Revolution first erupts in Naples?

What are the chances that a French-style revolution first erupts in the Kingdom of Naples instead? It had a lot of the factors involved, such as large, poor urban population, no advanced financial management, and a privileged out-of-touch monarchy. What would be the impact?
 
What are the chances that a French-style revolution first erupts in the Kingdom of Naples instead? It had a lot of the factors involved, such as large, poor urban population, no advanced financial management, and a privileged out-of-touch monarchy. What would be the impact?

IIRC the king of Naples at that time was quite friendly with the local poor, and was often seen befriending the lower classes (though I might be wrong on that one).
 

Germaniac

Donor
If it does happen, I cant see Naples having the manpower to conquer Italy before France and Austria slam down hard
 
If it does happen, I cant see Naples having the manpower to conquer Italy before France and Austria slam down hard

If it hasn't happened in France yet, isn't there a danger militant action by the Government in Italy would weaken the regime at home?
 
IIRC the king of Naples at that time was quite friendly with the local poor, and was often seen befriending the lower classes (though I might be wrong on that one).

Yeah,IIRC the urban poor of naples were the fiercest royalists during the french occupation.
 
The Revolution in France was not the poor vs the rich. a lot of members of the Third-State were quite rich and a lot of member of nobility or clergy really poor. It was more the un-priviledge against the priveledge ones. That and because the Enlightment was well known in the country. And because there was an economic crisis and famine.
 
So were the urban poor only pro-monarchy because of one popular King? What if you butterfly him away and replace him with a more out of touch one?
 
Naples was where the republic was overturned by the reactionary mobs led by cardinal Carafa.It looks like the last place in Europe where the revolution can successfully start
 
Naples was where the republic was overturned by the reactionary mobs led by cardinal Carafa.It looks like the last place in Europe where the revolution can successfully start

If the French Republic had been installed from the outside as a puppet regime, it's possible the Revolt in the Vendee would have snowballed into a similar type of event.
 
I don't believe that was the reason,although the behavior of French troops in Naples wasquite obnoxious. After all, all the republics set up by French troops across Europe never had a lot of troubles.
The problem in southern Italy was two-fold: Naples had its fair share of intellectuals, and also the beginning of a bourgeoisie, but the rest of the region was much more backward; more problematic was that the intellectuals who set up the repubblica Partenopea were brilliant theorists but lacked any shred of practicality and hammered and hawed without taking any decisive step (also because the French did not allow them to set up a popular army, that's true: meaning that the control of the republic over the provinces was between weak and non-existant).
 
Not going to happen. See: Lazzari. While the urban poor of Paris were radical and leftist, those in Naples were the exact opposite. They were intensely conservative and intensely loyal to the monarchy, or rather the person it embodied, Ferdinand I, who went out amongst them.

The French Revolution was also more than a poor/rich divide as many have already mentioned, that is a rather Marxist viewpoint. It embodied many ideals, such as taxation, abuse of royal power, and a growing distaste of royal opulence, embodied in Marie-Antoinette, who, while having never even harmed a fly and being quite charitable, became an easy foreign scapegoat.

The French Revolution's issues go back to the Seven Years War, perhaps even further, with France running up huge deficits that she could not afford. Louis XIV began the trend by waging hugely expensive wars. Versailles was expensive as well, but we don't know how much it cost, but it was hardly anything like the debts ran up in the Wars of the Grand Alliance and the Spanish Succession. Louis XIV regularly had all the silver gathered from Versailles on two occasions to be sent to the mint and be melted down.

Louis XV escaped his great-grandfather's debts as the 1720s South Sea Bubble allowed France to write off her debts by forcing people to exchange government bonds for South Sea Stock. When it burst, the deficit of Louis XIV's wars was suddenly wiped away without ruining the credit rating of the monarchy. The French Revolution's financial woes probably start with the Seven Years War: Louis XV's main adviser until the 1740s was Cardinal Fleury, who carried out many significant reforms and finally balanced the budget. He even got France involved in the War of the Polish Succession with no great bloodshed or cost.

His death happened with the War of the Austrian Succession, which begins Louis XV's downfall. It wasn't ruinously expensive, but it began the slippery slope and was the birth of public opinion in France. "Stupid as the peace!" became a Parisian saying when Louis XV merely gave back Belgium to Austria for nothing. The failure to oust Maria Theresa or see the Bavarian Elector become HRE severely tarnished the French Monarchy's prestige, a further blow when Louis XV merely died at Metz and had to receive extreme unction. When the public learned of his sinful lifestyle, they were aghast and lost a lot of respect for him.

The Seven Years War really began the French financial issue. Madame de Pompadour's cabal who the king appointed weren't able to push through any worthwhile reforms. New taxes were attempted to be introduced, like the Vingtième, a five percent tax on income that was attempted to be introduced in 1749 and 1756. Wrangling and protests typically meant the exemption of the clergy and many provinces which further weakened the government's ability to collect money through new taxes.

This meant that wars like the Seven Years War were largely fought by floating large interest loans. Rather than raise taxes, loans were found to be much easier, and the resulted in interest payments eating up the budget and causing the severe financial situation on top of the bad harvests that lead to 1789 in France.

Naples really had nothing like that, that could cause it. In fact, Ferdinand I and his wife Maria Carolina (Marie Antoinette's SISTER) initially sympathized with the revolution, as many did before it got too radical.
 
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