CHAPTER XXIV
England in 1859; Relations with France; First Visit to Biarritz; Napoleon III; Letters from Gladstone, Mérimée, Fould and Ellice.
The formation of a new and extensive kingdom, as might have been expected, was a question of too deep moment not to exercise an important, though indirect influence on England’s relations with States nearer and more powerful than Italy. It is purposed in the present chapter to deal with events more immediately affecting this country rather than Italian politics. England, in 1859, did not occupy her former high and stable position amongst the nations of Europe. Her late struggle with Russia had taught her a lesson which had not been neglected; she had gained strength it is true, but not in such a degree as to render altogether unwarrantable the disparaging taunts in which certain foreign Statesmen indulged at her expense. ‘Of a truth,’ says the prince of comic writers, ‘wise folk learn a good many things from their enemies’ (Aristophanes, The Birds 1, 387), and well do the words apply to England, who then learnt wisdom from her foes. Bitter experiences in the Crimea taught us the miserable insufficiency of our military system, and already action had commenced for future improvement. Regarding, not unreasonably, with some feeling of alarm the threatening aspect of Continental affairs, we had at last opened our eyes to the knowledge that the dispersion of the troops retained in the country over all parts of the United Kingdom (and of these, many, in the sister isle, employed on what may be considered as little better than police duty) was not the policy most adapted to secure home defence, or to maintain that army in the fittest condition for service abroad. It was in the year 1859 that the Volunteer force of Great Britain, which, with the exception of one solitary battalion, had been extinct since the beginning of the century, was revived, or, to speak more accurately, sprang up into a fresh existence: indeed, in the succeeding year the movement acquired strength so rapidly as to appear before the nation as an army, imperfect naturally and undeveloped, but giving such promises of efficiency as have since been so fully and amply ratified.
It is not our intention to enter on the subject of reforms in the regular army which ensued, nor is there any necessity to detail all the circumstances which led England to turn her attention to her own safety, and in the interests of this to set her house in order. The causes for apprehension may have been exaggerated, but that they were altogether without foundation is incredible. It is indisputable that after the cession of Nice and Savoy to the Emperor of the French, disquieting rumours as to his further intentions were afloat. His next project, it was said, was the annexation of Geneva, and among other means of aggrandisement which he contemplated, one was an advance of the French frontier to the Ebro, in exchange for which Spain was to receive aid and support in the subjugation of Portugal. These designs of the Emperor were not only freely discussed in society, but set forth in pamphlets apparently stamped with Imperial authority. Lord Palmerston watched with much misgiving the great additional military and naval preparations on the part of France, and to him they were a source of grave anxiety; nor must these rumours, magnified and distorted as they may have been, be regarded by us with contempt, when it is known that such keen observers, and acute politicians, as the Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone, and Panizzi himself, viewed them with perturbed reflections.
In this year (1860), Panizzi, for the first time, had been invited by His Majesty Napoleon III. to spend his holidays at Biarritz, in company with his old friend Prosper Mérimée. Correspondence of much importance is here adduced, and is given in full, as bearing upon the suspicions and presages of evil already referred to. The first letter in order is from the pen of Panizzi to Mérimée, and from it may be gathered all that is needful of the dreaded omens which threatened to disturb the peaceful relations existing between England and France, whose alliance involved the peace of the whole civilized world, whilst its rupture would throw broadcast the seeds of dissension and of war. The letters themselves indicate the close relations between the two correspondents, and their intimacy, will be reverted to hereafter:—
“British Museum,
Sept. 30 (Sunday), 1860.
“My dear Mérimée,