ion brought things to a crisis. On
July 2, 1820, a military outbreak took place at Nola. This was
followed by a general demand for a Constitution, which the king was
powerless to resist. On July 13 he took the oath to the Constitution
before the altar in the royal chapel.

A revolution in Naples would in all probability be followed by similar
uprisings in the Papal States. Metternich was seriously alarmed. A
conference of sovereigns and ministers to consider the affairs of
Naples was arranged to be held at Troppau, in Moravia, in October
1820. England and France stood aloof from action, and the matter
remained in the hands of the Emperor of Austria, the Czar, and the
King of Prussia. It was resolved to invite King Ferdinand to meet his
brother sovereigns at Laibach, in the Austrian province of Carniola,
and through him to address a summons to the Neapolitans, requiring
them, in the name of the three Powers and under threat of invasion, to
abandon their Constitution.

Ferdinand could not leave the country without the consent of the
Legislature. This was only given on his swearing to maintain the
existing Constitution. He did so with effusions of patriotism, and on
December 13 he embarked on board the _Vengeur_, Maitland's ship, which
conveyed him to Leghorn. On reaching Leghorn he addressed a letter to
the sovereigns of the Great Powers repudiating all his recent acts. He
reached Laibach in due course; and the Congress which took place there
in January 1821 resulted in the restoration of absolutism at Naples
and the occupation of the country by the Austrians.

It was a curious coincidence that Maitland should within a few years
have had two sovereigns as passengers,--one the central figure of
modern European history, the other the good-natured elderly buffoon
who in this country is chiefly remembered as the husband of the friend
of Lady Hamilton. Maitland thus records the voyage:--

_Naples Bay, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 1820._--A good deal of rain during
the night; in the morning the wind to the east. A general order came
on board for the captains to attend the admiral in their barges, for
the purpose of attending the King of Naples off to the _Vengeur_,
dressed in full uniform, with boots and pantaloons; a note, likewise,
from the admiral telling me he intended to get the squadron under way
and see the King out of the bay, the _Revolutionnaire_ forming astern
of the _Vengeur_, and he, with the five ships in line of battl