was growing smaller every day.  Why was this?  He cannot have been seized with a warm interest in the unattractive despotism of the Duke of Modena, or the chronic anarchy kept down by Austrian bayonets at Bologna.  But it was becoming apparent that if Modena and Romagna were joined to the new Italian kingdom, Tuscany would come too, and this Napoleon had not expected and did not want.  He was clever enough to see that with Tuscany the unity of Italy was made.  A great political genius would have said, So be it!  Never was there worse policy than that of helping to free Italy, and then deliberately rooting out gratitude from her heart.  Whatever Napoleon thought himself, he was alarmed by the news from France; the Empress and the clerical party were in despair at the revolution in the Roman States, and the country was indignant at the prospect of an Italy strong enough to have a voice of her own in the councils of Europe.

Besides all this, there was still graver news from Germany.  Six Prussian army corps were ready to move for the Rhine frontier.  The history of Prussian policy in 1859 has not yet been fully written out, but the gaps in the narrative are closing up.  That policy was directed by the Prince Begent, and it gives the measure of the success which would have attended subsequent efforts if the day had not arrived when he surrendered himself body and soul into the hands of a greater man.  So much for the present German Emperor’s theory that the men in the councils of his grandfather only executed great things because they did their master’s will.  It is true that William I. aimed at the same end as that which Count Bismarck had already in view, and which he was destined to achieve—­the ousting of Austria from Germany, as a preliminary to sublimer doings.  But while the Prince Regent would not fight Austria, and hoped to get rid of her by political conjuring, the future Chancellor comprehended that the problem could only be settled by the argument ferro et igni.  Bismarck’s policy in 1859 would have been neutrality, with a certain leaning towards Napoleon.  This advice, given by every post from St. Petersburg to Berlin, caused him to be accused of selling his soul to the devil, on which he dryly remarked that, if it were so, the devil was Teutonic, not Gallic.

The Prince Regent tried to prevent the Diet from going to war, because, in a federal war, Prussia’s ruler would only figure as general of the armies of the confederation—­which meant of Austria.  His plan was to let Austria get into very bad difficulties, and then come forward singly to save her.  By means of this “armed mediation” he would be able afterwards to dictate what terms he chose to the much indebted Austrian Emperor.  It looked well on paper, but the armistice of Villafranca spoilt everything.  The Emperor Francis Joseph did not wish to be “saved.”  This, and only this, can explain his readiness to make peace when, from a military point of view, his situation was far