secrecy it was arranged that Napoleon and Cavour should meet “by accident” at Plombieres.  Next month the minister left Turin to breathe the fresh air of the mountains.  He was not in high spirits.  To La Marmora, the only man besides the king who knew the true motive of his journey, he wrote, “Pray heaven that I do not commit some stupidity; in spite of my usual self-reliance, I am not without grave uneasiness.”  He succeeded in travelling so privately that he was nearly arrested on arriving at Plombieres because he had not a passport:  a mysterious Italian coming from no one knew where—­no doubt a new Orsini!  But one of the Emperor’s suite recognised him, and made things straight.  He passed nearly the whole of two days closeted with Napoleon, the decisive interview lasting from 11 A.M. to 3 P.M., after which the Emperor took him out alone, in a carriage driven by himself.  During this drive the subject of the Princess Clotilde’s marriage was broached.  Towards the end of the visit, Napoleon said to him, “Walewski has just telegraphed to me that you are here!” The French ministers were, as usual, kept in the dark.  It flattered Napoleon’s amour propre to take into secret partnership a man whose place in history he divined.  “There are only three men in Europe,” he remarked to his guest; “we two, and then a third, whom I will not name.”  Who was the third?  Bismarck was still occupied in sending home advice that was not taken from the Prussian Embassy at St Petersburg.  The saying brings to mind another, attributed to the aged Prince Metternich, “There is only one diplomatist in Europe, but unfortunately he is against us; it is M. de Cavour.”

In a long letter to the king, Cavour gave a detailed but probably not a complete account of the interviews at Plombieres.  It is said that among his papers, which Ricasoli, his successor in the premiership, gave to his heirs, but which they ultimately restored to the State, there is only one sealed packet—­that which relates to this visit.  He went by no means certain that the Emperor meant to do anything at all; he came away with great hopes, but still without certainty, for his trust in his partner was limited.  He never felt sure whether Napoleon was not indulging on a large scale in the sport of building castles in the air, to which all semi-romantic temperaments are addicted.  Still the basis of what bore every appearance of a definite understanding had been established.  A rising in Massa and Carrara was to serve as the pretext of war.  The object of the war was the expulsion of the Austrians from Italy, to be followed by the formation of a kingdom of Upper Italy, which should include the valley of the Po, the Legations, and the Marches of Ancona.  Savoy was to be ceded to France.  The fate of Nice was left undecided.  To all of these propositions the king had authorised Cavour to agree.  The hand of the Princess Clotilde was only to be conceded if it was made a condition of the alliance, which was not the case.  Cavour