France, of course, was most anxious to stop the further increase of the power of Piedmont, and therefore to check Garibaldi.  Napoleon’s idea of “United Italy” was a federation of separate States under the presidency of the Pope, who in his turn would be under the influence of France.  He at once put pressure upon Cavour and Victor Emmanuel, compelling the latter to write to Garibaldi, telling him to stop in Sicily.  Thus, in spite of her desire that Garibaldi should sail and succeed, Piedmont was compelled publicly to express disapproval of his intention.  In England it was supposed that Cavour meant what he made the King say in his letter to Garibaldi, and in addition Palmerston, who was glad enough to see the old Governments of the little States tumbling to the ground, was rather alarmed at the prospect of a United Italy, which would also be a Mediterranean Power.  Hitherto the honour of assisting Italy had belonged equally to him and to Lord John.  Henceforward, however, Lord John, who had been brought up in the Fox tradition, and whose Italian sympathies had been fortified by his wife’s enthusiasm, definitely took the lead in determining England’s policy.

The aim of Cavour was to help the revolution as much as possible without making it obvious to Europe that he was doing so; but, like everybody else, Lord John had taken him at his word, and thought that the liberation of Italy might be retarded by Garibaldi’s departure from Sicily for the mainland, till information reached him that in reality Piedmont was most anxious nothing should hinder Garibaldi’s attack upon Naples.  It reached him apparently in the following manner.

Cavour determined to appeal to the Russells personally through a secret agent.  With this object Mr. Lacaita [afterwards Sir James Lacaita], who had been exiled from Naples for having helped Gladstone to write his famous letters upon the state of the Neapolitan prisons, which Lacaita knew from inside, was instructed to call upon Lord John in London and to tell him that in spite of her official declaration, Piedmont was desperately anxious that Garibaldi should drive the King of Naples from the throne; for Garibaldi’s extraordinary success in Sicily had made his failure on the mainland far less likely, and Cavour was now certain that there was not much power of resistance left in the Neapolitan kingdom.  Lacaita, though ill in bed, got up and went to deliver his message.  He was told that Lord John was closeted with the French and Neapolitan ambassadors and could not see him.  Lacaita guessed that Lord John was at that very moment talking over the means of preventing Garibaldi’s expedition, and he immediately decided to ask for Lady John.  When informed that she was seriously ill, he insisted upon being taken up into her bedroom, and adjured her for the love of Italy to get Lord John away from the ambassadors at once.  A scribbled note begging her husband to come to her immediately brought him upstairs in some alarm.  And there he learnt from Lacaita that Victor Emmanuel’s letter of July 25th was a blind, that united Italy must be made now or never, and that he would never be forgiven if England stopped Garibaldi.