Victor Emmanuel I
Victor Emmanuel I,
1759–1824, king of Sardinia (1802–21). His brother and predecessor, Charles Emmanuel IV, lost (1798) all his territories except the island of Sardinia to France in the French Revolutionary Wars. Victor Emmanuel accompanied his brother to Sardinia and succeeded him on his abdication (1802). After Napoleon's fall he returned (1814) to Turin, recovered Piedmont, Savoy, and Nice, and received at the Congress of Vienna Liguria with Genoa. He abolished many Napoleonic reforms and refused to grant a constitution. An uprising (1821) in Piedmont, largely the work of the CarbonariCarbonari[Ital.,=charcoal burners], members of a secret society that flourished in Italy, Spain, and France early in the 19th cent. Possibly derived from Freemasonry, the society originated in the kingdom of Naples in the reign of Murat (1808–15) and drew its members from
..... Click the link for more information. , forced him to abdicate in favor of his brother Charles Felix (see Savoy, house ofSavoy, house of,
dynasty of Western Europe that ruled Savoy and Piedmont from the 11th cent., the kingdom of Sicily from 1714 to 1718, the kingdom of Sardinia from 1720 to 1861, and the kingdom of Italy from 1861 to 1946.
..... Click the link for more information. ).