208

AT STONELEIGH ABBEY.

1858

has excellent taste), Sir H. Smith, and Mr. Bracebridge-was full of fine pictures, and beautiful things by Elkington ornamented the table. Luncheon over, we went into the Gallery, where we received Addresses (of course we read answers to them), and the managers were presented, including the working men themselves, to six of whom I said a few words. We next stepped out on the balcony, from which the park was proclaimed open. Then we went downstairs, and through the Exhibition rooms, and walked once down and back along the terrace, the people cheering us very warmly. Dear Albert is so beloved here-as, indeed, everywhere-having been here, I think, on three previous occasions for different purposes, and his love for the Arts and Sciences, and the moral improvement of the working and middle classes, and the general enlightenment of all, being so well known. A person called out in the crowd, "Quite a pattern lady!" Another, "What a darling!"

'I felt much oppressed with the heat by the time we left the hall. I had been here as a child in 1830, when it belonged to a Mr. Watts,-also at Birmingham, and at Guy's Cliff. The day became fearfully oppressive. Leaving the railway we drove to Kenilworth Castle. Albert got out to see the beautiful ruins. I had seen them as a child, and, being very tired, returned to Stoneleigh at half-past five.'

There was a large party to dinner, with many of Lord Leigh's county neighbours in the evening. The illuminations were repeated, and tempted by the stillness of the night the Queen again walked out, and was again greeted with the same enthusiasm by the crowds which thronged the park. 'At a little after eleven,' again to quote the Queen's Diary, 'we retired, and found but little air in our rooms. We watched some people on the water, and the young ladies sang ; and we listened to the band, and the distant hum of voices, and the people (the crowd) sang "God save the Queen" as they had done yesterday. It reminded us of a similarly hot night in July, at Cambridge, on the occasion of Albert's Installation in 1847, when we took a walk with poor Waldemar of Prussia, Charles of Weimar, and the Duchess of Sutherland, after a fearfully hot dinner, and when it was so fine, and the garden of the College, with the bridge over the river, looked so picturesque.'"

A description of this walk from the Queen's Diary is given supra, vol. i.

p. 324.

6

1858

RETURN TO LONDON.

209

The next day the Royal visitors parted from their hosts, of whom Her Majesty in her Diary speaks in very glowing terms, and who had made her reception worthy of the great county of which Lord Leigh was the representative. At one o'clock they started in an open carriage for Warwick Castle, escorted by Lord Leigh and the yeomanry of the county, whom he had entertained as a guard of honour for Her Majesty during the visit at Stoneleigh. A day described as fearfully stifling and oppressive,' must have put the mettle of this fine body of men to a severe test during their long ride, through Leamington, to the Castle of the Warwicks, under which the Avon sweeps through a picturesque fringe of woodland worthy of the stately keep which it encircles. The heat penetrated even to the shady recesses of the Castle itself, where the Royal visitors lunched with Lord and Lady Warwick, and it hung heavily upon the glades overshadowed by the magnificent cedars and other forest giants of the Castle grounds. This was the only drawback upon an otherwise delightful excursion. But not even the stifling heat could abate the heartiness of the welcome given to the Queen and Prince at Leamington and Warwick. Everywhere,'

says the Queen's Diary, 'we had the kindest reception.'

Leaving Warwick Castle a little before five, the Royal party reached the Great Western Warwick Station as a thunder-storm began. 'We had barely got into the railway carriage, before the rain came down with fearful violence. We soon got out of it, and the journey, though not cool, was not so bad as Monday's. We got to Buckingham Palace a little before eight. So hot, it had been 90° in the shade, and people half smothered.'

CHAPTER LXXXVI.

Italian Affairs-Count Cavour-His Meeting at Plombières with the Emperor of the French -Difficulties as to the Danubian Principalities-How arranged-Emperor of the French invites the Queen and Prince to the Fêtes at Cherbourg on Completion of the Works there-Speech of Prince at Trinity House Dinner-Parliament proroguedVisit of Queen and Prince to Cherbourg.

WHILE England was still contending with the two great problems, how peace was to be re-established in India, and the government of that country to be regulated for the future, fresh causes of uneasiness in the state of Europe were becoming daily more prominent. The French Government had been gradually recovering from the panic into which it had been thrown by the attempt of Orsini. Its eyes had become opened to the absurdity and injustice of punishing the French nation for the crime of an Italian, instigated by political motives with which that nation had no sympathy. To show, as the severity of the repressive measures at home had done, a distrust of his hold upon the goodwill of his subjects, was a mistake to which the Emperor could not remain long insensible. Accordingly, the Ministry of Public Safety, which he had created in his first alarm, was suppressed, and General Espinasse, in whom its functions had been combined with those of the Ministry of the Interior, was superseded. By a decree of the 14th of June, M. Delangle, whose legal training and well-known moderate views inspired general confidence, was appointed his successor, and the coercive policy, of which General Espinasse had been selected as the appropriate instrument, was for the time abandoned.

Thus France again breathed more freely; but elsewhere the policy of its ruler caused general disquiet. It was known that the words of the letter addressed to him by Orsini had taken deep root in his mind. Let your Majesty remember,' it said, 'that the Italians, of whom my father was one, shed with joy their blood for Napoleon the Great, and that they

1858

COUNT CAVOUR.

211

remained faithful to him to the last. Bear in mind that the tranquillity of Europe and of your Majesty will be a chimæra so long as Italy is not independent. Set my country free, and the blessings of fifty-five millions of men will follow you through succeeding generations.' The words chimed with the aspirations of a long-cherished dream, and pointed to the realisation of projects to which the Emperor had attached himself in his youth. They were enforced by the knowledge that what Orsini had failed in, many other Italians had banded themselves together to accomplish, being possessed with the idea that the blow which had been struck by the French Emperor at the revolutionary principles, on which they counted for success in setting Italy free, could only be expiated and neutralised by his death.

There was one far-seeing statesman, the Count Cavour, then at the head of the Sardinian Government, who saw in this state of things a chance not to be lost of laying the foundations of an Italian kingdom. From no other Sovereign, as he well knew, could direct aid be expected in any measures for achieving the independence of Italy; and this aid he set himself to secure at the moment when the apprehensions of the Emperor, no less than his ambition, disposed him to grant it. Accordingly, after the King of Sardinia had, by his spirited resistance to the pressure attempted to be put upon him by Count Walewski, brought the Emperor of the French to respect his independence, Count Cavour took every opportunity of drawing closer the relations between the Court of Turin and that of the Tuileries. His efforts were completely successful, and they resulted in negotiations, which were conducted by the Emperor himself,' more suo, without the intervention of his Ministers, for an intimate alliance between France and Sardinia, to be cemented by the marriage of Prince Napoleon, the Emperor's cousin, with a daughter of King Victor Emmanuel.

It was not till July of this year that these negotiations assumed a definite form. A meeting then took place at Plombières between the Emperor and the Count Cavour, of which the secret was so well kept that it escaped the obser

1 How Napoleon treated his own first Minister may be seen from an incident recorded by M. Mazade, in his account of the meeting at Plombières. 'It was going on,' he writes, when Napoleon III., having received a despatch, turned to his guest with a smile, and said: "Tis from Walewski, to tell me you are here."-Le Comte de Cavour, par C. de Mazade, p. 214.

212

SECRET MEETING AT PLOMBIÈRES.

1858

vation of the diplomatic world. At this meeting a mutual understanding was come to for the assistance of France, in certain eventualities, to Sardinia in a war against Austria, with a view to the establishment of a kingdom of Northern Italy; France receiving in return the cession from Sardinia of Savoy and Nice. The marriage of Prince Napoleon, although discussed at this interview, was left an open question.

Although these details were not made public till some time after, enough was known of what was passing to draw the attention of European statesmen to the probability of a war in Italy at no distant date, in which France would be found to be enlisted on the side of Sardinia. The Emperor made no secret of his animosity to Austria, and Austria in its turn was not indisposed to take up the gauntlet, if thrown down to her by France. She was quite aware that in any conflict she could count on no friendly aid from Russia, for the Emperor of the French had let it be known that his Imperial brother of Russia had said to him at Stuttgart that, so far as Italy was concerned, he might do what he pleased. In no case would he, the Emperor of Russia, interfere with him. But this menace did not carry the same weight as, under other conditions, it might have done; for Austria, who had been for many years strengthening her position and increasing her forces in the Italian peninsula, believed that she was quite able to cope with Powers like Russia and France, which were still suffering from the exhaustion occasioned by the Crimean War. If, therefore, she was to fight for her Italian provinces-as it was obvious that, sooner or later, she must do the sooner the better. Sardinia had long been a thorn in her side, and the more fiery spirits of the Austrian army were eager to repeat to that ambitious State the sharp lesson which they had read to it in 1849.

The discussions as to the Danubian Principalities which had been resumed in Paris on the 22nd of May had shown France to be united in intimate concert with Russia and Sardinia, and in determined opposition to Austria and the Porte-a state of things which operated to increase in no small degree Austria's jealousy of the French Emperor. On the part of the latter there had long ceased to be any reserve as to his altered views in regard to Turkey. He believed the extinction of Ottoman sway in Europe to be not only desirable, but certain; and he who had only two years before become a party to the treaty, by which France, Austria,