The inactivity of
the Italian sovereigns may be explained by their imputed treachery or
lukewarmness in the cause. But what prevented the people themselves from
crowding the camp of Charles Albert with volunteers at a time when not a
crowned head in Italy dared offer the least open opposition to such a
movement? The King of Naples, sorely against his will, sent his regular
army, consisting of about fourteen thousand men, to fight for the cause,
and withdrew them in about six weeks, as soon as a base act of treachery
had given him the victory at home. General Pepe, their commander, wished
to disobey the order and move forward; but "nearly the whole army turned
its back on the Po and on him, and moved backward in the direction of
the Neapolitan Kingdom." Two hundred volunteers had previously set out
from Naples for Upper Italy, under the guidance and at the expense of an
enthusiastic woman, the Princess Belgioioso. "She had lived as an exile
in France, and was at first enthusiastic for the _Giovine Italia_; she
afterward became averse to it, and sided with Guizot, Duchatel, and
Mignet, her intimate friend.
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