The king offered no fresh opposition; he said sadly that, as the child was gone, the cradle might go too.  When the exchange of Savoy for a French alliance was proposed to Charles Albert he wrathfully rejected the idea; and if Victor Emmanuel yielded, it was not that he loved Savoy less but Italy more.  It has to be noticed, however, that, though always loyal to their king, the Savoyards had for ten years shown an implacable hostility to Italian aspirations.  The case against the cession of Nice was far stronger.  General Fanti, the minister of war, threatened to resign, so essential did he hold Nice to the defence of the future kingdom of Italy.  The British Government also insisted on its military importance.  Nice was a thoroughly Italian town in race and feeling, as no one knew better than Cavour, though he was forced to deny it.  According to an account published in the Life of the Prince Consort, and seemingly derived from Sir James Hudson, it would appear that he was still hoping to save Nice, when Count Benedetti arrived from Paris with the announcement that, if the Secret Treaty were not signed in its entirety, the Emperor would withdraw his troops from Lonabardy.  Cavour is said to have answered, “The sooner they go the better”—­on which Benedetti took from his pocket a letter containing the Emperor’s private instructions, and proceeded to say, “Well, I have orders to withdraw the troops, but not to France; they will occupy Bologna and Florence."[1]

[Footnote 1:  In 1896 Count Benedetti contributed two articles to the Revue des deux mondes on “Cavour and Bismarck.”  His only mention of the affair of Savoy and Nice is the casuistical remark that “Cavour kept the engagement concluded at Plombieres” (sic).]

On March 24, depressed and bowed, Cavour walked up and down the room where the French negotiators sat.  At last, taking up the pen, he signed the Secret Treaty.  Then suddenly he seemed to recover his spirits, as, turning to M. de Talleyrand, he said, “Maintenant nous sommes complices, n’est ce pas vrai?”

The secrecy was none of his seeking; he had tried hard to induce Napoleon to let the treaty be submitted to Parliament before it was signed, as constitutional usage demanded, but the Emperor was resolved that the Chambers and Europe should know of it only when it was an accomplished fact.  He had good reason for the precaution.  He knew that there would be an outburst of indignation in England, though he little imagined the after consequences of this to himself.  His one idea just then was to make sure of his bargain, not because he cared to enlarge his frontiers, for he was not constitutionally ambitious, but because he hoped, by doing so, to win the gratitude of France.  It is useful as a lesson to note that he won nothing of the kind.  Nor did Cavour win the goodwill of the French masses as he had hoped.  France might have been angry had she not received the two provinces, but she showed real or affected ignorance of their value.  For many years the French papers described the county of Nice as a poor, miserable strip of shore, and the duchy of Savoy as a few bare rocks.  French people then travelled so little that they may have thought it was true.