England would have supported and applauded resistance to the claim for Nice on general grounds, though her particular interest was in Savoy, or rather in that part of the Savoy Alps which was neutralised by treaty in 1814.  It was the refusal of Napoleon to adopt the compromise of ceding this district to Switzerland which caused the breach between him and the British ministry.  From that moment, also, Prussia began to increase her army, and resolved, when she was ready, to check the imperial ambition by force of arms.  ‘The loss of Alsace and Lorraine,’ writes an able publicist, M.E.  Tallichet, ’was the direct consequence of the annexation of Nice and Savoy.’

If anything could have rendered more galling to Italy the deprivation of these two provinces, it was the tone adopted in France when speaking of the transaction.  What were Savoy and Nice?  A barren rock and an insignificant strip of coast!  The French of thirty-four years ago travelled so little that they may have believed in the description.  The vast military importance of the ceded districts has been already referred to.  Some scraps on the Nice frontier were saved in a curious way:  They were spots which formed part of the favourite playground of the Royal Hunter of the Alps, and it was pointed out to Napoleon that it would be a graceful act to leave these particular ‘barren rocks’ to his Sardinian Majesty.  The zig-zags in the line of demarcation which were thus introduced are said to be of great strategic advantage to Italy.  So far, so good; but it remains true that France is inside the Italian front-door.

At the elections for the new Chamber in March 1860, the Nizzards chose Garibaldi; and this was their real plebiscite—­not that which followed at a short interval, and presented the phenomenon of a population which appeared to change its mind as to its nationality in the course of a few weeks.  In voting for Garibaldi, they voted for Italy.

The Nizzard hero made some desperate efforts on behalf of his fellow-citizens in the Chamber, not his natural sphere, and was on the brink of making other efforts in a sphere in which he might have succeeded better.  He had the idea of going to Nice with about 200 followers, and exciting just enough of a revolution to let the real will of the people be known, and to frustrate the wiles of French emissaries and the pressure of government in the official plebiscite of the 15th of April.  The story of the conspiracy, which is unknown in Italy, has been told by one of the conspirators, the late Lawrence Oliphant.  The English writer, who reached Turin full of wrath at the proposed cession, was introduced to Garibaldi, from whom he received the news of the proposed enterprise.  Oliphant offered his services, which were accepted, and he accompanied the general to Genoa, where he engaged a diligence which was to carry the vanguard to Nice.  But, on going to Garibaldi for the last orders, he found him supping with twenty or thirty young men;