But while he put forward a definitely Republican programme, Mazzini never fell into the French mistake of thinking that a knot of men, monopolizing power to themselves, can, by merely calling themselves Republicans, make the government of a nation a Republic. While he fully hoped, by education, to induce the Italians to accept a Republican Government, he was quite prepared to admit the possibility of failure in that attempt, and to accept the consequence as a consistent democrat. This is distinctly stated in the first plan of Young Italy. "By inculcating before the hour of action by what steps the Italians must achieve their aim, by raising its flag in the sight of Italy, and calling upon all those who believe it to be the flag of national regeneration to organize themselves beneath its folds--the association does not seek to substitute that flag for the banner of the future nation." "When once the nation herself shall be free, and able to exercise that right of sovereignty which is hers alone, she will raise her own banner, and make known her revered and unchallenged will as to the principle and the fundamental law of her existence." Plentiful as was the scorn and misrepresentation showered upon Mazzini and his doctrines, the two years from 1831 to 1833 brought a vast number of supporters to the Society of Young Italy; and the revolutionary movement in other countries gained organization and definiteness of purpose from this model. In the meantime, the Government of Louis Philippe was becoming more and more definitely committed to the cause of reaction; and every kind of slander was being circulated by Frenchmen against the Society of Young Italy. The theory that this Society undertook to exterminate all who disobeyed its orders was supported, by attributing to its action any casual violence which might take place in the streets of Paris; and though Mazzini prosecuted one of these slanderers for defamation a few years later, and compelled him to make a complete retractation in the law courts, the slander was too convenient to be allowed easily to drop. On the other hand, men of the older type of revolutionist, who had drawn their ideas from the first French Republic, and had afterwards hoped to find their realization in the methods of the Carbonari, objected to Mazzini as "too soft and German" in his ideas. But nevertheless some who were afterwards known in other ways came forward to contribute to the Journal of Young Italy. Amongst them may be mentioned the historian Sismondi and a future opponent of Mazzini, the Abate Vincenzo Gioberti. By 1833 the Society had established centres in Lombardy, Genoa, Tuscany, and the Papal States, and it was resolved to attempt an invasion of Savoy.