Cavour

Kossuth believed to his last day that this result was due to him, an opinion which English readers are not likely to share. The gain for Italy was inestimable. The Whi

aly laden with Austrian chains and of having betrayed the Italians at the moment of their brightest hopes? In the same letter (July 6), he pointed out that if a single Austrian ruler remained in Italy, whatever was the form of his administration, the excuse and even the fatal necessity of Austrian interference would remain or return. They were asked to parcel out the peoples of Italy as if they belonged to them! The Earl of Malmesbury once remarked that "on any question affecting Italy Lord Palmerston had no scruples." Had the Conservative statesman continued in office six months longer, in spite of his wish to see Italy happy, the "scruples" of which he spoke would have probably induced him to try and force her back under

we shall see what the Italians can do by themselves." Walewski confirmed this by stating that the simple annexation of Lombardy was not a sufficient motive "for demanding a sacrifice on the part of our ally in the interest of the safety of our frontiers," and in August he formally repeated to Rattazzi that they did not dream of annexing Savoy. Sincere or not, these disclaimers released Victor Emmanuel from the secret bond into whic

iction of contemporaries. Those who come after are much better informed as to data, but they fail to catch the atmospheric tendency, the beginning-to-drift, of which witnesses are sensible. The scare was universal. The British Government sent a formal note to France and Austria stating that the employment of Austrian or French forces to repress the clearly expressed will

to Adriatic. If the Italians are left to themselves all will go well; and when they say that if the French garrison were recalled from Rome all the priests would be assassinated, one can cite the case of Bologna, where the priests have not been molested and where perfect order is maintained." However much Austria might dislike the turn which events had taken in the Centre, it was generally admitted that she would not or could not intervene, even single-handed, without the tacit consent of France, which had still five divisions in Lombardy. The issue, therefore, hung on France. There is no doubt that Napoleon told all the Italians, or presumably Italian sympathisers who came near him, that he "would not allow" the union of Tuscany with Piedmont. He said to Lord Cowley, "The annexation of Tuscany is a real impossibility." He told the Marquis Pepoli that if the annexations

Italy to the usual Napoleonic panacea-a Congress not intended to meet. A Congress would have done nothing for Italy, but neither would it have given Napoleon Savoy and Nice. But the proposal had one important result: it brought Cavour back on the scene. A duel was going on between him and Rattazzi. He was accused, perhaps truly, of moving heaven and earth to upset the ministry, while Rattazzi's friends were spreading abroad every form of abuse and calumny to keep him out of office. Whe

n how it would fall. La Marmora, who was the nominal president of the Council (Rattazzi having taken his old post of Home Minister), somehow discovered that a draft of Cavour's letter of acceptance of the appointment of plenipotentiary existed in Sir James Hudson's handwriting. Though it was true that the British Government was most anxious that Cavour should figure in the Congress, if there was one, the fact that Sir James Hudson had written down a copy of the lette

s the rule which he proposed to follow, and which he would have followed even if war had been the consequence. Personally he would have accepted a provisional union of the Central States, such as Farini advocated; but Ricasoli discerned in any temporary division

his consent. M. Thouvenel has distinctly stated that at this period the English ministry were informed of the Emperor's intention to claim Savoy and Nice if Piedmont annexed any more territory. Even before he resumed office, Cavour was convinced that the only way to a settlement was to strike a direct bargain with Napoleon. He viewed the contemplated sacrifice not with less but with more repulsion

zthum, has given it as his opinion that if Cavour had divulged the Secret Treaty of January 1859, by which Savoy and Nice were promised in return for the French alliance, Napoleon would have been so deeply embarrassed that he would have relinquished his claims at once. But such a course would have mortally offended France as well as the Emperor. Cavour did not share the

f Nice was far stronger. General Fanti, the minister of war, threatened to resign, so essential did he hold Nice to the defence of the future kingdom of Italy. The British Government also insisted on its military importance. Nice was a thoroughly Italian town in race and feeling, as no one knew better than Cavour, though he was forced to deny it. According to an account published in the Life of the Prince Consort, and seemingly derived from Sir James Hudson, it would appear that he was

ondes on "Cavour and Bismarck." His only mention of the affair of Savoy and Nice is t

. At last, taking up the pen, he signed the Secret Treaty. Then suddenly he seemed to recover his spi

England, though he little imagined the after consequences of this to himself. His one idea just then was to make sure of his bargain, not because he cared to enlarge his frontiers, for he was not constitutionally ambitious, but because he hoped, by doing so, to win the gratitude of France. It is useful as a lesson to note that he won nothing of the kind. Nor did Cavour win the goodwil

ords a suspicion that as far back as January 1859 Napoleon secured some sort of written promise from Lord Palmerston that he would not make difficulties about Nice and Savoy. Such an assurance amounts, of course, to saying, "Go and take it," as in the more recent case of Tunis. The story is not impossible; like Cavour, Lord Palmerston desired so much to see Italy freed that he would have given up a good deal to arrive at the goal. The country resented the deception, as it had every right to do, and the Queen ex

t to lose it when his best hopes for getting the treaty approved rested on the assumption that the new voters from the enfranchised parts of Italy would drown the opposition of his own State to its dismemberment? It has often been asked, Why did he not allow the cession to wear the honest colour of surrender to force? Why, "against his conviction," as he confessed in private, did he declar

retorted: perhaps if Clarendon had been able to show in defence of his conduct many million Englishmen delivered from foreign yoke, several counties added to his master's possessions, Parliament would not have been so pitiless, or Charles II. so ungrateful to the most faithful of his servants. The deputy Guerrazzi, he continued, had read him a lesson in history; it should have been given entire. And he then drew a pi

the ministry came out of the contest, to use Cavour's own words, extraordinarily weakened. "On me and on my colleagues," he had said, "he all the obloquy of the act!" He was to regain his power, and even his popularity, but time itself cannot wholly obliterate the spot upon his name. He knew it well himself. A writer in the Quarterly Review, soon after his

ously informed me that the writer of th