These friendly passages with the proscripts in London, as well as the stirring appeal spoken by Garibaldi on behalf of the Poles, did not please foreign Powers.  The Austrian ambassador shut himself up in his house; it was remarked that the only members of the diplomatic body who were seen at the Garibaldi fetes were the representatives of the United States and of the Sublime Porte.  The Emperor Napoleon was said to be angry.  Lord Palmerston assured the House of Commons that no remonstrance had been received from France or from any foreign government, and that if it had been received, it would not have been heeded.  Yet the English Government took the course of hinting to the guest of England that his visit had lasted long enough.  In some quarters it was reported that they feared disturbances among the Irish operatives in the manufacturing towns, had he gone, as he intended, to the north.  Whatever were the motives that inspired it, their action in the matter cannot be remembered with complacency, but it was powerless to undo the significance of the great current of enthusiasm which had passed through the English land.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE WAR FOR VENICE

1864-1866

The Prussian Alliance—­Custoza—­Lissa—­The Volunteers—­Acquisition of
Venetia.

The change of capital was carried out in 1865, and the lull which followed gave an appearance of correctness to the surmise that if the September Convention had not solved the Roman question, it had, anyhow, reduced it to a state of quiescence.  But there were other reasons why Rome was kept, for the moment, not indeed out of mind, but out of sight.  The opinion grew that the emancipation of Venice, too long delayed, ought to take precedence of every other political object.  On this point there was no disagreement among the 22,000,000 free Italians, who felt the servitude of Venice to be an hourly disgrace and reproach; no one even ventured to preach patience.  A curious chapter might be written on the schemes woven between the Peace of Villafranca and the year 1866, for the realisation of the unfulfilled promise of freedom from Alps to sea.  Foremost among the schemers was Victor Emmanuel, and if some persons may be shocked by the idea of a royal conspirator, more will admire the patriotism which made the King hold out his hand to Mazzini, whose sentiments about monarchy, and especially about the Savoy dynasty, were a secret to no one, least of all to him.  But as Mazzini placed those sentiments on second rank to the grand end of Italian unity, so the King, to serve the same end, showed himself superior to prejudices which in most men would have proved insuperable.  The fact that Victor Emmanuel opened negotiations with Mazzini, and maintained them, off and on, for years, proves amongst other things, that he knew the exiled patriot better than the world yet knew him.  He may have understood