spital, all that gratitude and pity
could do was done; but many were to leave their bones in Italy, and
how many more to go home maimed for life, or bearing with them the
seeds of death.

Other reasons than those of sentiment in reality decided Napoleon's
course. Though these can only be guessed at, the guess, at the present
date, amounts to certainty. In the first place, the skin-deep
rejoicings in Paris at the news of the victories did not hide the fact
that French public opinion, never genuinely favourable to the war, was
becoming more and more hostile to it. Then there was the military
question. It is true that the Fifth Corps, estimated at 30,000 men,
had, at last, emerged from its crepuscular doings in Tuscany, and was
available for future operations. Moreover, Kossuth paid a visit to the
Imperial headquarters, and held out hopes of a revolution in Hungary
which would oblige the Austrian Emperor to remove part of his troops
from the scene of the war. Nevertheless, Napoleon was by no means
convinced that his army was sufficient to take the Quadrilateral. He
realised the bad organisation and numerous shortcomings of the forces
under him so vividly that it seems incredible that, in the eleven
following years, he should have done nothing to remedy them. He
attributed his success mainly to chance, though in a less degree to a
certain lack of energy in the Austrians, joined with the exaggerated
fear of responsibility felt by their leaders. He never could
thoroughly understand why the Austrians had not won Solferino.
Naturally, he did not express these opinions to his marshals, but
there is ample proof that he held them; and if the fact stood alone,
it ought not to be difficult to explain why he was not anxious for a
continuance of the war.

But it does not stand alone. Napoleon feared being defeated on the
Rhine as well as in the Quadrilateral. Prussia had six army corps
ready, and she was about to move them. That, after her long
hesitations, she resolved to intervene was long doubted, but it
cannot be so after the evidence which recent years have produced.

At the time things wore a different complexion. Europe was never more
amazed than when, on the 6th of July, Napoleon the victor sent General
Fleury to Francis Joseph the vanquished with a request for an
armistice. One point only was plain; an armistice meant peace without
Venetia, and never did profound sorrow so quickly succeed national joy
than when this, to c