The secrecy was none of his seeking; he had tried hard to induce Napoleon to let the treaty be submitted to Parliament before it was signed, as constitutional usage demanded, but the Emperor was resolved that the Chambers and Europe should know of it only when it was an accomplished fact. He had good reason for the precaution. He knew that there would be an outburst of indignation in England, though he little imagined the after consequences of this to himself. His one idea just then was to make sure of his bargain, not because he cared to enlarge his frontiers, for he was not constitutionally ambitious, but because he hoped, by doing so, to win the gratitude of France. It is useful as a lesson to note that he won nothing of the kind. Nor did Cavour win the goodwill of the French masses as he had hoped. France might have been angry had she not received the two provinces, but she showed real or affected ignorance of their value. For many years the French papers described the county of Nice as a poor, miserable strip of shore, and the duchy of Savoy as a few bare rocks. French people then travelled so little that they may have thought it was true.
As Napoleon was bent on deceiving, Cavour was obliged to deceive too. Sir Robert Peel's denial of the intention of Government to repeal the Corn Laws has been defended on the ground that the Cabinet had not taken a definite resolution; if such a defence is of profit, Cavour is entitled to the benefit of it. At any rate he had no choice. Whether or not they had been previously warned, the English Ministry, and especially the Foreign Secretary, now believed the professions of innocence. The Earl of Malmesbury records a suspicion that as far back as January 1859 Napoleon secured some sort of written promise from Lord Palmerston that he would not make difficulties about Nice and Savoy. Such an assurance amounts, of course, to saying, "Go and take it," as in the more recent case of Tunis. The story is not impossible; like Cavour, Lord Palmerston desired so much to see Italy freed that he would have given up a good deal to arrive at the goal. The country resented the deception, as it had every right to do, and the Queen expressed the general feeling when she wrote to Lord John Russell, "We have been made regular dupes." For a moment there seemed a risk of war, but Lord Palmerston never had the slightest intention of going to war, whatever were the inclinations of his colleague at the Foreign Office. Lord John Russell took his revenge on Napoleon when the Emperor wished to proceed to joint action with England on the Danish question; by refusing this proposal he deprived him of the one and only chance of stemming Prussian ambition.
Cavour did not extenuate the gravity of the responsibility which he accepted when he advised the king to sign away national territory without the sanction of Parliament. He said that it was a highly unconstitutional act, which exposed him, were the Chamber of Deputies to disown it, to an indictment for high treason. He counted on losing all his popularity in Piedmont—how could he not expect to lose it when his best hopes for getting the treaty approved rested on the assumption that the new voters from the enfranchised parts of Italy would drown the opposition of his own State to its dismemberment? It has often been asked, Why did he not allow the cession to wear the honest colour of surrender to force? Why, "against his conviction," as he confessed in private, did he declare that Nice was not Italian? Why go through the farce of plebiscites so "arranged" that the result was a foregone conclusion? The answer, satisfactory or not, is easily found: Nice was stated to be not Italian to leave intact the theory of nationality for future use; the plebiscites were resorted to that Napoleon might be obliged to recognise the same method of settling questions elsewhere.
The parliament which represented Piedmont, Lombardy, Parma, Modena, and Romagna, met on April 2, 1860. The frontier lines of six states were effaced. The man who had so largely contributed to this great result stood there to defend his honour, almost his life. Guerrazzi compared him to the Earl of Clarendon—"hard towards the king, truculent to Parliament, who thought in his pride that he could do everything." Cavour retorted: perhaps if Clarendon had been able to show in defence of his conduct many million Englishmen delivered from foreign yoke, several counties added to his master's possessions, Parliament would not have been so pitiless, or Charles II. so ungrateful to the most faithful of his servants. The deputy Guerrazzi, he continued, had read him a lesson in history; it should have been given entire. And he then drew a picture, splendid in its scathing irony, of the unscrupulous alliance of men without principle, of all shades of opinion, only united in self-interest, demagogues, courtiers, reactionists, papists, puritans, without traditions, without ideas, at one in impudent egotism, and in nothing else, who formed the cabal which ruined Clarendon. Every one understood that he was painting his own enemies inside the Chamber and out.
In spite of protests and regrets, the treaty was sanctioned by a larger majority than had been reckoned on. When it came to the point, not a large number of voters was ready to take the tremendous leap in the dark which, among other consequences, must have condemned Cavour, if not to the fate of Stafford, at least to obscurity for the rest of his life. But the ministry came out of the contest, to use Cavour's own words, extraordinarily weakened. "On me and on my colleagues," he had said, "he all the obloquy of the act!" He was to regain his power, and even his popularity, but time itself cannot wholly obliterate the spot upon his name. He knew it well himself. A writer in the Quarterly Review, soon after his death, related that latterly people avoided alluding to Savoy and Nice before him; the subject caused him such evident pain. The same writer makes a very interesting statement which, although there is no other authority for it, must be assumed to rest on accurate information: he says that Cavour hoped, to the last, some day to get the two provinces back.[1]
[Footnote 1: Mr. John Murray has courteously informed me that the writer of the article was the late Sir A.H. Layard.]
CHAPTER XI
THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION
In March 1860 Cavour did not foresee what would be the next step—he only felt that it would not be long delayed. Italy, he told the Chamber, was not sound or safe; Italy had still great wounds in her body. "Look beyond the Mincio, look beyond Tuscany, and say if Italy is out of danger!" He interpreted the transaction with Napoleon in the sense that, whatever happened henceforward, he was to have a free hand. Napoleon seemed to think, at the first, that the cession of Nice and Savoy showed a yielding mood; he was mistaken; it shut the door on yielding. Cavour found all sorts of excuses for protracting the date of the official handing over of those provinces, and this helped him in his dealings with the Emperor, whom he compelled to shelve a particularly obnoxious project of introducing Neapolitan troops into the Roman States. Napoleon was induced to promise to withdraw the French in July without calling in others, on condition, however, that all remained quiet. All was not going to remain quiet.
There were no illusions on this point at the Vatican, where no one believed that the status quo would last. It seemed to many of the Pope's advisers that, instead of waiting for the blow, it were better to strike one, and declare a holy war for thrones and altars. Cardinal Antonelli, in concert with the dominant party at Naples (which was that of the king's Austrian stepmother), evolved a scheme for recovering Romagna, in which it was hoped that Austria would join, Austrian aid being at all times far more desired than French. But the more ardent spirits were not averse from action even without Austria. The Orleanist general Lamoricière was invited to Rome, and a call was issued which brought an influx of Irish and French volunteers. The French Emperor let Lamoricière go, as he was glad to get him out of the way. The Duke de Persigny told his master that the gallant general would make trouble for him in Italy, and, as Napoleon turned a deaf ear, he suggested that Lamoricière should be ordered to garrison Rome while the French regular troops were sent to protect the frontier. This simple arrangement would have commended itself to any one who was in earnest in wishing to preserve the integrity of what remained of the Papal States; Napoleon seemed to assent, but he allowed the matter to drop.