten-
 
 I04 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 tions and the men devoted to their develop- 
 ment, and longing for his repose of Caprera, 
 gave up the struggle, and left the field open to 
 the opposition of His Majesty. 
 
 In transferring the authority assumed by 
 him, and confirmed by the population of the 
 southern provinces, to the " King of Italy " 
 thus officially for the first time so recognised, 
 the Dictator accompanied the abdication by 
 the following letter, the last official composi- 
 tion of Crispi in his connection with the 
 revolution : — 
 
 Sire — When on landing in Sicily I assumed the 
 Dictature, I did so in your name, and for you, noble 
 prince, on whom rest all the hopes of the nation. I 
 satisfied then a desire of my heart, and fulfilled a 
 promise consecrated by numerous acts, by laying in 
 your hands the power which by all rights belongs to 
 you, now that the people of the southern provinces 
 of Italy have solemnly pronounced in favour of 
 your rule and that of your descendants in legitimate 
 line. 
 
 I remit to you the supreme authority over ten 
 millions of Italians, the prey until a few months ago 
 of a stupid and ferocious despotism, and for whom a 
 reforming government is henceforward necessary. 
 This government they will have from you whom 
 God has elected to found the Italian nation, and to 
 render it free and prosperous at home, powerful and 
 respected abroad. 
 
 You will find in these regions a people at once 
 docile and intelligent, disposed to order as much as
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 105 
 
 desirous of liberty, ready for the greatest sacrifices 
 whenever they shall be demanded in the interests of 
 the country and of a national government. During 
 the six months that I have had the government of 
 them I have only had to congratulate myself on the 
 character and good-will of this people which I have 
 had — in association with my co-workers — to give to 
 Italy, from which our tyrants had separated them. 
 
 I say nothing of my government. Sicily, despite 
 all the difficulties raised by people from abroad, has 
 received civil and political institutions equal to those 
 of Upper Italy, and enjoys an unexampled tranquillity. 
 Here, on the continent, where the presence of the 
 enemy still constitutes an obstacle, the people makes 
 rapid progress (and all its acts bear testimony to 
 this) towards the national unity. These results are 
 due to the activity and intelligence of the two dis- 
 tinguished patriots to whom I have confided the 
 administration of affairs. 
 
 Will your Majesty permit me a prayer, which 
 will be the only one, in the moment in which I resign 
 the power into your hands. I implore of you that 
 your very high protection shall be accorded to those 
 who have been my collaborators in this great work 
 of the enfranchisement of Southern Italy, and that 
 you will welcome to your army my companions in 
 arms, who have so well deserved of you and of the 
 fatherland. — I am. Sire, etc. 
 
 Caserta, 29//? October i860. 
 
 The manner in which this prayer of Gari- 
 baldi was thrown to the winds is one of the 
 ineffaceable stains on the career of Cavour and 
 the Piedmontese Government of the time, and
 
 io6 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 the result has fully justified the anxiety of 
 Crispi to have the necessary time given for the 
 adaptation of the people of the southern pro- 
 vinces to the new regime, so that the union 
 might be the union of willing populations of 
 different habits, laws, and associations, with 
 only their aspirations and language in common, 
 and not, what both Garibaldi and Crispi feared, 
 the annexation of the southern stock to the 
 kingdom of Sardinia, with all the inevitable 
 violences of a sudden and unelastic change of 
 relations, and the imposition of a practically 
 foreign caste of rulers. The conduct of Cavour 
 towards Crispi was especially brutal and un- 
 worthy the position the two men held in the 
 history of Italy. Crispi had shown his dis- 
 interestedness by refusing all advancement in 
 Sicily by accompanying Garibaldi to Naples 
 as his assistant, when he might have taken the 
 first position in his native island : by refusing 
 all compensation for his services, and by with- 
 drawing his personality in all the more or less 
 partial conflicts in which the exceptional posi- 
 tion and influence he had over Garibaldi in- 
 volved him. He had shaped the generous but 
 illogical impulses of Garibaldi to the situation 
 at which affairs had arrived, always constant 
 to the end in view from the beginning, union 
 of Italy under Vittorio Emanuele, and if any 
 man who had taken part in the expedition of 
 The Thousand merited the confidence of the
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 107 
 
 King it was Crispi. When, then, he retired 
 from practical poHtics after the departure of 
 Garibaldi for Caprera, and went back to his 
 home in Palermo he turned his back on all 
 political advancement other than that which 
 should come to him from the popular recog- 
 nition. Mordini, in whom, till the complete 
 assimilation should take place, the supreme 
 power was vested, was a man of sterling in- 
 dependence, but so far as the formulas of politics 
 went, was not in sympathy with Crispi ; but 
 the latter was regarded as of too great influence 
 to permit the clique, who in spite of the 
 annexation still intrigued against Sicily, to leave 
 him in peace. When, therefore, the voyage 
 of the King, which was to mark the change 
 from the old to the new order of things, was 
 near, it was decided at Turin that La Farina 
 should be made the Minister of the Interior to 
 the new Viceroy, the Chevalier de Monte- 
 zemolo, but the good sense of Mordini, re- 
 membering the past relations of La Farina and 
 of Crispi, made this too evidently a menace to 
 the harmony of the occasion, so that it was 
 finally decided that they should only land in 
 Sicily when the King embarked to leave it. 
 Cavour wrote, " I do not like the expedient, 
 which I regard however as admissible. But 
 for the love of God make no more concessions 
 to the Crispini and the Garibaldini." The 
 war which had been carried on secretly in
 
 io8 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 Naples against the policy of Garibaldi when 
 it was not safe to oppose him personally, and 
 against his friends and the advisers who sup- 
 ported his ideas, was now to be carried on in 
 Sicily openly, the Dictator being out of the 
 field.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 La Farina, the new minister, and his colleague, 
 Cordova, also Sicilian, made the Government 
 so unpopular that the public expressions of dis- 
 content soon provoked a crisis, and La Farina, 
 attributing, sincerely or not, the agitation 
 which was menacing his government, to Crispi, 
 determined to arrest him. During the night 
 of the last day of December, the police sent 
 for this purpose presented themselves at the 
 door of his apartment and rang the bell. 
 Crispi, living on the third floor in the humblest 
 state, went to the door himself, and when the 
 gens-d'arme replied to his " Who is there ? " by 
 the announcement that they had come to arrest 
 the advocate Crispi, he refused to open. They 
 had no means of forcing the strong oak door, 
 and concluded to guard it till the daylight 
 permitted other tactics. As soon as daylight 
 appeared, Crispi went out on his balcony, 
 looking out on the main street of Palermo, and 
 gave the alarm, " robbers, robbers," and as the 
 people began to assemble he begged them to 
 go for the national guard as there were robbers
 
 no FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 in the house. The crowd gathered at the 
 main door of the house, and when there was 
 an assemblage sufficient to secure the power- 
 lessness of the poHce, Crispi addressed them 
 from his elevation, denouncing the attempt of 
 the Government to arrest him secretly and 
 violate the liberties of the citizen. The agita- 
 tion which La Farina had hoped to anticipate 
 became the worst that he had apprehended, 
 and the entire population poured out into the 
 streets, while the national guard was called to 
 arms. La Farina summoned the general in 
 command of the garrison to order out the troops 
 and disperse the mob, to which the officer 
 replied by a decided refusal, saying that " It 
 was strange that when the Government of 
 Vittorio Emanuele had hardly become estab- 
 lished it should attempt to shed the blood of 
 the people." La Farina accepted the alter- 
 native, he resigned, and with his colleagues of 
 the Viceregal ministry left Palermo the next 
 night, embarking for the continent on a Sardinian 
 man-of-war at Messina. 
 
 The elections for the first Italian Parliament 
 were at hand, and Crispi was a candidate for 
 Palermo. The same rancorous hostility at 
 Turin, which had made his official relations 
 with Garibaldi so painful, continued its work 
 when there was no longer any question which 
 could be materially influenced by the presence 
 of any single individual in the new Chamber
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI iii 
 
 of Deputies, unless he were indeed of the first 
 power and political importance, and this one 
 must consider Crispi to have been, in the esti- 
 mation of Cavour, the most determined and 
 successful pressure being applied to prevent his 
 being elected. Against him was nominated 
 the Marquis of Torrearsa, a well-known and 
 wealthy Sicilian patrician, who was elected, 
 thanks to all the pressure of the official world. 
 An influential and devoted friend of Crispi, 
 Baron Favara, with a prevision of this result, 
 had quietly and unknown to Crispi or the 
 Government, caused him to be nominated at 
 Castelvetrano, a little city in the south-west of 
 the island, where the family of Favara had 
 property and influence enough to control the 
 election, and Crispi was there elected. And 
 here, at the first step of the legal political 
 career which crowned the eflforts of his life, 
 the arch-Sicilian conspirator, to whom more 
 than to any other man the island owed its 
 entry into the life of Italy, the curious ebb 
 of fortune left him stranded. He had not the 
 money to take him to Turin to assume the 
 place in the Chamber of Deputies. His father 
 dying in 1857 had left his property in equal 
 parts to his two sons, deducting from Francesco's 
 what he had sent him during his exile, and the 
 remainder, the product of the sale of the land 
 that fell to him, had barely served his rigid 
 economies during the years of exile and official
 
 112 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 existence with Garibaldi, and were utterly- 
 exhausted when the establishment of order and 
 liberty left him a freeman in his freed native 
 land. A public subscription was made to 
 enable him to take his place in the Chamber 
 of Deputies. That the political life of the 
 Deputy from Castelvetrano should be marked 
 by outbursts of bitterness, and even occasional 
 savagery, need not surprise us. From 1 848 he 
 had suffered exile and poverty for the liberty 
 and union of Italy ; almost alone, and certainly 
 with assistance from few others, he had carried 
 to success a conspiracy ending in a revolutionary 
 movement which assured the national unity ; 
 a republican of old and tenacious faith, he had 
 accepted the monarchy and the House of Savoy 
 as the safety of that unity and given his utmost 
 efforts to the annexation in principle which 
 abolished the kingdom of Sicily in which, in- 
 dependent, he might have been amongst the 
 chiefs of the state ; and he found himself pro- 
 scribed by the men whom he had laboured to 
 give the power they abused to his loss ; opposed 
 with a hostility they did not even show the 
 adherents of the fallen monarchies ; he had 
 risked life and liberty only to gain new and 
 more shameful persecutions, and it is not to be 
 wondered at that these results should make him 
 an implacable enemy of the party in power 
 and goad his naturally volcanic temperament 
 into those occasional demonstrations of the
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 113 
 
 worst side of his nature in the ahnost brutal, 
 and to him more than to any other disastrous, 
 attacks on every measure the Right proposed. 
 Having made the great sacrifice of his nearest 
 personal ambitions, accepted the compromise 
 with his political principles for the sake of the 
 unity of Italy, he was indisposed to submit to 
 the perpetual insult which the conduct of the 
 men in power constituted, and he showed his 
 revolt as he had that against the Bourbons, by 
 an irreconcilable hostility which was paid him 
 back in kind. What made his position more 
 exasperating was the fact that he had by his 
 acceptation of the monarchy alienated the 
 political associates of all his earlier life, and 
 drawn on himself the bitter hostility of Mazzini 
 and the Mazzinians, who could not forgive his 
 abandonment of the Republic ; and this double 
 hostility of old foes and old friends, the former 
 not conciliated by the alienation of the latter, 
 was intensified by the consciousness that the 
 man was of a dangerous and invincible in- 
 dividuality. Cavour began by a fatal blunder 
 and all the Right followed, they attempted to 
 suppress the publicist as they had tried to crush 
 the revolutionary, and they only succeeded in 
 making of him a refractory and often embar- 
 rassing element in their politics. 
 
 Crispi took his seat with the extreme Left, 
 where he has always remained when not in the 
 ministry. He was a chronic opposer of all the 
 
 I
 
 114 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 ministries of the Right, and only during the 
 termof Rattazzi showed a benevolence measured 
 and considerate under the circumstances in 
 which that minister was placed, earnestly de- 
 siring the complete emancipation of Italy, 
 comprising Venice and Rome, but always 
 apprehensive of the Emperor of the French, 
 whose fiat in all things regarding Italy was 
 then almost omnipotent. He took part in the 
 formation of the patriotic associations which 
 kept up the agitation for this emancipation, 
 and was with Aurelio Saffi, Alberto Mario, 
 and others in the council of the Emancipairice^ 
 one of the most important of them. The re- 
 presentatives of these societies met in the end 
 of 1 86 1 to form a confederation of the societies, 
 under the name of the Union of the Liberal, 
 Democratic, Italian Associations, with the pro- 
 gramme of "The plebiscite of 21st October 
 i860, Rome capital, political equality amongst 
 all classes of Italians, the armed nation according 
 to the idea of Garibaldi," with the office of 
 advocating a strict supervision of the internal 
 and external relations of Italy, preparation of 
 the national defence, and the protection of the 
 liberty of the press. A deputation of the 
 committees of supervision, composed of Crispi, 
 Mordini, Musolino, Miceli, and Dolfi, was 
 sent to Caprera to communicate to Garibaldi 
 what had been done and what it was deter- 
 mined to do. The General promised his aid,
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 115 
 
 and presided at the first sitting of the com- 
 mittee, designating Crispi as his substitute for 
 the subsequent meetings. The assembly con- 
 cluded the proposition and active prosecution 
 of the following measures of national policy — 
 agitation for the armament of the nation ; 
 multiplication of the associations for the libera- 
 tion of Rome and Venice in all the country, 
 and universal suffrage. This was in effect the 
 programme of the party of action, for the 
 moment in accord with the Government, and 
 undoubtedly in agreement with Rattazzi and 
 Ricasoli as to the ends to be attained. Ricasoli 
 had given place to Rattazzi in the Government 
 before any steps were taken to advance beyond 
 the published programme above given towards 
 the realisation of the remaining steps towards 
 the national unity. Rattazzi was in secret 
 accord with the committee, and it was agreed 
 that the forward movement, under the lead of 
 Garibaldi, should be made. It was arranged 
 that the corps of Genoese Carabineers, under 
 Menotti Garibaldi, should be organised with 
 the destination, perhaps only nominal, of the 
 service of the repression of brigandage in 
 Southern Italy ; that the committee should be 
 furnished with a million francs and a supply of 
 arms, that Garibaldi should be sent, at the 
 expense of the state, on a tour in Europe, 
 presumably to prepare the public opinion in 
 certain regions, and the connivance of the
 
 ii6 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 Government in a movement on the Tyrol. 
 In this assurance Garibaldi at the proper 
 moment took charge, at the frontiers of the 
 Trentine, of the organisation of the forces and 
 material w^hich the committee had concen- 
 trated there. Thus far the Government W3.s 
 silent, but then, v^ith one of those mysterious 
 retreats w^hich have always been characteristic 
 of Italian policy while the Government of 
 France had any influence in Italy, it interfered 
 to repress and imprison. On the 15th of May 
 1862 many arrests of the volunteers assembled 
 at Palazzolo, Sarnico, and other points near 
 the frontier were made, and at Brescia blood 
 was shed. The movement was at an end. On 
 the 3rd of June Crispi in the Chamber de- 
 nounced the ministry and demanded that the 
 Chamber constitute itself in secret committee, 
 in which he would denounce, with the proofs 
 of names and dates, the misconduct of the 
 ministry. He was defeated by a majority of 
 one in his demand for an inquiry. From that 
 time he was the political opponent of Rattazzi, 
 with all the volcanic vehemence of his nature. 
 It was to this departure, and to this incident, 
 probably, that the prolonged abstention of 
 Crispi from all participation in Government 
 and his chronic, and often unreasonably violent, 
 course of opposition were due. 
 
 In the affair of Aspromonte, which followed 
 closely. Garibaldi followed up in another field
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 117 
 
 the struggle for the national unity begun on 
 the Tyrolese frontier, and again met the mys- 
 terious interference from beyond the Alps. 
 On the reassembling of Parliament, Rattazzi 
 was violently attacked by the Left, and Crispi 
 took an important part in the debate which 
 ended in the resignation of the ministry, 
 which did not affront a vote which might 
 have had more important consequences than 
 its own overthrow. In the session of 17th 
 November 1 864 Crispi, with others of the Left, 
 made a furious attack on the famous Conven- 
 tion of September, by which Italy entered into 
 a compact with France to cause the authority 
 of the Pope over the Pontifical state to be re- 
 spected, the opposition declaring this conven- 
 tion an infringement of the rights of the nation. 
 A division took place in the party, and the 
 convention was approved. Mordini, the leader 
 of the dissident members of the Left, having 
 declared that if he had considered the conven- 
 tion a violation of the plebiscite, he would 
 have resigned and conducted his opposition in 
 another place, Crispi replied in a speech which 
 furnished one of his most important declara- 
 tions. " I cannot," he said, " remain under the 
 accusation of a declaration which touches me 
 and my friends, and which would, if admitted, 
 put us in contradiction with my principles. 
 I am convinced that the national compact, based 
 on the plebiscite of 21st October i860, is violated
 
 ii8 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 by the convention of 15th September. I do 
 not from that draw the consequence that I 
 ought to leave the place which my electors 
 have assigned me, and where I shall remain as 
 long as I preserve their confidence. It is not 
 the first time that I have regarded the law as 
 violated by the Parliament ; it is not the first 
 time that others, in that belief, have invited 
 me to leave this seat. But a soldier does not 
 desert the post assigned him by the law, where 
 duty calls and keeps him, where he must, if 
 necessary, die under the blows inflicted even in 
 violation of the law. I have no other flag to 
 show ; mine is that which I opened when 
 landing with Garibaldi at Marsala, ' Italy one, 
 with Vittorio Emanuele.' Those who admit 
 another standard do not desire the unity of 
 Italy. I have said before, and have repeated 
 in the communes that I have lately visited in 
 Sicily, ' The Monarchy unites us ; the Republic 
 would divide us.' We unitarians are before all 
 monarchists, and we support the monarchy 
 better than the monarchists of earlier date." 
 The sensation produced by this speech was 
 such that the sitting of the Chamber was sus- 
 pended. Amongst the most important conse- 
 quences of this position so defiantly taken, and 
 which placed Crispi in antagonism with many 
 of his oldest associates, without in the least 
 reconciling to him his old opponents, was the 
 formal separation from Mazzini, who attacked
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 119 
 
 Crispi in a letter, amongst the most remarkable 
 he has left, accusing him of deserting the poli- 
 tical faith. Crispi replied in a letter equally 
 characteristic, and which remains the unchanged 
 expression of his political creed. As an ex- 
 ample of his thought, and the style which 
 grows naturally in him from it, it best deserves 
 reproduction of all his writings. I give it in 
 an appendix. It is now, as it was then, the 
 summary of his convictions and his determina- 
 tions, and where he had varied from the strict 
 conformity to its indications, it has been on 
 account of practical obstacles, which he pre- 
 ferred turning to combatting. I do not think 
 that an impartial critic can read it without the 
 conviction of Crispi's sterling sincerity, political 
 honesty, and patriotism.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The general elections of 1865 placed the 
 Left in the position of a party which might 
 aspire to govern. What prevented it from 
 taking power was probably what has always 
 been the weakness of Italian politics, the 
 aversion to discipline and the personal ambi- 
 tions of men willing to sacrifice the solid 
 future for the trivial present. Except during 
 the period of combat, and between the men 
 of combat, there has never been any coher- 
 ence amongst Italian publicists, and personal 
 ambition, where it has existed, has always 
 dissolved the combinations which the motives 
 of the day have created. In the case of 1865 
 there were other causes unfavourable to a 
 healthy party organisation — the brooding war, 
 the weakness of Rattazzi before the influence 
 of France, and the capriciousness of the King ; 
 above all, perhaps, the impossibility of a really 
 Italian policy in view of the deference of the 
 King for the ideas of Napoleon III. Crispi 
 was elected one of the Vice-Presidents of the 
 Chamber, with Depretis and De Luca, the
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 121 
 
 ministry having elected, by a small majority, 
 their candidate for the President. Crispi was 
 now seen to be a force in the Chamber, and 
 in the composition of the ministry reformed 
 under Lamarmora, after a defeat on a financial 
 question soon after the opening of the session, 
 his co-operation was sought, in view of the 
 necessity of a strong Government to carry on 
 the war of 1866, as to which Crispi had taken 
 strong ground ; but the negotiations failed, as 
 did others later, in which Ricasoli took the 
 chief role. The apparent reason for his re- 
 fusal was the differences which manifested 
 themselves in the financial discussions, in the 
 course of which a law for the imposition of 
 the income-tax, supported by Crispi, and recog- 
 nised as a necessary democratic measure, was 
 opposed by Ricasoli, and carried by a small 
 majority, Rattazzi and Ricasoli voting in the 
 minority. 
 
 In the conduct of the war Crispi opposed 
 the deference to Napoleon, and insisted on 
 the purely Italian direction of it. Perhaps 
 a suspicion of the inevitable adoption of the 
 French programme lay at the bottom of his 
 disinclination to accept office ; it is certain 
 that his aversion to the Emperor of the French 
 was always one of the determining elements of 
 his conclusions. He was a friend of France 
 but not of the Emperor, and this distinction 
 has never been absent from his ideas of the
 
 122 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 international relations. The extreme deference 
 of the King for Napoleon III. was the real 
 cause of the weakness of Italy, and in this 
 Crispi had no part. The war, as we know, 
 was a humiliation. Whether Lamarmora had, 
 or not, any cognition of the ulterior plans of 
 the Emperor it is impossible now to say, but 
 the dictation of the general character of the 
 campaign accepted by him left the position of 
 Italy one of questionable international good 
 faith and unquestionable disgrace. That the 
 strategy imposed on Italy by him in opposition 
 to that arranged with Prussia left Bismarck 
 free to come to an arrangement with Austria, 
 which he could not have adopted in the case 
 of Italy's having followed the arranged pro- 
 gramme, is undoubted, and that peace should 
 have been concluded at a moment when Italy 
 could only show for all her preparations the 
 defeats of Custozza and Lissa and the arrested 
 advance of Garibaldi in Trent, was simply 
 and purely the consequence of the dictation 
 of Napoleon III. is equally clear. In all this 
 Crispi had no participation except a momentary 
 visit to Garibaldi in the midst of the operations 
 in the valley of the Adige. His opinion of 
 the campaign is put on record. He said : 
 " At Berlin they have not forgotten that if 
 the war of 1866 had not the result generally 
 foreseen it is because Italy failed in the accord 
 established between the two powers. If the
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 123 
 
 ministers of the day had done their duty, if 
 the chief of our armies had played the part 
 expected of him, we should not have engaged 
 in an inefficient demonstration at Custozza ; 
 we should have gone to Vienna to treat with 
 the Emperor of Austria." On another occa- 
 sion he has given this feeling a more pointed 
 expression in the following words : " We 
 never loved Louis-Napoleon. But from that 
 moment our hatred for him had no longer 
 limits. And our esteem for Lamarmora ceased 
 for ever when we knew that he — he, the 
 General — had lent himself to such ignoble 
 combinations. The campaign of 1866 was 
 lost because they wished to lose it." 
 
 In the end of 1866 was founded the journal 
 La Riforma^ the organ of a group of the Left — 
 Crispi, Bertani, Cairoli, De Boni, and Carcassi, 
 with Tommaso - Crudeli of the moderate 
 Liberals, and Alberto Mario, Republican 
 without compromise. The programme an- 
 nounced in La Riforma was one of wide 
 reforms, as its name implied. It put in the 
 forefront of them universal suffrage, excluding 
 the illiterate ; the scrutin de liste ; the payment 
 of the Deputies, and the incompatibility of the 
 function of Deputy with any public office ; the 
 ineligibility of all who held contracts with 
 the state or had interests subventioned by the 
 state ; absolute religious liberty and separation 
 of the state and the church ; abolition of the
 
 124 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 conscription and the national guard, and the 
 transformation of the standing army into a 
 national militia ; abolition or simplification of 
 the special committees for the different arms 
 and the military departments ; more rigorous 
 definition of ministerial responsibility ; simpli- 
 fication of the administration of justice ; aboli- 
 tion of the death-penalty ; extension of the 
 right of bail ; freedom and obligation of 
 primary instruction ; autonomy of the uni- 
 versities ; abolition of religious instruction 
 from the schools ; decentralisation in the ad- 
 ministration of affairs ; proportional and pro- 
 gressive income-tax ; abolition of monopolies 
 in the customs, and general taxation, with 
 general sale of all the ecclesiastical patrimony. 
 On all these objects few of the founders of the 
 journal were agreed, and each retained his 
 personal responsibility for his personal pro- 
 gramme ; but the paper became a more or 
 less completely reorganised organ of the entire 
 Left, and, as the founders fell away in death 
 or division of policy, it remained finally the 
 personal property of Crispi, a costly possession 
 and one which has perhaps done him more 
 harm than good in his political fortunes.^ 
 
 ^ Journalism is always a losing business in Italy if conducted 
 on principles of honesty and public interest alone, and it is said 
 that the losses by La Riforma to Crispi alone have been upward 
 of a million francs during its existence and until his acceptation 
 of office in 1893, when he disclaimed any further interest in it 
 or responsibility for what might appear in its columns. It was
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 125 
 
 The Ricasoli ministry fell on the adverse 
 report of the committee on the ministerial 
 project regarding the liberty of the church and 
 the disposal of the ecclesiastical property, and 
 was reconstructed with Depretis in the place of 
 Scialoia in the Ministry of Finance, but finally 
 offered its resignation, and as the King refused 
 to accept it, Mordini made an interpellation on 
 the subject of popular meetings in the Veneto 
 on which the ministry was defeated and, after 
 a prorogation, dissolved the Chamber but was 
 defeated in the elections. The new Chamber 
 was convoked for the 22nd of March 1867, 
 but before it met, the King by the mediation 
 of General Cialdini made overtures to Crispi 
 to form a ministry or take the Interior in one 
 presided over by Ricasoli. But there was no 
 community of ideas between the two, and 
 Crispi again declined. The ministry struggled 
 on for a short time, but finally, and for Ricasoli 
 definitely, fell in April. In a subsequent dis- 
 cussion Crispi was accused jocularly of being a 
 devourer of ministries, and after the manner of 
 the man who has no perception of humour, he 
 replied seriously, " No, I have never been a 
 
 for a few years longer conducted by friends, but with no 
 authoritative character so far as Crispi is concerned. Crispi's 
 large income in later years from his legal business enabled him 
 to support, in great part, this heavy expense ; but it is no secret 
 that the larger part of it for some years went into the support of 
 the journal, and when he assumed office in 1887 he had created 
 debts mainly for it to the amount of 240,000 francs.
 
 126 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 devourer of ministries ; all the ministries which 
 have existed since 1861 have been devoured by 
 the majorities w^hich should have supported 
 them. If in the path I follow, which leads to 
 liberty, I meet Signor Rattazzi, I should be 
 content, at least I should not complain. There 
 was a moment in i860 when the Hon. Ricasoli 
 desired to follow my road. I commit no in- 
 discretion in saying that, according to him, the 
 programme of the ministry of which we should 
 have formed part would have surprised the 
 world and marked a change in Italian policy, 
 a change corresponding to the fact of Ricasoli 
 and Crispi being associated. But we understood 
 that our meeting was only temporary, and that 
 our roads were not the same. Ricasoli com- 
 posed a Cabinet which did not know how to 
 avoid the disasters of Custozza and Lissa, and 
 I remained a simple Deputy." 
 
 Crispi was now the actual and even potent 
 chief of the Left, then a party uncorrupted by 
 power, and united by the associations of combat 
 and sacrifice for liberty. Had Crispi been 
 more ambitious of place the party had then 
 taken the Government, and had its members 
 been as rigid in their conception of party dis- 
 cipline as he was, the accession of the party 
 was inevitable. But Depretis, who later 
 became the creator of the invertebrate party 
 organism known as " Transformism " had 
 already begun the work which was finally to
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 127 
 
 destroy all traces of party organisation and 
 parliamentary discipline, and the Left was not 
 united. Crispi held to its rigid maintenance 
 of its principles, and in the subsequent dis- 
 cussions he defined them in their relation to 
 the situation. " What are we ? We are they 
 who believed that the achievement of unity 
 should precede that of liberty, even at the price 
 of the sacrifice of the latter. But to-day that 
 the question of Venice is settled we who would 
 have employed any means for the redemption 
 of this Italian land, and the securing of our in- 
 dependence, we are of the opinion that it is 
 necessary to change the system and have re- 
 course to no other arm than liberty — liberty 
 should give us what we still lack. My duty 
 is then to proclaim here, in the midst of the 
 representatives of the nation, that it is only in 
 re- organising our interior administration, in 
 consolidating our institutions, that we shall 
 obtain what remains of Italian soil in the hands 
 of the foreigner. This is the reason that we 
 are opposed to any act of aggression against the 
 other European powers. What do we wish ? 
 We wish an internal administration as simple 
 and economical as possible ; we wish taxes 
 well arranged and less burthensome ; we wish, 
 finally, a real liberty and not the seeming of 
 liberty which we have thus far enjoyed. We 
 wish that Italy should be consolidated as a 
 nation, convinced that, once consolidated, the
 
 128 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 return to the mother-country of those regions 
 of Italy which are still in the hands of the 
 foreigner will be the natural compliment of 
 what we have done, and, I will say, the reward 
 of our wisdom. To-day liberty and civilisation 
 are more potent than the cannon. If there be 
 still some who think that because some of us 
 have been at Marsala and Friuli, our party still 
 dreams of renewing those rash attempts, they 
 deceive themselves and strangely misunderstand 
 our intentions. Everything has its day, and 
 our party is not fossilised. In politics the 
 conduct of men ought to change with time and 
 the social and political condition of the country. 
 What ought not to vary is the end we propose 
 to ourselves." 
 
 The definite fall of Ricasoli and the accepta- 
 tion of the office of forming the new ministry 
 by Rattazzi, brought Crispi to the front again. 
 Rattazzi offered him a post in the Cabinet. 
 This time he declined on account of his rela- 
 tions with Garibaldi. The General was at 
 this time contemplating the expedition which 
 was to end at Mentana, and Crispi being in his 
 confidence and unable to dissuade him from the 
 undertaking, declined an offer which he foresaw 
 might bring him into antagonism with the 
 chief who held his devotion. He attempted 
 to dissuade him from the attempt until there 
 had been at least a rising in Rome, and pre- 
 dicted, what Garibaldi had refused to con-
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 129 
 
 template as possible, the intervention of the 
 Emperor of France. The General was im- 
 movable, and Crispi refused the proffered port- 
 folio. There exists a letter of Crispi, w^ritten 
 on this occasion, to Garibaldi, which says : " If 
 you attempt a coup de ?nain on the Pontifical 
 States, in less than three months the French 
 are in Italy." Although Crispi had opposed 
 the Convention of September which guaranteed 
 the frontiers of the dominions of the Pope from 
 all attacks from without, he held it the duty 
 of the Government to maintain it when accepted, 
 and for this reason he was tenacious in urging 
 Garibaldi to respect it and wait for the Romans 
 to remove the bar by a movement from within, 
 since the convention made it inevitable that 
 the Government should oppose him, if only to 
 prevent the return of the French troops. 
 
 But in fact the convention had been evaded 
 by the Emperor even before it had been defied 
 by Garibaldi. According to it the French 
 troops were to be all withdrawn and the 
 Romans left to their loyalty and their own 
 forces. The Antibes Legion, so called to hide 
 the real nature of it, and induce the world to 
 believe that it was a force of volunteers devoted 
 to the Pope, was in reality composed of French 
 soldiers, some, if not all, of whom were still in 
 the term of active service, and were under 
 orders from Paris. This fact increased greatly 
 the ferment and paralysed to a certain extent 
 
 K
 
 I30 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 the efforts of the Government to maintain order. 
 A committee of assistance was formed, of which 
 Crispi was the life, and which attempted prin- 
 cipally to organise the movement from Rome, 
 meanwhile preparing the means to maintain 
 the struggle once commenced. Up to the last 
 Crispi persisted in dissuading Garibaldi from 
 the invasion, assuring him that the Government 
 would do all in its power to prevent it, to 
 which Garibaldi replied that he preferred 
 dying to living in the shameful condition Italy 
 was still in, and that he would not be dissuaded ; 
 and when Crispi again predicted that he would 
 provoke a foreign intervention, the General 
 said, " A war with the foreigner would be the 
 regeneration of Italy — if France should inter- 
 fere you would be with me," to which Crispi 
 gave his promise. But to the last day he 
 opposed the expedition and only ceased to urge 
 his views when he saw that the country was 
 with Garibaldi and that a more forcible 
 opposition would only bring on a civil war. 
 
 With the history of Mentana, and the 
 effects on the politics of Rome and Europe 
 I have nothing to do. Crispi was sent by 
 the committee to persuade the General to 
 withdraw to the Italian territory, when the 
 intervention of France had become a fait 
 accompli and the Garibaldians had been defeated, 
 though Garibaldi even then refused to believe 
 that the French were in the battle, and pro-
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 131 
 
 posed to reorganise his troops for a renewal of 
 the battle on the next day. Convinced by 
 Crispi of the reality of the French participation 
 he resigned himself to the disaster and was 
 returning to Florence when he was arrested by 
 the Italian gens-d'arme and imprisoned. Crispi 
 made a passionate protest against the dis- 
 graceful arrest and contested its legitimacy in 
 the tribunal. In the interpellations which 
 occupied the chamber in consequence, he took 
 a part, and in one of his speeches he said what 
 has been shown prophetic : " The expedition 
 of 1849 killed the Republic — the expedition 
 of 1867 will kill the Empire," and it was the 
 fact, then publicly declared by Guerzoni, that 
 " Mentana had killed Magenta," which made 
 the combination proposed by Austria in 1870 
 in favour of France, unacceptable, and by 
 compromising the relations of Italy with 
 France and binding the latter to the fortunes 
 of the Temporal power, made the alliance with 
 Italy and Austria for the defence of France, 
 impossible. Having no part or influence with 
 the ministry, Crispi had no share in the official 
 responsibility for the decisions taken by it, but 
 he was the soul of the opposition to any 
 participation, moral or actual, in the events 
 which followed, from Mentana to the invasion 
 of Germany by France, not from any hostility 
 to the French nation, but because, like all the 
 Italians of republican tendencies, he opposed
 
 132 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 the schemes and combinations of the Emperor, 
 as he had in the beginning the alliance with 
 him for the war of 1859. Crispi had seen 
 from the higher point of view of exile, that 
 the alliance with the ambitions and dreams of 
 empire of the Napoleons promised no good for 
 Italy and its unity, and time has only confirmed 
 his prevision, common for the rest to the band 
 of exiles who from English soil had repudiated 
 the alliance of Napoleon as politically immoral 
 and capable of doing nothing but harm to 
 Italy. That the making of Italy was too rapid 
 and easy, is a common remark now amongst 
 Italians who are capable of estimating the real 
 condition of the country. A longer struggle, 
 a more thorough realisation of the value of 
 unity and independence would have made the 
 union more solid and not have opened so 
 widely the door to extravagance and corruption. 
 Cavour's haste to bring into the system of 
 Piedmontese constitutionalism, nations utterly 
 distinct in traditions of government and life, 
 was the gravest blunder in the shaping of 
 Italian unity. The conception of the needs 
 of the case which Crispi and Garibaldi held to 
 as long as it was possible in the case of Sicily, 
 was far wiser, as was the hostility of those 
 exiles who opposed the alliance with Napoleon 
 wiser than the haste of Cavour. There was 
 no danger that the process, healthily begun 
 and continued from 1830 by a natural law,
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 133 
 
 should not work out its healthy fulfilment, and 
 with all his dynastic blindness and absolutist 
 fear of popular liberty, Carlo Alberto, in his 
 Italia fard da se^ had a higher perception of 
 the future of Italy than had Cavour and 
 Vittorio Emanuele in their over-hasting. With 
 the perception of these things constantly pre- 
 sent, seeing his Sicily misunderstood as he had 
 foreseen she would be if too unpreparedly 
 brought into a practically foreign government, 
 in which her public men had substantially no 
 voice as to the measures to be adopted in the 
 forced assimilation with Piedmont ; attacked as 
 he was continually by the Right as a revolu- 
 tionist and a foreigner, all the part he had taken 
 in the accomplished union absolutely ignored 
 by those in power, it is not strange that what 
 happened should happen — that Crispi with his 
 violent and impulsive temperament, should 
 attack every compromise with his ideals of 
 government, and be a perpetual irreconcilable 
 in Parliament, as he became, and that in spite 
 of his universally recognised abilities, and 
 occasional overtures from the succesive Cabinet 
 makers, he should steadily refuse to take part 
 in any ministry which was not ready to accept 
 his programme. Almost invariably in extreme 
 opposition, and always in the front of it, even 
 his political friends were not always with him 
 in his advance, but he has never been afraid 
 to stand alone, and almost as often constituted
 
 134 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 the forlorn hope as led it. As Italian politics 
 are conducted this was not a nature to be in 
 the ministry, and the inevitable, under the 
 circumstances, happened. What might have 
 happened in the other, and possible case, of his 
 becoming the actual director of the opposition, 
 as he was the moral leader, it is useless to 
 conjecture, but it is certain that if the same 
 rigidity of his ideals of government which 
 prevented him from becoming a member of a 
 ministry, had not also prevented him from 
 accepting the compromises of a party, as parties 
 are made up in Italy, and becoming the tactical 
 head of it, he would have been prime minister 
 long before he was so. If I know the man, 
 there entered also into this conclusion the 
 conviction that as minister he would be obliged 
 to throw overboard all ideals which were too 
 advanced to enrol a majority in their support, 
 and he determined to wait till his programme 
 was possible of execution. His hopes were 
 destined to perpetual disappointment. Genera- 
 tions must elapse before the men who must, 
 or will, govern Italy can be made to see that 
 local interests and sectional claims must be 
 disciplined to the general good, and that no 
 advance is made when the principles of 
 government are sacrificed to momentary or 
 local advantages. In the effort to educate 
 his party, Crispi attempted to shape the 
 opposition to his conception of what the
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 135 
 
 majority should be. That portion of the 
 programme of reforms published in La 
 Riforma which was his own, he reiterated in a 
 publication on the occasion of the accession of 
 the Left to power in 1876, but then he might 
 momentarily have hoped for its actuation. 
 While he was officially as well as practically 
 in opposition he did not detach himself from 
 his party, because perhaps he hoped that when 
 the time came it might be ready for his 
 programme. In the stage in which 1870 
 found him, he was still the almost solitary 
 advance-sentinel of the Left. In the savage 
 opposition which was provoked in 1869 against 
 the Tobacco Monopoly, he was one of the 
 most savage, and the attacks of party against 
 party were intensified by the single combats 
 of individual against individual in a manner 
 which the later party history shows no 
 example of until the futile and disgraceful 
 campaign of the Radicals against Crispi in 
 1894-95. And in both epochs the main attack 
 was always directed against Crispi. It is 
 necessary to remember these things to under- 
 stand how large a part of the history of Italy 
 during the parliamentary period belonged to 
 Crispi, as it had during the revolutionary 
 period, and how completely his individuality 
 was preserved through both. But unfortu- 
 nately the concentration of his party for his 
 defence was not equal to that of the Right for
 
 136 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 his destruction. Every art was employed to 
 break him. Says Riccio, a friendly but 
 independent historian of this epoch [/ Meri- 
 dionali nella Camera^ : " His political action at 
 this time was marked by great savagery. He 
 followed his adversaries everywhere, in the 
 Tribunals ... in journalism with the com- 
 bative, aggressive, violent tone of ha Riforma ; 
 in Parliament, where he demanded, insisted, 
 on an inquest and finally obtained it in spite 
 of the will of the Right and the Ministry, 
 and the hesitations of his friends. Neither 
 the immense wrath and the vituperation of his 
 adversaries, nor their numerous menaces were 
 able to move him, any more than the prayers 
 of his friends and the defection of some of 
 them, like Guerzoni. Sometimes he was left 
 alone, often was followed unwillingly. A 
 man of another temper would have been 
 broken ; he pertinaciously continued the cam- 
 paign against Civinini and his friends. There 
 were moments in this struggle in which the 
 Left was afraid of its chief, in which it wished 
 to separate its responsibility from his. In the 
 sitting of 4th June 1869 Guerzoni said that 
 the responsibility of Crispi's proceeding rested 
 on the whole party. On the Left many' 
 shouted ' No ! ' there were those of the party 
 who feared to follow Crispi in the way he had 
 taken. On the Right a thousand traps were 
 set for him, and if he had been less careful, less
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 137 
 
 firm and decided he would have been in- 
 evitably lost. He had few companions faithful 
 and audacious as himself, Lobbia amongst 
 them, but he had on the contrary many 
 bitterly implacable adversaries. On this oc- 
 casion there was published by Ausonio Franchi 
 the correspondence of that most bitter and 
 pitiless deceased enemy of Crispi, Giuseppe 
 La Farina. There were in this correspondence 
 the most incredible vituperations, tremendous 
 accusations. They thus disinterred a dead 
 body, and the passions and hatred of the 
 deceased, vented in private letters, served as 
 instruments to fight the living. Crispi brought 
 a suit for libel against Franchi, giving entire 
 liberty of proving the allegations.^ The Court 
 condemned the slanderer, and the condemnation 
 was affirmed by the Court of Appeals." 
 
 ^ According to the Italian law of libel the defendant cannot 
 adduce, in proof of his libel, the facts of the case without the 
 consent of the plaintiff.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 In the sitting of the Chamber of January 25, 
 1869, Crispi had occasion to declare his 
 political programme, not in all respects that 
 of the party proclaimed two years before, 
 but probably those points of it which he con- 
 sidered of possible effectuation, and at the same 
 time he disavowed the position of chief of 
 the Left which the differences between the 
 principal members of the party made im- 
 possible for any one. He said, in effect, " We 
 are in a country in which the English customs 
 are not yet possible. Be it Right or Left, no 
 one can say that he has his leader, as in the 
 House of Commons." But in defining the 
 position of parties he said, " Between you and 
 us there is a great difference ; there are two 
 or three reforms which you will never favour 
 and which we have proclaimed and which we 
 should have the courage to carry out if we 
 had in the Chamber the means to pass them. 
 [" Hear," on the Left, and on the Right, 
 " What are they ? "] What .? Since you ask 
 me to state them I will do so in few words.
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 139 
 
 We desire a modification of the electoral law, 
 and you refuse it ; [" Hear, hear ! " on the 
 Left and uproar on the Right] we desire the 
 province to be independent of the political 
 power, at the head of each province a 
 magistrate elected by its citizens, and you 
 refuse it ; we wish a municipality master of 
 itself with a syndic nominated by popular 
 suffrage, and you refuse it ; [uproar on the 
 Right and cries, " Yes, and we will always 
 refuse it "] and in regard to the system of 
 taxation we are so divided in ideas and opinions 
 that it is impossible to understand each other ; 
 [interruptions on the Right] we think that the 
 State ought to have no other imposts than 
 direct ones, [uproar on the Right] except 
 the customs, which from necessity cannot be 
 abolished since the question of frontier duties 
 is like that of standing armies, which no state 
 can abolish so long as the entire hemisphere 
 does not abolish them — if Europe entire does 
 not disarm. As to the octroi, your grist-tax 
 comprised, from which you will not get even 
 the expenses of collection, we would give 
 them to the communes until other means 
 were provided to support the municipal finances 
 [contradictions at the Right]." In passing it 
 may be said that in some of these respects 
 Crispi is not now so positive as when this 
 statement was made, and that his ideas of the 
 practicable and the necessary compromises in
 
 I40 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 financial difficulties, as well as his experience 
 in a larger liberty than Italy had then enjoyed 
 have brought him nearer to the position of 
 the Right than he could then have believed 
 possible. But Italy had not then been under 
 the influence of all the corrupting agencies to 
 which she has since been subjected ; parties 
 had principles and some responsibility if not 
 responsible chiefs, and popular liberty was 
 very restricted. Crispi's errors were the 
 generous ones of a man who believed in the 
 virtue of the masses, and had not had the 
 opportunity to see that in certain parts of 
 the peninsula liberty and license had no ear- 
 marks to distinguish one from the other ; and 
 all of whose struggles thus far had been 
 against the usurpations of the ruling classes 
 and the merciless restrictions of the Bourbon : 
 and his experience in Italian politics had thus 
 led him to believe that there was a difference 
 in system only, but not in severity, between 
 him and the Piedmontese, in the treatment of 
 popular aspirations. 
 
 After the transference of the Capital to 
 Florence, Crispi's legal practice had increased 
 greatly and interfered with his functions as 
 Deputy ; he had built himself a house which 
 called for expenditure, which made attention 
 to his practice imperative, and his marital 
 relations were most unfortunate for a public 
 man, and both during his Florentine residence
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 141 
 
 and after the transfer of the Capital to Rome, 
 
 he was strongly disposed to withdraw from 
 
 public affairs, and in fact did send in his 
 
 resignation as Deputy, withdrawing it only on 
 
 an unanimous vote of the Chamber not to 
 
 accept it. He felt that the acquisition of the 
 
 national Capital, Rome, and the possibility of 
 
 the political completion of Italy making the 
 
 future smoother, left him free to follow his 
 
 own interests. He had never been ambitious 
 
 of office, and had refused it when it imposed 
 
 on him conditions which were entangling. 
 
 He found office impossible without alliances 
 
 which were not to his taste, and when finally 
 
 he consented as a citizen to a fusion of forces 
 
 with other parties than that to which he had 
 
 always been allied, and which he had in fact 
 
 led to some of its most important if rare 
 
 victories, he was attacked by the Radicals, and 
 
 even by old friends, as having betrayed the 
 
 Democracy. In a speech at a public meeting 
 
 after the occupation of Rome he defended 
 
 himself from that charge in a discourse which 
 
 was a renewal of the old watchword of Marsala, 
 
 " Unity under the House of Savoy." After 
 
 having shown why the movements of 1848 
 
 failed, he said : " Then came the days of 
 
 exile, of hopes and of delusions. We believed 
 
 that the Democracy to which was owing the 
 
 conception of Unity would have been able to 
 
 attain it by its own forces. We made for ten
 
 142 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 years audacious attempts without a real success. 
 In 1859 the people awoke again and displayed 
 a banner that was not ours. That banner was 
 accepted by Garibaldi, and he indicated it to 
 us as that in the shadow of which the nation 
 would be reconstituted. We yielded and en- 
 rolled ourselves under him. When, in i860 
 we were to leave for Sicily, certain puritans of 
 our party wished the cross of Savoy to be 
 omitted from our flag. I replied that it was 
 necessary to follow the banner of Garibaldi, 
 and that it must be accepted by those who 
 fought under him. We started and under 
 that sympathetic banner we debarked at 
 Marsala and went to Calataiimi where we 
 conquered. Schiaffino was killed holding that 
 banner. We were at Palermo, we ran tri- 
 umphant to Milazzo and Messina, we passed 
 the Faro, we entered Naples, we got as far as 
 the Volturno ; and with that sympathetic 
 banner we have conquered Venice and have 
 arrived at Rome. Certainly we have not sacri- 
 ficed our principles, but we had the virtue of 
 yielding, knowing that we could not obtain the 
 national unity without compromising certain 
 views, without accepting that programme 
 which, gathering together all minds, would 
 have constituted the nation. We are not men 
 to repent the accord which we have ourselves 
 provoked and accepted. We are loyal men, 
 we remain on the ground we have chosen, and
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 143 
 
 we remain faithful to the regime agreed to by 
 all the nation. For us Vittorio Emanuele is 
 the first citizen of Italy, the supreme magistrate 
 of the national unity. We followed and will 
 follow the accepted programme, and we will 
 maintain it all our lives." [Interruptions, 
 cries of" Yes, yes ! " expression of approbation. 
 The speaker was compelled to stop until the 
 emotion had abated. Shouts of " Long live 
 Italy and Vittorio Emanuele."] " I have never 
 been to the Pitti, as I have never been to the 
 Quirinal, but I consider the King as the first 
 citizen of the state, the recognised head of a 
 great nation." [Repeated and loud applause with 
 some attempts at disapprobation.] At the follow- 
 ing municipal elections the unity of the factions 
 was maintained and the clericals were defeated, 
 but the accord was not long-lived, and the 
 dissensions between the parties restored the 
 clerical government of Rome for many years. 
 
 In the years following the occupation of 
 Rome Crispi took little part in politics. That 
 this was not due to any abatement of his 
 patriotic resolution is certain, and I can but 
 attribute it to a general discouragement, firstly 
 at the grave discords in the Left, which de- 
 stroyed its efficacy as a party and made him 
 hopeless of the accomplishment of the reforms 
 he considered necessary, and secondly, and 
 perhaps more profoundly, at the persistent 
 hostility, for it can hardly be otherwise stated.
 
 144 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 of the King towards him. And here it must 
 be permitted to tell the truth concerning 
 Vittorio Emanuele, and so far as Crispi is 
 concerned I know that neither by him nor 
 with his consent would it ever be said ; but 
 with all his courageous and unflinching 
 patriotism, the King remained to the end a 
 somewhat absolutist monarch ; his prejudices 
 never quite gave way to his constitutional 
 obligations, and amongst those towards whom 
 he had an unjust and irrational animosity the 
 chief was Crispi. That the chief member of 
 the Left, if not officially its chief, should not 
 be called to form a ministry when the time 
 had arrived to call the Left into power, was 
 constitutionally incorrect. That Depretis, 
 who had always been found pliant and sub- 
 servient to the influences of Court, should 
 have been chosen for this office, was not 
 creditable to the King nor to the Parliament, 
 but that, even in the case that Crispi was not 
 ready to accept the office of forming a ministry, 
 he should not have been paid the formal com- 
 pliment of being invited, was a tactical mistake 
 in the King. Crispi had from the beginning 
 been most faithful to the Monarchy, had 
 suffered the alienation of some of his most 
 devoted political friends, including Mazzini, 
 and had from the earliest movement for the 
 Sicilian rising, been treated by the Piedmontese 
 party as an enemy, and when it seemed
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 145 
 
 necessary to conciliate the Left by some 
 parliamentary concession Rattazzi or Depretis 
 were the only members of it who could count 
 on the favour of the Crown. Nor is the 
 proffer, made under difficult circumstances, of 
 a place in the ministry formed by an inflexible 
 statesman like Ricasoli, whose chiefship was a 
 full guarantee against Crispi's possible trans- 
 gression of limits, any evidence of a different 
 disposition. At Court they were afraid of 
 Crispi. In what ways this was shown to him 
 and what shadow of humiliation was thrown 
 on him by it, we shall never know, for of 
 these things Crispi never speaks ; but that it 
 exercised a great influence on his parliamentary 
 conduct could only be expected, and probably 
 something of his later uncompromising and 
 impolitic independence was due to this state 
 of feeling at Court. The King did not like 
 independent men, the Court was rancorously 
 hostile to them and to all democratic tendencies, 
 and Crispi was made to feel this in many ways 
 which never came to the King's knowledge. 
 Crispi was proud, too proud to attempt to 
 conciliate the courtiers, and even to do more 
 than he had done to prove to the King his 
 fidelity ; he was not, and never has been, 
 ambitious of office other than as a means of 
 serving the country ; but his pride and self- 
 respect were inflexible, and it is not impossible 
 that he held his services to Italy at an estima- 
 
 L
 
 146 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 tion which was excessive and which prevented 
 him from yielding precedence to men who had 
 not rendered the nation a tithe of his services. 
 As he had no official ambitions, therefore he 
 never made a concession to office, and naturally 
 in a country where the secret and unconstitu- 
 tional influences of a Court circle were, and 
 still are, potent in the direction of affairs, he 
 remained in opposition, even when, as happened 
 finally, a Deputy of his party became Prime 
 Minister, because he had become so by con- 
 cessions which Crispi could not consent to. 
 If he was feared at Court for his democratic 
 tendencies, he detested the Court for its inter- 
 ference with the progress of constitutional 
 growth and its corrupting tendencies, its 
 intrigues and its narrow regionalism. And 
 between the two there has never been peace. 
 
 The conquest of Rome left Crispi therefore 
 still less disposed to make concessions of his 
 principles, as the need of agitation for the 
 national rights was ended. He opposed 
 vigorously the law of the Papal guarantees, 
 by which the Pope was assured a practical 
 hnperiiim in imperio and exempted from the 
 operation of Italian law, and here he has 
 proved a true prophet, as in many other details 
 of the national development, for the greatest 
 obstacle to the completion of a national pro- 
 gramme and the greatest internal danger to 
 Italy is the Vatican and the vantage it holds
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 147 
 
 in the country. In the agitations which had 
 compelled a Government of the Right to go to 
 Rome on the first European opportunity, the 
 Left, and with it Crispi, had taken the leading 
 part and had indeed driven the ministry to 
 take that step, but the timidity of the Right 
 before the Vatican, and the influence of the 
 French party, carried the Government farther 
 even in the way of dangerous concessions than 
 the law of guarantees, for it proposed to make 
 the law one of international sanction. This 
 folly was fortunately avoided by the refusal of 
 some of the Powers, and especially England, 
 to accept the dangerous responsibility. But if 
 the national unity was secured, the national 
 liberties were still incomplete so long as the 
 constitution was in danger from the arbitrary 
 methods which had clung to the regime im- 
 ported from Piedmont. On one of the few 
 occasions in which Crispi took a part in his 
 old vein, which was in the discussion of the 
 financial provisions, he made use of an expres- 
 sion that no doubt retempered the old hostility 
 at Court, and which, if it did not exceed his 
 intention, did certainly exceed his justification, 
 and subsequent history has shown him to 
 have repudiated it. Alluding to the measures 
 he considered unconstitutional, he said : " We 
 are at Rome. Here you cannot and ought not 
 follow the abuses committed at Turin and 
 Florence ; either respect the constitution,
 
 148 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 applying it loyally, or we will recommence the 
 work which we did against the princes dis- 
 possessed and sent away." (Sitting of 1 3th De- 
 cember 1 871.) I have little doubt that had 
 Crispi at this juncture followed the urgings of 
 Mazzini and " descended into the street and 
 the barricades," he would have carried with 
 him the entire republican and radical elements, 
 the only ones which had any power of initiative 
 in the peninsula, and that a revolution might 
 have followed. But this could never have 
 been in the thought of Crispi, to whom the 
 Republic meant the division of Italy. In the 
 earlier phase of the movement he had avowed 
 that "unity before liberty" was his programme, 
 but when unity was complete that liberty must 
 follow, and he meant to intimate to the re- 
 actionary party then in power that the danger 
 to any form of absolutism was still in view and 
 that the nation would not be allowed to go 
 back. But even so the expression was one 
 which, while it is not possible to judge it in 
 full cognizance of cause and effect, was one of 
 those imprudences which Crispi's impetuous 
 and often uncontrollable nature at times 
 drove him into, and which his enemies have 
 always been quick to take advantage of. At 
 Mazzini's death he made the motion for the 
 condolence of the Chamber for the national 
 loss, and rendered an affectionate tribute to the 
 man who had been the inspirer of so much of
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 149 
 
 his early political conduct. To the memory 
 of Mazzini he has always been faithful, ignoring 
 the hostility of the master in those later days 
 when Crispi had consented to sacrifice the 
 Republic to the good of Italy. There is no 
 longer any question that Mazzini clung to the 
 Republic throughout, and though there were 
 moments when he seemed willing to put the 
 form of government in the background, they 
 were only moments, and there is evidence that 
 he favoured the French occupation of Rome 
 rather than the conquest by the Kingdom, 
 believing that it was the surer means to the 
 Republic in the end. But Crispi, too, was 
 intolerant, and the defection of the more un- 
 disciplinable members of the Left, in the forma- 
 tion of the party known as the " Young Left," 
 found him inexorable in his hostility. In fact, 
 all through this period of his life, while the 
 boiling blood of his revolutionary days still ran 
 unchecked through his veins, he was in the 
 position of the master of a rebellious school, 
 unable to exercise control over those whom, in 
 the political order of things, he felt himself 
 to be the natural chief over, and yet unable or 
 unwilling to renounce the exercise of authority. 
 This trait, which so much resembled personal 
 arrogance, and was intolerance where intoler- 
 ance was rebelled against always, made him 
 seem dictatorial, but was in reality only a 
 morbid and excessive sense of discipline, a trait
 
 I50 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 which has always been dominant in Crispins 
 career in government and out of it : it was not 
 a personal consideration but an insistence on 
 the political discipline without which no con- 
 stitutional government was to him possible. 
 He is a born leader of the people, but not a 
 demagogue, and this distinction has never been 
 recognised except by those who knew him 
 well. His passionate intolerance of insub- 
 ordination will explain all that is attributed 
 to a supposed dictatorial tendency, and which 
 with his often uncontrollable temper, sent out 
 flashes of despotism ; and as the prevalent and 
 dominant political vice of the Italians is a 
 chronic and all -pervading insubordination, 
 Crispi's intolerance of it made him intolerable 
 to them.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 But when, in spite of all the mistakes and 
 vices of the Left, it at length came to power 
 in 1876, it was Depretis who, for reasons I 
 have shown, became Prime Minister. Crispi's 
 position became that rather of a benevolent 
 than an organic opposition ; but whether from 
 his own attitude, or that of the King, he did 
 not form part of the ministry was never 
 known, and though by moral authority the 
 chief of the Left, he was excluded from its 
 first Government. One motive might have 
 been of sufficient weight to make him refuse, 
 even if the King had accepted him, and that 
 was the participation of a secession from the 
 Right in the victory of the Left. In this 
 confusion of parties he was not at home, and 
 as his contention had always been for the 
 strict reorganisation of parties on the English 
 model, which he never wearied of holding up 
 as an example to the Italians, it is probable 
 that this weighed in his decisions. At this 
 juncture he published one of those notable 
 discourses which always had the tone of a pro-
 
 152 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 nunciamiento, and in which he speaks as if he 
 alone had the power and capacity of organising 
 the party — the tone which has always done so 
 much to strengthen the imputation of dicta- 
 torial which he enjoys. And he was only 
 wrong in this, that not even he was capable 
 of this reorganisation, for Italian politics, now 
 and ever, are incapable of organisation ; but 
 were it possible, he, and he alone, was ever 
 capable of effecting it. In this discourse he 
 enunciates one of the doctrines which he from 
 time to time put forward with the tone of 
 authority which perhaps he merited, but few 
 allowed him. In it he says : " Often the 
 authoritarians talk of the rights of the State. 
 This is an error. The State has, and can have, 
 no rights. It receives a delegation from the 
 people for the fulfilling of certain functions 
 which are attributed to it, and the people 
 which exceeds the limits of its delegation, and 
 abandons its rights to the State, is not worthy 
 of liberty, but establishes with its own hands 
 despotism and slavery." No doubt this, like 
 many of Crispins formulas, was the outcome 
 of a perception of a momentary use of demo- 
 cratic rights, but time has shown him that in 
 some cases the people has had the necessity of 
 calling in a practical dictatorship, and he has 
 been the man who had to accept it. His 
 theories were too hard and absolute ; no 
 people, and especially not the Italian people.
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 153 
 
 has been so well educated in the practice of 
 its privileges or its duties as to dispense with 
 the occasional abdication of its theoretic rights. 
 I think the later career of Crispi has made 
 this clear to him, and, more than this, it has 
 made him conscious that, as in Italy there can 
 be at present no parties, so there can be no 
 heads of party. 
 
 When the new Chamber met, Crispi was 
 elected President of it by an immense majority. 
 In this position, second only in the country to 
 that of President of the Council of Ministers, 
 Crispi performed his functions in a manner 
 which is even now spoken of as exemplary. 
 European affairs were then becoming com- 
 plicated, and the position of Italy was in the 
 balance. Crispi, during the vacation of Par- 
 liament, was charged with a mission to the 
 capitals of Europe to ascertain the feeling of 
 the various powers towards Italy and the 
 probabilities of complication. Of this mis- 
 sion no official account has been given, and 
 perhaps none can yet be given. There is 
 only a letter written in reply to an article 
 of Bonghi, an implacable and irrational critic 
 of Crispi at all times until the last crisis 
 (1894), which shows his work, but not his 
 credentials. It is dated Naples, 7th September 
 1878. As an indication of Crispi's status at 
 that time it is worth publication entire.
 
 154 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 Dear Bonghi — In the last number of the Nuova 
 Antologia you published an excellent article with the 
 title " Italian Diplomacy in the Oriental Crisis." In 
 that article, discussing my voyage abroad last year, 
 you uttered these words, " However that may be, 
 as to the effects of that mission of Crispi, we can, 
 and we ought, to declare that not only they were of 
 no importance but rather injurious." 
 
 To express such a judgment it was necessary 
 before all to know : 
 
 If I really had a mission ; 
 
 In the affirmative, what it was ; 
 
 How I fulfilled it. 
 
 Thus far the journals have written on this subject 
 what was inexact or untrue. I have never been 
 willing to engage in a discussion, and from September 
 1877 until to-day I have constantly kept silence from 
 motives which you, a man in the Government, can 
 understand better than any one. 
 
 At Paris, Berlin, London, and Vienna I took not 
 a step without coming to an understanding with the 
 representatives of the King, who had preannounced 
 my arrival, and hastened to present me to the 
 ministers of Foreign Affairs to whom they were 
 accredited. With Prince Bismarck I had been for 
 several years in relations, and with Count Andrassy, 
 who was absent from Vienna, the interview was 
 arranged by General Robilant himself. 
 
 You will certainly permit me not to reveal what 
 was said then by me and by those illustrious person- 
 ages with whom I was brought in contact ; but I 
 can assure you that Cav. Ressman, who was charged 
 with the embassy in the absence of General Cialdini, 
 Count di Launay, Marquis Menabrea, and Count 
 Robilant were most contented with my conduct and
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 155 
 
 with the reception I met with, and I had only to be 
 satisfied with them. There exist in the archives of 
 the Consulta despatches and letters which attest what 
 I affirm. 
 
 I shall not forget the spontaneous and frank 
 exclamation of Count Robilant when we left the 
 Cabinet of Baron Orczy : " You have spoken words 
 of gold," ejaculated the valorous soldier, shaking 
 my hand. " You could not have spoken better, and 
 there was need of it." I will not repeat the words 
 of Count di Launay, who was enthusiastic during my 
 stay at Berlin, nor those of the Marquis Menabrea, 
 with whom I was in perfect agreement. 
 
 At Paris I approached the republicans, and you 
 are wrong in blaming me for it. It was easy to 
 comprehend that the unfortunate act of i6th May 
 1877 would be condemned in France, and that 
 General MacMahon, after the manifestations of 
 public opinion, would have the good sense to ex- 
 tricate himself from the awkward position into which 
 perfidious counsellors had drawn him. It was neces- 
 sary to make sure of the future ; and then, what 
 shall I say to you.'' — my friendships in that country 
 since twenty-two years have always been with the 
 republicans, and I feel honoured by it. 
 
 I do not wish to judge the acts of the Hons. 
 Melegari, Depretis, and Corti during the oriental 
 crisis, and, as that does not concern me, I wash my 
 hands of it. I can, however, affirm that by my act 
 excellent relations were maintained with the foreign 
 governments. After my journey the affairs of 
 January and February last give important evidence 
 of this, and the Green Book presented to the 
 Chamber by Cairoli proves it. 
 
 Since April of this year the ministers of Austria-
 
 156 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 Hungary and Great Britain earnestly requested to 
 come to an understanding with the Italian Govern- 
 ment on all the questions which should be the 
 subjects of discussion in the congress of Berlin. 
 They would not have shown such a desire if the 
 relations between their countries and ours were not 
 friendly, even cordial. Depretis could not respond, 
 because after the 9th of March we were in a minis- 
 terial crisis, and Count Corti was indifferent because 
 he did not know that it was understood that the 
 agreements should be come to after, when, the mili- 
 tary operations being finished, the moment for 
 diplomatic action should arrive. 
 
 It would be useless for me here to express my 
 ideas of the attitude which Italy ought to preserve 
 in eastern questions. I will conclude my letter with 
 the declaration that I desire to hasten the day in 
 which the documents which refer to my journey of 
 1877 shall be published. I assure you that Italy 
 was honoured, and I should be proud that my work 
 with the various cabinets of Europe should be known. 
 
 And now, as a loyal opponent, permit me to 
 shake hands. — Yours, F. Crispi. 
 
 The heterogeneous majority in the Chamber 
 did not long maintain its confidence in the 
 ministry, which resigned after a vote on a 
 question of pubHc security in which it had 
 only a trifling majority, and Depretis called 
 Crispi to his aid. He succeeded Nicotera in 
 the Ministry of the Interior, and drew on him- 
 self, beside the old implacabilities of the Right, 
 the rancour of Nicotera and his followers, who 
 attributed to Crispi the exclusion of their chief.
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 157 
 
 He increased the animosity towards himself by 
 the injudicious vigour with which he urged 
 the presentation of the measures on which he 
 had for years set his heart, and of which some 
 were not yet ripened for adoption. He had 
 not yet learned to make haste slowly, and now 
 he became a goad in the sides of a majority, 
 which did not care to move, even slowly. 
 Measures which were no doubt of importance 
 to the country, and which Crispi had long been 
 ready for, the country considered to be inter- 
 ferences with vested privileges which seemed 
 almost rights. One of these was the abolition 
 of the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, 
 by the Cabinet judged useless and rather a 
 means to secure support for the ministry than 
 a public good. The country had not come to 
 the consciousness of the necessity of economy, 
 and the Chamber resented the abolition of a 
 place, the more that it was effected by Royal 
 Decree in the vacation of Parliament. An 
 extra- parliamentary crisis began to loom in 
 view from the moment that Crispi assumed 
 office. If Parliament had been in session the 
 storm would have broken at once, but fortu- 
 nately for Italy Crispi administered the Home 
 Office in one of the most critical moments in 
 its history, viz. the period in which the old 
 Pope Pius IX. and the King, died. The deli- 
 cate questions of precedent and formality called 
 up by the first succession to the throne of the
 
 158 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 new kingdom were settled without friction, 
 and Umberto became Umberto I. of Italy 
 rather than the successor of the Humberts of 
 Savoy of past centuries, thus satisfying theo- 
 retically the amour proprc of the annexed pro- 
 vinces, whose dignity revolted at being made 
 an appanage of Piedmont. Republican de- 
 monstrations were prevented from taking occa- 
 sion of the change in the personality of the 
 Sovereign to question the rights of the successor 
 of that King who had, by his courage and 
 devotion to Italy, silenced reasonable discontent 
 with the forms of a Government which could 
 hardly have been bettered by a Republic, and 
 asserting the national sovereignty against a 
 young man without prestige ; and order was 
 maintained by Crispi's firmness. But Pius IX. 
 left an embarrassment much greater than this 
 behind him. Crispi had in the Chamber op- 
 posed the law of guarantees, and the clericals 
 urged the holding of the Conclave for the 
 election of the successor, out of Italy, under the 
 pretext that there could not be a free election 
 at Rome. In fact, the College of Cardinals 
 had, at a first council, decided that the election 
 should have taken place abroad, the legal 
 consequence of which would have been the 
 momentary evacuation of the Vatican, a situation 
 possibly fraught with the gravest consequences 
 for the Church and for Italy. Only eight 
 Cardinals voted for the holding of the Conclave
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 159 
 
 at Rome. During the interval between this 
 congregation and the second, the day after, 
 Crispi, in a conversation with Cardinal Di 
 Pietro, with whom he was on terms of ancient 
 friendship, gave him distinctly to understand 
 that if the Sacred College left the Vatican to 
 consult, it might be assured of a safe-conduct 
 and the fullest liberty wherever the Conclave 
 should go, but that once out of the Vatican the 
 Italian Government would take possession of it 
 permanently. At the second congregation it 
 was decided by thirty-two votes against five to 
 hold the Conclave in Rome. Amongst the 
 measures which Crispi, as Minister of the 
 Interior, caused to be taken for the security 
 against disorders was the prorogation of Parlia- 
 ment until the Conclave had finished its work, 
 and affairs at the Vatican had assumed their 
 normal condition. And even these, so great, 
 services to the public tranquillity, added to the 
 violence of the storm that was rising against 
 Crispi. It was evident that at the convocation 
 of the Chambers there would be a great 
 majority against him, and at this moment came 
 what seemed to be the coup de grace for his 
 political existence, the scandal of his so-called 
 divorce. 
 
 The precise history of this question I do 
 not pretend to know — one who respected 
 Crispi's feelings would hardly ask him for it, 
 and one who did not would meet perhaps an
 
 i6o FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 unpleasant response — but the essential facts are 
 these. When a prisoner in Turin, after the 
 Lombard movement, he contracted a liaison 
 with the girl who served the laundress of the 
 prison, and when he was released and went into 
 exile at Malta she followed him and became 
 his mistress. Following his fortunes, she went 
 with The Thousand to Sicily in the ambulance 
 service, and during the following years lived in 
 marital relations with him. As his fortunes 
 rose the discrepancy between his position and 
 hers gave rise to consequences such as might 
 have been foreseen. In the Life of Crispin by 
 Felix Narjoux (Paris 1890), a book in which 
 much is clearly fantastic and some things 
 certainly incorrect, the history of the domestic 
 disaster which this relation brought on Crispi 
 is told with a precision which I am not able to 
 say is incorrect,^ but as I can find no better 
 statement of it I prefer to leave the responsi- 
 bility for it to the author of that work, pre- 
 mising that there is liothing in the account 
 which is inconsistent with what we know of 
 the matter, but much that is incontestable. 
 Narjoux says : — 
 
 Rosalie Montmasson, become Madame Crispi, 
 had naturally followed her husband from Palermo to 
 
 1 It appears to be based on information given by Tamajo, a 
 Maltese friend of Crispi, who seems to have been intimately 
 connected with the history, having arranged the pretended 
 marriage ceremony.
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI i6i 
 
 Turin and from Turin to Florence. After her ex- 
 periences she was in honour. The survivors of The 
 Thousand had made a subscription amongst them- 
 selves to offer Rosalie a diamond cross. She had 
 received the decoration given to all the participators 
 in the expedition of The Thousand, and a pension 
 from the state recompensed her services. Presented 
 to the King, she had been the object of a benevolent 
 reception, she was surrounded by friends of her 
 husband, accepted by all the men of the party of 
 which he was the head. Garibaldi received at Florence 
 the hospitality of his friend Crispi. Rosalie on this 
 occasion saw around her all the official world. She 
 had taken seriously the compliments and common- 
 places which were poured on her, and drifted into an 
 exaggeration of her importance. This new position, 
 this unforeseen existence, for which she was so little 
 prepared, took her by surprise. After so many evil 
 days, so many vicissitudes, idleness helping, the mind 
 of the poor woman became troubled ; she seemed to 
 have been attacked by the mania of greatness. That 
 was not all. Accustomed from infancy to live 
 meanly, to count the least expense, she came, alas ! 
 into disorder, not knowing how to refuse herselr 
 anything, wasted large sums in the most futile 
 matters, in an exaggerated toilette, in keeping 
 numerous animals, dogs, cats, white mice, canaries, 
 etc., with which she filled her apartment. She called 
 them all by strange names, and had for them the 
 tenderness of a mother. Tamajo found his friend 
 one day in a violent fit of anger : he showed him, in 
 his drawing-room, scattered over the furniture, seven 
 silk dresses of different shades of green, which the 
 dressmaker had just brought, and on each dress some 
 animal, dog or cat — one of the pets of Rosalie — had 
 
 M
 
 i62 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 taken its place. , . . Rosalie became little by little 
 an unsupportable companion. The friends of Crispi 
 say that he was never so unhappy as at this epoch. 
 His home, agitated, disturbed by continual quarrels, 
 had become unendurable. Jealousy came to take its 
 part. Crispi could go nowhere but his wife appeared 
 unexpectedly at his side, and the manner in which 
 she occupied herself was deplorable. (I omit here 
 what the author says of the fortunes of Crispi, wasted 
 by his partner and undermined by the diminution of 
 the value of his property, caused by the transfer of 
 the Capital to Rome, his legal clientele lost, and the 
 advent of a concurrence of disasters. These details 
 have nothing to do with the affair except to show 
 what Crispi had to endure.) Crispi was not the 
 man to allow himself to be beaten, but his existence 
 with Rosalie had become so odious that he expressed 
 his determination to resign from the Chamber, so 
 that no one could have the right to occupy himself 
 with his private life. He could, by devoting his 
 time to his affairs, re-establish order in his finances. 
 On the 13th of December 1871 he rose to speak in 
 the Chamber with the intention of never returning. 
 He spoke on the law of guarantees, and had an 
 immense success. . . . Returning home after this 
 memorable sitting, in which he had been so applauded, 
 he found Rosalie in a deplorable state. The pretty 
 washerwoman of the Palais Madame, become a fat 
 matron, was no longer merely eccentric, dirty, incap- 
 able of attending to the house or herself; she had 
 for some time taken the habit of drink, and that day 
 she had passed all limits ; she was deplorably drunk. 
 Crispi fled ; he ran across the city, frantic, desperate, 
 and took refuge with Tamajo. What should he do ? 
 What was he to become ? He would not §ee this
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 163 
 
 woman again ; he would never go home ; he would 
 disappear, go away and never return. He was ready 
 for anything ; he would undergo anything rather 
 than continue this unworthy existence, rather than 
 remain at the side of this creature who degraded him." 
 
 Tamajo, who had been the witness of a 
 ceremony which both Crispi and Rosalie took 
 for a real ecclesiastical marriage, but which he 
 knew to have been irregular and performed 
 by a wandering Jesuit priest who had no 
 licence in Malta to marry, and whose certifi- 
 cate was also signed with a forged signature, 
 now disclosed to Crispi that the marriage was 
 not valid even according to the law of the 
 Church which prevailed at Malta, and that no 
 legal tie bound him to Rosalie, and the same 
 friend took it on his charge to convince Rosalie 
 that such was the case, and that her own ad- 
 vantage and the position of Crispi depended 
 on the relation being dissolved, Crispi under- 
 taking to assure her the means of life. This 
 is the substance of the question which seemed 
 at the time to have wrecked Crispi's public 
 life. As there is no divorce in Italy, and there 
 was no other way out of a life which had 
 become unendurable, the recognition of a real 
 nullity of the marriage would appear to one 
 who had no reason to find Crispi of an un- 
 principled nature, the wisest and simplest way 
 out of a great misfortune. I think the justifi- 
 cation of his conduct may be left to any im-
 
 1 64 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 partial and generous mind, and to all such I 
 leave it, if any such can be found where he 
 is concerned, knowing Crispi's character as 
 well as any but a few of his oldest and 
 intimate friends can, and that there is in him 
 nothing ungenerous or dishonourable ; and 
 though his temper is a wild and often un- 
 governable one, and in circumstances of great 
 excitement capable of driving him to unjustifi- 
 able severity, I have abundant evidence that 
 he is incapable of doing deliberate injustice, 
 seeing it to be such. I cannot blame him for 
 separating his fortunes from those of Rosalie. 
 And Crispi, like most public men in Italy, and 
 the East in general, had only the Eastern idea 
 of sexual morality. To him woman was a 
 mere accessory to existence, for his life was so 
 absorbed by his political passions that they left 
 him practically indifferent to everything else. 
 The only person who, after his early romance, 
 has called out his real affection was his daughter, 
 to whom he has been ready to sacrifice his 
 life and everything in it. To legitimise this 
 daughter he married civilly her mother. This 
 act coming to the knowledge of Nicotera, who 
 could never forgive Crispi for having supplanted 
 him, as he supposed, in the ministry, was pub- 
 lished as a bigamy, and the multitude of his 
 enemies, in Court and society, as well as in 
 Parliament, joined in an outcry, the fury and 
 brutality of which one must know something
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 165 
 
 of Italian politics to estimate. Crispi, accused 
 in the opposition journals of bigamy, resigned 
 his portfolio to be within the jurisdiction of 
 the tribunals, and a criminal instruction was 
 directed against him. The tribunal found 
 that there was no evidence to support the 
 charge of bigamy, and the affair was legally 
 ended. But the effect aimed at by his enemies 
 was attained, and Crispi was once more, and, 
 if public opinion could be listened to, this 
 time definitely, excluded from public affairs. 
 In this affair the Court was, perhaps, the most 
 violent and unscrupulous element amongst 
 those hostile to Crispi, and even royalty was 
 moved beyond serenity.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 But the throwing overboard of Crispi, which 
 Depretis effected somewhat brutally, and ex- 
 tending the exclusion even to the period 
 following his acquittal, did not save the 
 ministry, which fell shortly afterward. In 
 the succeeding ministry Crispi was amongst 
 the most violent of the opposition, and at- 
 tacked Cairoli with all his early savagery, as 
 he did the ministry Depretis- Cairoli which 
 followed it, forgetting his early relations with 
 Depretis in the resentment at his abandonment 
 of him after the incident of the bigamous 
 accusation. There appeared to be with the 
 man certain crises or moments of volcanic 
 energy in which nothing could be done in 
 moderation, and the events of the crisis in his 
 life just passed through had left the underfires 
 very vivid. Under the violence of the attacks 
 which Crispi and some others on the Left 
 directed against the ministry, it was obliged, 
 in order not to be defeated, to dissolve the 
 Chamber. In the elections which followed, 
 Depretis employed all the expedients which
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 167 
 
 made his managements of the elections memor- 
 able and even proverbial, and Crispi was 
 barely elected. He came back to the Chamber 
 fuller than ever of fight, and the opening of 
 the session was marked by a violence which 
 compelled Farini, then President of the 
 Chamber, to declare that the continuance of 
 this tone of the debate would compel him to 
 resign. But on the eve of the battle, perhaps 
 from the habitual and, one may say, necessary 
 reaction of Crispi's moods, he withdrew his 
 interpellation, on which the debate was to be 
 brought on, and shortly after resigned his seat, 
 and though, after a vote of the Chamber which 
 hardly left him a pretext to insist, under such 
 flattering terms was it motived, he withdrew 
 the resignation, he abandoned the sittings, 
 and the ministry had a tranquil existence until 
 the affair of the occupation of Tunis by the 
 French. This event was the finishing blow 
 to the career of Cairoli, who had been too 
 simply credulous in the promises of France, 
 and the ministry resigned without a vote. 
 To the succeeding Cabinet, still always pre- 
 sided over by Depretis, now become indis- 
 pensable, Crispi was friendly, and in the two 
 following years he showed a large and states- 
 manlike disposition towards the higher interests 
 of the nation. Perhaps at no other period 
 had he exercised so large an influence on 
 affairs, and the circumstances of his fall passed
 
 i68 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 gradually away from the minds of the public. 
 The Court alone remained always hostile, and 
 I remember that one of the diplomatic body 
 said to me just after this time, and when Crispi 
 had returned to the ministry, that he asked 
 the King if he thought Crispi a safe minister, 
 to which the King replied, " It is better to 
 have him with us than against us," a remark 
 which of itself, while it shows that the common 
 opinion that His Majesty has no personal or 
 independent views in the conduct of affairs 
 was mistaken, is enough to show his sagacity. 
 Later years have probably strongly confirmed 
 him in this good opinion. 
 
 In those years intervening between what 
 was considered his definite retirement from 
 office and his return, he advocated the reform 
 of the suffrage and the electoral law, providing 
 for the scrutin de liste. He gave up the struggle 
 for the reconstitution of the Left, and under 
 the influence of Depretis parties melted and 
 recombined until the combinations of the 
 Chamber were a phantasmagoria without clue 
 or coherence. The outbreak of popular in- 
 dignation at the occupation of Tunis, in which 
 the voice of Crispi had been heard amongst 
 the most indignant in protest, had caused him 
 to be singled out in France as especially 
 Gallophobe, and this was, so far as common 
 observation goes, the beginning of the mis- 
 taken persuasion that he was inclined to a war
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 169 
 
 with France. Amongst the numerous mis- 
 conceptions due to the very frank and often 
 undiplomatic way in which Crispi gave his 
 ideas to the world, the greatest was that of 
 his misogallism, and next that of his bellicose 
 tendency. Crispi never permitted the dignity 
 of the nation to be compromised while he was 
 responsible for it, nor did he ever, either then 
 or out of office, say a word or take a step not, 
 in his opinion, required by that dignity. The 
 difference between his manner of accepting 
 the slights and affronts which had become 
 habitual in the deportment of France towards 
 Italy, especially after the formation of the 
 Triple Alliance, and that of Depretis, who 
 always bent, and deprecated, and pocketed 
 affronts which he knew that Italy was not 
 prepared to resent actively, could only be 
 accounted for, under the French hypothesis, 
 by the desire to provoke a quarrel, while it 
 was in fact only the wise perception of the 
 fact that the only way to prevent provocation 
 from becoming unendurable was to meet it 
 far from home. The occupation of Tunis 
 could hardly fail in provoking the harshest 
 expressions of resentment against the French 
 violation of a formal pledge to the injury of 
 Italian interests, on the part of all Italians. 
 At this juncture, too, occurred the celebration 
 of the centenary of the Sicilian Vespers, and 
 the part that Crispi, chief amongst the children
 
 lyo FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 of the island, took in the commemoration was 
 considered by the morbid susceptibility of the 
 French to be a confirmation of his desire to 
 provoke hostility to France. It is hardly 
 worth while to waste words on such futilities. 
 Those who know Crispi's sentiments, and 
 have known them through the years since this 
 delusion arose, know that he never had a 
 feeling of hostility towards France, and that 
 in his large judgment the relations between 
 Italy and all other nations call for peace at 
 any other price than sacrifice of the considera- 
 tion due her. But this disposition of France, 
 or rather the pretence that this hostility was 
 justified, had no small part in the official 
 fortunes of Crispi. The men in the Govern- 
 ment at Paris could be under no delusion on 
 this subject, but the masses and the general 
 political world came to a belief in Crispi's 
 misogallism and belligerancy, which even ex- 
 tended to England. 
 
 With the conclusion of the Triple Alliance 
 he had nothing to do, though he undoubtedly 
 urged it after the occupation of Tunis, and his 
 life-long, and in no case varied, attachment to 
 England as the mother of political life and 
 liberty, would in any case have thrown him on 
 her side, should any difference between her and 
 France call for action. He has never made a 
 secret of his conviction that the way of Italy 
 in all European affairs lay with that of England.
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 171 
 
 Although not in office when the invitation was 
 given by England to occupy Egypt jointly 
 with her, he exerted his utmost influence to 
 induce his Government to accept the proposi- 
 tion. But popular feeling in Italy was not 
 then so generally cordial towards England as it 
 became later — the French had still a large 
 party in the peninsula until the occupation of 
 Tunis ; and until the affair of Aigue-Mortes 
 there was no popular hostility to France. The 
 ministry of Depretis and Mancini in fact made 
 a compact with France hostile to England, with 
 the object of establishing a tripartite protec- 
 torate of Egypt in which the three powers 
 should share, the object being distinctly averse 
 to the occupation by England. Crispi's 
 struggles against all this policy were probably 
 the true motive of the French hostility to him. 
 He was from the beginning opposed to the 
 expedition to Massowah, and the speech in the 
 Chamber in which he opposed the appropria- 
 tion for it, was a prophecy of the disasters 
 which have followed. This opposition to the 
 colony in Africa only ceased when a military 
 disaster involved the honour of the flag. The 
 affair of Dogali, in which a battalion of Italian 
 troops was annihilated, produced a shock in 
 Italy which degenerated into panic. No one 
 who was in the Chamber of Deputies in that 
 memorable sitting when the Minister of War 
 read the telegram which announced the
 
 172 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 destruction of the battalion, will forget the 
 scene. It was as if they had heard of a new 
 Lissa or Custozza, and the popular frenzy was 
 on the same scale. The ministry was over- 
 whelmed, and such was the violence of the 
 Left against Robilant, who had only a few days 
 before spoken of the Abyssinians as " four 
 robbers," that the gallant soldier sent in an 
 indignant resignation. There was from all 
 sides a cry for Crispi, who had foreseen the 
 disaster and opposed the expedition, and the 
 old Sicilian again forgot his resentments and 
 the Court suppressed for the day its animosities, 
 and Crispi became again the soul of the 
 Government. The death of Depretis, which 
 followed a little later, left him as the un- 
 opposed and almost unquestioned successor to 
 the Presidency of the Council. I do not dwell 
 on the unimportant details of the parliamentary 
 life of the period between Crispi's two minis- 
 tries ; the fickle public opinion, more fickle in 
 Italy than anywhere else so far as I know, had 
 changed from the wild execration and exulta- 
 tion at his fall, to the equally wild enthusiasm 
 at the accession ; the discouragement of the 
 African disaster rapidly disappeared, and Crispi, 
 no longer opposing the colonisation since the 
 flag was in danger and the military honour of 
 the country to be retrieved, pushed forward the 
 measures for retrieval. It has been said that 
 Crispi during his first tenure of the premiership
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 173 
 
 became afflicted by a megalomania which 
 involved a great increase of military expendi- 
 ture and other precautions against imaginary 
 dangers, or in preparation for prospective 
 aggressions. There is not the slightest truth 
 in either suggestion. He found the laws for 
 the military expenditures approved when he 
 took the office, and all that he did was to 
 shorten the period in which they were to be 
 made, and this was done under the pressure of 
 the general apprehension of coming hostilities 
 in which Italy was very likely to be engaged 
 in fulfilment of obligations imposed by treaties 
 which he found previously signed. He had 
 simply to pay the bills of the extravagance of 
 his predecessors and carry out the measures in 
 whose shaping he had no part ; and in spite of 
 this he effected economies in the administration 
 of government to the amount of over 140 
 millions of francs a year, during the time he 
 was in the control of affairs, and this control 
 was uncontested by any considerable section of 
 the Chamber. The hostility of France became 
 acute, and sought opportunities to give trouble ; 
 firstly in Massowah where the question of the 
 capitulations was raised, not in behalf of French 
 subjects, of whom there were none in the 
 colony, but for Greeks, of whom France 
 assumed the protection. Crispi, who held at 
 this time the portfolio of Foreign Affairs as 
 well as that of the Interior, peremptorily,
 
 174 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 almost unceremoniously, repelled the preten- 
 sion of the French Government, and refused to 
 recognise the existence of the capitulations in 
 a colony which was in no relation with the 
 Sultan. The position he took was clear and 
 logical and there was no valid objection to it, 
 but his peremptory way of treating the question 
 increased the irritation of France against him. 
 His habit was to leave as little as possible to 
 his subordinates, and he was then excessive in 
 this disposition, and the occupation of the 
 Home Office tasked his powers to a degree 
 that left little strength for the Foreign Affairs, 
 and, overworked as he always was, his con- 
 stitutional irritability was increased, and while 
 all the stories of his rudeness to the members 
 of the diplomatic body are absolutely false, as 
 from personal investigation I am in the position 
 to assert, it is true that his manners were not 
 what diplomatic customs have made de rigeur^ 
 and exaggerated as they were sure to be, caused 
 him to be represented as insulting the Ambas- 
 sadors with whom he had differences to discuss, 
 and even those whose relations with Italy were 
 the most friendly were asserted to be the 
 subjects of his insolence. One story is told in 
 detail, of his receiving Lord Dufferin seated, 
 and of the Ambassador refusing to enter the 
 reception room till Crispi rose ! I hardly 
 think his Lordship will accuse me of indiscre- 
 tion if I assert on his own authority that the
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 ^75 
 
 whole story is false, and that he said that he 
 had never been treated with more consideration 
 by any minister for Foreign Affairs than by 
 Crispi. But there is no question that he 
 always was plain and blunt in speech, or that 
 he lacked the suaviter in modo^ which so often 
 makes t\\Qfortiier in re difficult to take exception 
 to. For these reasons I consider his occupancy 
 of that position a misfortune to him, though 
 perhaps healthy to the country, which had 
 suffered so much from the suave invertebracy 
 of Mancini, and the unresisting duplicity of 
 Depretis, that a change to the other extreme 
 was perhaps necessary to restore the diplomatic 
 self-respect of the country. That Crispi's 
 manner to undiplomatic people was extremely 
 unpleasant I had experience ; and to the press 
 he was, if possible, more discourteous than to 
 mere visitors, because he was at war with the 
 press in general and neither asked favours from 
 it or gave them to it, as a consequence of which 
 the press war on him was very general. Be- 
 fore the expiration of his first premiership he 
 learned, however, that it was his interest to be 
 on friendly terms with at least one independent 
 foreign journal, and he in the most ample and 
 frank way made amends for past miscon- 
 ceptions. 
 
 The conduct of the French officials in many 
 cases was provocatory and, especially in the 
 case of the difficulty with the consul at
 
 176 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 Florence, shortly after the Massowah diffi- 
 culty, threatened to bring about a rupture of 
 relations. That official on the death of a 
 certain Tunisian subject at Florence, broke 
 the seals which had been placed on his effects 
 by the notary public of Italy, and possessed 
 himself of the papers contained therein. As 
 by the treaty with Tunis, all subjects of that 
 government dying in Italy came, for the 
 regulation of their affairs, under the Italian 
 law, the invasion of the jurisdiction of Italy 
 by the consul was a violation of law and 
 treaty, and the Italian Government retook 
 possession of the res furtiva. In the discussion 
 which followed, the language of Crispi, while 
 firm and inflexible in its insistence of the 
 observation of the law, was unexceptionable 
 in manner, and the French minister finished 
 by admitting the error of his representa- 
 tive and the correct conduct of the Italian 
 authorities, and promised to recall the consul, 
 asking as a favour which Crispi readily granted, 
 that the recall might be delayed until it could 
 be effected apparently on some other ground, 
 fearing an expression of irritation in the 
 Chamber of Deputies at the concession to 
 Italian dignity.^ Had Crispi had the bellicose 
 intentions so generally attributed to him, even 
 in England, there was no want of opportunity 
 
 1 I speak with certainty on this subject as I read the entire 
 correspondence, which was, of course, never published.
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 177 
 
 to provoke difficulties, and it is now no secret 
 that at one time during his administration of 
 affairs the French Government was disposed 
 to take advantage of the provocation it saw in 
 the Triple Alliance to attack and disarm 
 Italy ; and if he had been disposed to further 
 such a policy there was an occasion to hand. 
 The fact was that Italy was absolutely dis- 
 armed. The guns which should have defended 
 Spezzia were there, but the carriages were at 
 Taranto, and the fortifications were so incom- 
 plete that a coup de main was perfectly practicable 
 as the French well knew, and the famous 
 project of a raid on Spezzia, the report of 
 which sent the English fleet to Genoa, was 
 probably the consequence of it. The intention 
 of such a movement was, as a matter of course, 
 denied by France, for such things are only 
 admitted when effected, but I am convinced 
 that it was intended, and there is no question 
 that the Italian Government received warning 
 of it from at least two European capitals and 
 on independent grounds. The best argument 
 in favour of it is that it was a bold and practic- 
 able plan for reducing the Triple Alliance to a 
 Double one, for Italy was in no state to meet 
 France on land or at sea, and I have no doubt, 
 knowing the condition of the Italian defences 
 in general at that time, that Italy would have 
 been put hors de combat in three months, and 
 obliged to sign any treaty the French dictated ; 
 
 N
 
 178 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 while, according to the admissions to myself 
 of competent German military authorities, three 
 months at least would have been required to 
 break through the French frontier defences, 
 and by that time Italy would have no longer 
 been a combatant. The whole plan of the 
 campaign was given in a book by a member 
 of the French staff, entitled Rome et Berlin, 
 published at the moment at which the coup 
 de main was to have taken place according to 
 the warnings given Crispi. With Crispi's 
 knowledge of the real defencelessness of the 
 country, the responsibility of having any part 
 in provoking hostilities from which Italy 
 would have been the first to suffer, was one 
 which, with the most hostile predisposition, 
 he never would have accepted. Of this there 
 is and can be no question, as everybody who 
 knows the man will understand. His enemies 
 accuse him of a reckless audacity in his plans — 
 his history shows that his prevision of the 
 consequences of them was equal to their 
 audacity, and that they never passed the limits 
 of real prudence, and that while personally of 
 extreme recklessness, he has always been 
 cautious and safe in public matters. A large 
 part of the intensification of the hostility of 
 France towards Crispi is doubtless due to his 
 intimate relations with Bismarck. He made 
 two visits to the Chancellor, between whom 
 and Crispi the best understanding always
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 179 
 
 reigned. There is no evidence that those 
 visits resulted in any agreement as to definite 
 points of international policy, but they un- 
 doubtedly strengthened Crispi's position in 
 Europe. They may have been also at the 
 bottom of the indifference of William II. 
 towards Crispi, which manifested itself in later 
 years, and probably influenced the attitude of 
 the King of Italy towards his minister, for it is 
 well known that the relations between Kaiser 
 and King were of the most intimate and 
 cordial.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Amongst the charges which afterwards made 
 Crispi's fall acceptable to the fickle public 
 which had so enthusiastically called him to 
 the head of affairs, was that of extravagant 
 expenditure in public affairs. I have shown 
 that he really effected the first reforms in 
 public expenditure by the economies in ad- 
 ministration, and during his term of office 
 he never proposed or levied a new tax, and, 
 with the exception of a proposition for the 
 construction of a new Palace for the Parliament, 
 he proposed none of the great works which 
 were supposed to be needed to make Rome 
 worthy of her destiny as the new capital of 
 Italy. The House of Parliament never passed 
 beyond the stage of project, and the huge 
 public buildings which contrast so strangely 
 with the fortunes of Italy were the work of 
 Sella. That Crispi was wise in this single 
 proposition was shown by the necessity under 
 which his successors found themselves, of 
 entering into plans much more vast, and 
 which, though yet unfinished, have called for
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI i8i 
 
 vastly more expenditure than the single scheme 
 of Crispi. His plan was to build a new- 
 Parliament House and transfer the palace of 
 Montecitorio, a most inconvenient old building 
 for legislative purposes, to the Department of 
 Justice, for the use of the tribunals ; while 
 his successors, under the necessity of employing 
 the labourers whom the crisis in Rome had 
 thrown out of work, began the more costly 
 Palace of Justice still in construction, and the 
 great Hospital which, equally unconstructed, 
 will alone have required double the expenditure 
 he proposed. But Crispi's were evil days. 
 The great crisis which, in the last year of his 
 term, swept Rome and almost prostrated Italy, 
 owed him none of its disaster. Its seeds had 
 been planted in the banking laws from i860, 
 and had ripened in the heat of the fictitious 
 prosperity of the great cities following the 
 removal of the capital to Rome. In 1887, 
 when Crispi assumed the direction of affairs, 
 the wild speculation due to the rapid apparent 
 growth of the capital had already begun, and 
 the financial demoralisation and corruption 
 had invaded the banks, over which, by the 
 defect of the banking laws, the Government 
 had no effective control and, by the corruption 
 in official circles, no efficient supervision. The 
 excessive and unhealthy demands of build- 
 ing speculation had exhausted the disposable 
 private capital, and the banks were called on
 
 i82 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 to disregard the provisions in reference to the 
 securities for loans to contractors and specu- 
 lators, and finally the ministry was called on, 
 by an overwhelming public pressure, to waive 
 the laws on limits and nature of the securities 
 for loans ; and mortgages on real estate, which 
 could not be legally accepted by the banks 
 of circulation, were permitted in violation of 
 the law. The two men who controlled the 
 financial policy of the Government, the most 
 unsafe advisers the country has had for many 
 years, Giolitti and Grimaldi, advised yielding 
 to the pressure of public opinion, and Crispi, 
 who generally accepted the responsibility of 
 his colleagues in their respective provinces, 
 for deliberative ministerial unity in the Italian 
 system has hardly ever existed, yielded, and 
 the last barriers to a safe finance were removed, 
 with the inevitable result that the banks were 
 involved in the ruin, only retarded for a time. 
 Here Crispi made his first great mistake in 
 government. He should not have yielded, 
 for his views, though not those of a practical 
 financier, were sound on the banking question, 
 and he must have seen the danger. But Italy 
 had been for thirty years governed for and 
 by the banking interest, and its power was 
 irresistible. What the result would have been 
 to him was clear to all disinterested persons 
 at the time, since the Government that at- 
 tempted to resist the pressure of the business
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 183 
 
 world would have been overthrown at once ; 
 but he would have fared better had he fallen 
 then and on the question of sound finance. 
 
 The period of the legislature was drawing to 
 an end — there was still a year to run, but part 
 of the Cabinet was eager for a dissolution, and 
 Crispi, though himself opposed to it, yielded 
 and went to the country on a programme of a 
 balance in the Budget, by economies alone, 
 promising no new taxes. There was practi- 
 cally no opposition to Crispi, and at least 400 
 out of the 508 Deputies were elected under 
 his colours, but he had exercised no control 
 over the official nominations, and all candidates 
 who presented themselves as ministerial were 
 accepted as friends.^ In such a political 
 organisation, if it can be so called, as exists in 
 Italy, the only distinction in parties is that 
 between ministerial and anti-ministerial, and 
 
 1 The invariable custom in Italy is for the Government to 
 indicate to the prefects, who represent the executive power, 
 which candidates it favours. This favour may be shown either 
 by active opposition at the polls ; by erasing from the lists of 
 voters those known to be hostile, both expedients employed by 
 Nicotera, Giolitti, and Rudini in the elections they controlled ; 
 or the indication to the constituency of the names of the candi- 
 dates which the Government favours, as practised in all the 
 elections even by the most honest governments, this being 
 sufficient to determine many voters. Amongst the candidates 
 who flew the colours of Crispi at this election were Rudini and 
 others who led the revolt against him. Bonghi, Crispi's most 
 malignant enemy, begged Crispi, by personal application, not to 
 oppose his election, recognising his defeat as certain in the con- 
 trary case, and Crispi ordered the prefect not to allow any 
 pressure against Bonghi.
 
 1 84 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 the office of the prefects, representing the 
 Government in the colleges, is to notify the 
 electors whom the Government favours. Where 
 official pressure is possible it is clear that the 
 result of the elections may be more or less 
 determined by it, but Crispi has always opposed 
 the application of official influence, except in 
 the case of men whose tendency was revolu- 
 tionary — the ultra-Radicals, political Socialists, 
 and men who were openly advocates of a 
 change in the institutions. In this election 
 Crispi had a superfluity of adherents and had 
 no need of intervention, if he had been disposed 
 to apply it. The accusations which were and 
 are a matter of course in such cases, that Crispi 
 violated the freedom of the elections by official 
 pressure, are absurd, because in fact the majority 
 assured from the first was larger than it was 
 possible to discipline or that was desirable. 
 The Cabinet during the term of the legis- 
 lature concluded had been substantially that 
 of Depretis, only slightly modified by Crispi, 
 and the programme was indetermined and 
 perhaps uncertain ; the elections were expected 
 to modify the former and define the latter. 
 So far as the programme was concerned, the 
 essential point was financial, and consisted in 
 the promise to bring expenditure down to 
 income by economies alone, avoiding increase 
 of taxation ; but behind these general objects 
 Crispi had decided on defined reforms, of which
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 185 
 
 the chief were the reorganisation of the 
 currency and the consolidation of the banks 
 of issue, of which there were six, the Banca 
 Nazionale, Banca Romana, two Tuscan banks, 
 together with the Banco di NapoH and Bajjco 
 di Sicilia^ institutions which are of anomalous 
 character, their capital consisting of the 
 agglomeration of the profits of operations 
 performed with a capital given to them in 
 the first instance by the Kings of Naples, and 
 which were in fact government institutions, 
 having neither shareholders to consult nor 
 personal interests to satisfy. As assimilation 
 between these and share-holding banks, which 
 the other four were, was impossible, the plans 
 of reorganisation were limited to those in 
 Rome and Tuscany, and of these the latter, 
 always well conducted and in the main per- 
 fectly solvent, offered no obstacle against the re- 
 organisation in the abstract, the Banca Nazionale 
 being the destined nucleus of the future Banca 
 d'ltalia^ was interested in the transformation, 
 and the only one of the six which opposed the 
 plan of Crispi was the Banca Komana^ mainly 
 for reasons which subsequent events explained. 
 Its Governor, Tanlongo, opposed with all his 
 influences, secret and open, the proposed reform, 
 but as the privilege of issue accorded by the 
 law was to end in the following year, and 
 Crispi had expressed the determination of not 
 renewing it for the minor banks, the only hope
 
 1 86 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 of Tanlongo of deferring the disaster he foresaw 
 on the winding up of the bank lay in the 
 overthrow of Crispi. In the political revulsion 
 which was to follow, and which seemed so 
 inexplicable to those who did not know the 
 inner workings of Italian politics when it 
 occurred, the initiative of opposition to the 
 new ministry was taken by the Governor of 
 the Banca Romana, whose vast operations with 
 political personages, outside of or contrary to 
 the law of its organisation, had created a 
 network of interests, secret but potent, which 
 were practically at the command of the bank. 
 With it, and under the auspices of the Deputies 
 who were under its influence or in its pay, 
 began the conspiracy which was to overthrow 
 the ministry supported by the largest popular 
 majority ever known in the history of the 
 Italian Parliament. There had been a prior 
 study of a combination between Nicotera and 
 the heads of the old Right, in the October 
 prior to the elections, but they did not bear 
 fruit, and the Right for a great part, including 
 Rudini, entered the electoral campaign as 
 nominal supportors of Crispi, and the lead- 
 ing men of the Right were largely elected 
 with the support of, and as adherents to, the 
 ministry. 
 
 Early in the session the group of the Right 
 which had been represented in the negotiations 
 with Nicotera, reopened those with Crispi,
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 187 
 
 and demanded the modification of the Cabinet 
 and the admission of two of their number. 
 Crispi said that it was not in his power to 
 dismiss a minister, and that it depended on the 
 King or on a vote of the Chamber against one, 
 to determine his removal. To assume such a 
 responsibility on his own initiative would be 
 unconstitutional. This reply broke off the 
 negotiations and those with Nicotera were 
 renewed, the bank party giving the required 
 probability of a hostile majority whenever an 
 occasion should arise. The Vatican entered 
 into the combination, backed by all the secret 
 influence of the French Government, and 
 though nominally foreign to the internal 
 politics of Italy, the assurance was given that 
 in the case of Crispi's overthrow and a con- 
 sequent necessity for the appeal to the country 
 in new elections, the Catholics would be 
 directed to vote for the new ministry. Even 
 the leaders of the combination did not hope 
 for the continued adherence of a majority of a 
 Chamber to their plans, and calculated only for 
 a vote against the ministry taken by surprise, 
 and that the combination would not stand 
 more than three months. One of the Rudini 
 ministry, in a conversation I had with him 
 shortly after its formation, said to me that he 
 was personally indisposed to enter it, and only 
 did so in the firm conviction that it would not 
 last more than three months.
 
 1 88 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 The occasion for the intended attack was 
 taken on the vote for a catenaccio^ or decree for 
 the immediate imposing of a Customs-impost 
 contemporary to the presentation of the law 
 to the Chamber, as a precaution against the 
 anticipatory importation of the articles menaced, 
 in order to avoid the tax, and prevent specula- 
 tion. But there was not, under the circum- 
 stances, the ground for a hostile vote of the 
 Chamber. The country was satisfied with 
 Crispi's administration of affairs — his popularity 
 was at the highest, and a deliberate vote would 
 have strengthened his position. The secret 
 animosities dared not openly throw off the 
 mask, and only a surprise was practicable. The 
 conspiracy was therefore carried as far as secrecy 
 permitted, and it was then planned to arrange 
 a combination to throw Crispi off his guard, 
 make him lose his temper and commit some 
 indiscretion, and then to rush a vote when the 
 ministry should be entirely unprepared and 
 the Chamber easily carried along by a panic. 
 Bonghi, whose speech was of all the members 
 of the Right the most caustic, opened the 
 play with a savage attack on the old Left, 
 which he accused of extravagance, etc. Crispi, 
 in reply on the next sitting, retorted the 
 charges on the Right and showed that the 
 situation which it had brought about in 1866 
 had left the State helpless, with a fleet that 
 met defeat and an army that went to Custozza.
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 189 
 
 The allusions were Impolitic, and the heat was 
 Intempestuous In a time when conciliation as 
 between the old parties was desirable and the 
 finances demanded the union of all who valued 
 the interests of the country more than those of 
 party, but Crispl when provoked never was 
 politic, and the attack of Bonghi, one of his 
 oldest and bitterest enemies, was purposely 
 venomous and irritating. Crispl fell into the 
 trap, and when his reply was made, the violence 
 of It offended some and dismayed others, while 
 the confederates continued the Irritation by 
 jeers and contemptuous cries. The Chamber 
 was stirred to a feverish excitement, and In this 
 state of general Irritation or assumed indigna- 
 tion the vote was taken and the ministry was 
 defeated. The King did not support Crispl, 
 the new ministers said even that he expressed 
 himself as in the position of the young Emperor 
 of Germany with Bismarck, glad to be re- 
 lieved of the domination of the minister. 
 This the King In later days distinctly denied 
 to me, and I do not think that It Is pro- 
 bable under the circumstances, but It was not 
 then denied and had Its effect in the forming 
 of a new majority. That His Majesty had, 
 however, practically abandoned Crisp! is clear. 
 That night a prelate who was friendly to 
 Crispl, and who was one of my personal 
 Intimates, came to me with the Information 
 of the negotiations with the Vatican for the
 
 I90 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 support of the Catholic vote, which I com- 
 municated to Crispi. He was incredulous, 
 but referring to his own authoritative sources 
 of information in the Vatican he found it 
 confirmed, and then for the first time 
 understood the importance and extent of the 
 combination which he had supposed to be 
 fortuitous. Knowing the weakness of the 
 proposed ministerial combination, I did not 
 believe Crispi's retirement could endure long 
 and I publicly expressed that opinion. The 
 next day I received a note from an informant 
 well versed in the transactions of the Roman 
 financial world to this effect : — " You are 
 wrong about Crispi's ever returning to power; 
 there is a financial combination which will 
 effectually prevent it." 
 
 Under the circumstances the King made a 
 mistake, it seems to me, in accepting Crispi's 
 resignation, the most serious mistake the 
 House of Savoy has made since Italy was 
 united. The voice of the country was so 
 strongly in favour of the minister that had he 
 been enabled to consult it again he would 
 have been in a still stronger manner supported, 
 and the incident on which the vote was taken 
 was too trivial and personal to be weighed in 
 relation with the grave importance of the 
 crisis, while the calling of a ministry, most of 
 the members of which were without authority 
 or experience, to the direction of affairs, was
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 191 
 
 an experiment which promised disaster, and 
 fulfilled exorbitantly its promises. The bank- 
 ing interest resumed its direction of affairs, 
 and until the fall of the Banca Romana its 
 authority was not contested. For Crispi, 
 personally, it was a fortunate event that he 
 was thrown out of power at that time. He 
 was worn out with the fatigue of the double 
 office he occupied, and not only his health, 
 but his pecuniary affairs, needed his retirement. 
 His temper had grown morbid and dangerous 
 to himself and those around him. I remember 
 that in the latter days of his office, I had been 
 called to the Consulta to receive some ex- 
 planations on diplomatic affairs, and as the 
 interview was of some length, and the sub- 
 ordinates rather nervous when in attendance, 
 the one who had accompanied me to the door 
 of the minister's cabinet was waiting at it for 
 my appearance, and I shall not forget the 
 anxiety with which he asked me what temper 
 Crispi was in. His secretaries approached 
 him with apprehension. His domestic affairs 
 were at low ebb, for his ordinary income from 
 his legal practice, which left little margin 
 when out of office, was four times his official 
 salary ; and Crispi did not follow the practice 
 of keeping his office open with a substitute, 
 as mostly the ministers do, but closed it en- 
 tirely, and gave his whole mind to his minis- 
 terial duties. A letter is extant from his wife.
 
 192 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 written In the latter period of his first ministry, 
 in which she complains that office was eating 
 them up, and praying the Madonna to relieve 
 them of it. To be free to accept office under 
 Depretis in 1887 he had consolidated his debts 
 in the sum of 240,000 lire (^9600), under the 
 express condition that he should not be required 
 to pay it till he retired from office, and when 
 that event took place they had not been 
 diminished by a pound. 
 
 The day after he left the Presidency of 
 the Council the business world received his 
 circular, Francesco Crisply Avvocato^ and during 
 the three following years he devoted himself 
 entirely to his business interests. He appeared 
 in the Chamber occasionally and voted on 
 the important laws, but took no part in the 
 reorganisation of the opposition. He spoke 
 against the Parliamentary Commission to ex- 
 amine the state of the banks, which led to 
 the Banca Romana crash, not, as the report of 
 the Commission showed conclusively, because 
 he had any personal or corrupt interests in- 
 volved, but because he saw, as did most others 
 who had no interest or passion in the matter, 
 that the promoters of the step were those who 
 cared more for the weakening of the monarchy 
 or their personal interests than for the purity 
 of Italian politics, and hoped more from scandal 
 than from reform. Crispi opposed it as likely 
 to produce a scandal which would discredit
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 193 
 
 the country, and proposed in preference the 
 legal reform of the system of banking, and 
 the subsequent unsensational rectification of 
 the condition of the banks. He was right, 
 for though the investigation developed the 
 rottenness of the Banca Romana^ it did not 
 implicate many public men, and though it 
 was aimed especially against Crispi, and the 
 ministry of the day (Giolitti's) did all that 
 was in its power to obtain evidence against 
 him, the Commission reported that nothing 
 had been discovered to implicate him, either 
 morally or politically. The history of the 
 country during those three years has little of 
 Crispi in it. The weakness of the invertebrate 
 government of Rudini, possibly honest, but 
 timid and inexperienced, shrinking from every 
 hostile vote and withdrawing every com- 
 promising measure, retreating step by step to 
 the abyss into which it fell when retreat could 
 go no further, was followed by the more 
 crafty and far less respectable administration 
 of Giolitti, living by makeshifts and momentary 
 expedients, most disastrous in their ultimate 
 effect on the order and finance of the country, 
 and which, with an unexampled corruption 
 of the elections, showed an unprecedented in- 
 difference, on one side to the maintenance of 
 authority, and on the other to the solidity of 
 the financial situation. The extreme Radicals, 
 who had united with Rudini, the Right, and 
 
 o
 
 194 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 the Clericals to overthrow Crispi, and then 
 with Giolitti to upset Rudini, were now pro- 
 tecting and stimulating a vast scheme of an 
 insurrectionary tendency, the ultimate scope 
 of which was the Federal Republic. Before 
 this danger the ministry was absolutely im- 
 potent, both on account of its want of executive 
 vigour and decision, and its moral position, 
 impeached by the exposures of its complicity 
 in the bank scandals, in consequence of which 
 it resigned without a vote, on the report of 
 the Commission appointed to investigate them. 
 An active and widespread insurrection had 
 broken out in Sicily, and in the district of 
 Lunigiana, where the quarrymen of the great 
 marble regions had long been disposed to 
 socialism ; and preparations for a rising were 
 proceeding in the strong and always insub- 
 ordinate population of the Romagna ; the 
 funds were falling and the foreign exchange 
 rising rapidly, as the disorder spread with no 
 apparent possibility of checking it ; a great 
 disaster seemed imminent. None of the pro- 
 posed heads of Government succeeded in 
 forming a ministry, and all were obliged in 
 turn to decline the charge. Crispi was, as 
 usual, opposed by all the Court influences, 
 and the King hesitated to call him until the 
 popular cry for him became irresistible, and 
 it was evident to the nation that no other 
 name had the power to enlist the public
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 195 
 
 confidence. After a fortnight of disastrous 
 hesitation, in which the stability of the 
 Monarchy seemed in danger, the King decided 
 to charge Crispi with the formation of a 
 government. 
 
 Not long after Crispi's fall in 1891, and 
 while the ministry of Rudini seemed still in 
 an unstable condition (which, indeed it never 
 left), I asked Crispi if he would accept the 
 government again. He replied, " Only on my 
 own programme." In the situation of affairs 
 in which he received the new call, there was 
 no question of a definite programme or a 
 combination of parties — the whole country 
 was with him, the politicians were not. Of 
 all the men who by their position in the 
 councils of the country were evident candi- 
 dates for the leading place, only one, Saracco, 
 was ready to accept a share of the responsibility 
 with Crispi, and the situation could only be 
 met by the combination of all the moral 
 resources of the nation. Never to any Italian 
 was the Tarpeian rock so near to the Capitol ; 
 if he accepted the post offered him in 
 extremis and the ministry failed, the rapid 
 overthrow of the Monarchy was inevitable ; 
 financial failure was only six months away 
 and new taxes must be laid on ; the insur- 
 rection was spreading, and in a fortnight would 
 have involved the Romagna ; the general 
 rising had been fixed vaguely for the spring-
 
 196 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 time, but in Sicily the spring-time found 
 winter still in the Romagna, and so the 
 unanimity so necessary in insurrection failed, 
 and not the Government. Crispi accepted the 
 charge, waiving his old resolution never to 
 accept unless with his own men and his own 
 measures ; it was necessary to save the Govern- 
 ment and the Monarchy. 
 
 The formation of this ministry had a 
 peculiarly dramatic character ; the rival am- 
 bitions stood around, eagerly expecting the 
 failure of Crispi, though none of them had 
 been able to form an acceptable list of ministers, 
 and public opinion with an extraordinary 
 unanimity insisting on Crispi ; those who had 
 a claim by past position to the premiership 
 refusing to take posts under Crispi, or, like 
 Rudini, ready to accept only to overthrow 
 their chief as soon as the crisis was past. The 
 important positions were those of the Public 
 Works, the Treasury, and the Interior, held by 
 Crispi himself Zanardelli, held by public 
 opinion as too infirm in his temper, and by his 
 extreme radical associations as well as his age, 
 unfit for the emergency which required a 
 nerve and promptness of decision which he 
 did not possess, still held on to the hope of 
 success, and, at the last moment was ready with 
 a list, in which unfortunately for him was com- 
 prised Baratieri, the only general who could be 
 induced to take the portfolio of War, and who
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 197 
 
 by his nativity, in the Trentine, by his career 
 as one of the Garibaldian officers transferred 
 to the regular army, and as having been an 
 active Irredentist, was regarded as obnoxious 
 to Austria. This consideration compelled the 
 King to decline giving Zanardelli the charge, 
 which added intensity to the opposition of his 
 group to the accession of Crispi, while making 
 any other combination more difficult. The 
 antagonism of the factions was never more 
 savage than at this moment, when the insur- 
 rection in Sicily was daily gaining ground 
 before the incompetence and panic of the 
 acting ministry, and menaced the social order. 
 The rival candidates were only intent on 
 demolishing each other, while the enemy was 
 at the gates, and almost winning in. Saracco, 
 though not a sympathiser, much less a partisan 
 of Crispi, but a Piedmontese of the old school 
 of patriotism, who put the Monarchy before all 
 other interests, accepted the invitation, with 
 the result of bringing over the most reasonable 
 section of the Right ; and the good-will of 
 Sonnino, the most competent financier in the 
 political world, carried with it a large section 
 of the Centre. General Ricotti, the most 
 competent military organiser, refused the in- 
 vitation to take the War portfolio, it was said 
 under pressure from the Court, and the 
 assignment of the Treasury to Sonnino excited 
 the most violent opposition of the extreme
 
 198 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 Left, the leader of which, Cavallotti, dis- 
 tinguished in the sequence as the most 
 rancorous enemy of Crispi, declared from his 
 place in the Chamber that if Crispi would 
 separate himself from Sonnino he would have 
 no more devoted follower than himself. There 
 was, behind the evident parliamentary crisis, 
 a partisan struggle, the extreme Left attempting 
 to force a ministry of a party-colour on Crispi, 
 and the extreme Right hoping to overthrow 
 the Crispi combination to make way for Rudini 
 and a ministry of the Right, which should 
 govern with the aid of the Court. Mocenni, 
 a loyal and non-partisan soldier, accepted the 
 portfolio of War ; Admiral Morin, the best 
 organiser in the navy, that of the Marine, 
 the less important positions being held by men 
 of no eminence, and the Foreign Affairs being 
 held in petto until the last moment, with the 
 supposition that it would be held, as in Crispi's 
 former ministry, ad interim by himself. It 
 was, in fact, assigned to Baron Blanc, the 
 former minister to Constantinople, a Senator 
 and friend of Crispi, and as such dismissed 
 from the diplomatic service by Rudini in 1891 
 under circumstances of peculiar and malignant 
 injustice. Blanc was, beyond question, the 
 most able and accomplished diplomat in the 
 Italian service, and had been the private 
 secretary of Cavour, but, having been one of 
 the chief and most zealous advocates and
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 199 
 
 workers for the Triple Alliance, was especially- 
 obnoxious to the enemies of that pact, and no 
 doubt the reservation of his name until the 
 completion of the ministry averted a new storm 
 of opposition in the Chamber. 
 
 The attempt by an anarchist to assassinate 
 Crispi, brought his popularity with the country 
 in evidence, and he had at that time a posi- 
 tion which, to all superficial observation, was 
 immovable. Even the most obstinate and 
 hostile members of the Right accepted the 
 position as likely to last as long as Crispi 
 lived. One heard him spoken of, even by 
 conservative Deputies, as " minister for life," 
 and he seemed to have inherited the position 
 of Cavour as the indispensable man, for, in 
 fact, there was no other statesman in view on 
 whom the country at large placed any depend- 
 ence. An ultra-conservative Deputy from the 
 Veneto, fresh from an audience of the King, 
 assured me that His Majesty had professed 
 his willingness to see Crispi made Dictator. 
 There was a concurrence of adulation from 
 enemies of old date and perennial scoffers at 
 the old Sicilian revolutionary, such as one 
 could only see in Italy, but which in the 
 condition of Italy to-day only lasted until the 
 places to be filled were all assigned. There 
 was a union of hearts in what concerned in- 
 dividual ambitions, but, the danger which had 
 paralysed all the elements of order in the State
 
 200 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 once gone by, the disappointed place-hunters 
 returned to their kennels and their sneers. 
 
 In the speech in the Chamber, which 
 announced the programme of the ministry as 
 the restoration of the finances and order, Crispi 
 made, in the most powerfully pathetic terms 
 I can remember to have heard in that House, 
 an appeal for the " truce of God " from party 
 dissensions and for union until that programme 
 should be attained. The response from the 
 majority was sceptical ; on the extreme Right 
 it was a laugh, on the whole discouraging, 
 but as Crispi had the dissolution of the 
 Chamber in his pocket, condition sine qua non 
 of his acceptance, he could compel respect 
 from an assembly, many members of which 
 had been elected by the corrupt pressure of 
 Giolitti, and could not count on a re-election. 
 The minister's most intimate friends and 
 advisers urged him to dissolve and call new 
 elections with no loss of time, but the old 
 man always replied, " I will get something 
 out of these." At no time since Cavour has 
 any Italian minister shown such a resource of 
 managing power, and the hostile majority, 
 while it accepted the old minister's deference 
 and conciliatory manner as symptoms of weak- 
 ness, voted his measures one by one, and 
 mostly without modification. 
 
 In the important question of the reform 
 of the administration of government, involving
 
 F. CRISPI, 1893
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 201 
 
 the necessary abolition of many places and 
 sinecures, it was evidently impossible to secure 
 the approbation of a majority composed as 
 was that of the day, to the suppressions in 
 detail, and a bill was introduced giving the 
 ministry full powers for such reforms and 
 abolitions of places as it regarded as necessary 
 for administrative efficiency and economy. To 
 this measure I have already alluded, and it 
 was the only one of great importance which 
 the Chamber so modified that it was with- 
 drawn as useless for the purposes proposed. 
 The ministry was at that moment harmonious 
 to an extent I can recall in no ministry in 
 my day, and the shape of every measure was 
 decided by the majority in Council before 
 presentation to the Chamber, so that the usual 
 Italian tactics of pulling a ministry to pieces 
 like an artichoke, leaf by leaf, was impossible 
 — a crisis meant dissolution of the Chamber, 
 and this they did not care to face. Other 
 tactics became necessary. The opposition was 
 composed of all the corruptly elected Gio- 
 littians, that group of the extreme Right 
 which adhered to Rudini ; all the rivals of 
 Crispi to the succession, including Zanardelli ; 
 those of the Left who had followed Nicotera, 
 and some of the heads of minor groups in the 
 Left and Centres ; but there was no agree- 
 ment and no programme except to over- 
 throw Crispi. The rapid pacification of the
 
 202 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 insurrection under martial law, and the check 
 on the deterioration of the jfinancial position, 
 which obtained in the first month of the 
 new government under the management of 
 Sonnino ^ had abated the apprehensions of the 
 country, and it now became the habit to 
 minimise the past danger and Crispi's services 
 — it was the egg of Columbus again, and any- 
 body could govern as Crispi had governed. 
 The conspiracy took a new form, and now 
 there was perhaps the most curious and 
 characteristic display of the mediaevalism 
 surviving in the Italian temperament which 
 our century has seen. A favourite device 
 in the Chamber has always been to raise 
 a personal question, and on it to get up a 
 fictitious excitement, and from this to a 
 stampede of the undisciplined Chamber is an 
 easy transition. We have seen it in the 
 overthrow of Crispi's first ministry ; it suc- 
 ceeded equally in the attack on Rudini and in 
 that on Giolitti, in both which cases the 
 ministry had a clear majority, had it been 
 deliberately consulted, but which gave way to 
 the panic and went like sheep after the leaders. 
 In the occasion of the new attack on Crispi, 
 Giolitti who, on account of the bank scandal, 
 was temporarily, but entirely, excluded from 
 
 ^ Sonnino admitted to mc afterwards that his financial 
 measures would not have been carried through but for the 
 influence and cordial support of Crispi.
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 203 
 
 the ministerial competition, was employed as 
 an instrument. The Radicals and Socialists 
 took the direction of the plot, the more 
 respectable chiefs of the constitutional opposi- 
 tion remaining in reserve, to fall on when the 
 ministry should be embarrassed by the Radical 
 attack. As fortune would have it, the Radical 
 obstruction had so entirely blocked business 
 for several days, that a decree of prorogation 
 as preliminary to a dissolution had been 
 prepared for promulgation prior to the de- 
 velopment of the direct attack, which was 
 to consist of a revival of the scandal of the 
 Banca Romana, based on documents which 
 Giolitti pretended to have reserved, and with 
 which he had some time before menaced the 
 reputations of public men unnamed, if the 
 prosecution which had been promoted against 
 him were not dropped. I am not disposed 
 to blame Giolitti for the course he had taken 
 — the persecution of him by the Radicals had 
 been, like that of Crispi, animated by political 
 motives entirely, and was out of all proportion 
 to his offences, which were only an exaggera- 
 tion of those common enough in Italian 
 politics : he was under the gravamen of a 
 political prosecution, and was evidently forced 
 into the combination in the Chamber by the 
 menaces of the active opposition to the 
 ministry, and was finally compelled to put 
 his so-called documents into the possession of
 
 204 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 the Chamber. The fact was that the " docu- 
 ments " were only empty menace ; there was 
 nothing in them which had not been made 
 pubHc and weighed by the original Com- 
 mission on the affairs of the Batica Romana, 
 but no one knew this except the principal 
 plotters. The Radicals demanded a committee 
 for the examination of the documents ; Crispi, 
 with Bonghi,^ and the temperate Deputies 
 not participating in the conspiracy, urged the 
 reference of them to the tribunal which had 
 possession of the charges against Giolitti ; but 
 the timidity of a large number of the Deputies, 
 who feared to be accused of being com- 
 promised by the documents if they voted 
 against it, decided the appointment of the 
 committee. In this packet of papers, famous 
 since as the Giolitti plico, there were repeated 
 charges against Crispi, none of which were 
 new, and all of which had been weighed 
 and rejected by the committee on the banks, 
 except certain unsubstantiated imputations 
 made by Tanlongo, as he had promptly con- 
 fessed in a communication to the President 
 of the Chamber, under compulsion by Giolitti, 
 and which he afterwards admitted to be 
 without foundation. The plico contained no 
 documents in evidence, or proofs of any kind 
 
 ^ In this crisis Bonghi, forgetting his old animosity against 
 his Sicilian enemy, supported the ministry with remarkable 
 vigour and efficacy.
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 205 
 
 of the statements made, and was legally and 
 morally utterly worthless, but it served to 
 raise the needed outcry, and the Radicals 
 demanded that Crispi should resign and put 
 himself on the defence. The device was 
 transparent — Crispi out of office, there was in 
 the ministry no one with the prestige and 
 strength of hand required to sustain the con- 
 tinual attacks on it, and it would have been 
 unable, in the actual state of aff^airs, to hold its 
 own against the opposition for a week. The 
 response of Crispi was the only one which 
 could have settled the question definitely, he 
 brought a libel suit against Giolitti, and as 
 the Chamber had become utterly anarchical, 
 the decree of prorogation prepared on other 
 grounds was issued, and the Chamber dissolved, 
 as it should have been long before. The 
 reference of the libel to the ordinary tribunals 
 was opposed by Giolitti, who demanded a 
 trial before the Senate, and in the last resort 
 the majority of the Court of Appeals, on un- 
 questionably partisan grounds, decided that 
 his demand should be accorded. The aff^air 
 was dropped as soon as the political exigency 
 had passed, having been in fact purely 
 factitious. The constituencies pronounced 
 judgment in a general election which was 
 beyond any contradiction the freest and most 
 orderly held for several years, and which 
 supported the old Sicilian with a majority of
 
 2o6 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 150 in a Chamber of 508 Deputies, not so 
 numerous as in his former general election, 
 but far more united, and constituted in a large 
 measure of a class of men of an order above 
 the usual Italian Deputy. 
 
 The question of the foreign policy has 
 always had, from the position of Italy in 
 Europe, a much graver importance in the 
 stability of a ministry than in any other 
 European country. Too weak, from the want 
 of practical unity either in foreign or domestic 
 interests, to stand firmly alone, successive 
 ministries have leaned on one or the other 
 foreign power, and have owed their stability 
 or downfall to the power they leaned on. 
 The energetic hostility of France towards 
 Crispi has hardly been met by the mild, 
 perhaps dubious, and certainly never active, 
 influence of England, and this antagonism had 
 a more than incidental importance in the 
 career of this second government of Crispi. 
 The circumstances under which he returned 
 to power were, as I have shown, such that to 
 all appearance he was minister during the 
 term of his efficiency, and the French Govern- 
 ment, recognising the policy of conciliation 
 under the circumstances to be the only one 
 which promised any useful results, made 
 overtures for a reconciliation. He was offered 
 a treaty of commerce and such financial bene- 
 volence as Italy might be in need of, on
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 207 
 
 condition that he abandoned the English 
 understanding for the Mediterranean, pro- 
 positions which in his consistent policy he 
 refused. In this decision he made a fatal 
 mistake, and, believing as he did in the effici- 
 ency of the English understanding, he braved 
 the consequences of the more intense hostility 
 of France. These consequences were the 
 instigation of hostilities in Abyssinia and the 
 war which resulted in the defeat at Adowah. 
 The subsequent adhesion of the government 
 of Crispi to the English Armenian demon- 
 stration, to support which Crispi sent the fleet 
 to Smyrna and mobilised a corps d'armee for 
 operation in Asia Minor, and the renewal of a 
 tripartite agreement between England, Austria, 
 and Italy, originally formed in 1887, brought 
 Russia into the Franco-Abyssinian league with 
 fatal consequences. 
 
 The preliminary campaign of this war was 
 apparently a local revolt of Mangascia, the son 
 of Giovanni, the former Negus of Abyssinia, 
 succeeded by Menelek in alliance against 
 Giovanni with the Italians. The campaign 
 ended with the total defeat of Mangascia in 
 a series of brilliant victories under the general- 
 ship of Baratieri. The revolt of Mangascia 
 was really the opening movement of the war 
 declared by Menelek, under the instigation of 
 Russia and France, and the victories of Baratieri 
 were disguised disasters, leading to overcon-
 
 2o8 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 fidence in the General and a bellicose temper 
 in the country. Baratieri was thoroughly- 
 incompetent for anything beyond a Garibaldian 
 movement — rash, rapid in attack and obstinate 
 in defence, he risked total destruction in the 
 preliminary combats where the number of the 
 forces either of the enemy or his own troops 
 was limited to what he held under his own 
 eyes. Ambitious and excited by his successes, 
 he dreamed conquests beyond his capacity to 
 compass, and public opinion in Italy un- 
 fortunately became largely accessory to his 
 views. Crispi was personally opposed to any 
 extension of the operations in Africa, but he 
 had not, as had happened to him on other 
 occasions, the courage to oppose the popular 
 enthusiasm and insist on the limitation of the 
 operations to a purely defensive position within 
 the lines then occupied. Baratieri urged an 
 offensive defence, meeting the invasion of 
 Menelek, which was now seen to be impend- 
 ing, by the occupation of the difficult country 
 beyond the recognised frontier of the colony. 
 Meanwhile Baratieri had been called home 
 to explain his policy, and had given assurance 
 that he did not require additional troops or 
 funds, notwithstanding which the ministry 
 sent some reinforcements. It happened that I 
 met the General at a breakfast given by the 
 minister of Foreign Affairs to a few friends, 
 and an interview was given me when we left
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 209 
 
 the table, in which he distinctly declared to 
 me that his object was not to ask for reinforce- 
 ments or a freer hand and extension of the 
 territory — he did not " ask for another man or 
 another lira " more than the modest appro- 
 priation already made, and this was based on a 
 pacific policy, which was that desired by the 
 Government. There was a strong suspicion 
 in the Cabinet that these professions were 
 insincere, and there was a disposition on the 
 part at least of the majority of the ministers 
 to keep the General in Italy, and send a safer 
 man to the colony. Whether on account of a 
 division of opinion in the Cabinet, or because 
 the antagonism to Crispi's policy in the " un- 
 constitutional opposition " had already begun 
 to appear and exert an unfortunate influence 
 on the King, I cannot say, but what is certain 
 is that the divergence of the views of the 
 General and the Premier were recognised by 
 some of the political observers, for I received 
 from the office of The Times communication of 
 private information to the efl^ect that Baratieri's 
 object in returning was precisely the opposite 
 of that which he declared to me and to the 
 Government, and what was ultimately seen to be 
 the case. The crisis was peculiar, and perhaps 
 impossible in a strictly constitutional govern- 
 ment, and it illustrates the difficulties under 
 which Crispi, who was a rigid constitutionalist, 
 always laboured. He was convinced that 
 
 p
 
 210 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 Baratieri was not equal to the task before him, 
 in case of grave complications in the colony, 
 but from the return of the General to Massowah 
 affairs began to grow worse. The country 
 was exultant in the victories won, and the 
 popularity of Baratieri was very great, and at 
 that moment the colony enjoyed great en- 
 thusiasm over nearly the entire kingdom, and 
 in the Chamber the suffrages were so strongly 
 in favour of the maintenance of all that had 
 been won that the ministry would certainly 
 have been defeated on a proposition to with- 
 draw before the menaced invasion by the 
 Abyssinians. In fact, at the close of the session 
 of Parliament preceding the fatal issue of the 
 campaign, there was no considerable party 
 which was willing to oppose the ministerial 
 policy, and the order of the day which approved 
 it was drawn up by the Marquis di Rudini, 
 the head of the constitutional opposition, and 
 accepted by the ministry. In the debates the 
 only group which opposed the appropriation 
 of 14,000,000 of lire for the colony, was the 
 small one of the extreme Left, composed of 
 Socialists, Republicans, and other Radicals. The 
 Chamber adjourned in marked enthusiasm, and, 
 with the exception of Lombardy, no part of 
 the kingdom had maintained an opposition to 
 the general African policy. The splendid 
 victories of Coatit and Senafe on the south, 
 under the immediate command of Baratieri,
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 211 
 
 and those on the north under other chiefs, 
 of Agordat, and Kassala, won against the 
 redoubtable warriors the Abyssinians and 
 Dervishes, had shown that the Italian military 
 organisation and material was such as to raise 
 the national pride to a height it had never 
 seen since the days of San Martino, and the 
 country at large had no misgivings as to the 
 result of the invasion of Menelek. And the 
 country was justified in its enthusiasms could 
 the operations have been kept within the lines 
 traced by the ministry. 
 
 But here begins the dolorous history of 
 the invasion of Italy's worst enemy, the private 
 and partisan intrigues in Court and Parliament. 
 As may well be understood, the hostility of 
 the enemies of Crispi in the Legislature was 
 only masked by the assent to the general 
 enthusiasm of the country, and the men who 
 on one day had proposed a vote of approbation 
 of the policy of the Government were on the 
 next day engaged, as before, in the secret 
 negotiations to overthrow it. The advices 
 from Erythrea immediately after the return 
 of Baratieri were such as to confirm in the 
 strongest manner the distrust which Crispi had 
 entertained of his capacity and the suspicions 
 as to his conformity to the policy laid down 
 for him. Crispi proposed to supersede him by 
 Baldissera, a former Governor of the colony and 
 a soldier of known prudence and ability, but
 
 212 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 the King refused assent, and a strong camorra 
 was formed in the entourage of the throne, 
 against which Crispi urged in vain, as the 
 evidences of the incapacity and insubordination 
 of Baratieri were brought before him, the 
 recall of the fatal commander. Here again 
 Crispi blundered in not offering his resignation. 
 The information which came from most com- 
 petent sources in Erythrea showed that demoral- 
 isation was increasing at such a rate in the army, 
 that the most irresponsible favourites controlled 
 the action of headquarters — the generals were 
 at loggerheads and discipline rapidly disappear- 
 ing. Weeks before the disaster came, letters 
 of which I had personal cognizance warned the 
 Government that such was the condition of 
 the headquarters that unless some one capable 
 of direction and maintenance of discipline came 
 soon to take the command, a grave disaster 
 must be looked for. Still the King refused to 
 assent to the recall of Baratieri, and it was 
 only when the danger was so apparent that 
 reinforcements were sent to an extent that 
 made the command one which, according to 
 the regulations, a General of Baratieri's grade 
 could no longer hold, that Baldissera was sent 
 to take the general command. The fear was 
 such that Baratieri, whose conduct had come 
 to indicate either dangerous insubordination 
 or mental deterioration, should learn of his 
 supersession and precipitate a collison, that the
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 213 
 
 orders to Baldissera were kept secret, as was 
 supposed, and orders were sent to Massowah 
 not to forward any letters or telegrams to 
 Baratieri, who had gone to the front, which 
 contained the information. The precautions 
 were useless, for the news arrived by some 
 secret channel, and, while Baldissera was on 
 the way, the fatal and incredibly incompetent 
 attack by 16,000 men on impregnable positions 
 held by 80,000 of the finest type of savage 
 combatants, well armed and commanded, and 
 directed in their strategy by Russian and 
 French officers, was made, with the result that 
 had been apprehended by the ministry. But 
 the demoralisation caused in the country by 
 the defeat was a still greater disaster. The 
 battle had been, on the part of the Italian 
 troops, a demonstration of the splendid quality 
 of the rank and file such as very few modern 
 battles could show. There was no panic, 
 though the men saw that they were in a 
 hopeless position soon after the fighting began ; 
 they obeyed orders as if on parade, and some 
 brigades, whose position was hopeless, were 
 exterminated fighting like bull-dogs, the total 
 loss approaching 7000, the survivors retreating 
 without panic, under the orders of the few 
 officers left. But the losses of the Abyssinian 
 army had been such that a renewal of the 
 attack would have turned the face of disaster, 
 and there were on the way and within two or
 
 214 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 three days' call, an army larger than that which 
 had met Menelek at Adowah, with Baldissera 
 in command, and the Abyssinians were unable 
 to advance, while the season of the rains was 
 on them and a week's delay was ruin ; so that 
 a resolute advance by the troops at hand would 
 have completely changed the complexion of 
 affairs. But the dismay at Rome paralysed all 
 operations ; as had been the case with Custozza, 
 Lissa, and even at Dogali, the fortitude of the 
 nation, government, and people, gave way 
 before disaster, and the enemies of Crispi, more 
 intent on his overthrow than on restoring the 
 civic courage, laboured to aggravate the panic, 
 and inside the ministry a division took place 
 which left no possibility of taking the only 
 remedy which was possible for the demoral- 
 isation. The only plan of procedure which 
 offered a remedy was to continue the military 
 operations, prorogue the reopening of Parlia- 
 ment until the operations were concluded, and 
 meanwhile revive the courage of the country. 
 But in this juncture, Saracco, always the least 
 cordial of the ministers in his support of Crispi, 
 insisted on the convocation of Parliament, 
 which of course meant a defeat in the Chamber 
 according to all the Italian precedents, and as 
 his insistence would have probably been more 
 or less seconded by one or more other ministers, 
 a crisis was inevitable, and Crispi decided to 
 resign before meeting the Chamber.
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 215 
 
 The immediate responsibility for the disaster 
 of Adowah lies on the King, that which fell 
 on Crispi was owing to his reluctance to put 
 responsibility where it belonged, and resign 
 when the King refused assent to a measure the 
 minister considered of vital importance. But 
 in this case again Crispi was not well seconded 
 by his colleagues, several of whom were un- 
 willing to force the hand of His Majesty, and 
 Crispi hoped by negative orders to Baratieri 
 to compel him to refrain from offensive opera- 
 tions until the rains came on in Abyssinia 
 and operation should become impossible, for 
 Menelek was obliged to retreat before the 
 rains began, and only two weeks lay before 
 him when the incredible folly of Baratieri gave 
 him his opportunity. A very singular incident 
 at this conjuncture suggests a treason some- 
 where in the affair. The day before the 
 battle took place. La T'ribuna^ the principal 
 Roman daily, received a telegram from Tunis, 
 communicating the news of a great disaster to 
 the Italian army. As there was no channel of 
 communication between Abyssinia and Tunis, 
 the French authorities must have had some 
 reason to anticipate a collision at that time. 
 What is, however, of unquestionable purport 
 is that in the intrigues of Court and the dis- 
 affected quarters of the military region, a check 
 to the policy of Crispi in Africa was desired 
 and, according to some Italian authorities,
 
 2i6 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 expected, through the generalship of Baratleri ; 
 not, naturally, a grave defeat, but a sufficient 
 check to overthrow the ministry and discredit 
 the policy hitherto followed. It was even 
 asserted that secret orders were sent to Baratieri 
 to make the movement which Crispi had 
 forbidden, and there was this ground for the 
 suspicion, that a General who was sent out to 
 reinforce Baratieri on the eve of the battle was 
 one of those most hostile to Crispi, in the 
 hostile army circles. The impression left on 
 my own mind, being more or less in know- 
 ledge of what was going on, was that the op- 
 position to Crispi personally was maintained 
 in the War Office (outside the Cabinet of the 
 minister, Mocenni, who was a loyal soldier), 
 and by the King and the circle around him. 
 But the policy in Africa was not the policy 
 of Crispi, who had from the beginning op- 
 posed the colony, and only accepted it when 
 he considered the honour of the flag com- 
 promised. The only occasion on which I 
 had ever oflTered an opinion on the policy of 
 the Government to Crispi was when he came 
 to the ministry in 1893, and when making the 
 usual visit of congratulation. I then expressed 
 the hope that he would abandon the African 
 colony, and obey his original forebodings of 
 disaster. He replied that the honour of Italy 
 was engaged and it was impossible to withdraw. 
 " We have had the sacrifices," he said, " and
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 217 
 
 now we must realise the profits." For myself 
 I could never anticipate any profits, and the 
 colony always portended sacrifice to the end. 
 
 The political situation at the moment of 
 the battle of Adowah is a most instructive 
 picture of the condition of Italian politics, and 
 will explain the pessimism with which the 
 well-informed student of them regards the 
 future of the kingdom. Against the ministry, 
 headed by the admittedly most competent 
 man in the country, comprising several of 
 the most honest and able administrators, 
 Sonnino, Maggiorino Ferraris, Blanc in 
 Foreign Affairs, Saracco, who, if hardly ever 
 a cordial supporter of Crispi, was a minister 
 of the most unimpeachable integrity and 
 capacity in administration, and with colleagues 
 without exception of unquestioned uprightness, 
 all the occult forces of the kingdom were 
 arrayed. The King himself might have given 
 the ministry a solid position had he been 
 acting in cordial good faith towards Crispi, 
 but he was not. He sheltered the intrigues 
 of the Court and the element in the army 
 hostile to Crispi, and these, as well as the 
 chiefs of the groups in the opposition in the 
 Chamber, were willing to risk a check in 
 Africa to secure the overthrow of a minister 
 whom they all hated ; in the ministry a 
 majority were opposed to forcing the hand of 
 the King, and of this majority Crispi was
 
 21 8 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 himself a member ; he seemed to have de- 
 veloped in his old age a clinging to office, 
 and abandoned the independence of his earlier 
 career, while every measure by which he 
 wished to secure the solidity of his own and 
 the ministry's position met a strong and un- 
 yielding passive opposition in quarters which 
 inevitably affected the Parliamentary posi- 
 tion, — secret hostility surrounded him, and 
 he was even only supported loyally by an 
 actual minority, a large one, however, of the 
 Chamber ; the Senate, always ready to follow 
 a signal of the King, was lukewarm in support 
 of the Government, and only the old parlia- 
 mentary hand's knowledge of tactics enabled 
 him to meet the difficulties of the position 
 for a time. Crispi himself obeyed the exi- 
 gencies of the situation in all loyalty — his 
 great difficulty had always been in his personal 
 surroundings and domestic intrusion in public 
 affairs, but every attempt at such intrusion 
 in appointments or measures met the firm 
 opposition of the ministry, in which his own 
 concurred. Certain nominations, due to such 
 influences, showed the real and grave weakness 
 of Crispi in public affairs, and against these 
 his colleagues were united, and he invariably 
 accepted the decisions of the majority. There 
 is no more pathetic history in the annals of 
 constitutional government than that of the 
 end of Crispi's official career. Hated on the
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 219 
 
 one hand by all the friends of antiquated 
 privilege, by the Church and all its reactionary 
 allies and the stagnant elements of the con- 
 servative order of things, on the other he 
 was even more cordially detested by the 
 propagators of disorder and radical dissolution 
 of the state, and the object of all the political 
 hostility of the successive governments of 
 France ; and beyond and around all this 
 positive antagonism, he was opposed by the 
 lethargy and indifference of the Italian political 
 stagnation, annoyed by his nervous activity 
 and insistence ; but his chief, because most 
 intimate, enemies were those of his own house- 
 hold, against which he had no defence. 
 
 The fiery and aggressive temper in which, 
 in his career as head of the party of action, 
 he had sown the seeds of life-long hostilities, 
 had changed to the politic and conciliatory, 
 even to humble solicitation to old enemies to 
 join him in effort to heal and save the State, 
 to be met always by the factious and irre- 
 concilable rancours of a generation gone by. 
 During his first premiership, when the corrup- 
 tion in the magistracy called for reforms, he 
 organised a section in the Council of State for 
 the supervision of the Bench, and put at the 
 head of it Silvio Spaventa, a political opponent, 
 but a man of the most unimpeachable integrity. 
 In this, as in other cases, where he acted on 
 motives of the highest regard for the good of
 
 220 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 the State, without thought of his party con- 
 nections, his action brought on him the 
 animosity of his partisans without conciliating 
 in the least his opponents. In such sur- 
 roundings, political and social, the fall of such 
 a minister is always imminent. The nature 
 of the man is incompatible with office in a 
 country disorganised and chaotic as is Italy, 
 and while he walked in good faith and respect 
 for the constitution, there was no moment when 
 a new snare was not being spread for him. 
 
 A possible partial cause of the King's 
 defection from his minister, may be found in 
 the fact, that soon after Crispi came to power 
 in 1893 he notified the German Government 
 of his intention to denounce the treaty of the 
 Triple Alliance, to secure in new negotiations 
 the protection for the African interests of 
 Italy more satisfactorily than they had been 
 arranged in the earlier treaty. This the 
 Kaiser resented, and sent word to the King 
 that Crispi was becoming importunate, and 
 must be got rid of No proof can be offered 
 that this recommendation weighed as impera- 
 tive with the King, but it is highly im- 
 probable that it should not have strengthened 
 the Court influence, always hostile to Crispi. 
 
 The return of the enemies of Crispi to 
 power was the signal for the renewal of the 
 partisan war which had been interrupted by 
 the Sicilian troubles, and an effort was made to
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 221 
 
 implicate him in irregularities in the manage- 
 ment of the Bank of Naples, the Director of 
 which was accused of peculations, and who in 
 his defence alleged the participation of Crispi 
 in the operations which were the occasion of 
 the irregularities. The Commission ad hoc 
 found that Crispi had not been an accomplice 
 in those irregularities, but that he had in 
 unwise friendship for the Director counter- 
 manded an inquiry into the condition of the 
 bank, by which the latter hoped to be 
 enabled to restore the balance against him. 
 The case against the Director is still pend- 
 ing in the Italian courts, and includes a 
 charge of participation by Signora Crispi. 
 The fair conclusion is in agreement with the 
 opinion of all who have known Crispi in his 
 official relations, viz. that though incapable of 
 peculation himself, he has always been sur- 
 rounded by people who made use of his name 
 and influence to commit irregularities, and 
 sometimes illegalities, profiting by his confi- 
 dence in them. He is notoriously a bad judge 
 of professed friends, and the worst mistakes of 
 his official career have been committed through 
 mistaken confidence in men who only be- 
 came his partisans for corrupt purposes. The 
 domestic relations of his later life have been 
 disastrous, but a tolerably thorough knowledge 
 of the circumstances enable me to say that his 
 misfortunes have come on him more by the
 
 222 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 agency of others than by his own conduct. 
 The testimony of those who have known him 
 longest and best in his political career is that 
 he is incapable of using his official position for 
 his pecuniary advantage, and the fact that, after 
 six years of his tenure of the Premiership, the 
 original debt with which he entered office with 
 Depretis was unpaid when he fell in 1895, is 
 proof presumptive that he had not profited by 
 office. And the man who refused advancement 
 and competence under Cavour rather than 
 disavow his political principles, who under 
 Garibaldi refused all stipend and had to be 
 pecuniarily assisted to reach Turin, after having 
 administered the affairs of a kingdom, and who 
 repelled office for nearly twenty years, can 
 hardly be justly accused, except on indubitable 
 evidence, of official dishonesty, and now that 
 he is no longer on the way to power, but a 
 broken and nearly blind old man, even his 
 enemies might be content to let justice be done 
 him. The defects of his temperament have 
 made him many enemies and left him few 
 friends, but he is the last of the men who made 
 Italy, and who in their official position have 
 always had a distinct and consistent programme 
 of policy, home and foreign. At the age of 
 eighty he passes out of practical politics, not 
 from mental infirmities, for his mind seems as 
 vigorous as ever, but his physical condition 
 renders him unfit for the devotion to official
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 223 
 
 duties which is necessary in an organisation so 
 chaotic as that of Italy. All the heads of 
 groups in the Chamber regard him as an 
 obstacle to their advancement, for his position 
 is not one that will fall into a second place, 
 and every combination of groups will be formed 
 on the exclusion of him from the ministry, 
 not necessarily from hostility, but because no 
 one of the leaders would yield to him the first 
 place. He is a solitary survival of an epoch 
 when there were giants in the land, where now 
 only respectable and inoffensive mediocrity can 
 be permitted to preside. The public opinion 
 in Italy no longer desires a living and growing 
 Italy — it gradually but surely glides in the 
 wake of Spain and Portugal, and a man like 
 Crispi, with ambitions for the assignment of a 
 role amongst the powers, such as a nation with 
 a population of thirty millions has a right to 
 take, is out of place. His activity is anti- 
 pathetic to the national apathy, and, as I have 
 often heard it said, " he is too big for Italy." 
 This, and nothing else is at the bottom of the 
 hostility felt for him in the better classes of 
 the Italian people. Amongst the masses at large 
 he is the only man in politics who is capable 
 of exciting any enthusiasm, because the people, 
 living as it does under the social oppression 
 of the wealthy classes, and being at heart a 
 good and docile people, feels the need of a 
 strong authority able to correct abuses. Italy
 
 224 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 will build him a monument, and amongst those 
 who will be most eager to decree it will be 
 those who most feared and assailed him when 
 living. 
 
 The charge of megalomania against Crispi 
 has only the basis, that he always insisted 
 that Italy should take her position amongst the 
 powers as a nation of thirty millions of people 
 ought, and that the position which Cavour 
 placed her in should be maintained, as one of 
 the active powers of Europe, with rights and 
 obligations as to the general condition, under 
 the alternative of declining with Spain and 
 Portugal. The result of the last ten years is 
 to show, even him, that his was an idle dream. 
 Italy is incapable of any foreign policy but that 
 of a protected power. Civic virtue is at too 
 low an ebb for the nation to have any active 
 policy. The conflict of personal ambitions has 
 eaten up the general well-being of its Govern- 
 ment ; corruption in its legislative and judicial 
 regions, increasing rather than diminishing, has 
 destroyed the confidence of the masses, which 
 is the main strength of every good government. 
 Crispi's dream was an idle one, and perhaps his 
 greatest sorrow is to see his disillusion.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 REPUBLIC VERSUS MONARCHY 
 A Letter to Giuseppe Mazzini 
 
 Turin, 18//; March 1865. 
 
 The only reason which induces me to answer the 
 letter addressed to me, which was printed in the 
 Unita Italiana of the 3rd of January, is that it is 
 yours. But I shall not follow your example ; I 
 shall write in a friendly spirit, although you have 
 declared through the press that all friendship has 
 ceased between us. 
 
 I do not mean to inquire into the motives that 
 induced the Deputy Mordini, on the i8th of Novem- 
 ber 1864, to make the declaration to the Chamber 
 which provoked me to give the answer you have so 
 bitterly censured. I know that what I said came 
 from my heart, and I was convinced then, as I am 
 now, that the maxims I then proclaimed in the 
 Chamber would be salutary to Italy. 
 
 Yes ! Monarchy unites us^ while a Republic would 
 separate us ; and to think otherwise is not to know 
 our country nor the conditions of Europe. 
 
 If the cry of republic were to be raised in a 
 southern city it would not find an echo ; were it 
 
 Q
 
 226 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 even to be accepted there, it would not extend beyond 
 the place in which it was raised. I will say even 
 more, if that cry were to triumph even in one or 
 more provinces of the state, were it to spread over 
 all the territory beyond the Tronto, it would not be 
 repeated by the population of the centre of the pen- 
 insula, and would be repelled by those of the north. 
 
 You would see the nucleus of twenty-two millions 
 of Italians composing the new kingdom divided ; you 
 would see the failure of that national unity which is 
 your and our desire, and which ought to be the glory 
 of our generation. 
 
 I wish to be liberal in my conceptions. I am 
 ready to admit (you see I even exceed your desires) 
 that the Piedmontese, who are devoted to the house 
 of Savoy, would overthrow it, and that the Lombards, 
 so especially conservative now, in presence of the 
 threatening Austrians on the other side of the Mincio, 
 would fraternise with the republicans of Turin. I 
 will add to this still another dream ; I will allow that 
 the Tuscans, who in 1849, under the guidance of 
 Guerazzi, refused to be united to Rome, would accept 
 a republic ; and that in Florence, in the Hall of the 
 Cinquecento, the national assembly would gather 
 together, and that the triumvirate would have its 
 seat in the Pitti Palace. But what would be the 
 consequences ^ 
 
 The Republic could not live without expanding 
 beyond the Alps. All understand this, and our 
 enemies better than any. 
 
 The French Republic of 1793 only existed under 
 similar conditions. 
 
 The principles through which the new Govern- 
 ment would exist would put us at variance with all 
 the monarchs of the old continent. Napoleon would
 
 APPENDIX 227 
 
 increase his troops in Rome and in Savoy, and before 
 a single Italian soldier could pass beyond Ventimiglia 
 or the Mont Cenis the French troops would occupy 
 Naples and Piedmont. 
 
 On this occasion also, as in 1849, the Hapsburgs 
 would act in union with Bonaparte, and, crossing the 
 Po, would go straight to Florence. The English 
 would invest Sicily to hold a pledge in view of future 
 diplomatic combinations, or would look on impassibly 
 at the occupation of our territory, as they did recently 
 for Denmark. 
 
 We should be subject to a treaty even worse than 
 that of Zurich. 
 
 The Republic would be dissolved, with our unity. 
 
 Concede me another hypothesis. 
 
 Let us suppose that, leaving aside for the moment 
 the kingdom of Italy, you concentrate your efforts on 
 Rome and Venice, with the aim of successfully creat- 
 ing a Republic in either of those cities, in order 
 to extend it over the remainder of Italy. 
 
 In Rome, for instance ? 
 
 But the French are there still, and, unfortunately, 
 behind the garrison commanded by the Duke of 
 Montebello all France stands ready to fly to the 
 defence of her own flag. 
 
 The 30th of April 1849 ^^^ Romans, with valour 
 equal to their ancestors, repelled the invasion. And 
 what came of it ? The number and means of the 
 enemy's army were increased, and, notwithstanding 
 the valour of our young soldiers, the defence had to 
 be given up, and the political papacy was restored in 
 a still more cruel form than before. Your attempts 
 to organise an insurrection on 3rd July 1849 were 
 vain, and in the following sixteen years the most
 
 228 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 impetuous among its young men were sent Into 
 exile, or condemned to hard labour, and no move- 
 ment took place indicating the awakening of the 
 eternal city. 
 
 In Venice, then ? The events of Friuli are still 
 fresh in every memory. Those generous creatures 
 fighting there quite recently did not pronounce the 
 word republic, although your own inspiration and 
 advice did not fail them. And they were right, for 
 with that word they would have closed the way to 
 the help they hoped for from the kingdom of Italy. 
 You yourself, when writing to them before they 
 began to fight, declared that their cry could only be 
 for monarchy. 
 
 In any way, let us suppose all obstacles over- 
 come, and that in one of these cities the Republic 
 should obtain an easy victory. When the moment 
 came to extend its dominion, without having simul- 
 taneously upset, with other revolutions, the great 
 monarchies beyond the Alps, the Republic would 
 have opposed to it the army of the Italian kingdom 
 and, behind it or with it, the Austrian and the 
 French. I need not observe to you that the Re- 
 public in the midst of our populations would sow 
 the germs of that discord which we have always 
 sought to avoid, and by which the reaction would 
 profit. Most assuredly before its advent our forces 
 would be disorganised, and before they could be 
 reorganised our enemies would have time to prevent 
 the constitution of our national unity. 
 
 To all this I foresee your answer. You will 
 doubtless say that I have no longer faith in our 
 people, that I have not faith in the revolution and 
 in the progress of humanity. 
 
 I am as bold as ever, and you have good proof of
 
 APPENDIX 229 
 
 it. You do not ignore that I did not throw myself 
 into politics out of despair, or to make a living out 
 of them, but through deep and certain convictions. 
 If all believed as I do, and were as ready to act, 
 things would go differently. In the last four years 
 I have had much experience of men ; and through 
 too great impatience I do not wish to repeat the 
 fable of the dog who, crossing the river with the 
 meat in his mouth, miserably duped, let it fall in 
 the water to catch the shadow. 
 
 You are a republican. 
 
 You say so ; I believe you. 
 
 But you are not of the same stuff as those re- 
 publicans of the Convention who refused to treat 
 with the King. In 1831, when you stepped into 
 active politics, your first thought was for Carlo 
 Alberto, to whom you offered your services, if only 
 he would put himself at the head of the nation. 
 
 " Unite us, Sire," you said, " we will gather round 
 you ; we offer you our lives, and we will lead under 
 your banners all the small Italian states." 
 
 Fifteen years of conspiracies, martyrdoms, of un- 
 fortunate movements, and of glorious achievements 
 elapsed. Saluted by people in slavery, who always 
 hope in the advent of every new prince, Pius IX. 
 came to the papacy, and even you thought from 
 what he said that he was able to bring about the 
 unification of our country. On the 8 th of September 
 1 847 you wrote him a letter which, after having been 
 put in the Pontiff's hands, made the round of Europe. 
 From it, it will suffice me to quote your counsels and 
 the expression of your faith. 
 
 " Unify Italy, your country, and to this end you 
 have no need to do more than to bless those who
 
 230 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 work for you in your name. We will make a nation 
 to rise up around you whose free and popular de- 
 velopment you will preside over during your life- 
 time. We will found a unique Government in the 
 midst of Europe which shall destroy the absurd 
 divorce between spiritual and temporal power, and 
 in which you will be chosen to represent the principle 
 to which the men called to represent the nation will 
 make the applications." 
 
 Not finding a king to make one family out of 
 the nation, you invoked theocracy, which, being the 
 destruction of all liberty of conscience, is also the 
 destruction of all liberty. But your words were not 
 listened to, and the regeneration of Italy began by 
 the initiative of a city from a spot where it was least 
 expected. In January 1848 Palermo rose with ad- 
 mirable intrepidity, and later, in March, Milan. As 
 if touched by an electric current, the whole peninsula 
 was in arms, and almost seemed to overcome the 
 invaders. The astonishing action of our people did 
 not bring about unity immediately, but made the 
 desire for it general ; and after the Homeric struggles 
 of Venice and of Rome it became known to our 
 friends, as well as to our enemies, that there existed 
 a force in the country, till then unknown, which 
 sooner or later must emancipate us. 
 
 The honour of Rome's resistance to the French is 
 due in great measure to yourself. Was not the 
 Roman Republic due to you, though proclaimed 
 twenty-five days before you arrived in the eternal city .'' 
 
 You certainly cannot say that from 1848 to 1849, 
 during the War of Independence, your republican 
 heart did not believe for an instant in monarchy for 
 the redemption of Italian unity. 
 
 In a programme published at that juncture you
 
 APPENDIX 231 
 
 wrote that your desire was, first, emancipation from 
 foreign rule ; second, the unification of the fatherland, 
 without which independence would only be illusory ; 
 a;nd third, the form, the institution, which should 
 assure the preservation of its liberty and the mission 
 of civilisation in our country, but on this point you 
 promised not to be intolerant, and that you would 
 be ready to be silent concerning the Republic if the 
 independence and unification of Italy should come 
 from the principality. 
 
 The chances of war becoming unfavourable in 
 Lombardy a friend of yours came to you with a 
 message from the camp. Your opinion being asked 
 as to how the difficulties could be overcome and the 
 forces of all parties united in the war against Austria, 
 you proposed a proclamation in which the King 
 should manifest in the following terms his plan : — 
 
 " I feel that the moment has come for the unity 
 of our country. I understand, oh Italians ! the 
 impatience that grieves your very souls. Up, then, 
 rise, I will go before you. Behold, I pledge my 
 faith to you ; I offer a spectacle the world has not 
 known, of a King, the high priest of a new epoch, 
 an armed apostle of the idea of the people who 
 himself rears the temple of the nation. I break in 
 God's name, and in that of Italy, those old bonds 
 which hold you dismembered and are rusty with 
 your blood. I call upon you to overthrow the 
 barriers which keep you divided even to-day, and to 
 collect together legions of free brothers emancipated 
 around me, your leader, ready to fall or to conquer 
 with you." 
 
 This proposal from you was not accepted, as you 
 yourself wrote later in the Italia del Popolo^ which 
 was published at Lausanne. It was not you who
 
 232 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 objected to the King, but the King who would not 
 have compacts with you. 
 
 The revolution being unsuccessful, all good patriots 
 took the road of exile. You returned to England 
 and constituted the national committee, assembling 
 around you in London, Saliceti, Sirtori, Montecchi, 
 and Quadrio ; in Paris, Amari and La Farina ; in 
 Piedmont, Bertani, myself, and Rosalino Pilo ; others 
 also in other cities. You presented yourself to the 
 Italians with the proclamation of September 1850, 
 in which were those words : — 
 
 " Italy desires to be one nation for her own sake 
 and that of others, as much by right as by duty. 
 She desires to be united not in the manner of a 
 Napoleonic unity, with an exaggerated administrative 
 centralisation that deprives the constituent parts of 
 the nation of their liberty to the advantage of the 
 capital, but to be united by her constitution, her 
 assembly interpreting the constitution, to be united 
 by her international relations, by her army, her code, 
 and her education. And in order to become a nation 
 it is necessary she should acquire by action and by 
 sacrifice the consciousness of her duties and of her 
 rights. 
 
 " A war comprising all her regular and irregular 
 forces, commanded by men of proved patriotism, 
 directed by one supreme authority, having no obliga- 
 tion but that of victory, no hope but that which is 
 obtained by a serene and strong conscience, no con- 
 fidence but in struggle, can bring about the well-being 
 of Italy. 
 
 " Does any Government exist willing to adopt 
 this programme — a Government that, with the 
 people and for the people, would make a war without
 
 APPENDIX 233 
 
 any concession to privileges, prejudices, internal 
 differences, and foreign usurpers ? Let such a 
 Government declare itself, and our united forces will 
 come to its aid." 
 
 The Government to which you made this appeal 
 could be neither the Austrian, nor that of the Grand 
 Dukes, nor that of the Bourbons, nor that of the 
 Pontiff. The Government to which you appealed 
 was the Piedmontese, and was not of the people, but 
 had Vittorio Emanuele for its head. 
 
 The committee only lasted long enough to make 
 a national loan, because your companions — for reasons 
 which I choose to ignore — all abandoned you. Then 
 came the gallows of February 1853, the torture and 
 deaths of Malano and Bentivegna, the memorable 
 expedition of Sapri, to which are connected the ill- 
 advised attempt at Genoa and the bloody struggles 
 of Leghorn. 
 
 Our party for several years had no success what- 
 ever ; but we did not therefore weary or lose faith 
 in ourselves. The image of national unity was before 
 us with most flattering hopes, and in order to secure 
 her we returned to face death. Nor think that our 
 energy has become lessened, and that our heart to-day 
 is deaf to the voice of sacrifice. This miserable life 
 would be a burden to us if we had to endure it dis- 
 honoured, and not make use of it for our country. 
 
 On the 30th of April 1859 the war with Austria 
 broke out. The manner in which it began made us 
 fear that a new bondage would come of it for Italy ; 
 so that many of our party abstained from taking 
 part in it, but continued the propaganda of ideas to 
 educate the nation in the sense of its own duties. 
 
 On the following I2th of July the royal and 
 imperial chiefs decided at Villafranca, that our country
 
 234 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 should be made into a confederacy of princes with 
 the Pope at its head, and the Emperor of Austria as 
 one of its members. It was then we considered the 
 moment ripe for leaving the land of exile and throw- 
 ing ourselves among our people to prevent this pro- 
 ject of diplomacy from taking effect, and to hasten 
 the constitution of the national unity by making use 
 of the elements offered us by the various provinces. 
 
 From Tuscany, the Grand Duke had been gone 
 since the 27th of April, and the necessities of war 
 having called the Austrians away, all the territory 
 which extends from Piacenza to the Cattolica re- 
 mained under the charge of its citizens. In view of 
 the preliminaries of peace of the two emperors, 
 Farini by an act of far-seeking audacity, for which 
 the nation must ever be grateful to him, breaking 
 every link with the Sardinian Government, accepted 
 the Dictatorship in the duchies and then extended 
 it over Romagna. A provisional government had 
 already formed itself at Florence. The Marches 
 and Umbria were fermenting, and the southern 
 provinces appeared by several signs to be intolerant 
 of the Bourbon rule. 
 
 In this state of affairs, what were your intentions ? 
 What was your banner ^ 
 
 No one thought of excluding the kingdom in 
 order to constitute the nation. Convinced that the 
 King by the new alliance and by the treaties was 
 obliged not to violate the conditions of the armistice, 
 we decided to adopt independent action without him, 
 for the achievement of the national unity, although 
 we were not inimical to him. We agreed to excite 
 the provinces of the peninsula which were still in 
 thraldom to a general insurrection, and to fight 
 together for the formation of a new kingdom.
 
 APPENDIX 235 
 
 With this aim I left for Sicily, and you a few 
 days after went into Tuscany, and did your utmost 
 that the provinces that were already free should 
 unite themselves to Piedmont. 
 
 Jn 1858 the Italia e Popolo of Genoa published 
 some of your articles, in which the nation's con- 
 tinuous progress towards unity was delineated. You 
 intended to show how the fusion of different races 
 in our country had come about, and how the 
 indigenous race had always absorbed the others. 
 In the article published on the 25th of February, were 
 these words : — " The islands of Italy alone offer a 
 really distinct physiognomy ; that is why a national 
 government would not refuse them a special admin- 
 istration." 
 
 I do not discuss whether our islands have a 
 really distinct character. I know that the Latin 
 element supersedes all others in the continual com- 
 binations of different races which repeated invasions 
 brought about. I also know certainly that they 
 lived under their own laws, with their own peculiar 
 customs, and separated as they were from the con- 
 tinent, they kept up an autonomy not easily to be 
 destroyed. 
 
 In Sicily, after the restoration of the Bourbons, 
 the political parties contending for ascendency were 
 two, our own, the unitarian, and that of the 
 autonomists. In the midst of these, after 1858 a 
 third sprung up, declaring itself openly inimical to 
 us, although like ourselves desiring unity; this party 
 made the people hope for help from the Sardinian 
 Government, a deception which diminished their 
 faith in their own strength. The monarchical 
 separatists were supported by individuals in exile ; 
 but at home they had only with them certain literary
 
 236 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 men attached to the traditions of 18 12. Their 
 authority did not extend over the people, who 
 having been left in May 1849 to the care of the 
 Usurper, only believed in us, for they had seen us 
 since 1848 always in posts of danger, at the 
 barricades, and in prison. 
 
 The battles of Palestro and San Martino had 
 extended the influence of the third party, afterwards 
 called the Piedmontese. There were some of them 
 who declared, and others who believed, that Vittorio 
 Emanuele was ready to make war on Francis 11. , 
 and that Sicily would be liberated as Lombardy had 
 been. 
 
 All this you knew, and your judgment was too 
 sound for you to talk of a republic here. The wind 
 was blowing in favour of monarchy, and to combat 
 it openly or to propose ideas immediately hostile to 
 it would have created fresh perils for unity, the 
 realisation of which was opposed by all the Cabinets 
 of Europe. Our business was to dissipate the false 
 hopes which were putting to sleep the unfortunate 
 people, and took from them the consciousness of 
 their own strength. 
 
 The 9th of July 1859 ^ niade preparations for 
 my journey. You, in a piece of paper which you 
 sent me to Maiden Terrace, sketched the situation, 
 such as I should declare it to be to our friends in 
 Sicily. 
 
 " Revolution in the four Italies if the war should 
 be followed up with obstinancy — in five or six if 
 peace concludes on the Mincio with a treaty of 
 Plombieres. All the circumstances which took place 
 afterwards accorded with this sketch. 
 
 " Sicily would not be considered except through 
 the success of the Murat Combination.
 
 APPENDIX 237 
 
 " At the end of the war, the aUies would limit 
 themselves to insisting with the King of Naples 
 that he should bring about some reforms which 
 would stifle for a time the revolutionary movement. 
 
 " The unity of Italy would be out of the ques- 
 tion. The King may desire it secretly, but never 
 achieve it. 
 
 *' Sicily had, therefore, nothing to hope for from 
 Piedmont. To follow blindly its instructions means 
 finding herself one day so placed that she can do 
 absolutely nothing, for at the conclusion of the 
 war, the status quo which will be insisted on for 
 the south and part of the centre will be guaranteed 
 by the European governments. If Sicily therefore 
 desires liberty and to be united, she must have 
 recourse to insurrection. Let her have recourse with- 
 out delay to insurrection so that the negotiations 
 which are to take place should not ignore her." 
 
 These words comprise more than a programme. 
 When on my return from Palermo I prepared 
 myself for a second journey in the island, you were 
 even more explicit in your ideas. A letter to me of 
 the 1 6th of September proves this : the King was 
 then prevented by international policy from accepting 
 the oaths from the national assemblies of Emilia and 
 Tuscany. This event did not change your mind 
 and make you turn against the kingdom. The 
 Republic was not in your project because it would 
 have been an impediment to unity. " If there is 
 no way," you wrote to me, " to avoid their offer- 
 ing themselves to the kindgom, at least let it be 
 done with dignity, for unconditional acceptance, yes 
 or my 
 
 Finally, on the 2nd of March i860, all doubts 
 ceased ; your language was more frankly explicit.
 
 238 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 In a letter to our friends of Palermo and of Messina 
 you made this declaration : — 
 
 " I repeat to you what we have been printing for 
 the last two years. // is no longer a question whether 
 we should have a Republic or a Monarchy : the ques- 
 tion is national unity — to be or not to be — to remain 
 dismembered and slaves to the will of a foreign 
 despot whether French or Austrian, or to be ourselves^ 
 to be men, to be free, to be considered as such, and 
 not as children in leading strings, as incapable by 
 the whole of Europe. If Italy desire to become a 
 Monarchy under the House of Savoy, let it be so. 
 If afterwards she wishes to hail as her liberators or 
 whatever else she may please to call them^ the King and 
 Cavour^ let her do so. What we all wish now is 
 that Italy should be made." 
 
 Nor could you hold a different language, since 
 you were speaking to a people who for eight 
 centuries had been monarchical, and who, according 
 to one of your own phrases quoted above, offered a 
 quite exceptional physiognomy. The same moderation 
 inspired you when in London, the 20th of February 
 1848, you acclaimed our victories. You did not 
 accuse us then of not having chosen a government 
 of the people ; you only imputed it as an error of 
 the victorious island that had rebelled against 
 Bourbon rule, that it wished to separate itself from 
 the continent, and to divide the kingdom of the 
 two Sicilies. In the fever for national unity, you gave 
 us an example of patriotic strength forgetting your 
 native city, and calling the act of the Congress of 
 Vienna, which had handed Genoa over to the King 
 of Sardinia, providential. It is proper here to repeat 
 your own words to the Sicilians. 
 
 " You form to-day an important and vital part of
 
 APPENDIX 239 
 
 the most populous state of Italy, the strongest as 
 regards position, ships, and arms. The first to raise 
 the cry of liberty, the first to be triumphant, saluted 
 by the hearty admiration of your fellow-citizens on 
 terra jirma^ you have acquired an influence that will 
 not die, a novel power that none wish, or can, dispute 
 you — rights that none will, however, seek to deprive 
 you of. Why should you diminish your strength 
 and that of your fellow-citizens by separating your- 
 selves from them .^ Why should you renounce by 
 voluntary suicide the rank which, when united, you 
 can occupy in Europe, to descend to the fourth, the 
 last rank, condemning yourselves to continual weak- 
 ness and to inevitable foreign influence } It is because 
 the Government of Naples has oppressed you for so 
 long and treated you as though you were a colony. 
 But did not the same tyranny weigh on your brother 
 citizens of the mainland ? 
 
 " Did they not abhor it } do they not still abhor 
 it as you abhor it.'^ Did they not protest by con- 
 spiracies, by secret societies, by the blood of the 
 noblest among them } Were not your executioners 
 those also of the Neapolitans } Were there not 
 between you and the men of Calabria oftentimes 
 solemn compacts of insurrection } Did not these 
 compacts make a solemn manifestation in the face of 
 all Europe by the banner raised between August and 
 September 1847 ^^"^ ^^ brief space of forty-eight 
 hours in Reggio and in Messina } Ah ! do not 
 forget, oh Sicilians ! the alliance that the martyrs of 
 Reggio, of Messina, and of Gerace signed with their 
 blood. Do not betray in time of victory the holy 
 promises made during the battle. Be now and ever 
 brethren according to your oath. Do not act so 
 that the foreigner may say exultingly — Free they may
 
 240 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 become, but strong and united, never ! You have 
 taught Italy the power of will ; teach her the holiness 
 of love ; teach her the religion of unity, which alone 
 can give her glory, a mission, and free action for the 
 third time in Europe. 
 
 " I am not a Neapolitan. I was born in Genoa, 
 also a great city once upon a time, through its own 
 free and independent life : great also for having 
 given in 1746 to slumbering Italy the last example 
 of manly courage, as you have now given the first 
 example to awakened Italy. Like yourselves, we 
 were in 1 8 1 5 given, without our consent, to another 
 Italian state, whose memories of the past embittered 
 our relations, and from whom we had received for 
 many years more injuries than benefits, as often 
 happens in a union not freely chosen, but decreed 
 by foreign interference. And, nevertheless, those 
 amongst us who loved one common fatherland had 
 so much desire and confidence in the future that they 
 hailed this union as providential." 
 
 The secret work of the conspirators bore its fruit. 
 
 On the 4th April i860 Palermo was in revolt. 
 The movement was suffocated in blood in the city 
 itself, but spread in the surrounding country, and 
 survived there. Garibaldi had declared as early as 
 February that he would lend to Sicily the valuable 
 help of his sword. Repeating his promise to Rosalino 
 Pilo in a letter of the 15th of March, he expressed 
 himself thus : — " In case of action, remember that 
 the programme is : Italy and Vittorio Emanuele." 
 Rosalino, when he answered him, did not refuse this 
 programme, and went before us on the road to 
 Messina. The 5 th of May we left Quarto ; you 
 had been forewarned of this plan through two letters
 
 APPENDIX 241 
 
 and a telegram from Turin. It was not your fault 
 if you did not come ; I learned afterwards that you 
 had been ill, and arrived in Genoa two days after 
 our departure. On the 7th of May, on board the 
 Piemonte, Captain Bruzzesi read to the volunteers 
 the first order of the day, concluding thus : " The 
 war-cry of the ' cacciatori dei alpi,' the military 
 organisation of the northern province of Italy formed 
 under Garibaldi's directions, is the same as that which 
 sounded on the banks of the Ticino twelve months 
 ago : ' Italy and Vittorio Emanuele ' ; and this cry, 
 although from our lips, will strike terror among the 
 enemies of Italy." Brusco Onis alone felt hurt in his 
 republican soul by this monarchical programme, and 
 when we touched at Talamone he left the steamer, 
 and was not seen again. The brothers Mosto, Savi, 
 and other of our friends remained at their post, con- 
 vinced that it was impossible to discuss the form of 
 government, as men ready to give their own lives 
 in order to give life to the nation. On the iith of 
 May we landed at Marsala, and the 13th we arrived 
 at Salemi, where on the morrow the dictatorship was 
 proclaimed in the name of the King of Italy. On 
 the 15th we were victorious at Calatafimi, and the 
 banner to which Schiaffino clung when he was dying, 
 and which was lacerated by the enemies' balls, had 
 in its centre the image of Italy resting her right hand 
 on the shield of Savoy. On the 17th the organic 
 decrees of the new Government were published, and 
 from that moment the sentences and all public acts 
 were proclaimed in the King's name, and these were 
 headed, as were the laws of the dictatorship, by the 
 arms of the Italian Royal House. The intentions 
 of the new authority could no longer be doubted ; 
 and after serious obstacles on the mountains around
 
 242 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 Palermo, on the 27 th of March it entered the 
 capital of the island acclaimed by the people and the 
 bombardment of the Bourbons. 
 
 I will not recall the details of those memorable 
 days. The whole country came to our help, and 
 from all parts of Italy arrived subsidies, so that the 
 undertaking for national redemption should be suc- 
 cessful. On the 20th of July, after a severe en- 
 counter, we became masters of Milazzo ; on the 27th, 
 of Messina ; and Sicily thus freed, the first volunteers 
 on the night of the 8 th of August could pass over 
 the Faro. On the continent the revolution fell 
 like an avalanche on the throne of the Bourbons. 
 Acclaimed by all as a liberator on the 7th of Sept- 
 ember, Garibaldi, unarmed and with few friends, made 
 his entrance into Naples. On the 2nd of October 
 the hero defeated the last army of the tyrants on 
 the Volturno. On the 2 1 st of the same month the 
 kingdom of the two Sicilies was no more, and from 
 the electoral urn the plebiscite declared, in the face 
 of the world, Italy one and indivisible with Vittorio 
 Emanuele its constitutional King. 
 
 Four months later the representatives of nine- 
 tenths of the nation assembled in Parliament. 
 
 In the brief space of time during which so much 
 was accomplished, you raised no word for the Republic. 
 Certainly that would have been the moment to have 
 held up the people's banner, and to censure your 
 friends, who being in power had pledged themselves 
 to monarchy. But you, in i860 as in 183 1, as also 
 in 1848 and in 1859, always insisted that form 
 should be sacrificed before that great idol of the 
 unity of a complete nation. You understood that 
 if in Sicily or on Neapolitan territory the Phyrgian
 
 APPENDIX 243 
 
 cap had been raised, a fatal division in the peninsula 
 would have ensued, and we should only have 
 prepared for the restoration of the fallen princes. 
 In all the letters that I received from you, from June 
 to August i860, I only find praise. " The Sicilians," 
 you wrote on the 9th of June, " God help them for 
 ever, have given for the second time, as a people, a 
 glorious initiative. If Italy knows how to make 
 use of it, they will have saved Italy. But their 
 example must be followed, and we will follow it." 
 Your repugnance and your fears were not for the 
 Monarchy of Vittorio Emanuele. That which very 
 justly occupied your mind was the danger of a 
 federation which was to be opposed at any cost. 
 You held in Naples as in Palermo the autonomists 
 to be our enemies and not the Piedmontese. In a 
 few lines of the 17 th of June you expressed your- 
 self thus : — 
 
 " Through the kingdom serious movements 
 threaten us, concessions of constitutions, etc. Heaven 
 forbid this should happen to us ! Farewell for ever 
 to unity. It is, therefore, necessary to hasten the 
 assault of the kingdom on our own account." 
 
 And in the letter of the 22nd of June, with 
 reference to the risings in Sicily ! " If you are 
 sure of remaining in power, you should prolong as 
 much as possible the provisional government, until 
 the whole kingdom has been freed. ... If you are 
 not sure of remaining in power, that is another thing. 
 Then rather than allow the Independents to have a 
 footing, hasten suffrage and an assembly." And on 
 the same occasion, greeting Nicola Fabrizzi on his 
 arrival in the island, you wrote to him : " If the 
 autonomists agitate, hurry on annexation." You 
 were then so far from combating the Monarchy so
 
 244 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 closely allied to the accomplishment of our unity, 
 that when invited to come to Sicily, you wrote to 
 Savi and Mosto the 1 9th of June : 
 
 " Since I could not come before the movement, 
 I shall not come to Sicily. I am tired of being 
 misunderstood ; seeing me at this moment people 
 would say I came to work against Garibaldi, or 
 heaven knows what." 
 
 And you were right ! No one believed that in 
 the interests of unity you would not even have 
 attacked the Monarchy. I believed you would not, 
 because your whole life was impressed on my mind, 
 and my heart bled to think the country should 
 misunderstand you, and forgetting your virtues 
 would be ungrateful to you. 
 
 The Dictatorship being established in Naples, it 
 was our duty to give organic power and unity to the 
 revolution in the south, so as to complete the 
 mission for which we had taken up arms, by its 
 strength. All our efforts converged towards this 
 end, and it was the common belief that our success 
 would have been impossible if we had risen inimical 
 to the King, who a year before had unsheathed his 
 sword in the name of Italy, and in whom the 
 provinces not yet redeemed hoped, since the recent 
 annexations. The i6th of September i860 Gari- 
 baldi declared that, being obliged to go away 
 from the southern provinces, he had delegated the 
 Government of Naples and that of Sicily to two 
 Prodictators, only retaining for himself the legislative 
 power and the supreme direction of military and 
 political affairs. To put his decision into effect, he 
 decreed that in the interests of both parts of the 
 former kingdom, two Secretaries of State should be
 
 APPENDIX 245 
 
 with him, to whom should be entrusted the portfolios 
 of Foreign Affairs and of War, From that moment, 
 this organisation ot the Dictatorship made our 
 intentions clear ; Garibaldi had made no mystery 
 about them in a proclamation of the iith of 
 September to the people of Palermo. In this, one 
 might read " The annexation to the kingdo«i of the 
 Re Galantuomo we shall soon proclaim from the 
 summit of the Quirinal," an idea more clearly 
 manifested in the brief and exciting speech he pro- 
 nounced himself to the people on the 17th, from 
 the balcony of the Norman Royal Palace : " To this 
 people," he said, " I must give thanks ; to you people of 
 Palermo, to whom I am bound by having shared 
 with you fatigue, danger, and glory, to you, brave 
 people, who, trusting in me, did not allow yourselves 
 to be led away to too early annexation ! If annexa- 
 tion had been made two months ago I should not 
 have crossed the Strait, If those who sought to 
 deceive you had been listened to, we should have 
 been in bondage through diplomacy. Also in Naples 
 some partisans of annexation arose, but I opposed 
 myself to them, and the people of that illustrious city 
 put faith in my word, while the whole of Italy is 
 not free ; while our brothers beyond the Volturno 
 remain with the chain about their feet we will fight." 
 To many, and to some of our own party, so much 
 audacity seemed imprudent. Nevertheless, if Italy 
 ever had a propitious moment, it was that one, and 
 unfortunately we let it go by. There our opponents 
 were defeated and dared not raise their head. 
 Austria had not recovered by any means from the 
 defeats suffered in 1859 ; and terrified, uncertain, 
 powerless against us were the princes that the revolu- 
 tion had deprived of their thrones. France on her
 
 246 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 side was suffering from the battles fought on 
 Lombard soil ; and even if the Emperor had assembled 
 a new army, he could not have used it to our 
 destruction. In Paris, the name of Garibaldi was 
 popular through the wonders achieved that year ; 
 and among the workmen and soldiers the echo of 
 that voice which proclaimed the liberation of the 
 peninsula from the Alps to the Adriatic still 
 sounded. In any case after the cession of Nice and 
 Savoy, for Napoleon to take up arms again would 
 have been the signal for a European war all were 
 anxious to avoid. The great powers felt in their 
 hearts the duty of remaining neutral towards Italy, 
 and there is proof of a refusal of England to 
 intervene in the Strait of Messina to prevent our 
 volunteers disembarking on the continent. Against 
 the consummation of our plans, difficulties arose on 
 every side. In Palermo, they complained that we 
 had deprived the local government of all liberty of 
 action, and Signor Friscia, now a Deputy, was sent 
 to Garibaldi to advocate Sicilian autonomy. In 
 Naples there was worse ; a party of intriguers, in- 
 capable of governing the country, had insinuated 
 themselves into public posts to put difficulties in the 
 way of the movements of those in power, and to 
 prevent the organisation of the army. And in the 
 island, as also on the mainland, public opinion was 
 put on a false track by incessant street rows and 
 a perfidious press, so that the coming of the King 
 was longed for as a necessary termination to such 
 unsteady administration, to which views and abuses 
 were falsely imputed. In this moment in which the 
 different parties were conspiring to harass the Govern- 
 ment in the transaction of public affairs, and to bar 
 the road which would have led us to Rome, what
 
 APPENDIX 247 
 
 was your proposal ? What did you ask of your 
 friends ? Did you think of the Republic at all ? 
 Did you dictate it as the only way that could put 
 the people on the right path and would prevent 
 the turncoats come from Turin from having any 
 advantage over us ? Nothing of the kind. You 
 had but one thought, that of overcoming the 
 suspicion and diffidence which assailed you and your 
 friends. You published, meanwhile, in the Iride^ a 
 Neapolitan journal, a declaration, so that the world 
 should know that a republic was out of the question 
 in the great movement towards national unity, and 
 that the republicans, come to fight in the southern 
 provinces, had accepted the monarchical programme 
 of Garibaldi. 
 
 " On what basis," you exclaimed, " are the 
 suspicions founded which are accumulating against 
 the republicans } Although I have investigated 
 carefully, I have not found any accusation that is 
 not an absurd calumny, clearly demonstrated as 
 such by tenfold documentary evidence. Has there 
 been any single spot in Italy, any instance of 
 republican agitation } Has there, during the last 
 two years, been formed a single line written privately 
 or publicly by us, or by the men representing the 
 principles of the party, pointing to a republic } Was 
 the question of the form of political institutions ever 
 mooted by us from the first beginnings of the 
 Italian movement } " 
 
 No ! and let him who can, give me the lie, by 
 adducing facts to the contrary. Before the peace 
 of Villafranca, several among us protested against 
 entrusting our interests to foreign and despotic 
 armies ; we knew from of old that no national 
 unity is formed in that way ; they protested against
 
 248 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 the sudden peace being made, and the dismembering 
 of Nice and Savoy. After the peace of Villafranca, 
 when the emancipation of Italy became the work of 
 ItaHan arms, even those who had always abstained 
 from action hastened to join it without heeding 
 what banner dominated the movement. The 
 monarchical programme of Garibaldi was adopted 
 by them. 
 
 On the 6th of October i860 a Government Com- 
 missioner arrived in Naples from Palermo, bearer of 
 the Decree of Convocation of the Deputies of the 
 Sicilian people. They had made Mordini fear an 
 intervention of Piedmontese troops at this juncture, 
 so that he desired to hurry on the day in which Sicily 
 should give its vote for union with the kingdom of 
 Italy. A Sicilian Commission was spoken of, which 
 should go to Turin, and present itself to Cavour, with 
 the aim of asking protection against men to whom 
 anarchical principles were imputed, and who had im- 
 posed themselves on the country. The news of an 
 assembly in the island annoyed Garibaldi. The 
 danger of a similar occurrence twenty days before 
 had provoked the end of the Prodictatorship of 
 Depretis. The General had several times declared 
 that when the war was ended a plebiscite should be 
 voted. When we were informed that the Pied- 
 montese had occupied the Marches and Umbria, he 
 spoke thus to his volunteers in his order of the day : 
 — " Our brothers are fighting the foreigner in the 
 very heart of Italy. Let us go to meet them in 
 Rome to march with them thence to Venetian terri- 
 tory." When he was asked to sanction the decree 
 of Mordini, and afterward to come to a deliberation 
 on the same subject v/ith regard to Naples, he hesi-
 
 APPENDIX 249 
 
 tated to decide for an instant. After a few minutes 
 of reflection, he said, with the manner of a man who 
 rids himself of a great burden : " Since the state of 
 things in Palermo cannot be changed without up- 
 setting the Government again, order that another 
 assembly should be called together at Naples." 
 
 On the 7th of October a council of ministers was 
 held at the Palace, then the residence of the Marchese 
 Pallavicini, who had been Prodictator for four days. 
 The argument of annexation had often been discussed 
 by the ministry with extreme warmth, especially on 
 the first and second of the month, but without any 
 result, the intentions of the General being known to 
 all. On the seventh, encouraged by the example of 
 the Sicilian Prodictatorship, and by Garibaldi's 
 permission, the annexationists found a better way of 
 expressing their intentions : it was decided by three 
 votes against two that an assembly should be called 
 together. I ignore whether from his own feeling or 
 from counsels received from Turin, Pallavicini feared 
 a congress of Neapolitan Deputies, he opposed it with 
 all his power and left for Caserta, from whence he 
 returned with orders from Garibaldi that in the 
 mainland provinces they should vote by a plebiscite. 
 And since the moment is opportune, and you, for- 
 getting my labour and my pains, have only cast un- 
 merited blame on things which deserved praise, allow 
 me to make clear to those who ignore it, the part I 
 took in these events and the opinions I held then. 
 There are certain facts one does not discuss, but one 
 feels. Can one discuss the existence of the sun, life, 
 or humanity ? Discussion takes doubt for granted 
 (or generates it ?), and is the cause of scepticism. 
 
 The nation exists as well as man, and it is not 
 necessary that a people or a parliament should pro-
 
 250 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 claim it so that it should exist. Nevertheless, I could 
 not make the unity of Italy, which has its basis in its 
 geography, in its language, and in all those moral 
 conditions that no one can ignore, depend on a yes 
 or no, on the subtleties of rhetoricians, or the syl- 
 logisms of jurists. But the lawful existence of Italy 
 has been and is disputed, and its reconstruction has 
 made the dynasties interested in its division our 
 enemies, besides exciting the jealousies of the Great 
 Powers. The centuries had formed our poor father- 
 land piece by piece. You may compare it to a 
 polypus, which, being cut into pieces, and ignorant 
 of being parts of a whole, lived each of them an 
 autonomous and almost natural life. So that in the 
 ancient states, which disappeared with the Revolution, 
 the Parliaments had come to discuss unity as a lawful 
 form, and the federation we had all fought against 
 might have arisen from this. Chambers in general do 
 not contain a great amount of good sense ; they gener- 
 ally represent history and traditions which sometimes 
 fight against truth. My own opinion was that the 
 people should not establish national unity, nor con- 
 stitute its forms, but declare their desire for it. And 
 then the assemblies, to whom the plebiscite should be 
 law, would set about establishing the conditions of 
 liberty and ability for it, so that the desire of the 
 people should be actuated. With this idea, and so 
 that no injury should be done to the unity which 
 was in the minds of all, and not yet an accomplished 
 fact, I opposed the assembly in June i860 in 
 Palermo, and in the following September in Naples. 
 The Decree of Mordini, unexpected as it was, and 
 premature, upset our plans completely, because it 
 was promulgated before the end of the war, and 
 because it occasioned an assembly before the annexa-
 
 APPENDIX 251 
 
 tion. Obliged to defend it for the solidarity of the 
 party, it was my desire and my care to find some 
 way to guard against the dangers which threatened to 
 ensue from it. 
 
 When Pallavicini announced to me that Garibaldi 
 wished a plebiscite to take place, I saw immediately 
 in this resolution the remedy to the ills I was fearing. 
 Without disobeying Mordini, I thought one might 
 conciliate his action with the will of the Dictator, and 
 I immediately resolved to conduct things so that we 
 should have a plebiscite first and an assembly after, 
 and that the former should precede the latter. 
 
 The salvation of Italy seemed assured by this 
 method. 
 
 On the 8th of October the ministers assembled in 
 counsel in the room of the Presidency. 
 
 I stated the question ; I reminded them of the 
 engagements Garibaldi had taken with the country. 
 I declared that the southern provinces, because of 
 the special conditions of their revolution, because of 
 their importance before the rest of Italy, could not 
 accept the same form of plebiscite as Emilia and 
 Tuscany. Our people should not give itself to 
 another — not annex itself — (a verb which savours 
 of dependence) ; it should desire the completion of 
 unity. A plebiscite, according to the conditions of 
 the central provinces, after Garibaldi had declared 
 that we must go to Rome and drive the foreigner 
 beyond the Alps, might be interpreted, not as a halt 
 in our way, but as a renunciation of the complete 
 redemption of the Peninsula. Italy had a powerful 
 and seductive enemy in federation, so that we, in our 
 plebiscite, ought to express an idea not unlike that 
 which the convention proclaimed and applauded
 
 252 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 against the Federal doctrine of the Girondins — indi- 
 cating to the people as a necessity of existence, and 
 as their right, the unity and solidarity of the French 
 Revolution. Pallavicini, who has the instinct of 
 great and generous ideas, listened to me with atten- 
 tion, and exclaimed, " Well, we will decree Italy one 
 and indivisible and Vittorio Emanuele her King. 
 This is besides in conformity with the programme of 
 Marsala." 
 
 The dominant idea of the plebiscite being agreed 
 upon, various forms were considered, and that of 
 Conforti was accepted. The decree was signed by all 
 the ministers, and sent to the press. Naples should 
 be proud of it. On that day a great principle was 
 proclaimed and a solemn engagement taken, which 
 we shall keep. You were then in that city, and you 
 knew through the friends who surrounded me all that 
 happened from the 6th of October onwards. I never 
 had a counsel or a letter from you hostile to Monarchy. 
 On the contrary, you sought to excuse yourself to 
 those who feared in you a partisan of the Republic. 
 Mario was at Garibaldi's side, and, according to your 
 express wish, he remained ever near him till the 22nd 
 of June. There is no doubt that your friend is more 
 democratic even than yourself, since, ardent young 
 man that he is, no one can reproach him in his 
 political career of having offered his services to a 
 prince. Mario, who was then devoted to you, could, 
 if you had wished it, have done anything to combat 
 the foundation of the Italian kingdom. Well, explain 
 yourself; make your confession. What were your 
 acts ? What were your words .'' You said in a letter 
 to me, which I have under my eyes, you were like a man 
 who hid himself^ so as not to raise a cry of discord^ and 
 not to excite terror in -public opinion^ that saw in your
 
 APPENDIX 253 
 
 name a challenge to the Principality. You never pro- 
 posed a programme different from that of Garibaldi. 
 
 The decree of the 8 th of October founded the 
 basis of the new public rights in Italy. Received 
 with enthusiasm by all assemblies, it gave a legal 
 consecration to the revolution that our arms were to 
 carry into the cities of the continent still occupied 
 by the foreigner. For the first time three-eighths 
 of a great people were legislating in the interests of 
 all, of the free as of the fettered, discussing the 
 territorial sovereignty of the common fatherland, 
 and manifesting an express desire of conquering it ; 
 before that time only one cry had been heard from 
 the affranchised provinces, that of being united under 
 the constitution of Piedmont. In the south this 
 method was not considered to be desirable, as it 
 seemed a surrender, but they claimed one right ; one 
 supreme duty was recorded for all the Latin race. 
 After this act it was necessary to proceed. The 
 question of unity solved, it was necessary to prepare 
 ourselves to complete it, and to extend the decree 
 of the plebiscite to Sicily, and at the same time, the 
 scope of the assembly invoked in Palermo being 
 determined, another should be assembled in Naples. 
 On the night of the 8th I went to Caserta with the 
 Italian Envoy to explain ourselves to Garibaldi. He 
 understood the utility of our project, and called 
 Pallavicini for the next day at 6 a.m. What was 
 discussed between the General and his Prodictator 
 was unknown to me, since, being occupied in another 
 public service, I was not present at their interview. 
 Garibaldi told me the idea of an assembly had 
 been accepted ; so that when a fitting draft of a 
 decree was presented to him he approved it, and
 
 254 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 wrote in his own hand the following words to 
 Pallavicini : — " All this seems to me what we agreed 
 upon with you, and is to my entire satisfaction. If 
 you are of this opinion, send me a copy of the 
 present decree signed by you, and I will also sign 
 it." Pallavicini misunderstood our idea ; I do not 
 know if he mistrusted me, because his friends in 
 Turin had described me unfavourably, or because he 
 thought me under your influence, whose opinions 
 he did not consider trustworthy. What is certain is 
 that the Prodictator rejected the idea of an assembly 
 which he imagined could be changed into a con- 
 stituent assembly, and would have led us on to a 
 Republic. Scarcely had one spoken of it to him, 
 but, convinced of the dangers that he supposed would 
 ensue, he imputed to us the wish to cause a civil war. 
 The evening of the 1 1 th October we met together at 
 Caserta around Garibaldi. The discussion was violent, 
 and the result being favourable to my desires, Pallavicini 
 gave his resignation. On the I2th all the ministers 
 followed his example, and the day passed in popular 
 demonstrations, in which morte and viva was cried 
 for all, and your name and mine were torn to tatters. 
 On the 13 th a fresh council was held, to which 
 Pallavicini was called, also the ministers who had 
 retired, and a good number of the General's friends. 
 During the excitement of the speeches, while the 
 result of the discussion was uncertain, a petition of 
 the Neapolitan National Guard was received and a 
 letter from Ancona. All were silent at a sign from 
 Garibaldi, who, after these documents were read, 
 gave his answer : " The plebiscite for Naples, and 
 the assembly for Sicily." Leaving the room in 
 which this determination had been taken, without 
 the charge of a ministry, I received your draft of a
 
 APPENDIX 255 
 
 proclamation to the Neapolitans, which you asked 
 that the Dictator should sign, in which he insisted in 
 the convocation of the assembly. This paper arrived 
 late, but it is very important now to reveal to our 
 contemporaries what your ideas were then. I will 
 quote the principal periods, by which it will be seen 
 that you did not demand a rupture with the princi- 
 pality. You advised that Garibaldi should speak thus 
 to that population : — 
 
 " My programme, founded on the desire for the 
 greatest good of the Italian fatherland, cannot be 
 modified except as far as it shows itself contrary to 
 those sacred civil rights. The fear of cowards, or 
 party intrigues, cannot have any weight with me. 
 
 " Vittorio Emanuele being King of Italy, it is 
 necessary that Italy should exist ; that Italy should 
 exist, it is necessary for her people to reconquer the 
 territory God gave her. 
 
 " He who denies the free action of this people, 
 and subordinates our emancipation to policy and to 
 the orders of a foreign government, is not, and 
 cannot be, favourable to our national unity ; he does 
 not desire to see Vittorio Emanuele King of Italy in 
 Rome. I — and you, Neapolitans — do not belong to 
 that sad or deluded party." 
 
 The partisans of Count Cavour tried continually 
 to describe our intentions in false colours. We never 
 desired a constituent assembly, nor yet had we any 
 idea of working for a RepubHc. Our actions are a 
 guarantee of this, and a series of documents exist to 
 bear witness as to the projects which were not put 
 into action, which therefore never were published. 
 The evening of the 12th October 1850, when the 
 Prodictator and che ministers gave their resignation,
 
 256 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 Garibaldi signed the decree by which an assembly of 
 the representatives of the people was called together 
 for the 1 1 th of November in Naples. For this it 
 was declared that the intention of the assembly should 
 be to acknowledge the legality of all the procedure 
 regarding the plebiscite, and to determine what would 
 be necessary for the successive amalgamation of the 
 southern provinces of the peninsula with Italy one 
 and indivisible. Another decree of the same date, 
 without changing the day of the reunion of the 
 Sicilian assembly, explained its object, and called 
 together the inhabitants of the island for the 28 th 
 October in their assemblies, so as to vote the 
 plebiscite in the same manner as at Naples. These 
 were the limitations with which the two assemblies 
 were to work. That of Naples was opposed and 
 repelled by exigencies which Garibaldi himself could 
 not resist, and the Sicilian assembly was never con- 
 voked, owing to the alteration in Mordini's plans. 
 The plebiscite of the southern states did not mean 
 the annexation of the old Sicilian kingdom to the 
 Sardinian provinces ; if this had been implicitly 
 understood it could not have been considered as 
 immediate. The people declared their desire for 
 national unity under the dynasty of Vittorio 
 Emanuele. In this manner the constitutional 
 principles of the future Government of our country 
 were formed, and the honest men of the two con- 
 trary parties should have been satisfied, since by this 
 course all possibility of either Federation or Republic 
 was avoided. It was, however, necessary that the 
 manner in which the unity was to be accomplished 
 should be indicated by the assembly, since it could 
 not be indicated by direct suffrage. Those who 
 opposed themselves to this did not understand the
 
 APPENDIX 257 
 
 decree of the 8 th of October, and betrayed its mean- 
 ing. But they entrusted to the ministers at Turin 
 that which should have been the mission of local 
 parliaments. 
 
 Italy, by its physical constitution, never consisted 
 of a single state with uniform laws and constitutions, 
 in accordance with the conditions under which modern 
 states exist. Even under Roman sway the peninsula 
 had not an autonomous existence, but was an integral 
 part of that immense territory subjugated by the 
 right of the conquerors of the world ; it was not 
 assimilated, but remained subdivided in its hundred 
 municipalities, which were each administered accord- 
 ing to special laws. The work to which we had put 
 our hand, and which we were called to finish, was a 
 new one, and was to be done at a time in which 
 the axe of the conqueror was not permitted, because 
 there were no conquered people, and a radical change 
 was not possible, because the revolution was made in 
 the King's name. Many were the interests not to 
 be violently disturbed, and many rights had to be 
 respected. The transition of our provinces from 
 their state of isolation to that of association was 
 therefore very difficult, and a break in the gradual 
 progress of the populations towards unity bristled 
 with dangers. 
 
 There were two methods to compose the new 
 Italian family, and each of these was upheld by one of 
 the two schools aiming at governing the national 
 movement. The party having Cavour at its head, 
 and which had acted in concert with regular forces and 
 the artifices of diplomacy, held Piedmont as a banner 
 under which the several states of the Peninsula came 
 together. Our own, with Garibaldi at its head, 
 which had upset an ancient dynasty by the force of 
 
 s
 
 258 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 its people's arms, considered Italy one and indivisible, 
 the creation of a new state in which all monarchies 
 were fused and disappeared, even including the 
 Sardinian. As a corollary to their premises, our 
 adversaries regarded Piedmont as the principal body 
 to which the other states were seeking annexation, 
 and from which they were to receive laws and men 
 to govern them. They did not understand the vices 
 of this system and the dire consequences which would 
 ensue from it, and the dangers to unity. It was the 
 same as to drive and enclose in a narrow circle, in 
 which was already four million and a half of people, 
 seventeen million more, which war and revolution 
 had liberated from despotism. Either all would 
 have been asphyxiated, or the last comers, crippled 
 in a place incapable of holding so many people, would 
 have broken the boundary, rebelling against the 
 ancient inhabitants who, being at home, naturally 
 considered themselves masters. 
 
 We proposed a quite different state of things for 
 the organisation of Italy. In the peninsula there 
 should be neither first nor last. From 1848 to i860 
 every one had done his part in the emancipation of 
 the nation. In the new partnership the provinces 
 should bring each one its patrimony of experience 
 and doctrine, and all should participate equally in 
 the benefits proceeding from a new order of things, 
 and consequently share the necessary burden of 
 maintaining it. 
 
 In Italy at the time there was no model state 
 whose laws and hegemony could be adopted without 
 examination. Piedmont, which had saved the national 
 standard in the shipwreck of Italian liberty, had 
 dragged along till i860 with many codes of despotic 
 government, and has not purged itself from several
 
 APPENDIX 259 
 
 yet, notwithstanding the constitution of the kingdom 
 of Italy. The southern provinces, on the contrary, 
 however much they might be wanting in poHtical 
 guarantees, in extreme contrast to the tyranny which 
 repressed independent thought, were before all in 
 civil progress by the excellence both of code and 
 administration ; so that with a few changes which 
 liberty had fostered, the State could be used as the 
 basis of the nation's legislation. 
 
 This, from the moment of our first entrance into 
 Naples, had been the intention of the Dictatorship. 
 The kingdom which, after the annexation of Tuscany 
 and Emilia, had formed itself in the west of the 
 Peninsula was, by the importance of its population, 
 inferior to the country over which Garibaldi ruled. 
 The new laws proclaimed towards the end of 1859 
 had not been tried in Piedmont ; they had caused 
 irritation in all Lombardy, and had not been accepted 
 in Florence. If the southern provinces had reformed 
 the administration and the codes, to suit the new 
 political institutions, and had satisfied the interests 
 of the multitude with good economic laws, they 
 would have satisfied the interests of the multitude, 
 and we should have arrived at unity without the 
 losses which later on the emissaries sent from Turin 
 brought about, and we should have brought the rest 
 of the nation to that progress which is still to come. 
 
 It was forbidden to the Dictatorship to work out 
 these reforms. In the course of one day we had 
 decreed the abolition of the lottery, the suppression 
 of the monasteries, and the confiscation of the church 
 property. The law on monasteries was withdrawn 
 before it was officially published ; the working out 
 of the other two reforms was postponed. The 
 beneficent will of Garibaldi being paralysed by a bad
 
 26o FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 genius who combated his counsels, it was better, and 
 would have been more in accordance with civil 
 prudence, to depute the work of regeneration, to 
 which the head of the State should aspire, to the 
 popular assembly. 
 
 The Annexationists hastened to put a rein on the 
 populations of the south. But concerning this I have 
 less to say, but more of the method we ourselves 
 followed as promoters of the revolution. This 
 method is entirely your own, and to you therefore 
 must be imputed, as its author, as well as to ourselves 
 who accepted it, all the consequences which logically 
 ensued from it. You certainly did not unwillingly 
 conceive the formation of the Italian kingdom as 
 an enlargement of that of Savoy. That after the 
 plebiscite of the 2ist of October it had fused into 
 a new state did not enter into your mind. To prove 
 it I have but to read the petitions you drew up on 
 the 20th of November i860 for the removal of the 
 French from Rome. Not only you bent before the 
 throne, but you adopted the process of annexation 
 according to Cavour. In the petition to the King of 
 Italy you wrote : " Sire, Italy is being born again. 
 Its nationality is now an accomplished fact. We 
 were only yesterday four million and a half of 
 Sardinian subjects ; we are to-day twenty-two millions 
 of Italians, bound together in concord around one 
 common banner." 
 
 Nor is it to be wondered at. Piedmont becoming 
 Italy ; these Sardinian subjects multiplying and 
 changing name, from the first day that Carlo 
 Alberto assumed the crown, was for you the be- 
 ginning from which the development of national 
 unity took place.
 
 APPENDIX 261 
 
 On this argument you might at the time have 
 enunciated different theories in writing, but in 
 practice you always acted as though unity could 
 only be accomplished through the King's power, and 
 that the people over which he reigned by strength 
 of treaties was the nucleus around which the other 
 populations of the Peninsula would gather. From 
 1 83 1 to i860 your looks were always turned 
 towards Piedmont. By inviting the Prince of that 
 State to command the battles of the fatherland, you 
 designated him, even against your will, to the people 
 as the future head of the nation. When a king is 
 invited to take part in any undertaking and accepts, 
 it is Utopian to presume that he comes an equal 
 among equals ; he always will be — though chosen 
 and not imposed — a leader and commander. Natur- 
 ally, in this partnership of monarchy and democracy 
 you find more exposed to sacrifices but farther from 
 honours and influence, the patriots who distinguished 
 themselves most in conspiracy and at the barricades, 
 the new Power feeling some diffidence towards those 
 who became destroyers of other crowns. It resulted 
 from this that the individuals whom nature furnished 
 with servile souls, and who through mere chance 
 or the inexperience of the combatants gave authority 
 in the first ranks of the revolution, found it easy to 
 get rid of independent men, and were not wanting 
 in means to prevent the people from manifesting 
 their desires and providing for their needs. A new 
 throne excites false hopes because all the ambitious 
 flock round it, and new courtesans, so as to be 
 welcomed and not to be turned away, surround it 
 with suspicions and keep independent citizens in the 
 distance. Your insurrectional strategy also was at 
 fault. When in 1850 you constituted the National
 
 262 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 Committee, it was not possible to convince you that 
 the basis of our movements should be in the south. 
 You threw all the funds of the loan into Lombardy 
 and Emilia, with the intention of inciting a revolu- 
 tionary movement in the north and in the centre of 
 our country. I will not remind you of the plots 
 as early as 1852, in which Tito Speri, the priest 
 Grisli, and other friends worthy of a better lot, fell 
 victims ; it will suffice that I should speak of those 
 which followed. 
 
 In 1853 the campaign was opened in Milan 
 by the audacious daggers of 6th February. In 
 September the expedition of Sarzana followed and 
 the preparations of bands of men on the mountains 
 of Cadore. In 1854 you changed provinces, but 
 not country ; in May you ordered a descent of 
 armed men in Lunigiana, and towards August in 
 Lomellina ; then you prepared movements in Como, 
 and again at Milan, which would have been in 
 insurrection if the Austrian police had not been 
 more quick than you, or than that fearless phalanx 
 of martyrs who left their lives in the hands of the 
 executioner. If in Lombardy and Emilia your 
 work had been crowned with success, Piedmont 
 would have joined and have consequently planted 
 her banner there. A monarchy cannot permit an 
 insurrection to triumph on her frontiers. It is a 
 necessity of its existence, if it does not quell a 
 popular rising, at least to dominate it by turning it 
 to its own advantage. It is like a fire at a neigh- 
 bouring house, which it would be foolish to permit 
 to extend, because one would run the risk of being 
 involved and suffocated by it. 
 
 This was not foreign to the logic of your con- 
 spiracies. Through conspiring, it was your intention
 
 APPENDIX 263 
 
 to force the King into a war with Austria. You 
 were not only convinced that in case of victory 
 beyond the Ticino the field would not remain in 
 the possession of the citizens, but you thought that 
 after the five days had passed, the regular troops 
 would have come to the rescue, would have laid 
 siege to the fortresses and have cleared the ground 
 of foreign forces. To you the volunteers on the 
 barricades could only be the forerunners of the 
 Piedmontese army. This idea dominated the ex- 
 pedition of the intrepid Pisacane also. In that 
 bold but much -to -be -deplored episode of the 
 Italian Revolution you decided on Genoa as the 
 point of departure of the war which should have 
 ensued. In 1857, while planning the movement of 
 Sapri, you did not intend to bring forward in your 
 native Liguria a Republican Government. Your 
 adversaries accused you of this, but you denied. 
 Your idea was to occupy the Arsenal and surprise 
 the King's fleet, in order to direct it against Naples. 
 If this plan had prospered and its details had been 
 followed out, a conflict between the two dynasties 
 which then reigned at the two extremities of the 
 Peninsula would have been inevitable. Even in 
 this case, unity would have come through monarchy. 
 
 In order that the revolution should develop 
 itself independently and free from Piedmontese 
 influence it should have broken out through the 
 indigenous forces of the south of the Peninsula. 
 Between the southern kingdom and the Sardinian 
 were the central provinces, so that there would have 
 been no necessity for the House of Savoy to inter- 
 vene, nor would its interference have been tolerated, 
 and the tyrant would have been alone with his
 
 264 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 subjects in this duel in which they had engaged 
 themselves. 
 
 Naples and Sicily were in continual agitation. 
 After the events of 1 848 and the fierce reaction 
 following, it was not possible for the country to 
 absolve the Bourbons. Setting hatred aside, the 
 innocent blood which flowed on the 15th of May, 
 and the brutal burning of great cities, would have 
 incited the people, by their own instinct and in 
 homage to tradition, to have reasserted their liberty. 
 
 The people of the south are extremely practical. 
 Educated from an early date to monarchical institu- 
 tions which were tempered by the autonomy of 
 municipalities or by the authority of assemblies, one 
 may say that absolute government was for them of 
 recent origin, and was of short duration. 
 
 In eight and a half centuries of the southern king- 
 dom no prince (all were, be it remarked, foreigners) 
 took root in that country. Of the nine dynasties that 
 succeeded them four died out between the walls of 
 the palace itself, and of the others some were expelled, 
 and those who remained until the usurpation was 
 established never lived in quiet. 
 
 The Bourbons tried to debase and humiliate the 
 people, but the native character prevailed over the 
 infernal acts of the Court. Science, with Bruno and 
 Campanilla, with Giannone and Pagano, always re- 
 belled against despotism, and in time the people arose 
 more powerful than its despots. 
 
 Sicily had not forgotten the vespers, nor Naples 
 the struggles against Charles V., and contemporaries 
 remembered the miracles of courage and of civic 
 strength of 1799 and of 1848. . . . 
 
 As early as February 1850 some Calabrian friends 
 and I remembered the necessity of endeavouring to
 
 APPENDIX 265 
 
 get up an Insurrectional movement in our native 
 provinces in order to begin the revolution in the 
 south. I insisted on this in December, suggesting 
 that the weight of the yoke in the island was such 
 that the citizens would have followed any course 
 offering them the initiative of enfranchisement. You 
 answered the 27th of the same month : — "You are 
 right in your manner of seeing things in Sicily ; the 
 people must be so weary that they would be ready to 
 embrace any course of action suggested to them. 
 For this reason it is necessary for us to work, and 
 that the initiative should start from us ; and if we 
 accomplish the loan it will start." 
 
 The loan was made, but the initiative was neither 
 from Sicily nor Naples. There was worse. Seeing 
 the forces of the party consumed in bold but in- 
 efficacious attempts in 1853, I again wrote to you in 
 the same strain, and your answer on the 23rd of 
 December was : — " As to the commencement, I am 
 passive." 
 
 You thought of the southern provinces in 1857 
 after the war in the Crimea, and in 1859 after the 
 descent of the French into Italy. At that time a 
 rival interest to ours prevailed over the people. The 
 time after 1854 had passed to our prejudice, for 
 the National Committee, which was upheld by the 
 prestige, and under the shadow, of Count Cavour, 
 was disputing our ground. 
 
 You will remember how we worked so that Sicily 
 should be in insurrection the 4th of October 1859. 
 All was ready, when a letter from Turin sufficed to 
 arrest the action of the conspirators. Many of those 
 who conspired with us were in correspondence with 
 La Farina. In my journey through the island I had 
 found in the same hands and on the same table the
 
 266 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 Piccolo Corriere^ a publication of the moderate party, 
 and your own paper, Pensiero ed Azione. 
 
 In order to conciliate the two parties then mili- 
 tant, and to strengthen the revolution, not by my 
 initiative, but by your own desire, we were on the 
 loth of December 1859 in negotiation with the 
 Dictator of Emilia. A few days later Rosalino turned 
 to Garibaldi and had a promise of help from him. 
 
 After these alliances any question as to the form 
 of government would have been inopportune. Gari- 
 baldi, holding out his hand to us, would not have 
 altered his programme, and Farini would have denied 
 us all subsidies for proclaiming a Republic at Palermo. 
 
 Long was the way we were obliged to go over, 
 but it was not achieved without advantage. And at 
 the point we have arrived at it is time to ask, Who 
 was the author of this situation } 
 
 To this question you shall answer yourself : — 
 " History will remember that we^ honouring the 
 judgment of the people for love of Garibaldi, through 
 the desire to try any means towards concord, threw 
 at the feet of Monarchy our ideas, our hopes, our 
 presentiments, our memories, and our power of 
 agitating, also the favour for Italy in the eyes of 
 Europe which we had obtained, our influence on the 
 working classes and thousands of young men edu- 
 cated by our doctrines. It will be remembered that 
 after Villafranca all of us — people, volunteers, writers 
 — took part in the interrupted work. We instigated 
 the annexations of the central provinces ; we instigated 
 the Sicilian insurrection, the Neapolitan uprising ; 
 we accepted, although outraged and culumniated, the 
 monarchical programme of Garibaldi ; we applauded 
 the plebiscite, which gave to Monarchy ten millions
 
 APPENDIX 267 
 
 of free men . . . freed by their own arms and that of 
 Garibaldi." You wrote this in an address to the 
 Italians in September 1862. 
 
 The kingdom of Italy is your work, our work, 
 and that of the men who, being in the adversaries' 
 camp, took part in the revolution. Up to this time 
 it is incomplete, but you may be sure it will be com- 
 pleted. If sense and daring do not fail, it will not 
 be long before we have the entire enclosure of the 
 Alps and the two seas with Rome for its capital. 
 
 In any case, would it be a plausible motive that, 
 not having been able to complete the national edifice, 
 for which in other countries centuries have laboured, 
 we should throw it down in order to rebuild it on 
 new foundations ? 
 
 Would this be the wise act of serious men ^ 
 
 Putting our hand to the hammer, should we not be 
 running the risk of repeating the labour of Sisyphus ? 
 
 I know ; I have never forgotten it, and have 
 repeated it frequently in the Chamber, that you are 
 the precursor of unity. The idea of the nation 
 Dante set forth in his immortal writings became an 
 apostleship to you. Nevertheless, I know also that 
 you held complete unity above all forms, and that to 
 it you sacrificed several times the triumph of demo- 
 cracy. Now I should not consent, and with all my 
 strength I will oppose, that the conquest the nation 
 has made for its unity should be sacrificed i" order 
 that the democratic principle should prevail. 
 
 Before i86o I understood an insurrection in the 
 name of a different principle from that which Italy 
 accepted later, because at that time, although the 
 question was complicated by the war in Lombardy 
 and by the occurrences in Emilia, a choice was still 
 possible. Afterwards the force of events was too
 
 268 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 great for us, and their logic showed us the path we 
 had to follow. 
 
 It remains a fact which we cannot dispute that, 
 after thirty years of struggle and martyrdom, neither 
 party had power to effect national unity. The 
 monarchical party in 1859 stopped at CattoHca, and 
 we, in i860, revolting in the south, had to go to 
 meet them in order to constitute this kingdom of 
 twenty-two million of citizens. If the union of these 
 two forces led us to such useful results, combined 
 action will do the rest. 
 
 You do not believe it, and because I do, you 
 impute to me the desire to pay homage to power, and 
 infer that were I to see you the more powerful to- 
 morrow I would again return to you. 
 
 You ought to have remembered above all that I 
 have never been a coward. In the brief course of 
 years when I was conspiring with you I admired your 
 genius, I respected your faith, but I did not perceive 
 any strength in you. I faced many dangers at your 
 behest, but while risking my life I was not foolish 
 enough to hope that if I fell into the hands of the 
 enemy you would have come to save my head from 
 the executioner's axe. 
 
 I respect you as a man. If you were in power, if 
 you were named triumvir, I would have nothing 
 more to do with you. 
 
 For the tendencies to Guicciardini's teachings 
 which you pretended to discover in me I might 
 return the compliment. Since 1831 you have not 
 been faithful to the Republic, Could you explain to 
 me why from time to time deserting it you approached 
 Monarchy ^ 
 
 No, friend ! in our country no one is strong ; 
 only Italy can be so where her sons are united in the
 
 APPENDIX 269 
 
 love of country and have the conscience of their 
 duties. And that Italy should be strong, and that 
 her strength should not be dissolved, I defend the 
 work of the plebiscite. 
 
 After the event of i860 our method and cir- 
 cumstances in the Italian movement changed entirely. 
 Parties and insurrections inside the frontiers of the 
 new kingdom became an anachronism ; and for us 
 who had claimed unity with monarchy, they would 
 have amounted to crime. Having accepted a system 
 and called on the multitude to accept it, one cannot 
 conspire against it without being wanting in logic 
 and loyalty. 
 
 It would not have been logical after having 
 decreed the plebscite of the 21st of October, to 
 hasten to tear it up. 
 
 It would not have been loyal after having invited 
 the people to vote for Vittorio Emanuele, to promote 
 the making of a republic. 
 
 One loses the credit to which every honest man 
 should aspire, and scepticism takes possession of 
 people's souls when from day to day opposite judg- 
 ments are enounced on the same institution. 
 
 Political change kills a party, which owes it to 
 itself to behave coherently if it does not wish to 
 succumb under the weight of its own contradictions. 
 
 I do not deny my past, and I pride myself on 
 my old beliefs. 
 
 After the heroic defences of Rome and Venice, 
 the Republic was my ideal, and I was convinced that 
 it could alone constitute the nation. 
 
 It may have been the effect of the education of 
 the people, which certainly was not our work ; 
 perhaps it was due to the skill of our adversaries, who
 
 270 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 knew how to be beforehand and to appear more united ; 
 perhaps to the influence of Garibaldi's name, who, 
 proclaiming unity in the kingdom, divided the 
 militant democracy in two parts, that our previsions 
 failed and we were the first who had to accept the 
 national programme, " Italy and Vittorio Emanuele." 
 
 Conquered by circumstances, on the i8th of 
 February 1861 I entered Parliament and remained 
 faithful to my new engagements, my hand on my 
 heart and my eyes on Italy, my guiding star through 
 all my life. 
 
 A soldier of national right, I was always ready to 
 step into the breach to defend the rights of the 
 people, its guarantees and its liberty. 
 
 My successes at the urn were rare during the five 
 years of the new kingdom, but my triumphs over 
 hearts were not rare. 
 
 Besides, one must credit a deputy not only with 
 the good he has done, but also for the ills which 
 he has known how to avoid. . . . 
 
 I have never understood the theory of parliament- 
 ary resignation. The soldier even when wounded, 
 as long as his arm is vigorous enough to hold his 
 gun, holds it his duty not to abandon the field to 
 the enemy ; when he retires, his act may not be 
 considered as the result of cowardice, but will always 
 be the consequences of blameworthy despair. . . . 
 
 To me an oath is a serious matter, and I admired 
 Alberto Mario, who refused to be deputy rather than 
 take it. 
 
 If the Republicans in Italy had wished to remain 
 true to their faith, they ought to have kept them- 
 selves out of the military and political movements 
 of 1859, and later, and waited to begin action when 
 the trial of Monarchy should fail.
 
 APPENDIX 271 
 
 It is unworthy of a gentleman to enter into the 
 Temple of Legislature, to take an oath to respect it, 
 and to seize an opportune moment to come out of 
 it, his soul soiled with perjury. 
 
 If I had to serve the country under such 
 conditions I should refuse, preferring to retire an 
 unknown citizen between the walls of private life. 
 I have given up my whole being to Italy, to its 
 well-being, and sacrificed the political principles that 
 I had cultivated since my earliest years ; I will not, 
 I must not sacrifice on its altar the purity of my 
 conscience. This is the only possession remaining to 
 me after having spent in exile and in revolutions the 
 small patrimony of my forefathers. 
 
 You ask if my conscience has fixed any limit to 
 Monarchy, and if^ the men who esteemed me and 
 loved me as a brother will meet me on their path 
 again, a brother through the course of events. 
 
 The question proves to me that you and I are 
 at the antipodes in the matter of juridical theories. 
 
 Before all one has to ascertain what you mean by 
 Monarchy. The King, or the institution which he 
 is at the head of.'' 
 
 Is it the King .? 
 
 By the fundamental laws of the country he is 
 outside all political questions ; quite neutral in the 
 struggle of opinions. From this state of things, 
 comes the English aphorism which you ought to 
 know better than I. The King can do no ill. 
 
 While living in London, I heard Prince Albert 
 blamed for certain decisions of the Crown ; he was 
 a member of the Privy Council and took part in 
 all Cabinet affairs, but I never heard that any news- 
 paper or individual held the gracious Queen respon-
 
 272 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 sible for the errors of Palmerston or Derby, of 
 Gladstone or Disraeli. 
 
 Is it the institution of which the King is at the 
 head ? 
 
 Is it worth what it is desired to be by the men 
 of whom it consists ; by the Parliament and the 
 Ministers ? 
 
 It depends on them to interpret and put into 
 practice the laws to restrain or extend the use of 
 liberty, to limit or develop political guarantees, to 
 offend or respect the rights of the citizen, to raise 
 up or humiliate the dignity of the nation. 
 
 We have now in many provinces of the south the 
 military regime^ and they have had (I repeat your 
 words) : 
 
 The state of siege. 
 
 The imprisonment of certain deputies. 
 
 The dissolution of democratic associations. 
 
 The frequent prohibition of public meetings. 
 
 The prosecution of the press. 
 
 The violation of personal liberty. 
 
 The refusal to the Venetians and to the Romans 
 of the rights of citizenship in the kingdom. 
 
 We have had Turin stained with blood. 
 
 These events are deplorable, and I did not fail 
 to blame the authors of such a state of things. The 
 ministers who ordered them, and the Chamber that 
 tolerated them, can never be absolved by history. 
 Nevertheless, could you tell me in good faith that 
 monarchy is responsible for such acts } 
 
 Let us turn over the page ; we shall read that 
 even worse things happened under a popular govern- 
 ment beyond the Alps. 
 
 In 1848 the Republic was proclaimed in Paris, 
 and a few months after the French had —
 
 APPENDIX 273 
 
 The state of siege. 
 
 The capital was bombarded. 
 
 The representatives of the people were per- 
 secuted and obliged to go into exile to avoid being 
 imprisoned. 
 
 The liberty of the press was suspended. 
 
 Independent journalists were arrested. 
 
 Popular assemblies were closed. 
 
 Public meetings were prohibited. 
 
 They fired on the people en masse. 
 
 There were deportations without trial to Nukaiva. 
 
 These violent deeds against the most civilised 
 people in Europe would hardly be attributed by 
 you to the Republic ! 
 
 Constitutional monarchies or republics, if the 
 men who are at their head become the prey of terror, 
 are changed into tyrannical government. For this 
 reason I maintain that the good or the ill of any 
 institution depends on those who make it. 
 
 In Italy the errors and mistakes of these latter 
 years must be imputed to party spirit. 
 
 The men who in i860 hastened to wrest power 
 from our hands did not know how to make use of 
 the elements of order which existed in ancient 
 kingdoms ; they destroyed everything and made 
 every one discontented without having the power 
 of giving stability to the new kingdom. So much 
 so, that the Peninsula has all its means and its 
 resources still intact to receive the power of a great 
 state. The man only is wanting, and he will not 
 fail to appear who, raising it up and giving it fresh 
 life, shall give health and vigour to the generous 
 invalid. 
 
 A people in the exercise of its rights has as much 
 T
 
 274 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 liberty as is the total of political guarantees conceded 
 by law. 
 
 These guarantees are extended by time and are 
 broken up by fear ; they last generally more through 
 the prudence of the people than through the 
 uprightness of magistrates. 
 
 I have never said that the constitution of the 4th 
 of March is a model of ■perfection. It is not even 
 the best of those published in 1848. 
 
 If there should exist fundamental laws that can 
 be said to constitute the Ark of liberty^ containing 
 every germ of future progress, it would be those 
 deliberated on the loth of July 1848 by the 
 Sicilian Parliament. A deputy in the House of 
 Commons that voted the fall of the Bourbons, my 
 judgment cannot come under suspicion as to a 
 monarchical constitution, whose ideas and style were 
 imitated from the French charter of 1830. 
 
 The kingdom of Italy has a constitution which, 
 whatever it may be, is the basis of a political system 
 which we have to improve. The change, instead of 
 coming about through barricading the streets and 
 fighting among ourselves, I propose should be 
 accomplished by enlightening the minds of the 
 people, and making those principles triumphant at 
 the electoral urn which we desire should prevail in 
 the laws of the State. You say no ! and preach 
 insurrection. I say yes ! and preach the liberty of 
 discussion at the tribune, in the press, and in public 
 meetings. 
 
 You declare that such a system can only exist in 
 England and in no other states, which, according to 
 you, would seem to be condemned to consume them- 
 selves by oscillating between despotism and revolution. 
 
 Since 1789 every form of political government
 
 APPENDIX 275 
 
 has been tried in Europe, and none has endured. 
 Let us inquire into the cause of this instabihty, and 
 let us at the same time return to the beginning of 
 the British Government so as to learn the causes 
 which allowed it to take root in a country which 
 was also wet with the blood of its martyrs. 
 
 That a government should have a solid basis, it 
 is necessary that it should be the consequence of a 
 gradual and progressive evolution of the past. If 
 it should be a foreign importation, or if it should 
 arise by violating the habits of the people and 
 without respecting the national traditions, the 
 country is launched on an adventurous future, and 
 is obliged to endure new upheavings and to try 
 fresh experiments. 
 
 I shall besides remark that in order that reforms 
 should be acceptable, and that they should enter into 
 the government of the country, they should not 
 attack the private or common interests of the 
 country suddenly, before having created fresh ones 
 which would take the place of the old. 
 
 Man fights readily for his interest, and not always 
 for what he considers to be his right. So that a 
 legislator accomplishes his mission ill who, forgetting 
 the interests of the individual or those of the 
 multitude, gives a rational government to the nation 
 at one cast, which might be admirable as a work of 
 art, but would be too platonic to succeed when put 
 into practice. 
 
 France in 1791 did not modify itself, but broke 
 with history, and what were the consequences ? In 
 sixty years it has nine times changed its government 
 and its constitution, it has proclaimed and destroyed 
 two republics, and finds itself to-day (1865) where 
 it was at the beginning of the century.
 
 276 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 The other foreign conthiental powers followed 
 its example and suffered the same crisis. An in- 
 surrection in Paris, when not preceded, was always 
 followed by insurrections in Italy. We went to 
 seek from this civilised but excitable city not only 
 its fashions but its constitution and its laws. As 
 these did not suit our habits, and did not agree 
 with the ideas we accepted, they fell as easily as 
 they had been adopted. 
 
 The method in which Great Britain progressed 
 was very different. The constitution of 12 15, 
 inferior in political guarantees to that which the 
 Sicilians had given themselves in 1296 and held till 
 1 8 15, had been during six centuries and a half so 
 enlarged and altered, that in comparing it now and 
 then one can scarcely recognise its origin. Never- 
 theless, it is not yet a finished work, and in some 
 respects is inferior to the Italian constitution of the 
 4th of March. 
 
 The English constitution grew with the nation. 
 As the country progressed towards unity, public 
 right made further advances. 
 
 This historical process is notably observable in 
 one of the most important liberties the British people 
 enjoys — that of conscience and worship. 
 
 With the Tudors the laws of intolerance against 
 those not belonging to the Anglican Church scarcely 
 found any equal in the decrees of the Holy Inquisi- 
 tion, At the death of Elizabeth, when England and 
 Scotland became united under one prince, the spirit 
 of religious independence so much agitated society 
 that it combined to obtain the Toleration Bill^ which 
 abolished every punishment for Protestants who 
 were outside the official religion. 
 
 In 1 800 the Irish Parliament was suppressed.
 
 APPENDIX 277 
 
 That of Scotland having also been abolished in 
 1707, the political unity of the kingdom was 
 accomplished, and a few years later, as a consequence, 
 the law of the emancipation of Catholics was 
 established. 
 
 These reforms, as you know, did not come about 
 all at once, faith in the working of time being the 
 great strength of the English. 
 
 The law of tolerance was passed eighty-six years 
 after the death of Elizabeth, and the one in favour 
 of Catholics twenty-nine years after the law of union. 
 Even after this one cannot say that liberty of con- 
 science and of worship was established by law, 
 although it was by custom. Up to the year 1858 
 the Jews could not sit in Parliament, and even now 
 being a Catholic priest is a reason for ineligibility. 
 
 I could, by pursuing my examination, remind 
 you of how the English constitution became altered 
 in other respects. The regal power, now limited, 
 was more extended under the Plantagenets ; it was 
 immoral under the Tudors, violent at the time of 
 the Stuarts, intriguing with George III. ; and the 
 legislative power, in which after 1832 the House 
 of Commons held the control, had been before 
 ruled by the all-powerful will of the Peers. I must 
 further mention the suspicious laws against meetings, 
 not abrogated, but fallen into disuse, and discuss the 
 manner in which personal liberty and inviolability of 
 the dwelling was consolidated. 
 
 The English have had the good sense never to 
 destroy but to modify their institutions. They have 
 held firmly to the continuity of natural right. In 
 1 64 1 and in 1688 they established fresh warrants 
 of public liberty, but they never thought of writing 
 a new constitution. The Republic being proclaimed,
 
 278 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 they changed nothing in the poHtical organisation 
 except the king, for whom the Protector was sub- 
 stituted. Parliament continued to work as usual. 
 
 Now I will ask you, I will ask all Italians, why 
 should we not follow the example of the English ? 
 Must we then necessarily, imitating French example, 
 continue in the vicious circle of insurrections and 
 revolutions ? 
 
 You will tell me that in Great Britain the aristo- 
 cracy is a basis to the system, and that the traditions 
 of several centuries are sufficient to consolidate the 
 political rule we so much admire. 
 
 Certainly these are not reasons which should 
 discourage us. The aristocracy in that country is 
 only territorial, and in the great economic move- 
 ment going on daily, it feels itself having no part 
 in the financial and industrial element. The true 
 foundation of English society is the House of 
 Commons, to which is added a spirit of independence 
 and individual action, that autonomy of man which 
 in many cases does not make the intervention of 
 the Government necessary and makes a nation 
 powerful. 
 
 Macaulay tells that the Tories, who represented 
 authority and tradition, and the Whigs, who were 
 protectors of progress, twice in the interests of their 
 country, torn by anarchy, felt the necessity to 
 suspend discussion and to unite their forces in a 
 common aim. Their first coalition was at the 
 death of Cromwell, and served to restore Monarchy ; 
 the second coalition was in 1688, when James II. 
 was dethroned and the Bill of Rights decreed ; they 
 then called William of Orange to the throne of 
 Great Britain. 
 
 The era of revolution was then closed, and the
 
 APPENDIX 279 
 
 tradition of an orderly and progressive constitutional 
 regime began. 
 
 It is time that Italy should have the same strength 
 if it desires the completion of unity. 
 
 To do this, it is necessary that the redemption 
 of the fettered provinces should be accomplished by 
 this kingdom of twenty-two millions of citizens, and 
 that the statute of the 4th of March should be 
 the point of departure to political progress. 
 
 One cannot avoid this alternative. Every other 
 method would be fallacious ; every other way would 
 lead as to a precipice. 
 
 As you see, I have entirely opened my heart to 
 you ; my intentions in the past, my fears and my 
 hopes in the future, are no longer secret. 
 
 I ignore what you would say, and I also ignore 
 what your new friends would say, for I fear they 
 have not all the same merit as your old friends, some 
 of them resembling you with the likeness an ape 
 has to a man. 
 
 The kingdom of Italy is an accomplished fact to 
 which you were not alien, although you may have 
 repented having helped in its formation. 
 
 I am now, what I was before entering Parliament ; 
 what Rosalino Pilo was the 27th of March i860, 
 when leaving for Sicily, an obstinate partisan of 
 unity. If there has been in me a change as to the 
 method of the national work, it dates from then, and 
 you cannot impute it to me as a crime, as no one 
 will accuse you of one, since we have preserved the 
 unity which is the life of Italy, as a sovereign 
 condition, the supreme form above all others. 
 
 Until December 1859 I put all my energies into
 
 28o FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 a revolution of the south with the local forces, inde- 
 pendently of any influence of the adverse party. 
 
 When the alliance with Garibaldi was made and 
 his programme accepted, I delayed the hour of the 
 plebiscites, believing it necessary to the success of the 
 national cause that they should be voted when the 
 war was over. 
 
 When delays were no longer possible, I repelled 
 the formula for the annexation of Naples and Sicily 
 to Piedmont, and I had the unity and indivisibility of 
 our fatherland proclaimed, an unchangeable pledge 
 which no one can break without getting out of the 
 compact, making every action violating it null and 
 void. 
 
 The plebiscites once decreed, it remained to the 
 assemblies to recognise the work relating to them, 
 and to prepare the southern provinces of the Penin- 
 sula for their incorporation to United Italy. My 
 attempts were not always successful. 
 
 On the 2 1 St of October i860 a legal act was 
 drawn up, against which I cannot rebel, since it incor- 
 porates the expression of the national will. You, 
 after having recognised it till September 1862, oppose 
 it, and desire your friends to do likewise. In this I 
 can never be of your opinion, and I find that Gari- 
 baldi is not either, for he remains true to the banner 
 that he unfurled, glorious and uncontaminated, in 
 1859 and in i860. 
 
 I feel the obligation to remain on the ground I 
 have reached through your and my own actions and 
 the irresistible logic of events. It is a basis to future 
 operations ; it is the ubi sistam of Archimedes, ac- 
 quired by so much trouble and so many dangers, and 
 which cannot be abandoned without running into 
 fresh disasters.
 
 APPENDIX 281 
 
 The political government of the kingdom is a 
 thousand miles from being perfect. But it is of no 
 use harrying it with divisions, inciting the people 
 to them, or to the barricades. It is our duty to 
 correct it, to reform it, to build it up, as the English 
 have done and are doing, by the means of their 
 charters. It is prudent to recognise in our proceed- 
 ings the limitations of human progress, and not 
 precipitate ourselves forward to attain it, as our haste 
 would make us lose what we have gained. During 
 the five years of the new kingdom it might have done 
 more and better work, but lost time is not regained 
 by impatience or despair. Restore calm to your 
 troubled soul ; trust in the strength of the country ; 
 enlighten the people without exciting it.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Numbers after 224 refer to Appendix 
 
 Abyssinia, war with, 207 
 
 Adige, operations of Garibaldi on, 122 
 
 Adowah, defeat at, 213 j responsibility 
 
 for, 215 
 Albanian independence of Crispi, 10 1 
 Alcamo, organisation at, 79 
 Alliance,Italian,with Napoleon III., 132 
 Amari, 232 
 Andrassy, Count, 154 
 Antibes legion, 129 
 Aspromonte, 1 16 
 Assanti, brothers, 35 
 Austria, 60, 84, 122, 131 ; war with 
 
 (1859), 223 
 Austrians recalled from Tuscany, 234 
 
 Baldissera, General, supersedes Bara- 
 
 tieri, 211 
 Banca Romana, failure of, 192 
 Bank reform, 185 ; bank of Naples, 
 
 peculations in, 221 
 Baratieri, General, 207 
 Baring, Sir Evelyn, 3 
 Baudin, Aiimiral, 42 
 Benedek, Field Marshal, 84 
 Bentivegna, 233 
 
 Berlin, 122, 154; Congress of, 156 
 Bertani, Agostino, 52, 70 j resignation 
 
 of, 97, expulsion of, demanded by 
 
 Cavour, 99, 123, 232 
 Bertole-Viale, General, 19 
 Bismarck, 122, 154, 178, 189 
 Bixio, 71, 73 
 Blanc, Baron, 198, 217 
 Bonghi, 97, 153, 204 
 Bourbon, regime, 68, 80, 81, 83 ; 
 
 expulsion of (i860), 87 ; impatience 
 
 of the southern provinces of, 234 ; 
 
 fall of, 242 
 
 Bozzelli, 35 
 
 Brescia, bloodshed at, 116 
 Bruno, Giordano, 21 
 Bruzzesi, Captain, 241 
 
 Cairoli, 123, 155, 167 
 
 Calatafimi, battle of, 78, 142, 241 
 
 Caprera, 68, 89, 104, 107 5 deputation 
 to, 1 14 
 
 Carcassi, 123 
 
 Cardinals, College of, in conclave for 
 Leo XIII., 158 
 
 Carini, Giacinto, General, 56, 76, 86 
 
 Caserta, 105 
 
 Castelnuovo, Prince of, 28 
 
 Castelvetrano, Crispi's first constitu- 
 ency, I n 
 
 Castiglia, 77 
 
 Cattaneo, 99, 103 
 
 Cavour, 6, 48-51, 70-73, 83, 92, 99 ; 
 hostility to Garibaldi and Crispi, 100, 
 105 ; conduct towards Crispi, 106 ; 
 opinion of Crispi, m 
 
 Cialdini, 84, 125, 154 
 
 Circourt, Countess of, 84 
 
 Civinini, 136 
 
 Civita Vecchia, 62 
 
 Committee of assistance for Mentana, 
 130; National (Italian) in England, 
 232 
 
 Concordia, La, 45 
 
 Consulta, I, 155 
 
 Convention of September, 117, 129 
 
 Cordova (Minister in Sicily), 109 
 
 Correnti, Cesare, 45 
 
 Cosenza, insurrection at (1844), 36 
 
 Courrier Franco-Italien, 56 
 
 Court of Appeals (judgment in, against 
 Franchi for libel against Crispi in
 
 284 
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 1869, 137; Royal Court, hostility 
 to Crispi of, 145 
 
 Cozzolini, Marsino, 37 
 
 Craxi, Fillipo, 28 
 
 Crisis, Oriental, 154 ; parliamentary 
 (1876), 157 ; financial (1891), 181 
 
 Crispi, Francesco, author's first ac- 
 quaintance with, I ; attitude to- 
 wards the press, 4 j comes to office, 
 8 J abandons the Republic, 9 ; 
 political creed of, 20 ; birthplace, 
 23 ; journalist, 25 ; first marriage, 
 26, 27 ; enters Sicilian magistracy, 
 28 J abandons the magistracy, 29 ; 
 enters the bar at Naples, 30 j 
 member of revolutionary committee 
 (1843), 35; arrest of, ordered, 37; 
 goes to Palermo in 1848 to prepare 
 the rising, 38 ; secretary to Sicilian 
 provisional government, 40 j deputy 
 in Sicilian parliament, 40 ; opposes 
 religious tests, 40 ; denounced by 
 Filangeri, 44 ; escapes from Palermo, 
 45 ; devotes himself to journalism, 
 45 ; Memoir of the Sicilian insurrec- 
 tion, 46 ; declaration of acceptance 
 of monarchy, 49 ; petitions for 
 position of communal secretary at 
 Verolengo, 49 ; arrested in Turin, 
 52 ; exiled from Sardinian kingdom, 
 52 ; expelled from Malta and goes 
 to London, 53 ; difficult circum- 
 stances, 55 ; clerk in a bank in 
 Paris, 56 ; arrested and released in 
 Paris, 56 ; expelled from France, 58 ; 
 leaves England to organise insurrec- 
 tion in Sicily (i860), 62; letter to 
 Mazzini, 67 ; combines plans with 
 Farini, 68 ; fails with Rattazzi, 69 ; 
 appeals to Garibaldi, 70 ; combines 
 with Garibaldi for the expedition 
 of the Thousand, 73 ; advises Dic- 
 tatorship for Sicily, 77 ; Secretary 
 of State to the Dictator, 79 ; 
 Minister of Finance and Interior, 81 ; 
 charged with direction of the Govern- 
 ment, 82 5 resigns on account of 
 intrigues of the Cavourian agent, and 
 is made secretary to the Dictator, 
 86 ; Secretary of State to Depretis, 
 Prodictator, 88 ; resignation of office, 
 93 ; secretary to Garibaldi at Naples, 
 96 ; expulsion demanded by Cavour, 
 99 5 hostility of Cavour, loi j draws 
 
 up the plan of the Neapolitan as- 
 sembly, 102 ; charged by Garibaldi 
 to form a new ministry, 103 ; last 
 official revolutionary document by, 
 104 ; attempted arrest of, by La 
 Farina, 109 ; elected deputy from 
 Castelvetrano to Italian parliament, 
 III; separation from Mazzini, 118; 
 letter to Mazzini, 119; elected Vice- 
 President of the Chamber, 120 ; 
 opposes co-operation with Napoleon 
 III., 121; declines the ministry of the 
 interior, 125; Rattazzi renews offer of 
 portfolio, 1 28 ; dissuades Garibaldi 
 from Mentana, 129 ; protests against 
 Garibaldi's arrest after Mentana, 
 131 ; political programme, 138 ; 
 animosity of Vittorio Emanuele to, 
 
 144 ; hostility to, in court circles, 
 
 145 ; protest against unconstitutional 
 measures, 147 ; offers resolution of 
 sorrow of the chamber at the 
 death of Mazzini, 148 ; elected 
 President of the Chamber, 153 ; 
 letter to Bonghi, 154 ; succeeds 
 Nicotera as Minister of the Interior, 
 156 ; able management of the crisis 
 at the deaths of the King and Pope, 
 158 ; life of, byNarjoux, 160; sup- 
 posed second marriage, 160 ; Crispi's 
 daughter, 164 ; -accusation of bigamy 
 and resignation, 165 ; Prime Min- 
 ister, 172 ; resigns, 189 ; returns to 
 power (1893), 195 ; attempt to 
 assassinate him, 199 ; resignation 
 (1895), 214; co-operation with 
 Mazzini in Sicily (Appendix), 236 
 
 Crispi, Monsignor, 40 
 Crispi, Signora, 221 
 
 D'Ayala, Mariano, 35, 37 
 
 D'Azeglio, Massimo, 72 
 
 De Boni, 123 
 
 De Luca, 120 
 
 Democracy, Crispi's conclusions re- 
 garding, 141 
 
 Depretis, Prodictator in Sicily, 87, 92, 
 94 ; Vice-President of the Chamber, 
 120; creator of " Transformism," 
 126 ; first Prime Minister from the 
 Left, 144 ; at Berlin, 155 ; miscon- 
 duct of, in Sicily, 92 ; death of, 172 
 
 Di Pietro, Cardinal, 159 
 
 Divorce of Crispi, 14, 159
 
 INDEX 
 
 285 
 
 Dogali, 171 
 
 Dolfi, member of the Committee of 
 
 the Emancipatrice, 114 
 Dufferin, Marquis of, 174 
 
 Elba, 68 
 
 Election, General (of 1890), 183 j (of 
 1893), 205 
 
 Emancipatrice Society, 114 
 
 Emilia, Farini, Dictator of, 67 ; govern- 
 ment of, 68 
 
 Emperor (William II.), 179 ; influence 
 on fall of Crispi in 1895, 220 
 
 (of Austria), as member of the 
 
 Italian confederacy, 234 
 
 England, influence of, 206 ; refuses to 
 accept responsibility for the law of 
 guarantees, 147 ; Armenian demon- 
 stration of, adhered to by Crispi, 
 207 ; English war-ships at Marsala, 
 75 ] visit to Genoa, 177 
 
 Fabrizzi, 72, 243 
 
 Farini, Luigi Carlo, 67-72, 234 
 
 Faro, 142, 242 
 
 Favara, Baron, 1 1 1 
 
 Ferdinand II. of Naples, 36 
 
 Ferraris, Maggiorino, 217 
 
 Filangieri, General, 42, 44 
 
 Florence, capital of Italy, 140 
 
 France, Emperor of, intervention in 
 Italian affairs, 114, 116 j Convention 
 of September with, 117 j deference 
 of the King for, 120 j opposition 
 of Crispi to, 121 ; intervention at 
 Mentana, 130; French consul at 
 Florence, difficulty with, 176 ; 
 hostility of, in Abyssinia, 206, 207 
 
 Franchi, Ausonio, 137 
 
 Garibaldi, induced to take part in the 
 Sicilian movement, 70 ; decided by 
 Crispi to take command, 72 ; leads 
 the Thousand to Marsala, 73-76 ; 
 Dictator, 77; government of, 81- 
 95 J conflict with Cavour, 102-108 j 
 abdicates the Dictatorship, 104 ; 
 directs the movement on the Tyrol, 
 1 16 J Aspromonte, n6 j at Mentana, 
 128-131 
 
 Genoa (Duke of), 49, 62, 64, 70 ; sail- 
 ing of the Thousand from, 72 ; 
 futile Mazzinian movements at, 233 
 
 Genoese Carabineers, 115 
 
 Giolitti, 19 J Prime Minister, 193 ; 
 
 falls, 194, 203 
 Giolitti plico, 204 
 Giorgini, Colonel, 74 
 Glivau, Tobias, 65 
 Grimaldi, 19 
 Guarnieri, 81 
 Guerzoni, 131, 136 
 
 Hudson, Sir James, 71, 75 
 Hungary, participation of, in Italian 
 movement, 52 
 
 Italy, makers of, 6 j patriotism of 
 Northern, 7 ; constitutional life in, 
 II ; liberalism of, 36 ; emancipation 
 of, 59 ; fraud on, 62 ; war in Upper, 
 66 ; young Italy, 69 ; King of, 
 proclaimed in Naples first, 104 ; 
 associations for the emancipation of, 
 114; Italian politics, 4, 10 j exiles 
 in London, 60 
 
 Kassala, delimitation of, 3 
 Kossuth, 52, 54 
 
 La Farina, 69, 85 j expelled from 
 Sicily, 87 J influence of, on Cavour, 
 99, 107 ; 109, 137, 232 
 
 Lagrange, Giovanni, 64 
 
 La Marmora, 84, I2i, 122 
 
 La Masa, Giuseppe, 39, 62, 77 
 
 Lanza, General, 79 
 
 Launay, Count di, 154 
 
 Left (extreme), 40, 113; attacks 
 Ratazzi on account of the Con- 
 vention of September, 117 ; position 
 of, in 1865, 120 ; accession to power 
 of, 135, 151 J discords in, 143 ; 
 Young Left, 149 
 
 Lissa, 122 
 
 Lobbia, 137 
 
 London, 53, 59, 63, 154 
 
 Lugano, 64 
 
 Magenta, 131 
 
 Malenchini, Colonel, 69 
 
 Malta, 44, 52, 66, 72, 160 ; Sardinian 
 
 consul at, 53 
 Mario, Alberto, 114, 123, 252, 270 
 Marsala, 74, 118, 128, 142, 241 
 Mauro, Domenico, 37 
 Mayor, Edmond, 18, 52, 58 
 Mazzini, 6, 12, 34, 51 ; first meeting.
 
 286 
 
 FRANCESCO CRISPI 
 
 with Crispi, 53 ; orders the insur- 
 rection of Milan (1853), 54 ; general 
 strategy, 54 j manifesto against the 
 war of 1859, 60 J letter of, 64 ; 
 Crispi's letter to, 225 ; hostility of 
 Cavour, 83, 84; expulsion of, from 
 Naples demanded by Cavour, 99 j 
 hostility to Crispi, 113; letter 
 against Crispi, 1 19 
 
 Mentana, 128, 130, 131 
 
 Ministry (viceregal in Sicily), no; 
 first of the Left, 151 ; first of 
 Crispi, 156; second, 172; third, 
 196 
 
 Modena, 67 
 
 Monreale, 80 
 
 Montezemolo, Chevalier of, 107 
 
 Mordini, 95, 96, 107, 114, 117, 125, 
 225 
 
 Naples, Crispi appointed Secretary of 
 
 State for, 76 ; united to Italy, 
 
 104 
 Narjoux (biographer of Crispi), 18, 
 
 160 
 Nazionale, organ of the Moderate party 
 
 at Naples, 97 
 Nicotera, 156, 186 
 
 Onis, Brusco, 241 
 Orczy, Baron, 155 
 Oreteo, Crispi's first journal, 25 
 Orlando, brothers, 45 
 Orsini, 56 ; bombs, 63 ; 77 ; Colonel, 
 81 
 
 Palermo, insurrection at (1848), 38 ; 
 taken by the Neapolitan army, 44 ; 
 captured by Garibaldi, 8i; decree 
 from, for the union of Sicily with 
 Italy, 90 
 
 Palmertton, Lord, 41 
 
 Pantellaria, Prince of, 40 
 
 Paris, expulsion of Crispi from, 58 ; 
 Antibes, legion organised at, 129 ; 
 republicans of, friends of Crispi, 155 
 
 Parisio, 30 
 
 Parliament, Sicilian, 40, 42 ; proroga- 
 tion of, 42 ; Italian, no, 133, 144, 
 
 159 
 Pavia, riflemen at Marsala, 76 
 Petrucelli di Gattina, 15 
 Piedmont, 8, 64, 68 ; glory of, 74 ; 
 
 annexation to, desired by Cavour, 83, 
 
 89,92; assimilation with, 133, 147, 
 
 .232. 237 
 Piemonte, steamer, 241 
 Pilo Rosolino, 45, 62, 70, 71, 80, 232, 
 
 240 
 Pius IX., 36, 39 ; death of, 157, 158 ; 
 
 letter to, by Mazzini, 229 
 Poerio, Carlo, 35, 37 
 Press (Italian), 46 
 Progresso, leading Italian journal, 45, 
 
 48 
 
 Quadrio, 232 
 Quarto, 74, 240 
 
 Radicals, 135, 141 
 
 Raffaelle, Giovanni, 35, 37 
 
 Rampagallo, 76 
 
 Rattazzi, 68, 69, 70, 1 14 -1 16, 128, 
 
 145 
 Regeneration (Italian), 8, 130 
 Reggio di Calabria, rising at, 37 
 Republic, 9 ; in Sicily, 41, 60, 101, 
 
 118, 131,148; impediment to unity, 
 
 237 ; propaganda for, 83 ; tendency, 
 
 84; demonstrations prevented, 158 
 Revere, 48 
 Revolution (Sicilian), memoir of, 46 ; 
 
 of i860, 78-80 
 Revolutionary committee, Siculo-Nea- 
 
 politan, 36 
 Ricasoli, 6, 63, 68, 69, 115, 121, 125, 
 
 128, 145 
 Riccio Vincenzo, 18, 136 
 Riforma, La, 4, 5, 123, 124, 135, 136 
 Right, responsibility of, 11 ; 113, 133, 
 
 135 ; government of, 147 
 Risorgimento, journal of Cavour, 48 
 Romagnolo (Farina), 67 
 Rome, liberation of, 114, 115 ; capital 
 
 of Italy, 141; clerical government of, 
 
 143 ; conquest of, 146 
 RufFo, Marchese, 31, 35 
 
 Saffi, Aurelio, 114 
 
 Salemi, 76, 77, 241 
 
 Sardinia, kingdom of, 80, 106 ; king 
 
 of, 83, ministry of, 70 ; adoption of 
 
 code of, in Sicily, 82 
 Savi, 241, 244 
 
 Savoy, 6, 7 ; house of, 112, 141 
 Seismit, Doda, 46 
 Settembrini, Luigi, 37 
 Settimo, Ruggiero, 44
 
 INDEX 
 
 287 
 
 Sicilian, deputation to Garibaldi, 95 j 
 preparations, 38 ; offering to Savoy 
 not advised by Mazzini, 64 ; bands, 
 76,80; revolution (1848), 38; (i860), 
 76 ; vespers, centenary of, 169 
 
 Sicily, greatest centre of revolutionary 
 activity, 29 ; traditions of, 41 ; kind- 
 ling point of insurrection, 57 ; dic- 
 tatorship declared in, 77 ; liberated by 
 Garibaldi, 82 ; restored to order, 
 83 ; base of operations of Garibaldi, 
 89 ; Italian law promulgated in, 91 ; 
 legal status of, assimilate to Piedmont, 
 92 ; royal visit to, 107 j parties in, 
 235 ; liberated, 242 
 
 Sirtori, chief of staff' to Garibaldi, 76, 87 
 
 Skander Beg, 23 
 
 Stafetta journal, 52 
 
 Stocco, Baron, 37 
 
 Suakim, Times telegram from, 2 
 
 Tamajo, 65, 162 
 
 Temporal power, 21, 13 1 
 
 Thousand, The, 64, 69, 79, 95, 106, 
 
 160 
 Times, Crispi's attitude towards, 5 ; 
 
 telegram from Suakim, 2 
 Tobacco monopoly, 135 
 Tommaso — Crudeli, 123 
 Tommasseo, 34 
 Torrearsa, Marquis of, 44, 1 1 1 
 Transformism, 126 
 Trapani, 74 
 Trentine, 116, 122 
 Tribunals, partisanship of, 205 
 Trinchera Francesco, 37 
 Turin, 45 ; Gazzetia Ji, 46 ; republi- 
 
 cans arrested in, 52 ; Crispi visits, to 
 combine for the Thousand, 69 ; put 
 under police supervision, 70 ; Crispi 
 prisoner in, 160 
 
 Turr, General, 74 
 
 Tuscany, 6, 64 ; escape of the Grand 
 Duke of, 234 
 
 Two Sicilies, protest of, 37 
 
 Tyrol, 116, 117 
 
 Ugdulena, 81 
 
 Unity under the House of Savoy, 
 watchword of Marsala, 141 
 
 Valerio Lorenzo, 45 
 
 Valetta, 52 
 
 Valigia, Crispi's journal, 52 
 
 Vatican, 4, 146; evacuation of, 158; 
 participation of, in crisis of 1890, 
 189 
 
 Veneto, 125 
 
 Venice, 62, 114, 115, 127, 142 
 
 Verolengo, 49-51 
 
 Vial, General, 3 1 
 
 Viceroy of Sicily, 107 
 
 Vienna, 154 ; act of congress of, 238 
 
 Villafranca, treaty of, 62, 63, 233 
 
 Vittorio Emanuele, 6, 70, 77, 83, 90, 
 102, 106; government of, established 
 in Palermo, no; over-hasty, 133; 
 first citizen of the State, 143 ; truth 
 concerning, 144,238; monarchy of, 
 242 ; Italy united under, 118 
 
 Volturno, 142, 242 
 
 War of 1859 protested against by the 
 Italian exiles, 60
 
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