This was a period of military tribunals, dragooning, wholesale T Bach confiscation 'and all manner of brutalities.'
The brutalities of Austrias white coats in the north, the unintelligent repression then characteristic of the house of Savoy, the petty spite of the duke of Modena, the medieval obscurantism of pope and cardinals in the middle of the peninsula and the clownish excesses of Ferdinand in the south, could not blot out from the minds of the Italians the recollection of the benefits derived from the just laws, vigorous administration and enlightened aims of the great emperor.
Italian society exhibited an almost unexampled spectacle of literary, artistic and courtly refinement crossed by brutalities of lust, treasons, poisonings, assassinations, violence.
In 1688, 1703 and 1707 the French entered the duchy and inflicted brutalities and sufferings upon the inhabitants.
Great brutalities disgraced the rebellion of 1798, but the people had suffered much and had French examples before them.