Bentinck did not mean to deceive; perhaps he thought that by going beyond the letter of his instructions he should draw his government after him.  That he did, in effect, deceive, cannot be denied; even Lord Castlereagh, while necessarily refusing to admit that definite promises had been made, yet allowed that, ’Of course he would have been glad if the proclamation issued to the Genoese had been more precisely worded.’  The motive of the determination to sacrifice the republic was, he said, ’a sincere conviction of the necessity of a barrier between France and Italy, which ought to be made effectual on the side of Piedmont.  The object was to commit the defence of the Alps and of the great road leading round them by the Gulf of Genoa, between France and Italy, to the same power to which it had formerly been entrusted.  On that principle, the question relating to Genoa had been entertained and decided upon by the allied sovereigns.  It was not resolved upon because any particular state had unworthy or sordid views, or from any interest or feeling in favour of the King of Sardinia, but solely to make him, as far as was necessary, the instrument of the general policy of Europe.’

A better defence might have been made.  Piedmont was destined to serve as a bulwark, not so much against France, which for the time was not to be feared, as against Austria, absolute except for the subalpine kingdom in all Italy.  But this belongs to the shaping of rough-hewn ends, which is in higher hands than those of English ministers.  The ends then looked very rough-hewn.

Piedmont was a hotbed of reaction and bigotry.  True, she had a history differing vastly from that of the other Italian states, but the facts of the hour presented her in a most unattractive light.  The Genoese felt the keenest heart-burnings in submitting to a decision in which they had no voice, and which came to them as a mandate of political extinction from the same powers that confirmed the sentence of death on Genoa’s ancient and glorious rival.  The seeds were laid of disaffection, always smouldering among the Genoese, till Piedmont’s king became King of Italy.  It might almost be said that the reconciliation was not consummated till the day when the heir and namesake of Humbert of the White Hands received the squadrons of Europe in the harbour of Genoa, and the proud republican city showed what a welcome she had prepared for her sovereign of the Savoy race.

After the Congress of Vienna finished its labours, there were, as has been remarked, ten states in Italy, but out of Sardinia (whose subjugation Prince Metternich esteemed a mere matter of time) there was one master.  The authority of the Emperor Francis was practically as undisputed from Venice to the Bay of Naples as it was in the Grand Duchy of Austria.  The Austrians garrisoned Piacenza, Ferrara and Commacchio; Austrian princes reigned in Tuscany, Parma, Modena and Lucca; the King of Naples, who paid Austria twenty-six million