In the course of the summer of 1847, the Prince said more than once to the British Ambassador:  ’The Emperor is determined not to lose his Italian dominions.’  It was no idle boast, the speaker felt confident, that the troops in Lombardy and Venetia could keep those provinces from taking an active part in the ‘revolution’ which he declared to be already complete over all central Italy, though the word revolution had never yet been mentioned.  Nor was it only in the Austrian army that he trusted; Metternich was persuaded that neither in Lombardy nor in Venetia was there any fear of a really popular and, therefore, formidable movement.  He believed that Austria’s only enemy was the aristocracy.  He even threw out hints that if the Austrian Government condescended to do so, it could raise a social or peasants’ war of the country people against their masters.  This is the policy which has been elaborately followed by the Russians in Poland.  The Austrians pointed to their virtue in not resorting to it; but some tentative experiments in such a direction had not given results of a kind to encourage them to go on.  The Italian peasant, though ignorant, had a far quicker innate intelligence than his unfortunate Polish brother.  He did not dislike his masters, who treated him at least with easy familiarity, and he detested foreigners—­those foreigners, no matter of what nation, who for two thousand years had brought the everlasting curse of war upon his fields.  The conscription, which carried off his sons for eight years into distant lands, of which he could not pronounce the name, was alone enough to alienate him from the Austrian Government.  In hoping to find a friend in the Italian peasant, Metternich reckoned without his host.  On the other hand, he was strictly correct in his estimate of the patriotism of the aristocracy.  The fact always seemed to the Prince a violation of eternal laws.  According to him, the fore-ordained disaffected in every country were drawn from the middle classes.  What business had noblemen with ancient names and fine estates to prefer Spielberg to their beautiful palaces and fairy-like villas on the Lombard lakes?  Was it on purpose to spite the best of governments, and the one most favourable to the aristocratic principle, which had always held out paternal hands to them?  Could anything be imagined more aggravating?

This feature in Italian liberation has been kept mostly in the background.  Democratic chroniclers were satisfied to ignore it, and to the men themselves their enormous sacrifices seemed so natural that they were very willing to let them pass out of mind.  It is in the works of those who, while sympathising with Italy, are not Italians, that the best record of it is to be found; nowhere better than in a recent book by a French writer, M. Paul Bourget, in which occurs the following just and eloquent tribute:  ’We must say in praise of the aristocracy on this side of the Alps that the best soldiers of independence