The bargain with Tuscany had been struck only eight days when Marie-Louise died—­unlamented, since the latter years of her reign formed a sad contrast to the earlier.  Marie-Louise had not a bad disposition, but she always let her husband of the hour govern as he chose; of the four or five of these husbands, the last two, and particularly the hated Count de Bombelles, undid all the good done by their more humane predecessors.  The Parmese petitioned their new Duke to send the man away, and to grant them some measure of freedom.  The answer he gave was the confirmation of Bombelles in all his honours, and the conclusion of a treaty with Austria, securing the assistance of her arms.  A military force had been sent to Parma to escort the body of the late Duchess to Vienna; but on the principle that the living are of more consequence than the dead, it remained there to protect the new Duke from his subjects.  Marie-Louise and her lovers, Charles Ludovico and his jockey-minister, are instructive illustrations of the scandalous point things had reached in the small states of Italy.

There was, indeed, one state in which, though the dynasty was Austrian, the government was conducted without ferocity and without scandal.  This was Tuscany.  The branch of the Hapsburg-Lorraine family established in Tuscany produced a series of rulers who, if they exhibited no magnificent qualities, were respectable as individuals, and mild as rulers.  Giusti dubbed Leopold II. ’the Tuscan Morpheus, crowned with poppies and lettuce leaves,’ and the clear intelligence of Ricasoli was angered by the languid, let-be policy of the Grand-Ducal government, but, compared with the other populations of Italy, the Tuscans might well deem themselves fortunate.  Only on one occasion had the Grand Duke given up a fugitive from the more favoured provinces, and the presence of distinguished exiles lent brilliancy to his capital.  Leopold II. hesitated between the desire to please his subjects and the fear of his Viennese relations, who sent him through Metternich the ominous reminder, ’that the Italian Governments had only subsisted for the last ten years by the support they received from Austria’—­an assertion at which Charles Albert took umbrage, but he was curtly told that he was not intended.  In spite of his fears, however, the Grand Duke instituted a National Guard on the 4th of September, which was correctly judged the augury of further concessions.  In August, the Austrian Minister had distinctly threatened to occupy Tuscany, or any other of the Italian duchies where a National Guard was granted; its institution was therefore interpreted as a decisive act of rebellion against the Imperial dictatorship.  The red, white and green tricolor, not yet permitted in Piedmont, floated already from all the towers of the city on the Arno.