f all,
the permanent ill-will of Napoleon. The first expectation was speedily
realised: floods of official and unofficial invective were poured upon
the two countries, which were held responsible for nurturing the plot.
In England the counter-blast upset Lord Palmerston's Government, and
in Piedmont the dynasty itself might have been endangered had not
Victor Emmanuel's sense of personal dignity preserved him from bending
to the rod of imperial displeasure. Cavour was ready even to forestall
the cry for precautionary measures; the air was full of wild
rumours, and he thought that Victor Emmanuel's days and his own were
threatened, a baseless suspicion, for the most reckless conspirators
in those times accounted regicide madness in a free country. But he
believed it, and for this reason, as well as from his entirely sincere
abhorrence of political crime, he was quite in earnest in his resolve
to go as far as the Statute would let him to keep plotters out of
Piedmont. Napoleon, however, affected to consider the action of the
Sardinian Government weak and dilatory, an opinion which he expressed
with vehemence to General Delia Rocca, who was sent by the king to
congratulate him on his escape. He hinted that, if his complaints were
not attended to, he should seek an alliance with Austria. All the
pride of the Savoy blood rose in the veins of Victor Emmanuel: "Tell
the Emperor," he wrote to Delia Rocca, "in the terms you think best,
that this is not the way to treat a faithful ally; that I have never
tolerated violence from any one; that I follow the path of honour, for
which I have to answer to God and to my people; that we have carried
our head high for 850 years, and that no one will make me bow it; and
that, notwithstanding, I desire to be nothing but his friend." Cavour
instructed Delia Rocca to "commit the indiscretion" of reading the
letter to the Emperor word for word. At the same time he wrote to the
Sardinian Minister in Paris "that the king was ready for the last
extremity to save the honour and independence of the country, and
we with him." But extremities were not needful. Napoleon was always
impressed by the true ring of that ancient royalty which was the one
thing which he could not purchase. He wrote a conciliatory letter to
Victor Emmanuel: "It was only between good friends that questions
could be treated with frankness. Let the king do what he could, and
not be uneasy." The French Foreign Office went on scold