mminent, he
deferred carrying out his mission till a more opportune moment.

On the 18th of January 1860, the Emperor admitted to Lord Cowley
that, though there was as yet no arrangement between himself and
Victor Emmanuel on the subject, he intended to have Savoy. After the
long series of denials of any such design, the admission caused the
most indignant feeling in the English ministers and in the Queen, who
wrote to Lord John Russell: 'We have been made regular dupes.' She
went on to say that the revival of the English Alliance, and the hymns
of universal peace chanted in Paris on the occasion of the Commercial
Treaty, had been simply so many blinds, 'to hide from Europe a policy
of spoliation.' Cavour came in for a part of the blame, as, during the
war, he denied cognisance of the proposal to give up Savoy. The best
that can be said of that denial is, that it was diplomatically
impracticable for one party in the understanding of Plombieres to make
a clean breast of the truth, whilst the other party was assuring the
whole universe that he was fighting for an idea.

When the war was broken off, Cavour fully expected that Napoleon, of
whom he had the worst opinion, would then and there demand whole pay
for his half service; and this had much to do with his furious anger
at Villafranca; but later, in common with the best-informed persons,
he believed that the claim was finally withdrawn. When, however,
Napoleon asked again for the provinces--not as the price of the war,
but of the annexations in Central Italy--Cavour instantly came to the
conclusion that, cost what it might (and he thought that, amongst
other things, it would cost his own reputation and popularity), the
demand must be granted. Otherwise Italian unity would never be
accomplished.

In considering whether he was mistaken, it must not be forgotten that
the French troops were still in Italy. Not to speak of those in Rome,
Marshal Vaillant had five divisions of infantry and two brigades of
cavalry in Lombardy up to the 20th of March 1860. The engagement had
been to send this army home as soon as the definite peace was
concluded; why, then, was it still south of the Alps four months
after?

In spite of this, however, and in spite of the difficulty of judging
an act, all the reasons for which may not, even now, be in possession
of the world, it is very hard indeed to pardon Cavour for having
yielded Nice as well as Savoy to France. The Nizzards were Italia