purer motives, but who would say that Cavour,
instead of seeking, should have refused the French alliance?

One other point has still to be noticed: the proposal made by Austria
in the month of May to give up Lombardy unconditionally if she might
keep Venetia, which was promised a separate administration and a
national army. Nothing shows the state of mind then prevailing in a
more distinct light than the scorn with which this offer was
everywhere treated. Lord Palmerston declined to mediate on such a
basis 'because there was no chance of the proposal being entertained,'
which proved correct, as when it was submitted to the Provisional
Government of Milan, it was not even thought worth taking into
consideration. No one would contemplate the sacrifice of Venice by a
new Campo Formio.

Far, indeed, was Austria the victorious in August from Austria the
humiliated in May. On the 9th of August, Hess and Salasco signed the
armistice between the lately contending Powers. The next day the
Emperor Ferdinand returned to his capital, from which he had been
chased in the spring. He might well congratulate himself upon the
marvellous recovery of his empire; but the revolution in Hungary was
yet to be quelled, and another rising at Vienna in October tried his
nerves, which were never of the strongest. On the 2nd of December he
abdicated in favour of his young nephew, the Archduke Francis Joseph,
who had been brought face to face more than once on the Mincio with
the Duke of Savoy, whom he rivalled in personal courage.

On the 10th of December, another event occurred which placed a new
piece on the European chess-board: Louis Napoleon was elected to the
Presidency of the French Republic.

CHAPTER VII

THE DOWNFALL OF THRONES

1848-1849

Garibaldi Arrives--Venice under Manin--The Dissolution of the Temporal
Power--Republics at Rome and Florence.

While the remnant of the Piedmontese army recrossed the bridge over
the Ticino at Pavia, crushed, though not though want of valour,
outraged in the person of its King, surely the saddest vanquished host
that ever retraced in sorrow the path it had traced in the wildest
joy, a few thousand volunteers in Lombardy still refused to lay down
their arms or to recognise that, after the capitulation of Milan, all
was lost. Valueless as a fact, their defiance of Austria had value as
a prophecy, and its prophetic aspect comes more clearly into view when
it is seen that the leader