there was a fate in the thing, and the fate was contrary to Austria.  This feeling grew and grew till the day when Venice too was lost, and not a man in Austria could find it in his heart to cast one sincere look of regret behind at all that fabric of splendid but ill-fortune-bringing dominion.  A few years were still to pass, however, before that day came, and all the forces of the old order combined to press the Emperor to oppose the invading flood while there was time.  Some say that he had actually signed the order to cross the frontier, but that on second thoughts he decided first to seek the co-operation of Russia, probably with a view to keeping France quiet.  When he went to Warsaw in October, he left everything prepared for war on his return.  But Alexander II., having thrown overboard his old friends at Naples, did not want to help the Pope.  The Emperor of Austria was badly received by the people of Warsaw, and this tended against the alliance.  The Prince Regent of Prussia, who travelled to Warsaw to meet him, definitely refused to guarantee his Venetian possessions.  Lord John Russell had lately met the Prussian ruler and his minister, Schleinitz, at Coblentz, and had used all his influence to persuade them to keep Germany out of Italian concerns.  Though the Berlin Government loudly protested against the Sardinian attack on papal territory, there is no doubt that the voice of Prussia at Warsaw was raised in favour of peace.

At this juncture Napoleon proposed the usual Congress.  While he told Cavour that he must not expect assistance from him, his private language towards the Northern Powers did not exclude the possibility of French intervention.  A diversion was created by a note which Lord John Russell addressed to Sir James Hudson, “the most unprincipled document,” as it was called at Rome, “that had ever been written by the minister of any civilised court.”  Lord John defended every act of Sardinia in the strongest and plainest terms, and people grew almost more angry with him than with Cavour.  The Italian statesman never quailed through this last perilous crisis; “Nous sommes prets,” he wrote, “a jouer le tout pour le tout.”  There are moments when the problems of politics, as of life, cease to perplex.  By degrees the storm-clouds rolled away without breaking.  In November Cavour felt himself strong enough to affirm that the questions of Naples and the Marches were purely Italian, and that the Powers of Europe had no business to meddle with them.  During the autumn, amidst other cares, he was seriously preoccupied by a persistent rumour that his faithful friend, Sir James Hudson, was to be removed to make room for the ex-British Minister at Naples, whose occupation was gone through the fall of the dynasty.  It has been denied that the change was then contemplated; at any rate it was not carried out till a later period, and Cavour had the comfort of keeping his English fellow-worker near him till he died.