Cavour Part 5

The English Government now proposed that all the Italian States should be admitted to the Congress, and that Austria as well as Piedmont should he invited to disarm. On April 17 Cavour sent a note agreeing to this plan. It was a tremendous risk; but it was the only way to prevent Piedmont from being deserted and left to its fate. If Austria also consented, all was lost: there would be peace. Could the G.o.ds be trusted to make her mad? Cavour's nervous organisation was strained at a tension that nearly snapped the cord. It is believed that he was on the brink of suicide. On April 19 he shut himself up in his room and gave orders that no one should be admitted. On being told of this, his faithful friend, Castelli, who was one of the few persons not afraid of him, rushed to the Palazzo Cavour, where his worst fears were confirmed by the old major-domo, who said, "The Count is alone in his room; he has burnt many papers; he told us to let no one pa.s.s; but for heaven's sake, go in and see him at whatever cost." When he went in, Castelli saw a litter of torn-up papers; others were burning on the hearth. He said that he knew no one was to pa.s.s and that was why he had come. Cavour stared at him in silence. Then he went on, "Must I believe that Count Cavour will desert the camp on the eve of battle; that he will abandon us all?" And, unhinged by excitement and by his great affection for the man, he burst into tears. Cavour walked round the room looking like one distraught. Then he stopped opposite to Castelli and embraced him, saying, "Be tranquil; we will face it all together," Castelli went out to rea.s.sure those who had brought him the alarming news. Neither he nor Cavour afterwards alluded to this strange scene.

At the very moment that Cavour thought he had lost the game, he had won it. On the same day, April 19, Count Buol,--somewhat, it is said, against his better judgment, but yielding to the Emperor, who again yielded to the military party,--sent off a contemptuous rejoinder to the English proposals. Ignoring all suggestions, the Austrian Minister said that _they would themselves call upon Piedmont to disarm_. Here, then, was the famous _acte d'agression_. Napoleon could not escape now.

The fact that this happened simultaneously with Sardinia's submission to the will of Europe was a wonderful piece of luck, which, as Ma.s.simo d'Azeglio said, could happen only once in a century. When the Austrian Government took the irrevocable step, it did not know yet that the whole onus of breaking the peace would fall upon it. Nor, it must be remembered, did it know the test of the treaty between France and Sardinia, and in view of the French Emperor's recent conduct it may well have become convinced that no treaty at all existed. Hence it is probable that Austria flattered herself that she would only have to deal with weak Sardinia.

The Chamber of Deputies was convoked on April 23 to confer plenary powers on the king. Many deputies were so overcome that they wept.

Just as the President of the Chamber announced the vote, a sc.r.a.p of paper was handed to Cavour, on which were written the words in pencil: "They are here; I have seen them." It was from a person whom he had instructed to inform him instantly when the bearers of the Austrian Ultimatum arrived. They were come; angels of light could not have been more welcome! Cavour went hastily out, while the House broke into deafening cries of "Long live the king!" He said to the friend who brought the message, "I am leaving the last sitting of the last Piedmontese Chamber." The next would represent the kingdom of Italy.

The Sardinian army to be placed on a peace-footing, the volunteers to be dismissed, an answer of "Yes" or "No" required within three days--these were the terms of the Ultimatum. If the answer were not fully satisfactory His Majesty would resort to force. Cavour replied that Piedmont had given its adhesion to the proposals made by England with the approval of France, Prussia and Russia, and had nothing more to say. No one who saw the statesman's radiant face would have guessed that less than a week before he had pa.s.sed through so frightful a mental crisis. He took leave of Baron von Kellersberg with graceful courtesy, and then, turning to those present, he said, "We have made history; now let us go to dinner."

The French Amba.s.sador at Vienna notified to Count Buol that his sovereign would consider the crossing of the frontier by the Austrian troops equivalent to a declaration of war.

Lord Malmesbury was so favourably impressed by Sardinia's docility and so furious with the Austrian _coup de tete_ that he became in those days quite ardently Italian, which he a.s.sured Ma.s.simo d'Azeglio was his natural state of mind; and such it may have been, since cabinet ministers are constantly employed in upholding, especially in foreign affairs, what they most dislike. He hoped to stop the runaway Austrian steed by proposing mediation in lieu of a Congress; but the result was only to delay the outbreak of the war for a week, much to the disadvantage of the Austrians, as it gave the French time to arrive and the Piedmontese to flood the country by means of the ca.n.a.ls of irrigation, thus preventing a dash at Turin, probably the best chance for Austria. Baron von Kellersberg and his companion, during their brief visit, had done nothing but pity "this fine town so soon to be given over to the horrors of war." Their solicitude proved superfluous.

For the present the statesman's task was ended. He had procured for his country a favourable opportunity for entering upon an inevitable struggle. When Napoleon said to Cavour on landing at Genoa, "Your plans are being realised," he was unconsciously forestalling the verdict of posterity. The reason that he was standing there was because Cavour had so willed it. In spite of the Emperor's fits of Italian sympathy and the various circ.u.mstances which impelled him towards helping Italy, he would not have taken the final resolution had not some one saved him the trouble by taking it for him. As a French student of history has lately said, in 1859, as in 1849, there was a Hamlet in the case; but Paris, not Turin, was his abode.

Napoleon needed and perhaps desired to be precipitated. Look at it how we may, it must be allowed that he was doing a very grave thing: he was embarking on a war of no palpable necessity against the sentiment, as the Empress wrote to Count Arese, of his own country. A stronger man than he might have hesitated.

The natural discernment of the Italian ma.s.ses enlightened them as to the magnitude of Cavour's part in the play, even in the hour when the interest seemed transferred to the battlefield, and when an emperor and a king moved among them as liberators. At Milan, after the victory of Magenta had opened its gates, the most permanent enthusiasm gathered round the short, stout, undistinguished figure in plain clothes and spectacles--the one decidedly prosaic appearance in the pomp of war and the glitter of royal state. Victor Emmanuel said good-humouredly that when driving with his great subject, he felt just like the tenor who leads the prima donna forward to receive applause.

Success followed success, and this to the popular imagination is the all-and-all of war. Milan was freed, though the battle of Magenta was not unlike a drawn one; Lombardy was won, though the fight for the heights of Solferino could hardly have resulted as it did if the Austrians had not blundered into keeping a large part of their forces inactive. Would the same fortune be with the allies to the end?

Cavour does not appear to have asked the question. He watched the war with no misgivings. It was to him a supreme satisfaction that the Sardinian army, which he had worked so hard to prepare, did Italy credit. He took a personal pride in the romantic exploits of the volunteers, though for political reasons he carefully concealed that he had been the first to think of placing them in the field. He made an indefatigable minister of war (having taken the office when La Marmora went to the front). The work was heavy; the problem of finding even bread enough for the allied armies was not a simple one. On one occasion the French Commissariat asked for a hundred thousand rations to make sure of receiving fifty thousand; the officer in charge was surprised to see one hundred and twenty thousand punctually arrive on the day named. Cavour's thoughts were not, however, only with the troops in Lombardy. The whole country was in a ferment, and instead of accelerating events the question now was to keep pace with them.

When Ferdinand II died, and a young king, the son of a princess of the House of Savoy, ascended the throne, Cavour invited him to join in the war with Austria. The invitation has been blamed as insincere and unpatriotic, but the best Neapolitans seconded it. Poerio said he was willing to go back to prison if King Francis would send his army to help Piedmont. Faithful to his primary object of expelling the Austrians, Cavour would have taken for an ally any one who had troops to give. Moreover, an alliance between Naples and Sardinia meant the final shelving of a scheme which had caused him anxiety, off and on, for many years: that of a Muratist restoration. Though he had always recognised that, were it accepted by the Neapolitans themselves, it would be impossible for him to oppose it, he understood that to place a Murat on the throne of Naples would be to move in the old vicious circle by subst.i.tuting one foreign influence for another. There is no doubt that the idea was attractive to Napoleon. One of his first cares after he became Emperor had been to find an accomplished Neapolitan tutor for the young sons of Prince Murat. About the time of the Paris Congress emissaries were actively working on behalf of the French pretender in the kingdom of Naples. The propaganda was in abeyance during the war, because Russia made it a condition of her neutrality that the king of Naples should be let alone, but the simple fact that Napoleon had undertaken to liberate Italy was a splendid advertis.e.m.e.nt of the claims of his cousin. These considerations tended to make Cavour hold out his hand to the young Bourbon king. There is much evidence to show that the first impulse of Francis was to take it, but the counter influences around him were too strong. When he refused, he sealed his own doom, though the time for the crisis was not yet come.

In Central Italy the crisis came at once. This had been foreseen by Cavour all along. At Plombieres he made no secret of his expectation that the defeat of the Austrians would entail the immediate union of Parma, Modena, and Romagna, with Piedmont. Napoleon did not then seem to object. To him Cavour did not speak of Tuscany, but he expected that there, too, the actual government would be overthrown; what he doubted was what would happen after. Many well-informed persons thought that the Grand Duke, who would have maintained the const.i.tution of 1848 but for the threats of Austria, would seize the first opportunity of restoring it. Fortunately Leopold II. looked beneath the surface: he saw that an Austrian prince in Italy was henceforth an anachronism. The indignities which he suffered when his Italian patriotism--possibly quite sincere--caused him to be disowned by his relations were not forgotten. He had no heart for a bold stroke, and the exhortations of the English Government to remain neutral were hardly needed. If he wavered, it was only for a moment; nor did he care to place his son in the false position he declined for himself. The Grand Duke left Florence, openly, at two o'clock on April 27, 1859, carrying with him the personal good wishes of all. The chief boulder in the path of Italian unity was gone, but for reasons internal and external much would have to be done before Tuscany became the corner-stone of New Italy. The Tuscans clung to their autonomy.

Though Victor Emmanuel was invited to a.s.sume the protectorate, it was explained that this was only meant to last during the war. The French Emperor thought that there was an opening for a new kingdom of Etruria with Prince Napoleon at the head. All sorts of intrigues were set afoot by all the great powers except England to re-erect Tuscany as a dam to stem the flood of unity midway. Cavour was determined to defeat them. It was against his rule to discuss remote events. He once said to a novice in public life, "If you want to be a politician, for mercy's sake do not look more than a week ahead." Every time, however, that there arose a present chance of making another step towards unity, Cavour was eagerly impatient to profit by it. He now strove with all the energy he possessed to procure the immediate annexation of Tuscany to Piedmont. The object was good, but what he did not see was, that the slightest appearance of wis.h.i.+ng to "rush" Tuscany would so offend the munic.i.p.al pride and intellectual exclusiveness of the polished Tuscans, that the seeds would be laid of a powerful and, perhaps, fatal reaction. It was at this critical juncture that Baron Bettino Ricasoli began his year of autocracy. His programme was: neither fusions nor annexations, but union of the Italian peoples under the const.i.tutional sceptre of Victor Emmanuel. It was Tuscany's business, he said, to make the new kingdom of Italy. He looked upon himself as providentially appointed to carry that business into effect. He was called Minister of the Interior, and he was, in fact, dictator. When any one tried to overawe him, his answer was that he had existed for twelve centuries. He had not wished for foreign help, and he was not afraid of foreign threats. He often disagreed with Cavour, and he was the only man who never gave in to him. When Ricasoli took office he and the republican baker, Dolfi, who was his invaluable auxiliary, were possibly the only two thorough-going unionists-at-all-costs in Tuscany; when he resigned it twelve months later there was not a partisan of autonomy left in the province. This was the work of the "Iron Baron."

In the other three states, where the first shock to the power of Austria overturned the Government, there were no such complicated questions as in Tuscany. Parma and Modena returned to their allegiance of 1848, and in Romagna those who were not in favour of an Italian kingdom were not autonomists but republicans, who were willing to sacrifice their own ideal to unity. The revolution in the States of the Church was foiled at Ancona, and put down with much bloodshed at Perugia: it is curious to speculate what would have been the result if it had spread to the gates of Rome, as without this check it would have done. Cavour sent L.C. Farini to Modena, and Ma.s.simo d'Azeglio to Bologna, to take over what was called the "protectorate," and special commissioners were also appointed at Parma and Florence, but at Florence the real ruler was Ricasoli.

On July 5 Cavour told Kossuth that European diplomacy was very anxious to patch up a worthless peace, but still he had no fears. He did not guess that they were on the verge of seeing realised Mazzini's prophecy of six months before: "You will be in the camp in some corner of Lombardy when the peace which betrays Venice will be signed without your knowledge." In proportion as Cavour had placed faith in Napoleon's promises, so great was his revulsion of feeling when he learnt that on July 6 General Fleury went to the Emperor of Austria's headquarters at Verona with proposals for a suspension of hostilities.

The pa.s.sionate nature which was generally kept under such rigorous control that few suspected its existence for once a.s.serted itself unrestrained. Those around Cavour were in apprehension for his life and his reason. In spite of all that has been said to the contrary, it is probable that Napoleon's resolution, though not unpremeditated, was of recent date. When he entered Milan, he seems to have really contemplated pus.h.i.+ng the war beyond the Mincio; there is proof, however, that he was thinking of peace the day before the battle of Solferino, which disposes of the semi-official story that he changed his mind under the impression left on him by the scene of carnage after that battle. Between the beginning and the end of June, reasons of no sentimental kind acc.u.mulated to make him pause. Events in Central Italy had gone farther than he looked for, and his private map of the kingdom of Upper Italy was growing smaller every day. Why was this? He cannot have been seized with a warm interest in the unattractive despotism of the Duke of Modena, or the chronic anarchy kept down by Austrian bayonets at Bologna. But it was becoming apparent that if Modena and Romagna were joined to the new Italian kingdom, Tuscany would come too, and this Napoleon had not expected and did not want. He was clever enough to see that with Tuscany the unity of Italy was made. A great political genius would have said, So be it! Never was there worse policy than that of helping to free Italy, and then deliberately rooting out grat.i.tude from her heart.

Whatever Napoleon thought himself, he was alarmed by the news from France; the Empress and the clerical party were in despair at the revolution in the Roman States, and the country was indignant at the prospect of an Italy strong enough to have a voice of her own in the councils of Europe.

Besides all this, there was still graver news from Germany. Six Prussian army corps were ready to move for the Rhine frontier. The history of Prussian policy in 1859 has not yet been fully written out, but the gaps in the narrative are closing up. That policy was directed by the Prince Begent, and it gives the measure of the success which would have attended subsequent efforts if the day had not arrived when he surrendered himself body and soul into the hands of a greater man.

So much for the present German Emperor's theory that the men in the councils of his grandfather only executed great things because they did their master's will. It is true that William I. aimed at the same end as that which Count Bismarck had already in view, and which he was destined to achieve--the ousting of Austria from Germany, as a preliminary to sublimer doings. But while the Prince Regent would not fight Austria, and hoped to get rid of her by political conjuring, the future Chancellor comprehended that the problem could only be settled by the argument _ferro et igni_. Bismarck's policy in 1859 would have been neutrality, with a certain leaning towards Napoleon. This advice, given by every post from St. Petersburg to Berlin, caused him to be accused of selling his soul to the devil, on which he dryly remarked that, if it were so, the devil was Teutonic, not Gallic.

The Prince Regent tried to prevent the Diet from going to war, because, in a federal war, Prussia's ruler would only figure as general of the armies of the confederation--which meant of Austria.

His plan was to let Austria get into very bad difficulties, and then come forward singly to save her. By means of this "armed mediation" he would be able afterwards to dictate what terms he chose to the much indebted Austrian Emperor. It looked well on paper, but the armistice of Villafranca spoilt everything. The Emperor Francis Joseph did not wish to be "saved." This, and only this, can explain his readiness to make peace when, from a military point of view, his situation was far from desperate. No one knew this better than Napoleon. Before the allied armies lay the mouse-trap of the Quadrilateral, so much easier to get into than to get out of. The limelight of victory could not hide from those who knew the facts the complete deficiency of organisation and discipline which the war had revealed in the French army. According to Prince Napoleon, the men considered their head and their generals incapable, and had lost all confidence in them.

Nevertheless they fought well; no troops ever fought better than the French when storming the heights of Solferino, but on the very day after that battle, when the Austrians were miles away in full retreat, an extraordinary, though little known, incident occurred. On a report spreading from the French outposts that the enemy was upon them, there was an universal _sauve qui peut_--officers, men, sick and sound, gendarmes, infantry, cavalry, artillery trains--in one word, every one made off. What would be the effect of a single defeat on such an army?

It must always appear strange that none of these things struck Cavour.

He only saw the immense, immeasurable disappointment. When he rushed to the king's headquarters near Desenzano, it was to advise him to refuse Lombardy and abdicate, or to continue the war by himself.

Cavour had never loved the king, or done justice to his statesmanlike qualities; a bitter scene took place between them, which Victor Emmanuel closed abruptly. Afterwards he met Prince Napoleon, who replied to his reproaches, "_Mais enfin_, do you want us to sacrifice France and our dynasty to you?"

At that juncture it was the king, not the minister, to whom the task of pilot fell. Cut to the heart as he was, he kept his temper. He signed the preliminaries "pour ce qui me concerne," and, as on the morrow of Novara, he prepared to wait. The terms on which the armistice was granted seemed like a nightmare: Venice abandoned; Tuscany, Romagna, Modena, to be handed back to their former masters; the Pope to be made honorary president of a confederation in which Austria was to have a place. Cavour stood before Italy responsible for the war, and when he said to M. Pietri in the presence of Kossuth, "Your Emperor has dishonoured me--yes, dishonoured!" he meant the words in their most literal sense. But the white heat of his pa.s.sion burnt out the dishonour, and Cavour, foiled and furious, was the most popular man in the country. His grief was so genuine that even his enemies could not call its sincerity in question. In three days he appeared to have grown ten years older. His first thought was to go and get killed at Bologna, if, as was expected, there was fighting there. Then, as always happened with him, he was calmed by the idea of action: "I will take Solaro de la Margherita by one hand and Mazzini by the other; I will become a conspirator, a revolutionist, but this treaty shall not be carried out." When he said this, he had resigned office; he was simply a private citizen, but all the consciousness of his power had returned to him. Some delay occurred in forming a new ministry. Count Arese was first called, but his position as a personal friend of the Emperor disqualified him for the task. Rattazzi succeeded better, but during the interregnum of eight or nine days Cavour was obliged to carry on the Government, and it thus devolved on him to communicate the official order to the Special Commissioners to abandon their posts. He accompanied the order by a private telegram telling them to stay where they were, and work with all their might for an Italian solution. Farini telegraphed from Modena that if the Duke, "trusting to conventions of which he knew nothing," were to attempt to return, he should treat him as an enemy to the king and country. Cavour's answer ran: "The minister is dead; the friend applauds your decision." Aurelio Saffi well said that "in these supreme moments you would have called Cavour a follower of Mazzini."

The world often thinks that a man is changed when he is revealing what he really is for the first time. It suited Cavour's purpose to appear cool and calculating, but patriotism was as much a pa.s.sion with him as with any of the great men who worked for Italian emanc.i.p.ation.

CHAPTER X

SAVOY AND NICE

The dissolution of Parliament by Lord Derby in June led to the return of a Liberal majority and the resumption of power by men who were open advocates of Italian unity. 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 Whigs had supported Lord Malmesbury in his unprofitable efforts as a peacemaker; but when the war broke out they had no further reason to restrain their natural sympathies. Lord Palmerston especially wished the new kingdom to be strong enough to be independent of French influences. Had the Conservatives remained in office there is no doubt that they would have supported the plan to const.i.tute Venetia a separate state under the Archduke Maximilian, which was regarded with much favour by that Prince's father-in-law, King Leopold, and hence by the Prince Consort.

The Liberal Ministry would have nothing to do with it. Napoleon hoped, in the first instance, to s.h.i.+ft the onus of stopping the war from himself to the English Government. He wished the programme of Villafranca to emanate from England; but, as Lord Palmerston wrote to Lord John Russell, why should they incur the opprobrium of leaving Italy 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 the Austrian yoke. Whether Cavour's life-work was to succeed or fail depended henceforth largely on England. "Now it is England's turn," he said frequently to his relations in Switzerland, where he went to recover his health and spirits. Soon all traces of depression disappeared.

While Europe thought that it had a.s.sisted at his political funeral, he was engaged not in thinking how things might be remedied, but how he was going to remedy them. It was not the king, Piedmont, Italy, that would prevent the treaty from being carried out; it was "I." The road was cut; he would take another. He would occupy himself with Naples.

People might call him a revolutionist or what they pleased, but they must go on, and they would go on.

There exists proof that after Villafranca, Cavour expected Napoleon to demand Savoy and Nice, or at least Savoy, notwithstanding that Venetia was not freed. The Emperor considered it necessary, however, to go through the form of renouncing the two provinces. He is reported to have said to Victor Emmanuel before leaving for Paris, "Your government will pay me the cost of the war, and we shall think no more about Nice and Savoy. Now 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 which Cavour had persuaded him to enter. The contract was recognised as null. Rattazzi was notoriously opposed to any cession of territory, and had he known how to play his game it is at least open to argument that the House of Savoy might have been spared losing its birthright as the Houses of Orange and Lorraine had lost theirs. But his weak policy landed Italian affairs in a chaos which made Napoleon once more master of the situation.

The populations of Central Italy desired Victor Emmanuel for their king--Was he to accept or refuse? Rattazzi tried to steer between acceptance and refusal. A great many people thought then that acceptance outright would have brought the armed intervention of France or of Austria, or of both combined. The sagacious historian ought not lightly to set aside the current conviction 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 of the people of Central Italy "would not be justifiable towards the government of the Queen." Lord Palmerston made the remark that the French formula of "Italy given to herself" had been transformed into "Italy sold to Austria." He grew every day more distrustful of Napoleon, and more regretful that the only man whom he believed able to cope with him was out of office.

"They talk a great deal in Paris of Cavour's intrigues," he wrote to Lord Cowley. "This seems to me unjust. If they mean that he has worked for the aggrandis.e.m.e.nt and for the emanc.i.p.ation of Italy from foreign yoke and Austrian domination, this is true, and he will be called a patriot in history. The means he has employed may be good or bad. I do not know what they have been; but the object in view is, I am sure, the good of Italy. The people of the Duchies have as much right to change their sovereigns as the English people, or the French, or the Belgian, or the Swedish. The annexation of the Duchies to Piedmont will be an unfathomable good for Italy at the same time as for France and for Europe. I hope Walewski will not urge the Emperor to make the slavery of Italy the _denoument_ of a drama which had for its first scene the declaration that Italy should be free from Alps 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 a.s.sa.s.sinated, 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 crossed the Apennines, unity would be achieved; and he did not want unity: he wanted only independence. Walewski echoed these sentiments, and in his case it is certain that he meant what he said. But did Napoleon mean what he said? Evidence has come to light that all this time he was speaking in an entirely different key whenever his visitor was a reactionist or a clerical. To these he invariably said that he was obliged to let events take their course, though contrary to his interests; because, having given the blood of his soldiers for Italian independence, he could not fire a shot against it. To M. de Falloux he said that he had always been bound to the cause of Italy, and it was impossible for him to turn his guns against her. What becomes, then, of his threats? Might not an Italian minister, relying on the support of England, have ignored them and pa.s.sed on his way?

Though Rattazzi's timidity prevented Victor Emmanuel from accepting the preferred crowns, the king declared on his own account that if these people who trusted in him were attached, he would break his sword and go into exile rather than leave them to their fate. He wrote to Napoleon that misfortune might turn to fortune, but that the apostasies of princes were irreparable. The Peace of Zurich, signed on November 10, did nothing to relax the strain. It merely referred the settlement of 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. When the Congress was announced, the popular demand for the appointment of Cavour as Sardinian plenipotentiary was too strong to be resisted. Rattazzi yielded, and the king, though still remembering with bitter feelings the scene at Villafranca, sacrificed his pride to his patriotism. Cavour did not like the idea of serving under Rattazzi, but he agreed to accept the post in order to prevent an antagonism which would have proved fatal to Italy. Napoleon astutely uttered no word of protest.

The Congress hung fire, and Cavour remained at Leri occupied with his cows and his fields, but secretly chafing at the sight of Italy in a perilous crisis abandoned to men whom he believed incapable. From the moment that he had been called back to the public service, his own return to the premiers.h.i.+p could only be a question of time, and he wished that time to be short. The fall of the ministry was inevitable, for it was unpopular on all sides, but no one had foreseen 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 letter as it was composed was only an accident which happened through the intimate relations between them. La Marmora saw it in a different light, and angrily declaring that he would not put up with foreign pressure, he sent in his resignation, which was accepted. Thus in January 1860 Cavour became once more the helmsman of Italian destinies. The new ministry consisted princ.i.p.ally of himself, as he held the home and foreign offices, as well as the presidency of the Council.

He was resolved to put an end to the block at all costs, except the reconsignment of populations already free to Austria or Austrians.

"Let the people of Central Italy declare themselves what they want, and we will stand by their decisions come what may." This was 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 a danger to Italian unity, and induced or rather forced Cavour to renounce the idea. He called Ricasoli an "obstinate mule," but he had the rare gift of seeing that the strong man who opposed him in details was to be preferred to a weak man who was only a puppet.

The subst.i.tution of Walewski by Thouvenel at the French Foreign Office, and the Emperor's letter to the Pope advising him to give up the revolted Legations of his own accord, raised many hopes, but those who took these to be the signs of a decided change of policy were mistaken. Napoleon would not yield about Tuscany, and it grew plainer every day that the reason why he held out was in order to sell 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 than he had viewed it at Plombieres. The constant hara.s.sing of the last six months, which provoked him to say that never would he be again an accessory to bringing a French army into Italy, left an ineffaceable impression on his mind. The cession of the two provinces seemed to him now much less like obliging a friend than satisfying a highwayman. But he was convinced that it was an act of necessity.

As the "might-have-beens" of history can never be determined, it will never be possible to decide with certainty whether Cavour's conviction was right or wrong. Half a year of temporising had prejudiced the position of affairs; it was more difficult to defy Napoleon now than when he broke off the war without fulfilling his promises. A clear-sighted diplomatist, Count Vitzthum, 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 embarra.s.sed 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 illusion of the Italian democracy that the "great heart" of the French nation was with them. He once said that, if France became a republic, Italy would gain nothing by it--quite the contrary. With so many questions still open, and, above all, the difficult problem of Rome, he feared to turn the smothered animosity of the French people into violent and declared antagonism.

The king offered no fresh opposition; he said sadly that, as the child was gone, the cradle might go too. When the exchange of Savoy for a French alliance was proposed to Charles Albert he wrathfully rejected the idea; and if Victor Emmanuel yielded, it was not that he loved Savoy less but Italy more. It has to be noticed, however, that, though always loyal to their king, the Savoyards had for ten years shown an implacable hostility to Italian aspirations. The case against the cession of 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 still hoping to save Nice, when Count Benedetti arrived from Paris with the announcement that, if the Secret Treaty were not signed in its entirety, the Emperor would withdraw his troops from Lonabardy. Cavour is said to have answered, "The sooner they go the better"--on which Benedetti took from his pocket a letter containing the Emperor's private instructions, and proceeded to say, "Well, I have orders to withdraw the troops, but not to France; they will occupy Bologna and Florence."[1]

[Footnote 1: In 1896 Count Benedetti contributed two articles to the _Revue des deux mondes_ on "Cavour and Bismarck." His only mention of the affair of Savoy and Nice is the casuistical remark that "Cavour kept the _engagement concluded at Plombieres_" (sic).]

On March 24, depressed and bowed, Cavour walked up and down the room where the French negotiators sat. At last, taking up the pen, he signed the Secret Treaty. Then suddenly he seemed to recover his spirits, as, turning to M. de Talleyrand, he said, "Maintenant nous sommes complices, n'est ce pas vrai?"

The secrecy was none of his seeking; he had tried hard to induce Napoleon to let the treaty be submitted to Parliament before it was signed, as const.i.tutional usage demanded, but the Emperor was resolved that the Chambers and Europe should know of it only when it was an accomplished fact. He had good reason for the precaution. He knew that there would be an outburst of indignation in 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 const.i.tutionally ambitious, but because he hoped, by doing so, to win the grat.i.tude of France. It is useful as a lesson to note that he won nothing of the kind. Nor did Cavour win the goodwill of the French ma.s.ses as he had hoped. France might have been angry had she not received the two provinces, but she showed real or affected ignorance of their value. For many years the French papers described the county of Nice as a poor, miserable strip of sh.o.r.e, and the duchy of Savoy as a few bare rocks. French people then travelled so little that they may have thought it was true.

As Napoleon was bent on deceiving, Cavour was obliged to deceive too.

Sir Robert Peel's denial of the intention of Government to repeal the Corn Laws has been defended on the ground that the _Cabinet_ had not taken a definite resolution; if such a defence is of profit, Cavour is ent.i.tled to the benefit of it. At any rate he had no choice. Whether or not they had been previously warned, the English Ministry, and especially the Foreign Secretary, now believed the professions of innocence. The Earl of Malmesbury records 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 a.s.surance 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 expressed the general feeling when she wrote to Lord John Russell, "We have been made regular dupes." For a moment there seemed a risk of war, but Lord Palmerston never had the slightest intention of going to war, whatever were the inclinations of his colleague at the Foreign Office. Lord John Russell took his revenge on Napoleon when the Emperor wished to proceed to joint action with England on the Danish question; by refusing this proposal he deprived him of the one and only chance of stemming Prussian ambition.

Cavour did not extenuate the gravity of the responsibility which he accepted when he advised the king to sign away national territory without the sanction of Parliament. He said that it was a highly unconst.i.tutional act, which exposed him, were the Chamber of Deputies to disown it, to an indictment for high treason. He counted on losing all his popularity in Piedmont--how could he not expect to lose it when his best hopes for getting the treaty approved rested on the a.s.sumption 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 declare that Nice was not Italian? Why go through the farce of plebiscites so "arranged" that the result was a foregone conclusion? The answer, satisfactory or not, is easily found: Nice was stated to be not Italian to leave intact the theory of nationality for future use; the plebiscites were resorted to that Napoleon might be obliged to recognise the same method of settling questions elsewhere.

The parliament which represented Piedmont, Lombardy, Parma, Modena, and Romagna, met on April 2, 1860. The frontier lines of six states were effaced. The man who had so largely contributed to this great result stood there to defend his honour, almost his life. Guerrazzi compared him to the Earl of Clarendon--"hard towards the king, truculent to Parliament, who thought in his pride that he could do everything." Cavour 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 picture, splendid in its scathing irony, of the unscrupulous alliance of men without principle, of all shades of opinion, only united in self-interest, demagogues, courtiers, reactionists, papists, puritans, without traditions, without ideas, at one in impudent egotism, and in nothing else, who formed the cabal which ruined Clarendon. Every one understood that he was painting his own enemies inside the Chamber and out.

In spite of protests and regrets, the treaty was sanctioned by a larger majority than had been reckoned on. When it came to the point, not a large number of voters was ready to take the tremendous leap in the dark which, among other consequences, must have condemned Cavour, if not to the fate of Stafford, at least to obscurity for the rest of his life. But 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 death, related that latterly people avoided alluding to Savoy and Nice before him; the subject caused him such evident pain. The same writer makes a very interesting statement which, although there is no other authority for it, must be a.s.sumed to rest on accurate information: he says that Cavour hoped, to the last, some day to get the two provinces back.[1]

[Footnote 1: Mr. John Murray has courteously informed me that the writer of the article was the late Sir A.H. Layard.]