reasonable in itself, the King and his Minister, M. Guizot, offered the most dogged and infatuated opposition. The movement in North Italy against Austrian domination also created an agitation for reforms in the Two Sicilies, to which the King would make no concessions whatever. The Royal troops, in January, 1848, were beaten in an attempt to quell a revolt in the island of Sicily, and a futile compromise was scornfully rejected by the insurgents, who insisted on nothing less than the Constitution of 1812, and the assembly of a Parliament at Palermo. Naples in turn became restive, whereupon the terrified King dismissed his autocratic advisers, formed a Liberal Ministry, and granted a Constitution, with an amnesty, on the 12th of February. Even Lord Minto, Palmerston’s unofficial emissary to “Young Italy,” failed to persuade the Sicilians to accept it. But these concessions, barren as they were, forced the hands of the Pope and of the rulers of Tuscany and Sardinia, who in turn granted Constitutions. In fact, the tide of revolution was rising fast, and threatened to sweep everything before it in the Italian Peninsula. Opinions differ as to what was the spark that lit the conflagration which made 1848 the _annus mirabilis_ of Revolution. It has been customary to say it was the stupid opposition of Louis Philippe and M. Guizot to the Reform banquets in France, which were fixed for the 22nd of February. Lord Malmesbury, however, traces the origin of the outbreak to the popular disturbances in Munich early in the month. The people of Munich, it seems, were incensed against the King, who had dismissed his Prime Minister, Prince Wallenstein, for advising him to expel his mistress, Lola Montes, from Bavaria after her infamous influence had become paramount in the Royal councils.[88] Lola Montes had a most extraordinary career. She first appeared in society in London in Lord Malmesbury’s house, where she sang ballads--Spanish ballads--and was spoken of as the widow of a certain Don Diego Leon, who had been shot by the Carlists. His lordship, an easy, good-natured man, had made her acquaintance in a railway carriage coming up from Southampton, and that was the story she had told him. She was permitted to sell laces, veils, trinkets, and “curios” to Lord Malmesbury’s guests at his private concerts, so that she might earn a little money, while trying to dispose of some [Illustration: THE REVOLUTION IN PARIS: CROWDS SINGING “MOURIR POUR LA PATRIE.”]