Colonel Regis, the leader of the Constitutional forces, succeeded in reaching Novara before Della Torre had begun his advance. The armies met outside the town; but in the middle of the battle the news arrived that the Austrians had crossed the Ticino and were marching into the country. Regis and Ferrero fought gallantly; but the double forces against them were too strong; and though they once or twice repelled the Austrian attack, the want of discipline of the Piedmontese soldiers, combined with the superior force of the enemy, led to a crushing defeat. Santa Rosa, finding it impossible to defend Turin, retreated first to Alessandria and then to Genoa; but the men on whom he relied had lost courage and hope; and he and such of his friends as were fortunate enough to reach Genoa were soon obliged to leave it again and to fly from Italy, most of them to fight in foreign countries for the liberty which they had lost at home. The reaction set in with the greatest fury. In Piedmont the system of espionage was resumed with double force. The University was closed. Under the influence of favouritism, and in the absence of any free expression of public opinion, corruption of tribunals revived, and the Jesuits, who had lost power during the Liberal interregnum, speedily recovered it. In Naples, the Austrians, after recommending mildness to Ferdinand, yielded to his demands for the right to punish; and the sense of his dishonourable position seems to have called out in him a savagery which he had not previously shown; while the presence of the Austrian troops irritated the country into a state of intermittent insurrection. Lord William Bentinck attempted a protest in the English House of Commons against a second destruction of Sicilian independence; but Castlereagh defeated the motion, and Sicily fell back under Neapolitan rule.