But that was in 1862. To return to 1859 and to the cause of Italian unity as it appealed to Mme. d’Agoult’s salon. Napoléon’s declaration of war against Austria so delighted Juliette and her friends that for a moment they almost forgot their opposition to the Empire. The news of the victories which followed increased their rejoicing, but their joy was short-lived; for in a few weeks came a bitter disillusionment. In July the Peace of Villafranca was signed. Instead of fulfilling Napoléon’s proud boast and freeing Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic, it delivered her tied hand and foot into the power of Austria. Francis Joseph remained master of Italy, the most powerful member of the Italian Confederation, over which the Pope, Pio-Nono, presided.
“Ah! we felt that Napoléon’s promises had been too good to be true,” exclaimed Juliette and her Republican friends. And, with more reason, “I told you so,” exclaimed M. Thiers. For the ex-Minister had advised the Emperor not to engage in war against Austria. Italian unity, he foretold, would be followed by Prussian unity. And now he pointed out that France had not only made an enemy of Austria, but she had offended Italy, who saw that she had been duped. Italy was still further offended when Napoléon in direct violation of the Treaty of Villafranca insisted on annexing Savoy and Nice. Then, not content with ranging against him Italy and Austria, the Emperor proceeded to alienate the Pope, whom he was pledged to support.
Out of that mind which, as Lord Palmerston said, “was as full of schemes as a warren of rabbits,” Napoléon III produced at this juncture one of his numerous pamphlets. In this one he attacked nothing more nor less than the Pope’s temporal power, urging him to acquiesce in the independence of Romagna. This dangerous policy of playing first with one party then with another made Juliette and her friends tremble for France, despite their anti-clericalism.
They were kept closely in touch with Italian affairs by a friend of Mme. d’Agoult’s, a man equally remarkable in the three fields of science, literature, and politics, Alessandro Bixio, the founder with Buloz of the Revue des deux Mondes. Born in 1808, Bixio was a Genoese by birth, but had been educated in France. A moderate Republican, during the terrible insurrection of July 1848, in an attempt to keep order in Paris streets, he had been severely wounded. Having lost consciousness he was taken for dead, and left lying near one of the barricades. Not having been heard of afterwards, his death was announced, a memorial service was arranged, mourning was ordered, when suddenly his friend Hetzel, the publisher, received a letter from him. A concierge had found the wounded man lying in the street, had taken him into the house, and there, after some days of coma, he had returned to consciousness. He wrote to Hetzel entreating him to announce his resurrection as delicately as possible.
Earlier in the year, Bixio had been French Ambassador at Turin, later, during Prince Louis Napoléon’s presidency, he was French Minister of Agriculture. After the coup d’état he had retired into private life. But he remained in close touch with Turin, which he visited every fortnight, never failing on his return to bring to the Rue Presbourg the latest news from the Piedmontese capital. On one occasion, when Mme. d’Agoult was going to Turin to see the performance of one of her plays, Bixio was her escort. The Countess’s story on her return of her reception by Victor Emmanuel and of her having seen Cavour, fanned into yet greater ardour her guests’ passion for Italian unity.
Alessandro’s brother, Nino Bixio, played a prominent part in Garibaldi’s Sicilian expedition, having commanded one of the two ships which sailed from Genoa. This adventure he related in detail to Juliette some time later. Nino Bixio was one of the most fearless of men; he was said to have plucked a bullet out of his own flesh, saying to his men, “See, such things are quite harmless.” When Juliette in conversation with his brother, referred to Nino’s intrepidity, “Yes, by my faith,” exclaimed Alessandro. “Did I not bring him up not to know fear? Did I not, when he was a boy, hold him by one foot and let him dangle from the balcony over the street?”
Juliette eagerly and sympathetically followed Garibaldi’s adventures. She collected all the details she could glean about her hero, and, in 1859, published a pamphlet[71] which caused her to be regarded as an authority on the Italian liberator.
Her admiration for Garibaldi did not prevent her from appreciating the services rendered to Italian liberty by the more judicious Cavour. The tidings of Cavour’s illness, broken to Mme. d’Agoult in a letter from Turin, cast a gloom over the salon of the Rue Presbourg. “Cavour,” wrote the Countess’s correspondent, “is in extremis, the Italian doctors are killing him. They are butchers. They have bled him fourteen times.”[72] “Alas,” adds Juliette, “they bled him once more, and he died on the 6th of June” (1861).
Almost as fruitless as the Italian War was Napoléon III’s expedition to Syria on behalf of the Christians of Mt. Lebanon, threatened with extermination by a neighbouring Mussulman tribe, the Druses. This expedition, which was much discussed in Mme. d’Agoult’s salon, had ended in the French, as the result largely of Lord Palmerston’s intervention, evacuating Syria and leaving the cause of the persecuted Christians to the Sultan’s somewhat uncertain championship. Renan, appointed to an archæological mission in Syria by the French Government, had chanced to sail with the expedition. As soon as he came back, and returned to the Rue Presbourg, he was eagerly questioned by Juliette and her friends as to his opinion of the settlement.
“What do you think of it?” inquired Dupont-White, referring to the Sultan’s protectorate and the French evacuation of Syria.