ion of central Italy to the new
kingdom in the north. Here it was that England directly and unconsciously
opened the way to a certain proceeding that when it came to pass she
passionately resented. In the first three weeks of March (1860) Victor
Emmanuel legalised in due form the annexation of the four central states
to Piedmont and Lombardy, and in the latter half of April he made his
entry into Florence. Cavour attended him, and strange as it sounds, he now
for the first time in his life beheld the famed city,--centre of undying
beauty and so many glories in the history of his country and the genius of
mankind. In one spot at least his musings might well have been
profound--the tomb of Machiavelli, the champion of principles three
centuries before, to guide that armed reformer, part fox part lion, who
should one day come to raise up an Italy one and independent. The
Florentine secretary's orb never quite sets, and it was now rising to a
lurid ascendant in the politics of Europe for a long generation to come,
lighting up the unblest gospel that whatever policy may demand justice
will allow.(4)

(M3) On March 24 Cavour paid Napoleon a bitter price for his assent to
annexation, by acquiescing in the cession to France of Savoy and Nice,
provinces that were, one of them the cradle of the royal race, the other
the birthplace of Garibaldi, the hero of the people. In this transaction
the theory of the _plebiscite_, or direct popular vote upon a given
question, for the first time found a place among the clauses of a
diplomatic act. The _plebiscite_, though stigmatised as a hypocritical
farce, and often no better than a formal homage paid by violence or
intrigue to public right, was a derivative from the doctrines of
nationality and the sovereignty of the people then ruling in Europe. The
issue of the operation in Savoy and Nice was what had been anticipated.
Italy bore the stroke with wise fortitude, but England when she saw the
bargain closed for which she had herself prepared the way, took fierce
umbrage at the aggrandisement of France, and heavy clouds floated into the
European sky. As we have seen, the first act of the extraordinary drama
closed at Villafranca. The curtain fell next at Florence upon the fusion
of central with upper Italy. Piedmont, a secondary state, had now grown to
be a kingdom with eleven or twelve millions of inhabitants. Greater things
were yet to follow. Ten millions still remained in the south under