At the Berlin Congress eight years later, Prince Bismarck pressed the same views upon Count Corti, the Italian delegate.  He would have been glad to see the Italians go to Tunis, but Count Corti ingenuously replied:  ‘You want to make us quarrel with France.’  Meanwhile the Englishman who represented France and the Englishman who represented England were discussing the same subject, and out of their discussion arose the French occupation of Tunis.  Disquieting rumours got about at once, but they were dispelled.  ’No French Government would be so rash,’ said Gambetta, ’as to make Italy the irreconcilable foe of France.’  M. Waddington declared that he was personally opposed to the acquisition of Tunis, and gave his word of honour that nothing would be done without the full consent of Italy.  What was done and how it was done is known to all.  And so it happens that a great French naval station is in course of construction almost within sight of Sicily and of Malta.

In the document communicated by Bismarck to Mazzini, there is a curious inclusion of Trieste among Italian seaports which seems to indicate that he was still not averse from a rectification of the Italian north-east frontier.  Whence it may be supposed that he expected to find Austria ranged on the part of France in the struggle for the Rhine bank.  To explain how it was that this did not happen, we must leave the Chancellor and the Revolutionist, and see what at the same time was going on between Napoleon on the one side and Austria and Italy on the other.

The French Emperor was not so infatuated as to court the risk of making war on Prussia single-handed if he could avoid it.  He hoped for a triple alliance of France, Austria and Italy, or, if that could not be compassed, a dual alliance of France with either of these Powers.  Now, wisely or unwisely, both the Italian and Austrian Governments were far from rejecting these proposals off-hand.  The secret negotiations lasted from 1868 till June 1869.  They took the shape of informal letters between the King of Italy and Napoleon, and of private communications with Count Beust through Prince Metternich, the Austrian Ambassador in Paris, who was the intimate friend and confidant of the Emperor and Empress.  General Menabrea was not let into the secret till later.  With regard to Victor Emmanuel, there is no doubt that he wished with all his heart to be able to do a good turn to his Imperial ally of 1859 if the occasion presented itself.  Some men see their wives even to old age as they saw them when they were young and fair.  The first print on the retina of the mental vision was so strong that no later impression can change or efface it.  This hallucination is not confined to the marital relationship, and Victor Emmanuel never left off seeing Napoleon in one sole light:  as the friend of Solferino.  It may be that he perceived what the Italians did not perceive:  that the obligation was owed to Napoleon alone, while all France had a part in the subsequent injuries.  At any rate the idea of refusing the Emperor’s appeal was repugnant in the extreme to the Italian King, who personally would have strained any point rather than give that refusal.