ecent events,
so that, instead of a concert of Europe, there was left only a concert
of absolute monarchs.

[Pageheading: _AUSTRIAN INTERVENTION._]

In January, 1821, the sovereigns of Austria, Prussia, and Russia met the
King of the Two Sicilies at Laibach. France had vainly attempted to
mediate between the King of the Two Sicilies and his people. But the
Neapolitans were not satisfied with any vague promise of a constitution,
and before allowing their king to depart for Laibach, held him pledged
to the observance of an impossible condition, the maintenance of the
Spanish constitution of 1812. The king's oath to preserve this
particularly objectionable constitution was regarded by Austria as
sufficient to preclude negotiation, and it was resolved that she should
restore him by force as an absolute monarch, and should occupy the
Neapolitan territory. The duration of this occupation was reserved as a
question to be discussed at the next European congress, which it was
intended to hold at Florence in the autumn of the next year. After a
show of resistance at Rieti the Neapolitans submitted, and the Austrian
army entered Naples on March 24. The restoration of absolute government
was accompanied by severities towards the constitutionalists, but
Austria would not allow any repetition of the bloodshed of 1799.

While the Austrian army was marching southwards, a new revolution broke
out in Piedmont. The Spanish constitution was proclaimed at Alessandria
on March 10, and at Turin on the 12th. On the 13th, Victor Emmanuel I.,
King of Sardinia, abdicated, appointing as regent his distant cousin
Prince Charles Albert of Carignano, who had been in communication with
the revolutionary party. The regent immediately accepted the Spanish
constitution on condition of the maintenance of the line of succession
and of the Roman catholic religion. The new king, Charles Felix, was at
Modena when the revolt occurred. He refused to acknowledge the new
constitution, and ordered Charles Albert to betake himself to Novara,
where the royalist troops were collecting. On the night of the 21st,
Charles Albert fled from Turin to Novara, but the constitutional party
did not submit without a struggle. On April 8 the Austrians crossed the
frontier and, uniting with the royalists, defeated the constitutionalists
at Novara. Two days later the royalist army entered Turin. The two
Italian revolutions had thus ended in an Austrian occupation of the two
lar