CHAPTER XVII

THE CARBONARI
The society of the Carbonari first began to attract atten¬ tion in the kingdom of Naples towards the close of Murat’s reign, but the date of its actual inception in Italy cannot be determined. According to one story it was established in Genoa in 1809. Its introduction to the south has been ascribed to different persons, including Queen Caroline of Naples, an unidentified French officer in garrison at Capua, an unnamed Italian officer who had served in Spain and acquired a knowledge of the society in that country; while yet another theory favours the gradual evolution of the Carbonari system from a knot of persons interested in progressive politics. There is no doubt whatever that its conception was in the first place French, for it has a strong family resemblance to Les Fendeurs, which existed in eighteenth-century France as a friendly and benevolent secret society; and a similar society known as the Charbonniers or Bucherons, and referred to as Le bon Cousinage, was said to have been existent in the Jura districts long prior to the first appearance of the Carbonari.1 Thus the exact date at which it first appeared in Naples in its Italian dress is as undeterminable as unimportant.
The society first came into prominence as a political force in 1814, and this was due to Maghella, the Minister of Police. This man, a Genoese by birth, had been known and trusted by Murat during the French campaign in Piedmont, and when the latter succeeded Joseph Bonaparte on the throne of Naples he summoned his former acquaintance, employed him in affairs of State, and ultimately made him Minister of Police. Maghella was a man of patriotic and liberal
1 Anon., Memoirs of the Secret Societies of the South of Italy , particularly the Carbonari, translated from the Italian. London, 1821.
126
THE CARBONARI
127
views; his ideals were an independent Italy with a consti¬ tutional Government, in pursuit of which he tried to detach Murat from Napoleon. He advised his master to take no