The share of the Turin students in the Piedmontese rising of 1821 was touched with a certain character of boyish frolic. On January 11th, some of the University students appeared at the theatre at Turin in red caps. The police at once arrested them. But their companions rose on their behalf and demanded that they should be tried by the tribunals of the University. In this demand they hoped that the professors would support them; but the rector of the college was opposed to the movement, and the professors were unwilling to interfere. Thereupon the students took matters into their own hands, took away the keys of the University from the door-keeper, placed guards at all the entrances, defended the two principal gates with forms and tables, tore up the pavements, and barred the windows. Then they despatched two delegates to Count Balbo, to entreat him to set free their comrades, or to hand them over to the authorities of the University. The representatives of the provincial colleges flocked to the assistance of the Turin students; and the sight of the soldiers, who were called out to suppress their rising, only roused them to more determined resistance. The delegates returned speedily, followed by Count Balbo himself, who promised to defend the cause of the students before Victor Emmanuel, if they would in the meantime remain quiet. The students, therefore, consented to wait for further news; but the soldiers remained encamped outside the University. Suddenly the attention of the soldiers was attracted by some boys coming out of school; and, irritated presumably at some boyish mischief, they attacked the children with bayonets. The students, indignant at the sight, threw stones at the soldiers, who thereupon charged the barricades of the University, and a general massacre followed. The news of this massacre caused the most furious indignation in Turin, and tended to swell the growing revolutionary feeling. Charles Albert paid a special visit to the hospitals to console those who had been wounded by the soldiers. But in the meantime the proceedings at the Congress of Laybach were alarming the lovers of liberty. The King of Naples, by all sorts of pretences, had tried to lull to sleep the vigilance of the Junta at home; but it soon became known that the Powers had resolved to suppress the Neapolitan Constitution, and in February, 1822, their forces were on the march to Naples. The Piedmontese Liberals were eager to protest against this violation of national independence; and their fears were further roused by a rumour that Austria was renewing her demands for the surrender of the Piedmontese fortresses. These rumours were specially rife in Alessandria, which had known the degradation of an Austrian occupation; and Victor Emmanuel in vain tried to convince the Alessandrians of the unreasonableness of this panic.