The King, however, and General Menabrea, who was finally admitted into the conspiracy, could not be blind to the fact that an unpopular war might create so great an agitation in the country that the dynasty itself would be in danger.  A war for France while the French were in Rome would have raised one storm of indignation from Palermo to Turin.  So their ultimatum was this:  Rome capital of Italy, or no alliance.

There remained Austria, but if Napoleon ever hoped to conclude a separate treaty with her, he was to discover his mistake.  From the moment that Austria resigned the Iron Crown, the symbol of her Italian power, she acted towards Italy with a loyalty that has few parallels in history.  And she, too, replied to Napoleon:  Rome capital of Italy, or no alliance.

The Vatican has never forgiven this to Austria.  At the present hour, while republican France with her open antagonism to all religion, is the favoured daughter of the Church, Austria, the only country in Europe except Spain where the Roman Catholic cultus retains all its original pomp and almost all its mediaeval privileges, meets from the Vatican a studied plan of opposition, the object of which can only be to bring her Government to a deadlock.  From France the Pope still hopes for aid in the recovery of his temporalities; from Austria he knows that he will never receive it.  So much have politics and so little has religion to do now, as in all ages, with the motives that govern the Holy See.

  Ahi, Costantin, di quanto mal fu matre
    Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote
  Che da te prese il primo ricco patre!

The years 1868 and 1869 passed uneventfully for Italy.  In the former year Prince Humbert married his cousin Margherita of Savoy.  He was previously engaged to the Archduchess Matilda, the only daughter of the Victor of Custoza, but the young Princess met with a terrible death just when the betrothal was about to be announced.  No one worthier to receive from Adelaide of Burgundy the lovely title of Queen of Italy could have been found than the Princess Margaret, who inherited the sunny charm which had endeared her father, the Duke of Genoa, to all who knew him.

In the autumn of 1869 another domestic event, the severe illness of Victor Emmanuel, gave rise to an incident which made a deep impression in Italy, and attached the nation by one link more to the King of its choice.  The illness which seized Victor Emmanuel at his hunting-box of San Rossore, in a malarious part of Tuscany, proved so serious that his life was despaired of.  A priest was called to hear the King’s last confession, and to administer the Sacraments for the dying.  After hearing the confession, the priest said he could not give absolution unless Victor Emmanuel signed a solemn retractation of all the acts performed during his reign that were contrary to the interests of the Church.  The King answered, without a moment’s hesitation, that he died