sea, and, as spiritual leader of half Europe, he could at any moment summon
to his assistance the Catholic chivalry of the world. "The Roman emperor"
no longer existed, but "the Austrian emperor" was another title for the
same man, holding much the same territory; and the fact that he had
renounced his vague suzerainty over the rest of Europe did not prevent him
exercising a very real suzerainty in Italy, not merely over the eastern
half of the Lombard Plain which definitely belonged to Austria, but also
over the other States of the peninsula which were, in theory at least,
independent. The kingdom of the two Sicilies in the South, the grand duchy
of Tuscany on the West, and the smaller duchies of Parma, Modena, and
Lucca were only stable in so far as Austria bolstered up their corrupt and
unpopular governments. Even the Papal States themselves, equally undermined
with corruption and unpopularity, ultimately rested upon the same support.
Thus Austria represented for Italy all that evil past of which she wanted
to be rid: the foreign yoke against which her newly conscious spirit of
nationality revolted, the dynastic frontiers which were abhorrent to her
desire for unity, the absolute _régime_ under which her soul, after feeding
on the principles of the French Revolution, lay gagged and bound. The first
step to be taken towards the creation of Italy was the expulsion of the
Austrians.

This fact in itself purified the struggle for Italian freedom and raised
Italian nationalism to heights of nobility and heroism almost unparalleled
in history. The nation had not merely to be unified, but _delivered_, and
delivered from the oppression of that power which was the mainstay of
reaction in Europe. Nor was it simply a question of national freedom;
Austria had declared war upon individual and constitutional liberty also,
and used all her power to suppress them wherever they dared to raise their
head. From beginning to end of her fight for national existence, Italy
never forgot that she was also fighting for individual liberty, or ceased