The “Joseph” and “Joachim” the chapter title refers to are Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother, and Joachim Murat, his brother in law.
In 1801 the French began pushing the Austrians out of northern Italy. King Ferdinand was under increasing pressure to return to Naples, him being, you know… the king and all…. but, being pissed at the Neapolitans for cheering the French invaders so quickly after they showed up, Ferdinand wanted nothing to do with Naples any longer. He did the next best thing to showing up himself and sent his son Francis and his wife Maria Clementina of Austria in his place.
Since this part of “Sicilian” history concerns, as we have grown accustomed to, things happening off the island, I’ll gloss over much of it.
Napoleon was hard at work reorganizing governments of the new French republic, as well as governments in Italy, Holland, Germany, and Switzerland. He couldn’t afford to continue hostilities with Britain. He then signed a treaty to withdraw from Naples. He sent his brother-in-law, Joachim Murat, to oversee the operation, and the Napoletani loved him. This dude was kind of a rock star- big flashy hair, smart uniforms, winning personality. Seriously, you need to look this guy up on wikipedia to see him. After the French left, Ferdinand no longer could put off returning to Naples.
These years are a tedium of the same types of decisions made about “the kingdom of Sicily” by people who were not there, that has been a hallmark of Sicilian history. During this period, most of what concerned the kingdom of “Sicily” was, in fact, Naples, not the island of Sicily.
After invading northern Italy, Napoleon proclaimed himself King of ALL Italy; he declared the kingdom of Naples to be no more, and sent his brother Joseph to rule there. Ferdinand split and went back to Sicily, but Napoleon shelved a French invasion of the island.
The Sicilians by now understood that Ferdinand was a man-child who saw their land as nothing more than “a hunting reserve and occasional funk hole.” Once again, most of the administrative posts had gone to Napoletani, leaving the Sicilian noble’s sons out in the cold. Had Napoleon and the French invaded, they might not have met much resistance.
Ferdinand, in the meantime, looking around for some French enemies strong enough to hold them off and protect Sicily, had invited the British to defend the island. The English not only took over the defense, but most everything else too. They also pumped a fair amount of money into the economy, which brought them no small amount of acceptance from the islanders. How to win friends and influence people? Money talks, amirite?
In Naples, Joseph had begun well enough with implementing Napoleon’s reforms, but soon enough, Napoleon offered him the juicier post of the Spanish crown. Joseph duly left and Joachim Murat was chosen to take over the lesser Naples, which he and his wife considered beneath them.
The TL;DR version of this chapter of Sicilian history: Sicily was the place the King of Naples escaped to, when he had to flee Naples. Since the French didn’t want to invade the island, Ferdinand could safely stick his tongue out at the French and yell neener-neener-neener at them. The English were there and made things better for a bit.