A common danger and the ties of their old comradeship drew them together again when Murat arrived in Bohemia, and then he fought stoutly and well. It is hardly credible and, were it not history, it would be absolutely inconceivable, that, while battling whole-heartedly for the French in Bohemia, Murat was engaged, through his government, in an attempt to unify Italy by the assistance of Great Britain, which was to supply twenty-five thousand men, who, with his own troops and the disaffected Italians in the ranks of the French garrisons, were to drive the Tricolour over the Alps. He contrived to persuade himself that he was honest in his intentions, too, by a process of reasoning peculiar to several of the Emperor’s lieutenants in those times. As Frenchmen they marched with the armies of France, and served her to the best of their splendid ability; as kings and grand dukes, they served their subjects, or thought they did, with equal enthusiasm. Bentinck, however, being an Englishman, failed to understand the presence of their separate political entities in one person, and withdrew, so that the unification of Italy, fortunately, one cannot but think, fell through, and Joachim returned to Naples in 1813. It was then that the society, known as the Carbonari, who had appeared in the kingdom three years before, began to spread themselves in all classes of society, conspiring in the sweet Italian fashion, which conspires for the sake of the pure delight of intriguing. They had no definite aim. Their professed “raison d’être” was a vague dream of a vague constitution, “à l’Anglaise.” In such hands, of course, this would have been about as fruitful of any real liberty as the Commune, and none knew this better than Lord William Bentinck; but any stone will do to throw at the Devil, and Lord William hastened to communicate with the liberty-loving thieves, murderers, and brigands who represented the society of Naples. There were, to be sure, some honest men among them, whose hearts were stronger than their heads. There always are a few in these affairs, enticed in by flattery and utterly uninformed as to the real object of their associates, who are pushed to the front for the public to see.