xations
in Central Italy.

Napoleon's hurried journey to Turin on his way back to France was
almost a flight. Everywhere his reception was cold in the extreme. He
was surprised, he said, at the ingratitude of the Italians. It was
still possible to ask for gratitude, as the services rendered had not
been paid for; no one spoke yet of the barter of Savoy and Nice. But
Napoleon, when he said these words to the Governor of Milan, forgot
how the Lombards, in June 1848, absolutely refused to take their
freedom at the cost of resigning Venice to Austria. And if Venice was
dear to them and to Italy then, how much dearer had she not become
since the heroic struggle in which she was the last to yield. The
bones of Manin cried aloud for Venetian liberty from his grave of
exile.

Venice was the one absorbing thought of the moment; yet there were
clauses in the brief preliminaries of peace more fraught with
insidious danger than the abandonment of Venice. If the rest of Italy
became one and free, it needed no prophet to tell that not the might
of twenty Austrias could keep Venetia permanently outside the fold.
But if Italy was to remain divided and enslaved, then, indeed, the
indignant question went up to heaven, To what end had so much blood
been shed?

When he resolved to cut short the war, Napoleon still had it in his
power to go down to history as the supreme benefactor of Italy. He
chose instead to become her worst and by far her most dangerous enemy.
The preliminaries of peace opened with the words: 'The Emperor of
Austria and the Emperor of the French will favour the creation of an
Italian Confederation under the honorary presidency of the Holy
Father.' Further, it was stated that the Grand Duke of Tuscany and
the Duke of Modena would return to their states. Though Napoleon
proposed at first to add, 'without foreign armed intervention,' he
waived the point (Rome was in his mind) and no such guarantee was
inserted. Here, then, was the federative programme which all the
personal influence and ingenuity of the French Emperor, all the arts
of French diplomacy, were concentrated on maintaining, and which was
only defeated by the true patriotism and strong good sense of the
Italian populations, and of the men who led them through this, the
most critical period in their history.

In England Lord Derby's administration had fallen and the Liberals
were again in power. Napoleon was so strangely deluded as to expect to
find sup