CHAPTER II

.

THE ITALIAN REVOLUTION.

Napoleon’s New Year’s Reception--The Secret _pacte de famille_--Victor Emmanuel and the _Grido di Dolore_--The Queen’s Views on the Italian Movement--The Queen’s Letter to Napoleon--Meeting of Parliament--Cavour Threatens Napoleon--Appeal of Prussia to the Queen for Advice--Mr. Disraeli’s Reform Bill--Lord John Russell’s Amendment--Defeat of the Government--An Appeal to the Country--The Queen Criticises Austria’s Blunders--War at Last--The General Election--Reconciliation of Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell--Fall of the Derby-Disraeli Administration--The Palmerston-Russell Ministry--Austrian Defeats and French Victories--The Peace of Villafranca--Palmerston Duped--Illness of the Duchess of Kent--The Budget--The Queen and Palmerston--Triumph of the Queen’s Policy--The Holiday at Balmoral--Dancing in the New Year.

Not easily will the world forget the New Year’s Day of 1859. “I regret,” said the French Emperor to Baron Hubner, the Austrian Ambassador, at the reception at the Tuileries, “that the relations between our two countries are not more satisfactory; but I beg you to assure the Emperor (of Austria) that they in no respect alter my feelings of friendship to himself.” Taken in connection with the rumoured results of Continental intrigues, but one interpretation could be put on these words. The restlessness of France was to be appeased by a war for the deliverance of Italy from the Hapsburgs, and the bombs of Orsini had forced the Emperor to be faithful to his forgotten engagements to his old comrades among the Carbonari. The Emperor’s own story was that he felt convinced there could be no peace in Europe unless the Territorial Settlement of 1815 was revised. He professed to have aimed at effecting that object by the regeneration of Poland. The Crimean War having, however, proved this scheme to be futile, his policy was thenceforth directed to the deliverance of Italy from Austrian servitude. In either case the waters of diplomacy would be troubled, and it would be easy to fish out of them something that might partially compensate France for what she lost in 1815. But the truth was that, at his secret interview with Count Cavour, at Plombières, in the autumn of 1858, the Emperor had entered into an engagement to defend Piedmont, if attacked by Austria, and to establish under the Sardinian Crown a Kingdom of Northern Italy, the price for this aid being the cession of Savoy and Nice to France. At this meeting the marriage of Prince Napoleon to the Princess Clothilde, daughter of the King of Italy, was discussed, but not definitely arranged. The announcement of the coming marriage was, however, made to the Queen by the French Emperor on the 31st of December, 1858. On the 23rd of January, 1859, the formal request for the Princess Clothilde’s hand was made. On the 30th the wedding was celebrated, and on the 3rd of February the Prince and Princess Napoleon returned to Paris. On the evening before the marriage, Napoleon III. was said to have signed a _pacte de famille_, promising aid offensive and defensive to Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel pledging himself to cede to France Savoy and Nice, in return for territorial acquisitions in Lombardy.[36] Thus the French Emperor was bound to Sardinia as with “hoops of steel,” when the European crisis in 1859 became acute, and Lord Malmesbury imagined that he could compose it by diplomacy.

[Illustration: VICTOR EMMANUEL.]

After the Imperial declarations to Baron Hubner, Victor Emmanuel, on the 10th of January, in his Address to his Parliament, had said, “While we respect treaties, we are not insensible to the cry of suffering (_Grido di dolore_) which comes to us from so many parts of Italy.” Austrian troops forthwith began to swarm into the passes of the Tyrol, and to form on the line of the Ticino. Russia encouraged France to the utmost, and from conversations with Lord Palmerston and Lord Clarendon during their visit in autumn to Compiègne, the French Emperor felt convinced that the powerful party in England, led by Palmerston, would give him that moral support which the Queen and her Ministers denied him.[37] The Courts of St. James’s and Berlin were cold friends to the cause of Italian freedom. To them any war which upset the Settlement of 1815 was like the letting out of waters. The victory of either party could bode no good for Prussia, under whose leadership the Queen was even then hopeful that Germany would yet form a united Empire. The triumph of the Hapsburgs would strengthen their position in Germany, and as Herr von Bismarck said, this must mean that “our Kings will again become Electors and vassals of Austria.”[38] The victory of France, on the other hand, would tempt Napoleon III. to seize Belgium and the Rhine Provinces.

In Germany public opinion was, on the whole, pro-Austrian. In England, popular feeling, stimulated by the Liberal Party, was decidedly Anti-Austrian. The view of the Tory Ministry was that of Lord Malmesbury, who thought that it was as wicked to dispute the right of Austria to her Italian provinces, as to question that of England to Ireland. Frenchmen, again, were as little inclined to go to war for “an idea” in Lombardy as in the Crimea.

It would be tedious to follow the tangled skein of intrigue that finally ended in war. At the outset the advantage lay with Austria, because if she had struck quickly and sharply she might have crushed Sardinia, ere France could have come to her rescue. Protracted negotiation deprived Austria of this advantage, so Napoleon III. welcomed the proposal of England to find a diplomatic solution of the Italian Question--all the more readily that his failure to obtain pledges of absolute neutrality from England and Prussia, caused him to waver from his purpose. It was in the hope that he might be induced, when in this state of mind, to insert a pacific clause in his address to the Chambers, that the Queen, on the 4th of February, wrote to him suggesting this course,[39] in a letter thanking him for his congratulations on the birth of the Princess Royal’s son. Napoleon’s reply was friendly but evasive. He professed great friendship for England, and respect for treaties, but virtually reserved to himself the right to interpret them in his own interests. So matters stood at the beginning of the Session of 1859.

Parliament had been called together on the 5th of February. Ministers were undoubtedly discredited by a popular suspicion that they were using the influence of England to buttress up Austrian tyranny in Italy. The impartial impotence of Lord Malmesbury’s policy, as subsequently revealed in his despatches, however, showed that these suspicions were unfounded. The question of Reform had been stirred during the autumnal recess by Mr. Bright. But his violent attacks on the propertied classes had roused the fiercest antagonism, and probably did more to retard than advance the cause he had at heart. Yet the Government could not afford to dispense with the support of the Party of Parliamentary Reform, and so Mr. Disraeli’s determination to deal with the question was intimated in the Queen’s Speech. Lord Granville, Lord Palmerston, and Lord John Russell, though speaking less hopefully than Mr. Disraeli of the efforts of the Government to preserve peace, alike deprecated a war for the expulsion of Austria from North Italy, where her position was secured to her by the Treaty of 1815. But they argued that she had no right to go beyond that Treaty, and that the presence of Austrian and French armies in Central Italy, on which they imposed a government that was hateful to the people, was most dangerous to the peace of the world. The Emperor’s speech to the French Chambers, as the Prince Consort said, was “meant to look peaceful”--but that was all. “Not a word,” wrote Lord Malmesbury “is said about Treaties, but a good deal about the interests and honour of France.”[40] Indeed, Victor Emmanuel and Cavour fancied they detected in it signs of wavering. The former threatened to abdicate, and the latter to resign, after disclosing to the world the secret compact of Plombières and the _pacte de famille_, signed on the eve of the Princess Clothilde’s marriage. This threat, together with Cavour’s Mephistophelean allusions to the vengeance of the Carbonari, invariably brought the Emperor back to his original resolve, and defeated the efforts of British diplomacy to avert war. Meanwhile, the Prince Regent William had been pressed by the French Emperor to hold aloof from Austria. Rival parties in Prussia were trying to drag him in contrary directions, and at last he appealed confidentially to his friends, the Queen and the Prince Consort, for advice, saying, “I anxiously await your answer, for it will be decisive for us.”[41] It is important to study this correspondence, because at the time the Queen and Prince Consort were denounced in many quarters, where French influence was at work, for intriguing through the Courts of Berlin and Brussels to get up a great German League against the liberties of Italy. England, replied the Prince Consort, would not now go with France, no matter how far Austria put herself in the wrong. Prussia would be well advised, thought the Prince, to take the same line. In the meantime, let German public opinion, of which Napoleon stood much in awe, on the question, be elicited by encouraging the freest discussion in Germany, and when the crisis came, let that opinion guide Prussia. Prussia and the German States, the Prince Consort thought, should adopt an attitude of armed neutrality--ready to strike a blow for the protection of the Rhine provinces before a victorious France could quite clear her hands of a defeated Austria. Prussia and Germany, argues the Prince in another letter, owe no duty to Austria in respect of Italy. But Austria owes them a duty as a German State bound to assist in the defence of Germany from French aggression. Ere Prussia sided with Austria, an Austrian army must be ready to advance on the Rhine, and Germany must be permitted to exercise a distinct influence on Austrian policy in Italy. The Prince Regent of Prussia treated the Prince Consort’s views as “decisive,” and, as will be subsequently seen, by acting on them he not only increased the influence of Prussia in Germany, but virtually brought the war between France and Austria to a sudden close. In the meantime, Parliament, with great generosity and patriotic spirit, refused to embarrass Ministers by debating the Italian Question, and at the request of the French Emperor, Lord Cowley was sent to Vienna to mediate between France and Austria.

On the 28th of February Mr. Disraeli expounded his Reform Bill, the adoption of which compelled Mr. Walpole and Mr. Henley to retire from the Cabinet. The great blunder of the Whig Reform Bill of 1832 was that it excluded the working classes--without whose support the Bill could never have been forced on the Crown--from political power. The object of a practical Reform Bill was therefore simple. It was to lower the franchise, so as to give votes to the working classes, and then readjust the distribution of power in the constituencies in terms of this reduced franchise. Mr. Disraeli, however, produced a fantastic scheme, in which every concession given with the right hand was taken back with the left. The county franchise was reduced to £10, but then as a set-off the freeholders in towns were no longer to vote for the counties. The franchise in towns was not reduced, but a series of what Mr. Bright called “fancy franchises’ was created, with a view to render the representation of “interests” predominant.[42] Certain constituencies were to have additional members, and some small boroughs with two members were to lose one. Nobody was satisfied with the measure, so Lord John Russell on the 10th of March gave notice that he would move an amendment to the motion for the Second Reading, condemning the disturbance of the freehold franchise, and demanding a greater extension of the suffrage than Mr. Disraeli contemplated. All sections of the Opposition were able to vote for the resolution. Lord John Russell, who imagined he enjoyed a monopoly of the question of Reform, and that nobody should deal with it but himself, wanted to carry the Resolution and reject the Bill. Lord Palmerston was willing to vote for the Resolution and go on with the Bill. “I do not,” he said, “want them [the Ministry] to resign. I say to them, as I think Voltaire said of a Minister who had incurred his displeasure, ‘I won’t punish him; I won’t send him to prison; I condemn him to keep his place.’” Mr. Gladstone refused

[Illustration: THE GUARD-ROOM, ST. JAMES’S PALACE. (_From a Photograph by H. N. King._)]

to support the Resolution, because he said he wanted the question of Reform settled, and it would be quite possible to re-model the Bill in Committee, and Mr. Roebuck took the same view. Mr. Bright, however, thinking that any settlement arrived at in 1859 would be too favourable to the territorial interest, supported the Resolution in order to quash the Bill. Sir James Graham, who had drafted the Resolution, made by far the most statesmanlike speech 111 the debate. He argued that it was of no use to lower the borough franchise unless it were reduced so that no further reduction could be demanded, and suggested that the municipal rating franchise would be the best to adopt. On the 1st of April the Government by this coalition of factions was defeated by a vote of 330 to 291, and, undeterred by Lord Palmerston’s threat to stop supplies, Mr. Disraeli on the 4th of the month intimated that the Ministry would appeal to the country.

## Partisans of the Government had attempted to make capital out of the

disturbed state of the Continent, and had spoken as if it were wicked to oppose a bad Reform Bill at a time when Lord Malmesbury was mediating between armed nations. As a matter of fact, Lord Malmesbury was only permitted to amuse himself with futile mediation, which was to be protracted till France was ready to attack Austria, and Austria was lured into an attack on Piedmont, that would give France an excuse for fulfilling the secret compact with Cavour at Plombières. When Lord Cowley returned from Vienna he brought the assent of Austria (1), to withdraw her troops from the Roman States; (2), to support a reforming policy in Italy; and (3), to promise not to assail Sardinia. His mission would have been successful had not Napoleon in the meantime manufactured failure for it. He gave a hint to Russia which caused her to propose a Congress for the settlement of all questions at issue between France and Austria, and Lord Cowley’s plans were put out of the field. A Congress, by protracting negotiations, exposed Austria to the exhausting drain of her armaments, whilst France was perfecting her arrangements for falling upon her. Time, too, might bring about a change of Ministry in England, where the substitution of a warm ally like Lord Palmerston for a Tory Cabinet whose sympathies were, if anything, in favour of Austria, would be an advantage to France.

It was in these circumstances that the Queen reluctantly consented to a dissolution, when Mr. Disraeli and Lord Derby convinced her that they could not, after Lord Palmerston’s insolent speech, honourably go on with their Reform Bill. In fact, they pointed out that, even if they resigned, the Whigs would have to dissolve Parliament themselves in a few months to carry, against the opposition of the House of Lords, their own alternative measure of Reform, to which they were pledged. “The Congress truly does not dance,” observes the Prince Consort, in one of his shrewd letters to Stockmar. The fact is, that whenever Cavour heard of it, he warned the Emperor that if he played false, he (Cavour) would return to Turin, place his resignation in Victor Emmanuel’s hands, proceed to the United States, and not only charge the Emperor with luring the Sardinian Government into a ruinous warlike policy by promises of assistance, but that he would publish documentary proofs of his charges to the whole world. As Prince Albert said, Napoleon had “sold himself to the devil,” and “Cavour can do with his honour what he pleases.”[43] Hence, France would no longer support a proposal that Sardinia should disarm, and when Austria proposed simultaneous disarmament all round, the Emperor’s reply was, that the forces of France were not yet on a war footing. At last, Napoleon assented to this project, on condition that Sardinia and the other Italian States were heard in the Congress, which left the issue in the hands of Austria. The tension of the situation was now extreme, and telegrams came pouring in every hour to the Queen, whose nerves were sorely strained by the excitement of the crisis. Just before the dissolution, explanations of a somewhat unsatisfactory nature were given in both Houses of Parliament on the 18th of April, and next day (the 19th), Austria took the fatal and aggressive step which, as the Queen predicted, would turn public opinion against her. Instead of accepting the Congress, as France and Sardinia had accepted it, she called on Sardinia to disarm within three days, otherwise an Austrian army would march on Turin. Had Austria attacked at once she might have crushed her enemy before France could come to her aid. She hesitated and was lost. The effect of Count Buol’s ultimatum on England was electric. The Ministry, despite its pro-Austrian sympathies, hastened to protest against the invasion of Sardinia, and the Queen, in a letter to King Leopold, reflected the opinion of the people, when she said “though it was originally the wicked folly of Russia and France that brought about this fearful crisis, it is the madness and blindness of Austria that has brought on the war now.”[44] But this “madness and blindness” would not have deterred Austria from allowing the small Italian States to have a consultative representation at the Congress, had she been sure that a friendly Ministry would be in power in England. She, however, was afraid to weaken her position on the eve of Lord Palmerston’s possible return to office.[45] On the 29th Austrian troops crossed the Ticino. “All Italy is up,” writes Lord Malmesbury in his Diary: a feeble effort on his part to patch up negotiations for a Congress was rejected by France, though accepted by Austria, and the game of war began in earnest. In England, Ministers were blamed for having encouraged by their sympathy the obstinacy of Austria, which led her to break the peace. As a matter of fact, Lord Malmesbury’s efforts had been directed to pacify the combatants, to localise the war, and to prevent the German States, whose people were clamouring to be led to the conquest of Alsace, from joining in the fray.[46]

The General Election resulted in a gain of twenty-nine seats to the Tory Party, but this still left them in a minority whenever all sections of the Opposition chose to combine against them. The Liberal Party, tired of dissension, put pressure upon the two leaders by whose long rivalry it had been

[Illustration: TURIN.]

caused, for the purpose of reconciling them, and accordingly Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell--after being urged by his brother, the Duke of Bedford--agreed that either would serve under the other. At a meeting in Willis’s Rooms, on the 5th of June, the union of all sections of the Party was consummated, and an Amendment to the Address, declaring their want of confidence in the Ministry, was drafted and agreed to. Parliament met on the 6th of June. Next night Lord Hartington in the House of Commons moved this Amendment, which, after a debate lasting over three nights, was carried on the 10th of June by a majority of thirteen in a house of 643. The Government resigned, and the Queen, who was not particularly anxious to entrust either Lord John Russell or Lord Palmerston with the Premiership, invited Lord Granville to form a Ministry. Lord Palmerston very generously consented to serve under Lord Granville, but Lord John Russell refused. He had agreed to serve under Palmerston if he were appointed to the Foreign Office, but under Lord Granville he must at least be Leader of the House of Commons. As Lord Palmerston would not accept a peerage, and as it was impossible to ask him to abandon the Leadership of the Liberal Party in the

[Illustration: LORD GRANVILLE.]

Lower House which he had held so long, Lord Granville retired from the field. The Queen then sent for Lord Palmerston, who formed a Ministry consisting of Lord John Russell, Lord Campbell, Sir G. C. Lewis, Sir George Grey, Sir Charles Wood, the Duke of Newcastle, the Duke of Argyll, Lord Elgin, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr. Cardwell, the Duke of Somerset, and Mr. Milner Gibson. A place--the Presidency of the Board of Trade--was offered to Mr. Cobden, which he declined. The first five represented the Whigs; the next six represented the Peelites; Messrs. Gibson and Cobden were selected to conciliate the Radicals; and there could be no doubt that, tested by individual capacity, the combination was one of the strongest ever formed. The Queen deeply regretted the exclusion of Lord Clarendon from the Cabinet, and Mr. Greville says that Lord John Russell’s selfish determination to take the Foreign Office kept Clarendon out. This is hardly just. Lord Clarendon’s pro-Austrian sympathies, and his opposition to Palmerston’s foreign policy, rendered him ineligible for office at the time. The change was attended by one unpleasant incident. The substance of the Queen’s conversations with Lord Granville found their way into the press, and her Majesty’s indignation at this betrayal of her confidence was not concealed. It was clear that some of those with whom Lord Granville had been in negotiation had not kept faith with him, and in the House of Lords (17th of June) he expressed his regret, without, however, divulging the name of the culprit who had betrayed him.

The war in the North of Italy had in the meantime been raging furiously. An uninterrupted series of defeats led Austria to the crowning disaster of Solferino (June 24th), and forced her to take refuge in the Quadrilateral. The losses of the French army had been heavy, and a weary struggle before the famous Four Fortresses was not inviting. The victory of Magenta had forced Prussia to mobilise her forces, and Solferino decided her to adopt a policy of “armed mediation”--the object of which was to concert with England and Russia terms of peace reconciling Austrian rights with Italian liberties, and forcing these terms on the combatants. In the end of May the Queen, depressed by the reverses of Austria, had been anxious that England should take her side, but had fortunately been dissuaded from pressing her views on the Government by Lord Malmesbury, who told her plainly that “the country would not go to war even in support of Italian independence, and there would not be ten men in the House of Commons who would do so on behalf of Austria.”[47] For the German States intervention was, however, hardly avoidable, and so the French Emperor prudently began to negotiate for peace.

On the 6th of July Persigny submitted to Lord John Russell a proposal that England should ask for an armistice on terms which the Emperor was willing to grant, but which the Austrian Ambassador, Count Apponyi, rejected. England also declined to sanction them because, in Lord Palmerston’s opinion, they ignored the wishes of Italy.[48] The Emperor then signed an armistice with the Austrians for seven days on the 8th of July, and arranged for a meeting with the Austrian Emperor on the 11th. On the 10th Persigny insidiously renewed his negotiations for the “moral support” of England in the new turn of affairs. Lord Malmesbury, who had the story from Persigny, says he “went to Lord Palmerston and said that the time was come for mediation, and suggested conditions, namely, Venice and its territories to be taken from Austria, not annexed to Sardinia, but made into a separate and independent State. There were other conditions, but this was the principal one.[49] That Lord Palmerston agreed to this, and rode down to Richmond to tell Lord John Russell, who was equally delighted; and that the proposal was adopted by them and sent to the Queen, who was at Aldershot, which occasioned some delay. That her Majesty refused her consent, saying the time was not yet come to make these proposals, as the fortresses were not yet taken. That, however, in the meantime, Persigny had telegraphed the consent of the English Government to his master, who immediately asked for an interview with the Emperor of Austria, showed him Persigny’s despatch, saying, ‘Here are the conditions proposed by England, and agreed to also by Prussia. Now listen to mine, which, though those of an enemy, are much more favourable. So let us settle everything together without reference to the neutral Powers, whose conditions are not nearly so advantageous to you as those I am ready to grant.’ The Emperor of Austria, not suspecting any reservation, and not knowing that the Queen had refused her consent to these proposals, which, though agreed to by her Government, were suggested by Persigny, evidently to give his master the opportunity of outbidding us, and making Francis Joseph think that he was thrown over by England and Prussia, accepted the offer, and peace was instantly concluded.”[50] There cannot be any doubt that the Queen, though unaware that Persigny was merely intending to use Palmerston as a dupe, was right in refusing her consent to these sham proposals. The Emperor of Austria, it is known, would not have accepted them. But in that case “moral support” of them, recklessly promised by Palmerston, might have laid us open to the charge of having abandoned our strict and scrupulous neutrality. By the Peace of Villafranca, which was arranged at the meeting of the Emperors, Venice was left as an Austrian State, but was to enter an Italian Confederation, presided over by the Pope; Lombardy was ceded to France, who might cede it to Sardinia, and the Dukes of Tuscany and Modena were to be restored. The verdict of the Parisian _flaneurs_ was that “France had made a superb war, and Austria a superb peace.” Victor Emmanuel ground his teeth with rage when he found he had to accept this arrangement, adding, after his signature, the significant words, “I ratify this convention in all that concerns myself.” Cavour placed his resignation in the King’s hands, and left the camp for Turin, after a stormy interview with the French Emperor. “Arrêtez-moi, et vous serez forcé de retourner en France par le Tyrol,” he said, when Napoleon threatened to put him under arrest for his insolent language. Palmerston, in a letter to Persigny, protested against the arrangement with impotent rage.[51] The Prince Consort, however, cynically observed that the Italian Question was not quite settled yet, and that a Confederation with the Pope at the head of it was only “a bad joke.” The Queen soothed Lord Palmerston, in his bitter disappointment, by pointing out to him that his ally had now legalised in Italy that very Austrian influence which it was the object of the Palmerstonian policy to expel, but, she added, as Lord Palmerston had not protested against the war, he could not protest against the peace, unless it were considered wise to “make it appear as if to persecute Austria were a personal object with the First Minister of the Crown.” To Lord John Russell she wrote in terms that must have been as gall and bitterness to Palmerston, who had, in defiance of her objections, consented to give “moral support” to Persigny’s sham proposals for peace. The Emperor Napoleon, she observed, by his prudence and victories, had created for himself a formidable position. “It is remarkable,” she adds, “that he has acted towards Austria now just as he did towards Russia, after the fall of Sebastopol. But if it was our lot then to be left alone to act the part of the extortioner, while he acted that of the generous victor, the Queen is doubly glad that we should not now have fallen into the trap to ask from Austria, as friends and neutrals, concessions which he was ready to waive.”[52]

Still, her Majesty did not regard the anxious events of the year with unmixed regret. It was a gratifying fact that the Indian Mutiny had been suppressed, and on the 14th of April the thanks of Parliament were voted to those who had saved our Indian Empire. The Queen, in conveying her personal thanks to Lord Canning, laid before him her project for founding the Order of the Star of India. A visit from her eldest daughter had brightened her birthday festivities--saddened though these were by the illness of the Duchess of Kent, who had been attacked by erysipelas. The Government had begun to strengthen the defences of the country, and the spontaneous uprising of the people, which originated the Volunteer Movement, placed at her disposal the nucleus of a superb defensive army, to the organisation of which the Prince Consort now began to direct his attention. Mr. Gladstone’s Budget, too, though it necessitated a ninepenny income-tax[53] to meet exceptional naval and military expenditure, was passed ungrudgingly by Parliament, though, of course, it increased the popular antipathy to the French Emperor which the Peace of Villafranca had excited.

In vain did Napoleon III. endeavour to induce England to propose a Congress or a Conference for the purpose of settling the Italian Question in a manner that would allay Italian discontent. Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell would have fallen into this trap also, but for the tenacity with which the Queen urged her objections to their policy. Walewski fortunately admitted to Lord Cowley that the French and Austrian Emperors had agreed not to submit the Peace they had made to a Congress. “Two emperors,” wrote the Queen to Lord John Russell (20th July), “who were at war with each other have suddenly concluded personally a peace, and we have before us merely the account of one of them through his Minister. This Minister’s account admits that his master pledged his word on certain points, but thinks it not binding if England will propose its being broken. This is a duty which honour forbids us to undertake.” The Cabinet then so far yielded to the Queen’s reasoning that they agreed to hold aloof from the whole business, till the arrangement between the two Emperors was embodied in the Treaty of Zurich. A debate in the House of Commons (8th August) showed that Parliament, on the whole, approved of this course. On the 13th came the prorogation of the Legislature, which enabled the Queen and her husband to make a short excursion to the Channel Islands.

[Illustration: ST. GEORGE’S HALL, WINDSOR CASTLE.]

A grave conflict of opinion now arose between the Queen and Lord John Russell. Lord John, like Lord Palmerston, was desirous of re-arranging the affairs of Italy in terms of an understanding with France. In other words, he was desirous of neutralising the Treaty of Zurich by getting one of its signatories to join him in breaking those of its conditions which were favourable to the other signatory. No doubt it was difficult to persuade the Central Italian States to abide by a treaty that handed them back to the oppressors whom they had got rid of. But the problem of reconciling the people to their petty despots was one which the Queen argued should be solved, not by England, who did not create it, but by France and Austria, who did. Again, after some controversy, she succeeded in overruling fresh plans for intervention which Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell had mooted,[54] and thus matters were left when the Court reached Balmoral on the 31st of August. Hardly had the first week of her holiday passed by when the Queen discovered that Palmerston had broached his project for annexing the Italian Duchies to Sardinia in a private letter to Walewski, who, however, frankly said such a proposal would prevent Austria from signing any treaty, and thus lead to a renewal of the war. She wrote to Lord John Russell condemning Palmerston’s indiscretion, and pointing out that Walewski himself suggested that annexation of Savoy to France would be the natural compensation for annexing the Duchies to Sardinia--a compensation which would be odious to England, but which would be justified on the ground, that Palmerston’s policy rendered it necessary. But Tuscany and Romagna desired annexation to Sardinia, and Napoleon accordingly suggested that a Congress should be summoned to consider the matter. Lord Palmerston agreed to this project, and though the Queen did not oppose Palmerston, she did not conceal her opinion that the object of the Congress was to induce England to do for the Italians what Napoleon had promised but had failed to do. She, however, induced the Cabinet to warn Napoleon that England would not take on herself his self-imposed duty to his clients in the revolted States. They, in the meanwhile, calmly carried on their government in the name of the Sardinian king, and in open defiance of the compact of Villafranca.

Save for these anxious diplomatic perplexities, the Balmoral holiday was a highly enjoyable one, notable for long mountain excursions, of which the Queen’s ascent of Ben Macdhui was one of the most striking. The Prince Consort’s address to the British Association at Aberdeen was well received, and it was followed by a Highland gathering of philosophers at Balmoral, whose _fête_ was, however, marred by tempestuous weather. On the journey south the Queen opened, on the 14th of October, the great waterworks at Loch Katrine for the supply of Glasgow--works on a scale of magnificence not unworthy of the Roman Empire. After a pleasant, but brief sojourn in Wales, the Queen and her husband reached Windsor on the 17th, pleased to find that the Prince and Princess Frederick William proposed soon to visit them. They came on the 9th of November--when the birthday of the Prince of Wales was celebrated--and stayed till the 3rd of December. The last month of the year was spent at Osborne, till Christmastide came round, when the Royal Family removed to Windsor, where, writes the Prince Consort in his Diary, “we danced in the New Year.”

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