Men had not yet forgotten the fate of
the Neapolitan historian, Pietro Giannone, who for daring to attack the
censorship and the growth of the temporal power had been driven from
Naples to Vienna, from Vienna back to Venice, and at length, at the
prompting of the Holy See, lured across the Piedmontese frontier by
Charles Emmanuel of Savoy, and imprisoned for life in the citadel of
Turin. The memory of his tragic history--most of all, perhaps, of his
recantation and the "devout ending" to which solitude and persecution
had forced the freest spirit of his day--hovered like a warning on the
horizon of thought and constrained political speculation to hide itself
behind the study of fashionable trifles. Alfieri had lately joined the
association of the Honey-Bees, and the Professor, at his suggestion, had
invited Odo, for whose discretion his friend declared himself ready to
answer. The Honey-Bees were in fact desirous of attracting young men of
rank who felt an interest in scientific or economic problems; for it was
hoped that in this manner the new ideas might imperceptibly permeate the
class whose privileges and traditions presented the chief obstacle to
reform. In France, it was whispered, free-thinkers and political
agitators were the honoured guests of the nobility, who eagerly embraced
their theories and applied them to the remedy of social abuses. Only by
similar means could the ideals of the Piedmontese reformers be realised;
and in those early days of universal illusion none appeared to suspect
the danger of arming inexperienced hands with untried weapons.
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