My facts are these:  First, Ferdinando IV.[69] has an ambassador in Rome, who has been received officially by the Pope (!!) (’The coolest thing that ever was’), and is paid out of the private purse of the Royal Highness.  There is another ambassador at Naples, and another at Vienna—­on the same terms; so let no one talk of ‘Decheance.’

Then let me tell you what Mr. Russell said to me.  ‘Napoleon,’ said he, ’has been too fin for the English Government.  He made us acknowledge the Tuscan vote.  Now he has strictly forbidden Piedmont to accept, and Piedmont must therefore refuse.  The consequences of which will be that there must be another vote in Tuscany, by which Prince Napoleon will be elected; and we, having acknowledged the first vote, must acknowledge the second.’

Of course I protested; disbelieved in the forbidding, and believed in the accepting.  He ’hoped it might be so’—­in the civil way with which people put away preposterous opinions—­and left us on Saturday night at ten, just too late to hear of the ‘fait accompli.’

Out of all that, I rescue my fact that Napoleon made the English Government acknowledge the Tuscan vote.

Don’t let Kate put any of this into American papers, because Mr. Russell was our guest, observe, and spoke trustingly to us.  He had just arrived from England, and went on to Rome without further delay.

The word Venice makes my heart beat.  Has Guiducci any grounds for hope about Venice?  If Austria could be bought off at any price!  Something has evidently been promised at Villafranca on the subject of Venice; and evidently the late strengthening of the hands of Piedmont will render the Austrian occupation on any terms more and more difficult and precarious.

I should agree with you on Prince Napoleon, if it were not that I want the Emperor’s disinterestedness to remain in its high place.  We can’t spare great men and great deeds out of the honour of the world.  There are so few.

For the rest, the Prince would have been a popular and natural choice at one time, and as far as central Italy was concerned.  Also he is very liberal in opinion, and full of ideas, I have been told.

But the fusion is a wiser step now, and altogether—­even if we could spare the Emperor’s fame.  Do you remember the obloquy he suffered for Neufchatel? and how it came out that, if he pressed his conditions, it was simply because he meant to fight for the independence of the State? and how at last the Swiss delegates went to Paris to offer their gratitude for the deliverance he had attained for the people?  His loyalty will come out clean before the eyes of his enemies now as then.  We agree absolutely.  And Robert does not dissent, I think.  Facts begin to be conclusive to him.

You are an angel, dearest Isa, with the tact of a woman of the world.  This in reference to the note you sent me, and your answer.  You could not have done better—­not at all.