ional rule continued unabated.
Lombardy and Venetia were governed not from Milan, but from Vienna.
Very small were the crumbs which the Viceroy obtained, though he went
on a journey to Austria expressly to plead for concessions. It is sad
to think what an enlightened heir to the great Austrian empire was
lost, when Napoleon III. and his own family sent Maximilian of
Hapsburg to Queretaro.

While Cavour had come to the conclusion that the aid which he believed
essential for the expulsion of the Austrians could only come from the
French Emperor, this sovereign was regarded by a not inconsiderable
party of Italians as the greatest, if not the sole, obstacle to their
liberation. All those, in particular, who came in contact with the
French exiles, were impressed by them with the notion that France, the
real France, was only waiting for the disappearance of the Man of
December to throw herself into their arms. Among the Italians who held
these opinions, there were a few with whom it became a fixed idea that
the greatest service they could render their country was the removal
of Napoleon from the political scene. They conceived and nourished
the thought independently of one another; they belonged to no league,
but for that reason they were the more dangerous; somewhere or other
there was always someone planning to put an end to the Emperor's life.
It is not worth while to pause to discuss the ethics of political
assassination; civilisation has decided against it, and history proves
its usual failure to promote the desired object. What benefit did the
Confederate cause derive from the assassination of the good President
Lincoln, or the cause of Russian liberty from that of Alexander II.?
What will Anarchy gain by the murder of Carnot? It is certain,
however, that never were men more convinced that they were executing a
wild kind of justice than were the men who plotted against Napoleon
III. They looked upon him as one of themselves who had turned traitor.
There is a great probability that, in his early days when he was
playing at conspiracy in Italy, he was actually enrolled as a
Carbonaro. At all events, he had conspired for Italian freedom, and
afterwards, to serve his own selfish interests, he extinguished it in
Rome. The temporal power of the Pope was kept alive through him.

A true account of the attempts on Napoleon's life will never be written,
because the only persons who were able and willing to throw light on the
s