Part 4 (2/2)

”The Italian dagger,” wrote the Prince Regent of Prussia, ”has become a fixed idea with Napoleon.” Yet it was not only, and perhaps not chiefly, the fear of being a.s.sa.s.sinated that inclined Napoleon to listen to Orsini's dying prayer, ”Free my country, and the blessings of twenty-five million Italians will go with you!” His own part in the revolutionary movement of 1831 has been shown to have been no boyish freak but serious work, into which he entered with the sole enthusiasm of his life. ”I feel for the first time that I live!” he wrote when on the march towards Rome. The Romagna was the hotbed of the Carbonari; all his friends belonged to the Society, and it must always be held probable that he belonged to it also. At any rate the memory of those days lent dramatic force to the last appeal of the man who was more willing to go to the scaffold than he was to send him there.

If this view is correct, it follows that when Napoleon talked about an Austrian alliance to enforce his demand for restrictive measures in Piedmont, it was a groundless threat, such as he was always in the habit of using. A month after Orsini's execution, the project of an alliance between France and Sardinia, and of the marriage of the king's daughter with Prince Napoleon, reached Cavour in a mysterious manner, and it is still unknown if it was sent with the Emperor's knowledge, or by some one who had secretly ascertained what he was thinking about. Cavour showed the draft to the king, but he did not place much credence in it. Nevertheless, to keep Napoleon's attention fixed on Italy, he caused him to be informally a.s.sured that if the worst came to the worst, Sardinia would go to war with Austria by herself; the situation was already so strained that almost anything would be preferable to its prolongation. Cavour had just induced the Chamber to sanction a new loan for forty million francs, which suggested that, if others were apt to use empty threats, he was not.

In June Dr. Conneau, who was travelling ”for his amus.e.m.e.nt,” stopped at Turin, where he saw both the king and Cavour. Under the seal of absolute secrecy it was arranged that Napoleon and Cavour should meet ”by accident” at Plombieres. Next month the minister left Turin to breathe the fresh air of the mountains. He was not in high spirits. To La Marmora, the only man besides the king who knew the true motive of his journey, he wrote, ”Pray heaven that I do not commit some stupidity; in spite of my usual self-reliance, I am not without grave uneasiness.” He succeeded in travelling so privately that he was nearly arrested on arriving at Plombieres because he had not a pa.s.sport: a mysterious Italian coming from no one knew where--no doubt a new Orsini! But one of the Emperor's suite recognised him, and made things straight. He pa.s.sed nearly the whole of two days closeted with Napoleon, the decisive interview lasting from 11 A.M. to 3 P.M., after which the Emperor took him out alone, in a carriage driven by himself.

During this drive the subject of the Princess Clotilde's marriage was broached. Towards the end of the visit, Napoleon said to him, ”Walewski has just telegraphed to me that you are here!” The French ministers were, as usual, kept in the dark. It flattered Napoleon's _amour propre_ to take into secret partners.h.i.+p a man whose place in history he divined. ”There are only three men in Europe,” he remarked to his guest; ”we two, and then a third, whom I will not name.” Who was the third? Bismarck was still occupied in sending home advice that was not taken from the Prussian Emba.s.sy at St Petersburg. The saying brings to mind another, attributed to the aged Prince Metternich, ”There is only one diplomatist in Europe, but unfortunately he is against us; it is M. de Cavour.”

In a long letter to the king, Cavour gave a detailed but probably not a complete account of the interviews at Plombieres. It is said that among his papers, which Ricasoli, his successor in the premiers.h.i.+p, gave to his heirs, but which they ultimately restored to the State, there is only one sealed packet--that which relates to this visit. He went by no means certain that the Emperor meant to do anything at all; he came away with great hopes, but still without certainty, for his trust in his partner was limited. He never felt sure whether Napoleon was not indulging on a large scale in the sport of building castles in the air, to which all semi-romantic temperaments are addicted. Still the basis of what bore every appearance of a definite understanding had been established. A rising in Ma.s.sa and Carrara was to serve as the pretext of war. The object of the war was the expulsion of the Austrians from Italy, to be followed by the formation of a kingdom of Upper Italy, which should include the valley of the Po, the Legations, and the Marches of Ancona. Savoy was to be ceded to France. The fate of Nice was left undecided. To all of these propositions the king had authorised Cavour to agree. The hand of the Princess Clotilde was only to be conceded if it was made a condition of the alliance, which was not the case. Cavour believed, however, that everything depended on gratifying the Emperor's wish, and he strongly urged the king to yield a point which seemed to him of no great importance. Since most princesses made unhappy marriages, what did it matter if Prince Napoleon was a promising bridegroom or not? Victor Emmanuel was persuaded by the ”reason of State”; but the sacrifice of his daughter cost him more than Cavour could ever conceive.

Napoleon told his visitor that he felt sure of the benevolent att.i.tude of Russia, and of the neutrality of England and Prussia, but he had no illusions as to the difficulty of the task. The Austrians would be hard to crush, and unless thoroughly crushed they would not relax their hold on Italy. Peace must be imposed at Vienna. To this end at least 200,000 Frenchmen and 100,000 Italians would be necessary.

Cavour has been criticised for acquiescing in the crippled programme of a kingdom of Upper Italy. What was he to do? Victor Amadeus II, in his instructions to the Marquis del Borgo, his minister at the Congress of Utrecht, laid down the rule: ”Aller au solide et au present et parler ensuite des chimeres agreables.” This was the only rule which Victor Emmanuel's minister could observe with any profit to his country at Plombieres. As he wrote himself, ”In politics one can only do one thing at a time, and the only thing we have to think of is how to get the Austrians out of Italy.”

The period from the meeting with the Emperor of the French to the outbreak of the war was, in the opinion of the present writer, the greatest period in Cavour's life. Patience, temper, forethought, resource, resolution--every quality of a great statesman he exhibited in turn, and above all the supreme gift of making no mistakes. He did not trust in chance or in fate; he trusted entirely in himself. He showed extraordinary ability in compelling the most various and opposing elements to combine in the service of his ends. In spite of Napoleon's promises and of the current of personal sentiment which lay beneath them, he soon foresaw that the unwillingness of France and the const.i.tutional vacillation of the Emperor would render them barren of results, unless Austria attacked--an eventuality which was considered impossible on all sides. Mazzini, who was generally not only clear-sighted, but also furnished with secret information, the origin of which is even now a mystery, a.s.serted positively that ”even if provoked Austria would not attack.” The same belief prevailed in the inner circle of diplomacy. When Mr. Odo Russell called on Cavour in December 1858, he remarked that Austria had only to play a waiting game to wear out the financial resources of Piedmont, while, on the other hand, Piedmont would forfeit the sympathies of Europe if it precipitated matters by a declaration of war. The only solution would be if the declaration of war came from Austria; but she would never commit so enormous a blunder. ”But I shall force her to declare war against us,” Cavour tranquilly replied, and when the incredulous Englishman inquired at what time he expected to bring about this consummation, he answered, ”About the first week in May.” Mr. Odo Russell wrote down the date in his notebook, and boundless was his surprise when Austria actually declared war a few days in advance of the time prescribed. This is statesmancraft!

Cavour had always said that an English alliance would be the only one without drawbacks. Among these drawbacks he doubtless placed the melancholy necessity of ceding Piedmontese territory; but that was not all. There was a peril which would have appeared to him yet more fatal than the lopping off of a limb, because it threatened the vital organs of national life: the risk of an all-powerful French influence extending over Italy. To ward off this danger it was of the greatest moment that Italians should join in their own liberation--that not only the Government and the army but patriots of every condition should rally round the country's flag. Though Cavour has been often said to have lacked imagination, it needed the imaginative faculty to discern what would be the true value of the free corps which he decided to const.i.tute under the name of the Hunters of the Alps. With a promise of 200,000 Frenchmen in his pocket, he was yet ready to confront difficulties which he afterwards called ”immense,” in order to place in the field a few thousand volunteers of whom the heads of the army declared that they would only prove an embarra.s.sment. Cavour listened to no one. He sent for Garibaldi, then at Caprera, and having made sure of his enthusiastic co-operation, he carried out his project without asking the a.s.sent of Parliament and without flinching before the most violent opposition, internal and external. Had not Cavour felt so conscious of his strength he would have been afraid of offending Napoleon by ”arming the revolution”; but he knew that the best way to deal with men of the Emperor's stamp is to show that you do not fear them. Garibaldi, who never did anything by halves, placed himself and his influence absolutely at Cavour's disposal. ”You can tell our friend that he is omnipotent,” he wrote to La Farina. He begged the Government to a.s.sume despotic power till the issue was decided. Garibaldi did not love the man of the _coup d'etat_; but he knew too much about war to miscalculate either the value or the need of the French alliance. Only a small section of the republicans still stood aloof. Cavour had Italy with him. All felt what Ma.s.simo d'Azeglio expressed with generous expansion, ”To-day it is no longer a question of discussing your policy, but of making it succeed.” Cavour had torn open the letter with impatience, recognising the handwriting.

When he finished reading it his eyes were full of tears. No one was more whole-hearted in his support of the minister who exacted of him two most bitter sacrifices than the king. ”The difficulty,” Cavour said, ”is to hold him back, not to spur him on.” The public, imperfectly informed of what was happening or going to happen, remained calm, for, at last, its faith in the helmsman was complete.

An amusing story is told of those times. The Countess von Stackelberg, wife of the Russian minister at Turin, was buying something at a shop under the Porticoes, when the shopman suddenly left her and rushed to the door. On coming back he said with excuses, ”I saw Count Cavour pa.s.sing, and wis.h.i.+ng to know how our affairs are going on, I wanted to see how he looked. He looks in good spirits, so everything is going right.”

A misunderstanding arose between France and Austria on a question connected with Servia; it was in outward allusion to this that Napoleon said to the Austrian Amba.s.sador at the reception of the Corps Diplomatique on New Year's Day, 1859, ”Je regrette que les relations entre nous soient si mauvaises; dites cependant a Votre Souverain que mes sentiments pour lui ne sont pas changes.” Whether there was a deliberate intention to convey another meaning is a matter of conjecture; at all events the whole of Europe gave the words an Italian sense, and Cavour, though taken by surprise, was not slow to turn them to account. In writing the speech from the throne for the opening of Parliament, he introduced a paragraph alluding to clouds in the horizon, and eventualities ”which they awaited in the firm resolve to fulfil the mission a.s.signed to them by Providence.” The other ministers would not share the responsibility of language so charged with electricity. Cavour then did one of those simple things which yet, by some mystery of the human brain, require a man of genius to do them--he sent a draft of the speech to Napoleon and asked him what he thought of it! The Emperor answered that, in fact, the disputed paragraph appeared too strong, and he sent a proposed alteration which made it much stronger! The new version ran: ”Our policy rests on justice, the love of freedom, our country, humanity: sentiments which find an echo among all civilised nations. If Piedmont, small in territory, yet counts for something in the councils of Europe, it is because it is great by reason of the ideas it represents and the sympathies it inspires. This position doubtless creates for us many dangers; nevertheless, while respecting treaties, we cannot remain insensible to the cries of grief that reach us from so many parts of Italy.” Cavour had the French words turned into good Italian by a literary friend (for he always mis...o...b..ed his own grammar); one or two expressions were changed; ”humanity” was left out. Did it savour too much of Mazzini? Victor Emmanuel himself much improved the closing sentence by subst.i.tuting ”cry” for ”cries.” This was the singularly hybrid manner in which the royal speech of January 10, 1859, arrived at its final form. Much, at this critical juncture, depended on its effect, and nothing is so impossible to foretell as the effect of words spoken before a public a.s.sembly. Cavour stood beside the throne watching the impression which each phrase created; when he saw that success was complete, beyond every expectation, he was deeply moved.

The ministers of the Italian princedoms could hardly keep their virtuous indignation within bounds. Sir James Hudson called the speech ”a rocket falling on the treaties of 1815”; the Russian Minister, waxing poetic, compared it with the s.h.i.+ning dawn of a fine spring day.

The ”grido di dolore,” rapturously applauded in the Chamber, rang like a clarion through Italy. And no one suspected whence this ingenious piece of rhetoric emanated!

The French alliance still rested on nothing more substantial than a secret unwritten engagement which Napoleon could repudiate at will.

Cavour, who would have made an excellent lawyer, strove his utmost to obtain some more solid bond, for which the marriage-visit of Prince Napoleon offered a favourable opportunity. The connection with one of the oldest royal houses in Europe so flattered the Emperor's vanity that he authorised the bridegroom and General Niel, who accompanied him, to sign a treaty in black and white, binding France to come to the a.s.sistance of Piedmont, if that State were the object of an act of aggression on the part of Austria. Possibly, like other people, he thought that no such act of aggression would be made, and that he remained free to escape from the contract if he chose. A military convention was signed at the same time, one of the clauses of which Cavour was fully determined to have cancelled; it stipulated that volunteer corps were to be excluded. He signed the convention, but fought out the point afterwards and gained it, in spite of Napoleon's strenuous resistance. These transactions were intended to be kept absolutely secret, and the French ministers do not seem to have known of them, but somehow the European Courts, and Mazzini, got wind of a treaty having been signed. Different rumours went about: the Prince Consort was informed that Savoy was to go for Lombardy, and Nice for Venetia; others said that Nice was to be the price of the Duchies and Legations. There was a persistent impression that the island of Sardinia was mentioned, which would not merit record but for the general correctness of the other guesses. There is no reference, however, to Sardinia, in the version of the treaty which has since been published, and Cavour indignantly repudiated the idea of ceding this Italian island to France, when the charge of having entertained it was flung at him a year later. Some doubt may linger in the mind as to whether there was not a scheme for giving the Pope Sardinia in return for part or all his territory.

Once again Cavour repeated his demand for yet more money, and this time it was received not, as heretofore, with reluctant submission, but with acclamation. At last people saw what the minister was driving at; only the few who would have disowned the name of Italian voted with the minority. The fifty million francs were quickly subscribed, chiefly in small sums, in Piedmont itself, a triumphant answer to the Paris house of Rothschild, which had declined to render its help.

Cavour's speeches on the new loan were, in reality, addressed to Europe, and no one was more skilful in this kind of oratory than he.

Without apparent elaboration, each phrase was studied to produce the effect desired. The policy of Piedmont, he said, had never altered since the king received his inheritance on the field of Novara. It was never provocative or revolutionary, but it was national and Italian.

Austria was displayed as the peace-breaker, and, as she was pouring troops into Italy and ma.s.sing them near the Piedmontese frontier, it was easy to exhibit her in that light. After having made Austria look very guilty, Cavour proceeded to lay himself out to conciliate England, whose policy was, at that moment, everything that he wished it not to be; but he was determined not to quarrel. The Earl of Malmesbury kept him informed of the ”real state of Italy,” of which he was supposed to be profoundly ignorant. The Lombards no longer desired to be united to Piedmont, and a war of liberation would be the signal of the reawakening of all the old jealousies, while republicans, dreamers, pretenders, seekers of revenge, power, riches, would tear up Italy between them. In the House of Lords, Lord Derby declared that the Austrian was the best of good governments, and only sought to improve its Italian provinces. Cavour concealed the irritation which he strongly felt. Lord Derby's speech, he said, did not sound so bad in the original as in the translation, and, after all, England's apparent change of front came from a great virtue, patriotism. She suppressed her natural sympathies, because she believed that patriotic reasons required her to back up Austria. He repeated to the Chamber what he had often said in private, that the English alliance was the one which he had always valued above all others. It was a remarkable thing to say at a moment when he hoped so much more from France than from England. But precisely because he hoped to obtain material a.s.sistance from France, he was more than ever anxious to remain on good terms with England. He finely resisted the temptation of saying, ”We can do without you.” After having got the French into Italy, the next thing to do would be to get them out of it, and he foresaw that England would be useful then. Moreover, angry as he was in his heart, he did not doubt that the ”suppressed sympathies” would break out again and prove irresistible. They were even breaking out already, for the arrival of the Neapolitan prisoners caused one of those powerful waves of feeling which, in England, always end by influencing the Government.

Meanwhile, Lord Derby's ministry made Herculean efforts to ward off war, in which, by force of traditions that govern all English parties, they had the opposition entirely with them. They begged Austria to evacuate the Papal Legations, and to leave off interfering with the States of Central Italy. They even asked Cavour to help them, by formulating his views on the best means of peaceably improving the condition of Italy. Cavour answered that at the root of the matter lay the hatred of a foreign yoke. The Austrians in Italy formed, not a government, but a military occupation. They were not established but encamped. Every house, from the humblest home to the most sumptuous palace, was closed against them. In the theatres, public places, streets, there was an absolute separation between them and the people of the country. Things got constantly worse, not better. The Austrian rulers in Italy once offered their subjects some compensation for the loss of nationality in a policy which defended them from the encroachments of the court of Rome, but the wise principles introduced by Maria Theresa and Joseph II. had been cast to the winds. Unless Austria completely reversed her policy, and became the promoter of const.i.tutional government throughout Italy, nothing could save her; the problem would be solved by war or revolution.

It ought to have been apparent that, as far as Piedmont was concerned, the control of the situation had pa.s.sed out of the hands of the Government. The youth of Lombardy was streaming into the country to enlist either in the army or in the corps of ”Hunters of the Alps,”

which was now formed. Cavour looked on this patriotic invasion with delight; ”They may throw me into the Po,” he said, ”but I will not stop it.” Had he wished, he could not have stopped the current of popular excitement at the point it had reached. It was the knowledge of this, joined to the threatened destruction of all his hopes, that well-nigh overpowered him when--at the eleventh hour--in spite of engagements and treaties, Napoleon seemed to have suddenly decided not to go to war. Prince Bismarck once declared that he had never found it possible to tell in advance whether his plans would succeed; he could navigate among political events, but he could not direct them. Since the meeting at Plombieres, Cavour had undertaken to direct events, the most perilous game at which a statesman can play. For a moment he thought that he had failed.

CHAPTER IX

THE WAR OF 1859--VILLAFRANCA

On the whole it can be safely a.s.sumed that Napoleon's hark back was real, and was not a move ”pour mieux sauter.” He was not pleased at the cool reception given in Italy to a pamphlet known to have been inspired by him, in which the old scheme was revived of a federation of Italian States under the presidency of the Pope. The Empress was against war--it was said ”for fear of a reverse.” Perhaps she thought already what she said when flying from Paris in 1870: ”En France il ne faut pas etre malheureux.” But more than this fear, anxiety for the head of the Church made her anti-Italian, and, with her, the whole clerical party. Nor was this the limit of the opposition which the proposed war of liberation encountered. Though France did not know of the secret treaty, she knew enough to understand by this time where she was being led, and with singular unanimity she protested. When such different persons as Guizot; Lamartine, and Proudhon p.r.o.nounced against a free Italy,--when no one except the Paris workman showed the slightest enthusiasm for the war,--it is hardly surprising if Napoleon, seized with alarm for his dynasty, was glad of any plausible excuse for a retreat. Such an excuse was forthcoming in the Russian proposal of a Congress, which was warmly seconded by England. Austria accepted the proposal subject to two conditions: the previous disarmament of Piedmont, and its exclusion from the Congress. The bearing of the French Ministry became almost insulting; the Emperor, said Walewski, was not going to rush into a war to favour Sardinia's ambition; everything would be peaceably settled by the Congress, in which Piedmont had not the smallest right to take part. None of the usual private hints came from the Tuileries to counteract the effect of these words.

Cavour was plunged in blank despair. He wrote to Napoleon that they would be driven to some desperate act, which was answered by a call to Paris; but his interviews with the Emperor only increased his fears.

He threatened the king's abdication and his own retirement. He would go to America and publish all his correspondence with Napoleon. He alone was responsible for the course his country had taken, the pledges it had given, the engagements already performed (by which he meant the consent wrenched from the king to the Princess Clotilde's marriage). The responsibility would be crus.h.i.+ng if he became guilty before G.o.d and man of the disasters which menaced his king and his country.

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