Note (Back) — Chapter XIX

396. The Reaction.—The reaction, however, was swift and seemingly all but complete. At the earliest possible moment the king of Naples withdrew from the war, revoked the constitution which he had granted, and put the forces of liberalism to rout. With the assistance of France, Austria, and Naples, the Pope extinguished the Roman republic and re-established in all of its vigor the temporal power. By Austrian arms one after another of the insurrectionary states in the north and center was crushed, and Austrian influence in that quarter rose to its former degree of ascendancy. Constitutionalism gave place to absolutism, and the liberals, disheartened and disunited, were everywhere driven to cover. Only in Piedmont, whose sovereign, after the bitter defeat at Novara, had abdicated in favor of his son, Victor Emmanuel II. (March 23, 1849), was there left any semblance of political independence or civil liberty.[532]