[67] It was supposed that Napoleon contemplated constituting Central Italy, or at least Tuscany, into a kingdom for his brother Jerome, and that it was for this reason that the latter had been sent to Florence with a French corps at the beginning of the war.

[68] Napoleon being opposed to the idea of a united Italy, Victor Emmanuel did not consider it wise to accept the proffered crown of Central Italy while a French army was still in the country and the terms of peace were not finally settled.

[69] The new Duke of Tuscany.  He had succeeded to this now very shadowy throne on July 21 of this year.

[70] Not on account of bad riding, be it observed, but of daring and venturesome riding.

[71] Mr. Chorley had dedicated his last novel, Roccabella, to Mrs. Browning.

[72]

’Do you see this ring? 
’Tis Rome-work, made to match
(By Castellani’s imitative craft)
Etrurian circlets,’ etc.

(The Ring and the Book, i. 1-4.)

[73] Mrs. Browning is here quoting from her own preface to Poems before Congress.

[74] Poetical Works, iv. 190.

[75] See ‘Napoleon III. in Italy,’ stanza 11, ibid. p. 181.  The incident occurred at Macmahon’s entry into Milan, three days after Magenta.

[76] Ibid. stanza 12.

CHAPTER XI

1860-1861

Early in 1860 the promised booklet, ‘Poems before Congress,’ was published in England, and met with very much the reception the authoress had anticipated.  It contained only eight poems, all but one relating to the Italian question.  Published at a time when the events to which they alluded were still matters of current controversy, they could not but be regarded rather as pamphleteering than as poetry; and it could hardly be expected that the ordinary Englishman, whose sympathy with Italy did not abolish his mistrust (eminently justifiable, as later revelations have shown it to be) of Louis Napoleon, should read with equanimity the continual scorn of English policy and motives, or the continual exaltation of the Emperor.  Looking back now over a distance of nearly forty years, and when the Second Empire, with all its merits and its sins, has long gone to its account, we can, at least in part, put aside the politics and enjoy the poetry.  Though pieces like ‘The Dance’ and ’A Court Lady’ are not of much permanent value, there are many fine passages, notably in ‘Napoleon III. in Italy,’ and ’Italy and the World,’ in which a true and noble enthusiasm is expressed in living and burning words, worthy of a poet.