[This letter is inserted, because of its historical importance. It is, I believe, the earliest existing mention of any scheme for a French protectorate in Tuscany. It also antedates by a few weeks the earliest known mention of Garibaldi's scheme for an expedition to Sicily. Mazzini's information respecting Louis Napoleon's plans was probably derived from Dr Conneau, but it was generally inaccurate.]
My Dear Friend,—I write because I have no time for coming, and I write, I must avow, to silence conscience, with very little hope.
Do not smile, and say "the man is mad"; but put your head in your two hands and try to solve this question: "is there any earthly way of getting one thousand pounds in a very short time, ten days, a fortnight at the most?"
With you I have no secrets, and I shall state to you summarily the why.
We must act: as early as possible in March: in fact as soon as the declaration of war or an action amounting to the same takes place, we must act, because the initiative is everything for us.
The actual schemes of the French Emperor, assented to by your cabinet, are these:
A Muratist movement in Naples: reinforcements in Rome ready to help, as Piedmont would object to the establishment of a French dynasty in the South. France offers to patronise the King of Piedmont to the North of Italy. Lombardy will be Piedmontese. But Lombardy and the Venetian territory would together with Piedmont form too large, too threatening a state. Lombardy and Venice shall therefore be divided. Venice like Greece will be given up to some foreign prince, or to Austria again if Austria yields and submits in other respects. Rome will remain to the Pope. Only as there are provinces so disaffected that the case is hopeless, from them and Tuscany a central Dukedom or Princedom will be formed under French patronage. Sicily will be given—the old scheme of 1848—to the Duke of Genoa, son of the Piedmontese king.
Thus Italy will have two more divisions, Sicily and Venice; new foreign dynasties would be settled there, new interests would group themselves around them: a new partition would begin, with high sanction, a new phasis, and we should have to begin anew our secret work, our clandestine printing, our series of martyrdoms, as if nothing had been done.
To all this I know only of a [one] remedy: to initiate: to give the leadership to the national party. The multitude will follow the first who acts; the very elements prepared by all these intrigues will accrue to us if we move first.
And beyond all, to move in the South. We would thus check the French scheme before its realisation. As we would, for the present, leave Rome aside and untouched, we do not damage in the least the actual position of England with France.