Arrivabene – The Press – Details on the Surrender
of Peschiera and on the Insurrection
Turin, 31 May. The well-known political economist Arrivabene of Mantua,
No. 10, 10 June 1848
Neue Rheinische Zeitung.
who had been living as a political refugee in Belgium, passed through here on his journey home. He will place himself at the disposal of the provisional government in Milan. (Concordia.)
* The Piedmontese press now deploys the most ingratiating phrases to move the Lombards to unite with Piedmont. While it attacks the republicans with insinuations and accusations of every kind, it itself uses all the republican catchwords to depict Charles Albert’s kingship as the best of republics. Listen to Turin’s Concordia:
“The rights whose guarantee you demand, O Lombards, are summed up in national sovereignty. But the principle of this sovereignty triumphs completely among us. Charles Albert, hastening to the aid of Lombardy, has tacitly and explicitly recognised the sovereignty of the nation. Our brave men, who fight together with yours and all Italians under that magnanimous king, are fighting for the fullness of the same rights which you claim.
What, then, do you fear? Leave the manner of realising these rights to the constituent assembly. There is no other path than this to attain equality and fraternity, those necessary elements of our fusion. The constituent assembly must be the goal of our wishes, our watchword, our rallying-cry. Beyond it lies chaos, division, anarchy, calamity ...
O Lombards, believe us! Only our boundless sympathy for you makes us speak thus! Trust is now the foundation of our mutual co-operation. The strong Piedmontese trust, the ardent Ligurians trust; trust, then, likewise, O free Lombards!
Should our internal enemies lift their heads proudly, should the moment come to be mistrustful and on our guard, we swear to you, brothers, we would with the same frankness cry out to you: Have no trust! Be on your guard!”
* Milan. On the insurrection of the 29th, the Concordia gives a long report which half blames the republicans, half an Austrian-Jesuit party. According to this report, the uprising bore a great resemblance to that of Paris on 15 May. The people had been brought together under the pretext of staging a demonstration for the guarantees of popular rights to be given by Charles Albert before unification. A certain Urbino stood at the head of the actual insurgents, who were armed with cudgels, sword-canes, daggers and pistols. The aim was to compel the government to sign an act of abdication and then to proclaim a new government consisting of Urbino, Cernuschi, Cattaneo, Romani, Angelo, Bressanini. When the government had been taken by surprise, Urbino shouted from the balcony: The government has abdicated! But the people shouted: No, no! The few national guardsmen on watch then sought to protect the government, and when the crowd saw that they were to be driven further than they had originally intended, they gradually dispersed. Several insurgents were arrested immediately, others, among them Urbino, late in the evening. After a three-hour tumult, the Piazza San Fedele and the government building situated there were cleared, and only then did 10,000 men of the National Guard arrive to express their confidence in the government by a march past.
The Concordia is, however, partisan in this affair, yet its report is written by an eyewitness who was on guard in the very government palace. It claims that behind the whole business stands Mazzini, who, however, wisely held himself back. Mazzini, however, has decidedly denied any participation in the enterprise in his “Libero Italiano”.