On 1 March 1860 he ordered waterworks for all lands and in so doing he avoided the formation of marshes and fostered field irrigation and public health; he ordered the drainage of the Fucino lake, the embankment of Sarno river by digging a navigable channel, the continuation of work in Neapolitan marshes and the clearing of Sebeto mouth. All this was made in just one year. In 1862, when he was exiled in Rome, he sent a huge amount of money to the Neapolitans who had been victims of a violent eruption of the Vesuvius.

After the fall of the Kingdom, the royal couple was hosted in Rome by Pious IX (who in this way could repay the courtesy and hospitality received by Ferdinand II in 1848-1850) first at the Quirinale and then at Palazzo Farnese, until 1870. In those years, they tried to foster the pro-Bourbon resistance that was taking roots in their former Kingdom, but then they realised that they had lost and did not want to cause other bloodsheds, hatred and pain.

Alfonso of Bourbon, Count of Caserta

Deprived of their personal assets by the Savoy (with no right or justification, Garibaldi had seized not only their intangible assets but also their tangible ones, that Francis did not want to take with him), they had to move often, and lived for many years in Paris, and once so often they went to Bavaria, to Maria Sofia’s family estates, and led a modest and serene life. In one of these travels, in 1894, in peace with God, his neighbours and therefore his conscience, Francis II died at Arco (Trento). He did not leave any heir, and therefore his brother Alfonso Maria of the Bourbon of the Two Sicilies, Count of Caserta, became Head of the Royal House.

The invasion of the Kingdom

It is not possible to relate here the entire history of the Risorgimento, the conquest of the Kingdom by the Piedmont army. We can just say that today’s many historical reconstructions of the events of those days are more serene, true and objective than the “official version” provided by history in the past 140 years. Many historians (and not only pro-Bourbon ones) are nowadays doing an honest reconstruction of the tragic events of the invasion and conquest of the Kingdom. Here we just list the most credible and unquestionable historic achievements, well known by experts but still ignored by the large majority of Italians and foreigners, who are still influenced by their school memories concerning the heroic conquests of Garibaldi’s army and a southern population exulting for being “liberated” by the “Bourbon’s uncouthness”. Today nobody still relates these stories, but they are still alive in the imagination of many. However, the reader that was patient enough to read carefully the previous headings has by now realised that the anti-Bourbon “vulgata” is full of lies and is antithetic to historical truth.
We do not want to engage ourselves in a controversy, but we must pay a service to historical truth and to the common memory of the Italian people, and therefore we just want to mention the most important and unquestioned (although not yet known by everybody) historical acquisitions on these events and we invite the interested reader to consult the studies published by very important historians, which we recommend at the heading Recommended Books.