ErN
19, entry Nov. 2002; Royal African regiment, Sept. 2021
1. Laurel
& Hardy, Fra
Diavolo (shrimp &
otherwise)
2. Royal African
Regiment (below)
It is not as easy to find
information on Fra Diavolo as one might think. He was a
bandit, a brigand —anything from Robin Hood to Al Capone,
depending on the source of your information— active in the
Bourbon defeat of the Neapolitan
Republic in 1799.
First, however, there is much more information available on something called Shrimp Fra Diavolo. I found a recipe that serves 6. I should use 36-40 medium-size shrimp. If I can't find peeled raw shrimp, I can substitute peeled cooked shrimp. I may try it. Then, again, I may not.
Also, a bit higher, but not much, on my Fra Diavolo list is the 3-act opera of that name by the French composer, Daniel François Auber (1782-1871). It was composed in 1830. It turns out that Auber also composed an opera entitled Masaniello, who was a Neapolitan revolutionary from the 1600s. (You have probably never heard that one, either, but if you want to read about Masaniello, click here.)
And very high on my list is
the great 1933 Laurel and Hardy film, The Devil's
Brother— or—Fra Diavolo. I suppose that was my first
encounter with Southern Italian brigandage, although I
didn't appreciate that fact at the time. (My second
encounter was getting mugged in the back streets of
Naples, but that is a story for another time.)
The real Fra Diavolo (image, left)
was born Michele Pezza in the late 1770s in Itri, not far
from Gaeta about 60 miles north of Naples. In 1797 he fled
his town to avoid prosecution for having murdered his
employer in a squabble. He took up the life of the bandit.
He was then one of the first to answer King Ferdinand's
call for aid from such outlaws to help retake the kingdom
of Naples from the revolutionary government of the
Neapolitan Republic, which had successfully sent the
Bourbon monarchy packing to Sicily in 1799. He went to
Sicily where he was well received by the King and Queen.
He was made a Captain in the Bourbon army and returned
north where he landed his force of 400 men near Gaeta. He
spent the next 6 months harassing the Republican forces
and the French troops supporting them. He and his men
conducted themselves with such savagery that Cardinal Ruffo, the leader of the
royalist Army of the Holy Faith, forbade them from
entering centers of large population for fear of the
butchery that might ensue.
Fra Diavolo —"Brother devil"— was so-called apparently because he had expressed a wish as a young man to enter the clergy and on a few occasions disguised himself as a monk. He was instrumental, with other brigands like himself, in the Bourbon reconquest of the Kingdom of Naples and helped pursue the retreating French forces back to Rome where that city, too, eventually fell with the collapse of the so-called "Roman Republic".
Five years of peace then
ensued between France and the Kingdom of Naples. Fra
Diavolo enjoyed the relaxing life of the ex-bandit
celebrity, now the newly declared Duke of Cassano and
loyal servant of his king. He would need the respite,
however, for in 1806 Napoleon Bonaparte brought his
considerable military prowess to bear on the Bourbons of
Naples. The French invaded the
kingdom and, once again, the Bourbons fled to
Sicily, protected by the British fleet. Queen Caroline's plan was
as clear as it was futile: retake the kingdom again, the
same way they had done before. Cardinal Ruffo was called
upon, again, to form another army. He would have no part
of it this time, saying that "a man is good for only
one such effort in a lifetime."
Fra Diavolo, however,
answered the call, as did numerous other ex-outlaws of the
day. It is moot whether they were motivated by money or by
loyalty to their king or by fear of eventually all being
conscripted into the French army and sent off to fight
Bonaparte's wars elsewhere in Europe. In any event,
Napoleon sent his brother, Joseph, to Naples as king. At
the top of the list of things to do was cleanse the
kingdom of brigandage. Joseph sent out Colonel Hugo (the
father of author, Victor Hugo) to hunt down the most
wanted bandit of them all, Fra Diavolo.
It was only a matter of
time, but in the autumn of 1806 Fra Diavolo, with a
strong force of 1500 men, but still outnumbered, went back
into the mountains to lead a short-lived and ferocious
game of hit-and-run warfare with the regular army. At the
end he was reduced to the tactic of every-man-for-himself,
telling his remaining men to meet him in Sicily, where
they would regroup. That was not to be. He was captured
alone and exhausted in a tavern in the village of
Baronissi, not far from Salerno. He was taken to Naples
and sentenced to death in spite of an appeal for clemency
brought on his behalf by his nemesis, Colonel Hugo.
The King, however, had his own orders from his brother-in-law, Napoleon. Fra Diavolo was executed by hanging in Piazza Mercato in Naples on November 11, 1806. He apparently went stoically to his death. He wore his Bourbon military uniform.
There is no report that he asked for Shrimp Fra Diavolo as a last meal.added Sept. 2021
2. Royal African Regiment
I am indebted to Sandra Willendorf from Cologne, Germany, for this information. I find it interesting, informative, and little-known. I knew nothing about the subject, but was intrigued by a note she sent on my entry on the famous bandit, Fra Diavolo (directly above). (Spoiler: He was captured and executed in 1806.) Ms. Willendorf said she had information that related to his capture and was part of the history of Naples and, would I be interested? Selbstverständlich, I said.
This is her message (partially abridged):
Research shows that the black troops in Naples became the 7th regiment of the Army of the Kingdom of Naples, formed during the French Decade (1805-1815). It is unexpected in Italian military history because neither the kingdom of Naples nor northern Italian states had colonies in the "African World"."Real [royal] Africano, black soldiers from France served in Naples from August 1806 onwards. My direct ancestor served in the Black Pioneers before they moved to Naples. He deserted in September 1804 at Mantua and settled near Lübeck in Germany. When arriving in Naples in August 1806, most of them were from Guadeloupe. They were a group of 614 sent from Brest* to Mantua in spring of 1803 and arriving in August of 1803. The remaining 350 might have been from Santo-Domingo. The 614 were part of the massive deportation of the Guadeloupe black army Bataillon des Antilles in June 1802."
*[Brest is a port city in Brittany, a peninsula in the west of modern France. It is the western tip of continental Europe, still important and the second largest French military port after Toulon. Ir's where you would land, sailing in from America.
You have to look at what was going on in the Caribbean. The regiment was formed in Haiti in 1803 as part of the French army in order to keep all French troops in the world under the central control of Paris. Napoleon was emperor not just of France but of the vast French holdings in the New World, including the Caribbean. Much of the area was unstable: slave-holding plantations, abolitionist agitation, slave rebellions, and Napoleon's decision to abolish slavery in 1794 but then to re-establish it in 1802. It is emotioanal and appeals to us all. There is courage, heroism, betrayal, sacrifice —as stirring as what made Emerson write his Concord Hymn about the American Revolution, "...here once the embattled farmers stood, and fired the shot heard round the world."The illustration is identified as members of the 7th Regiment of the Line
(Royal African) of Murat, King of Naples.
Ms. Willendorf's interest is very personal. She
wrote a book about it: In Search of Freedom.
That "shot heard round the world" for France was the French revolution (1789–99). It was lightning. That kind of lightning doesn't strike everywhere at the same time, certainly not in the 1790s. It started in the Caribbean later than in France. In June of 1794, liberté, égalité, fraternité was established on Guadeloupe and Haiti. Slavery remained in Martinique. Napoleon was not yet all-powerful. In the midst of the French Revolution, slaves and free people of color launched the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804). After 12 years they defeated the French. Haiti declared its sovereignty on 1 January 1804. It was the first independent nation of Latin America and the Caribbean, the second republic in the Americas, the first country to abolish slavery, and the only state in history established by a slave revolt! These were not "embattled farmers". They were slaves. And they won. Yet the powers of counter-revolution, as usual, had something to say. Even Napoleon. He wanted money to flow again, the same profit from the colonies as before the French Revolution, so maybe just a little more slavery, ok? I have to take care of Russia first. There is research to be done on how the black French soldiers from the Caribbean who landed at Brest then moved east, some, such as Ms. Wllendorf's ancestor wound up in Lübeck in northern Germany, others dropped out along the way, and some, as in our case wound up serving Murat, king of Naples. image, right: François Lacour, one of the heroes of the Haitian revolution.
I had always associated the presence of black/white racially mixed children in Naples with WWII, either through the presence of black American G.I.s or the presence of Moroccon troops, who went on a binge of rape, pillage and plunder. (See this link.) I thought WWII. What else could it have been? WWI? Sure. "Over there! Over there! The Yanks are coming over there! " But Napoleon? 1806? Fra Diavolo? Never in a million wild guesses. I am very grateful to Ms. Willendorf.
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