In 1848 the Camorra had become so powerful that Ferdinand II actually negotiated with it for support; but the society demanded too much in return and the plan fell through. On this account the Camorra threatened to bring on a revolution! In this it was not successful, but it now began openly to affect revolutionary ideas and pretend to be the friend of liberty, its imprisoned members posing as patriots, victims of tyranny. Thus it gained enormously in prestige and membership, while the throne became less and less secure. Ferdinand II granted a general amnesty in order to heighten his popularity, and the Camorrists who had been in jail now had to be reckoned with in addition to those outside. In 1859 Ferdinand died and Francis II seated himself on the quaking throne. His prefect of police, Liborio Romano, whom history has accused of plotting the Bourbon overthrow with Garibaldi and of playing both ends against the middle, had either perforce or with malice prepense conceived the scheme of harnessing the Camorra by turning over to it the maintenance of order in the city. The police had become demoralized and needed rejuvenating, he said. Francis II thereupon had another jail delivery, and “Don Liborio” organized a “National Guard” and enlisted throngs of Camorrists in it, while in the gendarmerie he recruited the _picciotti_ as rank and file and installed the regular Camorrists as brigadiers. Then came the news that Garibaldi was marching upon Naples. Romano, still ostensibly acting for the best interests of his royal master, urged the latter’s departure from the capital. The revolution was coming. In some indefinable way, people who were for the Bourbons yesterday saw to-day the impossibility of the continuance of the dynasty. The cat was ready to jump, but it had not jumped yet. Whatever may have been Romano’s real motives so far as the Bourbons were concerned, the fact remains that his control over the national militia and police, during the days and nights just prior to the departure of the King and the arrival of Garibaldi, resulted in a vigilance on their part which protected property and maintained an order otherwise impossible.[9] Garibaldi at last arrived, with Romano’s Camorrist police on hand to cheer loudly for “Victor Emmanuel and Italy United!” and to knock on the head or stick a knife into the gizzard of any one who seemed lukewarm in his reception of the conquering hero. The cat jumped—assisted by the Camorra. The liberals were in, and with them the Camorrists, as the saying is, “with both feet.” Thus, perhaps for the first time in history, was a society of criminals recognized officially by the government and intrusted with the task of policing themselves.