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. Among these was a certain young gentleman, a man of fortune and courage—a captain of militia in his own town, which stood upon the summit of a high and precipitous mountain. His name was Capobianco (“white-head”), and at the time when he came to the notice of the authorities they had discovered the trafficking of the society with Lord William, who had been sending across volumes containing the new Sicilian laws which had been enacted in that island under the Bourbons, or, to speak more accurately, had been forced upon the Bourbons by Lord William under pain of being left to look after themselves and being compelled to fight for their own possessions. The conspirators must have been a simple-minded people if they really believed that Ferdinand had promulgated anything of the kind without compulsion. Lord William promised the Neapolitans a similar code if they would only restore Ferdinand—Lord William was always rather free with his promises—and the Government of Naples, finding the horrid thing in their midst, proscribed the society and threatened with most dreadful punishments any one who mentioned the word “constitution.” Whereupon the Carbonari dropped down into Calabria and proceeded to shout it aloud, among them young Capobianco. As it has been said, his town was practically inaccessible, so that, despairing of his capture, General Janelli made a pretence of refusing to believe in his association with the Carbonari; after several ineffectual efforts to entrap him (for Capobianco had a native mistrust of authority under any guise save that of the Church), he one day invited him to dinner upon the occasion of a public festival in Cosenza. Capobianco hesitated, but finally made up his mind to attend, feeling that he would be safe if he took unfrequented byways and surrounded himself with a dependable escort.