"The part of the Regal-Republican, Imperial-Republican Capital showing least change is that Conservative quarter which may be called 'Anglo-American Paris.' This 'West End' is bounded north by the Boulevards des Italiens and the Madeleine; south by the Rue Rivoli and the river (a mere ditch, but not so dirty as father Thames); east by the Rue Richelieu, the Palais Royal, and Véfour; west by the Embassy and the Chapel, with the Vendôme Column as a landmark. Here the northern and western barbarians have their King Plenipo, and their Consul, their chaplain and physician, their pet hotels, English (Meurice's), their club and library (Galignani's), their tavern (Byron's, famed for beer), their dentist, their pharmacies, and their shops labelled, 'English (or American) spoken here,'—which generally means, 'I'm a thief, you're a fool.' We can tell a compatriot a mile off—the men by their billycock hats and tweed suits, their open mouths, hats well at back of head, and red guide-books; the women by their wondrous dress and hats—for which there are special shops—their turned-up toes and noses, their manly strides, their taking men's arms, one on each side; and the glum faces of both sexes on the Sabbath, when the guide-book is exchanged for the Common Prayer-book and the Bible. In this region, where the snuffle of the Yankee mixes with the haspirations of the Cockney, the really Parisianized Englishman is never seen, and if compelled to pass through it he hurries with muffled face in trembling haste, like Mahomet rushing down the demon-haunted defiles of El Hidjr.
"Milan is bravely raising a monument to Napoleon III., whilst the popular feeling of young Italy runs strong against the French. The main reasons appear to be the abstraction of Nice, and the domineering tone assumed by the late Empire. Moreover, 'the peoples' (Kossuth still lives at Turin) do not readily pardon their benefactors. Witness the aversion of Spain and Portugal for England since the Peninsular War. In the next campaign the general voice of the younger and more fiery sort, and of that solid power, the Left Centre, will compel the constitutional Government of Victor Emmanuel, despite all his prepossessions and prejudices, to side with Germany against France. This was written years ago, but it is, methinks, still true.
"I was astonished to find the Italianissimo feeling so rampant in Upper Italy, and the people so excited upon the subject, when their Government have set them an example of calmness, common sense, moderation, and constitutional spirit of compromise, which go far to redeem the character of the Latin race, even in this, the darkest day of its history. Because Dante made the Quarnero Gulf finish Italy, and because Petrarch established the Alps as the surroundings of his fair land, their new geographical politicians would absorb Trieste and Istria; and when Jove shall wax wroth, he will probably grant them their silly prayer.
"Trieste has a mixed population. North of Ponte Rosso is Germania, composed of the authorities, the employés, and a few wealthy merchants. They have a maniacal idea of Germanizing their little world, a mania which secures for them abundant trouble and ill-will, for eight millions cannot denationalize thirty-two millions. There are twelve thousand Italians at Trieste who speak a corrupted Venetian; eleven thousand of these are more or less poor, one thousand are perhaps too rich. However, their civilization is all Roman, and they take a pride in it, whilst the exaltés and the Italianissimi hate their rulers like poison. In this they are joined by the mass of the wealthy and influential Israelites, who divide the commerce with the Greeks. The former subscribe handsomely to every Italian charity or movement; and periodically and anonymously memorialize the King of Italy. The lower class take a delight in throwing large squibs, here called by courtesy 'torpedoes,' amongst the unpatriotic petticoats who dare to throng the Austrian balls. The immediate suburbs, country, and villages are Slav, and even in the City some can barely speak Italian. This people detests all its fellow-citizens with an instinctive odium of race, and with a dim consciousness that it has been ousted from its own. Thus the population may be said to be triple. Politics are lively, and the Italianissimi thrive because the constitutional Government, which has taken the place of the old patriarchal despotism, is weak, acting as if it feared them. Austria of to-day is feeble and gentlemanly, and as such is scarcely a match for the actual Italy. Let us lay out a little map of politics immediately around our small corner of the world.
"Being devoted Austrians, we have many anxieties concerning the political health of this admirable country. Austria, once so famed for the astute management, the 'Politiké,' which kept in order the most heterogeneous of households between Bohemia and Dalmatia, and from Hungary to the Milanese, is suffering from a complication of complaints. The first is the economic: her deficit for 1877 is already laid at twenty-six millions of florins; she lives on paper, and she habitually outruns the constable. Secondly, are the modus vivendi with Hungary, the Convention, the Bank, and half a dozen other troubles, which result from the 'chilling dualism' of Count Beust (1867). The inevitable rivalry of a twofold instead of a threefold empire is now deepening to downright hostility. The Slavs complain that the crown of the Empire is being dragged through the mire by the 'Magyarists;' and on December 9th, the Vienna Chamber of Deputies heard for the first time a proposal to substitute Trialism for Dualism. Third, and last, is the Eastern Question, in which the poor invalid is distracted by three physicians proposing three several cures. Doctor Hungary wants only the integrity (!) of Turkey: alliance with England, war with Russia. Doctor Germany, backed by the Archduke Albert, and aided by the army, looks to alliance with Russia, and to the annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina when Turkey falls to pieces. Lastly, Doctor Progressist, with the club of the Left, advocates the cold-water treatment, absolute passivity: no annexation, no occupation, no intervention. The triad division seems inveterate: even the Constitutionalist party must split into three—a Centrum, a Left, and a Fortschritts partei. Hence Prince Gortschakoff, not without truth, characterized this mosaic without coherence as 'no longer a State, but only a Government.'
"Austria, like England, is suffering from the manifold disorders and troubles that accompany a change of life. At home we have thrown over for ever the rule of Aristocracy; and we have not yet resigned ourselves to what must inevitably come—Democracy pure and simple. Accordingly, we sit between two stools, with the usual proverbial result. Austria, in 1848, sent to the Limbo of past things the respectable 'paternal government,' with its carcere, its carcere duro, and its carcere durissimo; and threatened to make sausage-meat of M. Ochsenhausen von Metternich. Constitutionalism, adopted by automatism, found the Austrians utterly unfit for freedom; and the last thirty years have only proved that constitutionalism may be more despotic than despotism. Austria has ever been the prey of minorities, German and Magyar. Her Beamter class has adopted the worst form of Latin Bureaucratie. Her Press has one great object in life, that of 'Germanizing' unwilling Slavs. Her fleet has lost Tegetthoff and Archduke Max. Her army, once the best drilled in Europe, and second to none in the ingens magnitudo corporum, has been reduced by short service to a host of beardless boys; and the marvels of the Uchatius gun will not prevent half the regiments being knocked up by a fortnight's work. But these are the inevitable evils of a transition system, and if Austria can only tide over her change of life, she will still enjoy a long, hearty, and happy old age.
"Hence Austro-Hungary is freely denounced as 'disturbing the European Areopagus.' Hence Paskievich declared in 1854 that the road to Stamboul leads through Vienna. Hence Fadajeff, the Panslavist, significantly points out that Europe contains forty millions of Slavs who are not under the White Czar. These ancient Scythians have hitherto shown very little wisdom. Instead of cultivating some general language,—for instance, the old Slavonic, which would have represented Latin,—they are elaborating half a dozen different local dialogues; and, at the last Slav Congress, the Pan-Slav Deputies, greatly to the delight of the Pan-Germanists, were obliged to harangue one another in German. If 'Trialism' be carried out in the teeth of Hungary, what and where can be the capital of the Jugo-Slavs—the Southern and Latin, as opposed to the Pravo-Slavs or orthodox? Where shall be the seat of its Houses? Prague is purely Czech, utterly distasteful to Slavonia, Croatia, and Dalmatia. Laibach in Krain is the only place comparatively central; but that means that all would combine to reject Laibach. Meanwhile the Slavs declare that they are treated as Helots, and that they will stand this treatment no longer.
"Austria will hardly declare war against Russia even at the bidding of the Turko-Hungarian alliance—even if menaced with her pet bugbear, the formation of a strong Slav kingdom, or kingdoms, on her south-eastern frontier. She is thoroughly awake to the danger threatened by her friends, that of falling into her four component parts, each obeying the law of gravitation—Styria, Upper and Lower, absorbing herself in Germany, and Dalmatia and Istria merging into Italy. She has made all her preparations for occupying Bosnia, which the Turks are abandoning, and for which it is generally believed they will not fight. Count Andrassy, the rebel of 1848, the Premier of 1876-78, will keep his own counsel and carry out his own plans. He has been unjustly charged with a vacillating and uncertain policy; as if a man who is being frantically pulled diametrically in four opposite directions were not obliged to stoop at times in order to conquer.
"Italy has of late made strong representations at Vienna against the possible occupation of Bosnia by Austria. She knows that the step would for ever debar her from the possessions of Dalmatia; and that the old kingdom, the mother of Emperors, will never rest satisfied till her extensive seaboard is subtended by a proportionate interior. Italy would prefer to occupy Bosnia in propriâ personâ; but, that being hardly possible, she would leave it occupied, or, worst of all, occupied by the Turks. Italy is the deadliest enemy of Austria, and wears the dangerous aspect of a friend. Such is the present standpoint of the Empire,[4] and you see she is still, as she has been for years, a 'political necessity.' We, her well-wishers, can only say to her, in olden phrase, Tu, felix Austria, nube,—'Yea, marry, and take unto thyself the broad and fertile lands lying behind the Dinaric Alps.'
"Meanwhile, Italy, the rival sister of France, the recipient of many favours from her, and, par consequence, her bitterest foe, bides her time, remains quiet as a church mouse, and, like the Scotchman's owl, thinks hard. She is at present the last, the only hope of Latinism. She has shown, since 1870, a prudence, a moderation, an amount of common sense, comparatively speaking, which have surprised the world. Ethnologists, who scoffed at 'Panlatinism,' were overhasty in determining that the game of the Latin race was 'up;' and that the three progressive families of the future are the English (including the German and the Anglo-American), the Slav, and the sons of the Flowery Land. The present standpoint of Italy is this. She has a treaty with Russia which makes her a spectator. She has returned an overwhelming majority of the progressists, who aim at converting her into a Republic; and Italy, classical and mediæval, has never attained her full development except under Republican rule. Meanwhile, her 'citizens and patriots' look forward to recovering Nice, where, in 1860, some 26,000 votes against 160 were polled in favour of annexation to France. She wants an Algeria, and would like to find it at Tunis, with Carthage for capital. And finally, she would fain round off her possessions by annexing from Austria the Trentine, the county of Gorizia, the peninsula of Istria, including the chief emporium, Trieste, and even the kingdom of Dalmatia.