Biography of Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia
Responsibility and vocations
May 24 17516 October 1819
Charles Emmanuel was born in Turin on 24 may 1751, the eldest son of Victor Amadeus III and Maria Antonietta of Spain. On 21 September 1775 he married Maria Clotilde, sister of Louis XVI. Very truly,-as, indeed, even his wife--in the years immediately before the accession retires to a convent. Happens to Vittorio Amedeo III in 1796, at a time when the liberal principles of the French revolution have invested all of Europe, including that of his Kingdom, and Napoleon's troops are rampant in Italy.
His father had been forced to cede to France a part of Piedmont. Meanwhile, the unrest of the Jacobins, encouraged by the French in order to weaken the authority of the King, are growing, as well as the rivalry with the democratic Government. The resulting conflict, in June 1798, is a pretext for French military intervention there ends but installs their own troops in the Citadel of Turin. He becomes essentially a prisoner of the French who force him, for example, to implement reforms that abolished feudal rights and privileges.
But it is only the prelude to the invasion of its mainland States: on 7 December of the same year cannot avoid yielding the entire Piedmont to the French and to retreat in Sardinia, after being in Parma and Florence. So describes its departure Count Luigi Cibrario, historian and statesman, in his book "origin and progress of the monarchy of Savoy": "At 10 pm of 9 December 1798, King Charles with his family. Thirty cars, accompanied by lackey, escorted by Dragoons, who carried in hand torches to wind, but moved in country Tantico symbol of nationality. After entering France's troops, in which is incorporated the Piedmont". Piedmont, instead of being declared a Republic, as Paris had hinted, is then incorporated by France.
After the destruction of Napoleon's fleet, at the hands of Admiral Nelson, in the spring of 1799, the French are driven back from Italy, but to the King of Sardinia doesn't change anything because the Austrians, hatching expansionist in Piedmont, not agree upon his return. The many humiliations suffered by France, the death sentence of brothers-in-law Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the news of Napoleon's risen to Console and become, de facto, military dictator but, above all, the loss of his beloved Maria Clotilde in March of 1802, deprive of all energy causing it, three months later, the abdication in favour of his brother Victor Emmanuel. Since then embraces entirely faith-that had always accompanied-by being the Jesuit friar and exercising its role in the Church of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale in Rome. Here Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia 6 October 1819, dies, 68 years old, and his Church is buried. That of Carlo Emanuele is a singular story, because it is about a man woefully inadequate to roles of political responsibility-much to let his wife handle it--and instead, attracted by mysticism, by silence, reflection and prayer. And the more warlike as these two aspects are contradicting the timing of his brief and ill-fated reign.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.