s,"
come in, and save the Allies from destruction, who would gratefully
reward him,--the one by ceding the Rhenish provinces, and the other the
island of Sardinia, to France. Such was the programme laid out by most
persons in Europe and America, and probably not one person in a hundred
thought it possible for Prussia to succeed. Even most of those persons
who were not overcrowed by Austria's partisans and admirers did not
dream that she would be conquered in a week, but thought it would be a
more difficult matter for General Benedek to march from Prague to Berlin
than was generally supposed, and that such march would not exactly be of
the nature of a military promenade. That the French Emperor shared the
popular belief, is evident from his conduct. He never would have allowed
war to break out, if he had supposed it would lead to the elevation of
Prussia to the first place in Europe,--a position held by himself, and
which he had no desire to vacate. It was in his power to prevent the
occurrence of war down almost to the very hour when the Diet of the
Germanic Confederation afforded to Prussia so plausible a ground for
setting her armies in motion, by adopting a course that bore some
resemblance to the old process of putting a disobedient member under the
ban of the Empire. Prussia would not have gone to war with Austria, had
she not been assured of the Italian alliance,--an alliance that would
not only be useful in keeping a large portion of Austria's force in the
south, but would prevent that power from purchasing Italian aid by the
cession of Venetia; for so angry were the Austrians with Prussia, that
it was quite on the cards that they might become the friends of Italy,
if she would but help them against that nation whose exertions in 1859
had prevented Venetia from following the fate of Lombardy.

As Prussia would not have made war in 1866 without having secured the
assistance of Italy, so was it impossible for Italy to form an alliance
with Prussia without the consent of France being first had and obtained.
Napoleon III. possessed an absolute veto on the action of the Italian
government, and had he signified to that government that an alliance
with Prussia could not meet with his countenance and approval, no such
alliance ever would have been formed, or even the proposition to form it
have been taken into serious consideration by the Cabinet of Florence.
Victor Emanuel II. would have dared no more to attack Francis J